Lynn Raye Harris

Hey, y’all! If you’re in the UK, Captive But Forbidden is available from Mills & Boon right now. Click on Browse this Book to read the first chapter!

I never criticize other authors because, quite frankly, I know how much work goes into a story, and even if the story didn’t work for me, I know it worked for someone else. That’s the nature of the beast – not everyone will like what you write, some will actively hate it, and some will think it’s the best thing ever written.

But, yesterday, I was goofing off at a point where I didn’t quite know what came next in my WIP and a headline on CNN caught my eye: Making New Friends as an Adult. Sounds interesting, right? I thought so, therefore I clicked.

Let’s just say that what came next was a head-shaker. If you want an example of how NOT to write your stories, look at this article. The writer starts off talking about cheese sticks, finally meanders to the one lunch date she had with a coworker that was perhaps a tad awkward, and back to cheese sticks.

Cheese sticks! She was trying to use them as a metaphor for something, but honest to God, the miss is a mile wide. For once, I don’t mind saying so because a) everyone in the comment trail thought the same things* and b) we write in two entirely different genres so that I’m pretty sure the writer won’t pop over here and see me using her work as an example of what not to do.

Remember when starting your stories that you’ve made a promise to your readers. You should know who your characters are and what their core problems are, and that’s what you should write about. Don’t spend the entire first chapter in setup before you get to the meat of the problem. This article that was supposed to be about making friends as an adult was more about cheese sticks and their affect on the author’s life than about making friends. It would have been okay, maybe, if the reader had thought she was getting a story about cheese sticks — but she thought she was getting a story about how to make friends.

Don’t promise your readers a story about a man and woman falling in love and then give take them a meandering side trip through the history of viticulture. If your characters own a winery, fine, use some of that information in weaving the framework for the main story. But for goodness sake, don’t spend those valuable first pages on it. The cheese stick writer wasted valuable space talking about cheese sticks instead of her core topic and lost a lot of readers as a result. Don’t do that, friends. Start with a bang and keep your story focused on the main problem. Cheese sticks are fine so long as they don’t take over and become the main topic. Or, if they are the main topic, don’t mislead readers with a story about something else entirely.

I suppose the cheese stick story would have been fine if I hadn’t expected a tale about how to make friends, but it was so far off base from what I was expecting that I was irritated with the writer for misleading me. Two-thirds of the article is about the cheese sticks. One-third is about her lunch date and how it didn’t go quite the way she was expecting. Big miss.

Do not do that in your writing! Thus ends today’s mini writing rant.

*Comment trails on articles in public forums are usually enough to get my blood pumping in all the wrong ways, but this time, I agreed with the basic sentiment, which was “Huh?”

Good news for readers! Amazon is still selling the Kindle version of The Devil’s Heart for an amazing price: $1.71! If you like bargains, then you should snap this one up. It’s gotten some good reviews — RT Book Reviews gave it 4 Stars and said it had ‘Lots of conflict, hot love scenes, and a satisfying ending’. Readers on Goodreads seem to like the book a lot too.

A diamond, and a deal with the devil…

Francesca D’Oro was just eighteen when darkly sexy Marcos Navarre swept her up the aisle—then fled before the ink on the marriage licence had dried. Marcos might have given Francesca a jewel for her finger, but he stole another: the Devil’s Heart—a dazzling yellow diamond he believed belonged to his family…

Years later Francesca, no longer so youthfully naïve, is determined to reclaim the precious gem! But she’s forgotten that Marcos lives up to the treasure’s name—and dealing with the devil is always dangerous!

$1.71 on Kindle – it’s a bargain! I hope you’ll give it a try, and I hope you’ll let me know what you think.

As always, thanks for reading my books! Y’all are the reason I keep writing them.

I’m back today with another recipe! This isn’t something I will likely do every week, but I was talking recipes with my friend Jean Hovey on her blog, and I mentioned this one. She said she thought it was something her husband would like, so I was inspired to go searching for it.

This recipe is from Betty Crocker and comes from a Holiday book of recipes.

Slow Cooker Hot Reuben Spread:

1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese (6 ounces)
3/4 cup drained Sauerkraut
1/2 cup Thousand Island dressing
1 block (8 ounces) low-fat softened cream cheese
2 packages thinly sliced corned beef, chopped (I used the Carl Buddig brand)

Cocktail rye bread slices or crackers

Spray inside of small slow cooker (1 to 2 1/2 quart) with cooking spray. Mix all ingredients except crackers in a bowl and then pour into Crock-Pot. Cover and cook on low setting for about an hour, or until cheese melts. Stir until smooth, then cover and cook for another hour. Scrape down sides of cooker with rubber spatula from time to time to prevent edges of spread from burning. Serve spread with rye bread or crackers.

I made this for a party once, and it was very yummy! If you like Reuben sandwiches (and I do), you will probably like this. This is great party food, of course. Good for a football party, a shower, or a cocktail party. I remember it being pretty thick. I might consider modifying it in the future to make it creamier, but not yet sure what I would do.

Let me know if you try it!

I did not watch the new Two and a Half Men with Ashton Kutcher because once I heard they were going to kill Charlie Harper, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I don’t care for Charlie Sheen, but Charlie Harper was rather loveable in a way. He had a heart of gold beneath all that wildness. He might have been a womanizing jerk, but he was also a good guy when it counted.

I’ve watched a lot of this show in reruns because it happens to be on at a time of day when the Hubby and I are relaxing together once he comes home from work. I admit it took me a little bit to warm up to the show, but then I began to see the humor in it.

And I liked all the characters for who they were. They were always true to themselves, no matter how screwed up they might be. Alan messing up a relationship with a woman because she told him that Judith said Herb was the best lover she’d ever had. Charlie wanting so desperately to keep random women on the string but cutting them all loose because he truly loved Chelsea. Herb and Alan finding common ground through their relationship with Judith.

I probably haven’t seen any of the last season’s episodes, so I can’t say whether or not the show was growing stale, but I’m really irritated at what the writers did to get rid of Charlie. They weren’t true to his character, no matter how funny they tried to make it. Charlie Harper was a good guy. But they forgot they were supposed to be writing for Charlie Harper’s exit and instead wrote one for Charlie Sheen. Because Chuck Lorre was pissed at Sheen and wanted to prove he was the guy in control.

Well, yeah, he is the guy in control. But I think he’s shot himself in the foot with this one. You have to be true to the character. And he wasn’t. I’ve read the reviews, and apparently the funeral was a big joke. Alan didn’t cry? Really? The guy who cried when he got sex for the first time in ages didn’t cry when his brother died? And Jake might be nothing more than a teenager who wants to eat all the time, but he actually loved his Uncle Charlie as a kid. Would he really not feel even a shred of remorse? Or how about Charlie’s mother?

She was always portrayed as a cold bitch, but would the woman who once stood on Charlie’s balcony and told him that she was going home because he’d just said he loved her and he could only screw it up from there really only be concerned about selling his house?

I just can’t buy it, and I won’t be tuning in. If I’d been in charge, I’d have replaced Charlie Sheen with another actor. I’d have let Charlie Harper go on living and fornicating and doing all the usual stuff he did. I can like Charlie Harper without liking Charlie Sheen (who I believe is not a nice man at all). Soap operas had a knack for replacing characters. At the beginning of an episode, they would announce “Today, the part of Storm Handsome-Moneybags is being played by Joe Fabulous.” And the show would go on.

Maybe Two and a Half Men is done. Maybe it was already growing old and stale and its time was up anyway. But it’s definitely up for me. I can’t watch it now because I can’t forgive the writers (Lorre in particular) for cheating their character and making it personal. It just isn’t the same show anymore, no matter how young and handsome Ashton Kutcher is (without the long hair and beard – don’t know what’s up with that, but it’s not flattering).

Maybe replacing Sheen with another actor wouldn’t have worked either, but at least Charlie Harper would have still had a chance to get things right in his life before the show ended. The lesson here for writers, I believe, is to think long and hard about what you do to your characters. Make sure it fits their character and is fair to who they are. I’ve killed off my characters when I was sick to death of them, but that was only for me because I deleted all that stuff and continued on with the story.

You have to be true to your characters! You’ve set them up to be someone, with flaws and wants and needs, and you can’t thwart that at the end or you risk alienating your readers. I suppose it’s different for television writers, when an actor becomes the embodiment of the creation, but the viewers still fall in love with the characters and expect justice for them in the end.

I don’t like what they did to Charlie Harper, but I had no say in it. Now, for God’s sake Chuck Lorre, don’t you dare kill off Sheldon or Leonerd or Raj or Howard or Penny! Or Amy or Bernadette!

It should probably come as no surprise that I love fashion, if you’ve ever seen me at conference. And by fashion I don’t just mean designer labels — I mean looking good in my clothes. I mean buying things that I think flatter and fit my shape, and dressing to the nines when appropriate (like conferences!). I also like bargain shopping. I won’t turn my nose up at a bargain if the fit and fabric is awesome, believe me!

I was interested in the Missoni collection that Target trotted out this week. Vaguely interested, because I’m not sure how all that zigzagy stuff would look on me. I know that Missoni is important in the fashion world (Angela Missoni is the designer behind the name) and I really kind of wanted to go and try some things on.

But I wanted to do this at my leisure, when I had time. No way in hell did I anticipate the feeding frenzy that would descend on Target once this collection went live. I heard that the Target website was down for hours. And that women were shopping the stores the way they shop the Filene’s Basement wedding dress sale (which is amusingly called the Running of the Brides) — just blast in and grab stuff off the rack, then trade sizes until you get what fits you.

No. Way. In. Hell.

There’s nothing I need that badly that I’m going to race through freaking TARGET, people, and snatch zigzagy prints off the racks and hope I can trade with someone. I have yet to go to Target (had hoped to go this weekend), but I’m sure it will all be gone by the time I get there. I should have anticipated this. After all, last year when they brought out the Mulberry for Target line, that pink leopard bag I wanted was gone within hours.

I kind of liked this jacket. But it is, you guessed it, out of stock. (This is not the usual zigzag print, obviously.)

I think the lesson here is that real women want designer clothes at prices we can afford. Why does a store like Target pair up with a designer and then not anticipate how well the things will sell? They never did get anymore of the Mulberry stuff in after it sold out. Why not? In fact, I just saw the pink leopard Mulberry purse on eBay for $80. It was only $40 at Target when it debuted.

I love fashion, but I won’t go out of my way to get something. I’m not standing in line for hours (did that with iPad, just to see what it was like, and still had to wait weeks to get what I really wanted) and I’m not fighting ladies hell bent on grabbing whatever is there.

Give me fashion at affordable prices, and make sure you’ve got enough of it! The next thing I’m looking forward to, no kidding, is the Jennifer Lopez collection. I want to see what kind of things they come up with. I think it’s in stores now, but I’ve not had a chance to check it out yet.

What are your thoughts? Any collection you’re looking forward to, or love to pieces? Or does it even matter to you? Would you stand in line for a new collection, or say to hell with it like me?

Today, I decided to share the crawfish dip recipe with y’all because several people have asked me for it!

Crawfish Dip

1 2-lb block of Velveeta
1 can Campbell’s Cream of Shrimp soup, undiluted
1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes, no salt added
1/4 cup of dried onion
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Tabasco
1 can diced green chilies
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
8 ounces (1 block) low-fat cream cheese
1 pound frozen, cooked crawfish tail meat, defrosted and drained (not rinsed!)
(Can also substitute 1 pound chopped shrimp meat; I’ve even thought of using crab for a different flavor but haven’t tried it yet.)

Place all ingredients except for meat in a medium sized crock-pot. Depending on how fast you need the dip, you can use either high or low setting to get the cheese melting. Once everything is melted, stir together and let simmer in the crock-pot for a couple of hours or so on low. If you need to serve it soon, add the tail meat and let that simmer too. If you start it really early and won’t need it until later, add the tail meat about a couple of hours or so before you want to serve. Once it’s all warm and melty and yummy, serve with Frito Scoops. I leave it in the crock-pot on the warm setting, but you could put it in a serving dish if you wanted.

This dip is truly awesome! It’s not cheap to make if you use crawfish, as that runs about $14 bucks a pound or so, at least in my neck of the woods. But you could change it to shrimp and cut the cost a little.

I adapted this recipe from one I found in a cookbook. I’ve changed enough of it (including using crawfish instead of shrimp, and using a crock-pot to prepare it) to probably call it mine, but there was an original I was inspired by. My understanding of recipe copyright is that lists of ingredients are not protected while original language is. Further, when one adapts a recipe, if you significantly change it, you don’t have to attribute. I looked all this up before sharing because, yes, copyright is something that concerns me a great deal.

That said, if you wanted to purchase the cookbook I used, it’s called Pirate’s Pantry and is published by the Junior League of Lake Charles, LA. There are lots of fabulous recipes in this book!

Hope you enjoy! If you make it, let me know how it went over! This would make great football party food, but as always make sure you warn any guests with seafood allergies.

It was a long weekend in many respects. This is what I did:

I made crawfish dip for a party on Saturday.

I had my eyebrows ripped out with hot wax.

I went to dinner with friends and drank Pomegranate Margaritas.

I wore these shoes to dinner:

After dinner, I lurched around the mall with a group of women, squealing over clothes and shoes and generally having a good time.

Saturday, I attended a workshop given by Morgan Doremus and Stephanie Klose from RT magazine.

Saturday evening, I attended a party with homemade BBQ, the aforementioned crawfish dip, and lots of yummy Southern cooking.

I laughed my butt off. (I wish it were that easy to shed fat.)

I got home late and the cats were pissed. Fed them and dealt with the fall out.

Got to bed late.

Slept late. (Embarassingly late.)

Talked to a friend for 2.5 hours Sunday morning.

Watched football with Hubby.

Talked to another friend for an hour.

Wrote a blog post while football was on.

Thought of significance of 9/11, cried a bit with all the tributes and that Budweiser commercial, but decided not to write about my 9/11 memories. Many people have done so more eloquently than I.

And that’s the weekend. Notice there was no writing in there. Today, back to work. Oh, and the New Voices competition begins tomorrow. I’m a mentor, and looking forward to it!

Today’s post is a series of random thoughts. Because I had a lot of random thoughts today and no way to connect them.

1. My stylist keeps vampire hours. I thought of this last night when I was waiting to get my hair done at 6:30PM.

2. Women who average up to 15 alcoholic drinks a week are healthier and live longer than their peers. Courtesy of CNN. Where’s my wine….?

3. There will always be people who think they are God’s gift to (fill in the blank) and don’t mind telling you about it on a regular basis. Unfortunately.

4. Know-it-all’s are irritating.

5. I still think we need the post office. How will I mail my packages to contest winners if the post office goes out of business?! The PO reaches more places than either UPS or FedEx — and cheaper too.

6. I have a really cool workshop to attend this weekend! RT Magazine people coming to teach us how to talk to the media. Awe. Some.

7. Is Kim Kardashian’s butt really that big? Really? Because that is HUGE.

8. I love arrogant Italian heroes. Lorenzo, my current hero, is swaggering across the page in full motorcycle leathers. Sexy.

9. I despise election season. Despise. No one comes out of these things with any dignity.

10. Is that really another deadline staring me in the face? Because I thought I just finished one.

11. Did I mention that I’ll be writing more books for Harlequin Presents? Because I will. New contract, new books to write.

12. Am I the only one who thinks that Bucky Larson movie looks dumb?

13. I bought my husband an e-book that he wanted. And then the next day, the hardback showed up. Because I forgot I’d preordered it.

14. My cats are crazy. But I think all cats are crazy.

15. Can’t wait for the season premieres of The Big Bang Theory, Glee, and Castle!

16. OMG, it’s September! Birthday and anniversary this month. And yes, I refuse to tell you which number for both.

What kind of random thoughts are pinging around in your head today?