'Tis the Season to Overshare

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg Nog

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrap. Where’s the fun in Christmas without color coordinating paper, string, bows, and gift tags?

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White. I grew up with blue ones that would burn the Christmas tree. It’s a wonder the house didn’t ever get wiped out.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No. The cats might get into it.

5. When do you put your decorations up? The day after Thanksgiving, of course!

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Sweet Potato Streuseled Casserole, cranberry jelly (still in the shape of the can, of course), and my mom’s Broccoli Casserole. I also loved having a pretty wine glass filled with Jello and Cool Whip, which was set out with the meal. A Colebank tradition.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Coming out of my room after my parents had Christmas ready—candles lit, fire lit, tree on, Christmas music (Barry Manilow, usually) playing. Also, coloring in this ginormous Christmas coloring book (A Christmas Carol and Twas the Night Before Christmas).

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Fourth grade. My mom told me. I’ve never been the same since.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Since I’ve been married, yes. My husband always wants to open up more than one, but I keep the gluttony under control by leading him gently away from the tree.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? After growing up with two parents as teachers and approximately two to three hundred mismatched ornaments, I decorate the tree in gold and red. No homemade crap. I might bend when I have kids…but for now, I love having a an anal Martha Stewart tree.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? After 30 years in Phoenix with 85-degree Christmases, I’m ready for some snow!

12. Can you ice skate? My ankles flip flop every which way. In other words, no, I can’t. And I kind of like having unbroken ankles/legs/hips…

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? It was made of plastic etchings of tops/bottoms/feet, and you could mix and match to create, for example, a woman wearing a basketball jersey, a cocktail skirt, and ski boots.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Being with loved ones.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Thumbprint cookies. Chocolate fudge. My husband’s grandmother’s peanut butter fudge. Pumpkin pie.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Listening to Christmas music while wrapping presents. Going on a driving tour of Christmas lights. Making twenty batches of cookies with my mom.

17. What tops your tree? A lit star.

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Both.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm – Dean Martin

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yum if they’re peppermint. Yuck if they’re anything else.

Book of the Month

Almost forgot! I read a great book last month. (Sadly, I used to read one to two books a day. Now, a book a month is fast for me.) Tess Gerritsen's Vanish was terrific. In case you haven't read her, let me tell you: her writing's crisp, her characters are 3-D, and her plot isn't Swiss cheese. Quite an accomplishment when you compare her to most writers these days!

My summary of the book is as follows: Pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli is about to go into delivery when a crazed female patient takes a room full of people hostage--Jane included. Chaos ensues. (Hey, I don't want to give too much away!)

Having Fun Revising Gil

I've been bad. I've been MIA from Bloggerland for a while. But I have a really good answer for that: I've been writing! I'm 10,000 words away from finishing my rewrite of the book I did before Black Tuesday, and I feel like I'm on Cloud Nine.

The rewrite, however, is not the end. There's still skimming and scanning to be done for inconsistencies, grammar mistakes, and spelling errors. I got the galleys for Black Tuesday a few weeks ago and was floored by the amount of spelling errors I saw (e.g., "what" instead of "white"). But I think it was the copy editor who screwed up. Yeah. Let's go with that. I'm perfect, after all. More android than human. :o)

Anyway, back to that manuscript. I'm loving my characters. I want to MEET these characters. They're fully fleshed-out in my head. Let's take Gil. First off, he looks like this guy pictured (yeah, he does have a striking resemblance to Julian McMahon. Weird, huh?). He's also anal about coasters, likes smoking a pack a day, and can come up with some really off-the-wall statistics when you're just trying to have a conversation with him. Gil's divorced, but he's bitterly divorced. In other words, he's a catch, but also a big ol' heap of trouble. (Did I mention his fourteen-year-old daughter?)

Don't worry, I'm not messing with him too much in these revisions. After all, he's pretty darn near perfect.