Guess What I Did with Gene Simmons Last Night

Last week a family emergency found me spending several nights at a hospital in a neighboring town. The room had a recliner that, while certainly better than the Flintstones-era char found in rooms at the hospital in town, was no sleep number mattress.

Sleeping in strange places is a good way to have strange dreams, especially when you're already sleep-deprived, forget to eat dinner, and people are in and out of the room at all hours. This unexpected adventure did not disappoint.

The dream started out fairly normal, with my husband and I arriving at the home of one of my clients. The Christmas holiday was in full swing and twinkling fairy lights lit up a large stone patio that greeted us at the end of the driveway. 

Our host and my husband found common ground quickly and began discussing guns. Had my husband ever tried the newly modified gun from the NES game, Duck Hunt? My husband had not! Our host immediately invited him to come into the backyard to try it out on his skeet shooting equipment.

I was invited to join other guests in the basement rec room, where our teenage sons had retired to play authentic 1980s arcade games. Upon entering the rec room I was impressed to see it looked more like a hotel lounge with white leather sofas and light fixtures of shiny brass and sparkling crystal.

And who was sitting on the sofa with a glass of bourbon? Gene Simmons! I wasted no time striking up a conversation about an interview of his I'd recently watched, in which he discussed his mother, a holocaust survivor. 

Gene Simmons then invited me to play foosball. Every time he got a point, he'd stick out his tongue and wiggled it like a worm. I could feel my cheeks blush as I laughed.
"That's what I do when I get a point," he explained. "You want me to do it again? I need to get another point." 

When I let him get another point he continued, "This is how I win. I seduce women into letting me win."

Then I woke up.

As the day went on I realized the dream's message. If I want my books to be popular and "win", then I'm going to have to seduce my readers with a fabulous plot, interesting characters, and creative conflicts that will keep them glued to the page.

So tell me what you like in a book and, more importantly, what you don't like. Let's talk about it in the comments section!