I swear, in my mind it’s still August.  I have plenty of time before my trilogy launches, the holidays hold no pressure at all and there is still plenty of time for me to achieve all of my 2011 goals.  Then I blink and realize that nope, it’s almost Thanksgiving and I’d better start planning the menu.  That the first book in my Undercover Operatives trilogy, SEX, LIES and MISTLETOE is out in just a week which means it’s time to kick into promo gear. And I have- holy cow -NO Christmas gifts bought yet. And those goals? ahahahahaha ahem ha.  Um, not even close.

Needless to say, I’ve hit panic mode. To stay as sane as possible, I fell back on my tried and true sanity saver… I made a list.

For Thanksgiving, I decided to go with the standards.  No new recipes this year, and nothing super fancy.  And since we always have a sick amount of desserts leftover because the family gorges on dinner, I’m going super simple there.  Just pumpkin pie.  Thats it.  No pecan, no trifle, no apple turnovers. Nope.  No matter how good those are, I don’t have time. And I don’t need the calories I’d end up with since I’m the one stuck eating it all after the holiday

For Christmas, and to try and meet my yearly goal of having all my shopping finished by Thanksgiving, I put out the word that I wanted wish lists by the end of the weekend.  I decided to go simple again here, and am making a calender of baby pictures of all the grandkids as a gift for the grandparents.  One project, 6 gifts.  Not bad.

Promo for SEX, LIES and MISTLETOE kicks into high gear toward the end of the month, and I thought it’d be fun to introduce you to the town of Black Oak through the eyes of the town gossips on the 28th.  I’m so excited about these stories and loved writing about the Black family.  I hope you love reading them!  I have high hopes after reading the first review from Romance Junkies.

Yep, it’s crazy busy time and I’m woefully unprepared.  I really do wish it was still August.

How about you? Are you ready for the holiday season?  How do you deal with the planning?  Do you follow a traditional route, or do you do something new each year?  And have you started shopping yet?  Share your holiday planning tips with me today (I’ll take all the help I can get) and I’ll draw one name to send a copy of SEX, LIES and MISTLETOE. 

I adored playing dress up when I was little.  I remember one of my absolute favorite gifts.  My grandma had filled a trunk with dresses, shoes and jewelry she’d gathered from her closet, from friends and from the thrift store.  I had a boa, I had heels, I had purses. I was in heaven for years!  The only gift that came close to that was the year she gave me one of those pretty pink Barbie cases filled with handmade Barbie clothes (dressing Barbie up was almost as fun as playing dress up myself!).  Yep, dress up was my go-to thing as a kid.

Heck, I still love playing dress up.  Cute clothes are one of my favorite things -especially when they show off cute shoes!  But as an author, my standard day-to-day outfit tends to be yoga pants and a tank top in the summer, sweatshirt in the winter. Not much dress up fun there, let me tell ya!  I think this is one of the reasons I love the yearly writers’ conference – it’s like a dress up extravaganza.

And so is Halloween!  Not quite the same, of course, although there is a similar element of make believe involved in both :-D  And while I love Halloween for so so many reasons, one of the biggies is that it’s a free-for-all dress up day!  Even for adults (c’mon, don’t tell me you don’t dress up for Halloween-ever?!)  I’ve been a gypsy and a witch, a mummy and a rag doll, a belly dancer and a ghoul, to name just a few years’ fun.  I think my dream costume right now would be to dress up as Glinda, the good witch.  She’s got some serious awesomeness going on with her skirt, and I love her glittery crown.  That particular costume isn’t in the cards for this year, but it is definitely my some-day dream dress up outfit.  Maybe if I’m ever up for a RITA…

How about you? Are you a fan of playing dress up? What would your dream costume be? Are you dressing up this year, and as what?

And a bit of advice? I’m going to see my new fave band play Saturday night and the club’s theme is Hobo Prom.  Um, what does a girl hobo wear in the first place, let alone to a prom??

Okay, so it isn’t actually present time today… but it’s time to start thinking about presents.  I’d love to be one of those people who had their holiday shopping done by mid-summer, but to be honest, I don’t have the patience.  Not shopping patience, unwrapping patience.  There’s no way I could hold onto a gift for half-a-year without going crazy wanting the recipient to open and enjoy it.  So I’ve settled for being one of those people who has all their holiday shopping done by Thanksgiving.

So what’s the point of this post, then, since Thanksgiving is still over a month away? Well, I could say because it was Canada’s Thanksgiving (Happy Thanksgiving!) this week. But also, it’s because I love to make gifts.  I drive my family crazy making them things they’d never buy (and really don’t want) for themselves.  So by this time of year, I need to decide WHAT I’ll be inflicting… I mean, gifting them with this year so I can get supplies and have time to get everything made.

One year, I bought 4×4 wooden posts and had my husband cut them into 4″ blocks.  I painted the blocks, then added photos on 5 sides, some blingy embellishments and called them gifts.

Another year I made picture frames, added my kids photos and wrapped those up pretty.  I’ve done mini scrapbooks, themed photo albums, knitted scarves and hats (I can’t get the hang of socks yet), I’ve made candy and cookies and bread and… well, lots of stuff.

Now I’m stuck for ideas.  I have no inspiration on what to do this year.  So… Do you have any ideas I can borrow? What kind of gifts have you made in the past?  What kind of handmade gifts have you gotten that you really liked? 

I love the changing of the seasons. There’s something wonderful about each one that makes me welcome it with open arms, and always something about the passing season that makes me glad to wave goodbye. 

So I’m here to give a big whohoo to welcome Autumn. I love fall. Then changing colors and cooling weather. Chilly evenings perfect for romantic fireplace chats. And it’s soup time. It’s family trips to the orchards and Halloween and Thanksgiving (getting hungry yet?) and for me, it’s crafting time. Despite school being out in the summer, I never seem to find the free time to scrapbook. But with autumn comes the reminder that the holidays are looming and I’d better get to work making gifts and projects. This year, my first project will be an advent calendar for each of my girls with a 12×12 scrapbook layout as the centerpiece. And even though it’s only officially been Autumn for about a week, I’m already feeling the urge to make soup, too. Big pots of yummy vegetable soup, potato leek soup or corn chowder, all with homemade bread. (yeah, I’m seeing a definite food theme with fall).

Another thing I welcome with the return of Autumn is the return of my writing mojo. Summer is a hard writing time. Things like longer days (I write in the dark), the family distractions and things like vacations and conferences are all tough on my writing discipline. But Fall? That’s all about work. Harvest, putting in the time and focusing on results.

The one major downside? It’s rare that we see shirtless hunks in autumn. And that’s a shame. A darned shame. So to make up for that loss, I thought I’d share a shirtless hunk to inspire you as you wave goodbye to summer.

So… Are you a fan of autumn? What’s your favorite thing about this season?

I love playing What If. 

What If… we could pick this part of one hero and that part of that hero, and mix them all together into a perfect hero.  

For instance, I’d take Robert Pattinson’s intense gaze, mix it with Johnny Depp’s cheekbones and Orlando Bloom’s sweet smile.  Hugh Jackman’s body, Alan Rickman’s voice and just ’cause I’m easily amused, lets throw in Tim Burton’s twisted sense of humor.

How about you? What perfect parts would you take from here and there to make your perfect hero?

Can you believe it’s Blaze’s Ten Year Anniversary?! Woot, here’s to another ten years of awesome fun.

I love anniversaries. They are such a wonderful affirmation of the longevity of love, or in this case, of hot love stories.

Anniversary celebrations are even more fun, right?!  Even better are anniversary gifts.  Cuz, yanno, I really love gifts :-)  And I’ve always been fascinated by the traditional anniversary gift list, so before I married, I was excited to follow it.  But as fun as that idea was, it really hasn’t worked out.  For our first anniversary, the paper anniversary, we bought a really nice camera and justified it as photos are printed on paper.  In the third year of our marriage, our stereo was broken.  There is some crystal thing in the stereo (my husband can explain it.  I just nod along) so we fixed it as our gift to each other.  Justifying the new stove in our seventh year took a more clever route – finally we came up with the fact that there were copper coils somewhere in that appliance, making it a suitable gift.

Pretty much the only anniversary that we did hit the tradition, well, traditionally, is the tenth when my husband gave me a gorgeous diamond anniversary ring.

Anniversary Gift List

More anniversaries here...

By our eleventh anniversary, we finally admitted that we suck at this gift thing.  So we started a new tradition of going away, just the two of us (no kids no kids no kids) for at least a weekend.  Our anniversary is in April, but we might make the getaway in March or May.  As long as we make it, it doesn’t matter.  I love this tradition.  It works really well for us since there is no clever gift-buying justification required.  And it gives us that one gift that we tend to ignore too often -time together to focus on just each other.

So how about you? What’s your favorite anniversary story? Do you follow the traditional gift list or do you have your own traditions?

An obscure little movie hit the theaters a couple of weeks ago based on a book.  It didn’t do too bad. You might have heard of it… Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.

(Okay, first off, before I even go into the point of this blog, let me gush and say OMG I loved that movie!!! )

I know a lot of people who have seen the movie, who did NOT read the books (shock, yes, but really, I do.  I just realized they are all men, though. I wonder if there is a correlation?)   For me, I’ve seen HP:DH2 twice so far.  I’ve read the book at least four times that many times, though.  Which is pretty typical for me. I really do read a lot more than I see movies.

There are other books I’ve loved that they made movies of.  Little Women is one of my all time favorite stories, but while I’ve enjoyed the movies, there isn’t one that stands out in my mind the way the book did.   My daughter and I read the Percy Jackson series together and loved it so much that she begged to go see the movie opening day.  This movie, like Little Women, was good, but again not strong enough to take top billing in my memory over the books. I have a lot of books-to-movie memories that fall into this category.  I loved the book, and the movie was kinda eh in my memory.

Then there are the movies that I thought were amazingly better than the books.  Lord of the Rings, for instance.  I love the movies and have seen them a half-dozen times over the years.  But I’ve only read the books once (although it felt like it took me a half-dozen years to read *sigh*)  Howls Moving Castle (omg amazing anime movie with a hero that I still think is the ultimate in cartoon sexiness – probably because he’s voiced by Christian Bale) was a movie that I didn’t plan to fall in love with – it just happened to be on TV when I was doing spring cleaning and before I knew it, I was sitting with my daughter on the floor in front of the TV, entranced.  I loved it so much, I immediately ordered the book thinking it’d add so much depth and further insights.  Let’s just say it didn’t.

I’ve heard both sides of the argument… that the books are ALWAYS better than the movie. And that the movie is INEVITABLY better than the book.  At one point I figured it really just came down to whether you are a reader or not – if you are, you’re going to love the written word more.  If you’re not, then reading doesn’t give that extra zing of pleasure, so the movie will hold more appeal.  But I am a reader and I’m pretty evenly split between book or move love.

How about you? Are you a bigger fan of the books?  Or the movies? Which book-to-movie was your favorite?  Least favorite?  And the most important question (and please, no spoilers for those who haven’t made it to the theater yet) have you seen Harry Potter yet??? What’d you think of this epic ending?

I’m sitting at home.

There are no workshops here. There is no bar. There are, sadly, no happy writers thrilled to see me (unless you count my daughter, whose written 3 books for the Young Authors program, but I don’t think she’s very thrilled). I didn’t have to choose clothes and get a pedicure. I don’t get to strap on my cutest shoes and show them off. I won’t be dancing and drinking and celebrating at the renowned Harlequin Party. I won’t even have email, a plotting session or my CP to distract me.   And I wont’ be hanging with the fun Blaze authors, celebrating Blaze’s 10th Anniversary!

In other words, it’s hellishly boring here.

Which is usually okay, but not this week!!! Because I have to miss the Romance Writers of America National conference. It’s in New York. Right there, in Times Square. But I have family commitments and just couldn’t make it happen this year.

So now I have to find some way to distract myself.  To stay busy.  I could write — I have a book due September 1st.  I could scrapbook – I have about 10 years of photos screaming to be put in albums.  I could work in the garden – my backyard is horribly ugly and sad right now.  So I have plenty to do before I head to Idaho.  But… I don’t wanna.

I wanna be in New York.  Partying Blaze style.  Hanging and learning and enjoying.

So help me out – when all your friends are off having a good time and you’re not, what do you do to distract and entertain yourself?

May 29th is my anniversary. And while I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know it, that makes it Brenda Chin’s anniversary, too since it’s the date she called me to offer to buy my first book, Double Dare, in 2006. (Happy Anniversary, Brenda *g*)

I’m ecstatic, and have to say, the last five years have been both a learning experience and a wonderful ride. In no little part because of my fab editor, the amazing Blaze authors who’ve always been there for me, and all of the awesome readers out there. So I’ll start my celebration by saying Thank You!

Some people know my call story, and for those who don’t, here is a peek into just how neurotic I actually am (please love me anyway, though *g*)

So… I was born in a small Idaho town in the winter of… Oh wait, this is my call story, right? Not my life story? Okay – After about 3 years of writing and submitting to Harlequin (Temptation until they closed *sob* and then Blaze) I entered and won the unpublished category of the Blaze Contest in late 2005 with the opening chapter of my manuscript, Undercover Seduction. A part of the prize was to submit the full manuscript for consideration to Blaze. Since I had only written the opening for the contest, I then had to write and submit the rest. In April of 2006, I saw Brenda Chin at a regional conference (and got to go to dinner with her, Vicki Lewis Thompson, Kimberly Raye and many other fabulous writers, which was awe-inspiring, let me tell ya!) During a chat with Brenda, I mentioned that despite the manuscript having just finaling in the Golden Heart, I didn’t think I’d be attending the RWA National conference that summer -at least, not unless I sold.

It was Memorial Day morning (okay, as you can see by the photo, early is subjective. But still…), about a month after the conference, when the phone rang. My husband answered because I, of course, was asleep. “It’s Harlequin!” Oh man, talk about walking up fast. Or, at least, pretending to. After greeting me, Brenda told me, “Book your tickets, you’re going to conference.”

Holy cow.

I know she said more. I’m sure we nailed down details. I’m positive we discussed the story and what came next. But all that’s a blur. All I remember was hanging up and collapsing into my husband, who was hugging me through the entire conversation.

Then, because it was Memorial Day, we had a neighborhood party to attend. Nobody there really understood the hugeness of selling my first book, so after a couple of happy hugs, the celebration turned to pretzel jello recipes. I did try to call writing friends to share the news, but again, holiday happiness had taken them all off to celebrate. So I reached nobody.

By the next morning, I was second guessing if I really sold or if I’d imagined it all. I desperately emailed Brenda to ask her if it was real, because I was seriously doubting the reality LOL. So all in all, my I Sold celebration wasn’t quite what I’d always imagined. It was much more foggy

And here we are, five years later. This month saw my eleventh Blaze release and I’m putting the finishing touches on my fourteenth contracted book this weekend. I’ve got to say, I’m definitely loving this journey.

So how should I celebrate? Champagne and chocolate covered strawberries? Tootie horns and party hats? Dinner out and a decadently indulgent dessert? Sleep? What would you do to celebrate your first sale anniversary? Or the anniversary of something you’d worked really hard for and cherished as a major life accomplishment?

I’m super excited about May for two reasons. First off, I have a new book out. JUST FOR THE NIGHT is the first book in the 24 Hours: Blackout series, with Samantha Hunter’s MINE UNTIL MORNING out in June and in finishing up in July with Heather MacAllister’s KEPT IN THE DARK. So that’s reason one to celebrate.

Reason two is that my fabulous critique partner, RITA author Beth Andrews has a SuperRomance, THE PRODIGAL SON, out in May as well. It’s rare that we get to celebrate our releases together (even though we really do go through every step of writing those babies together), so we thought it’d be fun to make it a kind of party and share with you. Because while we write for very different lines, there are some strong similarities in our process (and not just the neurotic parts, either!). The main one being our focus on hooks.

Hooks are essential to any story, but in category, they define not only the story, but the line itself.

Tawny says: Blaze is all about the sexy hook. Yes, that means sex—and lots of it. But it also means the story revolves around something sexy. From there, almost anything goes.

Beth says: SuperRomance’s tag line is Real life, real love! To me, that means taking traditional hooks and making them as realistic as possible. Supers is a very diverse line with many story types: light, dark, suspense, family sagas and everything in between.

One of the things that makes each line so unique is how that line hook takes traditional story hooks in different directions. For instance, Beth and I have both used a variety of traditional hooks, but our stories end up nothing alike.

Tawny says: I love the Bad boy/bad girl. This is a hook I tend to use in quite a few of my books. I had bad girls in Double Dare, Feels Like the First Time and A Babe in Toyland, and bad boys in Does She Dare and Risqué Business. It’s a hook I’m fond of, because I love me them naughty characters. But it’s also a hook that works great for Blaze because naughty and sexy go so well together. Naughty characters almost create that sexy Blaze hook all by themselves.

Beth says: I’ve used this hook a couple of times. Kelsey in Not Without Her Family was a bad girl and her brother Dillon in A Not-So-Perfect Past was a bad boy (although I tend to think of him as more of a lost soul *g*) For these two books it was a hook that amped up the romantic conflict as the hero in NWHF was a by-the-book cop, and in ANSPP the heroine is the town good girl, someone who had a lot to lose by falling for someone like Dillon. And I’m all for anything that helps me torture my characters (in the best way possible, of course)

Reunion. I love reunion stories! There is something so powerful about seeing a couple with a past overcome their baggage and find lasting love. I’ve done three stories with reunion hooks, including my upcoming May release, Just For The Night.

I love reunion stories, too! In my August release, Feels Like Home, the hero and heroine are divorced and had a lot of emotional baggage to deal with in their story. And while I enjoyed helping them heal from all their hurt and anger, what I really loved was how they got to know each other as who they are now as opposed to who they were seven years ago. They’ve both grown and changed and now are able to work through the issues that tore them apart before.

Another hook I love is the protector. This is a great hook because it means someone (usually the heroine) is in jeopardy. Talk about a double duty hook with built in conflict. I’ve used this one a couple times. My last book, Breaking the Rules had a protector hero and a heroine who didn’t want his bossy protection LOL. And in my 2009 release, Going Down Hard, my hero was a bodyguard. Now that was a fun one to write

The protector is another favorite of mine as well! The hero if NWHF felt the need to protect the entire town while Dillon in ANSPP found himself protecting the heroine even though that was the last thing he wanted to do. His Secret Agenda and Do You Take This Cop? both had elements of this hook as well. I agree with Tawny – it’s a double duty hook with built in conflict and if that person being protected doesn’t want protected, it amps that conflict up even more *g*

So really, it’s all about the hooks, right? I mean, a strong plot, solid characters, an enticing emotional arc –those are vital. But for me, it starts with the hooks.

Yep, me too. I think it’s fun to pick a hook (or even better, more than one hook) and try to come up with a strong story to support those hooks. And it’s so interesting to me how Tawny and I can make the same hook work for two very different lines

What are some of your favorite story hooks? Are you drawn to a particular category line (like Blaze or SuperRomance *g*) because that line’s hook resonates with you?

Tell us what you think, and we’ll draw a name to win a copy of Beth’s new book, THE PRODIGAL SON and my latest, JUST FOR THE NIGHT.