What is a taxi stand?

What is a taxi stand?
That's this morning's internet search.

Not because I don't know, but because I'm wondering if my readers would know.

Which leads me to the real question, which is, how much should I explain?

How as a writer can I be sure that my readers, the bulk of them at least, will know and understand the meaning of terms and phrases through surrounding context?

And, which terms and phrases need more explaining within the story?



BTW, if you don't already know, a taxi stand is a designated parking area for cabs to park, usually in a line, waiting for walk-up passengers. These are often found in front of hotels, or nearby in hotel districts, or in front of hospitals, near theaters, in bar districts, etc. They are prominent locations where pedestrians can easily find a taxi when needed so that they don't always have to call and order one, but can often find one already parked at the taxi stand.
These also serve as queue lines for calls as drivers call in to dispatch to say which stand they are in line at and the dispatcher can disperse call in orders based on location of drivers and the order in which they arrived at that location.


AND, if you're paying attention, you just got your first clue to the plot of my next novel...

What Makes a Man Sexy?

What Makes a Man Sexy?
That is the latest request to my search engine.

To be honest, a man wearing a baby in a sling makes me melt.

But, I'm looking for some romance novel type sexy. In a romance novel, how do you describe a man so that readers think he is sexy? How do you describe him so that women want the heroine to be with him?

I'm leaving today to go on a husband sponsored retreat (that's sexy, right?) to write a novel. I will have about 24 hours without interruption, except for a nursing baby and my own body's requirements for sleeping, eating and endless coffee. As I prepare, I am researching publisher's guidelines and developing an outline to work from as I take advantage of those 24 hours and attempt to write a novel in that time.

I see a pattern of publisher's looking for a "sexy" hero.

What is it that makes him sexy? How do I put it into words? Thus, I turn to Yahoo...

So, here's what I found:
Confidence
Sincerity
Humor
Charm 
Stability
Protective
Leadership

Apparently, I'm not the first journalist to ask this question. USA Today produced an article on just this topic back in 2012. The writers interviewed here said, "cowboy hat" and I'm not so sure that fits my guy...

But, I'm thinking maybe my guy will be just a little bit dangerous, coming from sordid past, have some shady friends, but in the end, be just the kind of take charge and protect what needs protecting man that my heroine needs. That sounds pretty sexy to me. What do you think?

Please Don't Take My Kids Away

I'm afraid of the CPS worker... afraid they'll show up at my door and take my kids away. You could tell me that I'm crazy, but I already know.
I keep seeing articles about families being investigated for education neglect just because they homeschool, or for letting their children play at the park. I wonder some times what my mom was thinking because when I remember walking alone to the beach.

Yes.

The beach.

Three blocks from my house.

The beach; with all of Lake Michigan just sitting there waiting for me to drown in it, a no barriers or hand rails break wall to run on and fall off of into the rocks and drown, AND a gigantic slide with no side rails that I could  (and actually did once) fall from the top of.

I walked there, crossing streets, all three blocks.

I was five.

FIVE YEARS OLD!

But, I digress, because honestly I'm way more paranoid than that and I would never let my five year go the beach alone, even though I did. Isn't that weird? What is so different now?

It's fear.

I'm afraid of what might happen to him and I'm afraid that someone would call the police and I would be dealing with over zealous social workers for THE. REST. OF. MY. LIFE.

Or worse.

My children would just be gone. Forever.

But, like I said, I'm not sending my five year old alone to the beach, so what am I afraid of?

Well, first, they might see my eight year old riding a Go-Cart 40mph down the middle of the road on the steep hill by our house,

or they might see that same kid jumping from the top of a tree or trying to climb freestyle up the rocky side of the church next door,

or they might see my two year old sitting under the dining room table with a blanket and a box of cereal, eating out of the box and not having even one single bite of dinner.

Or they might have seen what my laundry room looked like before I cleaned it out and took two full trash bags out of that mess.

Or they might see my twelve year old falling all over the pavement trying to do tricks on his new skateboard without a helmet.

Or they might just say, 8 KIDS!? That's too many.

Or maybe one day they'll be walking down the sidewalk in front of our house and they'll hear what I hear when I stand outside hanging towels on the line.

SCREAMING!

Even when they are having fun and playing happily, they are LOUD. Loud enough that I can hear them through the walls with the windows closed. It's even worse when the windows are open.

Then, I realize that if you add in my voice and my husband's voice, it's probably doubly loud. And, that's when I start thinking... someone is going to walk by this house and they are going to call someone and say something is going on in that house. And then I start to wonder where I can hide my kids, but there's no where to hide because we are so stinkin' loud that people can hear us through the walls.