A Beautiful Voice

Reading all of the horrifying allegations about Harvey Weinstein and his treatment of women and actresses through the years has made me think about this very special lady, Grace Lee Whitney, who played Yeoman Rand on the first season of #StarTrek. She had the most incredible romantic chemistry with Captain Kirk/William Shatner! (Watch how she unconsciously moves toward him any time a threat arises on the bridge of the Enterprise.)

In her autobiography, she revealed a harrowing account of sexual assault by a TV executive she will only refer to as "The Executive". She was so traumatized by the incident that she ended up tanking her career in a years-long battle with alcohol and drugs. She finally emerged triumphant and I was fortunate enough to meet her at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas before she died. She was gracious and charming and told me she thought I looked like her, which was truly one of the nicest compliments I've ever received. 

I hope that today she knows that steps are finally being taken to eradicate this "casting couch" mentality from show business forever and that courageous voices like hers will no longer be silenced.

My Inspiration for ONCE AN ANGEL

Readers frequently ask me what inspires a book. Many of them may not know that my book ONCE AN ANGEL is my heartfelt homage to one of my favorite books of all-time--Frances Hodgson Burnett's A LITTLE PRINCESS. 

I had always wanted to write a "grown-up" version of the story so I started asking myself questions like, "What if 'Sarah Crewe's' guardian thought his new ward was much younger than she actually is? What if he was hiding a dark secret more damaging than losing a fortune in diamond minds that never existed? What if SHE went looking for HIM because she blamed him for never rescuing her from a life of servitude in that dreadful girl's school? What if they finally came face to face and were unable to resist their overwhelming attraction to each other?" 

Of course I added my own dizzying twists and turns to make the story my own but I will always be grateful to Frances Hodgson Burnett for writing two of the books that continue to have the greatest influence on my writing--A LITTLE PRINCESS and THE SECRET GARDEN. 

You can find ONCE AN ANGEL on sale right now for only $3.99! :) 

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Happy Birthday to the stunning beauty and brilliant comedienne who was Lucille Ball! The thing I loved the most about Lucy was that although she often came across as "daffy", she was always the smartest person in the room. 

Little known Lucille Ball facts:

1) She screen-tested for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND

2) Although Ethel seemed much older on I LOVE LUCY, Lucy was only two years younger than her compatriot-in-mischief, Vivian Vance. Vivian Vance also had a clause in her contract stating she could never weigh less than Lucy. (I'm trying to work out the same deal with Christina Dodd but she won't bite! ;)) 

3) There would be no Star Trek without Lucy. Lucy and the studio she founded with Desi Arnaz (Desilu) are entirely responsible for the existence of STAR TREK and Lucy was the one who personally gave them the green light. I once heard Gene Roddenberry's son speak at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas and he said when they were filming the Star Trek pilot, they looked over and someone was sweeping the corner of the studio and it was Lucille Ball.

Win a DOWNTON ABBEY Ornament!

I'm so excited to announce a very special HOLIDAY CONTEST today! My dear pal and fellow romance writer Eloisa James and I are celebrating our mutual love of DOWNTON ABBEY by giving away 6 gorgeous DOWNTON ABBEY ornaments to six of our beloved readers.

All you have to do to be eligible to win is sign up for BOTH of our newsletters by midnight 12/19. A winner will be chosen this Friday and the ornament will be mailed on Monday.

Sign up for Teresa's Newsletter HERE

Sign up for Eloisa's Newsletter HERE

Good luck and Merry Christmas! :) 

SPICY BEEF VEGGIE SOUP RECIPE

This is my favorite soup recipe for braving those cold winter days (and nights! ;)) 

SPICY VEGETABLE BEEF SOUP via Teresa Medeiros

INGREDIENTS

1 lb ground beef (or stew meat)

1 cup chopped onion (I like yellow)

2 cloves garlic

1 30 oz. jar of Ragu Chunky Garden Combination Spaghetti Sauce

1 10.5 oz can of beef broth

2 cups water

3-4 potatoes sliced ¼ inch thick (I boil these before putting them in the soup to make them fork tender.)

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

1 10 oz. can Rotel (Diced Tomatoes with green chiles). (ORIGINAL is great if you like a little heat, get MILD if not.)

1 16 oz bag of frozen vegetables (I like to get 2-10oz bags of Birdseye Steamfresh Mixed Vegetables and microwave them per directions, discard about 4 oz, then put them in already cooked and softened.)

DIRECTIONS

1) Spray large soup pot with Pam

2) Put chopped onion and garlic in pot and cook until softened a little

3) Add ground beef and brown. Drain and return to pot.

4) Add all other ingredients

5) Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. (If the soup is going in a crock pot or you have longer to cook it, you can cook the potatoes and the frozen vegetables IN the soup instead of preparing them ahead of time.)

Serve with cornbread or warm rolls and enjoy!

Like most soups, the longer you can let it sit before serving, the better it will taste. Also great after being refrigerated overnight, then re-warmed.

Serves 4 comfortably with a little leftover. Double up as needed. 

A Light in the Valley

I started my journey through the valley of the shadow of death in 1995 when my 55-year-old mom got very sick. We first realized that something was wrong with her brain when she stopped tolerating the routine meds she took for her bipolar disorder. She lapsed into a coma for over a week and I remember begging God to let her live. If I'd known how dark the valley and how long the road ahead of her, I probably would have been begging Him to go ahead and take her home. We ended up traveling that road for eighteen years.

For the first five years or so of her illness, I was so incoherent with grief and pain I couldn't express the simple fact that a terrible thing had happened to my mother. There were times when I was so enraged that all I wanted to do was grab God by the lapels, slam Him against the wall and demand that he help her. And there were times when I could do nothing more than writhe on the floor and plead over and over again, "Son of David, have mercy on her."

Because of her worsening dementia and the fact that we could no longer give her the meds she needed to manage her bipolar disorder, she required long-term commitment and at one point, she was probably the sickest patient at the mental hospital. She would literally run around and around the room, beating against the walls like a trapped bird. I couldn't visit her for more than five minutes at a time because this woman—this sweet, generous, kind-natured woman who had always looked at me as if I hung the stars—had turned into a raging stranger who would scream unspeakable obscenities at me and my dad.

I remember walking out of the hospital one day and sinking to my knees in the grass, so battered by grief I couldn't even make it to my car. For almost eight years of our journey, I prayed daily that God would let her die. Then I had to live with the guilt of wondering if I wanted Him to end her suffering...or mine.

Things did improve. The doctors found the right combination of meds. She stabilized and we were able to move her to a nursing home where we fixed up a cozy room for her. She quickly won the hearts of the nurses with her unflagging sense of humor and unquenchable spirit. She spent a lot of time watching her favorite videos. Between me and my dad, we visited her five times a week and we slept well at night, knowing she was warm and dry and even a little bit spoiled. So the valley got a little bit brighter.

At the nursing home's annual picnic one year, a lovely Christian lady named Wilda Harrison came up and put her arm around me and said, “You are so lucky to still have both your mom and your dad.” I have to confess that my first response was, “Huh?” But then I went home and thought about it. I could still visit my mom whenever I wanted. I could still put my arms around her and hold her tight and tell her I loved her.

I finally came to an even more startling conclusion. I never really wanted my mother to die. I just wanted for her to be healed. The situation didn't change, but my attitude did and that made all the difference.

My mom’s earthly journey ended on June 23^rd of this year at the age of 73 when God made good on his every promise and took her Home. I still can't bring myself to thank Him for my mother's suffering, nor do I think he would expect me to, but I have come to the fork in the road where I can thank him for mine. Where I can see the blessings that came from it. My mom lived until we had learned all of the lessons she had to teach us. I like to think I'm a more compassionate person than I was before she got sick. I've learned how rewarding loving something wounded and imperfect can be. I've learned how kind and caring others can be when you're hurting. I watched the staff at the nursing home stand in awe of my father's unconditional love for his wife. I stood in awe myself of my mother's spirit, her sense of humor, her sheer determination to survive and find some joy whenever she could and I've decided that there's no one in the world I would rather be like.

But most importantly, I learned to trust God and his promise that no matter how dark the valley or how long the journey, he will NEVER leave us or forsake us. And as I journeyed through that valley, He gave me this song to sing from Habakkuk 3: 17-18: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

Dear Young Women and Teenage Girls of the World: I have NOTHING against 50 SHADES OF GREY or Christian Grey. The book is fiction and Christian is a fantasy. But in REAL LIFE, if a boy or man every tries to 1) separate you from your friends and family 2) tell you what to wear/drive/eat and how many times you should work out a week 3) confess that his fondest desire is to "hurt you", then you should not walk calmly toward the exit. YOU SHOULD RUN SCREAMING FOR THE EXIT!!! Because in real life, you're far more likely to end up with A then B. Never be with a boy or man who makes you feel like less than yourself.

True Heroes

Three young men died in the Aurora theater shooting while protecting the women they loved (Jon Blunk is pictured.) Young women of the world, the true hero will NEVER be the one who says, "I want to hurt you." He will always be the one who says, "I want to protect you." Or as it says in John 15:13: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Teresa's Quick 'N' Easy Hoppin' John

Ring in the New Year with this delicious (and simple to fix) traditional dish!

1 lb breakfast sausage (you can use mild or hot or low fat if you simply must)

1 medium onion

4-16 oz cans of black-eyed peas (we use two regular and two with bacon & jalapeno to give it a little kick)

1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes or to taste (we omit this if we use the jalapeno beans)

1 bag of boil-n-bag rice

1) Cook the sausage in the bottom of a large pot, break apart with fork

2) As it cooks, peel and chop onion and fix 1 bag boil-n-bag rice per directions on box (which takes 10 minutes)

3) Drain sausage if needed, retaining 2-3 TBS of fat, and return to pot

4) Add onion to sausage and cook until onions are soft-5 minutes or so

5) Add black-eyed peas and red pepper flakes and warm well

6) Add 1 bag of cooked boil-n-bag rice

7) Warm well so flavors will combine - 20 minutes or so

We serve this with Jiffy corn bread mix and it also makes an excellent leftover

Aunt Doris's Hash Brown Casserole Recipe

Here's a yummy recipe for Hash Brown Casserole my Aunt Doris gave me when we got married. 


WARNING: It contains not one, but TWO sticks of butter, which is why we only make it at Thanksgiving and Christmas. But it's worth every calorie! :)




INGREDIENTS
1 8 oz sour cream
1 can Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup
2 melted sticks of butter (melt each stick separately)
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
2 lb bag frozen hash browns (O'Brien style) (Thaw before using)
Box of crushed Cornflakes


1) Put thawed hash browns in 9 X 13 pan
2) Mix rest of ingredients and pour over top, including only ONE stick of the butter
3) Top with crushed cornflakes
4) Pour the other melted stick of butter on top of the cornflakes
5) Bake at 350 degrees 45-60 minutes 


(You can also include some chopped green pepper and 1/2 cup chopped onion if you're so inclined) 

Coconut-Pecan Frosting (for German Chocolate Cake)

I am of the opinion that one should never put store-bought Coconut-Pecan Frosting on a German Chocolate cake. This recipe is absolutely scrumptious and fairly simple to make from scratch. Every year I make Hubby a birthday cake with this and he adores it. (And me! ;))

INGREDIENTS

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup sugar

3 slightly beaten egg YOLKS

½ cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/3 cups Angel Flake Coconut

1 cup chopped pecans

Combine 1 cup evaporated milk, 1 cup sugar, 3 slightly beaten egg YOLKS, ½ cup butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened, about 12 minutes.

Add 1 1/3 Baker's Angel Flake Coconut and 1 cup chopped pecans.

Cool until thick enough to spread, beating occasionally. Makes enough to frost one cake. (Best to frost tops and let a little drizzle down the sides.)

SAY IT LOUD AND SAY IT PROUD: I READ AND WRITE ROMANCE!

I could spend hours sharing all of my passionate arguments on the benefits of both reading and writing romance. I could quote more market statistics. I could quote psychologists. I could quote Jayne Ann Krentz and remind you of the positive, life-affirming values inherent in all romances: the celebration of female power, courage, intelligence, and gentleness; the inversion of the power structure of a patriarchal society; the psychological benefits of spending time with authors who have a positive world view.

But to be honest I’m a little sick of defending “romance” as a genre to people too obsessed with its sexual content to attempt to understand its emotional content. So if any of you are ever leered at, sneered at, or otherwise degraded for writing or reading romance, simply blink and gently say (really quickly), “What the romance novel is really all about is the archetypal human struggle of integrating the masculine and feminine aspects of our psyches.” I can promise you that nothing will shut them up faster.

People often ask me why I write romance. I write romance because the ever expanding boundaries of the genre allow me to express my own heartfelt beliefs in optimism, faith, honor, chivalry and the timeless power of love to provoke a happy ending. In a society gutted by cynicism, we have found the courage to stand up and proclaim that hope isn’t corny, love isn’t an antiquated fantasy, and dreams can come true for women still willing to strive for them.

Probably the most subversive thing we dare to do is to make the woman the hero of her own story. And to realize exactly how subversive that is, I want each of you to honestly ask yourselves if the marvelous J.K. Rowling would have been such an international success if her first book had been titled, HARRIET POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE. Traditionally, in our mainstream patriarchal society, it’s been the male character who is allowed to go on all the thrilling physical and emotional quests. Oh, he might have a female sidekick like the delightful Hermione Granger in HARRY POTTER, but she is rarely allowed to overstep her role as confidante and facilitator of his self-discovery. In a romance, the heroine acts as narrator of her own story as well as driving the various plotlines that fuel that story.

Our heroines don’t just “stand by their men”, they “stand up to them.” And guess what—their men love it! We celebrate both a woman’s softness and her strength and introduce her to a man capable of recognizing the value of both. Is it any wonder that both she and our readers fall in love with him?

I write romance because a young woman in Portugal named Lourdes Goulart was praying that my next book would come out before the cancer that was ravaging her body claimed her life. Even though chemotherapy had weakened her eyesight to the point of blindness, she sent me a beautiful and painstaking cross-stitch she’d done of a windmill she could see through the window from her bed. Six months ago, I received word from her sister, Rosa, that Lourdes had died. She started my new book the day before she entered the hospital for the last time, but didn’t want to read past the first page for fear of being interrupted.

I write romance because of a call I recently received from a friend who attended nursing school with me. She’d just undergone a total hysterectomy. She described how depressed and emotionally empty she’d felt after the surgery and its numerous complications. She told me that reading my latest book pulled her out of her depression and even restored the sexual desire for her husband that she had feared she would never feel again.

I write romance because of an e-mail I recently received from a 54-year old incest survivor. Instead of blaming her father for the terrible thing he had done to her, she had always blamed her mother for letting him do it. Because my hero in A KISS TO REMEMBER found the grace in his soul to forgive his mother for a similar act, this woman decided, after nursing her bitterness for 50 years, to forgive her mother before she passed away from Alzheimer’s Disease.

I’d like to share one more brief story with you:

They met in 1957 when he was twenty-two and she was eighteen. He was a skinny, handsome G.I. with a motorcycle and a devilish twinkle in his eye. She was his sister’s best friend. She was beautiful, smart, and funny. He was in love.

They married in 1959 and three years later, while she was pregnant with what was to be their first and only child, he was transferred to Heidelburg, Germany. They lived over a bakery run by a jovial German couple named “Momma and Poppa Hartman.” On weekends, they would climb into his convertible MG without so much as a change of underwear and go racing through the countryside to explore the castles of Germany and Austria.

The child was born in 1962. His first indication that something was wrong was when he came home from work one day to discover that his wife had given away all the furniture. Luckily, a kind-hearted neighbor had taken it in and stored it in her apartment. His beautiful young wife lost weight and stopped sleeping. Her speech was rapid and slurred. At times, she even seemed to forget that she had given birth to a baby. He had no choice but to seek professional help.

The doctors informed him that his wife was suffering from a severe form of mental illness. It would be well over a decade before that illness was correctly diagnosed as Bipolar disorder or manic-depressive illness.

He went driving along the river that dark, rainy night at nearly a hundred miles an hour--a 26 year old soldier in a foreign country with a brand new baby and a wife facing a lifetime of torturous illness and uncertainty. He had a choice to make. He could shuffle his baby off to be raised by relatives and abandon his wife to the care of a German mental institution. He could drive into that river and let all of his decisions be made for him. Or he could choose to live and fight for his family.

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year. Because my dad meant it when he said, “for better or worse; in sickness and in health,” I enjoyed a relatively stable, happy childhood and my mom’s hospitalizations were kept to a minimum. My father’s love is as unwavering and unconditional today as it was fifty-one years ago. Although my mother is now suffering from a rare and terminal brain disorder that has resulted in severe dementia, when my father visits her in the nursing home every other day, he still sees that beautiful, brilliant girl who won his heart all those years ago.

So when people ask me, “Why do you write romance?”, I can only reply, “How could I not?”

http://www.teresamedeiros.com
You can follow Teresa on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/teresamedeiros and join her Facebook Page at: http://www.facebook.com/teresamedeirosfanpage

GOODNIGHT TWEETHEART Video

Teresa Medeiros's Favorite Guy Candy 2

It's he-e-e-e-ere! Just posted the worldwide debut of my GUY CANDY 2 vide on YouTube. It's a tough job but somebody has to do it! Oh, the sacrifices I made for you as I "auditioned" all of these applicants on my computer screen! Enjoy! ;) (And please share with your friends!)

Girls Really Do Want Fun--or distractions

Check out this hilarious video put together by BFF Connie Brockway featuring Connie, me and another BFF Eloisa James. My cat swore this footage had been destroyed but I should have known I couldn't trust Buffy the Mouse Slayer. At one point you can see her trying to "direct" me!

A Photographic Essay of Teresa's Early Career Years

The road that leads a writer to pursue her dreams is often filled with potholes, curves and dead possums. Please take heart from my own saga and...never give up!!! Never surrender!!! (And whatever you do, never let your mother cut your bangs.)

Having always had a tendency toward big hair, Teresa spent most of her childhood waiting for the 80's to arrive

Having given up on her dream of becoming a princess, Teresa hired her daddy to be her agent and waited for Hollywood to come calling

When Hollywood didn't come calling, little Teresa's dreams of being the next Shirley Temple were crushed...

...leaving her with no option but to take a job washing dishes at a sleazy diner in Wyoming, her only comfort the fifth of Jack Daniels she downed each night after closing time.

Teresa's Top 20 WRITE RIGHT Tips Just For You

Dear Friends,

I've been sharing some of my favorite writing tips over on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/teresamedeiros) for months now and thought I'd finally gather them all together in one place. Happy writing!

1) Don't give characters unpronounceable names. Unless you're German, umlauts are not your friend.

2) Almost any sentence except "I am born" can be improved with revision.

3) Don't fear adverbs but actions verbs are always better. Not "He walked slowly" but "He trudged..."

4) It's the 1st sentence of your book that sells that book to the editor or reader. It's the last sentence of your book that sells the next book.

5) A creative silence may be your subconscious saying, "Hush, child. I'm working on a better plan."

6) Characters don't have to be perfect from the first page. Character growth is the hallmark of good fiction.

7) Writing is part talent and part craft. The craft part can be improved with practice.

8) You don't learn how to play the piano by reading books about playing the piano. You learn by practicing.

9) If you can stop writing, you probably should.

10) If you're stuck, go for a walk. Moving forward moves the brain forward. (Thanks to the Dog Whisperer for this tip :)).

11) If you're stuck, go back and do a read-thru from Chapter 1 to pick up the thread of the story.

12) The key to a truly successful romance novel is foreplay--not just physical but emotional.

13) There will come a time in every book when you will hate the story, hate the characters, wish they were dead, wish you were dead...just keep writing and you'll love them and yourself again.

14) Expect some resistance when finishing a book. Your subconscious knows it's the end of a great love affair.

15) Don't foreshadow your characters' every action by revealing their every thought through introspection.

16) If you're stuck for a phrase or word, insert [TK] or something else easily searchable and move on. Return later to fill in.

17) To preserve the sanctity of your imaginary world, consider writing on a computer completely cut off from the internet.

18) Dialogue is the hardest thing to write but the easiest thing to fix.

19) Protect your creativity as if it's a small defenseless child entrusted to your care.

20) When the story is over, shut up and write THE END.

I'd love to know your own favorite writing tip! Head on over to http://www.facebook.com/teresamedeirosfanpage to share!

TERESA'S QUICK HOPPIN JOHN

Ring in the New Year with this delicious (and simple to fix) traditional dish!

1 lb breakfast sausage (you can use mild or hot or low fat if you simply must)

1 medium onion

4-16 oz cans of black-eyed peas (we use two regular and two with bacon & jalapeno to give it a little kick)

1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes or to taste (we omit this if we use the jalapeno beans)

1 bag of boil-n-bag rice

1) Cook the sausage in the bottom of a large pot, break apart with fork

2) As it cooks, peel and chop onion and fix 1 bag boil-n-bag rice per directions on box (which takes 10 minutes)

3) Drain sausage if needed, retaining 2-3 TBS of fat, and return to pot

4) Add onion to sausage and cook until onions are soft-5 minutes or so

5) Add black-eyed peas and red pepper flakes and warm well

6) Add 1 bag of cooked boil-n-bag rice

7) Warm well so flavors will combine - 20 minutes or so

We serve this with Jiffy corn bread mix and it also makes an excellent leftover

The Many Faces of Russell Crowe

I'm gearing up for the May release of the new ROBIN HOOD movie by posting a tribute video to Russell Crowe on YouTube :)

TWITTER 101

If you've seen that ubiquitous little bluebird flitting around the internet or heard some television reference to "tweeting", "tweet-ups" or "twantrums", you may be wondering what the latest internet craze is all about.

TWITTER is a new form of social media where everyone communicates in sound bytes of 140 characters or less. Some call it micro-blogging, some call it haiku for the semi-literate and others just call it thinking out loud. Personally, I adore Twitter for several reasons:

1) My brain "tweets" all the time and now I have a place I can share my pithy (yes, I said pithy, not...well...you know...) meanderings on the absurdities of life, pictures of my cats lounging on my desk, links to fascinating articles and YouTube videos, all the latest news about upcoming books, blog appearances, etc.

2) I can type 90 words a minute so it's not that time-consuming for me

3) It's far more "linear" than Facebook so it doesn't aggravate my ADD

4) It gives me a chance to establish a much more intimate connection with my readers

Some have tried to set up a competition between Facebook and Twitter but the two are now totally compatible. You can easily set your Tweets to post to Facebook or your Facebook updates to post to Twitter. The only difference is that on Facebook, you have "friends" or "fans" and on Twitter you have "followers" (all the better to increase your chances of achieving world domination).

Twitter is the place to be to "Follow" your favorite authors, celebrities, musicians, politicians and/or syrup (yes @mrsbuttersworth is really on Twitter in all of her sticky goodness). The immediacy of it is stunning. We were instrumental in protesting the recent election fraud in Iran. We knew the balloon boy was a hoax long before the rest of the world did. And when a small fire broke out at the recent Romance Writers of America conference, the news was "tweeted" before the fire alarm was even pulled. When I wondered how Elizabeth Taylor (@DameElizabeth) was feeling about Michael Jackson's death, she "tweeted" and told me less than five minutes later. (For a real blast follow @kirstiealley. She tweets like she's roaring drunk all the time, even though she's not.)

If you want to give Twitter a try, go to http://www.twitter.com to sign up for a free account.

I also HIGHLY recommend downloading a "client" to manage your tweets. Some of my friends use Tweetie for their iPhones but my heart belongs to Tweetdeck. Just go to http://www.tweetdeck.com to download this app for free. You can use it to separate your Tweets into columns. I have AUTHORS, CELEBRITIES, SQUAWK RADIO GALS, FRIENDS, etc. on mine. And some people become intimidated by the number of people they're following. You don't have to actually READ the tweets of everyone you're following. I just check them when I happen to be on-line.

The control is all up to you. You can FOLLOW 400 people or you can FOLLOW 3 people. It's also very viral. Once you're following a fave author, you may find several other authors to follow just by reading her tweets. I've found that Twitter gives you a far more intimate glimpse into an author's life and creative process than any other form of social media. And if you're an aspiring author, the publishing tips and info are invaluable.

You can also UNFOLLOW people at any time. Or even BLOCK those spammers who will occasionally try to send you naughty photoshopped pics of Britney Spears.

And if you're Following several of your friends, you can use it as a form of mini-e-mail to have wonderful, scintillating conversations, which actually vastly cuts down on the number of e-mails hitting your inbox on any given day.

I'm doubly excited about Twitter because I'm working on a book right now called GOODNIGHT TWEETHEART about a man and woman who meet and fall in love on Twitter :). (Don't worry--I'm doing this in my downtime BETWEEN historicals so it won't affect my next deadline.)

So that's my Twitter primer. If you sign up and have any questions, you can always find me over at http://www.twitter.com/teresamedeiros

Come join the best cocktail party in the world! :)