When the Blaze Babes asked me to do a blog, I was very excited. After all, I started writing Harlequin Temptation and I was part of the first series of the Blaze launch, Sexy City Nights (Body Heat). But really, what can I bring to the table … I mean Blog? I haven’t written Blazes in years. But I do know a lot of the Blaze authors and my editor is the Senior Editor of the line, so yeah I still feel connected to Blaze. So what can I talk about?

LUCK. I see you all scratching your heads. How does luck have anything to do with a Blaze? Luck brought the most important friends into my life – my plotting group The Plotmonkeys (www.plotmonkeys.com) are three Temptation/Blaze authors, Julie Leto, Janelle Denison and Leslie Kelly. If not for the luck of selling to Temptation at the same time as them, I would not have the solid friendships and plotting support I have today.

LUCK is what made Brenda Chin, the editor who bought my first Temptation (first ever sale) pick my story out of the slush pile. That would be Brazen, FYI.

And LUCK is what my current series is all about. The LUCKY series is about three male cousins who suffer from a family curse – if any Corwin male falls in love he is destined to lose his love and his fortune. It’s held true down all the generations to date. But this generation of sexy Corwin men are destined to meet up with some pretty spectacular women. How will they handle the family curse? First up is LUCKY CHARM and in stores now is LUCKY STREAK. The last story, LUCKY BREAK is in stores in October.

But LUCK only goes so far. It’s been said (don’t ask me by whom) that LUCK is preparation meeting opportunity. In my opinion, it explains at least in part why Brenda didn’t buy the first book I sent her despite 18 months of hard work and revisions. To this day I believe if I’d sold that story, I’d never have sold another Temptation. I wouldn’t have understood what the line was really looking for. Working towards creating a true Temptation in Brazen taught me that. And really, if I hadn’t been working hard on promoting THE BACHELOR, the whole Kelly Ripa Bookclub pick wouldn’t have happened. I was looking for opportunity and was ready when luck struck.

I know we’re all living in tough economic times. We are cutting back and struggling in ways we’ve never had to before. But tough times doesn’t mean we should give up. It means we have to think differently and work that much harder, so that when opportunity comes around, we are prepared. That’s when luck strikes and good things happen!

All this talk about LUCK made me want to do things for my readers. So visit my website/contest page at http://www.carlyphillips.com/contestnov.php for three special contests: 1) the chance to win $1,000 by writing about your luckiest day; 2) the chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card; and 3) part two of my LUCKY YOU contest. GOOD LUCK!

So while we’re on the subject, what do you think of LUCK?

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Guest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.