Currently I'm re-outlining my (very high-level, BTW) WIP to “El Tango de Roxanne” since I just realized that I've gotten the order of events wrong. Hero Material is horrified that I've been listening to the song for almost fifty minutes straight. ;)

Interestingly enough, Three 6 Mafia's “It's a Fight” did nothing to stimulate my Muse. Odd since the current project has the following:

• freelance killers
• government assassins
• dirty bureaucrats
• corrupt CEOs
• a mafia boss

What it doesn't have is a prostitute. Yet it is “El Tango de Roxanne” that gets my juices flowing again. Ah, my Muse is strange…! (No, I'm not adding a prostitute or two to the already insane mix.)

How about you? Ever got inspired by the most unlikely music?

Earlier this month, I mentioned on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace that I'm planning to do a free serial. It is indeed true.

A Happily Ever After of Her Own

Serial starts October 5!
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Genre: Paranormal Romance
Length: Novella

Melinda Lightfoot, a preschool teacher with an unusual ability to flit in and out of fairy tales, never thought she would get into trouble…

…until the Fairy Tale Police arrest her while she is in Beauty and the Beast. They offer her a deal: Find Beauty, who left the story when Melinda trespassed into it, or be charged with the ultimate crime — Fairy Tale Killer. If that's not bad enough the Beast tags along in search of his true love, and Melinda starts falling for the fairy tale prince. She must choose between doing the right thing and having her own happily ever after.

Warning: This title contains the following: Fairy Godmother, the Wicked Witch, dysfunctional fairy tale families, ax-wielding executioners and a happily ever after (or two).

But I want to conduct a small experiment, and I need your help. (It won't cost you a penny. I promise. :) )

Here's how it works:

On Monday October 5, I'm going to post the first chapter of A Happily Ever After of Her Own. One week later, on October 12, the second chapter goes up. All you have to do is show up and read them. (If you need a reminder, follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my blog via email or RSS.)

After that is when the experiment really kicks off. I'm starting a newsletter, and I'd like people to sign up for it. (You can subscribe here.) So I'm going to offer the rest of the chapters as an incentive. They're going to be available to newsletter subscribers only. Again: it won't cost anything to join, and you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on a link that will be included at the end of each newsletter.

Rest assured, I will never share or sell your contact information. The newsletter is strictly for big announcements (for example: a book coming out), to let you in on future serials, extra excerpts, book giveaways and so on.

Please feel free to forward this post to anyone you think might be interested. FYI — A Happily Ever After of Her Own is rated PG.

PSA: The first two chapters are free, but the rest are available to newsletter subscribers only. Sign up now.

I got a chance to have dinner with treasure hunters. They're absolutely wonderful and fantastic to talk to. And they have a great sense of humor about everything. I was somewhat disappointed that treasure hunting isn't as glamorous as it's made out to be in Hollywood movies, but oh well. :) You can't win everything, huh?

According to them, you have about a 1% chance of finding something valuable. Of course that means you hope that what you find after ninety-nine failed attempts is so big that you can recoup your cost and have some money left over to live off of or fund your next venture. You also need to know a lot of people, know your history, culture, etc. A lot of the stuff you haul from the ocean is from shipwrecks. Some of the examples the treasure hunters quoted were the big Spanish ships that had been taking silver from South America to Spain but somehow never made it to their final destination. And you also have Japanese ships that took gold from China, the Philippines, etc. during the last world war.

I soooooo wanna go treasure hunting…! (On the 100th and finally successful attempt, of course. ;) )

…you can't just assume you can get by with English.

I just went down to 7-11 (which BTW is one of my favorite places to shop in Japan) to get a night snack just now. There was a woman who kept asking the 7-11 night clerk how to use a public phone outside.

First of all, it's not his job since it's not a 7-11 phone. The unit is owned by NTT, which is the Japan equivalent of ATT. If she dials zero, an NTT operator will assist her. In Japanese.

Which brings me to my second point:

The Japanese speak Japanese. Japanese is Japan's standard language by law, and most Japanese people don't need to learn English after they leave college. How many of us can still speak the Spanish, French, etc. that we studied in school fluently?

Besides, if the store clerk spoke English well, he wouldn't be working the night shift at 7-11.

I helped the lady out, but please, when you come to Japan, bring a Japanese phrase book. It's going to make your time in the country so much better.

Dear DPJ,

I'm sure you're thrilled you finally managed to take the majority in the Diet. I'm sure you're happy Aso resigned. I'm sure you're ecstatic you put your man in charge of the country.

Congratulations.

But seriously, must you hire twenty sound cars to blast how great you are at 9:00 a.m.? One car after another it was propaganda after propaganda loud enough to terrify my hamsters. Please, winners ought to be more gracious.

Sincerely,

Nadia

I'm not sure what's up with books set in Japan these days. Or maybe I've been extremely unlucky. It's painfully obvious that the authors have never been to Japan, do not understand the culture and/or done all their research by watching anime (or perhaps reading manga).

The most recent one I bought made me livid. Even before I finished the first chapter, I came up with seven things wrong with the characters and setup. If it hadn't been an ebook, I would've returned it and demanded a refund.

Living in Japan does not make your character Japanese. Sipping green tea while eating sashimi does not make your character Japanese. Wearing kimono does not make your character Japanese. And for pity's sake, speaking broken Japanese in romanji does not make your character Japanese.

Got it?

Seriously…I'm never wasting my money again on a book set in Japan written by anime fangirls/boys.