You can be a Harlequin author too!

My Harlequin Romance

First comes love, then comes forgiveness...

But a widowed cowboy struggling during the Depression doesn't have much faith in either—until he meets feisty Ros in the Australian Outback at the boardinghouse they share. She's an award-winning writer who could love his boy and heal his own heart. But how can Charlie trust a hopelessly romantic woman in the profession he blames for his greatest loss?

Ros understands Charlie's pain. She has her own secret anguish, and believes her dreams of a husband and child are beyond reach. Still, she can pretend when he asks her to play his temporary fiancée to protect his son. And if God would grant her one miracle, He knows exactly what her hopelessly romantic heart is yearning for....


Now come on, you'd read that, wouldn't you? I certainly would. *giggles*

Go here to 'write' your own. And here to download a free Harlequin eBook (various formats available). I chose the one with Marlboro Man Charlie someone in chaps on the front cover.

( Someone stop me now... )

Advice of the flist

The glass (is it actual glass?  Dunno) on the front right indicator light of my car is broken.  I have no money.  I need your help.[Poll #1346816][Poll #1346816]

Self-absorption and LJ etiquette

In the last few days there have been a couple of posts at hp_britglish to which I have deliberately not responded. Not because I couldn't offer help and not because I have anything against (or even know anything about) the questioner. Mainly because the OP seemed to be responding to every single comment with a line of thanks that ended in *hugs*.

I am not a very tactile person in RL. There are a small handful of people whom I would always hug in greeting and some others who I would hug in case of need. Mainly, however, I prefer to greet people that I know with a kiss on the cheek or just a smile. People I don't know get a handshake. Sometimes, obviously, I don't get to set the agenda and usually this is okay, though occasionally it makes me uncomfortable.

But the idea of random hugs from strangers who might have stopped me for directions, say, makes me shudder. And the idea of *smooches* from anyone makes my skin crawl. Even virtual ones.

A while ago I came across an LJ user (maybe a friend of a friend; can't remember now) who had a statement on her profile explaining that hugs (real or virtual) made her feel uncomfortable and that she would rather not be offered them, especially not as a gesture of comfort. I was very struck by this and left her a comment to say so. I'm not sure I feel quite so strongly as she obviously did but it is an area where I feel uncomfortable.

So, I don't know what I'm saying, really. I'd rather that if you don't really know me, you don't offer me hugs. If you're someone that I know well and hugging is your normal way of showing affection and support, then feel free to continue in that vein. If you're somewhere in between then... I don't know. Do whatever seems right. I won't be offended.

I think maybe my point is that, just as in RL you think about how you relate to different people and what are appropriate gestures at different levels of intimacy, so we should think about those things in online relationships too.