by Laura K. Curtis | Oct 10, 2013 | Dogs, Stuff! |
After we left Melbourne, we flew into Brisbane and then drove out to an area called Surfers Paradise. Now, let me say first that the beach itself was absolutely lovely, but my other impressions of Surfers Paradise were not as positive. In fact, I can best describe it as what might happen if you picked up Las Vegas and dumped it in south Florida (and then replaced all the Latino influences in FL with Asian ones). Kitesurfing seemed to be huge–we saw it on all the beaches we visited, possibly because no matter how hot the day, a stiff wind always gave the surfers plenty of lift!
As we usually do on vacation, however, we didn’t stay put. We usually pick a direction and drive off in search of cool stuff, which is exactly what we did from our home base of Surfer’s Paradise.
The first day, with no idea where we were going, we drove off and stopped to eat breakfast on the road at an antiques shop and café. I got the warm fuzzies having breakfast being watched over by this Dalek.
Then we drove from town to town, stopping to do things like peer across a field at a bunch of kangaroos hanging out under a tree. Even though we were a good 150 feet away when we spotted them, they all perked right up and got ready to run. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. Fields and hills and what they call “creeks” that we’d call the mighty Mississippi.
We ended up in a small town called Healesville where there was an animal sanctuary. So, naturally, we had to go there! That’s where we got to meet some kangaroos up close. Here’s Mike petting one:
RooPettingTime
We also hung out with a Tasmanian Devil. I love to watch Devils run. They’re so funny!
And the wombats:
The next day, we went out to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. KOALAS. Many of you may know that this was the thing I was most looking forward to about the whole Australia trip.
And yes, I got to “cuddle” a kola. That’s what they call it when you hold one, even though you’re actually just pretending to be a tree and letting the koala sit on you. Koalas can be pet, but not cuddled, in NSW, but in Queensland cuddling is still legal, though koalas have specific working conditions. According to the Lone Pine site,
In Queensland, koalas can only be cuddled for less than 30 minutes per day. They must also get every third day off. This ensures that they get plenty of time to eat and sleep. At Lone Pine, we “clock on” and “clock off” our koalas when they go to the koala cuddling area.
But koalas aren’t all they have at Lone Pine. No, indeed. More kangaroos in an area where you can walk around and hang out with and feed them, free-roaming lizards, and strange birds, indeed!
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Australian Brush Turkey – check out the wattle!
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Free-roaming lizard
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Most koalas seem to sleep all the time. In random positions.
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Koala…awake.
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Kangaroo with joey in her pouch–notice how she has it stuffed in there face first, with just legs sticking out?
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Kangaroo!
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The Southern Cassowary, the oddest bird I’ve ever seen. Looks positively mythological!
by Laura K. Curtis | Oct 5, 2013 | Dogs, Stuff! |
For years, my husband and I have talked about going to Australia. If you’re thinking of going, here’s the first thing I’d say to you: get a credit card that gives you airline miles and use it every chance you can. (American Airlines partners with Qantas, so we were lucky that way because we already had the American card.) At the moment, an economy class ticket costs $3500, so you will want to use miles!
After about 36 hours of travel, we arrived in Melbourne. (Actual flying time, 23 hours. Plus driving, layover and airport wait time.) Melbourne is an awesomely cool city. The architecture is amazing. Check out the bridge we went through! I love the off-center, egg-shaped opening. The city is a combination of very old and very new architecture, with none of the sort of “mid-century blah” you see all over the place elsewhere. I think my favorite example of this was right across the street from our hotel, where we saw this hyper-modern apartment building (at least that’s what I think it was) wrapped around an old home. I’m not sure whether the old home was actually incorporated 
into the new–it might have become a lobby or the like–but I love the look of the rounded mirrored glass around the Victorian house.
On a side note, I’ll say that if you have Celiac or any kind of gluten intolerance, Australia in general is a great place to visit. Unlike my visit to Atlanta, every place in Australia had accommodations for gluten-free eating. At breakfast every morning I was able to get gluten-free toast, and it was really good.
On another side note, it was a bit bizarre to walk around Australia and never, not once, see a stray cat anywhere. We rarely saw dogs, either, except when we went out to the beaches. But we saw rabbits everywhere. Probably because there were no dogs or cats.
The day after we arrived, we went out to Werribee Open Range Zoo and it was fabulous. I mean fabulous.
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African Wild Dog
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Antelope (I can’t remember the type!)
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Dromedary
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Emu
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Giraffe
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On the range, where the giraffes and the antelope play…
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Growling Grass Frog (see below for the sound they make)
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Hippo love
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Wild ponies.
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A meerkat showman.
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Wild Monkey Love.
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Free-range parrot
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Rhino naptime
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Love this: Kids can be archeologists/anthropologists and uncover the skeleton of a lion
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Wetlands bird–we saw these everywhere, but I don’t know what they are.
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Zebra
The Growling Grass Frogs were all over the wetlands part of the zoo. The sound they make is really cool.
More later, when I’ll write about Brisbane and our trip to the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast!
by Laura K. Curtis | Sep 30, 2013 | Dogs, Stuff! |
I know I’ve been quiet lately, but I am in Australia and my connection is terrible. When I get home I promise many posts with animals. For now, here’s me with Theresa, a koala from the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.
by Laura K. Curtis | Sep 22, 2013 | Writing |
I am completely fried from attending Bouchercon. It was tons of fun, but I think I’ll let the few pictures I managed to take — most of which were actually taken before the conference began at the New York State Trooper training center — speak for me.
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“Sweat Street” at the Trooper Training Center
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Can you imagine living here for 26 weeks?
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Clare Toohey shows off a target.
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Who says troopers don’t have a sense of humor?
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The New York State Police training center.
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My favorite kind of cop.
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Bouchercon 2013 book room.
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Bouchercon panel with Katrina Niidas Holm, moderator, and Stephanie Jaye Evans, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Jessie Chandler, Sheila Connolly, and Jane Cleland
by Laura K. Curtis | Sep 17, 2013 | Dogs |
Yes, this happens every night in my house. Usually right around eight o’clock.
by Laura K. Curtis | Sep 12, 2013 | Romance, The Romance Hero Handbook |
Everywhere you look today you’ll see celebrities behaving badly. You must remember that you are not a celebrity, you are a romance hero, which is considerably more difficult to manage. Take, for example, the 2007 story of Fabio’s encounter with George Clooney, wherein—according to TMZ—
… several women who had won a dinner with Fabio were sitting at his table snapping photos of the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” hunk, when Clooney apparently thought they were shooting pix of him — and gave them the finger!
Other sources have Clooney using decidedly inappropriate language for such a nice restaurant.
Now, lest you misunderstand, Clooney does many admirable things. This is merely an example of one way in which it is tougher to be a true romance hero than to be a celebrity.
Obviously, romance heroes do lose their tempers—they’re only human—but when they do it isn’t because they think the world revolves around them, nor do they get nasty or violent in front of innocent bystanders. Particularly (though not limited to) women.
Some people seem to believe that “respect” and “protect” don’t go together. After all, they say, if you respect a woman’s strength, shouldn’t you believe she can protect herself?
Well, yes and no. This is one of those difficult questions posed to romance heroes. Take, for example, the heroes of romantic suspense novels. Inevitably, situations will occur in which the hero will have to physically rescue the heroine. However, just as often, the heroine is portrayed as rescuing the hero. In fact, in the best romantic suspense, they rescue each other.
But respect is far more than acknowledging someone’s physical strengths. To be a romance hero, you must listen to your heroine, and to women in general. That means if she says “I can handle this situation,” you back off. (It goes without saying, I hope, that if she says no, she means no, even if you think she “really” might mean yes. Remember: no means no. Maybe means no. Only yes means yes.) The ability to listen—and to remember what their lovers tell them—is probably the number one quality of a romance hero.
Take, for example, Jack Hodgins on the television show Bones. This guy is not what you would think of as a romance hero…at first glance. Oh, true, he’s a millionaire, but he’s basically a nerd who spends his days looking at bugs dug out of dead people. And he’s a conspiracy theorist. And a UFO fan. But Jack Hodgins gets the girl. And why does he get the girl? Not because he buys her anything fancy with his millions or takes her to fancy restaurants. No, he gets her because he listens. When he asks her out on their first date, he remembers that she said she misses the feeling of being a child on a swing, so he takes her to the park and swings with her.
Besides, listening to women will teach you about women, which means you are far less likely to make a misstep in pursuit of your heroine. Once upon a time, when men and women lived basically separate lives, it was very difficult to for one sex to see inside the lives of the other, but that is no longer the case. I’m not saying stalk women, here, just listen. Read some blogs, follow some women on Twitter or Facebook, talk to the women in your place of work. See what kinds of things interest them, and what pisses them off. This will vary from woman to woman, naturally, but it’s a start.
So watch, listen, respect and protect. Do that and you’ll be well on your way!
by Laura K. Curtis | Sep 11, 2013 | Recipes, Stuff! |
Tonight our town, like so many towns across NY state and the nation, held its 9/11 ceremony. Our town hosts several surrounding towns, and our fire department puts on a shindig for all their brothers and sisters in uniform from the area. The Women’s Auxiliary (don’t laugh) always bakes for these occasions, and you can find my recipe for the Gluten-Free Dutch Cocoa Cookies that I made for this year’s event at Janet Rudolph’s Dying for Chocolate blog. Here are a few pictures of this year’s ceremony.
by Laura K. Curtis | Sep 9, 2013 | Books, Romance, Writing |
I love romantic suspense. It’s my favorite romance subgenre. Police procedural, innocent character in jeopardy, or paramilitary, from the completely closed door to the extremely sensual, I gobble it all up. But recently I’ve been thinking about the heroes and whether there’s room, in literature, for the beta hero among all the hard-eyed, heavily-muscled alphas of romantic suspense.
I worry about this because the hero of the manuscript I am currently editing (LOST, out in May 2014) has a number of beta qualities. He’s not at all certain he can do the job he’s setting out to do. I think his insecurities make him a more interesting hero, but I am not sure he will be deemed an appropriate suspense hero.
Such heroes exist on television, but I see them very, very rarely in books. One of my favorite television beta heroes is Dr. Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds. Reid is a true geek. Twice that I can remember during the show he had romantic entanglements and in both instances he retained his essential beta qualities despite being the romantic lead. He’s a thinker and a bit of a klutz, and even when his girlfriends are in danger that doesn’t change. Once, when he’s investigating a starlet’s stalker, it all turns out fine, once it does not.
Romantic suspense is chock-a-block with FBI heroes, however, and all are alphas—nary a Dr. Reid or even an Agent Hochner among them. Where are the data analysts? The ones who spend most of their time tracking cybercrime…without guns? (Because, yeah, there are plenty of computer geek heroes, too, but they all pack weapons and spend their off hours working out with weights rather than playing with video games.)
Rick Castle is another great television beta hero. (Although, okay, Castle is as much rom-com as romantic suspense.) Beckett leads, Castle follows. He’s not weak by any means, and he contributes to every investigation, but she carries the gun and she clears the room. He is protective, but she’s the protector.
In this respect, probably the most interesting crime show on TV was Numb3rs, which featured an alpha brother and a beta brother, both of whom solved crimes, both of whom had romantic relationships. The alpha brother, FBI Agent Don Eppes, had a string of failed relationships and his romances were episodic. But he wasn’t really the show’s star anyway. The whole show revolved around his math genius brother, Charlie. Charlie’s crime-solving, Charlie’s ongoing romance, Charlie’s HEA.
So the crime-solving beta isn’t unheard of, he just doesn’t appear in romance novels that I’ve seen. Strong women, stronger men seems to be the formula. Sometimes, heroes are broken, but beneath the cracks and scars they are still alphas. Unlike the beta heroes of contemporary or historical romance, every romantic suspense hero goes through life sure of his place in the world. Of course, your SEAL heroes have to be alpha—they’d never make it through training otherwise—but what about the others? Is it necessary for the genre that they be alpha? Does “beta” translate too easily to “weak” when it comes to plots that involve physical as well as emotional danger?
Have you read any books with beta crime-solving heroes? I’d love to hear about them!
by Laura K. Curtis | Sep 3, 2013 | Books, Romance, Writing |
One of the nice things about living a reasonable train-ride away from NYC is the variety of events and organizations available. While my RWA chapter meets in CT, my Sisters in Crime and MWA chapters both meet in the city. And I am close enough to get downtown for things like the MWA readings or Lady Jane’s Salon on occasion.
Last night I got down to the city for Lady Jane’s where I heard readings from one category romance, one erotic romance, one historical romance, and one YA romance. Major variety!
Tiffany Reisz
Barbara Wallace
Katherine Ashe
Lindsay Ribar
by Laura K. Curtis | Aug 27, 2013 | Books, Writing |
I like to write to music. My personal preference is a little strange: I like to have music playing in the foreground and some kind of noise, like the ballgame on TV, in the background. I am pretty sure this comes from years of having to concentrate at the kitchen table while my siblings chattered on. When it’s too quiet, I can’t focus. When it’s too noisy I can’t concentrate. Yes, I am a delicate flower.
I have just finished my latest manuscript (LOST, due out May 2014), and I thought I would share the most-played songs from writing it. (Links are from iTunes)
After we left Melbourne, we flew into Brisbane and then drove out to an area called Surfers Paradise. Now, let me say first that the beach itself was absolutely lovely, but my other impressions of Surfers Paradise were not as positive. In fact, I can best describe it as what might happen if you picked up Las Vegas and dumped it in south Florida (and then replaced all the Latino influences in FL with Asian ones). Kitesurfing seemed to be huge–we saw it on all the beaches we visited, possibly because no matter how hot the day, a stiff wind always gave the surfers plenty of lift!
The first day, with no idea where we were going, we drove off and stopped to eat breakfast on the road at an antiques shop and café. I got the warm fuzzies having breakfast being watched over by this Dalek.
And yes, I got to “cuddle” a kola. That’s what they call it when you hold one, even though you’re actually just pretending to be a tree and letting the koala sit on you. Koalas can be pet, but not cuddled, in NSW, but in Queensland cuddling is still legal, though koalas have specific working conditions. According to the Lone Pine site,