I’m just back from the Romance Writers’ of America National Conference in New York City.  It was held at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.  2200 writers gathered to network and attend workshops–and to have fun.  Most of the time, we’re parked in front of our computers but for a

few days each year, we actually get out and interact with other writers and our editors.  During those few days, we’re Cinderella at the ball.  I went to the top of the Empire State Building, looked out on Times Square from my hotel room, assisted in a workshop on

Victorian underwear (no, I did not model), ate at a cool Scottish restaurant with Cara Summers and my editor, Brenda Chin, and went to see Sister Act with a group of writer friends.  And then there was the Harlequin party at the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf Astoria.  Utterly fabulous!  All good things must end and I arrived home, exhausted, to roses from my hubby!  I almost forgot that I have a book out this month–KEPT IN THE DARK, the last book in the 24 Hours Blackout series.

Now it’s back to work.  But first, who has been to New York?  What did you do and did you like it?

It’s travel time!  The annual Romance Writers’ of America conference is at the end of the month, which means I’m headed to New York.  I don’t travel as much as I used to and I’m out of practice.  I haven’t been on a plane since the new passenger screening rules were put into effect.  Does it take longer to get through security than it used to?  And packing–it took me forever to pack for last year’s conference.  Why?  It’s not like I haven’t done it before.

I learned about those space-saver bags that you can squash your clothes into, but they still weigh the same and I have had to take stuff out of my suitcase and cram it into my purse to get under the 50-pound limit at the baggage check-in counter.  I am not a light traveler.

Who’s going on a trip this summer?  Any travel tips?  Please share!

I was all set to tell you about my misadventures on Facebook, where I keep getting suspended (even though I’m following their directions) and ask you to “like” my new author page and I still want that, but a couple of days ago, I learned that the D.C. Dalgliesh mill, Scotland’s last artisan tartan weaver, was on the verge of going out of business and had been rescued by the owners of Scotweb, the company where I bought my son’s kilt. In an email, Dr. Nick Fiddes, Scotweb’s owner, explains: “My partner, Adele Telford, and I have stepped in with a last minute rescue package to save Scotland’s last surviving traditional tartan weaver, D.C. Dalgliesh, of Selkirk, Scotland. Here’s why: if this mill had gone the way of so many others, then 90% of all family tartans would never be woven again.” Only the most common plaids would ever be produced. He goes on to explain: “D.C. Dalgliesh is the ONLY tartan weaving mill able to produce a short length, just for a single garment like a kilt or skirt. The minimum weaving length at most mills is 30-60 yards. D.C. Dalgliesh will weave just four yards, in single-width tartan. This makes a special weave affordable for almost anyone, so anyone can wear their own family tartan.”

“All D.C. Dalgliesh fabrics are produced on traditional flying shuttle looms, which give the tartan the ‘natural’ or ‘kilting’ selvedge that any proper kilt should have. Most mills have been installing modern high speed computerized looms that need each line of ‘weft’ to be cut at each side, leaving untidy threads that give a thick edge when tucked in, and can fray. D.C. Dalgliesh is the only mill to promise this.” Dr. Fiddes narrates a fascinating video you can watch here.

How many of us have enjoyed Scottish historicals? The castles, the windswept moors, the men swathed in tartan. Can you imagine those rugged Scottish heroes without their kilts? Why, they’d be . . . be . . . naked. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to point out. Stop thinking about naked, Scottish men and concentrate on saving this one mill. If they go out of business, the traditional weaving methods and the ability to reproduce ancient designs will be lost forever. Yes, I know it’s more fun to think about the naked men, and I’m sorry I distracted you. Focus. The Scotweb folks think that the mill ran into trouble because not enough people knew about their unique weaving. What they’re asking is that you spread the word about the mill and “like” them on Facebook. If you’re not on Facebook , you can visit their D.C. Dalgliesh Supporters website.

You can also go play with the tartan designer on the Scotweb site. I designed a Blaze tartan.

Spread the word! Tweet with abandon! Design a tartan! And if you do, tell me about it here and I’ll let one commenter choose a book from my backlist.

I planted a kitchen herb garden this year and as of right now, all the plants are still alive. That’s because I bought them that way and haven’t had a chance to kill them yet. But it’s only a matter of thyme. Ahem. Sorry, but I had to work at least one pun in. It was mint to be. Okay, I’m stopping now. Really.

This looks like a little, no-big deal thing, doesn’t it? I spent all Saturday on this project. First, there were ugly bushes beneath the window, so I dug them out. Then I smoothed the dirt and put down landscaping fabric to keep out weeds. (Weeds, I can grow) I filled those giant pots and moved them into place. No, that’s not exactly how it went. What really happened is that I wanted a layer of rocks in the bottom for drainage. I’d been saving broken pottery for this. I wrapped pieces in a towel and banged on it with the shovel. Those plates and cups that broke so easily when I dropped them on the kitchen floor? Not giving up without a fight. I walloped the towel and when I checked, there were maybe a few more cracks, not the chunks I was looking for. There was a lot more walloping–very therapeutic–until I succeeded. Then I dragged the super-sized bag of potting soil from the patio where it had been ever since I got the idea for an herb garden. The thing is, I’ve been thinking about an herb garden for a while. Certainly since before the last rain. The bag wasn’t water-tight, so it was more like potting mud. Even so, there wasn’t enough of it. I needed dirt. Where better to get dirt than from my hubby’s raised vegetable garden?

Okay, there are better places, and the garden isn’t exactly raised any longer because I needed a lot of dirt. I mixed my potting mud with it and filled the giant pots. Giant pots filled with dirt are heavy, too heavy for me to move I now know. So I emptied the pots, moved them, and refilled them, making a mess in the process. I spread the rocks. (Bags of rocks are also heavy. I know, surprised me, too.) But I soaked the plants in their little biodegradable containers, stuck them in the stolen dirt, (“Heather? It looks like some animals got into our back yard.”) and they are still alive!

Except something is eating my mint.

So who’s got the gardening bug this year? What’re you growing?

It’s rodeo time in Houston and that means chili cookoffs. Whenever two or more cooks are gathered around a bubbling pot of meat and spices, someone is bound to ask whether or not to add beans. In Texas, the answer is, “No.” Usually expressed more colorfully, but still no. In fact, most chili cookoffs follow the official rules of the International Chili Society which strictly forbids the addition of beans or pasta. Some rules spell out more: “No fillers – No beans, macaroni, rice, hominy, or other similar items will be permitted.” When I was looking for pictures of chili, I had a hard time finding one without beans. Although I personally prefer chili without beans, I’m not going to refuse to eat any with beans in it. Recently, I made an insanely complex chili recipe because I happened to have all the ingredients on hand. It tasted fabulous and, yes, had black beans in it.

So how do you like your chili? Beans or no beans?

Last weekend, my family went to a Burns Supper. Each year, Scots, those who wish they were Scots, and anybody who just wants an excuse for a party, gather around January 25th to celebrate the life of the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns. Even if you know nothing else about the man, you’ll recognize his best-known work, Auld Lang Syne. Both my husband and I have Scottish ancestry, and so for many years our sons had both sets of grandparents and my sister at the table. They even wanted their own kilts. As one said, “I love that my heritage’s native dress includes a weapon.” That would be the sgian dubh, (skeen doo) the dagger thingie they wear in their sock. The whole issue of what to wear under the kilt was solved when one son declared he was going, and I quote, to “free ball it” and I said, “Sure.” Because a kilt is eight yards of unlined wool and our climate is semi-tropical. I’m not sure he lasted sixty seconds before accepting the long boxer briefs I’d bought him. That’s a picture of me and my boys in the MacAllister tartan.
The format for a Burns Supper starts with the Selkirk Grace: Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit. After that, the haggis is piped in. A procession of a bagpiper, guard, the man who will deliver the “Address to a Haggis”, the haggis on a platter, a man carrying scotch whiskey in tiny little glasses (holding a “wee dram”) and another guard solemnly process to a table where the haggis is displayed. With great fanfare, the address is delivered, the haggis is stabbed, sampled, and toasted, and then presented to the chieftain who tastes it and pronounces it “Fit to eat.”

Haggis has a bum rap. It’s really good. Basically, it’s meat (I’m being purposefully vague) and oatmeal and spices. If you eat sausage, you shouldn’t have a problem with haggis. For years, it was our family’s test. When the boys and my sister brought dates to the Burns Supper–would they eat the haggis? And, more important, did they like it? All the keepers did.

After dinner, a speaker delivers “The Immortal Memory”, a speech about the life of Robert Burns, toasts to the lads and lassies, someone performs “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” and then comes piping and Scottish Country Dancing and drinking Scotch. This is the only time of year I drink Scotch. I can see why people like it, but it’s not for me.

In Houston, we’re lucky to have the St. Thomas Episcopal bagpipers, who have competed and won world piping championships in Scotland. Texas bagpipers. World champs. In Scotland.

Burns was quite the ladies’ man, probably fitting the classic bad boy persona. I’m not sure he’d make a good Blaze hero, what with all the kids with different mothers, but he obviously appealed to women. You can read about him here.

So. Haggis. Have you eaten it? Would you eat it?

On New Year’s Day, I watched my alma mater, Texas Christian University, win the Rose Bowl. I can hardly believe it happened, even though I still have a red mark on my cheek from the game day tattoo. TCU is a small, private, church-affiliated liberal arts school. About 6,000 attended when I was there. Now there are about 8,000, but still. Music and ballet versus a behemoth like Wisconsin, with its 42,000 students? Imagine the video you shot of your child’s elementary school Christmas pageant winning an Academy Award and you can get an idea of the improbability of TCU playing in the Rose Bowl, let alone winning it.
They’ve finished the year with a perfect 13-0 record. There was no magic involved, only a lot of determination and hard work.

Determination and hard work are no fun, but what I’ve learned from watching TCU during the past few years can be applied to more than just football.

1. First you need a goal. Then you need to write it down. Then commit to it.
A pyramid of steps supporting the top goal of a national championship hangs in the TCU locker room. The bottom level includes attitude, extra effort, mental toughness, chemistry and accountability. They’ve taken a huge goal and they’ve broken it down into achievable steps and they look at those steps every day.

2. You actually have to work toward achieving the steps leading toward your goal.
The football team holds regular practices. Have you scheduled a regular time when you work toward your goal?

3. Be prepared to give something up to achieve your goal.
I’m sure there were times when the team would have rather slept in or watched TV or partied with friends instead of working out. But they knew if they weren’t physically prepared, they couldn’t win games.

4. You have to live with yourself.
There’s a saying that you should be careful how you treat people on the way up because they’re the ones you’ll meet on the way down. I’ve liked how their coach refuses to beat up weaker teams for the sake of running up the score. Decisive victories, yes. Obscene blowouts, no.

5. Stick to your game plan. Be consistent.
There are going to be ups and downs, but if you stick with what’s been working for you, you’ll achieve your goals. Sometimes in bowl games, teams forget the methods that got them there and try for flashy plays that don’t work and then they panic. And fail.

6. On the other hand, you need to adjust your steps if you realize they won’t help you achieve your goal.
To play for the national championship, realistically, a school must belong to a conference that’s part of something called the BCS (Bowl Championship Series). TCU is not and after winning all the regular season games for the last two years, it was obvious that they wouldn’t be able to reach their goal of a national championship unless they joined a BCS conference. So that’s what they did.

7. How you handle victory is as important as how you handle defeat.

8. Don’t lose sight of what’s important.
Sometimes it will be your goal and working toward it, and sometimes something else will take precedence. And that’s okay.

Anyone else setting goals this year?

Twenty years ago this month, my first book, DECK THE HALLS, was published. It’s a story about three sisters who run a Christmas decorating service and came out in the Harlequin Romance imprint under my pseudonym, Heather Allison. How appropriate that this month, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, also a Christmas romance, is out. Different line, different name, but still a Christmas romance. There have been five Christmas romances in between these two. I like Christmas romances even though I’m usually writing them when it isn’t Christmas.

Christmas is always a busy, stressful time of year, filled with expectations and calories and shopping and family. Great fodder for book ideas. I remember the moment I got the idea for DECK THE HALLS. I’d just returned from a handbell choir performance, got the kids in bed and was about to hit the shower when I remembered that I had to bake cookies for somebody’s pre-school class the next day. And they had to be homemade using the recipe the school sent home. I thought, “I wish I could hire someone to do Christmas for me.” And got the idea for the book. The SANTA SLEUTH was inspired by a newspaper article about a little girl’s search for the best mall Santa. I was involved in a Christmas program when I thought of the plot for THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE CUDDLY. Families and their expectations prompted both MR. DECEMBER, and CHRISTMAS MALE. LONE STAR SANTA was inspired by a cocktail napkin that said, “Donner and the Vixen.” That was my original title, but I didn’t get to keep it. However, LONE STAR SANTAS was the original title for CHRISTMAS MALE, so it all worked out. The carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” gave me the idea for A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS because the giver gives his true love such an extravagant set of gifts. What’s more extravagant that a gift of twelve men?

One of the similarities in the books is the Christmas tree. All the trees are decorated with a mish mash of ornaments collected over the years and multi-colored lights, because that’s what I like.

To celebrate, I’ll give away books to 7 people who tell me if they prefer designer trees, where the ornaments have a theme and everything is color coordinated, or what I’m calling a jumble tree, with a mix of homemade, gift, and souvenir ornaments. Winners can choose my new Blaze or any of my backlist, as long as you understand that the older the book, the deeper I have to dig!

And the 7 winners are Patsy Roberts, EllenToo, CrystalGB, Chey, Cathy W, Robin Coll, and Laurie G! Please email me at Heather (at) HeatherMacAllister.com with your contact info. You can pick A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS or any of my backlist, which is on my website. And then I shall brave the post office. What was I thinking? :-O

Last Monday, it was 91° and six days later, there’s frost on the roof. I think we’ve finally seen the last of summer and that means it’s baking season! Let’s talk pie. My favorite is rhubarb, not in season and hardly seen in the south, but after that, I love pecan and Texas has great pecans. I also like mixed-berry pies, but again, not in season. Apple is good, especially mixed with cranberry. Pumpkin, I can take or leave. My family is adamant that the recipe on the back of the Libby’s can must be followed exactly, while I like to jazz up the basic recipe. I also like mincemeat and I make my own. My parents, my mother-in-law, and I love it. Everyone else will leave the room rather than watch us eat it. The kids demand a pumpkin fluff pie that’s made with pumpkin, pudding, and Cool Whip.

How about you? US Thanksgiving is coming up and the Canadians already had theirs, so what pie is going to be, or already was, on your Thanksgiving table? I’ll give away a copy of my December Blaze, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, to three commenters who talk pie today.
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And the random number generator has picked Linda Henderson, Cim Hardt, and Colleen as the winners of A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS!
E-mail me your address at Heather(at)HeatherMacAllister.com Thanks for talking pie!
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For years I’ve been loyal to my faithful cell phone, just the way I’m loyal to Windows XP—even Windows 98, which is on my writing computer. All my books are written using WordStar. For DOS. But last month, the ear piece broke on my cell phone and I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying, which is kind of the point of a phone. I say “kind of” because I now own the new Samsung Epic 4G and as far as I can tell, making phone calls is barely the point. It can do anything. Seriously—I bet if I held it next to a mug of water, it would brew tea for me. There’s probably an app for that. Did you catch that? I said “app” like all the cool people, only now I know what it means. Apps (applications) are little programs that do things like calculate tips, show me traffic, where I’ve parked, turn itself into a flashlight, keep track of my grocery list, put my face on the Mona Lisa (not really—I put it on Mount Rushmore), identify all the stars and planets, and, this is seriously scary, it knows where I am with such accuracy, it knew when I walked from the back yard to the street. There’s even a Kindle app. I could download War and Peace and read it on my phone if I wanted to. You get apps in the Android Market. See, this is an Android phone, with a cute little green man who is really Google in disguise, and not an Apple iPhone.

And get this, there is something called Swype, which means I can smear my finger over the keyboard on the screen and it magically knows what I want to say! Neither of my technically savvy sons knew about that and they have iPhones. Anytime you can impress your kids, it’s golden.

Something else they didn’t know about were these little code boxes. You may have noticed them in magazines and advertisements. The phone reads them and shows me short bonus videos or goes to websites. By the way, I made these particular codes. If your phone can read these, it will take you to secret places. Okay, just various pages on my website and Amazon, but still, how cool is that?

Almost as cool as the camera. There’s one on the front AND the back so I can make video calls. I haven’t figured that out yet. I haven’t figured out a lot of things on the phone. I’ve accidentally called some numbers—numbers I don’t even recognize because I didn’t put them in my contact list and I don’t know who or what did. All I have to do is get my fingers close to the screen and something happens. I have taken several lovely pictures of my thigh and the bar code scanner has tried to read my freckles. I keep closing programs—I mean, apps—accidentally, and finding out others have been running for hours and quietly sapping the battery.

This phone is a remarkable piece of equipment. I only wish they’d provided an instruction manual for the instruction manual.

Do you have a “smart phone?” A favorite app? Or do you wish phones would just stay plain phones—preferably with large numbers and screen?