Thank you Karri Turner! Oh, and you're welcome!

Good afternoon!

I've spent THE MOST BLISSFUL afternoon writing.  It's been far too long since the last time I sat down and just WROTE. 

Today I was working on "Fresh Ice".  The hero, Quinn Murray, is a former NHL "enforcer" with a very dark past.  For me, it was a no brainer as to what the man looked like, or sounded like:

Most of you recognize this as David James Elliott of "JAG" fame.  Ladies, the man has "HERO" written all over him, right?  But picture him all angsty in a sort of heroic way...and on hockey skates.  Nice, right?




The heroine, Izzy Marks, is a former figure skater who was forced out of skating in shame.  While writing her story was easy for me, because I know SO MUCH about shamed figure skaters....pause for loud laughter...picturing her was a bit more difficult.  Heroes I see clearly.  Heroines, well, okay, in my first novel, let's face it, that was me.  And in my second novel...also me...but younger. 

This time around I set out to write a woman who was NOT ME.  But casting about for a good mental image of Izzy was tough.

Until I was watching DVD of JAG.  It was one where Karri Turner and Patrick Laborteaux did the commentary.  Normally I don't watch DVD's with the commentary on, but since I adore their characters  (I always wanted to live next door to Bud And Harriet.)  I thought I'd give it a try.

Boy, am I glad I did!

See, they were commenting on an episode...oh I won't bore Non-JAG fans out there with the details.  Let me just say this:  Karri Turner was sort of bemoaning the fact that her character was the only one in the main cast that DIDN'T wind up in bed with DJE's character.  (Yes, Patrick had some uncomfortable retort to that.)

That got me to thinking:  The woman deserves to be in bed with DJE, in some way.  And that's when I came across this picture of Karri Turner;

How perfect is she for my Izzy?

Well, you haven't read the book, so you don't know, but trust me...she's PERFECT!

And in my head, the movie is casted and filming.  LOL!

So...Karri Turner, thank you for the inspiration...and, YOU'RE WELCOME!

Now, I must go forth and WRITE!

Half the fun of writing!

Good morning all!


Half the fun of writing, and getting published, is doing interviews!

I did a little interview with the lovely ladies at SOS Aloha. Their blog is well worth a peak, plus, there's a chance to win a copy of Dream in Color!



Here' s the link:



Sarah's interview with SOS Aloha


Personally, I loved all the pictures they put in there.  Yes, the lighthouse IS the one Ramona runs to in her wedding dress.  Yes, there are multiple pictures of Rick Springfield.  Yes, I do mention JAG a couple of times!  Yes, it was fun doing the interview!

Have a great Thursday!

The death of Original Fiction?

Good morning!



I'm taking a sick day today. Most of you out there know that a grown woman with children doesn't actually get sick days the way most people think of them. Still, I don't have to answer to anyone for about three hours today...so that constitutes a sick day.
More on that at my humor blog: http://itcanonlyhappentosarah.blogspot.com

I was watching TV last night. It's premier week for most of the networks, so there's a lot of great new TV to watch. Something struck me last night: I am not wrapped up in TV shows like I used to be.

When I was a kid, I watched three shows religiously. Don't laugh.



Emergency, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons



Now, mostly I watched those because that's what my parents allowed me to watch. In the days of three channel TV programming, there wasn't much out there to watch. These days, you can spent hours and hours on the couch watching...well, reruns of those shows, I guess. The magic about those shows was that, while they are sequential (You can tell where you are in the "Emergency" series by the length of Randy Mantooth's hair.) they can really be watched in any order. Maybe Little House not so much, because toward the end of the series there were more two part story lines. But those shows, you can sit down right now, watch an episode and not be lost at all


When I got older, I watched the following shows

Dallas, Falcon Crest

The attraction for me for these shows was the endless cliff hangers. Story lines didn't end after the last commercial break. you HAD to tune in the next week. Remember the summer of "Who Shot JR?" I do.



When I got into college, my heart turned to thoughts of romance...and sex. So of course, I never, ever missed "MOONLIGHTING. Different from the shows of my childhood, "Moonlighting" was episodic...you could miss a week. But the "Will they/won't they" storyline, the undercurrent of the episodes, was something I could not miss. Of course, they ruined the show completely when Bruce Willis crashed through Cybil Shepherd's glass coffee table in a passionate embrace for the ages. And they brought in Mark Harmon to try and save the show, which didn't happen. But I digress.



I think most scripted shows today follow the basic template of Moonlighting. Attractive guy/attractive girl. One of them is all business. One of them is a scamp. They work together in some high stress high drama job. Sound familiar? Like half the scripted shows on TV?



Quite possibly the most perfect example of this formula was "JAG." That show was interesting the first season on NBC. My husband loved it. Then it got canceled and CBS picked it up. And set the beautiful Catherine Bell next to David James Elliott. And magic happened. For nine more seasons, their three most popular seasons AFTER they declared their love for each other (but didn't do the dead, take note TV writers...) people tuned in for the drama, for the action, and to see if this was the week these two wonderful characters would finally...ya know. For the record there was never an onscreen love scene between these two. The writers kept these characters beautiful and heroic to the very end, and we love, love, loved it.


The other kind of scripted show out there is the ensemble show. Big dramas that don't really focus on one character. These are the shows that are dying by the scores, and are therefore the focus of this fairly unfocused blog.

I used to watch "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy" religiously. Every Sunday I hunkered down for a long night of ABC viewing. Then they moved "Grey's" to Thursday night opposite "CSI" another favorite. I have not watched one second of "GReys'" since. And I can't get into it now because this is one of those dramas that if you miss a couple episodes, you may as well give up. And, the minute "Housewives" drove off the rails with more bodies turning up on Wisteria Lane (I've lived in the 'burbs most of my life...I have yet to find a body anywhere in my neighborhood.) I gave up on that show, too. What do I watch on Sundays now?


Mad Men


Mad Men is the anomaly in my TV viewing week. It is the one scripted drama I make sure I'm watching every single week. I've left parties early to see Mad Men. I've lied about illness to get out of family gatherings to see Mad Men. Why is this the one TV drama I watch, when all others have faded away?

Because it's WELL WRITTEN. It doesn't pander to special interests, to revisionist historians, to today's adjusted social mores. I never feel like I've been preached to after I've watched Mad Men.


Don't get me wrong. I completely support scripted TV. HBO and Showtime have some of the best stuff out there. The big networks, however, have forgotten how to cultivate an audience. Moving CSI: New York to Friday nights isn't going to make anyone happy. And I'd be more excited about new shows if any of them was really new. But if one more rogue lawyer show pops up, I'm going to howl.

And that's the point, isn't it? The death of originality. TV producers don't want to give an original concept for a show more than 8 weeks ("Scoundrels") to make a splash. Only 10 million people watched it? Cancel it! Put on some lawyer show! Better yet, can we get some skanky semi ethnic twenty somethings to be skanky? Because that seems to be working really well for cable. Oh wait...how about a foul mouthed old person? that's it! A lawyer show with skanky twenty somethings and a foul mouthed old person. GOLD!
As writers, it's also the death of original fiction. If it doesn't fit a pigeon hole, it doesn't get published. Book publishers, like TV producers, aren't going to take a risk. They can sell a name. Like TV can sell a Law and Order or a CSI, book publishers can sell a Steele, a Roberts, a Grisham or a Sparks. They don't have to work at it. it just sells. Basic rules of grammar? Original plot? Interesting voice? Forget it. Name on the book. If you don't have that name on the book, it isn't going to get a look.


Is this the death of original fiction? Is it true that the reader today only wants a cookie cutter book that is the same as the last book they read?

Or is today's reader just biding their time until the book equivalent of "Mad Men" shows up?

JAG: a show's legacy saved by the fans.

Good morning!

I finished watching the final episode of JAG Season 10. Is it wrong to still break down in tears during the last episode of a TV show that's been off the air for 5 years?

JAG was one of those shows that every writer should watch and learn from. I'll admit it, the Husband enjoyed that show before I did. I recall calling it his "Airplane show." I came on board during season three when I got my first glimpse of David James Elliott. I was hopelessly hooked after that.

But, I came for the hunk, I stayed for the writing.

I cannot imagine how hard it is to be a TV writer, especially on a long running drama. (Jag ran for 10 years.) Especially when the two main characters fall into that, "Will they or won't they?" pattern for romance. ("Moonlighting" Best example of a show that DIED when they did the deed. Not even the wonderful Mark Harmon could save that dog once Dave and Maddie had the sex.)

JAG managed to combine action, drama, and romance all in one, maintain it for ten years (Over two networks) and do it well. Somehow, it seemed completely real that of the most beautiful people to ever grace TV (DJE and the lovely Catherine Bell) could stave off their feelings for each other until the very last episode.

I've watched the entire ten seasons over the last few months. Watching so many episodes in such a short time brings one big thing to light: The writing was AWESOME to the end...except for the last few episodes.

Fans of the show will agree with me. When season ten aired, we all got the feeling that something was amiss. Less Harmon Rabb and more of everything else. And then, Chris Beetham showed up.

Poor Chris Beetham.

I liked Chris Beetham when he was on "As the World Turns." He should have stayed there. The few episodes he did on JAG aren't bad...but the producers were definitely trying to sell us something that wasn't JAG. The writers did their best to make us fall in love with Lt. "Vic" they really did.

JAG was always about Harmon Rabb, Jr. In season ten, DJE apparently made it clear to the show that he wasn't coming back for a season eleven. (Not something that was announced publicly.) The show brought on Beetham as Greg Vucovic. Most fans saw him as a very watered down "Harm lite." He fit the bill, sort of. He was good looking, had great eyes, had a cocky attitude. Only one thing.

He wasn't Harmon Rabb Jr.

I can't speak for everyone, but I know I wrote several heated emails to CBS, informing them that if DJE was truly leaving the show, that this weak replacement wasn't going to cut it. Apparently I wasn't alone. If you watch the last episode of JAG, you get the very real feeling that the writers heard the fans and gave them what they wanted, as quickly as they possibly could.

Don't get me wrong. I loved all the characters on JAG. (I have a special affection for Bud and Harriet, played by the hilarious Patrick Labyorteaux and Karri Turner.) But this was a show about Harmon Rabb Jr. The writers knew it. It took the producers a bit longer to figure it out. But the writers knew it.

So maybe that last episode seems rushed. After watching the romance grow between Mac and Harm for nine years, the last episode feels like everything is in fast forward. That said, the writes saved the legacy of that show. Can any fan imagine JAG starring Chris Beetham? (Or, as I like to call him, LT. Suckwad Who Sucks the Biggest Suck that ever Sucked. But that's just me.) It would be like taking the other Brady kids out of the Brady bunch and leaving Cousin Oliver. Or take Gilligan off the island, and leave the rest. Or have Dave and Maddie "do it" then try to sell us Mark Harmon as Maddie's love interest...oh wait, that happened, and it was terrible!

So now we have JAG on DVD, all ten seasons. The legacy of the show is saved because there were no desperate last seasons. I applaud the writers and the producers of the show for hearing the fans.

If I have enough symptoms of the H1N1, can I go back to bed?

Good afternoon!

I'm slugging it out here at work, trying really hard not to fall asleep at my desk. I have the beginning of a really serious cold. Keep me away from old people and infants because my head is about to explode and it isn't gonna be pretty!

All I really want is to go home, pop in a JAG season into the DVD player and pull the covers up over my head. What I'm faced with is my boss is leaving me right at the start of the holiday insanity, to go bask himself in Argentina for ten days. He says he's going to look for yet another vacation house. I hope he chokes on his $40 leather coat that he says he's going to buy.

Yeah, and I haven't gotten a raise in three years. I'm not evening getting paid what he told me he was going to pay me when I started.

I believe I'll be spending next week, when I'm not dealing with wholesale customers ad naseum, looking for a new gig. The whole point to this stupid job was that I would have time to write. Yeah...that hasn't happened in three months and it's not going to happen now.

So, folks, I'm fairly computer literate, I can run Quickbooks, I don't steal from my employer, and I always show up for work. (Believe me...I should be home in bed right now!) Anyone hiring? I'll work at home...I can answer phone calls like the wind! (Not that the wind would actually call me...but you know what I mean.) I've worked from home before....for twelve years.

SAVE ME FROM BOSSMAN!

Oh, and have a groovy weekend!