Heather's Blog

I write a lot of books. I tell a good story. And I share these stories with the world for the smallest price Amazon will allow me to charge: a dollar.

Like any woman in the world who knows what she wants, I know how I like my heroes and I write them that way. Women who read my books love that about them. But I’ve been getting a lot of reviews lately from men who aren’t happy about it at all.

As a romance author, I’ve raised the bar on what women should expect from a guy. And that means trouble for all of the computer-programming, cheese-smelling, anti-social basement dwellers out there. It’s bad news for the antler-collecting, shit-kicking, tobacco-swilling, homophobic bigots. And it’s dating death for the pink polo-wearing, Bible-thumping, daddy’s Lexus-driving prep school pre-meds who find a way to actually insert “pre-med” into every sentence they speak.

Women know what they want. And every spiteful, hateful review of a romantic book posted by a bitter, over-sexed, petulant wanker of a boy just proves it a little more.

But don’t blame me. Try taking a shower instead.

I love Louisiana. I graduated from LSU and got married in Zachary in a tiny wooden chapel with my sister as my only bride’s maid. We had a massive pot of Jambalaya at the reception. It rained on my wedding day – and I loved it. I love a good storm and LA never disappoints. I remember how the sky would literally turn green with lightning during electrical storms. The fuse boxes on the streets would blow at least once a week. It was so muggy, you would be sweating before leaving the bathroom after a shower. Steamy. Sultry. There’s no place on Earth like it.

And right now, several million of my closest friends are gathered along Canal Street and all of its tiny tributaries screaming, “Throw me somethin’, mister!” at the tops of their lungs. Some go the extra mile – and get those extra special beads. I know of what I speak.

Happy Fat Tuesday to all of those who love culture and good food and good people.

Happy Mardi Gras, from Dorian Adalard, the French Vampire King. Joyeux Mardi Gras, from Daniel Kane, the alpha werewolf police chief of Baton Rouge.

Eat, drink, dance, and love.
We’ll worry about everything else tomorrow.

A very good friend of mine has a son in Afghanistan. Until she began sharing with me what she was going through, I admit that I had a cookie-cutter view of our soldiers: It was scary and it was unfortunate and I wanted them to come home.

Then my friend told me that she doesn’t sleep. When unconsciousness finally claims her, she passes out with the speakers to her computer by each of her ears – in case her son comes on during the night. She doesn’t want to miss him; it might be the last time she ever speaks with him.

She told me that when she smiles, she feels guilt. How can she be happy when her son could be killed at any second? What right does she have to experience even a moment of relief from this terror? And why hasn’t the world stopped turning? Why hasn’t everyone noticed that her son is in mortal danger? She is standing still – shouldn’t the rest of the world be as well?

His friends sustain concussions from exploding IED’s and wind up killing men – taking lives. And she tells me she wants to throw up. Is he next? Why hasn’t he been hit yet? Surely simple statistics would dictate that it’s his turn… Any second now.

This is her little boy. She brought him into the world, nursed him, taught him to read, held the seat for him on his first bicycle. It’s his little laugh that warmed her heart; the most beautiful sound in the world.

Now he’s thousands of miles away. And she thinks, “If I died, he would have to come home. They would have to let him come home. And he would be safe.” It’s only the first of many dark, desperate thoughts that occupy her mind. She can think of nothing else but his safety. Nothing.

She dreams strange dreams of crossing borders and showing up at his camp. “What the hell are you doing here?” her dream son asks. She shakes her head. “I just wanted to make sure you were warm enough when you slept,” she stumbles before handing him a dream blanket.

She wakes in tears, cold and alone, the speakers crackling in wait beside her head.

I used to think of our soldiers as people – over there, somewhere else – and I wanted them to come home. Now?

Now I think of them as sons and daughters. As my little girl. And I want them to have never left in the first place.

Yesterday, I was trapped in traffic beside the parking lot outside of the grocery store when I witnessed a woman helping two handicapped children into her car. The entire process seemed to take forever; it was arduous. There were walkers involved, and wheel chairs, and there was physical lifting and eventually people were waiting for the woman’s parking space. Yet, despite the difficulty of the situation, the woman bore the task with an easy smile on her face and an aura of nearly palpable patience.

And I realized something.

I realized that this woman was the one I was writing for. It’s for her – and the nurse in the emergency room and the soldier skirting IED’s in the desert and the eighth grade teacher in the under-funded middle school and the student working two full-time jobs. It’s for these women and all of the others, my sisters in soul and spirit and an unwillingness to give in, that I set my pen to paper and create other worlds.

I imagine these women stealing away to some rare, quiet corner with paragraphs between their hands, escaping for only a few precious moments so they may continue the task of life renewed, refreshed, and restocked with hope.

You are why I do what I do. And you always will be.

I know my mother is probably going to read this, so I may be initiating a stroke here, but the truth is, I started fantasizing about vampires and otherwise dominant men when I was nine years old. I saw the preview for The Lost Boys (classic movie) and David, Dwayne, Marco and Paul took up permanent residence in my pre-frontal cortex. If my father had known at the time, he would probably have called in the priest for an exorcism. These were vampires. They were evil. They had teeth like monsters and drank people’s blood. And to me, they represented salvation from everything I knew to be real in life.

If that sounds extreme, just pause for a moment and give it some thought. A vampire lives forever. He never grows old, he never dies, he gets to stay up all night, and sleep all day. Hell – that was the Lost Boys motto! He’s also mega-tough. There’s no picking on a vampire.

But that wasn’t the only reason I obsessed over them. I suppose I was fated to write in this genre from the very beginning, because the power of the vampire seeped into my neurons and drove me day and night. I nearly flunked out of high school because of them. I still remember the vice principal calling me out of fifth period to tell me that I had three A’s – and three F’s. Why? Because all I did during class was sit there and write. And write. And write. What about? Vampires.

I loved the way they hunted for what they wanted. I loved the determination and confidence that seemed to be inherent in a vampire’s make-up. For some reason, they were all gorgeous – tall, stark eyes, perfect features. I’m not sure when it happened or even why, but somewhere along the way, vampires became the perfect representation of everything a woman (or a nine year old girl) wants in a man.

Fortunately, I was able to pull up my grades so that I eventually graduated with three A’s and three D’s. How did I do it? By writing about vampires, for the most part. I put together a series of short “horror” stories about different blood-suckers and turned it in to one teacher. For another, I wrote a movie script about a vampire who wakes up in the forest during the day and can’t figure out why he isn’t burning to a crisp. And so forth. Vampires to the rescue once again!

The point of this blog, now that I’m finally getting to it, is that I know why vampires are so popular with women and why they always seem to top “regular” romances. It isn’t the sex women truly crave. Bear with me here. Keep reading.

What do women want in a “romance?” Well, let me run this plot line by you and see what you think….

A handsome, powerful executive one day spies a woman he is instantly drawn to. She is so alluring to him that he interrupts an important business meeting, leaving his glass-walled room so that he can get a closer look at her. She is unaware that he is watching and he can’t seem to stop. Who is she? Where did she come from? He has to know more – and he has to know now.

So Exec god uses his vast wealth and power to have her researched, followed, spied on. He learns her name, her past, and much to his patience-testing “disappointment,” he learns she is seeing someone. No matter. Mr. Boyfriend is easily taken care of.

The next day, Mr. Boyfriend’s boss assigns him to some distant location for work and the woman is once more alone. Problem solved. There’s almost nothing a good amount of money and clout won’t cure.

Exec god finally approaches the woman he is obsessing over, and she is intrigued. She can’t help it. He’s confident, he’s handsome, and he’s very obviously interested in her. But she’s dating someone, right? Even if it is long-distance and the romance was fairly new, she feels Mr. Boyfriend deserves the benefit of the doubt. So, she turns Exec god down.

Big mistake. Exec god always gets what he wants. To make matters worse, the woman is very, very smart and she somehow finds out about Exec god’s involvement in the relocation of Mr. Boyfriend. What ensues now is a power struggle of the finest degree.

Exec god refuses to back down – yes, he did something rash, but he argues that she makes him unable to think straight. She does strange things to him. He’s sorry for his earlier behavior and insists that all he wants is for her to give him a chance. But she’s mega-stubborn and her ire is up now. She can’t forgive and she refuses to bend.

So he sets out to break her instead.

Though it guilts him to do so and guilt is an emotion he’s unfamiliar with, Exec god has a “talk” with her boss and she is fired, putting her in financial straights. He has a “talk” with her landlord and she is evicted. He has a “talk” with Mr. Boyfriend and she is suddenly single. He is smart and determined and little by little, he manipulates the world around her, wearing her down. Finally, one night when she is out walking alone, his driver pulls up beside her in his slick black Lincoln Town Car. Exec god rolls down the back window and asks her to get in. What does she have to lose? All he wants to do is talk.

At last, she gets in.

Now I bet some of you are pissed at Exec god, but I also bet that some of you would like for me to finish the story. And the thing is – there was no sex in that bit at all. It was about The Chase. It was about a powerful, handsome and determined man who uses his vast intelligence and sway to “win” over the woman that has turned his world upside down. That’s what we love about vampires. They’re tougher than everyone else and they’re usually smarter than everyone else. It’s hard not to be when you live as long as they do. They’re also more determined than humans because they lead such solitary and dark lives that when they find someone who can shed light into their existences, they hang on very, very tight. Plus, they have those teeth and let’s face it, so many women are closet pseudo-masochists, aren’t we? We abhor true violence, but we love a tender pin-prick chased by an orgasm. And there’s no post-coital mess to clean up! 🙂

My writing time is sparse and precious. I have a child.

During one of my very few and far-between spaces of time without that child demanding my attention in one form or twenty, I escaped to Starbucks (okay, can I just get one of these stores installed in my living room, please?) and let my fingers fly across the keyboard. What joy it is when they move like that on their own -uninterrupted and unhindered! But, of course, not even this sweet, mocha-flavored bliss could last long; I have writing interruption karma stacked up against me, it seems.

Because in walks a very young couple with the most adorable newborn infant cradled in one arm. Apparently they knew one of the baristas personally and a very loud conversation about the cuteness of said baby ensued. I hate to eavesdrop. I really do. But people, I promise it simply couldn’t be helped in this instance.

Boy holding cute baby: “Yeah, marriage without kids is completely pointless. Why bother? Go forth and prosper!”

Barista: “Some day I’ll have kids, but not now. I just have too much I want to do with life first.”

Young mom of cute baby: “You can still do them with kids! Imagine how much more fun they would be if you shared them with your child!”

Boy holding cute baby: “Exactly. Having children doesn’t change your life. We go everywhere with her. We go on dates and take her with us, even. (glances down at comatose, unmoving infant) Some people LET their kids ruin their lives, but that’s not a necessary thing.”

At this point, I was digging furiously through my bag to find my iPod so that I could block the sound of idiot from my precious ear drums. It was either that or run the risk of standing up, walking over to cute baby’s parents, and making a horrible scene. That wouldn’t do. Where were those head phones?!

Boy holding cute baby: “If you love your kids, they can’t interfere with your life. They only make it better.”

Oh that does it. Fingers in my ears.
Why was this conversation upsetting me?
The young, impressionable barista was buying what was perhaps the biggest load of bullshit ever irresponsibly spouted by a pseudo-adult.

Kids definitely, unequivocally, and irrevocably change your life.

When they’re newborns, they stun you by showing you the true depth of your ability to feel fear. You never had anything to be afraid of before – not really. But you do now. Because this tiny creature could get hurt, she could get lost, she could get stolen. She could die. There was no terror in existence before now.

As infants, they introduce you to the joys of exhaustion. You stumble from the bed and into the nursery for the fourth time that night and realize that you could pull five all-nighters in a row, give yourself alcohol poisoning, and catch the flu and you would feel better than you do now, after a single month of nightly feedings, diaper changings, fever monitorings, and collick visits to the ER. And this is just month one. Wait until month nine. Or thirteen.

When they’re toddlers, they show you the true depth of your patience. You had no idea you could read Brown Bear, Brown Bear fifty-seven times in a row. You are utterly flummoxed at your ability to calmly and quickly leave the fourth busy restaurant that week with a kicking and screaming three-year-old under one arm. You’ve missed how many new movies? Thirty-nine? Wow. You barely noticed. How long has it been now since you’ve slept through the night? Four years? You’re a super-hero. Check you out.

And it goes on like this, your child teaching you what you never would have guessed about yourself. You’ve never had a single life lesson that made it through your thick skull as well as the ones your child has in her curriculum. And believe me when I tell you that this changes things. Life will never be the same.

And I REALLY want to be a fly on the wall when the young Starbucks couple with the adorable baby is the young Starbucks couple with the precocious five-year-old who knows damn well what it is mommy and daddy are trying to do alone in their room – and will have nothing of it.

Oh well. At least it’s a form of birth control.