It’s the opening of a really quirky joke: Two bloggers walk into a drug store.

Except the punchline was more gross than funny.

This blog post is a mash-up of SmashedPicketFences and GettingTheWordsWrong meets product placement fails.

We were looking for something that would prevent Meghan’s kids from throwing up during a road trip.

The store manager escorted us back to the anti-nausea section of the store. Logically, this was placed near the anti-diarrhea medicine. As the store manager pointed out other products, I noticed Meghan’s lips twitch into a suppressed smile, she signed for me to turn around and look at the rest of the aisle.

Directly opposite the anti-diarrhea and anti-nausea medicine was a bank of shelves containing condoms and lubricants. Which now looks a lot like the YA section of a bookstore with it’s black cover wrappings and vague close up photography of wisps of ribbon for color.

The store manager was still there, so we did the whole eye communication thing-y and pretended to be mature.

When the store manager left, Meghan said, “Tina, look what’s behind us.”

I looked at the condoms. Then looked at Meghan. “Yeah, I saw.”

After a moment of giggling like fifteen-year-old girls (maturity has never been our strong suit, especially when we’re together), we brainstormed how to better rearrange the store.

“Condoms don’t belong next to anti-diarrhea medicine. I mean, what kind of story does that tell the clerk if you’re buying both anti-diarrhea and condoms?”

“Do people commonly need both?” I added.

When I worked in a grocery store, there is this whole psychology of trying to get people to buy other things by placing them next to something you need.

Like ‘I came in for milk and at the end cap across from milk was a box of Oreos’ or ‘oh man, I ran out of laundry detergent, but while I’m here I should pick up some cleaning supplies. I should totally clean all the windows in my house.’

Meghan said, “Why would anyone ever need both condoms and anti-diarrheal?”

We stared blankly at each other for a moment.

Then we both shuddered.

“Condoms should be over there,” Meghan said, pointing to the wine aisle. “It should go wine, condoms, pregnancy tests.”

“That’s too ideal,” I said. “Real life would go: pregnancy tests, wine, condoms. Because I’d like to believe people learn from their mistakes. And chocolate should be in there, too.”

Meghan shrugged. “An end cap?”

We debated the order of operations for a few minutes before checking out, but we both agreed that condoms definitely did not belong next to anything related to the stomach flu or an unfortunate decision to try out that hole-in-the-wall restaurant where they call the cook “Buster” and he’s not wearing a shirt.

We Love Comments! Every time you comment….uh, I don’t know, I’m drawing a blank on this one. Still in shock.

Over the weekend I got together with my three best friends. We all have that friend who understands you, accepts you, anticipates your sour moods, and knows the right thing to say at the right time. I have three of them (four if you count my husband). They’re pretty awesome.

While we chatted into the wee hours of the morning and relived our most horrid and morbidly embarrassing moments, one of my friends described the unexpected things that she’s had to do in her job. She called it “other tasks as assigned” which is how it was presented in the job description.

These are the jobs we never would could have anticipated or planned for. They pop up at the exact wrong time and of course demand all the attention. And they MUST be done before anything else. Now, an “other task” might be something that can be procrastinated, but usually not. It seems small, but becomes huge just from the sheer avoidance energy we expend on it.

I just had an other-tasks-as-assigned kind of month. It started out with my son having a migraine episode. He gets stomach migraines (for which he sees a specialist at Standard Medical for because his case is fairly severe, but we have it under control with preventative medication, sometimes the prevention doesn’t work and this was one of those times). I plan for the possibility and usually try to get ahead of any writing work I have, just in case. But also in the same time we had family unexpectedly in the hospital, lots of visitors, and overnight guests. I also had two writing projects take interesting turns. And a novel re-write, which takes precedence above any other writing related task. Also throw in a pushy sales man, a leaky toilet, and a dozen other unplanned things.

As a parent, I expect other tasks as assigned; I even expect that some surprises will happen. It’s called life. But when everything happens at once it starts to wear on me and I don’t get as much done when I split focus to several different things.

I’ve been trying to get better at this, since I’m prone to falling into old anxiety patterns and excessive worrying. I flitter around from one project to the next, not really getting anything done to completion. This time I was able to stay afloat, and get it all done. As far as stressful events go, this time was not at all as intense as it could have been, so it made for good practice. I attribute it to forcing myself to stick to my daily walk (even if I had to drag my company along for the ride), the new zero gravity chairs, and a really good book to escape to.

But seriously our new zero gravity chairs are amazing.

Also some really amazing friends at the end of it all.

The “other tasks” can be overwhelming, but I got through them, even if I had to slow down to a moment-to-moment planning strategy.

My emergency combat a stress filled week schedule looks like this:

• Daily walk
• Healthy meals/snacks
• Two goals. One that is a small “must do” and the second is a you’re-a-superstar-if-you-can-manage-it goal.
• Evening Yoga/or five minutes of concentrated breathing—even just closing my eyes right before bed and clearing my mind.

For me this keeps things sane. Of course, it all flies out the door when things are in complete crisis mode, but that is when something huge happens. This is just for those little pile it on unexpected zillion tasks days.

We love comments! Every comment you leave takes away one other task assigned from a poor unexpected soul.

At the end of last week Pam Stewart put me in the hot seat and asked me a few questions. This week I tied her down and set her in that very seat. Imagine us in a dark room, our shadows making all sorts of hideous creatures on the wall and a single light with moths fluttering into the bulb.

Deepest, darkest secrets revealed. And spoilers. Enter at your own risk.

Mary Shelley (founder of modern SF) and Charles Dickens (Founder of modern Fantasy) get into an MMA fight. Who do you root for?

From what I’ve read, Dickens personally was (how to put it delicately) a word similar to his name. But his enduring stories (A Christmas Carol/A Tale of Two Cities) and the volume of writing he has added to readable literature is pretty impressive. And then there is Mary Shelley. She wrote an incredibly imaginative, ground breaking story that has resonated with audiences for decades, during a time when it was difficult for a woman to publically write. I have to go with my girl, Mary. Take. Him. Down.

You’re on a quest and you have to pick your weapon. What do you choose and why?

No limits? No quid pro quo? I would choose a dragon. Fire breathing, flying, intelligent, I think I want one in blood red. He will be a companion as well as defender. I will name him Spot, like Data’s cat.

What aspect of writing do you work on the most (Dialog, descriptions, characters, plot, etc)? Which one do you want to be known for?
All of the things! I think having grand ideas is easy, the hard part is trying to coerce them into a real story. I also want to be known for all-of-the-things. I do dream big. I am working hard to balance my writing between dialogue, character, and plot. I think using as many elements as possible in each scene is key. Every word, every scene, every chapter has to earn the right to be in the book.

Boom, Dr. Who left his TARDIS unattended. Where do you go? (or who do you visit?)

Ok, if it’s 10 (David Tennant version) I would wait until he returned so we could go adventuring together. I really would like to visit Shakespeare; he had such a gift, such a way with words. I would love to have a conversation with him. I may also go to my younger self and tell her things to do, things to avoid. I’d tell her to keep writing and not to get side tracked. Yeah, it’d be a long conversation, and she wouldn’t listen to a word. Sigh. Oh, and ancient Egypt. That would be stellar, see the pyramids being built.

What is your secret recipe to stay motivated?

We are all motivated by either positive or negative stimuli. I use both carrot and stick. I go to book stores and search in the S section [for Stewart] in the Speculative Fiction and picture my book there, my name on a spine. And if that doesn’t do it, then I go negative, I think of two years, three years, twenty years down the line. How will my life look if I don’t continue? Another person who gave up on their dream. Another person who settled. Another person living a sad meaningless life, zoned out in front of the television. In the end, I’d rather fail at something I love than succeed at something I hate.

We all have at least one: tell me a little bit about your super power.

Given the right circumstances, I can find an excellent analogy that explains exactly what I mean. I guess you can call me Analogy Girl!

Everyone says if they had the time, they’d write a book. If you had this special kind of magic time (other than writing) what would you do?

Ugh, it’s time and money and the list is endless, learn to play violin, draw, paint, sculpt, plant an epic garden, run a marathon, travel to the far corner of the world. The list does go on and on.

We love comments! For every comment on this blog post Mary Shelly will get a right hook in on Dickens. 

Although I’m pretty sure I was English teachers’ worst nightmare, I really loved analyzing literature. I had terrible grammar and spelling. When I’d read out loud, I mispronounced every other word. Like all great sponges, I soaked in a lot of information and managed to be a fairly straight-A student. I think this confused a lot of teachers.

One thing that’s nice about literature classes is how the teachers will discuss the novel with almost fanatical devotion. They point out the allusions, character emotional plot points, and meaning of life stuff. As writers we learn the value of a critique and getting it to the point that readers will want to dissect these things. So I find it only natural that writers are the most critical of current written work, picking it apart to bring out the best possible story.

Except sometimes this goes horribly wrong.

As soon as a series, story, or novel becomes popular a rash of blog posts arise denouncing all the things the writer did wrong and why, if people were sensible, they wouldn’t enjoy it.

Really? Are we really going to bash people’s opinions of what entertains them? This has always struck me as completely un-classy and coming from a writer never really looks good. To me, it comes across as jealousy over someone else’s success. Okay, I admit I giggle over the flippant 50 Shades comments or the occasional sparkly vampire reference. But when it comes to full public rantings and obvious frustrations that an “awful book” became popular, I have to take a deep breath. If someone doesn’t like a book I almost always chalk it up to not being her thing. That’s the subjective part of writing (with some exceptions, of course. I can understand wishing and pleading books contained wider appeal, more diversity, or better handling of plot/character. I really want to see this more, too. I like to see these arguments posed in “what writers are doing it right and still remaining popular” along with what we can do as writers to not add to the noise).

I think writers read hot books to learn how to write their own hot book. So it’s a learning experience in a way, an exercise. Except the exercise ends in bullet points of all the weakness of the book. I guess for me this is counter-productive because I always learn more when I figure out what someone did right. Some people may learn a lot by being extra critical, but for me it’s always been about seeing what the book did right.

When I want to have a story published in a magazine I read the stories that magazine has published. I don’t read it for “Why did these people get in and not me?” I read it for “What are they doing right?” I know it’s hard. Especially when I come across a story I don’t like. It’s difficult to avoid fixating on the weakness of that one story, but I’ve learned to cognitive therapy my way out of that scenario.

When I recognize that tendency, I step back, breath. It’s not productive for me to dwell on the negative. I might spend a ten-minute spitting-mad moment of quoting the awful prose to my husband who actually, bless his heart, just sits there and nods. But I almost always get myself back on track. If I don’t like any stories in a magazine, then I know it’s not my market, no matter how much I’d like it to be. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop sending material, but I might not read it as thoroughly. If I didn’t like any market then it’d be time to analyze what I’m doing in this profession.

I’ve met people who hate most books they read. I pity these poor souls. Why do they continue to torture themselves? I like to read the nitty-gritty public dissections posted by reviewers—those can be insightful. But when it comes from another writer, it’s that awkward moment at the water cooler where a colleague humiliates or harasses another co-worker.

It always comes back to me this way: If millions of readers read this book and loved it, what did they do right?

I love comments! Every comment you leave will result in a writer “getting it right” and will save another writer from a public rant. You will be doing a huge service for the writing community!

Also Blog Bonus: I’m guest blogging today at J. Kathleen Cheney’s blog. She is the author of The Seat of Magic and The Golden City. My blog post is: Set Your Phasers to Destroy: Unnecessary Verbs