The Mathematics of a Mississippi Road Trip

I've come up with a new mathematical equation:

850 interstate miles/number of bohunks in the fast lane x 36 hours = another Vortex 10 list

1) Not even a Mississippi frog-strangling downpour can extract a Texas bug from its tragic end on your windshield.

2) More billboards on the stretch of I-20 between Dallas and Jackson are devoted to Jesus than casinos, truck stops and John Deere combined.

3) Nothing can light up a cloud-drenched Louisiana day like a technicolor casino billboard advertising the upcoming Chippendale's show. August 14-15. FYI.

4) Starbucks Passion Iced Tea tastes infinitely better during a stolen hour with an old friend.

5) In Cajun families, expletives like "hoo-lawd" and "shewt" exist to train words together into a confusing quagmire of the English language for outsiders.

6) What was, no doubt, a beautiful crystalline garden display in Martha Stewart Magazine can turn, in the hands of a Mississippian, into an excuse to display repeated conquests of Jose Cuervo and Maddog 2020.

7) The observed collective speed on Mississippi highways is directly proportional to the speed of the regional dialect spoken.

8) If it crawls, scuttles or surfaces in the pond "out yonder", wrestle it to the red dirt, sprinkle Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning on it and call it a feast. Hoo-boy.

9) When you get that tingly feeling in your gut at a Shell station near Kilgore, Texas because the restroom has more amenities than a half-empty toilet paper roll, a can of Lysol and a fly to keep you company, it isn't the Cajun sausage you had for breakfast. You'll calculate every future nature call to hail this pee-mecca again.

9 1/2) Speaking of pee-mecca: You know your pit-stop is a Sunday regular for the locals when you find Hallmark cards, alligator jerky and Elvis bling all under one roof and you hear "Harlan, you don't need another bull's ball sack with a Texas star on it" over the snack food aisle.

10) Having watched Duel more times than you can count adequately prepares your imagination for encountering that rusted-out white pick-up with the illegal tint you're convinced wants to play cat and mouse on a Louisiana interstate.

As much fun as it is to envision missing teeth and stretched-out NASCAR tank tops, you'd be hard-pressed to find more gracious, hard-working, genuine people than those in the Magnolia state. My kind of people. Hoo-yes.

Double Release Week

I have a great week planned for The Vortex, including tidbits on cajun baptisms and redneck yard art fresh from a weekend jaunt to Mississippi and interviews with V.C. King, author of a fantastic supernatural tale about the Titanic, and Candace Havens, author of the Charmed and Dangerous series for Berkley. I love the company, so be sure to check back often.

Until then, this is e-book release week for two authors I feel blessed to have in my little corner of the publishing world. One writes steamy police procedurals, the other a perfect blend of contemporary romance and wit. Gritty or humor, take your pick:

Voodoo Bones by Melanie Atkins

Noel Galliano has always wanted her own business, and despite critics who believe she won't succeed, she opens a tiny French Quarter Voodoo shop. What she doesn't count on is finding a dismembered corpse upstairs.

Detective Mathieu Bergeron is considered a screw up around the district station, until he puts away the Bayou Ripper. Then another body is found mutilated, and both his arrest and his competence are thrown into question. Matt and Noel must work together to solve this terrifying crime in the Big Easy...and along the way, they fall in love.


Here Comes the Bribe by Sherry A. Davis

A single administrative assistant accepts her temporary boss’s offer to masquerade as his fiancée to keep his matchmaking grandmother out of his personal life and out of the way while he negotiates a high-profile merger for his family-owned company. In exchange, she’ll get the down payment for the loan she needs to keep her ex from selling her condo out from under her.

But neither of them counted on the lines blurring between real and pretend--or for the temporary arrangement to leave them both longing for something more permanent.

Really wishing I had a Kindle right about now...

Story Vows

Nearing the home stretch of a novel, the story begins to feel a bit like a tired friendship. At times, taken for granted and not recognized for the gift it has become. As guilty as I am of this infraction, it has been worse. This has been my most faithful and burning project to date and the most deserving of some promises to carry me to the end:

1)I promise not to bloat you with ten dollar words when twenty-five cent ones will do.

2)I promise to forsake all other ideas, even the sparkling allure of the holographic map story, as tempting as it may be, and focus solely on you until the last sentence unfolds.

3)I promise to leak out a line to my Twitter account sporadically, instead choosing to keep the magic between us.

4)I promise to return to you, even when you're difficult or have left me adrift, when life interferes and I can only imagine a root canal would be favorable to the bloodletting on the page.

5)I promise to check each historical fact against two sources, to ensure no critic will ever undermine what we created.

6)I promise to divorce myself from the subplot, even though it has amazing emotional potential, if it makes the rest stronger.

7)I promise to steer you away from the nebulous between-genre ditch the others have fallen into and keep you safely in the parameters of marketability.

8)I promise to always remember the spark I love most about you when all others doubt.

9)I promise never to demean you, curse you, or devalue the time we've spent together, for no writing is ever wasted.

10)I promise to wait to send you out into the world until I'm sure it's the best we can do.

What promises do you owe your story?

The Time Machine - Week of June 23, 2008

I'm back to the whole time-travel-market-is-soft thing. I present further proof it is not:

Exhibit A:
Spike Lee has signed on to direct Time Traveler, a movie based on Ronald Mallett's memoir Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality. The memoir tells the tale of a young African-American male raised in poverty, his journey to becoming a distinguished theoretical physicist, and his obsession to travel back in time to save the father he lost when he was ten years old.

Lee says, "It's a fantastic story on many levels and (also) a father and son saga of love and loss."

Exhibit B:
Universal Pictures has a time travel thriller in the works called The Archive. David Auburn, who scripted The Lake House for Warner Brothers, will join forces with Walk the Line director James Mangold.

Lastly, I found this fascinating short documentary by Jay Cheel called Obsessed and Scientific. In it, the world-renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku offers a very accessible interpretation of time travel. We also meet Larry Habner, an entertainment lawyer who represents the family of John Titor, an alleged time traveler from the year 2036, and Rob Niosi, a man obsessed with recreating a full-scale replica of H.G. Well's time machine. It's a fantastic look at the bizarre crossroads between real scientific theory and science fiction. (run time: 25 min.)

Many Thanks

A huge thanks to everyone who came out to the book signing yesterday. The staff at Barnes & Noble, especially Georgette, were all amazing and gracious. Not only did they donate all proceeds from the sale of Love, Texas Style to the North Texas Romance Writers of America's scholarship fund, but added giveaways and prizes for our readers to make the day a huge success. Thank you!
As promised, I took my camera and captured this moment in front of the impressive culinary hardback display. Shanni, a dear friend and avid reader, has the distinction of being one of my first beta readers on several projects. She provides an amazing perspective, much valued, and once uttered my name in the same breath as Dean Koontz's. A true girl-squeal moment.

Three anthology authors who've never had a mug up here on The Vortex. (from left: Arline Todd, Jen Fitzgerald and Beth Shriver)

Tomorrow: Two time travel Hollywood movie deals in the past week AND one must-see student documentary.

The Black Hole of Productivity and Booksigning

How is it possible that Wednesday's word count exceeded 2100, a monumental record for me, and Thursday's production amounted to two lines:

1) Uli drummed the heels of her Parisian-inspired, kid-leather boots against the passenger car’s wood floor.
2) A pair of spectacled eyes peered at her above a copy of The Albany Evening Times.

Not even particularly riveting lines, but follow me here. I have to justify two hours. Said boots are important in that they convey character and are symbolic of character's goals. Did I also need to know they could have been two-toned or embellished with lace rosettes or that King Louis compensated for his five-foot-nothing frame by inspiring future centuries of women to jack their footwear to unnatural heights?

What about the second line? How was I to know that researching the most likely overland rail route the booted character took would have led me to the name of the most likely newspaper picked up en route in 1881 and the headline of September 20th? Accuracy, people. Potentially the most insensitive headline I've ever read: President Garfield Finally Dies in Washington From an Assassin's Bullet. Did they really need finally? The poor man most likely would have lived had doctors not plundered for the bullet with their dirty fingers. Ooooh, and look-see what another twenty minutes of digging treated me to. A genuine train schedule said booted passenger would have held. Squee!! Can you hear my word count grinding to a halt from where you are?

It is possible research for this novel is the black hole of my page count. Who needs time travel when you have time-suck?

On a far less self-deprecating note, I hope if you're anywhere near the brand-spanking new Barnes and Noble in Hurst, Texas on Saturday, you'll stop by and say hello. It's all new carpet and fresh print smell, a heady combination. I'll be signing Love, Texas Style, along with my fellow anthology authors, from 2-4pm. I'll bring my camera this time and post your support to the blog.

Dr. Emmitt L. Brown Would Be Proud

Hello, friend. You'll get something in your Cheerios bowl from me, just for creativity. And, for knowing how to correctly spell capacitor. And, because I'm a softie. Oh, and my great aunt from 1977 Chicago wants her shirt back.