Those of you who read my books are aware that I am currently working on THE TIES THAT BIND, a new book for St. Martin’s Press. As with my other books, it is set in Utah, in a fictional counterpart to my own hometown, and it features a female police detective as the heroine.

Samm is a bit of a enigma in her local community, with a troubled past and maybe just a little bit of the “axe to grind” that so many people accuse me of carrying around.

Most people come here either to make fun of Mormons, or to defend Mormonism, neither of which I am all that big on. I find much of my culture amusing, which makes a lot of people mad, but still, it is mine, and I embrace it. And reserve the right to still find my humor in it.

But the real reason I started this blog is because I write books set in Utah Mormon country. I find that writing about it helps spur the creative process, especially writing on a regular basis.

And the reason I WRITE on a regular basis on this blog, is so that I can WRITE MY BOOKS. And yet I don’t talk about them that much. Why is that? Who knows.

So I decided I am going to talk about my books more than I have been. I remember one commenter made a nasty little jab about how my blog was nothing more than an attempt to sell books, and I thought, “Um, well, yeah, I guess it IS.”

Nasty little jab turned into flat dull poke. Means nothing.

I am going to start with the songs I am listening to, that inspire my writing. So here is the Playlist for THE TIES THAT BIND.

So, I got called back to work and I started Monday. As my friend TB says, I am employed by THE MAN, and THE MAN likes to call us up and send us home whenever the heck he FEELS like it. Damn man.

At any rate, we are currently in his favor, and so I am working, albeit in a new job, one I happen to like better. I go in, do the job, and when it’s done, IT’S DONE. My last job was like housework. You clean and clean and clean, and no matter what, the minute you turned around THERE WAS MORE. Okay, fine, so this job is KINDA like that too, but on a daily basis, not on an hourly basis.

Actually, the old job is more like LAUNDRY, which is a dirty, thankless job which is neverending.

But I digress.

We are back to work, and the new job leaves me sore and tired, but feeling like I accomplished something. Forgive me for not EXPOUNDING on the job, or my employer, but people have been FIRED for talking about their jobs on blogs, and MY employer, THE MAN, takes that sort of shit very seriously. So I am not going to play. Single mom. Buying a house. Need benefits. Nuff said.

My friend Heather–who I worked with in the old department–and I ended up on the same team, and sit next to each other. We are cool with that, and we are both workers, so the bosses are cool with that as well. In fact, they are making noises about keeping us, even though our OLD department is now trying to call us back. No thanks. Fires of hell? No thank you, I am rather warm today already.

Heather and I are cool, and we understand each other, even if it means we don’t talk. I don’t have to be constantly entertaining, because let’s face it, I am NOT constantly entertaining. Have you read this blog? Sometimes I suck. But I try.

Sometimes we are quiet, and sometimes we laugh our asses off. So Wednesday we got into this discussion. And it went as follows.

Me: “Man, some of these people are stinky. Do they not know what baths are for?”

Heather: “I know, the odor on some of them lingers for hours. But I’d rather have the stinky people than the stupid people.”

Me: “You would?”

Heather: “Hell yeah. The stinky people you can give a bar of soap to. The stupid people are just stupid.”

Me: “Well, yeah, but you would give them the bar of soap, and OBVIOUSLY they don’t know what it’s for, or they wouldn’t be stinky.”

Heather: “Hmmm. I guess you could say the stinky people are also stupid, or they wouldn’t be stinky.”

Me: “I win.”

Heather: “Yeah right.”

See what I mean? Quality companionship.

One thing I don’t really like about this blog is the fact that I have to say the same things OVER AND OVER AND OVER again.

Currently, I am being SPAMMED (and yes, I consider it SPAM) by some annoying person who thinks I hate Mormons. He even has a blog devoted to people he thinks hate Mormons, and he keeps posting stupid links to his stupid blog HERE on my blog. And guess what? I am not going to even LINK to the blog, because it irritates the shit out of me. In fact, I may spend a few hours linking to thousands of OTHER blogs that aren’t this blog just because it irritates me THAT MUCH. Or not. (Have a Web site to do, so I don’t really have time for that. But it made me feel better just saying it.)

I just delete his spam comments, asking people to visit HIS blog. His hilarious blog. Not so hilarious, really. Just kinda freaky.

So, here we go again, just for the record. I don’t hate Mormons. I LOVE Mormons, and not in a creepy “I-love-Mormons-so-much-I-want-to-save-them-from-the-Hellfires-of-eternal-damnation” kinda way, either. I have lots of Mormon friends, and they know I don’t really believe Mormonism is true, and in fact, think it’s all kinda silly. But that doesn’t add up to hate.

Sorry. Good try.

Stop spamming my blog. I don’t hate Mormons, but I’m really starting to DISLIKE you.

I’m just curious. Should I take a threat seriously if the person threatening cannot spell the words in their threat?

# Elder Says:

February 14th, 2008 at 8:40 am e

The 2 sister missionaries chose to stay out instead of returning home. Dont use this event to promote your one sided narrow minded ideas. To take such a horrible event and twist it to make it prove your bogus beliefs makes you more heartless then any of these repugnant cenerios.
Rape is NOT a loss of virtue. Every lie on this page will have severe concequences.

Cenerios? Concequences? I think not.