How to Snort Coffee 101

You always hear that saying that truth is stranger than fiction, and being from Louisiana, I can definitely say that's true. At least, if I tried to write things I'd seen into one of my books, I'm fairly certain my editor would email me with a "no one is going to believe this" comment. Then, given that she knows me well, the next comment would probably be "but did it really happen?"

I spend a lot of time explaining to people one of two things: Your life story is not interesting enough to be a book, no matter how interesting it might be to you (which I try to do politely), or No one would believe your story even though it is funny/interesting/different/entertaining. So the other morning, I got a great reminder of the second explanation.

It was our local writer chapter's Saturday meeting, and I was hooking up with one of my best friends and critique partner, Cari, for breakfast before the meeting. We meet at a local diner that both of us frequent, and fairly early so we can have tons of coffee, shoot the breeze, and do some writing work if we need to. So we got onto the subject of history and decided that neither of us had enjoyed it in school, although we do like the specials on the History Channel. Then I made the comment that I think that's why I'm not into the whole family tree thing because I don't really care where I came from as it has nothing to do with what I need to do today and every day from now on. Not to mention that I don't exactly associate with much of my family now and that's by choice - why in the world would I want to go find more?

So we laughed about that and a guy who was sitting in the booth behind us rose to leave. He's older, maybe late 50's, a regular, and I'd spoken to him before about my books and writing in general. He stopped at our table and this is the story he told:

"I don't mean to interrupt you, but I have to share a story with you. Several years ago, my wife got into the whole family tree thing and did all that online researching. She got to the point where some of the records she needed weren't online, so she traveled around the country to courthouses getting paper copies. Well, she finally located a bunch of family in Arkansas and went up there one weekend to meet them. Then she came home and left me to marry her cousin."

Have you ever snorted coffee up your nose? Well, let me tell you, it doesn't taste near as good that way. But could I help it? Oh my god, that is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. And yes, while also tragic, I'm guessing since 'ole boy stood there giggling after that delivery that he's well over any trauma it might have caused.

Still, try and work that tale into a novel. Yeah, right. For starters, it sounds like one of those made-up scripts for the Jerry Springer show - I mean, really, can we put more stereotypes into a four-sentence story? I have to admit, though, I am still smiling while writing this and that was two weeks ago. Let's face it, some stories are just priceless, especially when they come from unexpected places and at unexpected times.

Deadly DeLeon

WINNER! WINNER!

Okay, I pulled a name out of my hat. Oh crappers! Two names came out. Well, darn, I guess that means two people get prizes. RachealinNJ and Wendy, shoot me an email with your address at christie (at) christie-craig.com.

Congrats and thank you guys for playing. Oh, make sure you come back Tuesday for my contest and links to two other places I'm guest blogging and giving away prizes. CC

CONTEST!!!!!

Today Toni McGee Causey is giving away a $25 gift certificate to either Barnes & Noble or Amazon (your choice) and a couple of south Louisiana goodies (some Community coffee gift bags) to one of the commenters who tell us what fun thing they're going to do this summer?










Have you ever met someone and instantly liked them? That's what happened when I met Toni McGee Causey. She's so easy to like and easy to talk to. (Hey . . . I think she's cajun, that probably explains it.) And lucky for you guys, I've been chatting with her this week and she just mentioned that she would love to do a contest over at KF. So to celebrate her releases... the first book in the series, CHARMED AND DANGEROUS now available in mass market--June 2nd! Followed by book 2, GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN at the end of June and book 3, WHEN A MAN LOVES HIS WEAPON in August.

This is some fabulous summer reading, so make sure you run out and snatch these great beach reads. I'll be in line myself. Below is the book blurb.

CC






Bobbie Faye is looking forward to the Lake Charles Contraband Days Festival with balloons, booze and babies in pirate costumes. Instead, her trailer's flooded, her no-good brother's been kidnapped, and the criminals are demanding her mom's tiara as ransom. Soon Bobbie Faye is committing (unintentional) bank robbery and (fully intentional) carjacking to retrieve her family heirloom. Along comes the hard-muscled, impossibly sexy Trevor, the guy whose truck she just took hostage. Luckily, Bobbie Faye knows how to outsmart angry bears, drive a speedboat, and handle a gun. As for handling Trevor? No gun-shyness there. Now, if only that pesky state police detective, who also happens to be a pissed-off ex-boyfriend, would stay out of her way...





Toni's bio:
A former screenwriter and now indie film producer, Toni McGee Causey’s critically acclaimed Bobbie Faye series will be out, back-to-back, this summer. The owner of a civil construction business with her husband, she’s used to averting disasters and trouble-shooting problems—skills that came in very handy when writing her take-no-prisoners southern-fried Cajun heroine, Bobbie Faye. She lives in south Louisiana with her family, and she can be found blogging regularly on Murderati and Murder She Writes or Twitter via http://twitter.com/ToniMcGeeCausey . Toni would love for you to visit her and Bobbie Faye at www.tonimcgeecausey.com

FORMER JANITOR’S NOVEL TO BE RELEASED IN JULY

Please join me in welcoming the very talented and witty J.J. Hebert, author of the upcoming book, Unconventional. The book is tones of fun, and his so is his story of publication. So, take it away, J.J…


You know that guy, the one collecting the garbage? The one mopping the floors at your school? The one who makes the toilets sparkle? Yeah, well, that used to be me. I was that guy. But now “that guy” is James Frost, the main character from my soon-to-be-released novel, Unconventional. Lately, I’ve been referring to the book as Good Will Hunting meets The Pursuit of Happyness essentially because my novel features a janitor (with a gift outside of janitorial work), and he’s willing to do anything—and I mean anything—to fulfill his dream of becoming a published author. A janitor/writer—certainly an unconventional fellow, don’t you think? James Frost stands as proof that no matter your circumstances, now is always the time to reach for your dreams!

Unconventional, available July 2009, has already been praised by your very own award-winning Gemma Halliday as “a wonderful story full of heart, humor, and what it means to truly be successful. An A+ novel for the keeper shelf." So you know it must be good! Or . . . I paid her off.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to tell you a little bit about my journey . . .

I’m only twenty-five-years-old. Yeah, I know, I’m a “kid.” I began writing seriously back in—um, when was it?—somewhere around 2003, when I could also be found mopping floors and scrubbing toilets with an oversized toothbrush. My first novel, Defiance Rising, went on to win many awards, one of my favorites being The Sit-In-My-Drawer-And-Never-Get-Sold Award and also, my least favorite, The Write-Seven-Drafts-And-Scrap-It Award. You should see the trophies; my mantel can’t contain them! Okay, so you get it; Defiance went nowhere. Then I wrote Unconventional. And, thankfully, I’m no longer a janitor.

In 2007, my writing career could be summarized as follows: Write, write, write, query, query, query, rejection, rejection, rejection.

In 2008, my writing career could be summarized as follows: Query, query, query, query, query, an endless amount of querying, manuscript requested by agents, hooray!, the former agent of Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti decides to become my agent! Celebrations galore!

But by the beginning of 2009, I parted ways with my agent (for reasons I won’t mention in my report here). Then, in mid-January, I decided to go with Mindstir Media, publisher of mind-stirring books, to release my infant I mean book to the world. I can’t wait until July. You’ll have to tell me how you like my book, all right? It’ll be available in trade paperback (at bookstores, barnesandnoble.com, and amazon.com) and also as a free audiobook (downloadable via jjhebert.net, podiobooks.com, and iTunes) narrated by award-winning voice over artist Jeffrey Kafer (jeffreykafer.com).

Just to clarify, I’m not James Frost and James Frost is not me. Sure, he and I are a lot alike but—Oh. My. Goodness.—he went through much more than I. Mostly because I’m a sadistic individual and I enjoy watching my characters suffer. Well, not really. I just think conflict sells—and there’s lots of conflict in Unconventional. I hope my scheme works in the end . . . If not, I might have to go back to sweeping and mopping floors for a living. Please spread the word about Unconventional and keep me away from those mucky toilets!


To learn more about me, J. J. Hebert, and to download a three-chapter excerpt of UNCONVENTIONAL, please visit www.jjhebert.net (while you’re there, why not sign up for my newsletter as well?). You can also find me on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.

Name that baby!

Today I'm doing one more round of network TV pitches before baby-in-the-belly gets too big for travel. So, I apologize for the fly-by posting while I steal a few minutes of down time at a Starbucks between networks. Literally. Between USA in Studio City and ABC Family in Burbank there must be about 102 Starbucks. I had a really hard time choosing the perfect one to plop myself down at.

So, beyond TV show pitches the thing foremost on my mind lately… baby boy names. Why is it I could easily pick out a dozen great girl names I was in love with, but when it comes to boy names, they all inspire a “meh” response from me? Plus, between my family and Mr. Big's there is a long list of names we can’t use because they’re already taken. Not to mention all my male characters. Sorry, there’s just something too weird about naming my son the same thing I named that drool worthy guy in book #6, ya’ know? And, to make matters worse, Mr. Big and I are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to names. He likes modern, cool sounding ones, I like classic, cuddly ones. Help! We need a name we can compromise on before we run through the entire alphabet doing this back and forth “auto veto” thing.

("Xavier?"
"Veto."
"Zane?"
"Veto."
"Vito?"
"Ha ha. Very funny. And by the way... veto.")

If it helps any, we’ve decide the middle name is going to be William, as it’s a family name on both sides. Any grand ideas for a first name to go with that? So far he’s either “Little Buddy” or “Dude!” depending on how hard he’s kicking me. I don’t think we want to stick with either.


~Trigger Happy Halliday

Decisions, decisions...or electric VS gas

I need assistance. I had hoped to embark on a kitchen redo this year (mine having been constructed and decorated in June Cleaver's hay day.) Unfortunately, a leaking garage roof took precedence this summer so my kitchen project has been, shall we say, put on the back burner. I had hoped my ancient appliances could handle another year of my cooking (that didn't come out as I intended, did it?) but unfortunately I'd been noticing some black specks on my baked goods (more than the usual charcoaled edges) that raised a red flag. When one of the back coil burners became hot when the oven was on but the burner wasn't, I knew the old oven was 'toast'.

Although I couldn't justify the expense of new cabinetry right now with a double car garage roof needing to be replaced, I knew I couldn't put a nice, new stove in my June Cleaver kitchen without some--alterations. So, I quickly went to work pulling down a stubborn border, primed and painted the walls (they were originally a terrifying combo of mauve and blue sponged on white walls that looked way too much like spider and varicose veins for my peace of mind). Once the walls were painted I simply couldn't abide the horrible GREEN flooring so it had to go and I'm replacing it with a reasonably-priced laminate product that I'm going to try and lay myself--with my son's help. (Lucky kid.) I also purchased new hardware for the cabinets to spruce them up.

My current dilemma? Should I replace the electric stove with another electric stove--or should I go with a gas range? I can easily have a gas line run from my basement to the kitchen. If I do go with electric should I go with coil or smooth top? White or stainless steel? Should I buy a cheaper one for now as I might replace it with some built-ins when I do get to redo the kitchen?

As I said. Decisions, decisions. So. Any recommendations? I've heard the smooth-top is hard to keep clean--and I do have a tendency to be a bit of a distracted cook at times resulting in some major boil overs. Another salesperson told me some folks don't like the way a gas oven bakes. True or false? What about cost? Should I go with a stove just good enough to get us by for now just in case I do incorporate built-in appliances with the redo?

Any thoughts? Do share. I'm stove shopping this Saturday.

~Bullet Hole~

Christie's Top Three Deep, Dark Secrets

WINNER!

Okay…I’m back in Houston. And I’d like to formally invite all of you to Faye Hughes’ wake. Her final resting place will be in my compost pile. Gotta love friends like that, don’t cha?

And the winner of the GOTCHA book is . . . vicariousrising. Please email me at christie(at) christie - craig.com.




Okay, first, pay no attention to what the “Posted By” thingy says this morning on the Killer Fiction blog. Christie didn’t write today’s entry. I did. (With “I” being Faye Hughes, Christie’s non-fiction writing partner.) Christie’s not here –she’s in Alabama visiting her daddy and will be flying back today. She hasn’t even read the blog entry and won’t see the comments until much later tonight.

Cue all the Evil music.

I mean, silly Christie. Giving me access to her blog and asking me to “write something funny” in her absence. Why, I told her when we were in Orlando for RT and she started pointing and laughing at me when I accidentally ripped a seam in my brand-new PJ bottoms (Hint: Items marked down for a quick sale may have been marked down for a reason) that she would be sorry one day.

And today is most definitely that day.

Christie Craig’s Top Three Deepest, and Darkest, Secrets:

1. Christie has an unnatural affection for her bra.

I’m not joking. The woman is practically obsessed with it. During the RWA national conference in Dallas a couple of years ago, the fire alarm went off and woke everyone on our floor. Teri Thackston, our other roommate, and I were getting dressed and grabbing our most important items. (For me, that was my phone; for Teri, it was her pearls.) I pulled on some pants, grabbed some shoes and was ready to go. Ditto Teri.

Not so for Christie.

She couldn’t find her bra.

What’s more, she wasn’t leaving the room without it.

I told her to forget it, to grab her purse and let’s go. She looked at me like I was crazy. “Are you crazy?” she said, just confirming that my interpretation of the look she’d given me was dead-on. “I’m not going anywhere without my bra!”

Now, tell the truth: Isn’t that kinda strange?

2. Christie has an unnatural affection for hats.

Okay, this one is even weirder than the bra. Everybody knows that Christie wears her hats when she is at a writers’ conference but did you know she wears them even when she’s not? Trips to the supermarket, lunch with friends and you’ll find Christie wearing one of her hats. Better than that, she even wore them when she was a kid. Don’t believe me, take a look at the evidence.

Psst . . . I’ve written her mom and asked for baby shots to see how long this hat obsession has been going on. I’ll keep you posted on what I discover.

3. Christie’s books are more fact than fiction—all of that whacky, over the top stuff she writes about actually happens to her.

Okay, I know she’s shared a lot of her funny experiences with you guys here at the blog, like the time she got felt up by the elephant at the zoo or the real reason the Craig household has hardwood floors. What you may not realize is that she wasn’t exaggerating any of it.

Take what happened the first time I roomed with her at a writing conference. We were in New York City and around 7:00 in the morning, there was this loud pounding on our door. I got up just as this man dressed in a black business suit inserted the master key card into our door and came inside. He saw me and said . . . and I’m not making this chit up . . . “Security, ma’am. This is your 7:00 am wakeup call.”

I kinda nodded – what the heck else could I do? I was in my PJs and half-asleep – and then he turned and left the room.

Christie jumps up and grabs her bra. “What just happened?”

“Beats me.”

“Did he come into the room?”

“Yep,” I said, still half-asleep. “But I don’t remember asking for a wakeup call.”

And we hadn’t. What’s more, the front desk said that “Security” never delivered personal wake-up calls.

Weird, huh? I guess there is a reason they call her Crime Scene Christie.

So, there you have it. Christie’s top three deepest and darkest secrets. Now, I probably will be taking a little vacation after today but in the time I have left, I’d love to hear from you guys. If you were told to evacuate your hotel room, would you grab your bra? What do you think the real reason Christie wears all those hats? Have you ever had “Security” give you a morning wake-up call? And best of all, do you think Christie is going to kill me for sharing her secrets?

Oh, and one final thing. Christie is giving away a copy of GOTCHA!, her new release from Dorchester this week. I was lucky enough to read GOTCHA! as she was writing it and it is my favorite book of hers - so far, anyway. (Just wait till DD&Deceived comes out this winter! Oh, man! What a hoot!!) Be sure you come back next week. Christie is giving away some goodies to celebrate the release of GOTCHA!, not only here but at a lot of blogs and places. She'll have links and info in next week's post.

Faye

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!!!!!!!! I hope you're all off from work and going to do something fun....or nothing at all! I have lawn work to attend to and would like to re-arrange things in my garage so I can more easily find them. And there's always catching a movie if I can fit it in. So many good movies start to release just as the school year is ending.

I have a mystery for you guys today, and I'm hoping someone can tell me what the heck is going on. Here's the situation: I live in a small town outside of a large town (but still with small-town mentality). The police force appears to be a bunch of boobs or buttheads, and they are always making news for being crappy. Sometimes I carpool with another girl from work and we meet in a parking lot. On Friday, she pulled into the parking lot with one of these lovely cops escorting her. Apparently, she had neglected to put on her seat belt and it was "Click it or ticket" weekend.

The cop asked her a couple of questions I don't understand in the least, and I'm hoping someone on here can clear it up for me. The first question was how old was her car? Now, the cop had her insurance information, so we can already assume the cop is not the brightest bulb in the shed as that information was in her hand to begin with, but what difference does it make how old her car is if she has an inspection sticker and proper tags. The second question is even better - she asked her how much she weighed???????? Of course, my friend lied. :)

The cop gave my friend a ticket, and my friend asked how much the ticket would cost. The cop said $20-$200. Okkkkaaaaayyyyyyyyyy, so does the ticket cost more if she's fat? Or if her car is old? Can anyone tell me why I should have to provide my weight for not wearing my seatbelt?

Deadly DeLeon