Guest Post by the Amazing, Fabulous Heidi Betts!
Hello, everyone! And thank you so much, Pam, for inviting me to blog today. I hope one day I get to return the favor. 
So I’m here to talk about my sexy, funny single title contemporary debut & the first book in the “Chicks with Sticks” knitting trilogy, TANGLED UP IN LOVE, which will be in stores on February 3rd.
And- Fate, because I truly believe that without it, this series would not exist.
Have you ever read the adorable children’s book FORTUNATELY by Remy Charlip? 
It’s wonderful, & if you haven’t, you definitely, definitely should. The path that led me to write TANGLED UP IN LOVE was so littered with Fortunately/Unfortunately situations that the book jumps immediately to mind every time I think of it. I can’t tell you the number of times my agent began phone conversations with “Well, I have some good news & some bad news.” Oh, how I came to loathe those words! And when all was said & done, he got a copy of FORTUNATELY to add to his personal bookshelf, as well as stern orders never to use that phrase with me again. 
You see, I’ve always wanted to write romantic comedy, but the timing never seemed to work out for me. (Unfortunately.) Then I came up with this idea. A brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. An idea I loved, & just knew was going to be a big hit. I showed it to my agent. He thought it was rather impressive, as well, & sent it immediately over to St. Martin’s Press, where an editor loved it. (Fortunately!) Unfortunately, they had another author already writing for them who was doing something similar (&^%#!), so she couldn’t make an offer. Fortunately, she loved my writing & wanted to see something else.
It took me all of about two seconds to tell my agent that, yes, I would definitely be willing to work up a few more ideas…well, okay, ideas I had; it was proposals that would take a bit of time to flesh out. He suggested I call the editor & talk to her about what she might be looking for. Smart man. Because, you see, it was during that conversation that she happened to mention how much she enjoys knitting, how popular knitting has becoming thanks to books like Kate Jacobs’s FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB, & how much she’d love to find a hot & sexy knitting romance unlike anything that had been done already. (Hey, I write hot! I write sexy!) And then she uttered the eight words that changed my life: “I don’t suppose you know anything about knitting.”
I do! I do know something about knitting! As a matter of fact, when I first came home from college & announced to my parents that I wanted to write romance novels instead of becoming a teacher the way they’d expected, my mother taught me to knit so that I could sell dishcloths & bath mitts to local craft stores. (It wasn’t much, but it satisfied my parents’ demand that I work while also allowing me time to stay home & write.) Imagine my amusement when I realized that my knowledge of what I’d always considered simply a hobby might now open a wonderful new door in my writing career!
This was on a Friday, & I spent the entire weekend wracking my brain for hot, sexy knitting ideas. By Monday morning, I had a one-page proposal ready that I thought did a pretty good job of fitting the bill. It didn’t take long to hear back, & the news was all good this time. (Fortunately!) She—& everyone else at St. Martin’s—loved it. In fact, they wanted me to turn that single idea into a trilogy. The only instructions they gave me were to make it as sexy & funny as I possibly could.
So, you see, it was definitely Fate that led me down the knitting romance trail…& reminded me that sometimes what we want to happen isn’t necessarily as great as what’s meant to happen. And I’m so very grateful that things worked out the way they did, because now I get to write three books about three amazingly fun couples I never would have met otherwise.
I finally get to spread my wings & write the hot, sexy, funny contemporary romance I’ve always wanted to write.
And now that I’ve had my chance to share, tell me what you think… Do you believe in Fate—or as my agent would call it bashert (which is Yiddish for “it is as it should be”)? Or are you more of a mind that life is just a series of random events dotted with coincidence, & no one is up there leading us to anything?
I can’t wait to hear your responses. Thank you so much for spending the day with me, & for letting me voice my enthusiasm over TANGLED UP IN LOVE. I’d love to invite everyone to visit my website—where you can read an excerpt for TANGLED to tide you over until the book hits shelves on February 3rd! J—my WIPs and Chains blog (a.k.a. The Dungeon), & my Must Love Yarn blog to read more about TANGLED…or to simply chat & have fun!
Also, if Pam doesn’t mind, I’d love to give away three autographed books from my backlist to three commentors to today’s post. (You have to scroll down the page a bit to see the full list of choices, & this does include the HOTTER THAN HELL anthology, even though it’s still positioned a bit higher than the others. 
)
Love & stitches,
Heidi Betts
www.HeidiBetts.com/WIPSandChains
www.HeidiBetts.com/MustLoveYarn
And a great big THANK YOU to Heidi for coming to visit today and for heramazing offer of giving away three of her fabulous books! I hope you all love her as much as I do and have next Tuesday, February 3rd marked on your calendar for the release of TANGLED UP IN LOVE. (Don’t worry, I may mention it here a time or two again…)
Five Reasons I (Heart) Heidi Betts
Hello, faithful blog readers! I call you that not only because that’s who (and what) you are, but as a way to butter you up for my apology. You see, my editing muse has grabbed me by the hair and is riding me like a wild mustang, complete with spurs and a crop. But, as disturbing as that visual may be to you, I like it. I have been editing, plotting, and creating up a storm on my current work (the afore mentioned BROKEN) and it feeeeeels sooooo gooooood! So while I’ve been locked deep in my editing like a lot of you have been wrapped in warm, fluffy quilts this winter, I’ve also been shamefully neglecting my blog-hopping duties. I humbly beg your forgiveness and promise to come play more in another week or two. Until then, know I adore you all and everything you post is brilliant, insightful, and utterly delightful.
Hollister: Mr. Lewis? How’s it going so far?
Edward: Pretty well, I think. I think we need some major sucking up.
Hollister: Very well, sir. You’re… not only handsome, but a powerful man. I could see the second you walked in here, you were someone to reckon with…
Edward: Hollister.
Hollister: Yes, sir?
Edward: Not me. Her.
Sorry—I’ve always loved that scene in Pretty Woman and since I was sucking up to you, thought you might appreciate it, too. Anyway, on to business.
Today is a wonderful day here at Pam Writes Romance because I get to bring you more of the Sweet and Spicy Goodness that is Heidi Betts. Heidi has a fabulous, sexy, yummy book coming out on February 3rd and for those of you still curled up with those fluffy quilts, a few pages from this are going to have you throwing them aside and grabbing your knitting needles! And since it’s Friday and I haven’t done a Five on Friday for a while, what better way to combine those into a spectacular post titled Five Reasons I (Heart) Heidi Betts!
Number One: Re-read this and tell me she’s not wonderful.
Number Two: Since I bought her—(If you flinched at that, you didn’t read Number One, did you? Go back and read it, then continue. Go ahead. We’ll wait.) Okay, as I was saying, since I bought Heidi last year, I have been a frequent guest in her dungeon and let me tell you this—if you want to comment on an award-winning, multi-published author’s blog and be welcomed with open arms, this is the place for you. I not only gained a fabulous new author with Heidi, I gained a friend.
Number Three: Heidi has a wicked sense of humor. (And her mother does, too, but that’s a whole other post…)
Number Four: Heidi can write sexy romances like Michael Phelps can swim, Robin Williams can do stand-up and Beckham can bend it.
Number Five: If you haven’t been able to tell by now, Heidi is just a wonderful, sweet, warm and funny woman. She rescues cats, volunteers her time to unpublished writers, and loves Joss Whedon. You just can’t get much better than that.
Come back Tuesday for Heidi’s guest appearance at Pam Writes Romance. You’ll get to hear about her new Chicks with Sticks series for St. Martin’s Press and the background of these funny, sexy stories. And if that’s not enticement enough, she’s going to be giving away three books.
Okay, make that Six Reasons I (Heart) Heidi Betts.
Sleepless in Seattle? More Like Heartless in Seattle…
WARNING!!! Since some of you might be faint at heart, I’m warning you what I’m about to say is paramount to romance treason, punishable only by taking away my romance writing badge, laptop, and copies of Romancing the Stone and The Princess Bride (both book and DVD.) Don’t say you weren’t warned.
About 2 weeks ago, I noticed Sleepless in Seattle on TV and ended up recording it to watch later. It’s the perfect movie to watch when doing a batch of ironing (or some similar mundane chore), plus Michael Hauge has referenced it in one of his seminars so I thought it’d be worth a second look, and not to be brushed under the rug, I remember really liking the movie.
So, some 15½ years later and the knowledge I’ve gained by writing, reading and getting older, I came to this conclusion.
Annie is a bee-yatch.
And before the conspiracy theorists start burning up the internet, this has nothing to do with Meg Ryan. I would say this if any other actress played this character (though possibly not as annoying as Meg—okay, there. I said it.) Here’s how I came to that conclusion:
Step One: Annie is driving to Walter’s parents for Christmas and hears Sam on the radio, the first connection is made. No problem there.
Step Two: Annie obsesses about Sam, with mild prodding from her friend and editor Becky (played by a pre-nutsy Rosie O’Donnell). No problem there, either.
Step Two-and-a-half: Becky calls Annie in the middle of the night because Jonah (Sam’s son) is on the radio again, complaining that his dad is on a date and it’s not sitting well with Jonah. Annie goes downstairs, calls Becky back, and sneaks into the broom closet with the radio, where Walter (her freakin’ fiancée!) finds her. Annie lies to him and goes back to bed (with her freakin’ fiancée!) As you can tell, this is where I started to have problems.
Step Three: (And I warn you—here’s where the train seriously started to go off the track for this little engineer.) Annie tells Becky she’s decided to “do a story” on lonely hearts calling into radio shows, and Becky slyly says that she might need to travel somewhere to get a good take on it. Annie, using her newspaper credentials, stalks finds out Sam’s full name and address, bio and type of toothpaste he uses, then flies to Seattle to make some kind of contact with him, but before she goes, she lies to Walter and says she’s flying to Chicago for this piece. So not only is she lying about where she’s going, but what she’s doing (or hopes to be doing) once she gets there!
Step Four: Annie decides to accept Walter (how generous, she said dryly) and they go to dinner on Valentine’s Day at a beautiful restaurant with a view of the Empire State Building (where she’s supposed to meet Sam.) Annie finally comes clean and breaks it off with Walter, then rushes over to the ESB, meets Sam and Jonah, a love connection is made, and they walk off into the romantic New York Valentine’s Day sunset. While she is still sharing a room with Wa
lter at The Drake Hotel. So, this skank is walking hand-in-hand with Sam down the street and he asks “Where are you staying?” and she says, “Er, I was sharing a room with my fiancée, who I dumped 15 minutes ago in the hopes that you were here, because I felt this connection with you and after lying to him for a month, finally decided to break it off. So, do you like Mexican food?”
Seriously! I was watching the part where she runs into the lobby, desperate to get up to the Observation Deck and fulfill her Heart’s Destiny, and the thought popped into my mind, “Yeah, but I wonder what Sam’s going to think when he finds out the selfish and cruel road she took to get here.” I mean, Annie wasn’t that great a chick that Sam is going to go cross-eyed with lust and not care that he could be the next link in Annie’s chain. How does he know she’s not going to move out to Seattle, read about some poor, lonely man in Dr. Abby, and hotfoot it after him? Thus I bestow the title of Heartless Bee-yatch to Annie Reed.
I know, I know—pretty harsh for a romance author. I asked Montana about it, and he suggested that Sam is such a vulnerable hero, we forgive anything in order to see him happy. (And Jonah, too.) But I have to tell you, in my head, that story has been completely rewritten, and Annie is left sad and alone at the Empire State Building, while Sam, Jonah, and Woman-I’ve-Written-In-To-Make-Sam-Deliriously-Happy walk off to live happily ever after.
See? I get to keep my badge.
So This Is What 2009 Looks Like…
So this is 2009.
So far, it looks pretty good, doesn’t it? It was nice to hear New Year wishes from you and I hope you’re all getting back in the swing of “real life.” Yesterday was the first day in three weeks I didn’t get to go home at 2:00 on a Wednesday and get a 4-day weekend after that, so I think that means I’m back in the swing. (Actually, the fact that I didn’t burst into tears and throw a monumental hissy fit meant I was back in the swing, but let’s just keep moving on, shall we?)
If you’re like me, or like many of the people out there (except for Marilyn Brant), January is a time for new thoughts, new plans, and new goals. In one of my writing forums, I was asked for my 2009 goals, so I thought I’d also post them here, because let’s face it–you people are great at keeping me honest.
(Speaking of Marilyn, check out her new website. It’s fabulous!)
Goal #1–Finish editing and polishing the dark historical I wrote last year (Submission title of ONLY A KISS, but I’ll always think of it as BROKEN) and get it out in the spring. My original goal was April 1st, but I’m giving myself leeway to go to May 1st or June 1st. If I don’t tell myself it’s okay to go past the goal date, I’ll push it and send out a not-ready book. That falls under a “Bad Mr. Bingles!” Plus, I adore this book and want to give it every opportunity to shine and glow and get picked up in a 6-figure auction. (Hey, goals are goals.)
Goal #2–As soon as I start BROKEN in the agent dance, I’ll need to start my next book. Do I know what that is yet? No. Do I have 6 bazillion ideas? Yes. Are any of them talking to me? Not yet. I’ve got until the spring, so we’ll see what the girls send up before then.
Goal #2a–Finish Book #6 (see Goal #2) by the end of the year.
Goal #3–Get my website changed to match the darker and richer historical I’ll be pitching rather than the frothy comedic women’s fiction that it had started it under. Minor change, but needs to be done.
Truth be told, that’s about it for the goals. Goal #3 is a gimme and really shouldn’t be on there, but I do like checking things off my list, so that’s a reward for me. Simply put, I want to get BROKEN out and get signed. Rinse and repeat, right? Nationals, finishing my writing space, blogging more–they’re not as much goals as on my task list. For goals, I firmly believe the quote by Robert Browning: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” If my reach isn’t exceeding my current grasp, then they’re not goals. Goals are something you have to believe in, to want, to wring blood, sweat and tears out of every step in that path you chose. But that’s me. I’ve never done things the easy way–just ask Montana.
And, for little-bitty updates, here’s how life is going with me right now:
- Slowly savoring Anna Campbell’s TEMPT THE DEVIL. Dang, that girl is good. When my historical gets picked up (notice the positive statement there–not ‘if’ but ‘when’), I’m going to have to give some credit to her for really pushing the historical genre back into place!
- Getting my next guest blogger lined up and I am SO excited! If you like sassy, scorchingly sexy contemporaries, stay tuned!
- Watching season 2 of THE TUDORS and getting set to watch season 3 of CHARMED. We just started season 7 of BUFFY (again), so I’m getting some great snacks and treats for the girls to munch on. Never underestimate watching a great tv show or movie and its power on your creativity.
- Looking forward to feeding my inner geek at an upcoming ComiCon. You want to think outside the box? Find a local or regional comic, alternative fiction, gaming or anime con and just go. Hi, my name is Pam and I’ve loved the X-Men since I was 10.
So that’s it for now. I wish each and every one of you an amazing, successful, happy and peaceful 2009. Go forth and conquer!
(Sorry–looks like geek girl is already making her appearance. Maybe I should get a cape…)
Happy New Year!
I wanted to wish everybody a happy, healthy, and successful 2009. May your celebrations be many and your troubles be few.
See you next week.
