Alpha Heroic Lines

Hey folks. This topic made me think about alpha heroes in urban fantasy and paranormal romance, and how easily they get chicks. That said, I think they're cheating. After all, they usually only get the chick because of the fact that they're the only one who can save the heroine from certain destruction at the hands of (insert villain here). In fact, when you think about it, most of our beloved alpha heroes are actually pretty lazy, passive love interests. They don't have to exert much effort to find or get the attention of their ladies. Mostly because a true alpha's love interest is literally hurled at him by evil henchmen, or she careens into the hero while running away from evil henchmen, or she swoons into his strong arms after he saves her from evil henchmen.....

In other words, except for the part where he has to kick some henchmen ass, our alpha heroes don't have to do a lot besides play "catch the panicking lady."

So let's make it a little more difficult for our alpha. Let's take him out of the dark alley and put him in the dark night club. Let's make him work for his, er, romantic dinner . . .

Here's some examples of pick-up lines I think an alpha hero in a UF or para-rom might say to a woman in a bar:

1) See this gun? That's not the only thing I've got that's hard like steel and ready to fire at your command.

2) I can kill a man in seven seconds, and make you come in five.

3) Wait till I show you my love karate.

4) Since I'm already covered in (insert whatever weird tribal tattoo-looking thing that is actually a mark of him being a demon/vampire/werewolf/etc.), I'll just have to ink your name on my heart.

5) These shitkickers were made for stomping . . . all over your bedside rug.

6) Is it hot in here or did you make my ________ powers ignite with passion?

7) You're so beautiful that if you were a super villain, I'd think twice before impaling you on my sword.

8) You could stake me any day, baby.

9) I no longer care that I'm condemned to walk in darkness, 'cuz you're my sunshine.

10) Thank the gods I'm immortal, or my heart would have stopped when I first saw you.

Now add your own! What would your favorite alpha hero say to his lady love?

(ps: Today you can also find me blogging about some books/movies I've liked recently, over at my site.)

I'm a Total Nag

It's true. I'm a total nag.

I think a big part of the problem was that I used to be pretty lazy. Through high school, especially, I was only semi-engaged with the idea of hard work. A big part of the problem was that I wasn't smart enough yet to understand how very little I know, and I could do well in things like school and after-school jobs with only a modicum of effort.

Then I went to college, and after a party-hearty first semester, I knuckled down. I definitely worked a lot harder than I did in high school, partly because I was beginning to realize that no matter how much I learned in class, there was so much more I didn't know. That said, I still wasn't winning any awards. Maybe I didn't "own" my life as much I should have, at that point, as I was still part of an educational system in which I knew I would, to a certain extent, be taken care of if I did what I was supposed to.

Everything changed, however, when I started grad school. Suddenly, either I got something done when I was supposed to, or I didn't. No one was there to remind me, or nag me, or help me schedule stuff. There were no helpful syllabi on which I could see what I must do, when. I just had to research a bunch of stuff, and then I had to write it, and occasionally pass stuff in.

All of a sudden, I was entirely responsible for my own success. And that changed me.

I became my mother.


My mom is an absolute power house of a woman who does approximately 1,000 things before dawn. The rest of the day is spent doing the real work. Seriously, she's amazing and slightly terrifying.


And I'm both proud and afraid that I've become her.


Now that I'm doing two things I love (writing and teaching), I have to be very productive in order to be, well, productive. Basically, I work all the time. It ain't pretty, but it's true. As a lifestyle choice, it works for me right now, and I'm not asking for an intervention. Where I go wrong, however, is not realizing that other people don't have to work as hard as I do, and very few actually want or need to.

Cuz that's when I start nagging. I know exactly what people in my life can do to become NUMBER ONE, so why aren't they doing it? I can't understand this, so I go ahead and fill them in on where they're going wrong. Eventually, I realize they want to punch me in the eye.

I'm shocked, every time.

So one of the things I'm working on is not giving advice unless it's asked for, and then dropping it once it's given rather than chasing up to see if they did what I told them to. I'm not not telling people what my MUCH BETTER PLAN THAN THEIRS is, and I'm no longer saying to people, "Why the fuck don't you just do it, already, and stop saying you'll do it?"

Because even if I am right, and I do have the answers, nobody wants to hear them. And I certainly don't want to be that person. Even if that person is RIGHT, GODDAMIT.

She's also annoying. That nag that is me.

Writing and Peace

On the one hand, I think writing can often help us find peace. On the other hand, I think peace can be too much of a good thing.

It's true that being a writer can help us get perspective on our own lives. Don't get me wrong: I'm just as apt to get caught up in my own little psychodramas as the next person. But, I think that understanding how narrative functions means that I can, usually, eventually, claw my way to some sort of understanding that whatever I'm going through can be narrated in different ways. Therefore, I can come with a more functional, healthy narration. We all do that already, when we say things like, "It wasn't meant to be," or "I can do better." Writers just have bigger, fleshier versions of these self-narrated outcomes to help us cope.

But as any of you who follow super dramatic writers on Twitter probably know already, we don't often use our powers for good. Because, on the other hand, too much peace in writer's life is never a good thing.

The fact is that many of us, though not all, mine our personal lives for nuggets of narrative gold. And that means that we're oftentimes looking for a reach new source of dramatic ore. Indeed, the scenes I'm most happy with in my writing are usually scenes that pick up an emotional frisson from my own experience. It'll be completely distorted in terms of actual events, but I've injected a totally fabricated scene with a grain of emotional essence that, at least to me, is real. And I think this injection of experiential truth helps makes such scenes real to my readers.

Meanwhile, this process becomes, in itself, a weirdly curative act. First of all, when I experience something negative (or positive, for that matter) I'm able to get some good distance by inevitably thinking, "Wow, this will be great to write." And then comes the second part of the equation, the writing, in which I'm usually able to exorcise, or at least spank about a bit, some of my demons. Even better is when I can indulge in a good memory, or a good experience, and get to the center of why it made me happy, or a better person.

Peace, I've discovered, has never been something I've particularly admired or for which I've strived. Instead, I've always taken a Faustian view of things--that there's something to be said for wanting, and working, and dreaming, and fidgeting. It means we make mistakes, but at least we're alive.

Our struggles, then, give us something to write about and for others to read. Our demons are our friends, and peace something to be kept at arm's length, for fear it might dull our perceptions.

The Leftovers: Or Dating in my Thirties

I’m thirty-three, and I am single. That’s by choice, as I’m both very independent and very peripatetic. But about a year ago, now, I decided that I should try to put down roots, mostly because I love my job here in Pennsylvania and I wanted to try to make the state home. For while the job is a great fit, the place…not so much.

Anyway, that led me to embark on Internet dating. Which, a bare six months later, led me to declare a moratorium on dating, period.

This is not a slam on Internet matchmaking. I know tons of people who’ve met their SO over the computer, and I’ve had a long term, long distance, "not-a-relationship!" with someone who, for all intents and purposes, I met on Twitter.

Instead, this is about dating in my thirties, and how all us thirtysomething singles have left are the leftovers. Granted, I think dating in my thirties would be very different if I lived somewhere else—somewhere more ambitious, more productive, and more economically healthy, like New York or London. But here’s what I discovered make up the leftovers—what’s left when someone’s still single in their thirties:

·      The Walking Wounded: Those men and women recovering from a divorce or separation so brutal, they’re basically an ambulatory sucking wound. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed these dates, as I am a writer. So under the auspices of being “a good listener” I probed for all the gory details, carefully filing them away for future use in my fiction. 

·      The Great Unreconstructed: This is the man (although I’m sure there’s a female equivalent) who adheres to a patriarchal view of the world that places him at the apex because he is THE MAN. Therefore, he’s certain he’s more successful than you, the woman. When he discovers he’s not, it’s like watching one of those bizarre New Guinean birds do a territorial display—all puffed chest and flaring comb(over).

·      The Disaster: Just what it says on the package. He’s got awesome excuses for why he lives in his sister’s attic and has never achieved a single one of his ambitions, excuses which you totally want to believe, because at least he’s fairly liberal. Then you realize he doesn’t judge because he can’t, as he’s really a total loser.

·      The Chameleon: That guy who tells you everything you want to hear. At first you wonder if it’s a Machiavellian plot to get in your pants, and you giggle to yourself because you’re actually rather easy. But at some point you realize that the poor sod actually has no idea who he is, and that he wants to be everything, anything, other than himself.

·      The Marquis: He’s the guy who advertises himself as a warehouse of fetishistic carnal delights. Inevitably, he’s also 5’4”, with a potbelly, no hair, and coke bottle glasses. Or nine feet tall, 150 pounds sopping wet, with a ponytail trailing down his back like an anemic polecat. Either way, you’d be too busy giggling at the sight of him in a leather harness to choke out the word “Daddy.”

·      That Guy Who Poses In Photos With a Python For No Apparent Reason: I still haven’t figured out that guy. Lemme know if you have any thoughts.

Meanwhile, the last thing Internet dating taught me was that I, Nicole Peeler, am myself a leftover. I might look good as a bullet pointed list, especially in terms of career success, etc. But in truth, I’m so successful because I am utterly, unapologetically selfish; I take the concept of “independence” to an obsessive, slightly paranoid level; and I ALREADY HAVE MY OWN LIFE, THANKS. So, anyone knocking at my door, trying to move in with their schedule and their (ugly) furniture and their (terrible) thoughts on home décor and their (stupid) ideas about where and how to live and their (crazy) idea I can’t travel whenever I damned well please and their (selfish) demands I give up my lover and their delusion they can cook sometimes and their propensity for moving my pots and their inability to put the shit back in the cupboard where it belongs and their leaving their shoes in the hallway where I trip over them and their………. Well, they can go fuck themselves.

I, my friends, am a leftover. Make some casserole out of that. ;-)