Good evening, and happy Friday! I’m writing this week’s Weekend Coffee Share post on a Friday night, which doesn’t seem like the right time for coffee, so we’re going to do something a little different. Welcome to the Butt Rock Lounge, where the hair is big and the spandex is sweaty. Pull up a leopard-print beanbag chair, and let’s get this party started! [Narrator: She’s in a faux-leather office chair in front of a garage sale desk, her hair is in a messy bun, and she’s in stanky gym shorts and a 20-year-old Def Leppard t-shirt.] Ignore the narrator. He’s an asshat. Let’s crank the tunes. How ’bout a little Joan Jett: Now that the walls are shaking [Narrator: they actually are.], how ’bout a drink? We have a well-stocked bar with 5 kinds of tequila and– [Narrator: She has Diet Coke. And it’s caffeine-free.] Stuff a caffeine-free sock in it, asshat. Let’s raise our glasses, because it’s been an amazing week. Six publishers are in a bidding war for my time travel romance, I just got a big promotion, and Tom Ellis keeps bugging me to run away to Fiji with hi– [Narrator: The time travel romance has racked up a folder’s worth of rejections, she managed to not get fired, and the closest she’ll get to Tom Ellis is the episode of Lucifer she’s going to watch when this post is finished.] Hey, asshat, why don’t you do something useful, like fact-checking political ads? Anyhoo… I’m working on a short story for this year’s IWSG anthology contest. Cool, right? Well, there’s just one small problem: this year’s genre is sweet romance, also known as clean romance. Which means I’m trying to do something I haven’t done since high school: write a story with no sex and no cussing (hell, I have a hard time writing an email without cussing, but that whole not-getting-fired thing is a powerful motivation). I started this project for 2 reasons: 1) To play around with one of the supporting characters in Vanishing, Inc., the aforementioned time travel romance, and 2) To expand my writing horizons (or as our parents used to say, It’ll build character). All in all, the story is… not terrible. There has, however, been a lot of foul language involved. Just none of it is on the page. Picture an R-rated version of the furnace fighter scene from A Christmas Story, but with less coal and more typing, and you’ll have a pretty good picture of me writing this week. [Narrator: She’s telling the truth this time. Mirabile dictu.] Now Narrator Asshat’s getting all sophisticated with the foreign phrases. Showoff. I’d better wrap this post up. I’ve been invited to a VIP party with Def Leppard and– [Narrator: ] Oh, yeah? [Narrator: That picture is from 12 years ago. And you were in the audience with 10,000 other people.] Yeah, well, I had great seats. How about y’all? Who’s partying with rock stars this weekend? I’ll be writing and making pesto and partying with– [Narrator: Ahem.] Fine. Writing and making pesto. That’s it. That’s the entire plan. Please tell me y’all are doing something more exciting than that. Lie if you have to. [Narrator: ]