Admittedly, I am always the one whose ears perk up when the word “party” is mentioned. I’m not so fond, as in I HATE, a huge annonymous soire but give me a group of good friends getting together to celebrate and I’m all over it. (H)

So, I had this blog planned around Christmas trees — as in real vs. artificial trees. The bottom line is that I’ve never had an artificial tree. Most of the people I know have artifical trees — nuthin’ wrong with that. I’m just a hold-out. Hey, I figure someone’s got to keep the tree farmers in business. I like me a real tree — and yes, I do recycle it to the mulch pile afterwards.

Anywho, I had this blog planned but then something truly exciting and party-worthy happened — Romantic Times announced their nominees for Best Blaze of 2009!!! Hel-lo. Being the Blaze blog, how could we possibly bypass this opportunity to celebrate the nominees and party down?

So, the champagne fountain is flowing, the martini bar is open and chocolate-dipped fruit is available to all. Pick your toast of choice and join me in saluting the RT nominated Blaze Babes (y’all do us proud!):

A LONG, HARD RIDE
Alison Kent (Mar.)

MAKE ME YOURS
Betina Krahn (Jul.)

SHE’S GOT IT BAD
Sarah Mayberry (Apr.)

LETTERS FROM HOME
Rhonda Nelson (Jun.)

HOT UNDER PRESSURE
Kathleen O’Reilly (Aug.)

And a special toast to Blaze Babe Leslie Kelly for her RT Lifetime Achievement Nomination.

So, join me in the party and in offering congratulations! (And hey, I’m still interested in whether you do a real tree or not )

I did my first ever podcast last week. Thrilling? Breathtaking? Terrifying? It turned out to be just like talking to my editor on the phone. Because I was talking to her on the phone. That’s how these things are done, apparently. She asked questions, I rambled on about my Blaze historical Make Me Yours, and, voilà, I podcasted!

Don’t even ask me what I said.

A writer friend asked me the same day if I had trouble in my first contemporary Blaze with using modern day technology in the story. What – as a historical writer, I’d be like a fish out of water with 21st century technology? Hello. I LIVE in the 21st century. Just because my imagination often “dallies” (forsooth!) in the old days doesn’t mean that’s the only place it is comfortable. I have plenty of current-day daydreams. I mean, I see every Jason Statham, Clive Owen, and Gerard Butler movie that comes along. (“The Ugly Truth” with Gerard and Kathryn Heigl. July 24th. Mark your calendars.)

Anyway, my first impulse was to say I didn’t use modern technology in it. Then I realized: I ended the danged story with a text message! Whoa. I’m a contemporary girl after all. Which started me thinking.
Technology changes, but human nature doesn’t. Well, not much. Which means we use today’s technology to help satisfy the same basic needs we’ve always had: feeding ourselves (online pizza ordering!), clothing and housing ourselves (online clothes ordering & apartment hunting!), communicating (e-mail, Facebook, texting, photo messaging, Skyp-ing, calling, & voice-mailing) and meeting our needs for (ahem) Community and Companionship (Chemistry.com, e-Harmony, Match.com. . . chats dedicated to bringing together like minded people. . . as well as “dating” and “escort” services and more hardcore connections.).

This started me wondering who made the first sexy telephone call. Who had the nerve to pick up a new-fangled telephone (one that was probably a party line) to pose a sexy come-on? Phones have been around since the 1880’s, you know. Yeah, that long. And people being people, I bet somebody in a bustle was getting her padding warmed via telephone waaaaay before 1899 became 1900. Who arranged the first assignation or affair via phone? Who made the first phone sex call? Some horny college boy to an obliging finishing school miss across town? Some philandering rich guy telling his light-o-love the coast was clear? When and where was the first “What are you wearing?” uttered?

Sigh. Lost in the mists of time, I’m afraid. But it just goes to show you that the good old days weren’t quite as up-tight and “Victorian” as we might think. When you think about it, phone calls are a very intimate kind of talk—the receiver pressed against you, the voice whispering in your ear.
(Note to self: include sexy telephone call in next historical!)

Much has been said about e-mails and texting and how intimate and personal they feel. People fall in love texting and IM-ing, meet and get married after a courtship of just e-mails. Know anybody who has met their “match” on the internet? Ever gone on to a dating site to check out the offerings? Hmmm?
Sooooo, when will that next historical be out? Next July. Working title Sin and Sensibility. (Yeah, that’ll change.) But my first contemporary Blaze will be out in February—a novella in the Valentine “Manhunting” anthology, with Joanne Rock and Lori Borrill.

So what do you think? Does technology help or hurt romance? What’s more your romantic techno-medium: telephone or an e-mail?

Let’s ratchet it up a notch. . . how does phone sex compare with the real thing? Do you think the intimacy and ease of using cell phone cameras makes for better romance or worse?

And do you remember hearing about “sex-ting” for the first time? Were you scandalized by the thought of teenagers sending each other provocative or nude pictures of themselves? Did you ever play slumber party “phone games” yourself? Do you remember flirting and experimenting with the phone the way kids do today with cell phones?

Talk to me—inquiring minds want to know!