So, Gail, do you name these colors by the official crayola color names? (I'm picturing you looking at your bright yellow and green box, but weren't those in groups of 8?) And, although I suspect you can't type quite as fast as your speak, let's hear them. LOL

Even though I had a collie named Lassie (which, yeah, I know was real original, lol) I loved Rin Tin Tin! He really was a hero. I tried to start a newspaper about the same age, but the press machine had little rubber letters you had to cut out and I'd get ink all over everything, so I ended up giving up that venture, I think at my mother's encouragement. Though I have written a heroine whose childhood neighborhood newspaper was quite popular and springboarded her into a career as a journalist. That's one of the things I love about writing -- living vicariously through my characters.

I don't tell people I'm a writer for the same reasons. Though, as I said, sometimes you have to fill in occupation on those doctor and dentist sheets. Nothing like having a OB/GYN asking you to collaborate on his book while he's spelunking around in your private parts!!!!! ==80

Hi Sam, thanks for inviting me. Wow, I had no idea they allowed Marxists in Missouri, LOL. Now, whenever I think of you, I'll think of you with Warren Beatty from REDS. When I was in NYC last spring, I visited my agent at Writers House, which was originally the home of the American Communist party. I mentioned having read that when she showed me the conference room (the building is truly a wonderful old house!) and she assured me the room's all about capitalism now!

Funny coincidence about your degrees. I'd just registered for my final semester and signed up for my MAT in English when I turned around, went back into the liberal arts building and changed my major to geography, which I loved. You and I may be two of the few people in the world who know it's more about States and Capitols. I was going into park planning, but Phoenix wasn't big on using public money to build parks and green spaces (except for golf courses) in those days, so I ended up in advertising and journalism, which led me to books.

As for #8, the time between marriages -- when we actually lived in different states and weren't at all together -- is referred to, around our house as "Jay's two years off for bad behavior." LOL

Hi Elen. So, what's the difference between a fiddle and a violin? My snooty classically trained sister-in-law insists they're different; I think it's only the tune they're playing that makes the difference.

Which brings me to that old country song verse about how you can't play in Texas if you don't have a fiddle in the band. I sat in the front row of a Charlie Daniels show at the TN state fair a few years ago, and watching him play The Devil Went Down to Georgia in person was amazing!

Stacy, I imagine it wasn't fun chasing turkeys. (Can't they move really fast when they want to? And do they peck?) My mother used to send me with a blue bowl every morning to a neighboring farm where I'd have to collect eggs. Boy, those chickens didn't want to give them up and those beaks are hard!) I lasted one day when I was seventeen as an egg candler. That was a horrible job I never list on resumes!

Thanks for the nice words about my books and have a super holiday yourself!

Gina, quite honestly, this does not surprise me. LOL

Well, since I'm one of those who believes in following your dream, I'd say a new year is a great time to start!

As for #8,after two years apart -- during which time, while he was busy climbing (racing!) up his company's corporate ladder -- he'd come to AZ to visit our son every couple weeks -- my sweetie told me that he'd be having his impacted wisdom teeth taken out in Phoenix and since the doctor said he wouldn't be able to drive, would I mind taking him to the hotel afterwards.

Well, having never been to an oral surgeon, I sat for hours in the waiting room, wondering why no one ever came out from the treatment rooms. When they finally called me back to where he was waiting, I realized they have a back door because if they brought patients back out through the front, everyone would flee.

The poor guy looked so horrible, all swollen up and groggy, so I thought about how he was my high school sweetheart. The father of my son. And he had been really nice the past couple years, so I told him that rather than dump him at the Hyatt, I'd take him home with me, but one negative word and he was out. He mumbled something (hard to talk with all that gauze packing in his mouth) that sounded like an agreement to behave.

Well, he settled in. AND REFUSED TO LEAVE!!! Seems he'd arranged for a demotion so he could come back to AZ to be with us. What I didn't know until about eight years later, when I heard him talking to someone at a writers' conference cocktail party, was that although he really had needed his wisdom teeth taken out, he'd planned all along for me to take him in so he could work to convince me to marry him again. Which he did. :)

Anna! Yikes! Your story made me laugh. And you know, I'm convinced that laughter is one of the strongest glues for marriage. Maybe my sweetie and I are too easily amused, but we'll get started on riffs that will have us both almost rolling on the floor. I've told him that the day he ceases to make me laugh is the day our marriage is over.

I think it's cool you lived in Iceland. Jay's office was next to one where a woman from Iceland worked and she used to tell him what a beautiful country it is. And not nearly as continual icy as the name would suggest. What was also amazing was when he told her what I did, she told me that her mother and sisters read my category books back home in Iceland! Which I thought was way cool.

Oh, and here's a little bit of information regarding the CIA. They were, when I was a geography major, the biggest recruiter of geography graduates. At least at ASU. I actually seriously considered hiring on, but didn't want to drag my family to D.C. or wherever else they might decide to post me.

Actually, my life has always seemed pretty normal. Which may just show that we all have different ideas of normal. Something, thinking about it, Katie said about her life jetsetting around with Tom in that In Style magazine I was reading yesterday.

But a mass murderer. Wow. That sure beats my Irish bootlegger grandfather!

Mike, I can understand why you're keeping it to yourself. I never share details of what I'm working on, not even with my editors or agent, partly because the story seems to lose power in the telling.

But I have to share here that in the early '80s, when I was looking into writing popular book length fiction, I was seriously considering horror, which is what I mostly read. (Along with some Follett type suspense.) Back then King was at the top (still is), followed by Koontz, then, John Saul. Then there seemed to be others waaay down there. At the same time, romance was just starting to break out and quite frankly, I followed the money, which, luckily, also turned out to be the stories of my heart and having just turned in book #100, I haven't regretted my decision.

But I also think that of all the genres, romance and horror have the most in common because they're both more character than plot driven. You can have the most fabulous plot ever, but if readers don't really, really care about a character, they won't care if he/she lives happily ever after, or gets run over by a Plymouth named Christine. :)

Good luck!

Yep, Jeannie, I say you win. Wow!! So, is that like deep sea diving? Do they have to bring you up slowly so you don't get the bends? I can't even begin to imagine such a thing!

As for the ratio, well, that's gotta depend on the men, right?

I agree with JoAnn. Inquiring minds want to know anything you're willing to dish about the underground experience. I'm so terribly claustrophobic that I've requested a tree-top burial. Grin. Did it ever bother you?

I remember Erma Bombeck writing about her mother always reusing wrapping. Makes sense to me, especially the pretty stuff. And definitely gift bags. (Have those gotten ridiculously expensive, or what?)

As for the other stuff, you remind me of my sweetie, who has special wrenches for bikes he doesn't even own anymore. When we lived in Phoenix, houses didn't tend to have attics or crawl spaces, so I had a rule that except for holiday stuff, if it wasn't used in six months, it had to go out. Now here in East TN, we not only have a huge attic, but a crawl space with an 8" ceiling in a large part of it (our house is on a slope), and I'm AMAZED at the amount of stuff we've managed to collect! I recently cleaned out the closets because a Realtor was coming to look through through the house because we were thinking of putting it on the market, and I finally tossed out some of my conference suits with the '80s shoulder pads that I haven't worn in years. Even if I could fit into them, and even if the fashion designers went insane and reprised that Joan Collins Dynasty style, no way am I ever going to go there again!

Marriage can be a lot like what Tom Hanks said about baseball in A League of Their Own: It's supposed to be hard. That's what makes it great.

Obviously I like being married, since my life is so much fuller with my Sweetie in it, but it took us two times to get it right, and there is no way this second, successful marriage resembles the first. (We married so young and people do grow at different rates, which sometimes makes it difficult to mesh. Also, I think men -- and this is one of those sweeping statements -- have gotten better about at least trying to understand our needs and expressing their own, which helps.)

So, yay and congratulations to you!

And wow, that's a LOT of books. I thought I read a lot at 3-6 a month!

Oh, Carol, that brings back so many memories of riding my bike, feet on the handle bars, arms outstretched. WHAT WERE WE THINKiNG???? It still amazes me any of us survived to adulthood!

I was a phone rep for a day. Didn't survive that either, and the owner, who kept putting his hand on my thigh, was another reason I quit.

As for the cow milking, I so remember that! Drinking warm milk straight out of a cow with freshly baked oatmeal cookies is still one of my favorite memories. (And normally, I didn't even like milk that didn't include chocolate!)

And yes, my hubby is a super special guy. Which is why I married him twice!

Okay, I'm a sports fan. I watch baseball, football (pros and college), tennis, always the Olympics -- which would included track -- and used to, in my Phoenix Suns days, be addicted to basketball. I've often noticed how many of the trainers are women and wonder WHERE THE HECK WAS I? when sports departments were hiring for that job!

How cool for you. Congratulations! I'm sure the team was lucky to have you.

So did I, Maureen! I earned one the year before in cheerleading, but then put on fifteen pounds, couldn't fit in the uniform, and was too fat to actually run. So I went for manager instead. Which was cool because I got to sit in the booth way up at the top of the bleachers and eat the whole time I was keeping track of scores. Needless to say, I gained another five pounds that spring.

:)

What a lovely thing to say! Thanks. I'm delighted you enjoy my stories. Writing them has beaten the heck out of candling eggs! LOL