Here’s to my lack of a Musings post on this first Monday in 2012! A friend in my TwitterWorld sent this to me today and I found myself laughing out loud. This is soooo me today!

I have no excuses for not launching this new year right with a proper Monday Musings. Oh, wait, I *do* have excuses but you don’t really want to hear them.

I had all of these good intentions going into the holidays:

1.  I was going to get ahead of myself on my Monday Musings blog posts instead of scrambling every weekend when I don’t have time to write. My poor husband does occasionally need more company than the dust bunnies who are building a thousand acre ranch — hey, to those little rascals it is 1,000 acres — across our house.

2.  I wanted to launch my new **Author Special** feature on Karen’s Killer Fixin’s, introducing my many author friends and their favorite recipes. Yes, it’s an excuse to fill my recipe book with more goodies, my library with more TBRs, but shhh, we won’t tell them I have ulterior motives besides entertaining you.

3.  I was going to finally get my 2011 RomCon photos up on my website so everyone will see how much fun we had so they’ll come play with me, ahem, us in June for 2012 RomCon. Ya think anyone will notice if I just mix them up with June’s event?

4.  I wanted to finish the last edits and formatting on my contemporary romance, SATIN PLEASURES, get the cover finalized, and publish it by December 31st. Wow, I’m sooo in trouble if that old adage, “Go out of the old year as you mean to go into the new one”, rings true. I must…I must…I must improve my….oh wait, wrong ditty.

5.  I must get back to telling Patrick and Rachel’s story in KILLING SECRETS.  The serial killer in my head is getting impatient and screaming to get out on the page so he can…well, can’t tell you that. I’m keeping his secrets so I don’t end up as one of his victims.

6.  I was going to….

Well, you get the picture…and the lash of the wet noodle is already chafing my knuckles. Ah, the pain of it all!

I’m happy to report I did get one of these items checked off. If you missed it last Friday, check out Karen’s Killer Fixin’s **Author Special** highlighting author, Lizzie T. Leaf, and her wonderful recipe for Spinach Artichoke Dip. Can’t wait to make the dip and share (maybe) with my husband. I also have Lizzie’s book sitting at my elbow TBR asap. It’s one I’m dying to read.  It’s even autographed!

Happily, I’ve already scheduled two more authors to come visit us with recipes so watch for those in the coming weeks. I’ll post them every other week until I run out of authors and recipes…which I hope won’t be anytime soon. If  you’re an author reading this, please give me a private shout at karendocter@yahoo.com and we’ll schedule a visit. I hope you all enjoy the special visits as much as I will.

As for the rest of my To-Do list, I’m just going to plug along until I get caught up. When this blog posts, I’ll have #1 done.  Well, sort of. I’ve got a week to get the next one done, right? Those sneaky semantics! Don’t you just love words?! 🙂

With hard editing/formatting, a swift cover artist, and a little bit of luck, my cute contemporary romance, SATIN PLEASURES, will be published in the next week or two. I hope you’ll check it out when I shout to the world that it’s ready for prime time.

As for #5, I need to hurry and clear the decks because that pesky killer isn’t going to shut up in my head until I wrangle him onto the page. The last thing you all want is for me to end up in the rubber room with those pretty hugging sleeves keeping me safe. I can’t type worth a damn in the silly things.

Happy New Year, my friends!

As this is my last Monday Musings before Christmas, I stockpiled several ideas of what I could talk about if I ran out of time. There’s one about heroes that attract us, well, me actually. I have another one about writing contests, love ’em or leave ’em. And another on reading pref…well, you get the picture.

You’re not getting any of those great ideas today. Which means you’ll just have to come back, right?

Just allow me this delusion or I’m likely to run screaming into the street, stark nekkid with a mache…okay, we won’t go there either. I don’t know why that image keeps popping into my head when I’m feeling the slightest bit stressed. Maybe another Musings topic someday!

To tell you the truth, I’m about as scattered as a hunting dog in a soccer field full of jackrabbits. We all know how frenetic the holiday season can be for everyone. We writer types usually don’t get much writing done around Christmas — okay, some of us don’t, those who do write despite these distractions are bound to be eaten by Zombies in the near future because that’s just plain wrong — but I’m more distracted than usual this season with my Army son and his buddy home for Christmas, another grandbaby about to make her grand entrance, shopping still undone, wrapping not even started….

BUT, I didn’t want to make you think I’d dashed off to the briar patch with all of those crazed rabbits. I wrote another Christmas (well, it is set to the ‘Jingle Bells’ song) poem I’d like to share with you about what is of most importance to this romance writer…building a love between a man and a woman that will withstand anything.

This is my Christmas card to all of you…my readers. Happy holidays!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wedding Vows
By Karen Docter

Dashing through the files

Looking for the perfect line

O’er the page we pore

Searching all the time

Words do sometimes bring

A smile, a sigh, a fight

A romance is a tender thing

To make things turn out right

~~~

Oh, wedding vows, wedding vows

This is what we say

Oh, what fun it is to love

That one man every day

Wedding vows, wedding vows

This is what we say

Oh, what fun it is to love

That one man every day

~~~

Our heroine just can’t see

What the hero has inside

Until we do reveal

The words he tries to hide

He may be buff and fine

A financial wiz at work

If we can’t find our line

He just sounds like a jerk

~~~

Oh, wedding vows, wedding vows

This is what we say

Oh, what fun it is to love

That one man every day

Wedding vows, wedding vows

This is what we say

Oh, what fun it is to love

That one man every day

~~~

So here we sit all day

Looking for the perfect line

That reveals a man’s true heart

A woman can’t decline

She’ll see the man beyond

The words he cannot say

We work to make their love

Turn out in just that way

~~~

Oh, wedding vows, wedding vows

This is what we say

Oh, what fun it is to love

That one man every day

Wedding vows, wedding vows

This is what we say

Oh, what fun it is to love

That one man every day, yeah!

[Wedding Vows, Karen Docter © 2010]

[Inspired by Jingle Bells carol written by James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893) in
1850.]

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
~ Sir Richard Steele ~

I can’t tell you the number of times in the past few weeks I’ve heard someone say, “I don’t know what to get my mom, dad, sister, best friend – insert the role of the wonderful person in your life – for Christmas. S/he has everything!”

We all know that no one truly has everything. What you’re really saying is that you don’t have a clue what to get them that is fresh and new and speaks to their soul beyond Christmas morning. Something special they’ll remember having even if they don’t remember it came from you. A gift they’ll carry inside them forever.

It’s why I think the finest gift you can give to a reader is another book. The finest gift you can give to a writer is another reader…and a book.  🙂

It may seem simplistic, but a good book will never go out of style. The presentation hasn’t changed much over the years, even though many are now available through Kindle and Nook and other hand held devices. They’re all generally rectangular with covers and lots and lots of words inside. You can carry them everywhere you go. And many of them reach inside us and touch our souls forever.

In this fast-paced world of electronics, games, home-delivered DVDs, online TV program downloads, etc. it’s too easy to miss the simple pleasures…like reading a new story. A good book can carry you into a fantasy world so completely you forget the refrigerator just went on the fritz and its replacement has traumatized your credit card. A wonderful story can calm you after a frenetic day at work so you have the energy to smile at your child and snuggle with him. You can explore new worlds where characters just like you find alternative ways to resolve their problems, and experience vicariously that moment when a man and a woman discover their lust has grown into love or a villain is served justice. You may even leave the planet altogether and live a completely different life as a space princess for several hours.

I’m a reader who has stacks and stacks – fine, entire walls of bookshelves – filled with my TBR (To Be Read) books. I’m now the proud owner of a Kindle which is stacking my novels a bit more neatly. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be thrilled to receive another book. Or two. Or half a dozen.

If I’m lucky, someday soon, I’ll find myself filling my fantasy of sitting on a beach in Maui pulling one story after another from a bag in the sand. Food, drink, and the occasional decadent bonbon magically delivered and cleaned up by a six-foot elf with naughty eyes. Minimal clothing. Even more minimal distractions like phones and comput….okay, maybe just enough wireless internet service to chat with friends but nothing that resembles w.o.r.k.

Oops, sorry – got a little sidetracked there with my letter to Santa! 🙂  I’m pretty sure the jolly guy isn’t handing out Maui vacations this year. He looks a bit skinny to me, poor dear. And my own naughty-eyed, six-foot elf could use a vacation, too, so maybe I can fetch my own bonbons.

Anyway, back to my musings. If your hard-to-buy-for loved one is a reader your shopping dilemma can be easily solved. Find out what new releases she’s dying to read. Ferret out the name of his favorite author. Listen to your friends and discover new authors to introduce to your reader. Encourage that little munchkin in your life to read with a fun new book about making best friends or meeting trolls, squirrels, or friendly dragons that live in their room.

If your reader is also a writer, gift her with Christmas cheer by buying her book. There are so many wonderful authors to be discovered on the bookstore retail shelves, on Kindle and Nook. Another gift your favorite author is sure to love is a review of their latest release on Amazon, on the Barnes & Noble website. It’s a gift that costs you nothing but the time it takes to share your excitement about the story the author’s created for you.

You don’t need a fancy list for those “hard-to-buy-for” people in your life.  You don’t even have to check it twice.  No one has everything they want if they’re a reader. A book is unique, one of a kind, and there are thousands of them out there waiting to be unwrapped by some lucky “hard-to-buy-for” loved one.

Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I dash off to Amazon to make up my list for Santa. He’s going to be a busy guy if he’s going to load up the fifty or so novels I want!  Ohhhh, I want that one by Cherry Adair and that one by Barbara Freethy and that one by Allison Brennan and that one by Cynthia Woo….

‘Twas the Week Before Christmas
By Karen Docter

‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the land
My dust bunnies had grown bold, joined the Editorial Band;

Revisions were hung by the critique rank and file,
In hopes that my manuscript would soon top the pile;

Characters were canoodling in their own special way,
While villains of danger snuck into the fray;

And my hero in his splendor, and heroine bathed in moon’s light,
Had just dissed their love for the fourth time this night;

When out of my brain there arose what I’d been missing,
Had to rush to the office to tweak a bout of kissing;

Away to my chair, I stumbled and swore,
Ripped open a Window and widened my eyes more;

The cursor, blinking cheerily on the computer screen, teased,
Tormenting my poor muse, more than it appeased;

When, what to my beleaguered senses should un-wend,
But my muse on a lotus blossom, and a close writer friend;

With a great mighty shove, so swift the prevention,
I knew in a thrice, this was editorial intervention;

So swift the editor kicked off her perch, ideas they came,
And my muse danced and sang, I knew this was the game.

“Now, Narrative! Now, Point of View! Now, Adjective and Verb!
On, Sentence! On Paragraph! On, Synopsis and Blurb!”

“To the top of the list! To the top of the pile!
Now print away! Print away! Print away, smile!”

As manuscript pages that before crazed muse envision,
When they hide behind walls, come out with permission;

So rise to the occasion the plot points they grow,
With a screen full of characterization, my muse did yet glow;

And then, in that moment, I heard my hero speak,
Those sensuous words and statement of love’s peak;

As I reached for the words, and was putting them down,
My heroine laughed and tried on her wedding gown;

From her fingers danced stars, my muse had donned glitters,
Her crown was tipped over from too many gin-and-bitters;

But she sat on my poor editor, not allowing her vent,
My muse looked like an angel, or maybe an agent;

Her face – how it glowed! Her dimples how naughty!
Her eyes full of mischief, her nose not one bit haughty!

Her gleeful expression was fixed on the page,
And the stubborn tilt of her chin was as firm as a sage;

An eraser-less pencil she clenched tight in her hand,
And an aura of contentment encircled the land;

She had purpose to her step, was lithe enough to bend,
To the winds of creativity, she was surely there to wend;

She was the vision of my heroine, an odd little perk,
And I laughed when I saw her, my psyche at work;

With a gracious smile and a nod in my direction,
She gave me the notion I could bow to her perfection;

She spoke not at all, but took over my work,
And filled all the holes; then turned with a smirk.

And saving her words, I would tomorrow sigh,
And giving me a look, out of the office she did fly.

She freed my sorry editor, dusted her off with a smile,
And away she tottered without the least bit of guile.

But I heard her exclaim, as she packed up her bikini,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good ‘Finis’!”

[‘Twas the Week Before Christmas, Karen Docter © 2007]

[[Inspired by ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.]]

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!