On Go Bags of the Apocalypse

We spent our 4th of July in a different way than usual. There was no party, no drinking on the deck or relaxing by the pool. Not even any golf. Instead, we took the day to assemble our emergency Go Bags.

Many of you know my parents were five miles from the pre-evacuation areas for the Waldo Canyon fire. Last week, when things were looking dire, I got on the phone to my dad and suggested he pull together all his documents and stuff BEFORE the pre-evac calls came, just so he wouldn't be rushing around trying to gather stuff whilst worrying about the fire sneaking past the lines and sweeping through our little valley. This happens. Often enough that it's time to be prepared. Just in case.

I did some incredibly fun (and scary) research for EDGE OF BLACK on survivalists, AKA preppers. People who have themselves ready if a disaster happens. There's even a television show that popped up this spring about their somewhat extreme lifestyle. People laughed and made fun, but I'm here to tell you - whether it's an electromagnetic pulse that shuts down the power grids, a meteor that hits the earth, nuclear war, or just a tornado, flood, hurricane or fire - some forethought into what you'd do in that situation goes a long way toward making your life easier.

Since we got caught unprepared for the 2010 Nashville flood, we've been seeking to remedy the situation we found ourselves in - no communication, no power and no water for three days will capture your attention quite quickly. We've been slowly accruing the materials we'd need if this ever happens again. Everything's been stashed in a big plastic box in the dining room. The problem is, while we're set if we have an extended power outage, should a tornado sweep through Nashville, as they are wont to do, I'm hardly going to have the time to go to said plastic box and pick out what I need.

Enter the Go Bags of the Apocolypse. (Yes, that's our smart ass way of defusing the fear and tension that goes into the thought that you might need this kind of stuff someday.)

Our Go Bags, or Bug Out Bags, are simply a backpack, filled with everything you can possibly think of - first aid, water filtration, batteries, flashlights, medicine, lighters, radios - anything and everything you'd need to survive a week out of doors in the event of a natural disaster. The out of doors part is important - you never know what might happen to displace you in an emergency.

Our Go Bags also have some really important stuff - family papers and the like. Here's a superb spot to check out for ideas of what you might need. So the next time we have tornado warnings, all I have to do is grab the Go Bags, throw them in the car and head to Randy's office (a gigantic brick building with excellent support - much safer than our little house with no basement.) I don't have to worry if things get messed up, because I have copies of everything with me.

Look at the folks in Colorado who were evacuated and lost their homes in last week's fires, and the folks in the D.C. area who got hit by that freak inland hurricane. Some smart preparations now can save you from days, weeks without power, shelter, personal possessions, everything.

I know this all sounds alarmist. But these kinds of preparations are vital for people who live in areas that have funky weather. Take the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) scenarios out of the picture entirely if it makes you feel better. Just think about how much this would help your family in the event of disaster.

In the course of my research for EDGE, the site I liked the most was SurvivalCache.com. Joel and the crew are rational, competent people who have put together a valuable resource for the average Joe's in the world who don't have military training in survival. They have some incredible lists of important things to think about for your emergency preparedness plan, like this 3 day emergency basic primer: 7 Types of Gear Needed for Your Bug Out Bag. And this guide from Last One Alive is excellent and practical.

Whether it's something precious that you simply can't live without or something vital that you can't live without, I urge you to take a look around at these sites and think about your disaster plan. It will let you sleep easier at night. Trust me.

July Newsletter

July 2012, Volume XIV

Hello friends,

Is it hot enough for you? Nashville has been sweltering the past week, and you know it’s only going to get worse. So sit back, relax, and dig into a good book! I have a few to recommend to you this month — Jeff Abbott’s second Sam Capra, THE LAST MINUTE, Alex Kava’s latest Maggie O’Dell, FIREPROOF, and Catherine Coulter’s new Savich and Sherlock FBI thriller, BACKFIRE. That should load up your ereaders and bookbags for a few weeks!

Speaking of Catherine, we were just hanging out last week, talking about how similarly we write, and how much fun it would be to brainstorm on a project. So brainstorm we did. She’s truly wonderful; if you haven't read her yet, get thee to the bookstore! And I’ll let you know what happens...

A couple of housekeeping notes — the newsletter is going to be coming out monthly now, and there is a new monthly contest on my site! Prizes will rotate on the first of the month, and this time, it’s a signed copy of LOVE IS MURDER. You can enter here. June's winner is Debbie Lord - Debbie, your signed copy of A DEEPER DARKNESS is on its way.

EDGE OF BLACK releases December 1

Samantha Owens is back, and boy does she have her hands full now. Here’s a little sneak peek about the book for you:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides

Dr. Samantha Owens is starting over: new city, new job, new man, new life. She's trying to put some distance between herself and the devastating loss of her husband and children-but old hurts leave scars.

Before she's even unpacked her office at Georgetown University's forensic pathology department, she's called to consult on a case that's rocked the capital and the country. An unknown pathogen released into the Washington Metro has caused nationwide panic. Three people died-just three.

A miracle and a puzzle...

Amid the media frenzy and Homeland Security alarm bells, Sam painstakingly dissects the lives of those three victims and makes an unsettling conclusion. This is no textbook terrorist causing mayhem with broad strokes, but an artist wielding a much finer, more pointed instrument of destruction. An assassin, whose motive is deeply personal and far from understandable.

Xander Whitfield, a former Army Ranger and Sam's new boyfriend, knows about seeing the world in shades of gray. About feeling compelled to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Only his disturbing kinship with a killer can lead Sam to the truth...and once more into the line of fire.

How does that sound? Intrigued yet? If you are, you can pre-order your copy now at your favorite retailer.

Amazon Barnes & Noble IndieBound
News

Great news to report on a couple of fronts. I’ve just agreed to three more Samantha Owens novels. I know many of you are wondering about Taylor and Baldwin, and I promise I will be getting back to their story eventually. They have more adventures ahead. In the meantime, if you need a Taylor fix, you can read SLICES OF NIGHT, a novella I did with Erica Spindler and Alex Kava that features a Taylor short, Blood Sugar Baby.

And more good news — SLICES OF NIGHT just sold Polish rights, so it’s beginning an international journey. Very fun times for us.

I’ve also got a story in the LOVE IS MURDER Anthology called THE NUMBER OF MAN. It’s an incredible array of authors, another surefire winner.

And I’ve just become a Writerspace author, which means lots of cool stuff. We’re having a beach party on July 15, with a massive group chat, so come by and say hello! I’ll be there around 8:00 central time to chat with you. There are prizes galore from your favorite authors, so be sure to check it out.

Tours

Summer is conference season. I’m sad that I won’t be at Thrillerfest this year, but thrilled to be attending RWA nationals in Anaheim. With WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE up for a Rita^® in Romantic Suspense, I know it’s going to be an amazing week. And we might even grab a couple of baseball games while we’re there. I’m also teaching at SEAK on Cape Cod in August, and doing all my usual vacation stuff, so it’s going to be insanity. Good insanity.

July’s Recipe

Here’s a winner from one of my faves, La Cucina Italiana, for the perfect fresh and easy summer shrimp.

Shrimp, prosciutto and scallion skewers (spiedini di gamberi)

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup dry white wine


• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder


• 16 large shrimp, peeled and deveined


• 8 scallions


• Fine sea salt


• Freshly ground black pepper


• 8 thin slices prosciutto


• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil plus more for grill

Directions:
Prepare a charcoal grill for direct-heat cooking over medium-hot charcoal (medium-high heat for gas).

In a medium bowl, whisk together wine and curry powder; add shrimp and let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut scallions in half, lengthwise, to make 16 pieces; season with salt and pepper. Cut prosciutto in half, lengthwise, to make 16 pieces; fold prosciutto pieces lengthwise, if necessary, to form a width of 1-inch.

Remove shrimp from marinade; discard marinade. Lightly season shrimp with salt and pepper. Wrap 1 prosciutto slice around the center of each shrimp. Folding scallions accordion-style into thirds, thread shrimp and scallions onto 8 skewers. Drizzle skewers with oil.

Grill skewers on lightly oiled grill rack, turning once halfway through, until shrimp are cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Social Butterfly

Facebook has a new trick up its sleeve—it wants me to pay to have my posts seen in your timeline feeds. So to get around that, if you want to see my updates there, please come to the reader page, hover your mouse over the Liked button, and check the box that says Show in my Newsfeed. Then, as an added bonus, leave a comment on the wall. Those few steps will assure that you see my updates. As always, you can stop by Tao of JT, Twitter (@thrillerchick) or Facebook to say hi.

Thank you so much for all your support! You mean to the world to me. See you on the road! And Happy 4th of July!

xoxo,

On the Scent of a Woman

Shalimar.

Quick. What's that make you think of? Can you smell it?

Shalimar on cold fur, whispering against my mother’s skin as she came to tuck me in after an evening out at a fancy ball.

Shalimar means Temple of Love in Sanskrit. And really, isn’t that why we use perfume and cologne? To attract? To comfort. To leave behind a memory? I am fascinated by what people choose to dab themselves in. It’s so much more than smelling pretty, really, it’s more about who you are. Your scent says a lot about you. So don't laugh when I say this is probably the most intimate post I've ever done.

I don’t wear much perfume these days. Instead, I’m a dedicated fan of La Vanilla, which is a rollerball delivered essential oil of vanilla. It is yummy. Delicious. When I wear it my husband tells me I smell good. That’s good enough for me.

But I’ve tried my hand at a number of perfumes over the years.

I started out with the age-old classic, Love’s Baby Soft.

I remember how special I felt when I graduated to White Shoulders.

Then on to Charlie, which I always felt vaguely silly wearing.

Anäis Anäis, my first teenager girl perfume.

Tresor, my second teenage girl perfume.

Joy, which trumped all of the above and was without a doubt my signature scent from about fifteen to thirty.

Chanel no. 5, which they’ve sadly just changed the formula on.

Gio, which, to my utter horror, was discontinued and parades now as Aqua di Gio, a pale imitation of its scrumptious predecessor.

Arpege, which I still wear on occasion, but has a tendency to make drunk men corner me by the bathrooms and tell me I smell pretty.

Philosophy Love Me Tender, which I do still wear. Mostly in my hair, at the beach, for some reason.

Despite that list, I’m incredibly picky when it comes to scent. Patchouli makes me sneeze.Red Door gives me an immediate migraine. Obsession was just so, well, obsessive. Most perfumes seem too loud, too forward. And when it comes to men’s scents – forget about it.

My man wears this great subtle cologne that no one can smell but me, because you can’t smell it unless your nose is literally up against the skin. (He’s going to kill me for that. I foresee Randy being sniffed at close range at the next conference bar…)

But I’ve dated them all.

Polo – Sorry, boys, but GAG ME WITH A SPOON. Granted, Polo used with a modicum of discretion probably wouldn’t be bad, but for some reason, men loved to drown themselves in it. There was one guy in high school who you could literally smell coming from two halls away.

Royal Copenhagen – okay, that’s more like it. A subtle, powdery scent.

Davidoff Cool Water – I am so not going there… but I do still have the clear glass heart Christmas ornament he gave me. Shhh....

Drakkar Noir – It sounded so freaking cool – I wear Drakkar – but the guys who did were utter Guidos or on the wrestling team. I always wondered how that felt, being pinned to the mat by a guy wearing Drakkar. Well, how it felt for the guys. Ahem.

My Dad was an Aqua Velva Guy. I am immediately sent into his arms any time I smell it. Same with Old Spice and my grandfather.

But Shalimar… wow. A classic. We were watching MAD MEN the other night, the first season, and Joan’s roommate asks her is she’s wearing Shalimar, and I was thrust back in time, to the mirrored perfume tray on my dresser, chock full of lovely glass bottles. To the feeling of being a woman, fresh from the shower, dabbing perfume in my pressure spots – inside the wrist, inside the elbow, behind the knee, behind the ear, between the breasts. Seeing my olfactory palate change as I matured.

There’s something so indefinable, yet so concrete, about how a woman smells. And no matter what, those smells are attached to memories. Good memories, bad memories, indifferent memories. Memories that make us laugh, or cry, or feel vaguely ashamed.

Think of the pheromones we put off naturally, the undetectable aromas that attract a mate. Think of how we spent so many years disguising them, drowning out our natural scent in favor of smelling like a flower. To what end? Attracting bumblebees?

Well damn. That just makes me think about Spanish Fly.

I thought I’d drag you down memory lane with me. Tell me about your favorite scent, your favorite cologne, from now, or then. A scent that evokes a memory. Something that you love, or hate. That makes you tingle inside, or draw back in disgust.

Ready? Go!

On the Pursuit of Perfection

Randy and I were up way too late Friday night watching VH1 Classic - a favorite past time. The show was Rush in Rio, the concert that brought the band back together. We've always been big Rush fans - and I'm particularly fascinated by Neil Peart. An amazing drummer, Peart seems to me one of the great geniuses of our time, able to coax unbelievable beats from his drums, plus he writes many of the lyrics. Which are poetry, pure and simple.

I asked Randy if Peart ever talks about his gift, in terms of a gift. Or if he practices all day, every day. Or if it's a bit of both. Randy said it was definitely both and told me the story of how Peart went to New York and worked with a jazz coach to improve his skills. Neil Peart, people. Possibly the best drummer who ever lived, taking lessons.

It made me think of Tiger Woods, how back when he was at the top of his game, he got into what he perceived as a slump and switched swing coaches. Pro golfers, like pro musicians, and all pros, of every kind, practice. A lot. All day. It is their job. It is their purpose. It's how they maintain their level of professionalism. If they didn't put in the time, they'd lose their spot at the top.

Coming into the 2012 summer Olympics, we are about to see this relentless pursuit of perfection personified by the best athletes in the world. I think that's part of the draw to these events, the awe-stopping nature of knowing just how much work actually goes into getting to be world-class.

As writers, we too must practice. But I'm always surprised when I hear writers say they don't read books on the craft. It boggles my mind, really. How else are we to get better if we don't expose ourselves to other writer's stories, and either emulate or adapt our own processes and thinking to theirs? How else will we sharpen our intuition and experiment?

I just ordered WRITING THE BLOCKBUSTER NOVEL by Al Zuckerman, Ken Follett's agent, based on a conversation I had with Laura Lippman, Jeff Abbott and others on Facebook. Laura mentioned a method she was using to outline her story, and kindly shared her actual outline. In reading it, I realized what I was doing wrong. Not wrong, exactly, because it works, I was just making things so much more difficult for myself. I now have a new method to try, to practice with, to hone into my own.

We must read, and write every day. And if a cool craft book comes your way, by all means, read it. You never know what you might learn. Here's a list of craft books I think are tops in the field, in no particular order:

On Writing - Stephen King
Write Away - Elizabeth George
The Writer's Journey - Christopher Vogler
Screenwriting Tips for Authors - Alexandra Sokoloff
Forest For The Trees - Betsy Lerner
The War of Art – Steven Pressfield
The Creative Habit – Twyla Tharp
Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life – Winifred Gallagher
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Hamlet's Blackberry - William Powers
The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron

Do you have any favorite ways to learn?

On Those Naughty Sex Books

Remember when your mom hid that paperback in her purse growing up? She'd get flustered when you went diving into it's depth for change or a lollipop or a tissue. Its cover was white, its title was in big red letters, there were certain pages dog-eared, the crease so over-folded it was tearing a bit in the corner. You'd try to pull it out and your mom's face would whiten, here eyes would widen, and she'd grab it from you and stuff it back inside. "That's Mummy's book, honey. What do you need? I'll get it for you."

You took your quarter or lolly or tissue and went along your path. 

And maybe, later, if you were a precocious brat like me, you'd sneak into her purse after she went to bed, to see what was so forbidden.

That's how I discovered a few books that I perhaps didn't really understand completely. The Kama Sutra. Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask). Hot, steamy romances (those were most of the ones with the pages dog-eared.)

My parents, God bless them, were (and still are) huge readers. I was encouraged to read, and took advantage, because the escape, the imagination, matched my temperament perfectly. I read adult books alongside children's books. I read Roots in preparation for the miniseries, the same with The Thorn Birds. (Don't I remember a steamy sex scene in that? Forbidden sex?)

Every generation has their "book". You know the one I'm talking about - it's naughty. It's got sex - real sex, not the longing kind of stuff that fast forwards through the act itself. One of the more adventurous women in the neighborhood would get the book, read it, dog-ear the good parts, and pass it around.  Down and dirty and real. Women discuss it in hushed whispers, in person, passing along the books like contraband. 

Even teens always find a book that they relate to. In my time, it was Judy Blume's Forever. The concept of losing our virginity was fast becoming a reality, and that book taught us how it should be - with someone we love - and what can go wrong - free milk from the cow syndrome. It was titillating and terrifying, and so very adult.

This generation had Twilight - and yes, I know it's dumb that the vampires sparkle, but the message of abstinence until marriage - coming from the BOY - wasn't the worst thing our teens could hear. I don't know of anyone who was hurt by waiting to have sex.

Contrary to some schools of thought, we women do like sex. How else do you explain all these kids running around, not to mention the huge demand for birth-control, and the too-high abortion rates? And we like to read a bit of spicy writing. I daresay some of us even like to watch a little spicy television and see some spicy movies, too. A little spicy on the screen and inside the book covers equals a little spicy inside the bed covers, if you catch my drift.

So why has the worldwide phenomenon that is 50 SHADES OF GREY become a practically overnight sensation? It is hardly the first book featuring kinky sex to hit the marketplace, to get passed around, to have blow out book sales, to have everyone's tongues wagging.

BUT.........

It is the first of the digital age. It is the first completely private, far reaching book of erotica. It is the first time a private woman can go to a private bookstore with utter anonymity, ie: sitting by herself on her couch, and download a word of mouth sensation. She can read it, and be titillated by it, in private.

This is powerful. A major shift in the delivery method of the written word. I would bet that the erotic market is going to have a nice boom from this, at last. Some superbly written erotica exists already, so I hope the phenomenon continues.

I haven't read the book. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I've heard from the book's detractors - the writing is terrible, it's just like Twilight (Hey, I LIKED Twilight), it's smut. No, I haven't read it because I don't get my jollies from S&M. Remember 9 1/2 weeks? I HATED how that went. His dominance, her submissiveness. Same thing here. I think we should all be equals. It's just me. Not saying S&M is bad, or anything, it's just not my particular kink. 

But if 50 Shades of Grey gets us talking about sex, gets us in bed with our partners more, helps save a few relationships, then I'm all for it.

See Page 76. I hear that's where all the good stuff happens.