Jill Beck

Last Minute Madness

The last thing – and I mean the very last thing – I was expecting a month and a day before my book’s release date was an email that asked me…

“Hey, what do you think about changing your cover…oh, and your title?”

What did I think? I thought – Are you crazy? This thing is only a month and a day away. And by the way, I’m married to both. I married my title well over a year ago and I married my cover several months ago. One does not just up and get divorced from their title and cover a month and a day before their release date!

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Is It Trashy?

I had my first experience with someone making a rude comment to me about my book, and it’s not even out yet! But then again, maybe that’s better. The rudeness was general, not specific.

I was at the bank and because I was a new customer, the lady asked me a bunch of questions for her form, including what I do. When I told her that I’m a writer (which does not flow easily off the tongue at this point) and that I’d written a romance, the following exchange happened.

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Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Contemporary Romance Authors

We all hate to disappoint our moms, right? It isn’t just me, is it? To be clear, my mom’s not disappointed that I’m a Contemporary Romance author. It’s not that.

Ted, looking all harmless

In a moment of boredom, she decided to go see Ted 2. She hadn’t seen Ted, so she thought it was just an adorable teddy bear movie, like, say, Winnie the Pooh. If you’re familiar with Ted or some of the other works of Seth MacFarlane, you already know this doesn’t end well. Yeah, it didn’t.

Seth MacFarlane – Funny, Super-Cute and SINGLE!!

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Husband Material

I’ve been married for 23 years. (I got married when I was 6. It was a delightful ceremony attended by all of our closest first grade friends.) By now, I should already be convinced that My Marine is quality, Grade A, inspected and certified husband material. And I am. But he continues to find new ways to remind me.

Now, I’m not that into antiquing, but once in a while the mood hits me. For Mother’s Day, My Marine and my 3 kids (I haven’t come up with cool, bloggy, secret-identity names for them yet, but give it time – I will.) let me pick out a new tree.

Dia de Madre Tree

Yay! I’m soooo into planting new trees! My Marine also offered to take me to a movie. I said, “You know, how about instead of a movie, we hit some antique shops.”

Well, my friends, I’m sure you can imagine the face. It’s the Dear God…NO! face, with the Mother’s Day filter over it. “Sure,” he responds.

So, I described a big place I’d seen off the highway. I wasn’t exactly sure of the town, really, but it looked like a “big, red barn.” I asked if he knew the place and he said he thought so. However, we couldn’t find a name and we didn’t know if it was open so we went to some antique places closer to home.

Creepy doll just like I used to have, complete with cut hair.

A lamp that needs no words

Now, here’s the part where the man showed his true spirit – the spirit of a warrior.

The next weekend, he approached me and asked if I wanted to go find the “big, red barn” antiques place.

Did you catch that? HE offered to go antiquing again. The very next weekend, no less.

This guy…unbelievable!

Well, we found the big, red barn off the highway. It’s a fireworks place, but we’re both pretty sure that at one time it said Antiques on the building somewhere. Luckily, I had a back-up plan and had found a place nearby with 80, yes 80, consignment booths chock full of antiques. He powered through every booth with me. Never complained, never rushed me in the least.

How cool is this? It’s 3D! And it was only $25. I’m sure I’ll regret not getting it.

Awesome retro kitchen chairs!

When we got outside, he let out a dramatic sigh and I congratulated him. “You did it,” I said. “So, what did you think?”

He shook his head. “That place needs a match.”

Anyone else have a husband material story to share? Of course, I’d love to hear about wife material, too!

My New BFF, David Sedaris

* To those of you who already know David Sedaris – you’re going to love him even more. To those of you who don’t – you’re welcome.

My sister and I had the great pleasure of seeing author David Sedaris in person last night. One of the stops on his book tour was just outside Chicago and we were there with bells on – his #1 fans!

He did an hour of book signing prior to the show, as well as afterward. As his #1 fans, it was appropriate that we be at the early signing. When the doors opened and everyone clamored to secure a spot in line, we ended up somewhere around 20th, maybe 25th. I didn’t count. While we waited, we struck up a conversation with the couple behind us. The guy, as it turned out, was David Sedaris’s #1 fan. After talking with him for a few minutes we decided that he did, in fact, deserve the title slightly more than we did and we became David’s #2 fans.

After a while, I checked my watch, concerned that the line hadn’t moved much. I leaned to the side to see what the holdup was. It was, of course, people. People who were talking to David for too long.

“They need to get a wrangler,” I said to my sister, “so they can tell people to hurry up and get moving.”

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Breaking the A$$ Out of the Spider

When my kids were little, our birthday tradition always included a pinata. Half of the fun was picking it out, half was filling it and half was beating the crap out of it. (If you did the math…yes, it was always 50% more fun than we even expected!)

(Not this pinata)

For one of these parties, we had a spider pinata. Don’t know why. We don’t have any birthdays around Halloween or any good explanation like that. We just had a spider. A couple of days before the party, my three-year-old daughter informed me that she intended to “break the a$$ out of the spider.”

(But this one)

Okay, you caught me. We use a little salty language at our house. And yes, my three-year-old said a$$. (I suppose I could say ass, but a$$ seems more ladylike.)

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Dorkin’ It Up

Okay, so I said in my first-ever blog post that you’d get to know me. Well, here it is, people…I’m a dork. I’m a lot of things, of course. Dork is only one of them. I don’t say this in a negative way. I love dorks!

My daughter asked me the other day, “What are you even doing with this cutting board?” Well, friends, I was seasoning it. Who seasons a cutting board? That’s one of the instructions on the tag that makes you laugh and say, “Yeah, right. As if.”

Except I love this cutting board. Look how cool it is! Even though it’s backward in the picture, you get the idea. You can see by the dates written on the paper towel that I seasoned it every few days for a month, just like the instructions said. At the end of the month, I’d used up about two tablespoons of the wood oil that I’ll now be storing for the rest of my life.

And the best part is, I hardly cook! Don’t like it. Not good at it. Don’t care. But I do love my cutting board!

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Me, do a Blog?

Ridiculous!

I wouldn’t call myself anti-blog, exactly, but I’ll admit that I never fully got it. I mean, yeah, I can write about whatever’s on my mind, but why is that of interest to anyone?

But lately, during my quest to figure out what makes for good content on a website, I had a change of heart. I looked around at websites of other authors and found some great blogs. I realized that a blog allows the reader to get inside the brain and personality of the blogger.

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