And now for some Halloween fun...

My publisher is doing a "Trick or Treat" clue game in honor of Halloween. The clues will be embedded in excerpts from novels by Second Wind Publishing authors. So go to the Second Wind Publishing Blog (http://secondwindpub.wordpress.com)and join the fun on October 26th!

Excerpt from my novel, A Love Out of Time. (paranormal romance)

Taly was about to flash out to check on Jack when he felt himself start to dematerialize. This had not happened to him since sometime in the 11th century; the experience was one he had hoped never to undergo again. Flashing through time did not cause him any pain; it was no more of an effort to walk across the room. Being summoned, on the other hand, was like being sucked through a keyhole. He barely had time to grab his latte before he vanished.
He rematerialized with a roar of pain and in his natural form. Moira looked up from her position on the floor by the candles and brazier. Her mouth forming a silent O before delight crossed her face and she leapt up yelling for her brother. Karl came at a run, but stopped short by the sight of his sister leaping about like a child at Christmas in front of a seven-foot demon holding a grande cup of Starbucks.

Am I turning into a “Slacker Mom” or just overwhelmed and tired?

When I was pregnant with my first child, I had such high expectations for how my husband and I would raise our little bundle of joy. That list of “when I’m a parent, I’ll never…” was rather long and fairly detailed. To my credit, my firstborn was actually around 2 before fast food passed his lips. I felt so guilty since he’d had a fairly organic diet up to that point, but I got over it. The second child was chomping on French fries and chicken nuggets as soon as he could chew them without choking.

It is sort of depressing to pull out that list now and see what is still on it. I’ve never really seen myself as someone who is “wishy-washy” in their beliefs. Most people who know me, even slightly, would say that I can be downright stubborn about the things I believe to be important. The fact that there are so many things that I’ve crossed off my list gives me some pause though, especially since it has to do with my children. It raises a fear that perhaps I have become a Slacker Mom, and that my kids will spend a portion of their adult life paying professionals to help them deal with the aftermath of my parenting skills, or lack thereof.

Or is it that I’ve realized that most of what was on my list was at best, silly, and at the worst, unrealistic? So it would stand to reason that the remaining items really are the important tenets of parenting, wouldn’t it?

In talking to other mothers, all of whom refused to be identified in this article, I know I am not alone in wondering. One friend, a busy executive and mother of two, summed it up like this, “we do our best parenting before we have the little monsters. It’s just a theoretical exercise at that point. Once they show up, theory flies out the window and it’s all about raw survival, keeping what’s left of your sanity, and minimizing the collateral damage to your kids.”

As I look at my kids, and our life, I have to admit that there is a lot of truth in that statement. On paper, before I had my kids, I thought I had all the answers. I thought I knew how I would handle things. I was going to do things the “right” way.

In reality, there are times when I honestly don’t know the answer, or how I’ll handle something until the moment is on me. At night, when I am meditating on the day that has passed, I know that I have not always done things the “right” way where my kids are concerned. I yelled rather than spoke. I reacted rather than accurately assessing the situation. I punished one for something the other started, because I didn’t see the first part of the scenario – just the part when one brother hauled off and decked the other one.

It all comes down to this, you do the best you can with the situation you find yourself in.

While I know that on the occasions when I am not home for dinner, my sons are more likely than not to be eating fast food in front of the television set, it is still different when they want me to endorse similar eating habits on the nights their father can’t be home for dinner. To me, an acceptable dinner for my kids has at least one vegetable, preferable a green one, a starch, a protein, and milk. While I was between jobs, it was easy to take this high road. Now that I am back in the work-force and my husband's transfer to a new position means he's usually working nights, it is a whole new scenario.

When I’ve had a rough day at work, sometimes I find myself justifying a pizza: tomato sauce – vegetable, sort of, check; green onions – green vegetable, check; mushrooms and black olives – veggies, sort of, check; cheese – protein, check. Top it off with a big glass of milk…yeah, it fits the parameters for an acceptable dinner, where the heck did I put the number for the pizza place?

The lure of the dark-side – anti-heroes and anti-heroines

I have to admit that I really enjoy a story with a well developed anti-hero. I’m not talking about the basically good guy who has had a string of bad luck or a tough life. I am talking about the true post-modernistic archetype: someone who can not easily be defined as a villain or hero. These are characters whose attraction hooks you and reels you in as strongly as they repulse you on some basic level. There is just something about these characters that fascinates me. Their complexity can lead a carefully crafted storyline down some totally unexpected twists and turns of the mind, but you have to admit – it can be an adventure. It is a character type that is well suited to both paranormal romance and stories dealing with espionage as well as sci-fi/fantasy literature: all genres that appeal to me as both a reader and a writer. In my own writing, I am finding myself including anti-heroes or rather heroines on a fairly regular basis, but something I discovered, which surprised me, was how difficult it is to create an anti-heroine.

These women characters exist. Consider Scarlett O’Hara, any number of roles that Angelina Jolie has played, and – my personal favorites – Nikita from the story La Femme Nikita and Murbella from Frank Herbert’s Dune series. The creation of an anti-heroine seems fraught with many of the same issues that confront women in real life, from business to social settings. A delicate balance must be struck between the characters “good” qualities and those that are less appealing.

So, how does one craft such a creature?

From my research into the female anti-hero, it appears that beauty or physical attractiveness alone is not enough to off-set the brutality, amoral behavior, or ruthlessness needed for a true anti-hero. It seems to take a combination of physical beauty, innate intelligence, and some sort of triggering event – but not the jaded, “world-weary” technique often seen in the male anti-hero – to set the stage for a believable, or rather acceptable, anti-heroine. If the balance isn’t achieved, one is left with a psychotic or clichéd character.

Whether or not I can create a true female anti-hero in my own writing remains to be seen, but I am going to have a lot of fun with the process.