Valentine Prophesy: Love At Cabela's

The Google Brotherhood of All-Up-In-My-Blog is now popping up a Google-Related toolbar at the bottom. Fascinating. Google picks up keywords from the website and suggests other sites or videos with related content. Wouldn't it be great if it helped with author marketability? Oh, wait...that would be too helpful. For now, I'm getting six pictures of Bill Murray in varying poses of disheveled career-dom and links to bob-mitchell videos that highlight the fulfillment of the end-of-world prophesy. Not quite the demographic I'm writing for, but this is all a work-in-progress, is it not?

Speaking of blogs, I just broke one of the (supposed) cardinal rules of blogging: No more than three lines of text before a paragraph break. Man, are you guys in trouble. This rule would have cramped Faulkner. It cramps me. I have faith in Vortexers that their attention span is longer than my attention span while watching the Grammy's.

Gotta cut this short today so I can do my part to get on the Valentine-gerbil wheel. You may think that since I sailed from Romancelandia, I am no longer a romantic. Not true. I am just into the quiet, the meaningful, the non-materialistic, the unpredictable, the messy, wonderful everyday parts of love. Here are links backs to two of my favorite valentine Vortex Lists and more, if you're so inclined:

Everything I Need to Know About A Woman's Heart, I Learned from a Romance Novel

But I Live in Gnaw Bone, Indiana! How Romance is Possible Anywhere. Even Cabela's.

Next up: My new favorite movie is probably one you've never heard of. Looooove it.

Six (and Ten) Ways of Happy

Any time art meets time travel, I get six ways of happy. Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov matches World War II-era landmark photographs to their modern day image and fuses them together to create a seamlessly beautiful and haunting commentary on time. Friday treat: check it out. I dare you to tell me you don't love them as much as I do.

Of late, I haven't posted much. Remember virus #1? Well, virus #2 hit a different computer (I know!) and knocked the internet love right out of me. Replacing it is my love for my work-in-progress, which is a good thing. Except for the Thursday patron at the coffee shop who seems to think an open laptop means distract me with stupid questions, I like it. Poor guy, right? He doesn't have to name drop Harcourt Brace exec names to win my adoration. Merely expounding on how science fiction hasn't gotten the science right and backing it up with detailed descriptions of his staggering nerd-reverent library does it for me. Chat on, Captain Bother. I wasn't in the middle of a love scene or anything.

Also, the whole crickets chirping thing around The Vortex has not impacted devotion. In fact, the love continues to grow with more followers this week than in the blog's history. So thank you and welcome. When the ambient temperature in my world doesn't hover at a grouchy 106 and I'm not under such a wicked self-imposed deadline, I'll be back to thrice weekly posts. Until then, one of my favorite Vortex 10 lists: My Inner Bond Girl.

Ten Action Figures Cleared For Take-off

It is safe to say that around here, May is like December. Every day brings something to celebrate, something to wrap up, something to unwrap (hint, hint). What May has failed to bring thus far is time to breathe. So the Vortex took a percolating hiatus. Never far from the brain, just a thousand light years away from the keyboard. What would a comeback be without a Vortex 10 List? Not any fun, I must say.

Yesterday, I ran across a Parenting.com link tease under the title Hot Toy Alert! We're not talking Easy Bake Oven here. And, no, it wasn't from Camp Edward or Jacob-they would never be allowed on my Barbie's DC-10 with full in-flight meal service. Too vampy. It was the action-figure tie-in of Prince of Brokeback...I mean Persia. This particular action figure is like a frosted eclair oasis in the Sahara, not just because it is filled with shirtless Gyllenhaal goodness, but because there is that whole time travel thing. And I wondered: what other action figures would I allow on my Barbie's DC-10?

Top Ten Action Figures Cleared for Take-Off:

1: Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince of Persia hits a home run in the accuracy department. Complete with ripped muscles and larger-than-Ken hands, we can forgive the glazed, vacant look in his eyes. Too much Reese. We get it. Our Barbies can kick Elle's pink Margaret-Thatcher-suited butt anytime.

2: Tom Selleck's Thomas Magnum: Maybe the cabin pressure has left Tom bloated, but we forgive the extra poundage because he still looks bad ass sporting a mustache and a gun. His shirt leads me to believe our destination is somewhere with ocean views and an annoying butler. Sandra, honey, I'll book you a seat right next to this one.

3: Richard Dean Anderson's MacGyver: Need I say more? So what if this Brazilian rendering is the only one ever produced and they failed to capture the strictly American beauty that was the mullet? So what if he looks like a blond matador in Mom jeans? He gets a boarding pass simply for being my numero uno obsession at fifteen. In-flight Skipper would agree.

4: Josh Holloway's Sawyer: Though we're unaccustomed to seeing James smile, I take comfort in knowing he has room on his raft should Barbie Air plummet into the Pacific. I might have preferred him sitting in his makeshift shelter sporting nerd glasses and reading prophetic tomes, but who can deny the wet, clingy appearance of his decidedly un-Mom jeans? Hard to tell from this angle, but a side view shows his plethora of hair blowing in thirty knot winds. Someone turn the fan down over seat 4F!

5: Jon Bon Jovi: I must confess that this passenger really isn't for me; but frankly, the Lemme doll wasn't Barbie's type. Who knew there was an entire culture of hard rock fans who collect figurines? Do they display them in lighted curio cabinets next to their bongs? I'd venture more than one woman in the world has this baby next to her Precious Moments dust trap. Marilyn?

6: Elvis: Comeback '68: Out of all the Elvis action figures, this is the one Barbie wants swiveling up the center aisle. Yeah, the Jailhouse Rock one is filled with possibility, but let's face it. The spazzy guy on the plane always ruins the trip for the rest. Stripped of the cheesy what-do-I-do-with-my-hands production ditties from his 60's movies, this all-leather clad King is better than lemon-scented hot towels in first class.

7: Dimebag Darrell: You might think this choice, when paired with the last, might cause Barbie Air to split down the center ala Oceanic 815, but this is how my Barbie rolls. Sweet and Campy one moment, all Pantera the next. Dimebag is in charge of the in-flight music and balances out the matador jacket nicely, don't you think? Barbie's mom is so going to freak.

8: David Duchovny's Fox Mulder: The truth is out there: this action figure is more handsome than the original, which earns him a boarding pass. We always knew Barbie was shallow, didn't we? Packing heat, a flashlight and no Scully to take up precious hottie space aboard Barbie Air, his study-the-heavens-for-aliens posture speaks of his tireless dedication to his cause, something that makes Barbie a little vaclempt.


9: Eric Estrada's Ponch: Keeping the skies safe is our air marshall with the brilliant white teeth and Latin love vibe. No longer straddling his department-issued cycle, this one proves that even with disproportionate-sized buttons and a sumo-wrestler gun holster, Poncherello can still bring it for Barbie because he's in uniform.


10. Wentworth Miller's Michael Scofield(left): So what if he just broke out of prison? This guy could kick Ken's golf-sweater-wearing ass and show him the meaning of anatomical correctness. At a whopping $550 a pop, this guy had better deposit gold bars in the lavatory to pay for his hotness boarding pass.


What was your favorite action figure or Barbie from childhood?

A Hair Metal Vortex 10

I think you'll forgive me when you find out I was remiss in posting last Friday due to a particularly impressive day. The flavor of such a slaptastic experience? That, my dear Vortex reader, you'll have to wait for until the end of today's housekeeping.

First, a dusting-off of last week's news. The winners for the Chase the Dream Contest were announced Friday. Though you'll notice there is no sign of my manuscript in the winner's circle, I am not one to rest on the cricket chirps. In fact, being a finalist has carried me beyond my expectations. I couldn't be more pleased with the industry and reader feedback along with the wonderful opportunities I've been given behind the scenes. Be sure to head over and congratulate the winners. And for those of you who voted for The Chosen One, may your Monday be a velvet-lined bag filled with trinkets of happiness. Thank you so much!

The Speculative Literature Foundation is offering a $750 grant to writers fifty and older who are just beginning to work at a professional level. Application deadline is March 31st.

Enough of you expressed an interest, via blog and email, to participate in a blog carnival. It may end up being the Large Hadron Collider of my blogging history, but it sounds like fun and there might even be dancing geniuses. I've selected March 31st because it is Gabe Kaplan's birthday and statistically the highest traffic day of the week for blogging. It was Gabe's idea to have prizes, so bloggers who participate will be placed in a drawing to receive a prize (I promise, it won't be a red telephone booth pencil sharpener or a Fabio CD) and everyone who comments at the Vortex that day will be placed in a drawing for another prize. It is my fervent hope that the event will drive new friends through all participants' blogs and Gabe will get some much-needed press. Here's what you need to do to participate:

1. Email me at la-mitchell@la-mitchell.com or comment on this post to let me know you wish to participate.
2. Prepare a March 31 post for your blog that aligns with the blog carnival's theme.
3. Visit all the blog carnival's sites and encourage your readers to do the same.

Simple, right? Some of you have already guessed the theme: TIME. What else is there at the Vortex? Remember, your post can be any format, any medium, any take, any ramble or a mad cluster of links, as long as it has something to do with TIME.

Now, on to something even more fun than TIME...

Friday night found me front row, center at a Dokken/Skid Row concert, sans ear plugs. I know what you're thinking: your cilias are dead forever now because of that? Yes, and it was beautiful save one thing. Was I the only one who didn't know Sebastian Bach wouldn't be there? Is there any crime greater than a teen infatuation left to languish into thirty-hood unnurtured? I came away wiser, though, and wish to pass that wisdom on:

A Hair-Metal Vortex 10

1. Beer spit from the mouth of an 80's lead singer that lands in your eye is infinitely more awesome than beer spit from the mouth of the skinny guy showing his butt crack beside you.

2. Aged groupies, let me tell you Victoria's real secret. Your right breast you tattooed that autograph into has stretched into a name worthy of the largest collective Puerto Rican family known to man. Cover it. Please.

3. Murphy's Law of Front Row, Center: Every band member will clench your hand but the one you most desire contact with.

4. Never underestimate a woman who has stood for five hours straight, forsaking liquid refreshment and bladder relief, to hold her territory. I may look the demeanor of Laura Ingalls, but I am acquainted with Iron Maiden's beast.

5. The drunkest guy in general admission will be the one still holding tight to the lighter-during-power-ballads routine. The sea of cell phone holders wearing Aqua net, beware.

6. Guitar players, no matter how advanced in age, still make those faces when trying to impress you with their riffs.

7. Don Dokken, while confessing to having the ass of a shar pei, still looked wicked hot in a pair of jeans. Thank you, Don, for not resurrecting those animal-print leotards.

8. Yelling "Watch out for that....amp" doesn't rise above the 150 db din of Slave to the Grind to prevent the non-Sebastian from spilling over backwards.

9. Asking the crowd to echo "Yee-haw" in Texas is akin to asking us if we all have longhorns on the front of our cars and ride horses to work. J.R. has left the building and so should you.

10. And finally? No one, but no one, can replace Sebastian Bach.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Chime in about the blog carnival and tell us about the last concert you went to...

Ten Indicators You've Traveled Through Time at Camp

1. You prefer transportation via the spitting llama named Tina than the front of an open trailer pulled by a Chevy Silverado bumper-high in manure.

2. Your newly-minted orienteering skills make the Tang you drank at breakfast seem like it's been riding shotgun in your bladder for twenty years. 293 degrees. 121 steps. And, no, that over-large critter hole is not an outdoor latrine.

3. Your demonstration on force and friction carried you across the zip line like an H.G. Wells traveler on crack. And; while holding the MacGyver-taped tarp between your legs demonstrated wind resistance and dignified grace, the real physics lesson came from the directly proportional relationship between the Cheesecake Factory's Chocolate Mousse slice you ate the previous night and your speed on the zip line. Whee!

4. You encounter a camp counselor dressed as the 1600's French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle in the forest and you wish three things: (1) that you had not just challenged your Lady Speed Stick to a three mile hike and lost (2) that you did not have aforementioned compass around your neck so you could ask for a very long, very detoured escort back to civilization and (3) that he had not achieved the perfect balance between a French accent and GQ bone structure because it left you stammering like the native tribe women he so eloquently spoke of.

5. Your chicken fried steak at dinner was, without doubt, from 1972.

6. Your camp skit was the same one from fifth grade, minus the mean girl on the end whose hand you dunked in a bucket at midnight for revenge.

7. The silly string you wielded on unsuspecting campers proved string theory: that subatomic particles when united and tense become easily agitated.

8. The wormhole outside your cabin filled with five inches of rainwater was capable of sucking bobby pins, ankles adorned with freshly laundered socks, and your only four quarters for a Coke.

9. The Gramps who spoke about organic gardening left you for a misty moment when he recalled a place you both knew where he met his high school sweetheart, his recently departed wife.

10. You glimpse a future when ten year olds have a better cell phone than you and you realize it's the present.

I hope everyone had a fantastic week. I'll be back on Monday with a Time Traveler's Wife comparison, book versus movie. There's still time to get in on the blog carnival. Email me if you're interested: la-mitchell@la-mitchell.com. Hmm...I wonder what the theme will be.

Two guesses. The first one doesn't count.

But I Live in Gnaw Bone, Indiana! How Romance is Possible Anywhere. Even Cabela's.

Cabela's, the sports and outdoor superstore mecca for so many red-blooded American males, is by far the most unromantic place I've visited in the past week. A close second? Walmart with the guns and tank tops, but the stuffed javalinas pushed it over the edge for me. Where better to prove my point about romance? Remember when you were fifteen and even the most mundane place became a destination when paired with the right person? So step into your camo hunting suits and grab a package of jalapeno beef jerky-we're getting romantic at Cabela's.

Top Ten Romantic Things to do at Cabela's:

1. Name a fish after your Valentine. Commit its details to memory so you can find it again when you return. This will cancel out the time your beloved wore a new outfit you didn't notice for two years. While you're at it, donate to the wildlife fund to ensure its species will have plenty of procreation opportunities in the future, even if you don't.

2. Test out a rod and hook her. Don't bust out your best Mike Iaconelli impression. That will only make her want the guy on the water ski promo poster. Extra points for a cheesy line about how she's the best catch anywhere.

3. Lay on a speedboat deck, hand in hand. Close your eyes and pretend you're anywhere but near the portable camping loos.

4. Crawl in a display tent and play truth or dare. Better yet, share a secret. Just be sure your inner fifth grade boy scout doesn't rear his ugly head and initiate a finger dare that will clear the outdoor section.

5. Shoot the scary drunk guy leaning against the saloon door in the shooting gallery while proclaiming, "I love her, Black Bart, I'll protect her 'til the day I die!"

6. Drop her off at the door before you park in the E lot, halfway to Guatemala. While you're at it, open her door for her, not by leaning across her thighs and popping the broken door handle but as a true gentleman would: dodging stacked canoes on sale by the door and offering your hand.

7. Consume the foot-long chili cheese dog Lady-and-the-Tramp style.

8. Lead her to the bear skin rug in the home decor section and do your best Fabio impression. Be sure to whisper in your best accent, "I can't believe it's not butter," so she can envision it past your flannel clad-paunch and your chili cheese dog breath.

9. Compare her to a gazelle in the African grassland taxidermy display. Avoid eye contact with the elephant if you don't want those Springbok horns shoved where the sun doesn't shine.

10. Locate the exact place you met on a GPS and tell her it's where you lost your heart.

Tell us the most romantic, unromantic place you've ever been...

Ten Reasons My Muse is Thankful

Every so often, writers need to belly up to the bountiful table of blessings because, let's face it, the starlight moments are few and far between. It's easy to let the weight of the literary world, with all it's rules and rejections, take us far from our intended course. With that in mind, and before the tryptophan short circuits creative thought and lapses me into a food coma, I offer up a Vortex 10 filled with writerly blessings.

Top Ten Reasons My Muse is Thankful:

1. We collaborate on love scenes unworthy of The Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize.

2. I do not beg for clarity of thought from her at ungodly pre-dawn hours.

3. My DVR stash/Netflix account is a See's Candy Store of visual hero inspiration. And no calories!

4. My large-capacity water heater is golden for those lengthy plot-pondering sessions in the shower.

5. My glee is not found in typical female traps-handbags, Jimmy Choos, maid service-but in office supplies so she can vomit organizational details in technicolor.

6. When the perky spinning instructor at the gym shouts, "You can see the finish line," the muse and I SO know it's not about visualizing a country road through a vineyard. We hear "You can see the signature line!" and "You can see the B&N book signing line!"

7. I don't go all postal on her when she va-cays for a few days. Even muses need mental health days.

8. I respect that she's trying to boldly go where no one has gone before.

9. Her people-watching skills have elevated waiting in a public place to an art form. Who needs CNN at the airport when we have Larry the Disenfranchised Horse Jockey carrying a Euro-bag housing a suspicious device?

10. From the time we became acquainted, I've never once abandoned her.

For my American friends, I hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving weekend. For all others, I hope you, too, find a quiet moment filled with peace and blessings.

A Vortex 10 Weekend

Top Ten Things Learned on A Writing Adventure Weekend:

1. Patty Love is not a hamburger joint. The mannequins in whips and proximity to Condoms-to-Go should have been my first clue. But Laura Ingalls does not venture often, nay-ever, to that part of Dallas. So I did what any tourist would do. Take a picture!

Sadly, I was laughing too hard for it to show clearly. Thankfully, it was too blurry to capture any tom-foolery in the silver car and said driver did not pursue us for inadvertently snapping his license plate.

2. Physicists come in all kinds of beautiful, kind packages. Angela, so great to meet you!

3. Margie Lawson was, and is forevermore, my rock star of fiction writing.

4. Bestselling fiction author Harlan Coban has characters with eyeballs that could compete in the Olympic Games.

5. Backloaded power words on the first two pages of my WIP: change, Pier, thrills, beach, gravity, shit-canned, truth, spiked. Can I mine more by changing sentence order? Oh, yeah.

6. A sensible black tote is a black hole that swallows red pens needed for Margie's EDITS system. Dialogue cues be damned!

7. Wine tastes infinitely better when shared with the best critique partners. Evah.

8. Everything in the South is filled with nuts. Including the South, itself.

9. One Big-Gulp, Super-Empowered passage per book. Too much of a Big Gulp is a very bad thing.

10. Sometimes the most dazzling moments are unexpected ones on a two-floor elevator ride.

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend. Wednesday, we're tackling what the shows stored in your DVR or Tivo say about you. I have a special sumpthin-sumpthin for anyone here who, before Wednesday, comes closest to accurately guessing how many MacGyver reruns are stored in mine. Guess away...

Knowing All About a Vortex 10

Remember the medicine-head commerical where the red balloon floats high above the decapitated cartoon character body? That's so me today. But since I'm a glass-half-full kind of gal, what's better than an alternate-state reality to concoct a Vortex 10? Today's topic: the 2009 release Knowing starring Nicholas Cage.

Ten Ways the Movie Knowing Would Have Been Tolerable on a Nyquil-Induced High:

1. The black duster-clad alien/human hybrids might have broken into a fog-laden rendition of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", giving them an entertaining value beyond belching a light storm from their mouths.

2. The numerical sequence the protagonist triest to decode might have resembled the optimistic spreadsheet of Harry Potter-like sales from my debut release.

3. Rose Byrne's hysterical portrayal of a worried mother might have been more drama-hysterical and less ha-ha hysterical.

4. The black pebbles could have led me back from the abyss of schitzophrenic genre. As they stood, they were a mere metaphor for the ka-ka that was the ending.

5. I could have imagined a different, better plot in the protagonist's house that looked more like a Disney soundstage than a real residence.

6. The sunspot could have lit a fire under me to want to go past 1 hour and 40 minutes on my DVD counter.

7. I could have pretended the symbolic tree at the end was my happy place instead of the heavy-handed religious propaganda that made virtually no sense given the character's set up.

8. It might have made sense that a mother would leave two hunted children unattended in a car during a pre-apocalyptic bedlam.

9. Nicholas Cage might have morphed into someone who less-resembled the guy who rotated my tires last week.

10. My laughter during the scene where Nicholas Cage runs out to fight the Depeche Mode guys, strikes a bat against a tree and screams, "You want some of this?" might have eclipsed the next, oh say, seven scenes.

Okay, so I was harsh. I really, really wanted to like this movie. It contains a time capsule for the love of Pete! The woo-woo factor (minus the alien thing) is so completely up my alley, but in the end, it didn't hold together.

What's the latest I-just-shaved-two-hours-off-my-life film-stinker you watched?

A Pampered Vortex 10

Sometimes I have trouble shutting off my mind. Such was the case yesterday. Instead of melting away into a viscous puddle under the very capable hands of a masseuse (a four month old birthday gift--the massage, not the masseuse), bizzare thoughts lurked at the periphery of my awareness. How else to diffuse those than a Vortex 10 List? Sounds like more fun than drowning a novel's worth of toxins with Evian.

10 Random Thoughts on a Massage Table:

1. Please don't match me to the guy in black scrubs that looks like a cross between the blond guy from Simon and Simon and Lurch. Could someone have pity on this guy and give him a detoxifying treatment? The smacked-out rings under his eyes haunt me and not in a romance novel kind of way, either.

2. Dear God, is someone butchering that exotic bird in the distant meadow?

3. Seriously, was that just a karate chop to my left buttocks?

4. I saw this move on COPS once to apprehend a suspect, only there wasn't a pan flute soloist in the background and I'm not wearing a t-shirt that says Mess with me and you mess with the entire trailer park.

5. Did she just put the hair clip she used on me back into the same drawer I saw her pull it out of? Sweet Barbicide, where are you?

6. Apparently shading in the feet on the pre-massage questionnaire "troublesome areas" means avoid like leprosy. No wonder she's overcompensating by working tension from my collarbone. Does anyone have collarbone tension?

7. I painted my toenails Sparkling Nectar for this? What's the Chinese translation for "A kingdom for my feet! I wore the cruel shoes today!"

8. Is the overly-loud second hand on the clock meant to be a relaxing rhythm to get in touch with my heartbeat or a cosmic reminder I could have written 500 words in the time it's taken her to turn my scalp into a relaxed greaseball?

9. If she reused the hair clip, what of the sheets?

10. Why does my middle finger lift when she rubs the writerly tension from my forearm?

I've had six massages in my life, but they've all been gifts. Were it left up to me, I'd have given the money to the guy that stands with a sign under the interstate overpass in hundred-degree heat. Okay, maybe I'd have kept the one from the Brazilian guy on the ship in the Atlantic Ocean, but that's all. Romance writers have to master the concept of haunting eyes, right?

What's your favorite thing to do to relax?

My Inner Bond Girl

I can't say enough wonderful things about the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. Where else can you get a pen that looks like lipstick, a cheeky babydoll t-shirt with an invitation to Deny Everything and sunglasses with a spy camera attached? Aside from the ultra-decked-out gift shop, and barring a tour of the main museum due to time constraints, I took part in quite possibly the coolest tourist-y thing I've ever done: Operation Spy, a one hour simulated mission in which I became a U.S. Intelligence Operative in the fictitious country of Khandar. Became may not be the right word. Faked, maybe? Not for lack of realism, for the interactive experience was developed by current and former agents and lifted from portions of actual intelligence files, but let's just say I didn't miss my calling in life. Thus, I give you another Vortex 10:

Top Ten Reasons Channeling My Inner Bond Girl is Futile

1. Smart aleck cracks and flip flops do not a stealth operative make.

2. The only heat I packed on the mission was a serious underarm challenge to my Degree, Ultra Clear in the close confines of a subterranean elevator. Relax, people. Clean Powder scent prevailed.

3. The learning threshold for mastering camera surveillence would have been considerably smaller had I been tracking, say, Keith Urban, for a fangirl hotel ambush, instead of a guy who looked like my first manager at a KFC when I was fifteen.

4. Aboard the covert, getaway delivery van, my stomach revisited its 10,000 foot turbulent descent in a packed DC-10 over Washington D.C. Special forces do not carry white paper bags.

5. Simulated chopper blades really do a number on long hair.

6. My urge to don the hands-free/drive-through microphone of our "tour operations officer" surfaced, not out of a desire to intensify my experience, but to channel my inner rock star.

7. The Spy Museum's version of Frohike railroaded my concentration toward unrequited Mulder fantasies. At that point, the tech officers could have whistled Zippity-Do-Da out of their you-know-whats for all I focused on that task.

8. The red and green wavy lines on the voice descrambler proved a far prettier pattern than the required merge of the two to decipher the intercepted audio signal.

9. The only lie detector question I felt compelled to ask was, "Is that a fake accent?"

10. Calibrating a do-hickey to the precise number-which could have been psi or Oprah's weight for all I understood it to be-to disengage security cameras makes no difference if you alert the entirety of the compound to your presence by stomping on a loose manhole cover.

So, 007 I am not, at least not anywhere but in the pages of my stories. But for one hour, I saved the world. How many times in life do we get to claim that?

What and where is the coolest tourist-y thing you've ever done?

A Guest Vortex 10

Ten Ways to MacGyver Your Way Through RWA's National Conference

My quest for the perfect RWA Awards Ceremony dress aligned with two completely indulgent, delicious MacGyver reruns this week to inspire another Vortex 10! Despite Tami Cowden's homage to MacGyver in her professor-warrior archetype blend, romance writers have yet to fully embrace a character that has taught us (1) explosive necklaces can be quite fashionable; (2) pop culture rewards awesome heroes by busting out fresh liberties with parts of speech; and (3) some people can go out into the wilderness to find their dreams, or a really fake looking Sasquatch. With this in mind, I offer:

Ten Ways to MacGyver Your Way Through RWA's National Conference

1) In the Pilot episode, MacGyver used milk chocolate to stop a sulfuric acid leak. Milk chocolate can be used to stop the noxious gas of a plot leak as well. Have some on hand when an impromptu editor question such as, "What is your book about?" spawns incoherent, odoriferous babbling such as, "This girl, she um, have you seen....oh, what's that movie?"

2) Strapless bra traveling south? Why not adopt MacGyver's Secret-of-the-Red-Carpet? Duct Tape. Consider the after-event removal as a waxing bonus. Score.

3) Lost your bobby pins in the fertile, feminine jungle that is a four-way-shared-bathroom? No problem. The three inch long screw affixing the remote to the table works as a perfect hairpin. Best if the screw has a sharp tip to ram it home.

4) Toilet-seat covers function as the perfect blotter for those unexpected moments before your editor appointment when your pores are leaking the fluid you retained from your cheesecake-as-dinner the previous night.

5) In season three, MacGyver blasted a door open using pantyhose, a battery and an oil can. Nice to know if you get stuck in a floor-to-ceiling restroom stall your L'eggs, Ipod and the sanitary napkin dispenser can save you.

6) If there's one thing MacGyver taught us about decadence, it's that a lavish party is the perfect diversion for someone to hack into your computer. Romance writers with rabid Annie-Wilks-type fans should incorporate a memory stick into their decolletage for safe-keeping.

7) The sea of workshop choices can be daunting. Don't have a pen to mark the one you want? Run your fingernail along your Maybelline-adorned lips and etch it into the conference book. It's like a red editing pen without the tears and crippling self-doubt.

8) Beware the zipper diversion. Desperate representation-hungry writers are waiting in the wings to infiltrate the casual conversation you've managed to score with your dream agent. Like MacGyver, they know string and a paperclip hooked into a dress zipper can give them enough time to defuse your f-bomb and send you scurrying, mortified, into the ladies room. Man those zippers!

9) Our mulleted-but-hot hero knows Morse Code and you should, too. Appointments are an optimum time to casually shed your silver bangle and tap out subliminal messages such as:

-... . - - . .-. - .... .- -. -.-- .. .-.. .. --. .... - : better than Twilight

or

--- .--. .-. .- .... .--. .. -.-. -.- : Oprah pick

10) Raid your purse. Compacts are great rear-view mirrors. Camera lenses act as magnifying glasses in a pinch. Critique partners can string together Post-it notes and dental floss and lower into a conversation-hog's line of vision for distraction and escape ala MacGyver's "Lost Love" episode.

If this merely whets your appetite to MacGyverize your conference trip, try FoxNews's article on How to Travel Like MacGyver. See you in July!

Ghost Hunting Vortex 10-style

Though I had planned to tackle Google's Time Travel feature, I'm all up into Saturday's ghost-hunter experience and have an urge to "debunk" (a word the Sci-fi channel show Ghost Hunters should edit from their vernacular on the basis of overuse) everything Vortex readers thought they knew about ghost hunting. It just so happens to come in a list of ten:

1) Thespian tendencies, like those displayed by Paranormal State's psychic medium Chip Coffey, are best highlighted against a backdrop of ping-pong-in-the-eyeball experiments, the only young, handsome, non-practicing priest in New England, and constant demon whispers.

2) Fist bumps are not required to successfully bring an investigation to closure.

3) The girth of your infrared cameras is directly proportional to your ratings.

4) Eighty percent of true ghost-hunting business is weeding out cracked requests from witches and those who swear they can hear their deceased toy poodle Trixie's toenails clicking on the kitchen floor.

5) If you have no ghost hunting experience but have access to a twenty-thousand dollar heat-imaging camera, fist bump. You're on the team!

6) No day job is as forgiving to ghostly pursuits as Roto-Rooter. Oh, wait. Free publicity. Right.

7) Having a psychic on the team does help at reveal time. While Jason and Grant say, "Yep, you have ghosts. See ya!" a psychic can advise clients on things that are actually helpful with regard to the spirits....like getting RID of them.

8) The Three Stooges are still eye-pokers in the afterlife.

9) I, apparently, have a spiritual entourage with me that talks all at one time in incessant, incoherent whispers. I know these women. They display themselves as the trifecta of creative muses: Confidence, Doubt and Procrastination.

10) Spirits are rarely trapped. Most who choose to stay roam wherever they please. I've wrapped a mental bubble of white light around my closet. Do I really need supernatural witnesses to the awkward ritual of getting into last year's shorts?

A huge thanks to the North Texas Paranormal Investigations team for the awesome informal lecture and for answering the thousand and one questions our writing group had. Visit their site for EVPs and video of past investigations in the North Texas area.

And have no fear, the next post will be on time travel-as if you really had any doubt, right?

What do you love (or hate) about ghost-hunting shows?

A Snowy Vortex 10

It wasn't all bunny slopes and hot toddies, but it certainly fits the great vacation category. While Vortex readers were slacking off on the scavenger hunt (ahem), I learned a few gems to pass along lest you be entertaining the thought of a Colorado ski vacation next year:

1. Murphy's Law of Altitude Sickness
That stealth, vile little jaunt into illness when your brain freeze-dries and your body squeezes into an 11,000 feet compression chamber will always happen at the worst possible time. Like on the feet of a rich guy that just funded your stay.

2. Powdered Bull
When the only fresh snow you encounter on your nine hundred mile mecca accumulates on the back of a tourist bull in Texas, it's God's way of telling you a sled in your backyard would have been sufficient.

3. Banjo Man
Nothing beats a serenade outside a ski rental shop. Though the granola-artist plucking his banjo fancies himself a modern-day Merle Haggard/Jack White, his sultry strains mean only one thing: he's circled the drain of viable employment and is now shooting for the Guinness record for most consecutive sour notes. Mr. Urban you are not, sir.

4. Ski beasts....I mean boots. Ski boots.
Spicoli did not try them on both feet. His assurance that they were "wicked" was so on-target, he must have known they'd turn on the very feet filling them, leaving bruises, blisters and toenail collateral in their wake. Wicked indeed.

5. FBIs Most Wanted...Solved.
Southeast Colorado. Look there. Texans burning up the highways to hit the slopes never go this way. It's a vast conspiracy of isolation known to just about everyone taking a left turn in Dalhart, Texas. Everyone but me. Sleek X-files bullet trains carrying alien serum would have been preferable to the three hundred miles of landscape resembling a pubescent boy's first beard.

6. The helmet should have been the first clue
Or perhaps the glossy surface of the 150 foot drop. Cushioning the death-defying reality of tubing down an ice-packed hill, nay...mountain, by nicknaming their lift the "magic carpet" was brilliant. For in Aladdin's world, the vast coinage to take part in the privilege is soon forgotten at a thirty mile per hour backward slide.

7. Lift Lines are directly proportional to the amount of liquid refreshment consumed at the previous meal.

8. Blowing jet-strength hand dryer air into your ski pants is not a legitimate reason for clogging the 30-women-thick-restroom line. My bladder should not have to pay the price for your ski-lift dismount gaffes.

9. With time, everything looks smaller.
Except the 72 ounce steak. Since I was ten, the building, the shooting gallery, the motel's rustler wall mural-everything seems to have shrunk but man's desire for 15 minutes of fame. Visitors to Amarillo's Big Texan Steakhouse who eat the mammoth steak, salad, rolls, baked potato, fried shrimp and drink in one hour get their entire $200 meal for free, served with a heaping dish of car-accident-like voyeurism from tourists all over the southern US. Competitive gluttony, now available on webcast.

10. "Texans are stupid"
It finally happened. Third time cemented it. In a supermarket checkout line, I aligned myself fully with the Lone Star State. The Coloradan I'd once been heard the ignorant, stereotypical backwash about Texas from a grocery checker-a ribald rant that somehow translated Texas heat to the mental capacity of its citizens and I no longer wanted to be a Colorado native. You see, Ms. King Soopers-checkout woman, God gave Colorado stunning scenery so visitors wouldn't notice the self-righteousness so prevalent in your state. Maybe that was once me, but I doubt it. My birth record reads Houston.

I hope everyone had a fantastic week. I did. It's great to be blogging again. If you're bored and so inclined, I found this clip for a visual aid to my ski vacation. Exiting the lift gracefully is probably the hardest part about learning to ski. Thankfully, I didn't have to use the jet-strength hand dryer once.

Vortex Scavenger Hunt Extended

While I work on a Vortex 10 for tomorrow that captures the essence of my vacation and tackle laundry piled as high as the Rockies, I'm extending the scavenger hunt's deadline through Friday, March 27. If no one correctly solves the hunt, I'll work a little time travel of my own and delete the posts as if they never happened. Remember, the search box at the top left corner of the blog is your friend. Type in each day's clue and you'll almost always have your answer. Have fun and good luck!

Random Monday Vortex 10

There is a veritable cornucopia of inspiration (translation: distraction) around here this week. A Vortex 10 might just clear my mind enough to get back to editing, so let's try it:

Ten Random Things Distracting Me From Writing This Week:

1. Moving an Elderly Relative
Though the compensatory free dinners at IHOP provide a modicum of motivation, enduring a critical banter with the waiter worthy of a presidential debate makes the dry pancakes lodge in my throat. The stench of the senior menu's pan-crusted Tilapia is at battle with my strawberry syrup. Said relative's directive to the chef about the degree of fish doneness lest it bring on "explosive diarrhea" inspires a war in my stomach. Time suck: 2 days.

2. Waiting for Garage Door Repairmen
Apparently, it is in vogue for the young males of our local species to impale themselves against garage doors. While this mating/loyalty-to-pack ritual might prove mildly entertaining to the sociologists among us interested in the decline of civilization, damaging the door to the point of collapse is not. Should you choose to darken my driveway again and impale my pricey new garage door, you leave me no choice but to disable the safety beam and tether you in its path. Time suck: 3 hours and counting...

3. Changing Toilet Tissue Rolls
To some of you, this may seem silly. But for every other human who draws breath at Casa Mitchell, I shall purchase this t-shirt as a reminder that (a) it doesn't take a genius to work the spring-loaded plastic holder and (b) at any moment, your smarts will be traded for a hottie, mullet-wearing, bomb-from-gum making Phoenix Foundation operative lest we fail to ingest the lessons of the empty tissue roll. Time suck for a year: enough to line edit my final draft.

4. Time Travel to My Awkwardness c. 1980's
An afternoon at a roller skating rink has the power to simultaneously bring back a flashy "Heartbreaker" flat-chested shirt moment and enough sting in the glutes to inspire a break dance move worthy of pre-saved M.C. Hammer. Do not blow past me, Mr. I-most-likely-impaled-your-garage-door. Gum revenge is sweet. Ask MacGyver. Time suck: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

5. Frying Pan Sticker
Placing a bar code sticker with NASA adhesive on the non-teflon shell of the pan is smart. Placing it where it sinks into the conduction structure, unreachable by a WD-40 pen-wielding hand is pure genius. Twenty broken toothpicks later, I command the residual glue to, "Burn, baby, burn!" Time suck: 20 minutes.

6. Travels With My Cats by Mike Resnick
Could I begin to touch this time travel short story with my worthiness as a writer? I think not. In an interview, Resnick admits this Hugo-award winning story is the one he's most proud of. It has romance, love, cats and time-travel. Squee! Time suck: 25 minutes, but worth every one.

7. Build Your Own Time Machine at The Science Channel
At first glance, the promise is enough to make me a forever fangirl of Michio Kaku, famed physics professor who touts this feature on Science Channel commercials. After a grueling trip through what time is, the fruitless results are disappointing. No simulation. No games. Very backhanded, not-so-humorous retro. Good for the basics, but hardly worthy of The Science Channel. Time suck: 13 minutes.

8. LOST teasers promising major devotion to Sawyer's plot line this season. Need I say more? Time suck: 1 hour.

9. American Idol
Okay, I swore I wouldn't do it again this year. Nothing on it ever comes within a galaxy of the music I listen to (Daughtry-pshaw!), but I needed a wicked laugh after a flat tire fiasco this week. I always wish Seacrest would bitch-slap some of these devoted family members who were never honest enough with their beloved to say, "This is not your thing, honey." It is my fervent hope I am not the William Hung of the writing world. Time suck: 1 hour, 10 minutes.

10. Judging GH Entries I Adore
Historical romance writers brought their game when they submitted to the Golden Heart contest this year. Fifty pages were simply not enough for two of them. Perfect scores all round!
Time suck: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Here's to a new week of productivity for everyone!

A Pick-Up Vortex 10

I was going to blog about something different today, but I feel an overwhelming need to address the masses of men out there who subscribe to the Mystery doctrine of wooing women. If you don't know who Mystery is, you won't give a tinker's damn about the contents of this Vortex 10, but if you're still curious, check out this Talk Soup clip.

Dear any-man-who-thinks-The-Pick-Up-Artist-has-it-going-on,

I use the term "man" loosely. Anyone who buys into Mystery's goal is too immature and self-absorbed to come close to a woman's definition of a real man. I know women are hard to understand. Many times, we are at a loss to understand ourselves, but this self-proclaimed messiah of seduction is not the answer.

I've watched bits and pieces of Mystery's philosophies for two seasons now, enough to gag down a few of his preachings. Why, you ask? Lost is still in reruns. Accompanied by his wing man "Matador" and a steady parade of shallow women who in no way represent most of the fairer sex, Eric von Markovik has dished out plenty of advice. Most of it, crap. Yes, he empowers shy and awkward men with confidence, but when the litmus test is bedding women, you've already lost the game. The inner poise most women respond to will be inevitably altered into something akin to his co-host's implants-bloated and deceptive. I don't speak for all women, but I do speak for the kind of women most of these genuine contestants hope to find:

1)Any man who gives his ego a nickname is a tool. This goes for Mystery or Matador or any other one-word avatar used to perpetuate his own sense of purpose. If you have to name it, you aren't there yet.

2)Why take fashion advice from someone who looks like a pimp? Approaching women in Purple Rain attire does not make you desirable, it makes you laughable. Take the free initial makeover the show provides and stop there. The size of the bauble around your hairy chest is directly proportional to how much women laugh when you turn away.

3)Cry on television if you win the Nobel Prize or are rehearsing a death scene for I Wanna Be a Soap Star. Don't cry because Mystery is digging for re-enforcement of his inflated contribution to society.

4)If you approach women in the grocery store's produce section, you're busted. It's cliche and you might as well have thumped your grandmother's melon for all the interest you'll get.

5)Soul patches and eyeliner work well on very few men. Those men are named Johnny Depp and Johnny Depp. They aren't you. Don't even try.

6)You'd do better to learn the mneumonics of STDs than the abbreviated pick-up artist lingo because the few women this advice works on will have an alphabet soup of disease.

7)Women have built-in pick up line sensors. Coming up to a woman at a club and saying "Hey, do you know whatever happened to Velcro?" will solidify your status as one to avoid because you're either wasted or stupid. Cater an opening remark to the situation, never use the same line twice and you'll have a better "gambit" than any schmuck who actually bought into anything Mystery had to say.

8)Earning the title "Master Pick-Up Artist" might as well be "Master-Bader" to our ears (apologies to my brilliant high school chemistry teacher for his unfortunate name). Why not earn the title of Master of Fine Arts and impress women with more than being coined best kisser by a porn queen?

9)Yes, the $50,000 might be worth going on cable to make a complete noob of yourself, but the price of your soul to be a wingman to an overinflated wanker is too high.

10)Lastly, receiving one of the seven colored medallions is no different from the celebratory Worlds of Warcraft quests you accomplished in your mother's basement. It's not "the best thing that's ever happened to you", it's a sign you're a gullible schmuck led down the brick road of bad dating advice.

Signed,
Double X chromosome

A Vortex 10, Just Because

Thoughts today are so random, they can only be compiled in the form of a Vortex 10...

Top Ten Things I'm Thinking About Today

1) The universe has sent two flocks of religious zealots to my door in the past week. What does this mean? One, I tossed a newt on her sensible heel (long story) and told her I was Catholic. Didn't work. The other insisted I read her industrial toilet tissue-thin leaflet and contact them if I had any questions afterward. Yeah. I'll get right on that. I'm considering purchasing the $19.99 nun habit at Party City and keeping it by the door.

2) Speaking of costume shops, I'm thinking the adult female costume section needs a new addition. I'll call it #515 Bitch. Five foot six. Brunette trying to stretch to blond but stumbling into what Clairol would call "straw-pumpkin." Complete with two-sizes too small shirt and enough inflatables underneath to render costume fetchers in orange vests mute. Accessorize with a coach bag large enough to fit her mouth and a license tagged to her shirt that gives her the privilege to disregard all social etiquette.

3) I RickRolled someone today. If you don't know what this is, click here and consider yourself RickRolled. Random, I know, but I was in jr. high when this song came out and he looked exactly like john-I-have-a-crush-I-can't-explain-when-I'm-grown. In pre-adolescence, I hadn't come into my own with Z-rock and leather pants worship yet.

4) Beside my keyboard, page twenty of my manuscript looks like vomited Fruit Loops. I've attacked it with Margie Lawson's Deep Edits technique and I'm not sure whether to cheer for the tight, ruthless assault on what spills naturally from my brain or be offended that every single word seems to lack that special something now.

5) Revisiting Dwight Swain's MRU's have reduced my human experience this week to a long series of cause-effect stimuli I can't stop labeling.

6) I confess to seeing the final three minutes of Life on Mars last night, after still not watching the episodes clogging my DVR, and his little jig had my heart. Any man willing to show his complete inability to dance in front of fifteen million people has me already. I'm gorging on the episodes tonight.

7) The sunset last night on my journey to the mailbox made my knees weak. Some things words will never capture.

8) Wolf Blitzer was in my dream last night-college (again!). As disturbing as that was, as much as I would have given anything to swap him for Anderson, it was the only cautionary flag I needed to exile myself from CNN-island until 2009.

9) I've read WaiterRant's blog, almost from the beginning, but his appearance on Oprah this week made me as territorial as #515. I don't want to see his talent reduced to the same ass-landscape as Tom Cruise and Maria Shriver. Seriously, I'm happy for him.

10) Hello, statcounter visitor who googled "undress and tickle game" and landed here. I hope you found what you were searching for. Sort of.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Tickle My Stats

I'm into Statcounter for a myriad of reasons, but the unintended giggle factor of keyword analysis lets me know how The Vortex presents to the world. Most of these hits never returned-I'm assuming they didn't find what they were looking for here, but even the quickest trigger finger-turned-stat strokes my ego. Here are my top ten favorites:

1."ordinary people state of undress"
I had no idea I'd addressed some quasi-nekked reality. Can't recall one. If anyone finds it, do tell. I hope it's of the XY variety.

2. "mammoth chunks"
I can only assume web surfers knew about the Time Travel Mart in California before and sought it out because of their most famous merchandise. Aside from a natural curiosity of prehistoric creatures, the only other possibilities leave me shuddering. original post

3. "bat guano in eyeliner"
Ick. Did I discuss this? Apparently, there are few websites willing to go into the feces-in-makeup arena. Ladies and 30 Seconds to Mars fans, isn't it comforting to know there's one among us with an insatiable curiosity that we'll forever remember when we uncap that ultra-wet, waterproof liner? original post

4. "birth control titanic"
The Titanic interview with V.C. King and subsequent posts generated a lot of interest, but Leo's sweaty hand was hardly a commentary on this topic and a sinking ship is not a form of population control. original post

5. "thighmasters how to use"
Who knew I could pull the expert card on the Suzanne Somers multi-million dollar empire? original post

6. "is picking flowers in a ditch illegal"
Who do I look like, friggin' Jeeves? Texas DPS? original post

7. "woo woo factor"
I love this. This is going to be my new author platform. A hook line under the name on my website. L.A. Mitchell, The Woo-Woo Factor in Romance. Perfect. Thank you, kind surfer. original post

8. "holey slippers"
Who searches the web for worn footwear? Try ebay. My eccentric aunt just found out about the auction store near her house and has confused her Goodwill donation with her transistor radio. original post

9. "orange wedge revenge blogspot"
I can't recall proclaiming retaliation with citrus, but back off. I have a tangelo in the fridge and I'm not afraid to squeeze it in your eye. original post

10. "photo woman"
That's specific. Let me know when you get to page load 10 million-Oh wait, you'll have died a natural death by then. Never mind. original post

Anyone else with stat capabilities, leave your gems here...