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’m blogging today at Access Romance about my recent family vacation. But here, I thought I’d tell you about my girl time—the five-day summer party officially billed as the Romance Writers of America national conference but what I like to call my personal summer camp.

It’s so much fun to hang out with my romance writer friends and meet new readers every year. My good friend, Love Inspired author Renee Ryan, led the First Timers Orientation this year and she had a really fun analogy for a writer’s first time at RWA. She talked about the conference at large as the cool sorority and the other first timers were your pledge class. That each year you attend RWA, you look for your sisters who rushed along with you, cheering on their successes and commiserating on the bumps in the road. You share your journey with those folks, and it’s all the more fun for having a few BFFs around. Together, you become the cool sorority, squealing in the halls to see each other once a year at your personal summer camp. I loved that idea. To me, RWA is exactly like that.

Renee, for example, was in my pledge class. So was SIM author Beth Cornelison and Desire author Catherine Mann, my critique partner. Other classes close to me included Tanya Michaels, Winnie Griggs and Anna DeStefano, friends I seek out faithfully every year.

And we do more than just gab it up. We sign books to raise money that supports a literacy initiative. We teach workshops for aspiring writers to share what we know and attend workshops to learn from our peers. Oh, and we dance.

Summer camp isn’t summer camp without a glitzy party after all. The RITA and Golden Heart ceremony is our fun excuse to dress up and the publisher parties provide our opportunity to shake our collective groove thing. I’ve discovered Blaze authors Wendy Etherington and Jacquie D’Alessandro are just as committed to the dance floor as me, so I like to hunt them down once the music starts hopping.

I think every woman should have a summer camp – your personalized version of the sorority reunion. Whether it’s a handful of high school friends or the crowd from your book club, you owe yourself a retreat weekend to celebrate friendship and a common interest. Don’t have a big budget? You can tent it down by the lake for a night and share a few bottles of cheap champagne. I guarantee you’ll come home happier!

**You know what I’m talking about…. girlfriends speak a different language than our significant others! What’s been one of your favorite friend-dates? Ladies’ poker night? Neighborhood bunco? Chat with me on the boards today about fav ways to hang out with friends and I’ll give one random poster a signed copy of my August relese, Double Play.

I’ve spent the last few weeks covering the new American TV season for the day job. I spend about 18 hours a day while I’m in Los Angeles talking to the actors, writers and producers of all the new shows on network and cable channels. (I know, tough job but someone has to do it.) I thought it might be fun to tell you about some of the hot new guys hitting the networks this fall. Now, these aren’t my favorite shows, just pretty boys to share with you.

Lonestar (Fox): These pictures don’t do James Wolk justice. He’s honestly a cross between Cary Grant and George Clooney. His character on the show is charming, but not nearly as much as Wolk. I could eat him up.

Hawaii Five-O (CBS): Okay, so you know most of these guys from other shows, but now they are all together. Woot. From l-r Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim and Alex O’Loughlin, and the lovely woman in the bikini is Grace Park. (By the way, the show is way cooler than you would think.)

Blue Bloods (CBS): That Tom Selleck looks pretty awesome in a uniform. Will Estes and Donnie Walhberg also star, which means a little something for all of us.

Undercovers (NBC): It’s hard to find a man prettier than Boris Kodjoe, even with a little blood on him.

Outlaw (NBC): Dude it’s Jimmy Smits.

Outsourced (NBC): I have to admit I’m totally charmed by Ben Rappaport.

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

I’m not entirely certain what happened to the last two months. Is it just me or does summer seem to get shorter and shorter every year? My girls start school tomorrow and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m not ready. My weekend has been dominated by school supply hell. Our state is having a tax free weekend on all school supplies, clothes, shoes, etc. which means the stores are a zoo. And of course because of conference I waited to the last minute to prepare.

I made the mistake of taking the girls with me to do a little shopping and ended up spending way more than I’d anticipated. However, I am now the Best Mom Ever thanks to Justice. My living room looks like a Staples exploded and I think I have enough 2 pocket folders, notebooks and paper to have killed an entire forest. I searched all over town for Fiskar scissors and made in the USA pencils until I finally gave up and just bought the first package of plain old number 2 pencils I could find. I tried. Really, I did. But the teacher will just have to be okay with what they bring in.

My girls have new backpacks, lunch boxes and tennis shoes. They are now fashionably attired and my oldest even has an adorable purse she can take with her to school. Is anyone else in the middle of school supply hell with me?

Kira

To continue Rhonda’s theme from yesterday, I’ve returned from the RWA National Conference in Orlando where I also had fun at Harry Potter, but did not win any awards. However, I do have pictures.

The massive literacy signing that kicks off the conference raised over $55,000 in two hours. The authors are sitting alphabetically and since I’m an “M”, I took this picture from the middle. It shows just half the people. There’s an equal number behind me.

After a couple of days of workshops and meetings, we’re ready to party! Here I am at the Harlequin party with Geralyn Dawson. One of the food tables had candy apples with yummy sauces.

All too soon, I was back home and doing laundry.

When you return home after traveling, do you unpack immediately, or put it off until the next day—or week?

Well, I’ve only been back from conference for a few days, but I am still floating on air. I got to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter with Brenda Chin and friends. (That’s fellow Blazer Kira Sinclair with me and Brenda.) I rode the Forbidden Journey, got my wand–Lupin’s–had butterbeer (YUM!) went to Devish and Bangs, the Hog’s Head, The Three Broomsticks, Honeydukes and Zonko’s. I posted letters for my kids in Hogsmeade and basically made a giant nerd of myself. Ask me do I care?

<If that wasn't enough, I got my 25 book pin at the Harlequin party AND I won the National Readers' Choice Award in the Short Contemporary category for LETTTERS FROM HOME. Color me THRILLED. I was in excellent company with lots of friends and fellow Blaze babes and have no recollection of what I said when I went forward because I hadn't prepared anything. I was happy just to final, but have to admit that winning was especially nice.

AND I have a book out this month–THE RENEGADE–which I will happily send to five lucky commenters at the end of the day. Winners, look for the announcement in the comment tail. I'll use my wand.

So, what’s happening in your world?