I can’t believe it’s the end of August–where did the summer go?  It seems as if it just started and now it’s gone.  The past three months have been filled with moving into a new house, writing like a maniac, making new friends in our new neighborhood, writing like a maniac, attending the RWA conference, writing like a maniac…you get the idea. 

 

I’ve always loved summer.  When I was a kid it was all about riding bikes and going to the beach and playing with friends.  Hot sunny days filled with cookouts, nights of catching lightning bugs and playing tag and kick the can (although we always used a ball instead of a can).  I haven’t played tag or kick the can in a long time, but I still love cookouts and lightning bugs.

 

What did you do this summer?  And how did you spend your summer days when you were a kid?

The following program contains content that may be inappropriate for some viewers. Parental discretion is advised..

You have to admire a show about food that contains the previous warning.

Thanks to the magic of Netflix streaming seamlessly to my fabulous MacBook and my lack of a deadline, I’ve been watching a lot of TV episodes with the zeal and power of a network program exec. Sherlock Holmes staring the wonderful late Jeremy Brett. Early seasons of The Tudors and Nip Tuck.

My most recent obsession is Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. He’s testy, sardonic, likes a good drink (or four) and loves food.

I identify with his witty writing style (demonstrated in the series through voice-overs) and find myself fascinated by the variety of places he visits.

From Japan to Chicago, Venice to Russia. He goes, sees, eats and experiences it all–as long as there’s no tourist shop nearby. He wants to know about the locals, their customs and history.

The Miami episode connected with me as a lifetime Southerner. Why are people who live or were raised above Virginia or west of Tennessee so fascinated with alligators?

If you have ever lived in or spent considerable time in the coastal South, you would be aware that gators are not something you hope to see, or something interesting to point and stare at. They’re something you run from. Fast. While dialing on your cell phone and hoping to reach a big, brave guy named Zeke who’ll come with his even bigger shotgun and shoot the thing.

In fact, the true southerner litmus test is a negative answer to the following question…Have you ever paid to see a gator?

Bourdain, a staunch New Yorker, does–at least indirectly. Though he has the sense to go frog hunting instead of gator hunting. (Brave of him–not just because of the gators lurking in the glades–since the fishing on his show seems to always, hilariously go badly.)

He rolls with it, as he does everything. I’ve seen him eat everything from guinea pigs and raw baby seal eyeball (two separate dishes) to perfectly made baguettes, freshly picked fruit, filet mignon and caviar, plus a few frogs in between. (Oh, did I mention the frog hunting in Miami went so well, they deep fried several dozen?)

As horrified as you might be by the icky (sorry, no other word comes to mind), he reminds his viewers that these proteins are what people around the world have lived on for centuries. What they have to eat to survive. For many of them the supermarket is a concept as foreign and unlikely as Darth Vader sitting down next to you at your local Applebee’s.

What what I really take away from the series is that as different as we are in background, we’re–oddly enough–in the same profession, with the same struggles and obstacles.

While in Vegas–his first, somewhat reluctant trip–Tony’s looking for his Muse as intently as any fiction author ever has. He stares morosely at the computer screen. Types a sentence, leans back, sips beer (I prefer Diet Coke, but to each his own), types another few words, then sighs. Nothing. He picks up his cell phone, hoping somebody, anybody will call and distract him.

Later he’s sitting on the floor, surrounded by sheets of yellow legal paper and notes scribbled on the hotel pads. With nothing apparently making sense and deadline looming, he orders room service–the ENTIRE, freakin’ menu, mind you! (Apparently writing about food provides you with an unlimited food budget.) Full, he’s still struggling when, like a perfectly roasted pig falling out of the sky, a friend calls with a distraction–let’s go out. Tony’s out of that room like a shot from a pistol, and I thought, This guy is a WRITER.

He’s part of the exclusive club that includes people who use words to entertain and the people who like to read–where would any writer be without an audience, after all? I like that he’s somehow merged the medium of TV with the power of clever words, and I like that he distracts me from my own deadlines, even while he reminds me I have the best job in the world. That Muse is a flighty chick sometimes, but when she’s captured she really can make magic.

Hi Blaze Babes. Again I’m traveling this month, boy is life rough. I’ll be in Maine at our oceanside summer house, which doesn’t even have electricity let alone Internet access. Talk about a blissful escape, especially from this horrible heat and humidity.

Next month, however, I will be here and eager to chat!

I turned in the second Blaze of an online-dating trilogy due next year, and have a brief rest from back-to-back deadlines before diving into number three. I do get a little antsy when I’m not writing, but life has been busy and that helps. I’ll be taking paper and pen (remember those?) to Maine so I can brainstorm for the next book, sitting in the sun on the rocks, feeling the breeze, smelling the firs and hearing the gulls calling. Ahhhhh.

Okay, back to earth. For our outdoor meal a salad would be the perfect compliment to the tart. I tried the following for the first time two days ago and can’t wait to pass it along. It was absolutely delicious, easy, and beautifully summery. The recipe calls for broiling the corn, but if you wanted to toast it in a pan or, for even better flavor, grill it, I think that would work nicely. The combination of flavors and textures is superb and the dressing is so good I’ll be using it on other salads, too.

So here we go to epicurious.com:

Arugula, Tomato and Corn Salad.

Have a wonderful August! Hard to believe fall is around the corner.

Cheers,

Isabel

Are mine the only summers that seem way too short? The back to school ads are on TV–a sure sign that summer’s endless days are dwindling away to a precious few. And–even worse–the “new” summer TV series are already warning that there are only two or three shows left until the season finale! (By the way, I want to thank whoever it was who suggested that I watch “Haven” on the SyFy Channel. I’m really enjoying it. I’m also loving “The Glades” on A and E. But they’re all ending soon!)

Maybe the length of the season is somehow attached to the fact that I’m an adult? When I was a child, the time from the last day of school in June until the Tuesday after Labor Day seemed to stretch forever. And there was nothing to do but choose what T-shirt I wanted to wear with my shorts, what games I wanted to play with the kids down the street and which book I wanted to read that week.

Or maybe it’s just me who feels that my summers don’t have enough time for just…relaxing anymore. The lady who lives behind me has time to sit out on her deck and do nothing but get a tan. If I go out on my deck, I feel that I would have to clean my grill first. And perhaps sweep the floor. And then there would be the windows… Those tasks would definitely eat into my tanning time. And if I don’t go out there, those chores can remain on my to-do list. Until next summer.

Or maybe–and this is just occurring to me–maybe my summers seem shorter because I’m actually doing more things. This summer I’m traveling to Florida three times, I’ve been to Rhode Island once, Vermont once, and Michigan once. Could it be that my childhood summers only seem longer because I was pretty much confined to one place?

Maybe my ptoblem isn’t that summers are shorter but that I have to find more time to fit in “summer things” while I’m at home. Any suggestions?

The one thing that I still seem to fit into my summers is time to read. (Although I listen to a lot more books than I actually read any more). The ones I’ve especially enjoyed reading this summer are: Amanda Quick’s “The Burning Lamp,” Tami Hoag’s “Deeper Than the Dead,” J.D. Robb’s “Fantasy In Death,” Elizabeth Lowell’s “Death Echo.” These are all writers I’ve been reading since they started out in short category romance. I would recommend all of them. Currently, I’m reading Linda Howard’s and Linda Jones’ “Blood Born.” Ordinarily, I’m not a vampire fan, but I’m hooked on this one. It’s currently in my CD player in my car and I’m already thinking of errands I can run today so that I can listen to it. And Nora Roberts’ “The Search” is next. One of the nurses at my doctor’s office said she didn’t sleep for two nights because she couldn’t put it down.

In the waning weeks of summer, do you have any suggestions about books that I could add to my “to listen to” list? What’s the best book you’ve red this summer?

Or do you have any suggestions on how I might stretch out summertime in my own home? (I’m at the point where I’m actually thinking I have to clean out my closet and line up my fall teaching clothes. Ugh! Help me!)

I’m not offering any free books for suggestions this time, but if I’ve promised you a book earlier and somehow missed your email, please send me another reminder.

I hope you all enjoy the last days of summer!
Cara

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! You know, I’ve always found the number 13 to be pretty lucky for me, thereby thumbing my nose at the old superstition. It’s sort of strange to get excited to be assigned to the 13th floor (often marked as 14, as though you might be fooled thinking that after 12 comes… 14) or to be number 13 in line for something, but it’s true. Which brings me to this really cool workshop a friend of mine took. It was all about  transitions. Which should, perhaps, be capitalized, since the Transitions were usually huge. People in her course were leaving marriages, changing jobs, facing trauma, drama, uncertainty of all  kinds. And the big takeaway for her?

Intuition.

As in, we all have it. It’s that little voice inside you, that feeling in the gut that tells you — or tries to tell you — when you are veering off course. And when you are heading exactly in the right direction. Let’s face it, change is hard. But we all go through it, sometimes in big ways, sometimes small. One of the exercises she had that I really loved is you write down ten words. Then you take the four that most speak to you. And you compose a sentence. She said that everyone in her course was blown away  by the power of that sentence.  I tried it, and my intuition is telling me that the sentence I came up with is too sensitive to share. But honestly it took me about five minutes and I had a real aha moment around what my subconscious wanted to tell me.

Why don’t you try it? You don’t have to share, simply let us know if you found it useful. This stuff can truly change lives.

A shout out to Dawn Atkins, Dawn your cover is gorgeous!! I don’t blame you for being all excited. And Joanne Rock, OMG I wish I could have been at National this year. It is like a sorority event. You looked gorgeous as always.

Candace, I want your job!!

Enjoy this special day. If your intuition is telling you it’s going to be a lucky one, then it will be. So, once again, Happy Friday 13th!

Nancy

I just saw the cover of my November SuperRomance and got that old jittery feeling from when my first book was about to come out–24 books ago, by the way. That’s because this is my first SuperRomance and though it’s solidly a Dawn Atkins book, with the same sensuality, emotion and type of story, it has a slightly different flavor. I love this story. It has a long and complex history and has gone through many changes over the years since the idea of it popped into my mind and would not leave until I wrote it. It’s about a girl whose home is the mall where she more or less grew up and the man who’s about to sell it out from under her.

I’m nervous. Will readers of my Blaze stories pick up this new book? Do people even BUY Christmas books? How about new readers? Will they take a chance on a “new” SuperRomance author? And, perhaps most importantly, will they choose a cover with a demon dog leering up at the couple?

This made me laugh–the weird dog picture–since the reason a Cavalier King spaniel is even in the book is because I think they’re the cutest puppies EVER. I mean, melt-your-heart, stuffed-animal darling. Where this possibly rabid beast came from is beyond me. Sigh.

So, somebody reassure me that even spawn of Satan spaniels won’t scare away buyers, okay? And what do you think about new/old authors writing for different lines? Oh, and Christmas books? Do they get you in the spirit or are they overkill?

Okay, time to lie down with an ice pack on my head.
Best,
Dawn Atkins
www.dawnatkins.com
A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS, SuperRomance, 11/10

I have been wrestling with reading glasses for the last couple of years. It’s a real pain in the behonkus. I can’t read directions in the car without them or even idenify an incoming cell phone call, but then again, I can’t wear my reading glasses and sunglasses at the same time either. Grocery shopping, clothes shopping, etc. — better have those reading glasses but it’s awkward walking around in magnifiers. So…I went for my first eye exam in about four years. The eyes are good, except for needing those magnifiers. I decided I wanted to try contact lens.

Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks. Wow, they know me intimately at Lens Crafters now. The first night I couldn’t get it out of my right eye, so I had to drive over the next morning and have the Lens Crafters folks get it out. I let my eyes rest that day. The next morning I got myself set up…and spent the next hour putting in two contacts. I had a headache all day — I think I’d traumatized myself and my eyes. The following day I got the right in — with the contact the wrong way — three times. I just resorted to glasses that day. Next day I went back for a lesson in how to put them in. Seems the key is to do it BEFORE you put any moisturizer on your face. Okay. Then I had an issue with my right eye — well, I’ll spare you the details but it turns out it wasn’t an eye infection — just the eye unhappy with all the trauma but the doctor told me to check the contact for any small tears. No need, when I started to put them in the next morning, it was obviously torn almost in half. That meant another trip there to pick up another pair. Saturday and yesterday went well…until I couldn’t get the left eye out last night.

Let me just go on record as saying that I hate everyone, especially small children, who can pop their contacts in and out at will.:-[ I am also determined to master this. In the meantime, I am undoing years of Oil of Olay Regenerist cream as I tug bags I could use at the grocery store beneath my eyes in an attempt to get these suckers in and out.

And thus concludes my ongoing saga of contact lens wear…or the pathetic attempt. I suppose outside of just wanting to whine about it, I need encouragement that I too will one day manage to pop these in and out without it being an ordeal and without tugging ten years worth of lines around my eyes.:-S

Since I’m currently attending the Romance Writers of America conference in Orlando (with lots of the other Blaze Babes), I thought I’d make this blog about writing.  Writing is a lonely profession.  Lots and LOTS of hours spent alone with a computer and my thoughts.  Toss in the stress of deadlines, and is it any wonder that a writer would feel the need to be renewed?  Attending the RWA conference is an annual renewal for me. There’s something so great about being with people who go through the same things you do on a daily basis.  Seeing friends that you only see once a year. 

Being with my friends at this conference once a year fills the writer well that gets depleted the other 360 days of the year. Of course, I’m also a big fan of facials and retail therapy.  Boat rides, walking along the beach, sitting in a hot tub, curling up with a good book, and a date with the DH also renew me.  So–what renews you?  How do you get your mojo back?  Hope you’re having a fabulous day!

Hey, all! I’m at the Romance Writers of America conference in Orlando, so I thought I’d report on what I’ve been doing.

The conference is being held at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Disney World. (This was the backup location after the Opryland Hotel wound up six feet underwater with the terrible spring floods in Nashville.)

Yesterday (Thursday), my roomie–Jacquie D’Alessandro–and I got up and went for a power walk around the lake, then we had breakfast at Kouzzina’s (Iron Chef Cat Cora’s place on the Boardwalk). Yum!

Fueled with eggs and feeling righteous for exercising, we headed to the Harlequin Suite for a social hour with other authors and editors. Jacquie then headed off to the keynote luncheon, featuring bestselling author and total romance goddess Nora Roberts, and I met Harlequin editors Marsha Zinberg, Adrienne Macintosh and Stacy Boyd, plus my fellow NASCAR authors for lunch. With this being the final publication year for the NASCAR books, we did a lot of reminiscing and talking about our future projects. With everyone so busy during the year, it’s nice to catch up with all that’s been going on lately.

From there, I headed back to my room to do a bit of work, then Jacquie and I met with reviewers from The Romance Dish (check out their fabulous site at www.theromancedish.com). The gals were lots of fun–as always–and we were honored with a drive-by chat with Virginia Henley.

Afterwards, Jacquie and I met our other roommate–Jennifer St. Giles aka J.L. Saint for a sushi dinner. Yum again.

Whew! I’m off to bed and looking forward to workshops and hanging out with fellow writers again tomorrow. I’m being awarded with my 25-book pin from Harlequin on Friday night, which is pretty surreal. It’s hard to believe I’ve written that many words! The Blaze Babes gather for lunch on Saturday, so that should be a blast.

Take care,
Wendy

P.S. Sorry to be posting late. I had Internet connection issues at the hotel.

A friend of my daughter’s is a rather handsome, very articulate young man. Of any of her friends, he is the one I expect will go far in life. At present, he’s in college and working part time at a major corporation. All very nice, but what follows shows more than anything why he’s an exceptional young man. Honestly, I could not have done what he did. And at the end, tell me a story of your latest adrenaline rush. One lucky commenter will win a copy of Kathy Lyon’s UNDER HIS SPELL.

HERE’S HIS STORY:

I would have preferred to tell this story in person, but it is simply too ridiculous not to share as quickly as possible…

So I’m taking a shower, which is normal for a Saturday morning. And my parents and brothers go to karate practice, which is also normal for a Saturday morning. I get out of the shower — still normal — and try to open the door — still normal — at which point the doorknob in my 90-year-old house falls off — not normal.

I am now alone in the house, trapped in the bathroom.

My family will not return for two hours. I am straight-up, R Kelly-style trapped in the bathroom. I have no phone. I also, for the record, have no Beretta. And there was no singing, although in retrospect there should have been.

The first option is to wait it out. I could take an extra-long shower, Clorox-wipe the entire bathroom, or do the Unspeakable (which honestly couldn’t occupy me for two hours). The second option is to exit through the window. But I wouldn’t be able to get back into the house. So I would be marooned in my hot backyard, wearing my dirty boxers and a towel, waiting for my family to come home. The third option is to escape. I go from R Kelly to MacGyver, amass a collection of potentially useful bathroom items — electric razor, seven toothbrushes, plunger (not sure how exactly that would have helped), hand soap, Q-tips, depleted toothpaste tube — and get to work.

My first plan of attack is to reattach the doorknob, which of course fails. Then, after about fifteen minutes of poking, hitting, jiggling, and otherwise harassing the door with various implements, I discover the fatal flaw of my prison: The door opens inward, but when I push it out, the Little Thing that the doorknob operates that goes into the Little Notch in the door (I don’t know much about door anatomy.) gets pushed back into the door. So all I need to do is block the Little Thing from going into the Little Notch while I yank the door back towards me.

I survey my toothbrush army, and ultimately select two soldiers for the mission: The smallest (one of my brothers’) and the largest (a surprisingly robust free handout from our swanky downtown dentist). I lodge the small toothbrush in the Little Notch, hoping that the Little Thing will slide over it when I pull the door. But without a doorknob, it is very difficult to exert inward force on a door, so I use the large toothbrush to pry into the stump where the doorknob once was and start yanking.

With each toothbrush dangerously close to its breaking point, the door lurches open. A refreshing burst of not hot-sticky-just-took-a-shower air comes over me. Free at last! And it was so freaking fun.

If you really want an adrenaline rush, I encourage you to succeed in escaping from an inconvenient but not dangerous situation using only immediately available household items.

Hoping there will be no Volume 2.