Four Steps to Diva-dom

Lola's life is so boring her friends decide to help her liven it up with a 4-step program guaranteed to make her a brand new woman. She never counted on meeting Remy. What happens in Vegas, doesn't always stay there.


4 Steps to becoming a Diva..

1. Drink at least three diva type drinks.
She never drank; it always caused her to babble about the most inane things. She'd tell her underwear size by the end of the night.

2. Make sure to only buy the first of those.
How in the hell did you make someone buy you a drink? That smacked of begging.

3. Ask the hottest guy you see to dance.
Oh. My. God! Maybe she could buy a really strong drink at first. Liquid courage was the term she had in mind. She could be a drunken diva.

The last thing on the list to become an absolute complete diva was something she doubted she'd do and really, how would these two idiots know? As an only child, she'd developed a wicked imagination. As an adult woman, she'd bought a lot of dirty and deliciously smutty books to keep her imagination alive. That meant she had lots of material to steal, because number four was the one that they thought the most important of all.

4. Take the hotty home and ride him like a trick pony, Ms.Diva!
Lola felt someone staring at her and looked up. A pair of bright green eyes met hers and she felt a bolt of heat slide down her spine and straight into the stupid thong she'd been forced to wear with this silly excuse for a dress. Did she say oh my God already?

Meowhahahhahahah!

Laughter is the Best .. Inspiration

Many more years ago than I'd care to admit, I picked this book up. It's gone through many changes, at least the cover has, and though I have a first edition copy, I chose the newer picture as I like pink. The Raider by Jude Deveraux was a book that did something that no romance had done for me before. It made me laugh.

Ms. Jude's beloved Montgomery family was coming to America, but you are led to believe it will die out with the insipid, foppish Alexander Montgomery, who minced his way through the scenery much to Jessica Taggert's disgust. These two trade barbs with such obvious relish that you know in your heart something must come of it, but what? How can she love this overblown, overpadded, lace-loving twit of a man? Especially when The Raider is swinging his way through the town in his big black mask and *sighs* tight black leather pants. I mean really, what girl doesn't love a hot bad boy?

The Raider is The Scarlett Pimpernell meets Zorro meets Batman meets.. The Boston Tea Party and I laughed so hard I almost passed out. I was 16 and left to wonder why in the heck no other authors made me laugh as well as love in the romance novels quite so much. Ms. Deveraux did it so well, so much and so often, that she will be one of my favorites of all time. Now, if she'd only do historicals again.

I may not write historicals, but I still read every one I can get my hands on in the hopes that there will be another to fill her shoes. So far some have come close, but no body beats The Raider or outdoes the Deveraux, at least to me. Her Montogomery's are at the top of the list, followed by the Malory's, the Bridgertons, and the Sherbrookes.

She's the reason I write romance and she's also one of the reasons I write romantic comedy. Smiling is good for you, I feel that laughter burns calories.

Laugh, love, read

Jenna Leigh

Happy Sunday!

This is a Bubba Keg. It contains what could be called, Rocket fuel for this insane redneck author. I use it to motor my way on the my little psycho path, puttering along, avoiding the potholes of plot pitfalls as I write my lastest zany and hopefully funny story called Everybody Wants to Be a Cat.

Yesterday was tiring, and yet, fun! Thanks Romance Junkies!! Authors promo, that's a fact of the business, cause, it ain't gone sell itself. I don't care how good it is, that little book will sit on the shelf and collect dust, not money. You can write the best book and nobody will buy it if you don't sell it. I love both my stories but hey, if nobody knows about them, then they aren't gonna be read. And why am I writing if not to entertain the masses? I write to please myself, but I also write to please my friends. I'd like to think of my so called *gulps* fans as friends too. I don't really think I have fans, though. LOL

I'm not Nora or LKH or even.. *sucks air* Sheri.. I'm her biggest fan. Anyways, I like people, a lot, and I like to write a real woman even if she's with a vamp or a were and even if she's a witch or a psychic, she has real feelings. The hero does too, they feel, and love and hate and want to pull their hair out. But, they also smile and laugh and smart off alot. A whole lot. I like witty, characters that talk a lot of smack. And if you play that character off one that's so uptight he or she creaks when they walk, all the better. Contrast is key.

In the first of my wolf series, I have Lainie and Marcus. Both of them are young and pretty hip. They're equal in their relationship mentally. However, he's a were, not that she's aware of it at first. They go at it in and out of the bedroom. Verbal sparring is one of the best parts of their relationship. I hope to see them in print one day, either ebook or on the shelf, I don't care! The wolves are howling to be heard and I'm feeling a bit ansty myself.

Romance is great, but you have to spice it up with some snappy banter, and if the girl's a little meaner and the boy's a wiseass too, ah well, that's called reality, and if it bites? So what? I like a bite now and then. *grins*

I hope you have a good one, happy reading, happy writing, stay cool if you can..

Jenna Leigh

I just had a weird thought

If you put the heroine of my story with the title of my novella .. do you know what you'd have?

Erin go Braless? Roflmao.

Oh, just just up! I'm doing something technical here, people, at least I was trying to be entertaining. I know it wasn't funny, Glamazon, you don't have to get the ruler out.

You must submit

No, this isn't that type of blog. Well, not tonight anyway. *grins* I was talking with a fellow author and said if we don't submit our work, we won't get offered anything. After a brief silence, she said in a voice loaded with a brand of hostility that says I am so right. "Shut up."
Oh, she wasn't really mad, just angry at herself and me for not doing it.

We made a pact then and there to motivate (read bitch at) each other to write on something for submissions each and every day. All it takes is..

Courage.. (hence the little Cowardly Lion picture)

We're both in the same boat. We can't let go of our babies, let them fly free of the nests and say they're ready to be books as opposed to works in progress. They're so cute when you start them out, then they go through that awkward middle saggy phase before you get to the end and have to polish them. I suppose that could be called the all imporatant, first molting or er..edit.


The creative process is often a violent one, much like birth and death all wrapped up together. In fact, depending on your subject, you can write all that into one book along with the requisite sex drugs and rock n roll of course. You can never have too much of the last three in my opinion, though, I always see Billy Idol when I think of them. In the midnight hour, she cried more more more. What was she crying for more of, sex drugs or music with rocks in to quote Terry Pratchett. While I'm sure Billy's inspired many a woman to do some bad bad things, who will inspire me to send my work into someone who'll do something with it? A writer needs readers to be an author, in my book anyways.

Paranormal Romance with a twist of humor seems to be what I'm good at, and I love it. So far, I've got quite a few finished, one submitted to an agent (yes I said submitted) another turned into my publisher. (she probably hates it..*sniffles*) And a few more I may have ready to go out as well.

If I only had..

Courage..

I follow my own road, that well traveled psychopath. The journey is paved with the misadventures of my zany and well-established ability to twist and turn a phrase into madness without much effort at all.

Go with your strengths, and my gene pool, unlike what most people think of us southerners, (yes you, back in the corner, I see you smirking) is varied. My family tree, while twisted, does fork, in many unexpected directions too. I wish there was a synopsis writing savant hanging around on it somewhere but nooo, all I have are.. *blinks* Never mind, about them we don't talk about the next of kin.

I'll write the sucksnopsis all by myself.

Courage.. *shudders*

So, here I am, Jenn the Cowardly Redneck, who wishes she were over the rainbow with the Scarecrow and the Tinman. Although being told to follow the Psychopath by Meme the Goodwitch of the South, just doesn't really make me feel all that damn comforted to tell you the truth. I think she's going to follow me in her Baba-Mobile followed by Glamazon in her Highheel Hotwheel just to make me freak out and hit a paranoid pothole so they can laugh when I fall and Kitta puts theose bloody wetas on me. Then all will listen to me scream like a little boy. (You heard me right so don't bother to reread that last sentence.)

The road to submission is filled with good sentences, paragraphs and chapters. Hell, it's even got a prologue and epilogue. What it don't got is a synopsis. I hate them and personally think they were invented by either the Nazi's or Satan himself to torment me. I shall overcome, however, and triumph over the evil of the dreaded and hated torment that lies within. All I need is


Courage..

Jenn
The Cowardly Redneck

Or... Am I? This instead!!



Meowhahahahahahah!!

Blondes have more fun, right? Oh be quiet!

This is me, or a comic book rendition drawn by the hubby. He feels that this is a true to life representation of what I can become if you deprive me of the things that I feel are necessary in life.

1. Caffeine
2. Nicotine
3. Chocolate
4. Internet
5. My NATURAL HAIRCOLOR!

Ok, so I decided to highlight my hair. Yes, I know I'm a brunette that leans toward a dark almost black tone. So, what? I am turning gray, and decided why fight it, go with the flow and turn it to my favor, and highlight it. *snorts*

Therefore, I let my insane evil teen queen loose upon my head with what amounts to a labotomy tool. I'm not joking. This was a small metal knitting needle with a sharp end that she took supreme satisfaction in using to extract vengeance for each and every slight perpetrated upon her by myself either real or imagined.

It went a little something like this.. Picture me with one of them plastic caps on my head, which only fit right if you are a Conehead.. pah!

Mozilla:*Poke*.. hehhaahaha
Me: OW!
Mozilla: *Poke*..hehahahahah..
Me: OW THAT IS MY DAMNED EAR YOU LITTLE COW!
Mozilla: hehehehhhah oh hush. *Poke*
Me: OMG OMG YOU EVIL CHILD! Stop!!!


And hubby would come and check on us before running away again. He went to sleep before it was finished. She walked into the bedroom and he blearily looked up and automatically said. "Honey, your hair looks great." She then informed me that he was very well trained. I informed her that I'd worked hard on that and she should be damn proud. She said she was.

Thus, I am now a blonde, albeit a brassy one. *growls* A blonde.. ME!! I am not blonde material. She's a blonde, you know. In that, Brittany Spear-ish/Jessica Simpson-ish/Jessica Alba-ish way.. I'm not insulting her, she's a beautiful girl, my daughter. Her skin is a clear golden bronze, her eyes are the darkest brown and ..well, I hate her! So, she decides the get her revenge by turning me into this.. this.. BLONDE PERSON!! AAAAAAACK!

Now, I must make my way post haste to the Helmouth to buy something to fix it.. Two trips in two days, this is the best revenge she could ever devise.. I can hear her doin a bwhaahaha laugh.. She's good, very good, *sniffles* I'm so proud.

Jennzilla the Temporary Blonde
Proud Mother of the Mozilla

A Stud by any other name is still a stud right? Um, no..

So you choose a name for your hero or heroine you're set and you think that all's right in your creative world, the story is going along well and you get to the sticking point. And yes, girls and boys, I do mean STICK- ing.. *grins* and suddenly you think about something.

What would you do after yelling out the name Groucho? (this is an example I'm not naming my menfolk that, jeez! But a funny way thing happened on the way to the.. grrr!) Would you moan, groan, (not in a good way) laugh, snort milk up your nose- not that you have milk around but you get my drift- or just go meh, and leave the room to get a candy bar? Names are important, and apparently people are tired of the same old same old. But on the other hand, they don't want the cutsey spellings of the tried and true.

Matthew and Mark are old standards, but like blue jeans and shoes, the more you wear em, the better they feel . You could go the Beatles route, John, Paul, George or for the more exotic, Ringo. I always wondered where the heck his name came from, did he have laundry problems in the collar region? Or you could go far out man, and do Star, Moon, Garth, Free, Prince, Rafe (gag), Baz or the old tried and true, Satan. (yes, well, he's the one you don't take home to mother)

Names... are hard! I despise them. Ask any of my friends. I can pick either the girl or the boy's name right off the bat. Right now, I have a story called Vicky and that damned man. Meme picks on me about it. She's so mean to me.. *sighs* LOL

What's in a name? Power, that's what. The power to pull a person's attention to you, their eyes, their hearing, their very soul sometimes, with that one word that your mother and father stuck you with at birth. Unless you were brave and changed it.

So.. a rose by any other name may smell just as sweet but my hero's will always be bad boys with sort of normal sounding names, more than likely either shortened to a nickname as will the heroine's. It's my way. I'm a redneck after all, we're the champions of nicknames, because it takes us so damn long to say something that we take shortcuts where we can. BTW.. tomorrow is Friday.. woohoo!!


See yall later,
We are many, we are legion
We are.. yeah, it's a nickname, but it's still pretty potent..
Jenns!!!

Something strange is afoot at the Circle J

Happy Hump Day and it's all down hill from here. We're gonna slide down that slippery slope to Friday. Yes, that's right, I've begun to bandy the F-word around on my blog a few days early. Why? Because this is my blog and I can if I wanna. I figure if Friday hears itself being talked about maybe it'll run over and see what I'm saying, that way, maybe, just maybe, I'll get to the weekend a little faster. I'm not going to hold my breath on that, because blue is not one of my good colors. I'm more of a purple type of person, if you must know.

So, what's happening in my life? Not much unless you count the little twits stealing gas out of my car at night. That's right, I'm onto them. And I'll be watching, tonight and every other night. You never know when myself or the Mozilla will tap them on the shoulder with what they HOPE is an nonlethal weapon and say "This aint the damn Quickie Mart!!"... In fact, just now, I went outside and hollared at the top of my lungs..

THE COPS ARE COMING TO LOCK YOU UP! BWAHAHHAHAHA!

Yes, it did make me feel all happy inside. Tomorrow, I'll have spotlights, cameras and perhaps a supersoaker which I've had sitting in the fridge. Mozilla and Jennzilla are on the case. We've deputized Bear (a pom) and Kitty (a chow mix) and they will bite anything that moves, unfortunately, this includes us as well. *sighs* K-9's, they aint. In the case of poor tiny Bear, he's not even a K-2, he's so little, but he more than makes up for it in attitude LOL. Kitty, while large, is too soft and sweet, but she will follow Bear's lead in all things and he's mean as all get out, my ankle will attest to this.

Oh, the life of a redneck girl.
Jenna Leigh
aka Barney Fife

PS: Mozilla wants it known that she is doing this under protest as she is quite sure a bug will get in her hair and some junk. Like, mother, Gawd!!!! I want it known that I will not have those long legs wasted, she will be running.. She's the young cop in this equation, I'm the loud mean one. Art imitates life.. ffthththh

At Last My Day Has Come Along

My long wait is over
The weekend is like a song...

Etta James sang it differently, but I mean it just as much.

Friday is here, finally!

I say this word a lot on this day, to keep me from uttering that other famous f-word and getting fired from my icky day job. The one that keeps me in undies, chocy and internet, all of which I need, not necessarily in that order. I can do without undies. Who'd know besides my insane hubby? And he is nutters, his addiction to Star Wars, Barry Manilow, Shark Week and Raisin Cain's, not to mention myself, proves this beyond all shadow of a doubt.

Oh yeah, I put myself in there with his quirky little things he can't get enough of, surely you don't think I don't know my own faults. I'm goofy, weird, bitchy, zany. I have a smart mouth, a sharp tongue (not like that, but now that you mention it, that is probably one reason he puts up with about 99% of the crap he does mmm) and basically, I'm just not always the best of people to have around. Plus, I'm not always there, whether it's emotionally or physically, or both. I go into Lala land at every opportunity, if pushed, I'll fly there at the speed of freak and glare at you from my perch in the Bitch Monkey Tree all the better to spit curses at you from a safe distance.

He knows it, and yet he stays.. why? I don't know why, hell, but I'm glad he does.. most days.

But.. he .. hovers.. thinking I'm a fragile little hothouse flower unable to care for myself. *insert big old heehawing snort here* I love him though for thinking this.. but er.. yeah ..

Case in point..

I want to go to New Orleans this OCT for the KCon.. I know it is sold out, and I know I have a snowball's chance in hell of actually seeing the great SK, but you just never know, right? I do know I will get to see the Glamazon, Madame Meme, and Nee Eye Jo though, and that's good, seeing the creator of the Dark Hunters would be gravy. Plus, I'd probably keel over and choke on my spit if I did see the woman who kick started me into actually writing something that got me started writing at all!

That's right.. Sheri.. is my MUSE.... *sighs* I lurve her.

I only hope there will be room for me in Glamazon's extra room she rented for all her damned SHOES! Neener neener.. can't get me .. well, at least not til October huh?

Jenn
Every Rose has its Thorn..
Mine are tipped with razor sharp barbs loaded with poison, and if that isn't bad enough, the flower talks, and it nags nags nags.. bring it on NOLA, I'm yo huckleberry.