TSTL

If you've been around the romance writing/reading world long you'll know that TSTL means "Too Stupid To Live".

I just had to share this sign above and the people who ignore it would fall into the TSTL category.

I've read contest entries and published books where the heroine goes into a danger zone for no sane reason. The reason is to advance the plot but that doesn't make her smart and it makes a lot of readers throw the books away and reviewers give it poor marks.

I try to give my heroines good reasons to wander into vampire mansions and graveyards marked "Danger". Perhaps their child or at least their pet is missing and very possibly in those places. They don't wander in on a lark or for curiosity's sake.

However, I've pulled some dumb stunts in real life lately. Last night I locked my keys in my car. I didn't discover this fact until after my husband had left for work with the only other set of keys in our household. Thus he had to run back home to rescue me so I could drive to work and I had to call my boss to tell him I would be late. Not good. It's particularly not good that I've done that twice in one week now. I also locked them in my car last Saturday at the mall up in Boca. My husband was away for the weekend so I had to call DS#1 who has the only other key and he came to my rescue.

I'll blame today on the full moon effect. Our donors at the day job always act crazy during full moons so why not me, too?

Or maybe it's because I so very badly wish I was attending Lori Foster's Readers' and Writers' Get Together in Cincinnati this weekend and I'm stuck in Florida gruelling over Excel spreadsheets and locking my keys in my car. I've already put in for vacation for June 2010 so I can attend. I still need a vacation NOW before I start acting TSTL worse than locking my keys in my car.