Elizabeth Guest Interviews Stella Cameron

Elizabeth G: The title of this book, A COLD DAY IN HELL, it’s unusual for a Christmas story.

Stella: Are you trying to make a point?

Elizabeth G: No, no, just commenting.

Stella: I think you were trying to make a point. You don’t like the title of my new book. That hurts.

Elizabeth G: I hate it when you sulk.



Stella: Mmm. I’m not sulking–anymore. I’m not saying it now, but one day I’ll tell you what A COLD DAY IN HELL was supposed to be titled.

Elizabeth G: What? Tell me.



Stella: Nope. I’m very mature about things like this. I can accept change.

Elizabeth G: Come on, tell me.

Stella: You’re pressuring me. You know what happens when I get pressured. I have to go into a small room and hide. We’ve got this interview to do.

Elizabeth G: It’s a weird title.

Stella: Maybe it fits the book. Drop it. Ask me something meaningful.

Elizabeth G: Where do you get your ideas?

Stella: That’s not funny. Where does anyone get an idea. From my head.

Elizabeth G: Where did you get this idea?

Stella: Okay, be difficult. I love Christmas. All the glitter and sparkle, the music and the grins on children’s faces. People are kinder during the Holidays. Communities come together. A COLD DAY IN HELL takes us back to Pointe Judah in Louisiana and the whole bunch of folks who live there. I thought about the time of year and about Eileen Moggeridge. She’s divorced and working hard to make a good life for her son, Aaron, and herself. This time of year brings lots of customers into her little store and she’s happy and hopeful, especially hopeful because she’s met Christian deAngelo–Angel, as everyone calls him.


Elizabeth G: Is Angel a hunk?

Stella: Grrrr, one track mind. Yes, he’s a hunk. Ex ATF operative (Alcohol, tobacco, firearms and now, drugs) and was in the CIA before that. In fact, hmm, yes, Angel is a hunk with a clear mind and he always knows what he wants. He wants Eileen–even if he isn’t quite sure how much commitment he ready for.

But along comes a big, fat, frosty spider with revenge in mind. The spoiler who could smash everything apart.

Elizabeth G: Now I’m starting to shiver a bit.

Stella: Wait till you come eye to silver-eye with the shape shifter. Is he malevolent, or a guardian? I’m not going to tell you so don’t ask. And there’s Chuzah, the root doctor (voodoo practitioner), he’s wildly wonderful–I just revel in that guy.

But it’s Angel and Eileen who have me captured and did from the start. They seem so different but they’ve both been through a lot and they’ve both got guts. They matter as people. Angel has a boy, Sonny, who is supposedly his nephew and who has become a problem between Eileen and Angel because Sonny is a close friend of Eileen’s boy, Aaron, and she’s not sure Sonny is a great influence. Sonny grew up in New York and his father was in the mob. He’s being deliberately kept out of site.

Elizabeth G: It’s going to be a real love story, isn’t it. That’s what takes Eileen and Angel through all this.

Stella: You’ve got it in one. I hope everyone will sink in and feel the spirit that twinkles in the story. And I want them to go to the Holiday street fair and buy goodies with the townsfolk. But most of all I want them to be cheering for Eileen and Angel–who might not have gotten into that bathtub (of course, together) if they’d known all the possible outcomes:)

Elizabeth G: Thanks, my friend. Try to behave yourself for a bit.

Stella: Nya, nya, nya, NO, I won’t.

Happy Holidays, everyone,

Stella

JAYNE BRINGS YOU VICKI LEWIS THOMPSON

Jayne, here to introduce you to a good friend of mine, VICKI LEWIS THOMPSON, who writes very sexy romantic comedy. If you're looking for something a little different with a clever paranormal twist, you're going to love this book!

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First of all, I'm thrilled to be blogging here today! Thanks for giving me a quill and letting me run around with it. When I was a kid I found a gull feather during a family beach vacation and did my level best to fashion it into a quill. The other kids were playing in the sand and splashing in the water, but I was holed up in the cottage making a quill. I had a pot of ink and everything. I finally concluded the original quill makers knew something I didn't, because that feather never worked right.

A computer, however . . . I confess I'll throw over the whole quill concept for a decent laptop. I've been around long enough to remember when we worked on typewriters. Yikes. Yes, Virginia, there really used to be manuscripts created on typewriters. I have two to my credit.

Problem is, computers make us feel invincible. A book in a couple of months? No problemo. Laptops go everywhere—the beach, the mountains, the airplane, the cruise ship (yeah, I've done that). That's how we get into pickles like having a deadline a mere week after the release date of our current book. In the world of electronic creation, anything seems possible.

OVER HEXED came out from NAL October 2. My current WIP, the third book in the series that begins with OVER HEXED, had a due date of October 9. Sure, we're constantly juggling writing and promotion, but to have the two coincide to that degree is . . . insane.

When I agreed to it, I was guilty of magical thinking. Not surprising, considering that my new series, a departure from the nerd books, is a paranormal. When you've seen the publishing world morph from typewriters to the Internet, from handmade bookmarks to book videos on YouTube, magic isn't such a stretch. Anything's possible, including writing the last third of one book while promoting the hell out of the book that's landing on the shelves.

I'll wager that the RWQ crew has dealt with similar issues at one point or another, depending on everyone's personal degree of magical thinking. Maybe it's not only writers who pack our schedules now that we have pagers and BlackBerries and cell phones that do everything but scratch our backs. Do you ever bite off more than you can chew? Make me feel better and fess up!

All the best,
Vicki Lewis Thompson

Retreat!

Hey everyone!
This weekend I'm giving the blog over to my dear friend Janice Maynard. Not only is she super nice and mega talented, but she's generous and funny and always great company. She's truly one of my most-favorite people!
Heeeerreee's.... JANICE!

Greetings Quills and Quill-ettes!
It's an honor for me to be blogging with you this week.
At the risk of sounding gushy, I have to say that I LOVE the name of this blog... wish I had thought of it first.


Thanks bunches to Lori for inviting me to hang out for a bit...
I am tickled pink to be in a Christmas anthology with her. I love the holidays and can't wait to start playing my Christmas CD's.
If I do it too soon, though, my hubby gives me disgusted looks. Ha!


I write very sexy romances for NAL... my next one, The Perfect Ten, will be out in January. I set it in the beautiful city of Asheville, North Carolina - one of my favorite places.

In addition to a crazy writing life, I have a hubby and two daughters, the elder of which blessed us with two beautiful granddaughters. As you can see from the pic, I am trying to indoctrinate them into the reading habit early. This shot was taken on Columbus Day when the daycare was closed and "Nana" got to keep them overnight.



When I was debating what to blog about, I decided to share something coming up that will be brand new for me. I am going on a week-long writers' retreat November 4-11... wow - a whole week devoted to nothing but writing! I won't be able to do laundry. I'll have to pay all the bills before I leave. No meals to worry about, no raking leaves, no housework, period. Just me and my trusty computer. Sounds wonderful - right?



Or is it scary? I'll have to have something to show for this pristine block of time, or I will feel so guilty!! I had hoped to finish my current WIP, so that I could work on new stuff/fun stuff during the retreat, but alas, that's not gonna happen. I typically turn in my books well ahead of deadline, but due to a worse than usual travel schedule the last few months, I am behind.



Now for the good part... did I mention that this retreat will be taking place at a large house right on the beach at Isle of Palms, South Carolina? Or that Erin McCarthy and I are rooming together... or that Stephanie Bond and Rita Herron and Susan Goggins and Anna DeStefano will be there (and 6 or 7 others). It's the ultimate girls' week, but with a very serious purpose - to write!! And to brainstorm, and to plan, and to write, and to revise, and to write. I'm really looking forward to it - can you tell?? For someone who sits alone in a chair with a laptop all day, the chance to talk to real grown-ups will be a treat.



I had envisioned bundling up and walking on the beach, but at the rate we're going here in the south, it may still be warm enough to swim!! Sheesh..



So that brings me to today's question... if you had a week to get away for a retreat, how would you design it? If you wanted to recharge your batteries, where would you go - what would you do?? Each of us is different... some people want solitude, some crave crowds. Do you have to have television? Internet? Let your imagination run wild, and give us the scoop.



And as an incentive, I'll offer one randomly selected blogger a copy of Improper Etiquette.



I can't wait to hear everyone's imaginary plans, and I'll even keep my fingers crossed that at least some of those fantasy wishes may come true!



Thanks again for letting me visit with the Quills.



Until next time,
Janice Maynard

ELIZABETH AND FIRE

Since I finished my book in early September...

I've spent three weeks in Canadian waters on our boat

Came back to Anacortes for three days

went to Seattle to meet with publisher and VP

went to Hawaii for eight days

went back to Seattle to meet with agent (or did I get that reversed?)

drove back to Anacortes for three days to pack up the house

drove to Placerville for three days to visit grandkids for son's 40th birthday

drove to Sedona...

Oh, wait. Halfway through the drive to Sedona we turned around and went back to CA to help my sister with a family emergency.

Three rather exhausting days later, we drove for 12 hours to Sedona. Home almost long enough to unpack and southern CA goes up in flames.

We have family and friends there. They are all under mandatory evacuation.

All safe, thank God.

We're holding our breath on their houses and businesses.

And during all of the above, there were contract negotiations for next two books.

Ah, life.

Gotta love it.

And there goes the @#$%^(*&^%$#!!!! phone again...


Hope y'all are safe with those you love.

C'EST MOI. STELLA'S BACK!

And I am so grateful to be an American and to live in America.

This is a fabulous country. I love it here. It's great to go traveling, but so nice to come home.

Belgium has lace, chocolate, and the shops close early. Switzerland has cheeses, chocolate, and the shops close early. France has Paris, croissants, and the shops close early. England has Posh Spice . . . um . . . um . . . fish and chips, and who-knows-when-the-shops-are-open?

America has whatever you want, whenever you want it.

Stella is shallow. Stella is self-indulgent. Stella is spoiled, soft, greedy, gluttonous, and ungrateful.

Oh--no--she's--not!

Oh--yes--she--is!

And for those who never saw a Punch and Judy show, or a corny stage review when the master-of-ceremonies split the audience into opposing halves and got them yelling at each other--you haven't missed much. Anyway, we're in an election cycle so you can watch how this works any day, and all day.

That's another reason I'm crazy about this country. We hold the longest, nuttiest, nastiest, most entertaining elections in the world. And they're free. And they're fair. One person=one vote counted for a specified candidate.

I digress--frequently. Sorry about that. My recent journey to see family and friends across the sea was such a blast. If I didn't fear cries of "plagiarism!" I'd write, Boy Howdy:)

In England, a dear cousin and her husband gave a party for us and invited every family member and friend of ours they could find. With six of us in the room it got a tad hot.

Bad, bad--we had a big, lovely celebration that felt like Christmas in September. There's nothing quite like seeing folks you've known all your life having fun and telling bad jokes. I love every one of them.

In France, we stayed with wonderful friends who moved to Paris a couple of years ago. Wow, do the French know how to cook, eat, dress, drink, talk fast and--they are just good at stuff. A cup of coffee in a sidewalk cafe with some of the best people-watching in the world passing by is one of life's "musts."

Then, in America, the lavatories almost always flush, showers produce enough water--hot water--to wash an entire body of any size, homes are mostly watertight, warm in winter and cool in summer, and people don't often die of curable diseases because they can't get timely health care.

And when it comes to food in America, what more do we need than pizza and hamburgers?

Happy Fall,
Stella

What do you like, or not like, most about America?
If you could choose to live anywhere in the world, where would that be?

Susan's First Job

When I was ten years old new people moved into the Johnson house next door. Their names were Marilyn and Butch. I thought they were SO cool. For starters they were a good decade younger than the rest of the parents on our block. Plus they had this darling little three year old daughter named Elizabeth, which was WAY neater than a dog. Everyone had a dog in my neighborhood; there weren't that many toddlers. Butch was an artist and he made me a sign for my bedroom door that had Susie spelled out in animals. And I thought Marilyn was so glamorous. But even better, she was generous with her attention. She spent time sitting on her front porch talking to me, patiently answering my questions and never once treatinig me as if I were a pesky kid, which I no doubt was.

(This is actually my mom & me. Couldn't find a pic of Marilyn in that era)

She also gave me my first job babysitting Elizabeth. Looking back, ten seems awfully young to babysit. But I grew up in a neighborhood where you didn’t have to worry about shouldering responsibility all on your own. Most of the women on our block in that era were housewives. And there was always one available to turn to if you ran into trouble.

Good thing, too. Cuz I definitely ran into trouble with that first babysitting gig.

Elizabeth was used to me; I was always hauling her all over the neighborhood to show her off to my friends. So at first we did well together. I played with her and fed her dinner and played with her some more. And she had a fine time.

But then came bedtime. Elizabeth was accustomed to her mother putting her down for the night and did NOT take kindly to me attempting to do so in Marilyn’s place. She cried. So I picked her up and carried her around, patting her back and doing the “Shh, shh, shh” thing.

She cried some more.

So I tried singing to her.

She cried even harder. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it was my voice. More likely, though, it was just a toddler being looked after by someone who was basically a little kid herself, and both of us feeling in over our heads. All I know for sure is that she cried and cried as if her heart was broken. And pretty soon, so did I.

I don’t remember now where Marilyn and Butch went for the evening, but I remember that Mom wasn’t home, either, and that I didn’t even want to call in the big dogs in the form of my dad and grandpa. This was a girl issue.

So I called Mrs. Yoder, our neighbor on the other side. I sobbed the whole sorry story into the phone, and bless her heart, she came right over. I think it took her all of two minutes to calm down Elizabeth, who promptly fell into exhausted slumber. Then she mopped up my face, had me blow my nose and settled me on the couch, where I fell asleep as well minutes after she left to go home.

I babysat Elizabeth over the next several years and we never again had that kind of melt-down. When I was sixteen, I got my first job where I had to actually report tax earnings. It was with a neighborhood doctor and I’m happy to report I had no meltdowns there, either.

First jobs can be exciting, fun, harrowing, terrifying. Which was yours? And is there an adult from your childhood whom you remember with particular fondness?

Elizabeth G: Dancing in the Streets

I’m going to bare my soul and confess that I’m one of those people who simply can’t dance. I tell myself it’s because of my big feet and my bad knees, but the truth is I’m just not very coordinated. Never have been.

Heaven knows I've tried. I signed up for modern dance lessons back in high school. (An unmitigated disaster.) In college I lost out on the role of Ado Annie in “Oklahoma” because I couldn’t dance. (I could, however, belt out a song all the way to the back row of a huge auditorium without a microphone, so I made it to the final round before being eliminated.)

For a while I planned to run off and become a Broadway musical star, hoping that my singing and acting talents would make up for what I sadly lacked in the dance department. They didn’t, and Broadway became one my "roads not taken.”

So imagine my surprise and delight when I opened the newspaper one morning last week and discovered “Dancing Matt.”

Who, you may ask, is “Dancing Matt?”

Well, apparently he’s Matt Harding, a thirty-year-old video-game developer and internet phenomenon who has traveled the globe doing a sort of awkward jig, a jig which has been video-taped and broadcast worldwide via YouTube, a jig even I could do. Matt has danced anywhere and everywhere from the giant tortoise-inhabited Galapagos Islands to the sand dunes of Namibia, from Easter Island to Kilimanjaro, from the Antarctica to Zanzibar. Meanwhile, someone — his current sponsor is Google Earth — snaps Matt’s photo or takes video footage that is then shared with the rest of us.

I want to be “Dancing Matt.”

Yes, I realize it’s wishful and wistful thinking on my part. Yes, I know it’s utterly unrealistic. Yes, I’m aware that traveling today is often more of an endurance test than a mystical experience. But some part of me — the vagabond in my soul part — wants to take the night train to Katmandu, climb up into the remote regions of the Himalayas, explore the mysteries of Angkor Wat, and sleep under the starry skies of the Serengeti.

Sigh.

Right now, of course (referring back to those gimpy knees of mine) I’m making do by watching “Dancing Matt,” and reading one of my bedtime favorites: 1000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE by Patricia Schultz.

So Inquiring Minds want to know: Where are some of the places you would still love to see in your lifetime? Do you have a “road not taken” in your past?

And here’s to "dancing" in all its myriad forms!
EG

JAYNE WELCOMES SHERRYL WOODS

Jayne, here, to welcome author Sherryl Woods to RWQ. If you haven't had a chance to try one of Sherryl's books, you don't know what you're missing! She writes wonderful stories of women dealing with the kinds of issues that every woman understands intuitively are the most valuable things in the world: relationships, families and friends. The underlying theme in her work is the importance of community and it is certainly at the heart of her terrific new release, MENDING FENCES.

I'll let Sherryl tell you a little about her book:

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Finding a community where you are

If any of you have moved around a lot or changed jobs frequently, I suspect you've discovered the importance of community, a word I equate in many ways with a circle of friends as well as with a place. This blog is one community, and I am so grateful to Jayne and all the other wonderful authors on here for letting me stop by.

My own experience with the importance of community goes back to childhood, when I actually grew up in Northern Virginia in a large apartment complex which also housed my grandparents a few doors away, two of my mother's brothers and their wives and kids in other apartments and two great-aunts in yet another unit. I suppose it was a bit like growing up on a commune way before any of us knew what those were. What I do remember is that neither my cousins nor I could get away with misbehaving without some adult in the family noticing and reporting back to our parents. Or, in the case of my grandfather, calling us in for a stern lecture. My cousins Billy and Jimmy got more of those than I did. Even they will admit that.

At any rate, from that time on I had a healthy respect for family ties and community. And yet, I grew up and moved away as so many of us have. I built a life in Ohio, then later in Florida and even now split my time between two communities -- one in Florida and another in the Virginia town where I spent summers as a child. No matter where I am, though, I need that circle of friends and I also like writing about the same thing in my books.

Whether it's the three lifelong friends who appeared in my Sweet Magnolias series from MIRA Books last winter or the next-door neighbors in my latest book, Mending Fences, in stores now, friendships and community are at the core of many of my stories. In Mending Fences, however, that friendship is severly tested.

Marcie Carter and Emily Dobbs have shared joy and heartache over the back fence. They've vacationed together, planned backyard barbeques for the neighborhood. And their kids have been best friends as well. All of that is suddenly put to a test when Marcie's son, Evan, is accused of date rape. Emily is as stunned as Marcie by the charges, but as the investigation unfolds, she realizes that Evan has become a boy she hardly recognizes. And, far worse, she is forced to face the terrible possibility that her own daughter might have been one of his victims. Complicating matters is her attraction to the detective who is trying to see Evan convicted for his crime.

As these two strong women face the rifts in their own marriages and the devastating secrets around them, their friendship somehow endures. In some ways, it is Dani, Emily's daughter, who shows them the way to forgiveness. I hope you'll enjoy meeting these wonderful women as they try to move forward with their lives, even as they wrestle with issues that no mother should ever have to face.

As I wrote Mending Fences, I wanted to create an online community for women to talk about the issues that are important to them. You can find find this community on my website, www.sherrylwoods.com or you can go there directly at www.JustBetweenFriendsblog.com. Stop by when you can. Share a comment on any of the topics that have been posted so far or contact us to suggest a topic that matters to you. If you'd like to write a blog entry, let us know that as well. All of the information for doing that is on the site. I hope you can join us at this virtual backyard fence and share your ideas. And, like all good communities, I hope we'll make you feel welcome.

Sherryl Woods

The leaves are falling...

I love this time of year. The colors, the brisk air,
the... Trick or Treating!



My boys loved dressing up when they were young, and I loved coming up with fun costumes for them. Every year they chose their favorites, from pirates and cowboys, to Frankenstein and a mad scientist. There were also the usual Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, and Superman!

Now they're all grown, and where we live, the houses are really too far apart for us to get any little ones asking for candy. But this year I have a two year old grandson, so I felt justified in decorating!


We put out several pumpkins and goards on hay bales, framed by corn stalks. I even wrapped it all in orange lights, and I have to admit, it looks neat!
We have ghosts and bats, but they're the smiling kind, and our wind sock is a really colorful guy!

I also wound decorative autumn garland through the front porch rails, and we put up a scarecrow... or two or three!
My grandson named them!

Have you noticed the current trend of dog costumes!? Every store has them. My dogs would never tolerate it, but look at some of these cuties:










What about you? Do you decorate for Halloween? Do you have little ones who dress up and go Trick or Treating? Do you dress up your doggie?
Ever made a costume yourself?
A lot of adults dress up, or attend costume parties. I never have, but what about you?
And lastly, what's your FAVORITE costume, either that you wore, or that your child has worn?


I hope everyone is having a wonderful Fall! Drink some hot chocolate with whipped cream or marshmallows, or hot apple cider, and watch those pretty leaves fall!

Katherine Stone Introduces WritersareReaders.com

Greetings to one and all, and many thanks to the lovely Ladies of the Quills for inviting me to share our exciting new project.

Here's the back story: After a very enjoyable 21-book career, I decided to give retirement a whirl...to play with a certain cocker spaniel -- and husband -- and build a house.

Somewhere along the line, my husband (novelist Jack Chase) and I came up with an idea for a web site that was too tantalizing to resist.

It's WritersareReaders.com, a publisher of book reviews written exclusively by published authors. The site is free to everyone. There are no "paid-for" reviews. It's the reviewer who chooses what book to review, a selection made from the universe of books he or she happens to read.

Negative reviews aren't excluded, but we're finding it's the "wow" book that authors are choosing to review. The book that -- as lifelong readers now armed with enhanced appreciation for what it takes to write -- they've marvelled at and want to share.

For readers (such as me), this is like wandering through a virtual garden party, bumping into favorite author after favorite author and, when posing the oft-asked question -- "What good books have you read lately?" -- getting a specific reply, in the familiar voice and style of each author.


The reviews themselves are a pleasure to read. Imagine, if you will, reviews written by Stella Cameron, Lori Foster, Susan Andersen, and Jayne Ann Krentz.

I've already discovered new and terrific authors as a result of reviews we've received.

So far, for the November 1 launch, the reviewers include many perennial New York Times bestsellers with, in aggregate, many hundreds of millions of books in print. An impressive group, indeed, and an eclectic one: romance, mystery, thriller, women's fiction, suspense. Our hope is to create a vast reservoir of literate, entertaining reviews reflecting the talent, insights, and widely varying writing styles of the professionals who submit the reviews.

http://www.writersarereaders.com/ should be up and running November 1. We would love to have visitors -- and feedback. Yes, there will be a blog: Readers are Writers.

We hope you'll enjoy the site, and visit often. New reviews will be posted as we receive them.

Thank you again, and all best wishes,

Katherine Stone


P.S. After I sent her this blog, that incredibly gracious Lori Foster wondered if there might be a little cover art I might like to add? It turns out that my final book, Caroline's Journal, which was published in hardcover a year ago will be out in paperback in a month or so. The cover is lovely, I think, and right for for what's inside. The story is emotional, sentimental, but -- as with all my books -- despite my having thrown all sorts of obstacles in their paths, the intrepid characters find their happy endings. Caroline's Journal is actually my favorite book, for all sorts of personal (emotional) reasons, the primary one being that it's about the love of a mom for her baby girl.

How Susan ended up with a bad case of tub trauma

I'm a bath person. The soul mate likes showers. For years we had one bathroom, which he, I and our son managed to work around just fine. Yet I dreamed of not having to get up in the middle of the night to traipse from the bedroom, across the landing, down the stairs, through the dining room, through the kitchen, through the front part of the living room, across the hallway and into the bathroom just to answer nature's call. So several years ago we added a dormer to the south side of our Arts and Crafts house to match the one on the north side, and I finally--finally!!--got my very own bathroom. With an old-fashioned claw foot tub that I bought in an antique store and a toilet seat that never goes up unless it's to clean the thing.

Heaven.

The project took nearly three months to construct and the last thing to go in was my tub. The minute our plumber left, I drew myself a bath, grabbed a book, and climbed in.

I'd been lounging there for maybe five minutes when I felt this sort of THUMP against my right shoulder blade. I shot upright, looked around and thought what was that--an earthquake tremor? But nothing else happened, so I relaxed back in my lovely, hot, chest-deep water again.

Then a minute later there was an ominous rumble. I was just thinking "Oh, this can't be good," when the entire bathtub started tipping over onto its side.

Heart thundering, I leaped out in a wave of water to find the front and back claw feet on the right had fallen off. Luckily they tumbled onto their sides and caught the tub at about a 45 degree angle before it could rip all my newly installed plumbing out of the newly tiled floor.

When my husband got home that night he got the three-hundred pound cast iron tub back upright with block and tackle. He ran steel straps from claw foot to claw foot to keep them from ever falling off again, but I insisted that he not only leave the blocks underneath for support, but stay in the room while I took my first post-cataclysmic bath, just to make sure it didn't toss me out on my naked butt again.

Little by little, over the years, he snuck the blocks out from under the tub, but it took about thirty months before I let him remove the last one. That was three or four years ago and. . .so far, so good.

How about you? Bath or shower person? And have you ever had what's supposed to be an inanimate object turn frisky on you?

Elizabeth G. welcomes Shirley Jump

I first met Shirley Jump ten years ago at the national RWA conference in Chicago. We've been friends ever since. At the time Shirley was a multi-published author in nonfiction: We're talking 2000+ articles and several books. Since then she has become multi-published in fiction. In fact, her 19th, 20th and 21st romance novels are coming out respectively in October, November and December 2007. Shirley currently writes for Harlequin Romance, Harlequin NEXT, and Zebra. Please welcome Shirley Jump to RWQ.


BUELLER…BUELLER…WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

My daughter had to watch, of all things, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as an assignment. She had to pick a favorite movie, analyze it for cause and effect, as well as character, and write a paper for English. I haven’t seen this movie in at least ten or fifteen years, but it was just as fun to watch now as it had been back when I was her age.

Since she had to do this analysis, we watched the movie once all the way through, then a second time scene-by-scene, with writer mommy helping if she got stuck on anything, which she rarely did.

I laughed out loud every time the classic "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?" line came on. Relived a bit of my high school days when the movie showed the droning teachers and the glassy-eyed students suffering through American history.

But when I got to the end, the grown-up in me wondered how Ferris Bueller turned out after the movie ended. Did he marry Sloan? Or did their high school romance fizzle when they got to college and met new people? Did Cameron survive his father’s wrath over the wrecked Ferrari? Or did he get kicked out of the house and end up forced to live on the streets and beg for his meals?

Then the writer in me began concocting all kinds of sequels, a la Ferris Bueller Grows Up. I realized, of course, that the writers never made that movie because a guy who lives like Ferris does wouldn’t make a very good adult. You couldn’t blow off a day of work through a series of lies and subterfuges, only to go sing songs on a parade float in downtown Chicago and still look like a sane adult. He’s not the same sympathetic hero when he’s a shiftless adult skipping out on a job and dodging the boss man. But it’s still fun to wonder what a kid who was so ingenious as a teen would be like as a grown-up.

I love to do that with movies (more so than books, because if the book is really good, then I feel like I got the whole story and don’t have the urge to make up a "what happens next"). I walk out of something like Cold Mountain and make up my own happy ending because I wasn’t satisfied with the one I saw on the screen. Or I sit through The Family Stone and imagine everyone five, ten years down the road. I try to imagine where the dumped exes end up in movies like You’ve Got Mail and Must Love Dogs (I felt sorry for them getting dumped, and want everyone to be happy).

It’s a habit that drives my husband crazy. When he’s done with a movie, he’s done. Finito. The credits roll, let’s get out of the theater, into the car and back home before the popcorn finishes digesting. But me, I love to twist and turn the story around in my mind and see all the other possibilities for what could have happened, or what might happen down the road. And now, in my daughter, I have a partner in those what happens next thoughts.

Ferris Bueller’s adult future--the result of all these things he did as a teenager--won’t be in my daughter’s cause and effect paper, but his "what happened next" storyline will be one that she and I will bandy about for days to come, as we figure out our own little plot for Ferris. It’s already inspired lots of great conversations, and a whole lot of inside jokes, just between her and I. And the best part? There’s been an extra bonus for me, that even she doesn’t know.

We’ve been able to bond a little more. And all because of "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?"

What about you? Do you rewrite movies and books after you’re done with them? What are some of the stories you’ve had the most fun imagining a new ending or an epilogue for?