You know how we go through life waiting for the next day, or Friday, or next month? We wish time away as if it were a renewable resource instead of treating it as a precious commodity.

I’m here to tell y’all, it’s precious, beyond the value of any precious gems or minerals. Treat it well, savor it, celebrate it.

What brought about this blog post? Well, a friend of mine and her dad. He’s had cancer for seven years and he just took a terrible turn for the worse. As I write this post, she’s at the hospice care ward and he’s breathing his last breaths in the company of his family. This friend had lived in Germany for five years until about a year and a half ago when she moved back to North Carolina. If she hadn’t, then all the time she’s spent with her dad over those 18 months would’ve never happened.

She seized the day, kept those incredibly important hours with him. It made me think about my dad (he’s 65) and how much I’d miss him if the same thing happened. Gads, it makes my throat close up to even think about it.

Life is so short, it’s a blink in the eye of the universe. Let’s take a moment to truly realize just how much we have and be thankful for every second and make it Celebrate Life day. I’m sending you all cyber hugs and saying “Hey there, it’s wonderful to see you!!”

Here’s my challenge for y’all. Tell me one thing about your life that you love/celebrate/are thankful for. Everyone who comments gets entered to win a download of choice from my backlist.

I’ll start. I’m thankful to have my family, my friends and to wake up each morning able to write stories that I love. I also love the fact that I can blog and touch people around the world (well, not really touch, that’d be weird). So what about you? Lay it on me, y’all, and let’s celebrate life!

Okay, this is one of those oh-shit-I-forgot-to-blog-and-I’m-running-out-the-door days. So I will leave you with this question:

What is. The most. Romantic book you have ever read?

I’m going with The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. How about you? Oh, and you only get one!

As my children grow I watch them, the tendancies they have, the little personality quirks that shine through. Some of those quirks are nothing like me (frankly my daughter is nothing like me or my husband personality-wise though she looks like me - where did all that drama come from?) and then of course there are those traits that make me think, wow that’s all me…

For instance, my baby child is completely and totally obsessed with Spiderman right now. More to the point, Spiderman 3. He wants to watch it every single day. He runs around with his headless Spiderman action figure. He calls his Power Rangers Spiderman. He calls himself Spiderman.

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It’s Tuesday. I’m bloggin’.  What am I gonna blog about?  Characterization.  And in the process I’m going to tell you WAY more about this writer’s brain than you EVER wanted to know.

I blogged over at Southern Fried Chicas yesterday on why I watch so much TV.   I’ll save you the trouble of popping over there (but feel free if you want)…I watch TV because of characterization and good writing.  Ring any bells with anyone?

Yeah, pretty much the same reason we read books.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.  Characterization is KING (and queen and everything else).  If you don’t write characters I care about, I could care less what your book is about. I won’t read it. I won’t finish it (admittedly most books I don’t finish aren’t wall-bangers, they’re MEH which IMO is the kiss of death.  FWIW Voice ranks right up there with characterization in equal amounts).

So what does this have to do with the crazy workings of my brain?

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No, I’m not talking about getting banged against the wall (oh, but wouldn’t that be fun?!) I’m talking about a book that just pisses you off, frustrates you, horrifies you, annoys you, pushes every dang button in your body to make you just want to toss it against the wall.

We’ve all read them. But I’m curious, what makes a book a wall banger for you? Or heck, we can even get more specific. In your mind, what is the biggest wall banger book you’ve ever read. I have two.

The first one, I blame myself. The author completely said up front the book would NOT have a happy ending and it was not a love story. But I (being in high school) thought surely he just meant they wouldn’t get married or something. I never thought he’d slit the heroine’s throat. So all of you who tell me you love the movie Last of the Mohicans? Read the book. The movie will lose a bit of the happy love fuzzies.

The second one, I just have to wonder what the author and the editor who bought it were smoking. I have no clue what it was even called, or who wrote it. But I’ll never forget my reaction. The whole book is depressing–the entire time, and I kept waiting for the shiny happy ending for our alcoholic hero who loses his wife, and job, and almost solved a crime…but then dies before he can tell everyone. Yes, the hero (and the book is in his POV) dies.

Let me tell you what I did with that book. I chucked it at the wall. I stomped on it. I ripped out the pages and then burned them. Tossed them in the fireplace, lit a match, and burned the entire fricking book. To this day I’m STILL pissed about those hours of my life I’ll never get back that I spent reading that piece of ass book.

So what was your ultimate wall banger? And what caused it?

Oh yeah, Happy St. Patrick’s day! Drink a green beer for me!

OMG. Just OMG

I love my HEAs I really do. In fact, I never thought I’d write a book without one. It just goes to show that a writer really isn’t in charge of her characters. I’ve been working on several short stories that end on uncertain terms. I don’t why, the stories just wanted to be written that way.

Now, don’t worry. I doubt I’ll ever go killing off my heros at the end of a book (although sometimes I really want to!). However, I can’t promise there will be no surprises at the end of my stories. In fact, I’m working on this idea for a series and I already have lots of thoughts on how to torture my hero and heroine just enough so they come back in a few more books!

So what about you? As a writer or a reader do you need the white horse, the sunset and a white dress? Or, when you reach The ENd, do you like to be unsure quite where the characters are headed?

Talks amongst yourselves.