Starting Something New

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A Rush of Blood to the Limbic System

As I'm sure many of you know, Romance is quite a popular genre - and why shouldn't it be? Romance itself is such a wonderful high, and who doesn't get a thrill out of reading about the sexual tension and lust between two deeply involved characters?

"Romance fiction sales remained relatively steady in 2010, though dipping slightly to $1.358 billion from $1.36 billion in 2009. And romance fiction continued its dominance of the consumer market at 13.4 percent (in terms of revenue of market categories), beating out mystery, science fiction/fantasy, and religion/inspirational titles." - Romance Writers of America

But what is love, really? Why do we get such a high from "falling in love"?

There is actually a physiological reason behind it all, and it's more than just "(s)he's crazy lol".

For those who took any basic psychology courses in college, or maybe even high school, you probably know that the frontal cortex of our brain is in charge of reasoning and decision making. From this, most of you can probably infer that the cortex is not highly involved in our decisions when it comes to romance.

Why do we get so crazy when we "fall in love"? Why are so many of us drawn to that feeling of new love? Why do we chase it, yearn for it, lust for it?

I strongly encourage all romance novelists and romance novel fans to check out this article, "Limbic Love", on the American Scientist website. It briefly discusses why we get those crazy, emotionally-charged feelings when we start falling in love, and the answer is fairly simple: the limbic system.

Those crazy feelings of love, jealousy, and euphoria? The limbic system. Those crazy acts of slapping that person who dared giving "the look" to your significant other? That's the brain redirecting the flow of blood from the cortex (remember: logic, decision-making, etc.) to the limbic system (emotions).

The limbic system is responsible for that Velcro collision called "falling in love." If our limbic patterning is off when it comes to love, we can suffer endless trouble, write psychiatrists Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon in A General Theory of Love. Dreams of falling in love and living happily ever after spin out of "the airy regions of the cortex, which drafts its scripts using imagination, logic and will."

But what happens after that? What happens when the initial "falling in love" ends, and the real relationship begins? And I don't mean the "real relationship" to mean the day you two lovebirds officially mark the day you went steady; I'm talking about the hard work of maintaining a steady, long-term relationship...a topic many romance novelists fail to cover.

Loving is limbically different from being in love. Loving is "synchronous attunement and modulation. As such, adult love depends critically upon knowing the other." Loving is what happens after the limbic thrill is gone, and it's more substantial than that thrill: "In a dazzling vote of form over substance, our culture fawns over the fleetingness of being 'in love' while discounting the importance of 'loving.'"

It's not exactly exciting to write entire novels about a couple finding their first apartment, paying the bills, and fighting over which brand of toilet paper to buy. But it's not to say it isn't important to discuss. Love and marriage isn't all about passionate lovemaking and blasting "your song" through the window at night - it's about coming together and creating a symbiotic relationship together. Your lover should also be your partner and your best friend; without such a bond, the "love" between a couple will eventually fade.

With that, I leave you all with a quote from one of my favorite novels, Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières:

“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”

Scenes from "The Night Life" - Richard's Father's Almost-Death

And I saw it – I saw my father open his mouth to speak. His careful words began as nothing more than a small, almost inaudible groan resulting from the failed attempt at actual speech. For a brief moment, I actually believed he was dying, because his muffled groan was actually quite terrifying despite its struggling weakness. Why didn’t I act sooner? I could have saved him before it was too late. And when his head started to fall to the right, I briefly panicked, thinking that he had finally met the grim reaper.

“You see what you’ve done?!” I shouted.

“Richard, he’s not dead,” Patrick pointed out.

“Of course he is!”

“He’s still breathing.”

Photos from the Zoo.

Trampled by Turtles.

I went to the Trampled by Turtles show the other night in Steamboat Springs and got some pretty sweet photos out of the deal.

What Smoke Does to the Sky

Sorry guys, I'm pretty inept at getting good pictures, especially of sunsets. I fail at sunsets, apparently.

But yeah, these pictures are the result of the Squirrel Creek Fire, burning about 35 miles southwest of here.

Red Sunset.

Colorado is Ablaze!

Above is a map (made by Theoretican on Reddit and posted to /r/Colorado) of the newly-developed Waldo Canyon Fire near Colorado Springs. I'm not in Colorado Springs right now, but I grew up there, and I've seen pictures, and it looks like it's pretty visible from pretty much everywhere in the city. It looks like mandatory evacuations were put into place for Manitou Springs, which is about a half hour drive from where I grew up.

Most everybody I know lives in either the north or the east of the city, though, so I have no worries there. Though I do hope that this fire doesn't spread too much. Though it has been pretty hot, and coupled with the fact that we had a pretty mild and dry winter, things aren't boding well for these fires in general.

Meanwhile, closer to where I live, the second largest fire in Colorado history is burning near Fort Collins. I was actually in Fort Collins last Friday, and it's pretty hazy down there (and also much warmer - I think it got to about 100 yesterday). This one has affected us more, though again, we're not in any danger. Below is a photo of the fire I took on June 4th - obviously, it's gotten a bit worse since then.


For those interested, here are a few relevant articles to check out:

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_20929068/waldo-canyon-fire-forces-evacuation-manitou-springs

http://www.9news.com/news/article/273899/339/High-Park-Fire-grows-to-75537-acres

Why Do Commercials Need to Emphasize Makeup and "Girl Stuff" To Appeal to Women?

I really don't understand this. I'm a female in science, and I've never needed lipstick and blush to make it better.

Sales Thus Far; Some Thoughts

I don't know why, but I really like talking about sales numbers and money made.

The irony is that, if I were actually doing well (as in, enough to actually live off of), I would probably never talk about this stuff. Nobody wants to read about me bragging about how awesome I'm doing as a writer living the dream.

However, as you can see from the chart above, I've made less than $150 in five months. Actually, I think that's pretty brag-worthy, because it's $150 more than I expected to make.

[Also, for the record, it's 17 days into June, and I've sold nothing this month.]

Why are some months better than others? With January, at least, you have the fact that many people had just received Kindles, AND KDP Select was pretty awesome, since not everybody had yet jumped on the bandwagon. I actually did quite well with free promotions (the best being my very first, a one day promotion with The Dowry getting over 800 downloads).

March, on the other hand, was due to a fluke in the system - shortly after a botched free promotion (where it ended up lasting about half a day longer than it should have), I received about 14 total purchases of both Family History: Part 1 and Part 2.


Here's another interesting tidbit: I gave up seriously advertising my books sometime in March. I assumed that this was why I got so few purchases in April; however, I actually did fairly well in May without any advertising or free promotion days. I'm still not sure what happened in May, though if I remember right, every purchase occurred in the first half of the month.

On the other hand, I've had literally no sales thus far for June. Again, I've done very little advertising. Perhaps people are spending less time browsing Amazon in the summertime? I would be interested to hear what experiences other people have with this (if any).

Funny, I Thought Everyone Hated Internet Explorer

All-Time Pageviews by Browser for Predicted Hindsight

Nothing to Blog About

I've apparently become so boring that I've run out of things to blog about.

I think that I need to learn how to create something out of nothing - create stories from mundane, every day life events. That, or I just need to make it so that my life is more exciting.

Honestly, though, the most exciting thing that has happened today, was that I received an unexpected Skype call, from somebody I've been actively avoiding (and actively telling everybody to avoid). I was listening to music, and my laptop was plugged in to my speakers. Some people were sitting in the room, and the unexpected Skype music started blaring through the speakers. I was confused, because I don't even know what Skype music sounds like. I still don't remember it exactly.

The first time it happened, I walked over to my computer, saw who the call was from, and pressed DECLINE as I shouted "NOOOOO."

My boyfriend, who saw the identity of the caller, muttered "Prick," under his breath.

When I received a second call not two minutes later from the same person, I repeated the same action - I once again shouted "NOOOOO" at my computer while pressing "Decline".

I really enjoy animating my actions.

Ad Sense

I seem to have gotten a large jump in page views recently, though I'm not really sure why.

Sadly, they're not helping my book sales.

YROTSIH YLIMAF YUB

(For those who don't know, it's somewhat of a reference to an old Simpson's episode, where they subliminally try to convince people to join the Navy with a song that says JOIN THE NAVY backwards.)

Anyways, I've decided to put adsense in, if I'm getting all of these unsolicited page views anyways.

I still have no clue where they're coming from.

Took a Picture of the Full Moon Tonight.

The cropping job was done terribly, but oh well.

Something That Hasn't Been Commercialized.

While waiting in line to buy flowers for Mother's Day (I know, cliche, isn't it?), boyfriend mentioned, "Flowers used to be free, then somebody commercialized them."

Then, I tried thinking of something that hasn't been packaged and sold. Water? Dirt? Heck, somebody even thought to package and sell rocks, one at a time, in the form of a pet rock. "The guy made a million dollars!"

Honestly, if I set my mind to it, I can make a pretty damn good looking bouquet from flowers growing the the park. I've done it before. You just have to be willing to use those so-called weeds.

By the way, why are dandelions weeds? Not only are they a gorgeous color, but you can eat them. Why are we trying to kill them all the time? If anything, they're prettier than the grass we try so hard to make look perfect.

Also, what's up with Homeowner's Associations? You know, speaking of lawns and all that. But yeah, I honestly don't understand them half of the time - it seems like you're paying fees, for what? For people to send out letters telling you your lawn looks terrible (because there's been a drought, duh!). I know, I know, they keep property values up, or something, or they keep your neighborhood from looking like the projects. Or something. Is it obvious I'm not a homeowner?

Also, in case I haven't said it: Happy Mother's Day, everybody! Especially to mothers. Thanks for giving birth to the rest of the world!

"You Must Be KT." (Or, the story of how I was almost recognized at ~13,000 Feet.)

Tonight, I had to go back and scour my Twitter (and by that, I mean scroll down a little bit) for a tweet about summitting a mountain.

You see, I was hiking up a mountain yesterday, and on the way down, this lady looks at me and says, "You must be KT."

I immediately went into a small panic, because I was suddenly thinking that I had an insanely thorough stalker. Or at least, a stalker who scoured my Reddit account for information on me. Which, if you're really thorough, could probably get you quite a lot of information.

Of course, not wanting to immediately give away my super secret author identity, I laughed it off with a half-hearted, "What are you talking about?" kind of answer.

(At this point, I'm aware that this story is likely to sound completely made up. Seriously, though, this is 100% true...which is why it's so god damn weird.)

"Somebody wrote, 'I heart KT' in the snow back there."

(DISCLAIMER: I did not write my own "initials" in the snow. That's a silly and ineffective form of advertising.)

"Oh, okay," I said.

The lady and her male counterpart hiked in the opposite direction, while boyfriend and I continued to walk down the mountain for a ways, until I looked at him. He knew what I was thinking, and he teased me on the origin of the initials of my pseudonym. Of course, my thoughts at the time were along the lines of, "What in the world did I post on Twitter?"

The two of us continued to walk, heading down the mountain, when suddenly, we came upon it. We came upon the (now infamous) "I heart KT."

Again, I would like to point out that I did not write this, and according to my boyfriend, neither did he.

However, whoever was on Barr Trail near Colorado Springs and wrote this for whatever reason, I think you ought to know that you damn near gave me a heart attack.

Eight Days in, and I've Already Sold More Books This Month than in All of April.

...and that's without and KDP Select Promotions, or really...any promotion.

Maybe I just got lucky? Go figure.

So far, though, March is my best month, at twenty-two books sold.

And, if I remember correctly, I haven't sold a single copy of The Dowry since February. But, that's okay - nobody was supposed to buy that one anyways.

After a Particularly Rough Morning, This Made My Day.

Bad Photography (We All Make Mistakes).

Sure, it's cool to show off all of our good writing, and our good artwork. But, let's face it - it's not 100% realistic. Because we all take terrible pictures. And we all write terrible first drafts. And, pretty much everything we do on the first try is terrible. So, let's at least have some fun. (But, for the sake of "having fun", I'm going to title them like I think they're freaking works of art, because fun.)

Breathtaking Photo of a Monkey Hanging Out in a Tree

Amazing, One-of-a-Kind Photo of Nature's Most Beautiful and Dangerous Wonders - The Almighty Flame

A Majestic Sunset Over Waikiki Beach, Hawaii

A Breathtaking View of Colorado Springs, CO

Beautiful Photograph of a Coloradan Forest in the Summertime

A Roadside View of Some Lovely Green Trees

A Reminder that All Life is Fragile - Stunning Photograph of a Dying Tree

So We've Found Our Problem. We've Justified that the Problem Needs to Be Fixed. Now What?

Today, I had somebody ask me if a reason was a solution.

"Young girls should have better access to birth control [specifically Plan B] because it is safe."

IS THIS A SOLUTION?

First off, I'm going to start off simple here, by going to Dictionary.com and searching the word "Solution."

Solution: the act of solving a problem, question, etc.: The situation is approaching solution.

How does telling you that something is safe solve anything?

Yes, I did say, "Girls should have better access to birth control," but I didn't propose a solution to the problem.

Nowhere in that statement did I say, "Consider writing to your representatives about the issue" or "Consider starting a petition about eliminating restrictions for girls to acquire Plan B."

Because those are solutions. Or at least, that's as close as we can get to solutions.

Another Guest Post

Lately, I have this habit of not writing anything on my own blog, but writing halfway decent posts for other people to put on their blogs.

What's up with that?

Anyways, today I am featured on Cassandera Carr's Blog. Check it out: http://booksbycassandracarr.com/wordpress/?p=1351