What, When, Where, Why & How with Lynn Reynolds

Today, I give you a special edition of WWWWH with Lynn Reynolds!

Lynn, what would you do with a million dollars?

Whenever I hear that question, I think of The Barenaked Ladies song:
If I had a 1,000,000
I'd but you a house
If I had a 1,000,000
I'd buy you furniture for your house ( maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman)
If I had a 1,000,000
I'd but you a K-car ( a nice reliant automobile)
If I had a 1,000,000, I'd buy your love

It goes on and the things he promises to buy get ever sillier, until he's talking about buying gourmet dijon ketchup for his Kraft macaroni and cheese. I don't think I'd buy anything that quirky if I had a million dollars - for one thing, I don't think I'd like dijon ketchup. I think like most of us these days, if I had a million dollars, I'd do a lot of practical sensible things.

First off, I'd put a bunch of money aside to pay my son's tuition. He has Asperger's Syndrome, a kind of mild autism, but he's very bright. So he goes to a phenomenally expensive school especially for bright kids with learning issues. Every year has been a struggle to pay the bill, and with the current economy - next year, the money runs out. He'll finish eighth grade there, but we won't be able to send him to the high school. Unless I get that killer story idea, of course. Hmmm. Maybe something about a 108-year-old vampire who picks up girls at the local high school science lab. Think anyone would buy that one? Nah, probably not.

So after I pay tuition, I'd probably buy a different house - a big old Victorian. Maybe I'd even get a small farm and add a few goats and chickens. No horses. I have a friend with a horse farm, and once I saw the per-horse poop quota, I decided to forget the horse farm. Not unless I can afford to hire a strapping young farmhand to clean out the stables. But wait! If I have a million dollars, I guess I can hire that strapping young farmhand after all. Might be a few objections from the darling hubby on that point, though.

Maybe forget the horses and the strapping stablehand. Maybe I'll just take the darling hubby on a sexy Mediterranean cruise.

When do you write?

There have been times in my life when I have had a very nice regular writing schedule, usually several hours in the morning or late at night. But this has been a pretty hectic year, so I pretty much write whenever I can. I carry my notebook around with me and jot random thoughts and ideas down throughout the day. I tried getting a voice recording so that I could also record ideas while I'm driving, but that was a bad idea for two reasons. For one thing, trying to listen to myself talk is downright annoying. I always feel like I sound entirely too much like Lucy in the Peanuts cartoons. And for another thing, it turned out to be really distracting fiddling with all those itty-bitty buttons while weaving in and out of city traffic!

Where did you last shop?

If we count virtual shopping experiences, I just went to QVC last night and bought the spiffy new Free To Be All Natural Makeup kit from Bare Escentuals, my favorite cosmetics company. I have really sensitive fair skin and Bare Escentuals makes mineral makeup with no artificial colors and preservatives. It's expensive, but I'm worth it.

As far as face-to-face shopping experiences - well, that's kind of sad. There was the new seat cushion at Salvo Auto parts and the entire new wardrobe for my son, whom I think has grown about four inches in the last couple of weeks. Wait, I'd better check - he probably went up another size while he was sleeping.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Well, considering relativity, I'm not sure that he did. Maybe the chicken stayed right where it was and the road moved.

I just had to Google this joke when I was asked this question. I didn't come up with any particularly good answers, but I did discover this early version from a magazine called Potter's American Monthly in 1890:

Why should not a chicken cross the road?
It would be a fowl proceeding.

Now that's what I call historically funny.

How would you feel if you discovered you had the back of your skirt caught in the back of your panties and your assets showing?

I would like to think I'd be cool and calm and unflappable at a time like this, but a lot would depend on which panties I was wearing at the time. And where I was. At a nightclub, in the dark, wearing the leopard print booty shorts - hey, that might not be so bad. At a PTA meeting at my son's school, wearing those big grey mommy pants with the hole in the waistband - well, then I'd probably just want to die. But I wouldn't be that lucky. I'd have to see those people again and again and again. So that's probably where something like this would happen - because that's how things work in my corner of the universe!

Lynn Reynolds has been writing ever since she could hold a pencil. She's a city girl currently trapped in a split foyer in Green Acres.Sharing her captivity are the tall, dark and handsome Matt; the always loud and hyperactive Chris; and Tiger, the lethargic wonder cat. She writes romances because she really does believe in Love at First Sight and Happily Ever After. Her first book, Thirty-Nine Again, will be released by The Wild Rose Press on June 12, 2009. Visit her website at www.lynnreynolds.com to check out a really cool trailer for the book or to sign up for her newsletter. Or visit Lynn's blog at www.lynnreynolds.blogspot.com .