A New Look at the Romance Genre & National Press Club Book Fair

First of all, Thing 1 wrote her first story today. It was this:

"A Princess"

And a princess
loved the prince.
The Prince
loved
the Princess.

The End.

So upon finding her writing this (she is five years old and very slow at writing so it probably felt like she'd written SHIVER by this point), I entered a motherly dialogue with her.

ME: That's a nice story.

THING 1: I skipped the Once Upon a Time. Because Once was hard to spell. And everyone knows that part anyway.

ME: True enough.

THING 1: It's a love story.

ME: A love story?

THING 1: In a love story, nobody figures anything out.

ME: *snorkles*

THING 1: But the prince loves the princess. And the princess loves the prince. I'm giving this to Grandma.

Anyway, I would like to point out that these views on starting the story where your plot begins (none of this Once Upon a Time stuff) and nothing but kissing going on in the way of plot is exactly how I came to write Shiver.

Out of the mouths of babes.

That aside, if you're in the Maryland/ D.C. area, I've been invited to sign at the National Press Club Book Fair tomorrow night from 5:30-8:30 p.m. in downtown D.C. With posh political luminaries. It is $5 to get in, but once you're in, there is 90 of us authorly types, including Chris Matthews, Gwen Ifill, a senator, Spike & Carla from Top Chef, and of course an author of werewolf kissing books. How can you stay away? I mean, seriously. if nothing else, it's the great start for a joke.