Hi,

As you all know, now and then I air my pet peeves, so here goes.

There is a phenomenon that I have encountered for a long time, years, which I always take personally, has irritated me considerably, and I figured that people just do to me to be annoying. I just discovered that I am not the only one it happens to, and I think it is something that only men do to only women, and not just to me.

It goes like this, I run into a man I know or meet at a dinner party for the first time in a long time. After hello, they open with, “So, are you still writing?” Hmmm…..this immediately suggests to me that they have not read the NY Times (bestseller list) in many years, the Wall Street Journal, or maybe they don’t read at all. Yes, I am STILL writing. What this does is that it immediately puts my writing into the category as a hobby. As in, are you still taking piano lessons, doing macrame, have a parrot? I don’t have a huge ego about my work, but let’s face it, for me it is a job. A job I love, and I have been doing it since I was 19 years old. I have been in the Guinness book of world records repeatedly for having a book on the bestseller list for more weeks consecutively than whoever. Yes, for Heaven’s sake, I am still writing. It’s my work, my job, how my family eats and went to college. People said that comment to me when I was 35. Now when they say it, I get even more insulted because I think they’re suggesting I must be too old to write, but it’s actually not about that. (And I’m not that old yet). The comment is an immediate put down. It is a way of suggesting that what I do is really not very important. Women NEVER ask me that question. But SOME men do. The men who do, I find, are VERY uncomfortable about my success at what I do, and VERY annoyed by it. The other really ridiculous comment is “You have an AGENT?” Of course I have an agent, I have written 130 books that are sold in 69 countries in 43 languages—they think maybe I write letters by hand and send them to publishers around the world to sell my books? Of course I have an agent (a fabulous one I love). I never say to guys, “So are you still a lawyer?…A doctor?…A brain surgeon?” They would think I’m nuts if I did. But men who are annoyed by women’s success in business have to find a way to put them down. And what better way to insult someone than minimize what they do, imply that it’s really insignificant, and inquire if they’re still doing it? Are you still bungee jumping off your mother’s roof?? Having contests to see how many grapes you can squeeze into your mouth?? (That was so much fun when I was about 8). I was actually a pogo stick champion when I was about 10, and no I am not doing that anymore. But YES, I AM STILL WRITING. In fact, I finished a book about an hour ago. It is SUCH a dumb question coming from an intelligent person. If you walk into a bookstore, open a newspaper, or whatever, you can see that I am ‘still’ writing. The worst form of that was at a dinner party I went to years ago. I sat down, I smiled at the man next to me and I’m a shy person, and he barked at me, “Who do you think you are?” Was that a trick question? No it was a man who was so uptight about what I’ve accomplished that he needed to be insulting before he even met me, to make himself feel better. The other comment men like to make is another winner “My maid just loves your books”. Really, well thank God for her. There are LOTS of men who DON’T have an issue with women being successful in business, but unfortunately some who do. I love talking to men who aren’t threatened by women who work, do it well, and do well at it. It’s a pleasure to talk to them. But the ones with a chip on their shoulder really are a bore and not much fun. » read more »

When my family and I go on vacation, we tend to become sedentary, and stay put where we are. We don’t seem to be the kind of people who explore the area, take helicopter rides over volcanoes, or even go out to dinner to local restaurants. Once we plant ourselves somewhere for our family vacation, and there are a lot of us, adventure trips aren’t part of the plan. We lie in the sun all day, there is lots of swimming, occasionally some fishing if we’re on a boat, and evenings together wherever we are staying, and everyone seems happy that way. And when we were on a boat, we left the boat at night once during a trip for dinner off the boat. But most of the time, the kids and I were happy at anchor somewhere (off Corsica or Sardinia, or tied up at some rocks outside the tiny port of Portofino), and not even going into port. And we usually had one nightclub adventure per trip, but we haven’t done that in a few years. And this year, we had a lot of fun at night playing a game called “Catch Phrase”, which you pass around like a hot potato, playing what looks like Charades, with a timer and a buzzer to add tension to the game as you try to describe the ‘phrase’ on the screen without actually saying the words. In our case, it involves a lot of screaming, shrieking, and laughing, and the family is divided into two teams. I love the game!! We also play a lot Scrabble, some cards and liar’s dice. We read in the sun (they read other people’s books, not mine, it’s hard to be a hero on your own turf), and have lunch and dinner together every day. Our vacations involve my five younger children, each brings a friend or significant other. My three older married children make their own plans and have young children. And the younger five and I + their 5 friends or SO’s spend a week together in France or Italy, and have since they were born. The older ones were part of the group until they married a few years ago and had their own kids, and enjoy doing different things now with their own families. So there are eleven or twelve of us now on our family vacation every summer. And we love being lazy, relaxing, and having fun together. And as we do every summer, we decided to go out for one dinner, and stayed comfortably at our hotel the rest of the time. (We’re a big group to move around, so we do very little moving during our vacation week). » read more »

Hi everyone…..With two members of my staff pregnant this summer (with a girl and a boy), talk of baby names has been rife in my office. Well, actually, not really baby names. The naming game is one that I am VERY familiar with. With 9 kids, we struggled through that several times, finding just the right name, and we still like the ones we chose. (My kids are all in my dedications, so you’ve probably seen their names many times before). And every time I start a book, I pore over all my old baby name books, to find just the right ones for the characters. It’s amazing how a name can sometimes portray the personality of a character. Sometimes I’ve used complicated ones, and at other times simpler ones, and often foreign ones. » read more »