I was eleven days from my last deadline when my home phone rang at an ominously late hour. Half asleep, I barely registered that the phone was ringing, and I certainly didn’t answer it.

Then, even more ominously, my cell phone began to ring. “Okay, okay,” I muttered, scrambling out of bed and hurtling through the dark towards my handbag. I tried to open the cat, instead. Needless to say, the cat did not appreciate my actions.

At last I retrieved the phone from under a mountain of receipts, gum wrappers, grocery lists and stale candies escaped from their wrappers. I squinted blearily at the number, and determined that it was a dear friend’s. I called back.

It was not my friend who answered, but her husband. “I’m leaving Jane,” he announced. (Not her real name.)“Will you call the house again in ten minutes so that she has someone to talk to?

Huh? Evidently he wasn’t done destroying her world, and needed a few more minutes. 

The next day, he put my practically suicidal friend on a plane to come see me . . . evidently he didn’t want to deal with the fallout. Nice. 

Let me tell you, it is difficult to write romantic comedy when one has a raging, sobbing, suicidal man-hater in one’s guest bedroom. Yet these are sometimes the challenges of a romance writer’s life, since real men don’t always behave like heroes.

Here’s a sample. 

Friend: “I’m going to Bobbitt him!”

Me: “Oh. Um. Good idea . . . now where was I in that steamy sex scene? Noooo. It won’t work in the absence of a certain organ. And now all I can picture in my mind is a sort of bloody stump. Thank you, Jane. More wine?”

Friend: “Romance was invented to fool women into a lifetime of domestic slavery!”

Me, typing away: “Yes, indeed. I couldn’t agree more. Now . . . how am I going to structure this happily-ever-after scene? Dang. All I can see on the page is my formerly chic heroine, dressed like a slattern with hairy legs and pink foam curlers in her hair. She’s screaming like a fishwife at the hero while opening a can of spam. More chocolate, Jane?” 

Friend: I’m going to kill myself!

Me: “Give me that knife, Jane. I don’t mean to sound callous, but I have to write 15 pages today, and I simply don’t have time to clean gallons of  your blood off my kitchen floor. Do you know how hard it will be to get it out of the grout? And really, it will be very distracting if you haunt me during revisions . . .” 

Yes, I’m being facetious. No, I didn’t get any writing done during poor Jane’s visit. She’s doing better, by the way. And somehow I met my deadline—though I’m glad that I won’t be a fly on my editor’s computer when she reads the draft!

Karen Kendall   

 

That is to say, for us folks above the equator now settling into our hemisphere’s cooler months, thank goodness for the cold-weather clothes that camouflage seasonal overindulgence. Oh yeah, I’m starting early this year.

I’m an avid baker (of the fool-proof cookie, bread, and pie variety, not the delicate pastry or tidily iced cakes variety) and I’m thrilled it’s finally cold enough to fire up the oven…without also having to fire up the air conditioner. For the past week I’ve been on a banana bread kick, so I thought I’d share my super easy recipe with everyone. This recipe makes two loaves, for a total of 20 generous slices (or 40 more restrained ones). Takes about 15 minutes of prep work, and 50 minutes of baking time.

You’ll need:

1 rounded cup sugar
1 stick butter, softened
super-ripe bananas, 4 small or 3 large
2 eggs (cage-free organic if you want to go to heaven)
½ cup whole milk (or if you’re like me and never have milk in the house, mix 2:1 half-and-half plus water)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (or lemon extract, and swap the chocolate chips for slivered almonds—nom)
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
12 oz. package chocolate chips (optional, really, but delicious—also try cranberries, blueberries, raisins, nuts, etc.)

1. Move the rack to the low position and preheat your oven to 350°. Grease the bottoms of 2 loaf pans.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar and butter until smooth. I do it with a fork, but you could use an electric beater, too.

3. Add the peeled bananas, eggs, milk, and vanilla, and mix thoroughly.

4. Stir in the flour, salt, baking soda, and chocolate chips (not too thoroughly).

5. Split the batter between the 2 loaf pans and bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick or kebab skewer (or the tip of a sharp steak knife, if you, like me, don’t own toothpicks or kebab skewers) stuck in the center comes out clean.

6. Let cool 5 minutes. Run a butter knife along the sides of the pans, to loosen the loaves. Gently turn out the loaves and let them cool under a clean cloth for 30 minutes, then store any extra bread you don’t gorge yourself on in an air-tight container or plastic bag.

Enjoy! And happy fall.

Meg

Hey, it’s fall in Good Riddance, AK!  Well, okay, it’s not exactly as if that’s some news flash considering it’s fall everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.  LOL.  It’s definitely fall here in Georgia as well.  And that got me to think just what a different experience that is depending on where you happen to live.

Now for the folks in Good Riddance, Alaska, the days are already mighty short and there’s snow on the ground.  It’s a bit of a shock for Logan Jeffries when he travels from Atlanta, Georgia.  I mean, let’s get real, it’s gonna be eighty degrees here today — when he arrives in Good Riddance, there’s a blanket of white on everything.

Fall tends to invite baking and in Good Riddance Nancy Perkins is baking cookies and they’re a big hit.   Hope you enjoy Nancy’s molasses cookies recipe as much as the folks in town love them.

Molasses Cookies:

3/4 c butter

1 c brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 c molasses

2 1/2 c all purpose flour

1/2 to 1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp each cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice

White sugar

Cream butter and sugar.  Add egg and molasses and mix well.  Fold in dry ingredients.

If  it’s not too cold in Good Riddance I stick the bowl out on the front porch .  Otherwise, stick it in the fridge for an hour or so.

Pinch them off and roll in white sugar.  Bake at 350 for about 9 mins.  Let them rest on the pan for a few minutes when you take them out of the oven.  If  I can keep Leo out of them long enough, they’re a big hit over at Doctor Skye’s office and over at the airstrip office.

So…whether you’re baking cookies, going to apple festivals or still having cookouts because it’s 80 degrees outside, enjoy this lovely fall day.

Sorry for the downtime yesterday. The blog caught a bit of a cold and had to go to the doc to get a flu shot.
The issue was caught by Google and was flagged with a malware warning.
That issue was fixed. The warning, if you still see it this weekend, can be ignored.

We might have some issues with commenting for a day or two, so please be patient.

Thanks,
Walt

I recently had the joy of exploring some of Europe with my daughter. She did a semester in Spain at the University of Salamanca and convinced me to join her at the end of it. We visited Barcelona and then London, and had the BEST TIME EVER! We laid out on the pristine Barcelona beach, wandered through a Gaudi house (fabulous!), and then in London saw THE LION KING (breathtaking) and visited Rigby & Peller, the corsettier of the Queen. In case you’re wondering, there was nothing–and I do mean NOTHING–about the bra I was wearing that was fitted correctly. In fact, my saleswoman at the end convinced me to throw it into the rubbish bin saying, “The item has served. Badly, but it has served, so we honor it as it passes.” Then she tossed it into the garbage…er rubbish. My daughter’s went in right behind mine.

In any event, it was a fabulous vacation, but then a horrible thing happened: we came home. OMG, I’m supposed to start working again? Really? Why? And excuse me, what do you mean no one comes into my room during the day and magically cleans for me?

I tried all sorts of excuses to delay the inevitable pile of work. I had jet lag and needed to catch up on my tv shows or the DVR would explode. I had to do laundry, see some of my friends, drink coffee and maybe think about exercising again. (My first racquetball match coming back was DISMAL!) But in the end, I ran out of excuses. Then I ran out of easy busy work. Then I ran into–quite literally–my calendar. It was on my desk, and I tripped over a pile of books and…well, okay I FELL on it.

And on it, marked in bright red, were my book deadlines. OMG, time to get back to work. Instead, I’ve written this blog. So help me out! How do you force yourself back into work mode? I’m not talking about an email here, a blog there. I mean serious, 4000 words a day WORKING. Any secret tips for getting back into the right mind frame? Cause I haven’t got it. Not yet, at least. There was a time I worked six days a week because I was that disciplined. Right now? I’m thinking about getting a mani/pedi.

Help me! And the best suggestion will win a copy of my latest blaze: IN GOOD HANDS by Kathy Lyons

It’s been a loooooong time, baby, but I’m very excited to be writing for Blaze again! Way back in 2006, I had an idea for a series about several men in the same wedding party, which I called ‘All the Groom’s Men.’  As readers, we see a lot of stories about grooms and even best men . . . but what about the other sizzling hot guys in tuxedos, all waiting near the altar? This, it seemed to me, was a road not often taken.

So I put on my thinking cap—yes, I really do have one! It’s tie-dyed velvet and very goofy-looking—and I dreamed up some real guys’ guys who knew each other well and had supported each other through a lot of life’s ups and downs.

First there was Adam, a sexy medical student who’s already screwed up his life once for a girl, and will never do so again. Then there was Dev, a former rocker turned bar-owner who’s struggling with what loss of the spotlight has done to his identity. And finally Pete came strolling into mind, an account exec for a major luxury hotel whose job has made him too much of a yes-man.  

Though I write romantic comedies for Blaze, my editor insists on emotion and depth of character (go figure) and so I’m still in the process of understanding these men and what makes them tick. I’m revising and clarifying and weaving story threads through the manuscripts to the best of my ability. And it’s occurred to me that I’ve come full circle as a writer after all these years—not that I won’t go around again!

I’ve found that while revisions on my first few books struck terror, and occasionally resentment, into my heart, I now (sssshhhhhhhhh!) enjoy them. Revisions are cool. Revision means getting to flesh out the stick people in your manuscript. Or put clothing on the naked people. LOL.

Revisions allow you to paint in the background scenery if it’s missing, and move around the set pieces if you’ve left them in inconvenient places. They remind you that the difficult mother in one book is the helpful older sister in the previous book . . . and make you question what it is about her character that causes her to behave so differently with her daughter than with her sibling?

Finally, revisions allow an author on deadline to PLAY, instead of work. She’s freed up from the drudgery (just getting those black and white pages cranked out) and allowed to use crayons, stickers and glitter.

So imagine me, happily sitting cross-legged amid three-hundred or so  manuscript pages,  breaking out the paint-brushes and watercolors. I’m happy to be revising . . . and honestly overjoyed to be writing again after taking a break.

Karen Kendall

Vacation, wooo!

I’m typing this from my hotel room in Victoria, British Columbia, where the manfriend and I are spending three days of our otherwise Oregon-based vacation. Bonus: they overbooked the economy rooms so we got upgraded to the luxury suite for no extra charge! BLAM!

As a quick and long-awaited aside, I racked up a wholly-worth-it exorbitant roaming charge on my phone, taking a call from the most terrifying-slash-exciting area code there is: 416. Just as I’d been hoping for for the last couple months, it was my intrepid editor, Laura, calling from Toronto to offer a contract for my latest Blaze proposal! To say this was exciting is a gross understatement. To say it was a relief, coming thirteen long months and a few manuscripts that didn’t hit the mark, is laughably inadequate. When the call came through we were driving around the boonies near Sooke, southeast of Victoria, and my phone decided to cut out in the middle of the call, but I heard enough to keep breathing. I sold my second Blaze! I’m not a fluke!

Back to travel news. We’ve been enjoying most of the three-week trip in the Cascades region of Oregon, where my husband spent his childhood and formative years (not that he isn’t still forming). We passed our first day in Portland, staying with my sister-in-law, and got lost in the wonderful Powell’s bookstore for a few hours before retiring to her house to watch a truly abysmal film on TV that would explode any romance novel afficionado’s sense of all that is right and good: Stayin’ Alive, the 1983 sequel to Saturday Night Fever. I love me a cheesy, dance-centric movie, but I defy anyone to watch that one and explain its moral to me. Befuddling.

It’s been an adventurous visit so far. Between lazy jigsaw puzzling days and delicious family meals, we’ve gone on a half dozen hikes, including two overnight camping trips. Having grown up in Maine, I’m blown away that there are forests you can camp in without dying of massive blood loss to the mosquitos and blackflies in the night. What a concept! The first backpacking excursion took us four miles into the cedar-tastic Middle Santiam Wilderness, where we made camp at Pyramid Creek. Lovely falling asleep to the sound of the river. We had to wade through a far more formidable river to reach the inner trails, and on the way out, the water was so deep and cold my legs seized up halfway to the far bank. The manfriend had to wade back out and lead me the rest of the way. Very intrepid.

Back at my in-laws place, my stepdad-in-law taught me how to cast for flyfishing, which I spent two hours practicing, sans fly, in their driveway. Relaxing, the way that darts are relaxing. He’s a tough sensei, but he said I’d taken it to it better than expected. Maybe one day he’ll deign to take me to an actual river!

We’re greatly enjoying our side trip in Victoria…very romantic after two weeks of crashing at my in-laws’. We drove up through Washington and took the ferry, a pleasant and scenic hour and a half. Victoria reminds me a bit of one of my favorites places in the world, Wellington, New Zealand—sunny, bustling port city, only with spruces instead of palms. Bonus, this bird-nerd has been treated to multiple sightings of one of her favorite species—guillemots. We’re going to drive out and explore more of Vancouver Island tomorrow. Luckily few people have asked where we’re visiting from, and those who have didn’t seem to hold our Bostonian status against us. You never know. Hockey fans are passionate.

Off in search of a drink now; have to celebrate the new sale, of course. Hope wherever you are, life is treating you well!

Meg

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens;
Brown paper packages tied up with strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.

Thus goes the first verse to one of my favorite songs, My Favorite Things, a Rodgers and Hammerstein song from The Sound of Music.

I think we all stay so busy that we often forget about all the little things that make life grand. I mean, really, we’ve got budget deficits, gas prices out the yang, and don’t even get me started on the price of groceries. Some days you’ve got to dig pretty deep to remind yourself that there are still good things that in an instant can bring us pleasure and joy.

So, here are a few of my favorite things (however, they’re not going to rhyme :

A  very cold can of seltzer

My dog

The blue sky scattered with white clouds

A friend’s smile

My daughter’s hug

Sinking into a warm bubble bath

The feathering of a cool breeze against my skin on a hot day

Driving with the windows down and the music up

A walk/hike through the woods

If you will, take a few minutes to jot down your own list of favorite things.  Sometimes you just have to remind yourself that they’re there…and ain’t life grand after all.

Enjoy your day!

Each year, I try to plan a vacation that will be memorable for the entire family.  Last year, we flew out to Seattle and spent two weeks exploring the Olympic Peninsula and islands, even traveling to the town of Forks and staying in a cheesy, Twilight-themed motel room!  My teenaged girls loved it, even if my husband was less than thrilled with the black and red walls and posters of Jacob Black and Edward Cullen staring down at us. 

So this year, I tried to think of something that my husband would really enjoy, too.   He loves Irish history and our bookshelves are filled with books about the Picts and Celts and ancient kings of Ireland.  He comes from a proud Irish family that literally counts the days until St. Patrick’s Day, and I feel like we eat soda bread and Irish stew for the entire month of March.  But even more than Irish history and traditional Irish food, he loves Irish beer.  Murphy’s.  Guinness.  Smithwicks.  He isn’t partial.  So I think, what better place to go than Ireland?  

I love the movies Far and Away, and The Quiet Man, and after watching Falling for a Dancer, I knew I had to visit the Dingle Peninsula.  We’ll all enjoy the gorgeous scenery and while my guy explores the ancient passage tombs and ring-forts, the girls and I can stimulate the local economy by exploring the shops.  And then we can wrap up each day in some cozy pub with some traditional music and a pint of  local brew.  Sounds ideal, right?  Did I mention that we’re going with my parents? 

Seriously, when I first proposed that they join us, I wasn’t sure they would agree.  My mom hates to fly and both of them recently had some scary health issues that I wasn’t sure they would recover from.  But thanks to some wonderful doctors, they are both the picture of health and I’m really looking forward to spending this time together.   My mom and I planned the itinerary, which includes a week on the west coast and then four days in Dublin.  She wants to see the Book of Kells and my dad wants to tour the Guinness factory (I think they call it the Guinness Storehouse), which makes him a hero in my husband’s eyes.  My older daughter wants to see baby sheep (I don’t think that will be a problem) and my younger daughter wants to “meet a cute Irish boy.”  That could be a problem.   And for myself?  I just want to soak in the culture and beauty of the country and come back with some wonderful memories…and I wouldn’t say no to a few pieces of Irish pottery!

What about you?  Is there some place you’ve always wanted to go?  Who would you choose to go with you?  And if you’ve been to Ireland before, are there any sights that are must-sees while we’re there?  Comment here, and I’ll choose someone at random to receive a wee special gift from the Emerald Isle!   Slan go foill!

Hi, gang! I’m writing today from the Romance Writers of America Conference in New York City. This is always a fun and exciting time for writers, but this year is extra special since it’s the 10th Anniversary of Blaze.

So many Blaze writers (including me) were there from the beginning, and it’s hard to believe so many years have gone by. We’re having a big party on Friday afternoon, and I’m sure we’ll take tons of pictures, so I’ll try to stop by the blog that day and post some. (The hotel charges a ridiculous amount for Internet access, so I’m current using the one at the McDonalds in Times Square–crazy, huh?)

RWA always puts on a great conference. This morning’s opening session was a panel discussion with Steve Berry, Diana Gabaldon and Tess Gerritsen–a pretty stellar group, I’m sure you’ll agree. During the rest of the week we’ll have luncheon speakers Madeline Hunter and Sherrilyn Kenyon, then the hilarious Meg Cabot hosts the RITA Awards Ceremony (our version of the Oscars) on Friday night. Plus, all the Harlequin authors will get to see our editors, the executives and the amazing support staff who promote our books, design the covers and keep those great stories flying off the presses.

When we’re not in workshops or involved in discussion panels, we’re–naturally–shopping and eating. This is NYC, after all. I dropped waaayyy too much cash at Henri Bendel yesterday (if you’ve never heard of this shop, it’s the mecca of makeup and hip accessories), walked until my feet throbbed, then topped off the night with fish and chips, a Harp and my buds at an Irish pub. Doesn’t get much better than that in my world.

So, happy birthday, Blaze! We can’t wait for the next ten years!