Thanks

Thank you to everyone for helping me pick a bio photo. I chose photo #1, but I’ll use #2 and #3 here and there. I’m sure I’ll find a place somewhere. You can see the update on the About link above.

Anyway, I reached that point in the novel where I had to draw my heels to a screeching halt. I have a bad tendency to make my h/h fall in love too fast. Or when I don’t know what else to do, I throw in gratuitous sex.

All right, not really. (sometimes) But I caught myself heading that way and I said–WHOA there, Nelly. Way too soon for that stuff. I think I may have to have someone shoot my hero. Or start working on some of the subplots. I love the chemistry between the h/h but it’s hard to make sure I don’t jump in and solve their problems for them. New author syndrome? Maybe.

I used to write books where I had way too much plot and not enough emotion. My second book did much better balancing that, but I rewrote it about three times while I was figuring out that I had still made things way too complicated. Book 3, I spent three weeks writing the synopsis, so HOPEFULLY, I’ve prevented a few future train wrecks. We’ll see.

I did manage 6 pages yesterday and 5 pages today. It’s still good, productive work. I really wish I could be like Stephen King and write 20 pages a day. Not gonna happen. At least, not yet. I have to gear myself up for that.

I’ve updated the For Writers part of my website and will soon be adding more content.

Industry gossip is needed . . . Hmm….

Gossip

I decided to do a little sleuthing and try to find some juicy industry gossip. Found this link to the red pen diaries and I’m wondering which conference she was talking about. Wow.

It also made me think about today’s post in Romancing the Blog. We live in a small world. And what you say can really be powerful, particularly over the Internet. My belief might be a naiive one, but I think you should really try not to say bad things about people. Anyone. Because it WILL come back to bite you. And usually you’re hurting yourself in the long run.

I’m just as guilty about saying things that later I regret, but I wince when I read flame wars on the Internet. People who cuss each other out and who are disrespectful don’t seem to realize that many, MANY people are reading. Some love to read flame wars.

They make me uncomfortable. I don’t consider them good for anyone’s career or reputation. Let’s go back to that old adage, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” This is not to say that I don’t believe in standing up for yourself or your values. But I do believe that you can stand up for them in a way that is graceful and classy.

Plot twists

I’m gearing up for my morning pages. :coffee: I think I’ll set a minimum goal of 5 pages and hope for another 7. Maybe 10 if it’s a good day.

The babies are visiting with Grandma at the moment. Grandmas are wonderful for spoiling, cuddling, and allowing Mommy to get valuable sleep. :sleepy2: Whereas Dad won’t even consider getting up with a screaming baby at 2 a.m. unless Mom is on her death bed, a Grandma is more than happy to soothe her darling grandbaby. So, this is a true vacation for me. Sleep! Woo hoo! :wave:

I re-read about a hundred pages of MY WILD IRISH ROGUE at the car dealership yesterday and decided that it really is salvageable. But what I’ll need to do is a 3-week synopsis (meaning, it will take me 3 weeks to figure out what the heck I’m doing). Once I have the heroine nailed down, I think I can beat this puppy into submission. :fryingpan: Her goals are nebulous at the moment. She likes to shop (okay, surely even medieval heroines liked shopping) but that’s about it. I had my hero clearly defined, but the heroine simply reacted to the situations. Must deepen her character. At the moment, she has the depth of a rain puddle.

Basically the goals for today are: 5-7 pages on WEDDED TO THE ENEMY. Read another 100 pages of MWIR and figure out who the heroine is.

Must. Sell. I think Mills & Boon needs to hurry up and call me. I am so NOT GOOD at waiting.

Daily Pages

Wordpress just ate my last blog entry. :banghead: How annoying.

Anyway, now that I’m on break, it’s time to double my daily page output. Normally I write about 2-3 pages a night when I’m working full time. That’s mainly because I have about 60 minutes of writing time after I get the babies to bed. I have to get to bed at a reasonable hour because of the ChildWhoDoesNotSleep(tm) in order to handle being woken up at 4:00 a.m. every morning. So 3 pages is good for me.

On breaks, I usually change things up by setting a timeframe instead of a page quota. I’ll write for 2 hours in the morning, give or take, and whatever I accomplish is great. Today I managed 7 pages. :hello2: Works for me.

I went downstairs, feeling pretty chipper, only to discover ants crawling on my kitchen floor. With two small children, it’s kind of a given that you have food on the floor, even after you sweep up after every meal. You’re bound to miss something.

I busted a cap in their little tushies :rambo: and mopped the kitchen floor. I had visions of pulling a Terminator and spraying hazardous kitchen chemicals everywhere. Or maybe setting the floor on fire. That would teach them. There will be NO BUGS IN MY HOUSE! :angry:

Holiday Traditions

It’s Easter! :bunny: Happy Bunny Day! Or, as I like to call it, Happy Stuff as Many Cadbury’s Creme Eggs as Humanly Possible into Your Mouth Day!

Holiday traditions are, believe it or not, one of the major aspects of marriage. When you merge the lives of two people, inevitably there comes a time when one of you yells, “That’s not how you celebrate (insert major holiday here)!” The key is blending traditions. But what’s even better is inventing new ones.

One of my favorite traditions from my husband’s side of the family involves the tags on Christmas presents. Mrs. Claus always gives underwear and socks. Santa Claus gives the good stuff (toys, etc.). The reindeer give food, the elves give smaller toys, and so on. Each year it’s fun coming up with who gave which gifts. The best one is the Grinch. The Grinch gives you gifts that are in poor taste. Like my husband got some Santa boxer shorts and a hat from the Grinch. You get the idea.

This year, I had too many jelly beans. Yes, I know, how is that POSSIBLE?? But anyway, I had all these extra beans and not enough space in the baskets. So I filled more plastic eggs and took them downstairs. I asked my husband if we could just hide them around the house for fun. He didn’t want to bother with it, at first, but once he saw me starting to hide them, he joined in. By the end of it, he was having as much fun as I was, coming up with places where the kids wouldn’t see them when they came down for breakfast, but if they started looking, they would (under pillows and so on). It was a blast. Next year, we’re going to do it again. In fact, I might put a few items in their baskets, but make them find the rest. What fun!

What holiday traditions do you love at your houses?

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Ah, 4:30 a.m. Gee, I love having babieswhodonotsleep(tm). :sleepy2:

Today my son will be coloring Easter Eggs for the first time. This should be interesting. My friends have all warned me not to get it on clothing. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the dye won’t work…that it will stain my kitchen table, my son’s face, but not the eggs with that nice little Use Before March 16 stamp on them. Who came up with that, anyway? My husband is obsessive-compulsive about expiration dates. Now, I don’t go around using rotten eggs in my cooking, but I’ve never had a problem with it before.

This is the man who throws out the milk on the date stamped on it. If meat is three days old, out it goes. God forbid you should eat it 4 days later.

And worst of all, he doesn’t want the kids to eat cookie dough and batter. Raw eggs, you know. Salmonella.

Personally, I think licking the cookie dough bowl is a critical part of childhood. If you’ve never sneaked a hunk of chocolate chip cookie dough or licked the brownie bowl (okay, AFTER you’ve poured the batter into the pan), you’re missing out.

So we sneak around. When my hubby is watching sports or reading the paper, I grab a spoonful and sneak it to my son. We conspire together. Chocoholics unite.

One of the finer points of being a mom, in spite of the 4:30 wake-up calls.

GH and Rita finalists

A very big congratulations to Jill, Felicia and Kristen who were Rita and GH finalists! Such great news. :beer:

Though I didn’t final myself :sad:, that’s okay. I still have my complete at Mills & Boon, so a sale would be just as exciting to me. In the meantime, I am working on my new AwesomeHistorical ™ book, so that I can have another book ready. My goal is to finish it by July. We’ll see!

Anyway, congrats to all. It’s now Spring Break, so I am gonna relax :bath:, read great books :book:, and enjoy time away from my darling sixth graders. Happy Easter!!:bunny:

Sorry. Got a little carried away with my smilies. :headbang:

Michelle meets a Crackhead

So, I decided to pick up Subway for dinner. There’s a Subway near Lowe’s in Hampton. Fairly decent shopping center, but Hampton can sometimes be iffy on the people there. But I figured, what the heck, it was on the way home.

I went inside and the place was empty. I placed my order, and as they were making my sandwich, I heard a guy come in. He was muttering to himself and I saw the Subway sandwich-makers glance at each other like, “Oh, no.”

Either the guy was drunk or a crack head. In any case, he kept mumbling over and over to himself things like, “Yeah. You good lookin’. I like that. Yeah.”

And I’m thinking, okay, if I clench my car keys I can go for the jugular if he decides to attack. I’m now realizing why shopping in Hampton alone isn’t necessarily a good idea. But I figure, I’ll ignore him and he’ll go away.

Except then he plants himself next to the drink machine. I’m filling my cup with Dr. Pepper, my car keys firmly in the other hand. He says, “Yeah, I used to be in the NFL. I played for Washington. I was real good. Real good. ‘Course, I’m not in Washington anymore. Heh, heh, heh.” :drunk:

The guy is about five-feet eight, 150-pounds. No way had this bozo ever seen the inside of a football stadium while wearing a jersey. Definitely strung out on drugs or alcohol or something.

I didn’t make eye contact, let him keep talking while I left. And inwardly I’m thinking, man, am I glad he was the harmless sort. ‘Cuz if he wasn’t, I was going to have to bust out a Lara Croft.

But then again, I’ve never had any kind of karate training. What would I do? Whack him senseless with a napkin dispenser? An interesting puzzle.

24

Does anyone here watch 24?

I loved seasons 1 & 2. Season 3 had some serious plot issues. I suspect they fired some writers and then got it back on track. Season 4 has potential, but I cannot STAND Jack Bauer’s love interest Audrey. She is a nitwit.

I’ve decided that if you have a federal agent hero who tends to shoot people, torture terrorists, and stay up for 24 hours straight, you can’t have a sniveling idiot as his heroine. She cried when he had to torture her ex for information. What a moron. If she were Jack-worthy, she would have handed him the electrical cord. “More voltage, honey?” she’d ask.

Lara Croft. That’s who Jack Bauer should be paired with. They could shoot lots of bad people together. Of course, if Jack got out of line and forgot to bring home the milk, she’d kick his *ss.

Baby steps

Sniffle. My baby girl took her first steps yesterday. She’s at that stage where she can stand alone and balance herself, and when she sees me, she gets excited and tries to run to hug me. When she forgets herself, she’ll take little baby steps before crashing into my arms. Other times, she’ll simply lunge at me and not walk at all.

Okay, back to important stuff, like American Idol. My husband thinks I’m a lunatic wanting to watch these people. But they are such talented singers. I’m completely absorbed in the contest. Problem is, I like so many of them, I want them all to win. I can’t vote anymore because I’d just be voting for all of them. Well, mostly all.

4 days left until the Golden Heart notifications go out. Man, am I nervous. I keep telling myself, no, you didn’t make it. It’s a complete crap shoot. If you get judges who were in a bad mood, forget it. It’s odd that one of the greatest competitions in RWA is one where you get one number from each judge, and it’s totally subjective. I will say this, though. Judging the GH is great experience. I’m always amazed at which entries rise to the top. Others have the “meh” factor. They’re well written, but I could care less if the heroine went and drowned herself.

What’s funny is that I remember some of their titles (the meh ones), and a few of them were finalists in local chapter contests. Some of them won best of the best. And all I could think was, THAT won the best one? You’re kidding, right? Some of them weren’t well-written. Some of them, I couldn’t even tell who the heroine and hero were. Now I’m not one of those psycho judges where the h/h have to meet on page 3, kiss on page 25, etc. etc. But still, if I can’t tell whose story this is, I’m not going to read past page 3 (in real life). Typically, I pick up a new author and read the first page. If she hooks me, I’ll buy it. If not, back to the shelf. Sadly, the cost of books nowadays makes it harder to impulse-buy.

Then, too, there are some authors who promote themselves by putting their name/book cover on things like keychains, pencils, or pens. Two creative ones were chapstick and jar openers. But I’ll be honest–none of that has ever prompted me to buy a book by these authors. I enjoyed the free stuff, but half the time I didn’t remember the name of the person. I do think promotional items like that can be a waste of money. Book giveaways are far better. If you hook me on your writing style with one book, I’ll buy another. I’m very loyal to my favorite authors. My favorite historical authors are: Julia Quinn, Jude Deveraux, LaVyrle Spencer (not writing anymore–SOB!), Johanna Lindsey, and Judith McNaught. I loved Judith Ivory’s book BEAST, but some of her others didn’t quite hook me. Same with Lisa Kleypas. I loved STRANGER IN MY ARMS, but a few others didn’t do it.

Who are your favorite historical authors?