The weirdest thing is happening to me. I’ve never experienced it before, and maybe it’s all in my head, but what can I say? It’s bizarre. And I’m going to share it with you.

It begins like this. I’m judging books for the RITA. I try to every year because I enter every year. Plus it forces me to read books I’d never pick up otherwise. I find it good to expand my reading palate, so to speak, and heck, who doesn’t like free books? I also feel like I’m a good judge, have a good handle on writing technique and market understanding, bladda bladda bladda. So, I picked up one of my RITA books to judge this morning.

I didn’t notice the correlation at first. It took me hours to figure this out-and again, maybe it’s all in my head-but I’m having an immune reaction to this book. Seriously. Every time I pick it up, my nose starts getting congested, I start sneezing, and my head begins to pound. Sure, I’ve read books that have made me feel nauseous and yucky. One of the first books on my judging list was (a) rather gross and really boring when it wasn’t gross. But I like this book. Let me repeat this. I like this book. It’s well written, interesting, and funny. And it makes me sneeze like you wouldn’t believe. I put it down, do some other things, and bam, I feel better. Nose clears up, headache recedes, and I think, okay, quit playing around, time to go back to reading. (Scores are due WAY too soon!) And then half a page in, I’m sneezing and feeling sick again.

WTF???? Fortunately, I’m into energy healing. I have some experience in dealing with the bizarre. So I did a short session on my reaction to this book. No real insights appeared, but I can now go 3-4 pages before I clog up. That’s progress, but not an answer. And I’m really not sure how I’m going to read and judge a 293 page book in 3 page increments. I can see my email to the coordinator now: Sorry I cannot judge this book. It makes me sneeze.

So here’s my question to you. Have any of you ever had an experience like this? Or other weird reaction to a book. What did you do? Best as I can figure, something in my psyche dislikes what I’m reading, but…wow, it’s certainly not in my conscious thoughts. Or am I just loopy?

A miracle has happened to me. Yes, a flat out miracle. I’ve found a diet that WORKS for me. Believe me, no one is more shocked. I’ve been on lots of different diets, most of them somewhat half-hearted. Mostly, my theory has been exercise to death and then eat what you want. That worked for a while until body parts started breaking. Knees, wrist, hip, feet. You name it, I’ve had pain there. And medication.

But the moment I started empty nesting, I began shifting my eating habits. Not out of intention but laziness. Yup. LAZY. That’s me. I hate cooking. Let me restate that. I HATE, DESPISE, DETEST and LOATHE cooking. So, I began eating fruits and vegetables because they required no cooking. My husband is a gem in that he will make a sandwich for himself or happily pick up semi-fast food on his way home. So, if I don’t want to cook, I don’t have to. And guess what? I didn’t want to.

So I began eating what I later learned was called a RAW DIET. All live food. Fruits, nuts, and veggies. And it turns out, it’s one of California’s newest diet crazes. Who knew I was being trendy? I thought I was lazy.

Well, this January I ended up going 100% raw. The reasons for this change are myriad, but it comes down to the energy work I do in my spare time. Everything has a vibrational rate. The higher the rate, the easier energy healing goes. Living foods have the highest rate. Dead foods have low rates. Ergo, eat living/raw food. Plus (added benefit), live foods tend to be alkaline (basic) as opposed to acidic. Diseases including cancer have a hard time living in alkaline environments. Since raw food reduces body acidity, it can have enormous health benefits.

In any event, I went raw. I bought a blender and have a smoothie for breakfast, huge salad at lunch, and whatever I feel like in the evening. Oh, and nuts all day long. (I LOVE NUTS!) I can eat all I want, whenever I want. But I’m not nearly as hungry, and the weight has been coming off. About 2 lbs a week which is a steady, safe pace. Plus, my energy work is better than ever. By a huge margin! Caffeine and dairy were the hardest to give up, but I really haven’t missed them that much.

Here’s my problem. This is supposed to be a LIFE STYLE choice, not a temporary diet. I’m doing fine because I’m sitting at home, writing my newest novel and going no where. Easy to not eat pasta and cheesecake because no one is offering it to me. What do I do when I travel? What about when a friend asks me out to lunch? My good writing reward was usually a lunch out with Elizabeth Hoyt at the end of the week. That’s gone now too. Do I really want to eat salad every day? That’s no fun when there’s chocolate mousse in the offering.

So…my question to you is what have you done when dieting AND dining out? Does the diet go out the window? Or do you typically find a compromise? And what about conferences? A week away on rubber chicken? Forget the diet, that gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it!

One day this holiday, a friend of mine handed me a book she had gotten from the library. It was urban lit with African-American characters and, she confided, it was badly written. “You should be doing these!” she declared. Now, I know that she meant that I was such a good writer, that I could be making millions if only I stepped into this other market. It didn’t matter to her that I’m not African-American and have no understanding of their experience. Nor did she understand that I was doing just fine in the romance market. She simply meant zillions of dollars could be had if only I wrote something else entirely.

I thanked her for her advice, of course, because that’s what polite people do, but inside I was thinking: would you tell a trial attorney that he ought to be in tax accounting because there’s money to be had there? Or perhaps you would suggest to a successful oil painter than he should slide into computer graphics because that’s a big market. Please tell me that this is true! Then I won’t think that writers get the bulk of the well-meaning but clueless advice.

Now if this was a one-time thing, I wouldn’t even be blogging about it. But over the years, I have gotten a few doozies. One of my relatives asked who reads my books. Ignorant secretaries? My mother once firmly told me that I should stop writing that historical romance trash and write real literature like Gone with the Wind. And my uncle, God love him, told me that I should stop writing romance and do something like the movie Sabrina. Oodles of money to be had there.

I know I should be grateful. Honestly, they’re taking an interest in my career and at least making conversation beyond, “Wow, the Bears really suck this year” and “why the hell did you dye your hair red?” I love my relatives and know that they don’t mean to hurt me when they ask, “So when do you plan on making the NY Times list?” (I’ve decided to schedule it in for 2012). I just needed to rant somewhere, so here it is. You’re subjected to it.

Now it’s your turn to share. Surely someone else has gotten well meaning but clueless advice this holiday season! Tell me! Please!

Well, I had to write this post ahead of time because I am, in fact, stuffing my face with my family. But in the off chance that someone who is NOT busy eating reads this blog, I’ve got something to ask.

What is something UNEXPECTED this year for which you are thankful?

Usually, I’m thankful that SOMEONE ELSE is making the food that is so fabulously arrayed before me. Usually, I’m thankful for my family and friends, my recent contracts, my generally wonderful life. Yadda yadda. Okay, so I’m blessed. But this year, something incredibly weird happened.

I’m thankful that I AM able to try and cook something this year. Yes, for my vegetarian daughter I’m going to try and cook a vegetable pot pie. The recipe was in Vegetarian Times to which we subscribe. But…you see, I don’t cook. Well, maybe microwave popcorn, but that’s the extent of it. In fact, I’m becoming something of a raw-ist not because of principle or anything like that. But because I’m too lazy to do more than pull spinach leaves out of a bag. Add some pre-shredded cheese and I’ve got dinner.

So the fact that I’m motivated to try to cook something as elaborate as pot pie…well, that is a shocker indeed. And kudos to whatever urge struck me hard enough to get off my duff and try. So THANK YOU to the mysterious urge. I’ll let you know later if the experiment causes other people to thank me for NOT doing this again next year.

UPDATE: Vegetarian Pot Pie was edible. Barely. Was welcomed to make it again for next year, so long as I’m not hurt when no one eats it. But I tried, so I feel like it was win!

Have you ever had that moment when you just won’t do it.?  It doesn’t matter what it is, you just aren’t going to do it.  In fact, it is probably more than one thing, and you’re not going to do any of them.  I’m in a refusal stage right now.  I’m just not going to go over my revisions again.  I’m just not going to clean the fracking house.  I’m just not not not going to do anything but play www.pogo.com.  So there.

So…my question to you…what time waster do you look to when you’re just not going to do anything? 

Currently, I’m playing computer monopoly.  I’m not even going to post this blog, I’m sending it to my assistant to post it.   I have also watched an entire weekend of Xena, Warrior Princess.  (And, I’m not going to look up the exact punctuation of that title either!) 

 

Note from Jade’s devoted assistant: Jade will be returning to her revisions shortly. Just as soon as I disable her pogo account. Again.

Okay, I’m frozen. I want to say something that will bring about world peace or end the recession. I want to talk about the great stories that are coming out of category romance, and still hit on multicultural, fantasy, historical, and cool dragon sex. But after a ton of angst, all I’ve come up with is how awesome it is to write romance.

We all know the horrors of the blank page. Even if it was just back in school, we’ve all stared longingly outside and wished whatever tedious writing assignment in front of us was done, burned, or eaten by dragons. Sadly, that feeling doesn’t go away. Every morning I think of doing something else (anything else!) I’d rather do than produce words. And yet, I still do it. Seven days a week, on vacation or off, in daydreams if not actually on paper.

What is my problem? I can’t imagine anything worse than getting up every day to a job I hate. The answer, obviously, is that I must not hate it. Authors–help me out here–am I lying? Don’t you get up every morning and go, yippee, I get to write XX today. But when it actually comes time to write XX, my first thought is to run screaming to the nearest cheesecake. And then, when I do force myself to write XX, it comes out as XOXO or 772 or something even more ridiculous.

In my career, I’ve written contemporary and historical, single title and category, sweet, sexy, and super sexy. And don’t forget the paranormal elements (go dragons!) that I often slip in. Plus, there’s always my fun never-to-be-published concepts like “Unusual Weres” (I was assigned the were-sloth. Authors, feel free to call dibs on other beasts. Were-sea anemone anyone? Care to bud with me?).

Okay, see right there is what I love about writing. I’m not even going to write this idea (unless someone calls and makes an offer) but I’m giggling at the thought. And even if I’m arcing a love story for a woman implanted with a dragon egg (Dragonborn), I still get to live in a world where I know people are going to overcome horrendous struggles, have great sex, and fall happily-ever-after in love. Not a bad place to hang out every day, even if it does include the horrible blank page.

My September Blaze Getting Physical is a really good example of the best and worst of writing. The story is about a woman struggling to get her life back together when the most wonderful and difficult roadblock appears: a sexy, tantric master. Raise you’re hand if you just snorted coffee. The Harlequin Blaze line is filled with this kind of funny, touching, and sexy concepts. The thing is, as much fun as hot sex is, it’s hard to build a life around the myriad ways to do it. Even more difficult for me was to explain the complex religious concepts behind Tantrism. And oh yeah, my heroine Zoe needs to build a career, a life, and a happily-ever-after that isn’t just about sex.

It’s no were-dodo bird, but Getting Physical was an incredibly challenging book to write with real life issues that had to be met and surpassed. After all, our characters have to earn their happily ever after, right? And that made it both incredibly fun to do and a struggle for every word.

I’m sure many of you have heard more than you can stand about RWA’s recent national conference. You’ve read the serious business discussions, reminisced about gatherings gone-by, and of course, celebrated the Harlequin ball where I threw out my hip doing the Time Warp. But don’t be afraid! What follows is NOT a serious discussion of market trends. Neither is it a lengthy discussion of my hip injury that is now much better, thank you. Nor will I rhapsodize about Harlequin’s offering of chocolate or how unexpectedly nervous I was to sit next to Brenda Chin at the Blaze lunch. (She’s wonderful, by the way, and I don’t know what my problem was.) No…what follows is…well, a story about how terrible my friends and I are, and how one must be very careful about “market trends.”

I’m not just a Blaze author. I also write for Dorchester books in their Leisure and Love Spell imprints. My editor is Chris Keeslar, who is young (well, younger than me), cute, and really, really easy to tease. It has become kinda of a thing for Dorchester authors to show up at the “Spotlight on Dorchester” workshop, wave happily when our books are mentioned, and quietly harass Chris however possible. How, you say, do you harass your editor “quietly”? Well, we tease him after the workshop for not mentioning our books a dozen or more times. We tell him we will never forgive him for not saying that all manuscript submissions must include the words: I have read ALL of Jade Lee’s books and I love them! And finally, we make funny faces at him when he’s trying to be serious. Yes, we are cruel, but he’s used to us.

Now I must say that I was NOT at this year’s spotlight. I did NOT hear the forthcoming exchange. But I DID participate in seeing that the harassment continued. Mostly by posting all about it on this blog.

During the workshop, Chris was talking about fantasy romance. (Hopefully, he mentioned DRAGONBORN and DRAGONBOUND by Jade Lee). He mentioned that he had not seen any unicorn books lately. This was not a request for more unicorn books, just a comment. However, a fabulous author decided this was a perfect time to tease Chris. Cindy Holby (Prism winner for TWIST) tweeted the urgent news that Chris Keeslar was DESPERATE for unicorn manuscripts. It was a joke. It was, however, picked up within moments by the Twitter community.

Not ten feet outside of the workshop, Chris was stopped by the first person to offer him a unicorn manuscript. She had heard that he was desperately looking for them. Cindy Holby was right there and burst out laughing because, as you all know, Chris’ in-box will now be filled to the brim with unicorns. I have since offered him a unicorn manuscript of my own. Sue Grimshaw of Borders Books promised to email Chris and ask for details on this new trend in unicorns. Feel free to contact him through Dorchester’s website, facebook page, and/or Twitter. (www.dorchesterpub.com) I’m sure he feels he needs to know your unique twist on unicorns.

The funny thing is…I’m sure he’ll end up finding one. Somewhere in the piles ane piles of gleaming white horses will be a gem manuscript. Hopefully, he won’t have to wade through tons of magical fluff before finding it! And…btw…THANK YOU CHRIS for being such a good sport!

Hello all! It’s me, Jade Lee, and I’m about to reveal a deeply held secret. Yes, truly. In fact, I’ve re-written this blog a few times wondering if I should confess this, but since I haven’t really got a better idea, you get my confession.
I am a driven individual. No really. Yeah, most people see me as happy and fun at parties. Well, I am, but I also write hard. I’ve been doing 3-4 books a year for a while now, plus promotion, conferences, and my real life. Sure, I love my career, but that’s hard work.
Summer for me has always meant the pounding, difficult, write-hard ramp up to RWA’s (Romance Writer’s of America) national conference. It’s always at the end of July (though they’ve made 2 weeks earlier this year), and it’s the entire focus of my schedule beginning in April. Why? Because that’s where I meet face to face with editors, publicists, and fellow writers. If I finish my current book by nationals, will I have space in my writing schedule for an anthology if a few of us get one together at the bar one night? Have I scheduled the appropriate meetings with editors so that I could pitch an anthology, linked series, or just another book? Have I gotten a proposal together so I have something to pitch? Have I lost enough weight to fit into my conference clothes?
My “summer” doesn’t start until I’ve come back from conference, slept for a week, and then taken stock of what happened so that I can plan the rest of my writing year until the next big conference. And by that time, we’re in mid-August and looking at the back-to-school ramp for my kids. So…for decades now, I really haven’t had a summer.
Except for this summer. My last book went in June 3. I have another due in September that I care a great deal about and I am working hard on! (That’s in case my editor reads this blog.) But beyond that, I’ve been spending June at a family reunion, a conference, and visiting with my college-aged daughter. She’s home for two weeks between semesters. My youngest child is now 18 and in her last months at home before she, too, goes off to college.
So, whereas before, I would spend my summers pounding the keyboard and stressing out, one simple, “Hey mom, you want a pedicure?” will derail me for an entire day. My last moments with my children are here. Of course I want a pedicure! It’s time spent with my kids. But it doesn’t stop with a pedicure. There’s shopping, meals, coffee breaks, DVDs, and just talking about their big plans for life. And it’s never-ending. As long as they’re here, I want to grab whatever seconds I can with them.
Except I have a deadline. Except conference is coming up. Except I’m supposed to be dieting. Except nothing. My kids are here and they easily slide me back into a lazy, hang-out-and-shop mode. Am I okay with that? Well, assuming I get my book done on time, I can take one conference easy, right? (And yes! I will get it done! I swear!) But for today, my youngest is asking about lunch. Maybe at that cute new café that has great salads and cheesecake. People just sit there and talk for hours…

Anybody out there watch American Idol? Okay, so yeah, I’m an Idol geek, but honestly, I really have been thinking a lot about what they mean by “artist” as opposed to “singer.” Or in my case, am I a “writer” who’s just crafting a credible story shape or an “artist?” Let’s be honest here, all romance has a general kind of structure and shape. Category even more so because it’s shorter. Blazes are just over half the length of my historicals. So, just on the basis of word count, there is less room to wander from the beaten romance path.

But there is still a lot of room for innovation, right? Of course so! Just as there is a lot of room for individual interpretation of one song or another. So…does that mean I’m an artist because I’m working to be innovative and special in my Blazes? Er…sort of.

“Artist” translates in my mind to the word “inspire”. I’m inspired to write the story on some level, and hopefully my reader is inspired when reading it. Every book has a message. Often, I’m not even aware of the message—in what I read or what I write—but it’s there, overtly or subtly. In romance, yes, it’s that love can fix anything (or makes even the crap feel less crappy). But every romance is equally about the search for love, how do you define true love (is it really just hot sex?), and why does this particular story deserve my attention? What does it have to say to me the reader (or what do I the writer have to say to the reader) to justify their money and their time? In short…how will the story inspire?

This is really hard! Inspiration is a lot more difficult to come by than perspiration. I can craft a credible story. I’ve been doing that for years. But something that inspires both me and the reader? Ack…that’s hard. And lately, it’s freezing me up. But without it, my writing feels flat.

Okay, yeah, so I’ve got a June 1 deadline and I’m whining. Really, I need to quit being so fracking cerebral and just finish the book. I can think about inspiration and artistry late at night with a glass of wine (whine). And maybe surrender to the muse and allow her to flow through me without so much of my brain interfering. (“Surrender” has been another key word for me lately.) See, that’s the hard part about the muse and me. She’s there, waiting to help. She is for all of you, too. But my brain gets in the way. I think about inspiration and artistry without opening up to the feeling of it. I would rather sweat rather than emote.

Okay, your turn. What does “artistry” mean to you?

I have a confession to make. I have not been reading the Blaze blog. You know why? I’m at the RT Convention in Orlando, Florida. I know I should have statistics for you saying how many readers, booksellers, and authors are here. Trust me when I say, “A lot.” The big signing today filled the ballroom to overflowing!
Harlequin threw a luncheon for everyone with expensive e-reader gifts and other promotions. We had a potato bar, by the way, which was a lot of fun. Mashed potatoes with lots of fixin’s. All the other romance publishers–print press, e-pub, and even graphic novels are here in some form or another. And I’ve spent time with librarians and booksellers alike, if you’re interested in the professional attendance. Of course, nothing can stop the fans from coming here, so yeah to readers! Especially since we’re all readers.
Most of my time here was spent on panels. I spoke about psychic phenomenon, erotica, fantasy romance, comic books, and…wow, everything else too! There was dancing (a lot), drinking (a LOT!), and amazing costumes for the fairy ball on Thursday, the vampire ball on Friday, and then Saturday is the pool party. Don’t know what I’ll see for that!
Frankly, at this point, I feel like I have to apologize. Since I spoke at the pre-con, I’ve been here since Monday and am now massively brain dead. I wish I had great gossip too, but frankly, I mostly talked books and sex and love and sex and readership and sex. And I fit a little shopping in there too!
So…until I get my brain back…can you share any of your great (or not so great) RT convention stories? And if any of you are here, well pull up a chair and let’s chat! It’s even better if you have a drink for me too!
— Jade Lee