Bookish Boyfriend

My patient friend Stephanie Berget tagged me in her latest blog post and I'm finally following through by sharing this questionarie with y'all.

When I read her email I thought she was asking which is my favorite romantic hero - I don't have one - and I'd be in a world of hurt trying to narrow down the list. But what the meme is actually looking for is a hero of our own creation.

So here's how this works according to Julia Barrett:  We all have our favorite book boyfriends and now you have the chance to create one just for yourself and your fantasies! How do you play? Fill out the quiz bellow, post a picture of sexy man and tag five (5) other book addicts to do the same. Don’t forget to pop over to their blogs and let them know they have been tagged! Once tagged… you have to do the same, answer the questions and keep it rolling! But don’t forget the picture of the sexy man!

Here are the questions.

Hair color and style:  I definitely prefer brunettes.

Eye color and facial features: Glasses and facial hair. Stubble is like aftershave, a little goes a long way.

Height and body type:  I'm tall, often the tallest one in a room, and my husband is shorter than me. I figure height doesn't weigh in when you are horizontal. I don't like body builders. But toned with work roughened hands. Yum.

Visible age:  He has to be old enough to know his weaknesses and young enough to still want to be a better person.

Bangability?  Kinky?  Bi?  Etc?:  My desire follows where my heart leads.

Interests:  Reading, movies, mmm...something quirky like he can knit or bake, and most important is a sense of humor.

Human or Alien or Shifter?:  I don't believe in shifters or alien sexual compatibility...though I love reading authors who try to convince me otherwise. Human.

Paranormal skills: Immune to getting sick.

Natural habitat:  My bookish boyfriend can be found in the library, kitchen cooking dinner with the family and the bedroom.

Special skills:  It would be great if he was good with money or liked to shop. Either or both would offset my weakness in those areas.

I have created a lot of male characters (I write mostly m/m after all) so it is hard to share a single picture. This one is from Beautiful Mag. Warning: Not always safe for work. I love his lower back definition.










My five tags are blogs that I've followed for a long time. Marie Sexton, Val Roberts, Dee Carney, Lyn Gala and Rick R. Reed. Check out their sights and tell them I said hi. Hopefully they'll get a chance to join the fun.

Free Dessert

I have this thing about Happy Endings. I read and write romance novels, which by definition end happily. Yet, I've got a pretty wide practical side that doesn't believe in easy love at first try. You got to work for it. Make it worth it. My quirky sense of humor like's the naughty implications of a Happy Ending. Why naughty? They happen at message parlors and cost extra. Google it.

Yesterday my department went to lunch and I saw on their seasonal menu - the single page that the table shares - a dessert called a Happy Ending. Coconut ice cream with mango sauce and snicker doodle cookies. Waitress asks, can I get anyone a dessert and I say, can I have a Happy Ending please. She says, as long as I can have one too. We laugh and she gathers plates around the table and never brings the desert. Even does the receipt and wishes us a good day.

So I ask. Turns out she thought I was teasing. Like asking the phone agent for the winning lottery numbers or world peace. Jokes around the table pop up about Happy Endings. Looking back I wonder what the waitress thought since she didn't know about the desert (first day for the new menu). If I'd been a guy asking would she have been pissed? She ended up bringing one out with lots of spoons. Free.

We get back in the office and my co worker finally realizes what Happy Endings can mean. We'll be heating the office from her blush for weeks.

Guess it's a good thing the dessert was free. Always hard to explain a Happy Ending charged to the corporate account.

Done and Off

I reached my goal and submitted Bravery Not Included to Carina Press. Woot! Now we wait. Here is the blurb from the query letter.

Amazons, once facing extinction and scattered across the world, have re-emerged through HOAX – Home Of the Amazon eXchange – a website developed by Leisl Grant. But someone is kidnapping Amazon children, children who only have one thing in common;  HOAX. P. I. Jim Griffon has been hired to find the missing kids. Jaded, manipulated and used by powerful women in the past, Griffon refuses to work with Leisl to uncover the kidnappers.

Can Griffon put his trust in a woman? Has Leisl’s hunt for truth exposed her people to danger? And when Griffon discovers Leisl is an Amazon – stronger than he could possibly imagine – can they find love?

This is the logo I see Leisl using on her website. HOAX. Like?

Thank you for all the encouragement via Facebook. You all rock!

Update on September Goal

I can't type the word goal without shouting it in my head in the voice of a Spanish dj following a soccer game. GGGGOOOOOAAALLL!!!!

Even though I worked over 55 hours last week, I've edited 155 pages of BNI. I need to rewrite one scene and I'm cutting about five pages. So about 1/2 way there. Thanks for all the encouragement. 

What else is going on? I took a vacation day yesterday to attend my husband's graduation. Bachelor in protecting computer info after just under four years of working hard. We're so proud of him! He's celebrating by playing his latest addiction Borderlands 2.

Mouthy Git

I told my local writing chapter today that I'd be submitting BNI, the first book in my Amazon series, to Carina Press this month. That when I come to the October meeting I wanted them to ask me if I'd not only submitted it but had I heard back yet.

That writing chick Amberly is a mouthy git. Just saying.

It's been in different stages of done for awhile now and the second book of the series is also done minus a polish so whats the hold up? They'll want the final book in the series! When will I actually find time to write it?

How do you find time to write? Feel free to share or cheer/jeer me on.

In the know about dog breeds

I was driving my daughter to school because she had missed the bus. She was chattering about the neighbor kids and I was vaguely listening as I obeyed all the traffic laws. *don't snicker*

“He says they are pimple dogs.”

“What?”

“Dave and me were—“

“Did you say pimple dogs?” I enunciated very carefully.

“Yeah.”

“Do you mean little fuzzy dogs that bark a lot?” My husband calls them footballs so why couldn’t my daughter call them pimples?

“No, like Superman. You know, pimple dogs.” She has this way of explaining things when she knows something I don’t know. Carefully, confident that with patience and time I'll finally catch up.

Superman is Dave’s dog, a sweet, dopey puppy the size of my car. I thought about it for a moment, looked in the review mirror in time to see her give me the raised eyebrows. “Pit bull?” I said it again, emphasizing the t and that it was two words.

“Yeah, pit bull. Superman is a pit bull.”

Yes, yes he is.

A Day for Dad

My dad is a series of sweet memories and the occasional ache of loneliness. He died when I was fifteen and throughout the years I’ve hit mile stones and wished he was there to experience it all with me. I love the way he laughed, how rowdy he was at sporting events and how fiercely he believed in working hard and treating people fairly. I think of him every time I mow the lawn, see a police officer (he served for almost twenty years) or even when I meet someone taller than me. See, since I’m not hanging with the NBA, not many people are taller than me at 5’11’ but my dad was 6’4’’ or 6’6’’. The height depends on who you ask. He taught me to drive. He taught me how to chop wood, make a fire, and walk down steep hills in the forest. He led by example and he loved my mother with a passionate giddiness that softened his strong persona. He whistled a very specific brief tune that I wish to god I’d asked what it was. No one knows but everyone can still hear it and him in their minds.

He was a marine, a cop, a dad, a brother, an uncle, a volunteer, a lover, a friend. More. He was amazing.

I’m still half stuck in the anger part of mourning for my mom. But I was never angry after dad died. He left on a Saturday and the next day I sat with my younger sister in a wooden pew and silently cried for the hour long church meeting; remembering how he sung off key but with pride. With a little coaxing, I’d talk him into sliding his wedding ring off his finger while they passed the sacrament. I’d fit his ring in turn to each of my ten fingers. Loose, even on my thumbs. My daughters get me to take off my ring, then fist their hands closed to keep the ring on their finger and hold it up to the light. The emeralds and diamonds spark light and they dream. I can see it in their eyes. And me? I ache a little, missing him.