Okay, I admit it, I have some wild and crazy friends. One of the things I both love and sometimes don’t love about this bunch is that they push me out of my comfort zone. Sometimes waaay out. Which is how I find myself today going clothes shopping to several stores I have never before been inside.

Gulp.

Here’s a hint, they sell a lot of black – leather, pvc, mesh and so on. One was called Dare to Wear.

I could let out my inner Barbarella...

This is because I am joining said crazy friends at a club on Saturday called Sin City. I would send you photos of me (snort) but no photos are allowed in this club. There is, I am told, an area downstairs called the dungeon. I would wear my normal twin set and pearls, but it seems there is a dress code. Show up in fetish gear or go home. Apparently, twin sets and pearls constitute a different kind of fetish. Hmm.

Of course, I am going in the name of research. And I hear the dancing there is really great. Naturally, I will report back. Hopefully not from the dungeon!

Update on the shopping trip: I actually did really well at H&M. Got a darling little black dress covered in metal studs, which is apparently all the rage. Who knew? And black chunky heels that I will never be able to walk in.  Long black gloves and a friend is lending me her red wig. Should be fun.

Anybody  have any experience of these kind of clubs?

What’s the craziest thing your friends have ever talked you into?

Tell all!

Your intrepid researcher,

Nancy aka Nancarella

First off, congrats to all the RT nominees for Best Blaze and to Leslie for lifetime achievement! That’s great news.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about movies. I think it’s the time of year that you simply have to dust off your favorites and maybe try some new holiday movies out. For me, my must sees are: It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (the one with Alistair Sims. It’s old, but when Alistair as Scrooge laughs and giggles at the end it’s one of the best moments in movie history IMO), and Miracle on 34th Street. So, when they asked me to write a NASCAR Christmas novella, I wrote  a story that very much plays off Miracle on 34th Street. It’s in a collection called A Very NASCAR Holiday with Debra Webb and Gina Wilkins and we all had a lot of fun with the stories.

Recently, I’ve also added Love, Actually to my must see list. I find something new to love in that film every time I see it and I adore the way all the stories and lives intertwine and so many kinds of love are on display. Plus, it’s got an astonishing number of sexy men in it: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth…excuse me while I wipe the drool off my chin … Liam Neeson and Alan Rickman to name a few items I wouldn’t mind finding in my Christmas stocking. Then last night I watched a movie I haven’t seen before, Four Christmases with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughan. A very modern dilemma is faced by a couple who always avoid the ordeal of dysfunctional family by going on holiday, but this year are forced to visit all four divorced parents on the big day. Not sure it will end up as an annual must-see. but the movie was good for a few chuckles and had a nice message.

What are your favorite holiday movies? And why?

Which brings me to my message to you. However you celebrate this time of year, I hope it’s filled with good things, like books and movies and friends and food and, of course, family. Happy Holidays to my fellow Blaze babes and all our readers. 

Love Nancy

After reading Heather’s fun post the other day about exotic travels, complete with sexy half naked guy –
I thought about how important it is for us writers to fill the well. I find traveling is one of the best ways for me, and obviously Heather would agree. I meet new people, get shaken out of my routines and am constantly challenged. Right now, I’m in Portugal. Evora, which is a lovely old walled city with an existing temple to Diana from Roman times. I was in a church today where you could look into the ossuary and see the monks’ bones and skulls stacked like firewood. I thought to myself, you dedicate your whole life to God and this is how you end up?

My November Blaze, Power Play is also the result of traveling. Much more directly, since the book came about when some other writers and I went on a writers’ retreat and had to be moved out of our lovely cabin into rooms a busy lodge doesn’t rent out because the cabin turned out to have bed bugs!! The management took all our clothes away to be cleaned and brought out a plastic Rubbermaid bin with lost and found written on it. Yep, my wardrobe for the next three days was out of the lost and found bin. My room had a big curtain and behind it about ten plastic buckets to catch the torrents of water from the leaking roof. You really can’t make this stuff up, so I didn’t. I used it for the basis of Power Play. In my story the heroine gets double booked into that very room with a sexy cop. In reality, I laid in bed listening to rain banging into plastic buckets and thought, what if… I think Jonah and Emily had a lot more fun.

Power Play is an RT Top Pick, so I’m happy about that, and itºs also part of a really fun New Orleans Sweepstakes through eHarlequin. You can win prizes up to $10,000, so check it out. I had a lovely photo to send you all, but sadly can’t figure out how to upload it. Must improve my Portuguese! You’ll have to imagine me, sitting with my laptop with a view of the Mediterranean in the background and, um, a bunch of sexy half naked guys all around me throwing out plot ideas. Honest!! Pictures can’t lie… In the meantime, happy reading.

Nancy

Perhaps that’s a rather pompous statement, but as we struggle through this recession and I know people who’ve lost their homes — lost their HOMES!! And lost jobs and seen a comfortable retirement go out the window, I’m reminded of why romance matters. When things are going well in my life, I can read lit fic with the best of them. Death? Madness? The hopelessness of existence? Bring it on. But when life’s road gets rocky and scary, I pull out my keepers. This summer, I reread every single Susan Elizabeth Phillips on my shelf (that would be every book she’s every published) most of my Georgette Heyers, all my Jane Austens and a huge shelf of fave category reads. (Thanks, fellow Blaze authors). Why, you might ask, did I plunge myself into unrealistic worlds where heroes are unlike any actual man on earth and the women are far pluckier than I am? Because I had the summer from Hell. A beloved aunt who is descending into Alzheimer’s. I’m the closest thing she has to a daughter, so I looked after her. She was sick, in hospital a lot, at the same time that people close to me were going through the Big Ones. Home loss, job loss, scary things. In my real life, I could be tough when I needed to be, could cope with hospital visits, hospital bureaucracy, an aunt who is very dear to me losing herself — oh, yeah, and a book deadline. But when I got home? I wasn’t going near any book that didn’t give me my Happy Place. And that would be romance. Sure, we can’t cure cancer, and we can’t prevent bad things from happening, but I know how many times I’ve received an email from someone thanking me for giving them a few hours break when they had a loved one who was sick or in hospital. This summer, I was one of those people. So thank you too all my fellow Blaze Babes for your wonderful books. You helped me get through a tough summer. I was reminded that our books matter.

Happy reading,

Nancy

It’s a strange, twisting journey sometimes, whether writing a book or living one’s life. We’ve all experienced the road that seemingly ends, only to reveal a new path to somewhere unexplored, the detour that turned out to be the correct way after all. As I’m in the middle of plotting a particularly complicated Blaze at the moment, — you know when you throw in a mystery plot without quite knowing how it all works out? – I’m discovering the joys and frustrations of the road that ends, the detour that takes me off the road I thought I was traveling and the pain of banging the head against a blank computer screen.

I think this way of seeing obstacles as hidden opportunities really came home to me yesterday as I was on a day hiking trip. We’d had one of those, What Else Can Go Wrong? mornings and finally  broached the trailhead up the last mountain road only to find the road blocked off. The reason? A toad migration! These tiny, one inch long, babies had to hop across the road as part of their journey – there were hundreds hopping across at one time –  and were being squished by the thousands until a band of volunteers got together to help.  For two weeks every year now, they block off the road and help the little guys on their way. There were kids and older folk all with ice cream pails picking up the toads that were heading for disaster and helping them cross the road. Naturally, we amused ourselves with Why Did The Toad Cross the Road jokes (all too lame to share). We took the alternate, non toad-killing route, hiked about three hours up a mountain and near the top, here were some of the toads who had made it.

Perhaps this isn’t the sexiest topic for a Blaze post, and believe me if I could find a photo of Hugh or Matthew posing with a small, humble toad, I would post it. Sadly, I could not find one. This is a photo my friend Kelly took yesterday on our route. I do think, though, that the connection between the toad experience and writing is significant. It’s the twists and turns, the unexpected surprise, the road less traveled, where the fun of life and writing is.

Until next time,

Happy reading,

Nancy

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because I’m always looking around in my real life for men who inspire me. In a purely literary way, naturally. (In case my dh is reading this.) While I never use people from real life as heroes, I do pay attention to qualities that I find sexy on the assumption that other women will too. There are the obvious ones we can mostly all agree on, like Hugh Jackman. Quite apart from his amazing good looks (can that poor man EVER make a movie without baring his chest? I’ve pretty much worn out my DVD on the bit in Australia where he pours water over himself. Now that’s romance porn.)

 But I also love the other things I know about him. He’s got a wicked sense of humor, is happily married to an older woman (you go, girl!) and he sings. Aaah.

Then there is the opposite end of the scale. My favorite yoga teacher at my studio is Will. He’s a young psych major who I’m pretty sure is gay, but I love the way he moves and how comfortable he is in his body. He also gave me some of the best writing advice ever. He often says when we’re in a difficult pose, ‘whatever is in your way, is the way.’ I’ve discovered this is very true of my characters and if I’m sort of stuck, I’ll look at where they are in life and what’s blocking their path. That’s the hurdle they have to overcome.

While looks and physique obviously attract us, it’s not enough in the end. Here are the top five attributes that really turn me on. I think these are in order…

1. Sense of humor. A man who can make me laugh can make me do pretty much anything.
2. Considerate (good manners). I hesitated between putting Intelligence in second place, but I actually think a man who can get through dinner without spending half of it on his cell phone, who is considerate of a woman and her feelings is powerfully sexy.

3. Intelligence. And it’s not just being smart, now, is it? It’s someone who is well read if not well educated, who knows where Machu Picchu is (extra marks if he’s actually been there.)

4. Good with his hands. And I do mean handy around the house. There’s just something about a man who can fix a sagging front step or knows why the car conked out on the side of the road that’s endearing.

5. Passionate. He loves what he does. Whether he’s a software engineer or an auto mechanic or a cowboy, he enjoys his work. He’s equally passionate about his sports and hobbies, and about his woman. (U) 

Well, those are my top five. At least they are today.

What are yours?

Nancy