How (Not) to Cook Oatmeal in the Microwave: A Sort-of (But Not Really) Tutorial

Oatmeal: It’s explosive.

1) Carefully read instructions on oatmeal packet. This time you will do it right. For once, breakfast won’t end in messy defeat.

2) Stir together milk and oatmeal.

3) Set microwave according to directions. Hide pre-victory grin. Whistle. Exude confidence.

4) Watch oatmeal spin on tray, ready to halt all cooking at first sign of boilage. Squint a little. Hold breath. Fear overflow, despite yourself.

5) Stir and check status. (Answer: Oat flakes drifting in warmish milk soup.)

6) Another minute in microwave.

7) Still floaty dry oats + milk. This could take a while.

8) Set microwave for one more minute. It’s still raw, and barely lukewarm. You’re totally safe.

9) Go set table. Take your time. Swagger a little.

10) Saunter back to microwave, spoon in hand, poised to stir.

11) Open microwave door. Discover that, in your absence, your impending meal became an oatmeal volcano, spouting thick, gloppy, magma-esque mess all over clean microwave tray.

12) Congratulations! Your oatmeal is hot and (mostly) cooked. So is the tray beneath.  Blow on breakfast. Wait for it to cool so you can finally eat it.

13) Clean-up time. Soak bowl for sixteen hours. Chisel cemented cereal off bottom of microwave. Try not to swear.

14) Vow to use water instead of milk next time, though tasteless paste isn’t your preferred dining choice.

15) Scribble “Buy bigger bowl” on shopping list. Amend to “Much, much bigger.” Underline. Add exclamation point.

16) Or there’s always toast. Toast is safe. Usually.

Your turn – what’s something you repeatedly attempt, even though you know it will lead to your ultimate doom? Talk an elderly relative through way-too-techy computer issues? Jump into NaNoWriMo with the threat of Thanksgiving (and all those pies you have to bake) hanging over your head? Make coffee in that complicated machine in the break room? Sew pants? Come on! Make me feel better. Spill it. (Yeah. Spill. You and my oatmeal…)

Don’t Look Down: On Writing a First Draft

Here’s the thing about first drafts: They are fun, but they are also scary. They are messy and muddled and awkward and hard. They have no guarantee. And they can make perfectionists like me very, very uncomfortable.

But they are worth it for the times when everything works and, anyway, they have to be done in order to get to revisions. Even on the difficult days.

And those days do come.

Unfortunately, there’s no category for Personal Cheering Section in the help-wanted ads, and the cats would rather sleep on the couch than rah-rah-rah me into getting all the new words written. So when I’ve used up my last jar of inspiration, and my motivation has fled, I have to flail those pom-poms myself.

Throughout my recent two-month long frenzy of creative chaos — otherwise known as a first draft — I did just. To be specific, I built a page of reminders to look at any time my typing lagged. As the manuscript grew, so did my list, because I learn new things every time I write a book or, more likely, I learn the same things over and over, forgetting in between.

Here, prettied up for your sake, and shared in case it provides inspiration (perhaps to those embarking on NaNoWriMo), is my memo to myself:

Tell a good story.

Write now. Revise later.

Have fun. Smile. And then send a knife hurtling toward your protagonist.

Go on. She can take it.

Forget layering in emotion, setting, symbols, and theme for now. This is an empty tortilla, baby. Only one floppy layer to be had. Fill it later.

At some point — usually three days — it will be harder to stop than it is to keep going.

Until then, write it anyway.

You have finished books before. You will do it again.

Probably even this one.

Comparing an untamed first draft to a previous book’s reworked, polished, final form is like comparing a supermodel’s eighth grade school picture with her Vogue spread. Not fair. Everyone looks awkward at the beginning. The pretty comes later.

The book will not be perfect.

The book will not be perfect.

The book will not be perfect.

But it can be fixed. That’s what revisions are for.

Just type.

Don’t look down.

How do you convince yourself to keep going on difficult writing days?

Giant Mutant Tomatoes from Our Space

In retrospect, the fertilizer might not have been a good idea. Over the last few weeks, this summer’s garden plot has become a very scary place. We’ve been overrun by groping vines and in-your-face leaves. Melon sprawl and wall-to-wall carrot carnage. Sweet pea forests. Six-pound marbled orange beefsteaks. Eggplants that grow like Pinocchio’s nose, expanding by the second.

The only thing that’s not getting any bigger is the size of our garden space.

A specimen from yesterday, pulled up with both hands. In case you thought I was exaggerating. But then, you know me. I never, ever exaggerate.

Give me strength. I fear I may not make it out alive the next time I venture in. Yesterday I barely escaped, stumbling onto the safety of the back patio with just a fistful of dirt-clotted weeds and most of my sanity. Today? Who knows. The lettuce is looking feisty, and the cucumbers have come of age. We may have a real fight on our hands.

Still, someone has to prune the pumpkins before the patch infests the neighborhood, so I’m going in. Soon as I re-tie my shoelaces. And adjust my sunglasses. And gas up the chainsaw. And any other delay tactics I can think of while still looking brave and unhesitant. I hear pumpkins can smell fear.

If you don’t see me staggering back out of this jungle by Thursday, Husqvarna in one hand, wide-brimmed hat in the other, shut off the sprinklers and send in the rescue crew. They’ll know what to do.

Oh, and if you’d like to help hack away the foliage, I’d be forever grateful. I hear the garden center has a nice pair of pruning shears they may let you use. I’m a good customer; surely they’ll share. Just sign this waiver right here, and we’ll get started.

Thanks.

P.S. Salad, anyone? There’s a feast for at least forty in here somewhere.

Snack Envy

I had forgotten how good graham crackers could taste. And Cheerios, and Goldfish, and animal crackers, and every other crunchy, carby kid food.

Until I had a toddler.

It’s not just the flavor, either. It’s the crackly bag, the tantalizing smell, the convenient thereness. Irresistible. And I can’t eat any of it. Not if I want my morning milk, evening chocolate, or, say, lunch.

But it’s hard to turn down tempting treats when you’ve got a two-year-old snack pusher in your household. Sunshine’s not subtle, either. Like my grandmother, her namesake, she’s a high-impact sharer who hates to eat alone. And I’m her preferred dining partner – or at least the most convenient one.

Each time I break out Sunshine’s snacks, she pinches a few in her fidgety fingers and sweetly offers them to me. When I turn her down, she tries again, pushing the crackers against my hands, my mouth. She chants, “Share! Share!” and eats a bite herself, then waves the gnawed-on remains in front of my eyes. After all, if she loves them, then Mommy will, too, right? (Yes. Unfortunately.)

A short quiz, plus a confession: Do you know how hard it is not to share with a two-year-old who wants to snack with you? (Answer: Impossible.) Do you know how hard it is to turn down a Goldfish when its cheddar essence has brushed against your lips and hovered under your nose? (Answer: Even more impossible.) The truth: I want those snacks even more than she wants to feed them to me.

When I am strong, I clench my lips shut, and force myself to smile, and praise Sunshine for being nice. I mentally count my calories, subtracting exercise, adding dinner. How many in a handful of Goldfish? (Answer: 140.) How many in one animal cracker? No, strike that. Three animal crackers? (Because eating just one is the most impossible feat of all. Oh, and by the way? 23.) How many in the Cheerios Sunshine just offered me? (Answer: x times the number of Cheerios, minus y, wherein x is Sunshine’s determination and y is my ability to adhere to my diet.)

When I am weak, which is often, I take the proffered food. Sunshine grins, thrilled with my choice. I chew and mentally praise the goodness of crunchy snacks, trying not to regret them before I’ve even swallowed.

I want Sunshine to share. I want her to be generous and giving. I want her to say, “Yours!” instead of “Mine!” I want her to have a healthy relationship with food, whatever that means.

And, oh, God, I want to eat those honey grahams.

I just want not to be a blimp tomorrow.

Life is like this, a constant weighing of good vs. bad, a never-ending list of choices. And, frankly, most are bigger than whether or not to ingest twenty-three calories’ worth of crunchy circus animals. Like which prom dress to wear. Which subject to major in. Which person to marry, which house to buy, which book to write next. When to have children.

So when I do give in to Sunshine’s enthusiastic, pushy-grandma ways, I try to see her goofy smile and not the calories. And I remind myself that, well, at least we’re not choosing colleges. Yet.

Giveaway and Interview with Debut Author Robin Bielman!

Note: The giveaway is now closed. Thank you to all who participated!

I’m thrilled to welcome debut author (and very good friend) Robin Bielman to my blog today. Her novella, Worth the Risk, just came out, and it’s a wonderful read – fun and funny and steamy and totally unforgettable! Believe me, you’re going to want this one! Here’s the blurb:

Their love was ancient history…until their paths crossed again. Samantha Bennett put Dean Malloy out of her mind five years ago, when he broke her heart after a summer fling. But now he’s back in her life, and ready to steal a heritage protection contract that could make or break her career–if he doesn’t steal her heart first. Samantha’s vowed to hate him, but it’s more than anger heating the competition between them. With sparks flying across the conference table and sizzling in every touch, Dean proposes a weekend liaison. Anything to have Sam again; anything to get her out of his system. But the unresolved feelings between them complicate both their personal and professional lives, and one wild weekend could turn into a disaster that would destroy the one job that means more to Samantha than anything. For a shot at love…is it worth the risk?

You can read the first two chapters of Worth the Risk on the Entangled Publishing website, or buy it at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. To connect with Robin, visit her blog. She’s also active on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

Read on for giveaway details. Maybe you’ll be one of the TWO lucky winners of Robin’s fabulous book! But first, an interview.

Hi, Robin! Thanks so much for coming. First of all, Worth the Risk has such a unique premise. I especially love the heritage protection angle. What inspired it? 
Thank you for having me on your blog, Caryn! I’m so happy to be here! You write the best blog posts, and I enjoy reading each and every one of them. (I can’t believe I’m your guest today! Squee!)

I’m a big fan of Outside magazine, and I was reading an article about the best jobs when one on heritage protection really resonated with me. I decided right then I was going to write a story about a guy (Dean) with that job, and who loved the environment more than anything else. Then I came up with Samantha – the girl from his past that he’s never stopped loving, and who makes him rethink his bachelor status.

Wow. Lots of room for fun stuff there! So what’s your favorite line from the book?
I have lots of favorites, but the one that sticks out is, “One kiss, Sam. I dare you.”

Oh, yes! I remember that scene. It’s one of my favorites. Lots of tension and humor. Wonderful! What’s your writing process like? Do you outline everything before you begin, or do you plot as you go?
I am a total pantser! I love sitting down to write and letting my characters lead the way. Since writing Worth the Risk, though, I do briefly outline my stories, just so I have some idea of where I want to go. But that often changes—and I love when that happens! I love when my characters take me in a direction I didn’t see coming.

Speaking of pants, what’s your favorite writing outfit? Bathrobe? Bikini? Three-piece suit?
I love this question! My favorite writing outfit is comfy sweat pants, a sweatshirt, and my pink fluffy socks.

Sounds very comfortable! What must you always have by your side while writing? 
I write at my desk and it’s pretty messy. (Which is really weird, because everywhere else I’m very neat.) I always have my dictionary and thesaurus near by. And I’ve got paper everywhere – mostly notes about my WIP or other writing related things – which gives me a great deal of comfort. Oh, and my dog, Harry, is always at my feet. If I’m ever at a loss for words, he always cheers me up.

Your publisher, Entangled, is fairly new. What has your experience with them been like?
My experience with Entangled has been fantastic! I’ve been super lucky to work with two amazing editors. Adrien-Luc Sanders is beyond awesome. I’d always dreamed of working with someone who got me, but helped make my writing and stories stronger, and he’s done that. I hope to work with him for a long, long, long time! I was also very lucky to work with Stacy Abrams when Adrien was out of commission for a few weeks due to illness. She was all sorts of awesome, too, and I loved how she could change just one word in a sentence and make all the difference in getting my meaning across better. I’ve learned a lot from both of them, and I’m very grateful for their guidance and expertise. The rest of the gang at Entangled goes above and beyond. The generosity and camaraderie from the management, editors, publicists and other authors is truly outstanding. I feel like I’m part of a family. I highly recommend submitting to them!

Author Robin Bielman

They sound like a great team. So now that Worth the Risk is out, are you nervous about what reviewers will say, or do you, like many authors, plan to ignore reviews altogether?
I’m very nervous! So far, though, I’ve gotten really wonderful reviews. I know it won’t always be like that – and I’ll be sorry I’m not like those other authors and am instead torturing myself by looking – but I’ll just try and remind myself that everyone is allowed to have their opinion.

You reviews are great so far! Lots of fours and even more fives. What’s next, now that Worth the Risk is in readers’ hands and out of your control?
I recently finished a second novella for my editor Adrien, and pitched him a third idea. The hero in my second novella is McCall, a character I introduce in Worth the Risk. The hero in my third novella is a character I introduced in my second novella. So I hope McCall’s story is published next! I’m also finishing revisions on my contemporary YA—a story I just adore.

Just what I like to hear – a whole list of upcoming books from Robin!

And now the giveaway…TWO lucky winners will receive electronic copies of Worth the Risk for their e-readers. To enter, just leave a comment below by midnight MST on Sunday, May 20th. Winners will be drawn using the Random Number Generator. For bonus entries,  just post about this giveaway/interview on Facebook and/or Twitter, then come back here and leave a comment to let me know what you did. Super easy!

Robin will also stop in throughout the week to answer questions and respond to comments, so if you have anything to ask her or tell her, comment away and she’ll reply.

Note: If you didn’t win and would like to buy a copy of Worth the Risk - or if you did win and you want to purchase a copy for someone else – you can find it at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.

Word Nerd

In seventh grade, in the back of my parents’ car, on the way home from another disastrous school-wide dance, my friend Rebekah and I lied to each other in the nicest possible way.

“Nerds,” we told ourselves, “Are awesome.”

They were the most misunderstood subgroup in the high school hierarchy. Everyone should want to be one. Those snotty popular girls who had hurled insults down the school hallway toward us that night? They were just jealous. And they were wrong, too, because we were most assuredly not nerds.

Okay, fine, we admitted as the car turned a corner and a street lamp splashed yellow light into the back, highlighting our awkward hair and gawky arms. So what if we sort of were? It might not be permanent. If we could outgrow training bras, dollhouses with hand-painted shutters, and unrequited crushes, we could outgrow this. Nerdhood? Already speeding into the past, baby.

Only, that was a lie. The biggest of all.

Because now, two decades later, I have realized something. Almost every major decision I have made in my life has depended on my latent nerdhood, from my English major to my novel writing. And every purchase backs it up. The deluxe, shiny black Scrabble board on its spinny little stand. The pressed-wood clipboard and cushy mechanical pencil whose sole job is to support our nightly New York Times crossword habit. The books spilling off the bedroom shelves. This laptop, on which I’ve written novels in my free time instead of shopping at the mall, loitering around the bike racks, slipping frogs into the principal’s pillowcase, or whatever it is the cool kids do at age thirty-five.

I am a nerd, a bookworm. Still. Always. Even when I hide it. I have not outgrown it, and I probably never will. And lately I’ve decided I don’t want to. Because the hobbies that earned me taunts when I was twelve make me happy now. I embrace them.

I will always read novels in public, and scribble in notebooks, and continue to not know the rules of football. I will be introverted and sometimes awkward, and see my tendency to lean against walls at parties as character research. I will be bookish. Someday I will probably wear glasses. I will never be graceful. I will never be cool. But I’ll take joy over those things any day. And that’s one thing that has changed.

Because you know what? We were right, that painful, long-ago evening. Nerddom is awesome. So are confidence and joy and doing what you love. The rest really doesn’t matter.

What about you? Are you anything like you were in high school? Most importantly, what kind of nerd are you?

Blog-Hopping

Whew! I’m back! Now that I’ve turned in my latest set of revisions, I’ll have a real blog post coming up soon, plus a giveaway and interview with fabulous debut author Robin Bielman. In the meantime, I’ve not only redesigned my site and my photoblog, but I’ve also been playing around on other people’s sites.

Here’s the guest post roundup:

A post about my inner narrator’s refusal to hush up, at the blog for the Chick Lit chapter of RWA: http://bit.ly/zJUwvZ

A slightly different version of my How I Got My Agent story, re-worked for the Hen&Ink Literary Studio blog: http://bit.ly/JXzdsI

An interview with SCBWI’s COO at Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog: http://bit.ly/I4vL4j

Hope to see you there!

I Want That Job! (Or, What I Learned About Careers by Watching Movies)

Considering a career change? Need a job for a character in your next novel? No need to ask an actual person for his or her job description. Just watch movies. According to Hollywood, here’s what a variety of different jobs entail:

Subway/Train Conductor:
Look horrified while pulling imaginary brakes.

Random Politician:
Gaze sternly into camera.
Pound podium.
Spray spittle and vitriol.

President of the United States:
Fly around in helicopters.
Make grave speeches.
Walk in step with perky young aide.
Inspire.

Reporter:
Go undercover.
Research life-or-death stories spouse/editor/creepy anonymous voice on the phone told you not to touch.
Fall in love with source.

Newspaper Editor:
Yell.
Throw things.
Surreptitiously print exposé up-and-coming reporter wrote, printed, handed to you, then asked you not to run. Declare it their best work yet.

Movie Director:
Holler “Cut!” and, on occasion, “Action!”

Motel/Convenience Store Clerk:
Shrug in bored fashion when someone shoves a photo under your nose and asks, “Have you seen this person?”

Judge:
Adjust robes.
Frown at witnesses.
Shout “Order!” and “Overruled!” at random intervals.
Pound gavel.

Taxi Driver:
Cruise streets without picking anyone up.
Honk.
Make witty banter while chasing another car or racing toward the airport.
Glance at passengers in rear-view mirror. Make bug eyes when you see what they’re doing back there.

Goon:
Run awkwardly.
Kick kneecaps.
Get shot.

Mob Boss:
Eat spaghetti.
Scowl.
Casually order multiple murders.
Examine well-buffed fingernails.

Your turn. What careers have you learned about thanks to movies?

P.S. There’s a fantastic discussion going on in the comments right now! Be sure to read everybody’s brilliant ideas about what they’ve learned from movies, then add yours if you’re so inclined. (And I hope you ARE inclined, because I adore comments!)

The Time I Almost Went to Art School (Except I Had No Talent)

When my brother and I were children, my parents believed in nurturing our talents and helping us become whatever we wanted to be. Kindergarteners have a very small skill set, but they get to paint a lot, so one September day I brought home a roll of manila paper. It was heavy with paint, damp and creased from where my fingers clutched it on the walk.

Jackson Pollock No. 9 – It really does look like that long-ago painting, manila paper and all.

Prepared to gush over any bit of artwork, no matter how rudimentary, Mom and Dad watched me unfurl the paper and thrust it their way. Stunned, they stared at the masterpiece I’d so casually brought into the house. It was like something out of Jackson Pollock – The Kindergarten Years. Bright splashes of color dotted the paper, flirting and frolicking in an arrangement that dazzled the eye. Abstract and playful, it was the work of a confident painter, one much older than five.

The next day they quietly began saving for a fancy art school. I would be the first artiste in the family, and they wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to mix more media than crayons and fingerpaints.

Excited to show off their daughter’s talent, they had the picture framed and hung in a place of prominence over the dining room table, where we could admire it.

And then one night during dinner, as my brother kicked me under the table so my parents couldn’t see, my mom turned to me and asked, “What made you decide to put that dab of blue right there?”

“What?” I asked, more worried about Mom catching me kicking my brother back than about answering her.

She repeated her question.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Well, what about the red, right there in the corner? What inspired that?”

“I don’t know.” Thinking the chat finished, I surreptitiously fed another pea to our golden retriever, who hovered hopefully beneath my heavy wooden chair.

“And the yellow?” she tried again, waving one hand at a few blobs.

“I don’t know,” I repeated. “It’s not mine. I didn’t paint it.”

Silence, as my parents’ forks froze over their plates. When my mom could form a coherent thought, she asked, “You didn’t?”

I shook my head, oblivious to their tension and, not understanding that my entire future as an artist hung on my next word, said, “No.” Then I went back to shoveling stuffed peppers in my mouth because, really, they were delicious.

“So, uh, who did?” my mom asked gently, as if hoping my answer had been a mistake.

I looked up, mid-bite. Seriously, were we still talking about this? “I don’t know.”

“But why do you have it, then?”

A close approximation of my kindergarten artwork, circa 2011.

“My teacher told us to take a painting home. I liked that one.” After all, even if I had no talent in the visual arts arena, I could still recognize a pretty picture when I saw it.

Silence. My parents’ eyes flicked to the picture. To me. To the picture – the one I hadn’t done with my own skinny little fingers and globby kindergarten paint.

They stopped saving for art school but, just in case, asked me to bring home a few paintings of my own instead of leaving them for my teacher to discard – an easy request since I created a new masterpiece every afternoon. And each day it was the same: a house with curtains in the windows, a slanting stick figure family of four, sun in the upper corner. Tulips. Grass. Our pets made an occasional cameo appearance. Sometimes there was a rainbow.

To this day my drawings look as if I did them with my left hand while crossing my eyes, but that’s okay because I never had art school aspirations anyway. I wanted to be something much more practical: an author.

Guest Post: How Dr. Frankenstein Inspired Two Totally Hot YA Heroes

Please welcome Liz Reinhardt! Not only is she one of my favorite bloggers, but I’m lucky to have her as a critique partner, too. She just published her first novel, a YA romance featuring snappy dialogue, a love triangle, to-die-for heroes (two of them!), and lots of humor. It’s the first in a trilogy, and is already netting some fabulous reviews. So read and enjoy her guest post, then go buy her fabulous book. Take it away, Liz!

20 or so people may be reading my book this very minute!

My newly published book is bumping around out in the world and, I don’t want to brag or anything, but a whole 20-something  readers (I can never remember the exact number…okay, I can! It’s 23 last time I refreshed the sales page!! WHEEE!!) are reading it! And tons of them are total strangers, NOT people who I shared Doritos and poetry and too many secrets with in high school, or who drank cheap keg beer at field parties with me and my husband back when he was my boyfriend, or who danced to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” in a fist-pumping-Jersey-girl-dance-athon at my wedding.

Okay, maybe just I wish tons of them were strangers…because as amazing, awesome, generous, fun, sweet, helpful, and gorgeous as all these life-long crazy friends are, they know a lot. And they think they know more! And they’re guessing about people and places and events that are fiction. But, you know, fiction that’s based on reality, because I’m not that creative. And I’m sort of lazy. And my friends know that.

Even in college I was a woman of great mystery. A deep thinker whose musings and philosophies were rare gems, carefully polished and doled out in specifically measured, thoughtful increments. This picture probably depicts a small break from typing my great Western/immigrant/romance/mystery/literary novel instead of doing my Biology paper. Deep.

Even my husband thinks he knows more than he does. When I was writing Double Clutch, I was in love. Like swoony, butterflies in my stomach, can’t sleep, obsessive love…with this book and Brenna, Jake, and Saxon, the main characters who lived and breathed for me, through me! The need to share this love was absolutely undeniable. And I had a captive audience in my loyal, loving husband, who has a very hard time saying no to me when I get that maniacal gleam in my eye. Also our house is too small to hide in, and he could only stay at work until the bosses forced him to go home, kicking and screaming.He wanted to relax after a long, grueling day, watch “Overhaulin’,” work on his truck, and sit on the back porch quietly contemplating life while the stars appeared in a slow speckle across the darkening sky. He wound up listening to me read AN ENTIRE novel in rushed, breathy spurts, stopping frequently to edit sentences that rang wrong in my ears, and often abruptly leaving him alone on said porch under said lovely stars so I could get down the entire scene that had just blossomed in my brain before I lost it.

Is there anything more romantic than star-gazing gargoyles in love? Well, unless she has a chapter to finish. Broadway can totally fend for himself out there, under the stars! If Angela doesn’t get it all typed out, she might lose it! And then how will they provide for all their little gargoyle children? How?!

It’s not a stretch to imagine that Frank (my husband) assumed he knew at least something about these characters who I so adored and forced him to adore even as he watched them steal his wife away and leave her completely uninterested in things that had never really interested her very much, like laundry and cooking and attempts to keep the floor from getting so sticky certain spots could pull the sock right off of your foot. My husband knows when he’s come against a force stronger than he is. He wanted to stop having to sniff the armpits of his shirts before work in a desperate attempt to find the least smelly one. And he wanted company for star-gazing, and peace when his favorite shows came on TV. He knew he needed the book to end. So he willed it to end.

This makes perfect sense to me. And Frank is an awesome helper…I don’t pull my weight when I have books on the brain. And that’s really, crazily often.

“Just have Brenna choose the right guy and end it,” he urged as he stuffed our daughter’s red dress into the washer with a load of his undershirts and socks one night when I was close to finishing. The words hot pink flashed a dangerous warning through my brain, but I was too consumed by the Brenna/Jake/Saxon dilemma to give them any serious notice.

“But who does she wind up with?” I mused, my laptop staring at me with its coolly taunting blue light.

“What do you mean?” He banged the lid of the washer down and narrowed his eyes at me before crossing to the dishwasher. “You know who she ends up with. The right guy.” He picked up the bottle of dish soap in one hand and the dishwasher fluid in the other and looked at them both with a frown.

“But that’s the whole point.” Frank held the bottles up, and I pointed to the one that wouldn’t break our appliance. “It’s not that easy to choose.”

“Sure it is,” he growled, holding up the dishwasher liquid for emphasis. He banged the dish soap on the counter. “One works. One doesn’t.” He squirted half the bottle of dishwasher liquid in the tiny dispenser square.

“No. Each one offers something different. Each guy is awesome in his own way.”

Frank’s face darkened. “Um, no. One guy is a loser. One is a decent guy. Stop pretending there’s any question.”

“You’re simplifying, Frank…” I began, but I was shocked into silence when he banged the dishwasher door shut and glared.

“Fine! Let Brenna pick the dirtbag, okay? If she’s too stupid to know who she should end up with, she doesn’t deserve him!”

Part of me was foaming at the mouth with excitement! He was so passionate! He was banging the dishwasher shut! He was in a rage! OVER MY BOOK! Part of me was confused. He was in a rage over my book?

I followed him as he stalked across the sticky floor. “Why are you so upset?”

“Because I know who I am in the book, and I know who you are, and I can’t believe we’re not getting together!” he bellowed.

What?

“It’s fiction! I’m not in the book! You’re not in the book!” I insisted.

“Oh really?”

Then Frank listed a dozen examples of interests, mannerisms, sayings, and situations that he shared with ‘his’ character, and he was absolutely right. I had plucked details from the guy I loved and peppered them into a fictional guy I loved.

But Frank was also absolutely wrong. See, he did pick up on exactly how he was like one of the guys. He just conveniently missed how he was exactly like the other guy, too. And he didn’t see the other real life guys who made up Jake and Saxon. Obviously! Because I don’t kiss and tell. Okay, that’s a lie! I totally kiss and tell, but I do it in fiction and I hide a lot of it in layers, the same way, I’m sure, a ton of writers do.

Is that me kissing Chance Crawford? Wouldn’t you like to know? (Of course it’s not me! And if it was me, it would totally be for research reasons. I write YA romance, after all!)

My past loves aren’t the only ones who made it into my book, either. For example, Frank has a really charismatic, frustrating, good-looking cousin who we’ve laughed with and watched work his magic a million times. We also watched him fall in love with the girl who inspired him to change his life. They’re both in Double Clutch.

I have a friend whose gorgeous, sweet husband was the object of just about every girl in our county’s crush…and he took full and complete advantage of all that admiration. When he met my friend, The One, the girl who swept him off his feet, she had to make peace with his very active romantic past, and she talked to me about how that felt. They’re in Double Clutch.

I watched my little sister, my best friend, my college roommates swoon with love…first love, unrequited crushes, crushes realized, soul-deep-let’s-get-married love, heart-wrenching-long-distance-love. They’re all in Double Clutch.

So is the guy I imagine my husband was before I ever met him. So is the guy I traded sly glances with every Tuesday and Thursday in Art History 105 but never got up the guts to ask out. So is the girl my ex-boyfriend eventually dated after me, and the next girl, who are both extremely nice, smart, funny ladies (hey, he always had good taste!). They’re all in there, wrapped up and taken apart, sprinkled around and put back together.

I’m the old guy on the right. And Brenna, Jake, and Saxon are hanging in the middle! Aren’t we cute?! You know, in that creepy, old-movie-monsters way.

I am a little like Dr. Frankenstein. I’ve taken names, personalities, stories, glances, kisses, daydreams and molded them into a walking/talking world all my own but also everyone else’s. So when emails pop up and say, “Okay, is so-and-so based on so-and-so?”, the answer is…yes. And no. And yes. And no.

So I typed the last chapter, and read it to Frank, who crossed his arms and pouted a little, but said that it ended right enough as far as he was concerned. Then I steam-mopped the floor, threw together a fairly edible chili, bleached all of his socks and undershirts white again, and joined him on the back porch after we tucked the baby in. All was right with the world.

Are you in Liz’s book? Go check out Double Clutch and see! It’s available for the Kindle and Nook. The print version and sequel are both coming soon. If you want even more Liz (and who wouldn’t?) check out her blog or like her Facebook page. Have a question or comment for her? Leave it below, and she’ll see it when she checks in.