Hey, everyone! Happy… Dear God, mid-November? When did that happen?

I know it’s a bit premature, but I’ve been thinking about goals for the new year. Goals have been on my mind all through 2011, since I’ve been doing all those ridiculous monthly Lent experiments, and while I don’t want to do anything as intensive and constant as Discipline Year again any time soon, I am still very much pro-goal. So what to aim for, in 2012? Some aims are obvious; write and sell as many books as I can. Stay healthy. Learn when to step away from the keyboard. And between July (no sugar) and this month, alcohol-free Novembooze, I’m eager to keep eliminating sugar from my diet (if anyone else shares that mission, I can’t recommend this lecture enough as motivation). But here are some more measurable, targeted goals I’ve been kicking around:

1. Read more. I’d like to read one hundred books in 2012. That’s two a week, and I know to some of you voracious types, that’s laughable. You could read a hundred books by April, I bet! But in the past few years, since becoming a writer, my fiction-reading skills have taken a battering. Every book I open up turns into a lesson. Not drudgery, not homework, but I’m so semi-consciously preoccupied with seeing how other authors put their words and stories together, it takes me ages to read, now. I’d love to relearn how to read quickly, nuts to turning the act into a learning experience. So, a hundred books in a year. That’s my first goal.

2. Cook new things. My vegetarian month, Meat-Free May, and our participation in a farm-share program (we get a box of fresh, local, seasonal vegetables every week) have reminded how much fun it is to try new recipes. I’d like to try a new recipe once a week in the new year, to keep my modest culinary repertoire expanding…and to make grocery shopping a bit more adventurous.

3. Run ten miles. I used to hate running. But in the last decade it’s gone from torture to chore to routine to something I even look forward to, some days. But I’ve yet to run farther than five and a half miles without stopping, and most days I go about three. I’d love to be able to say I ran ten miles, even just once, just to know I can do it. I’m going to aim to reach that goal by my birthday (May 2), with a little help from a renewed YMCA membership once the weather here turns inhospitable. Which could be any second now. [checks watch]

4. Land an agent. I really need to get off my butt and do this! It’s a scary goal, because of all the ones I’ve listed, it’s the one whose success is ultimately out of my hands. I can try and try and try, but I could still fall short. But that’s a stupid reason to not try, so come January, I’m an author on a mission!

So those are my goals. I think 2012 is going to be an exciting year! I’ll be attending my first Romantic Times Booklovers’ Convention in April, and those folks actually just nominated Caught on Camera for an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, for best series debut. Pretty cool. So cool, in fact, let’s do a contest! Tell me a goal you have in mind for the new year, and I’ll pick a commenter at random to win a paperback copy of Caught on Camera (or if you’ve already read it and you’re patient, I promise I’ll mail you a copy of my next Blaze, once it’s published). I’ll even make the contest international, so go ahead—tell me what you hope to accomplish in 2012! I’ll pick a winner on Sunday, around noon, EST, and announce it here in the comments.

Take care! Can’t wait to hear what your goals are.

Meg

I was going to do a blog about Halloween candy and that I don’t have kids at home anymore. (Sniff) Which means I can’t steal their candy anymore. (Waaahhhh!) But I’ve got a bigger dilemma on my hands.

For about 8 years, we’ve lived happily with two cats – a boy and a girl. Sadly, the boy is gone now. He went out one day (I have indoor/outdoor cats) and never came home. I’m pretty sure he’s never coming back. And yes, I have cried some big tears over that.

But now I’m left with a petite girl cat named Tali who may be small, but she’s quite the huntress. She’s 10 years old now (or is it 11?) And maybe she’s lonely without the other cat. She’s certainly been more loving and a whole lot more demanding. But I don’t know about introducing a new kitten into the house.

The primary problem is that I travel a LOT. So I can’t sit at home and make sure new kitty knows about litter boxes and the like. But on the other hand, Tali will probably be very lonely without us at home when we do travel. And of course, the worst case scenario is if the new kitty and the old one do NOT get along. OMG, that would be AWFUL!

So…give me advice, give me stories! Have you managed to introduce a new cat to an old one? Was it okay or a disaster? Tell me, tell me! I’m dreaming about new kittens almost every night. (Apparently, I want a new kitty). Anyway, one random commentor will get a copy of my newest blaze In Good Hands by Kathy Lyons.

Hey everyone! It’s been a while since I posted on this blog, but with Witness Seduction on this month’s Blaze lineup, I knew I had to pop in and say hi–and hold a little contest while I’m at it…

I’ve gotta admit, WS was a tough one to write. The hero, Caleb Ford, is an undercover agent whose libido goes haywire when he’s ordered to stakeout Marley Kindcaid’s house. He’s totally lusting over the cute blonde, but he can’t tell her who he really is…and that’s where the tough part came for me, as a writer. Lying sucks. I hate being lied to. So how on earth was I going to make readers fall in love with a hero who’s holding out on the truth?

In the end, I think Caleb’s conflict was one of the strongest I’ve ever had in a hero. And yup, lying or not, I ended up absolutely loving the guy!! So here’s hoping that readers will love and forgive him just like I did.

To celebrate this release, I’m giving away a free copy of Witness Seduction today! Just leave a comment and let me know how you feel about heroes who aren’t being entirely honest… I’ll post the winner in the comments section tomorrow morning, so check back to see if you won!

Elle

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! With my name and freckles, it’d be irresponsible not to mention the holiday. And with my Blaze debut just around the corner, I’d be negligent not to run a little contest and invite you all to try your own luck at scoring a paperback copy of Caught on Camera!

My April Blaze is chock full of luck…much of it bad luck. The story is about an Australian hot-shot TV survival show host, Ty, and his long-suffering production assistant, Kate, lost in the snowy wilds of Saskatchewan following an ill-fated dogsled crash. But they aren’t just boss-and-assistant, traveling companions, and professional partners—they’re also best friends with two-plus years of repressed sexual attraction, sizzling enough to melt all that snow.

For more information about the book, click here. And if you’re interested in a chance to win a copy, just leave a comment on the topic of luck, and I’ll select a random winner (maybe two) at 2pm EST on Sunday, and announce it in an addendum to this post.

Good luck, and enjoy your St. Paddy’s Day!

Sláinte,

Meg

Addendum!

Winner time! Thanks to everyone who participated! I decided to pick two winners, and selected them at random with the help of random.org. They are (drumroll) …

Summer and Laney4!

I will do my best to sleuth out your e-mails and get in touch soon for your mailing addresses. If you don’t hear from me by Tuesday, e-mail me at meg (at) megmaguire (dot) com.

Thanks, everyone!

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.

When the time comes for my next blog here my book will be off the shelves to make room for April’s Blazes. It’s been lovely to wander into bookstores, grocery stores and even drugstores to sign the copies of Possessing Morgan.

In one drugstore the Customer Service clerk I spoke with thought I was saying that I was the model on the cover! Ahem, I’ve never been brunette and it’s quite awhile since I could be mistaken for twenty-five. The poor woman looked like she was about to call for security when I pointed at my name and said, “No, I’m not the model. I wrote this book.”

In another store I had the Assistant Manager ask me for identification. Luckily I had my business cards with me. My comment to her was, “Hey, if I were going to impersonate a writer, it would be a famous one…not me!”

I guess I’ve gotten used to signing books in my local bookstore chain where they know me and my books. Having Possessing Morgan all over town has been a joy. My friends have seen it and reported sightings in other places, too. It came out in audio format right away and a reader emailed to let me know she’d found it at www.audible.com How cool is that?

I’ve also been garnering reviews from other sites on the web as well.

Harriet Klausner gave the book 4 stars and says: “This is an exhilarating romantic suspense although the thriller elements take a backseat (figuratively not literally) to the growing love between the lead couple. Morgan with her history and her current occupation brings the freshness to this fun brisk tale.”

And from Night Owl Romance’s Diana Coyle: . . . “All I can say is this story was HOT! I’m pretty certain steam was coming off the pages as I was reading them. Morgan and Mac were fantastic together and their chemistry was sizzling. I couldn’t put this story down and once you start reading it, I assure you you’ll feel the same way. Ms. Edwards created fun characters and a great storyline that will pull you in quickly and leaving you panting for more. I would highly recommend this story to other readers!

Diana gave Possessing Morgan a 4 out of 5 rating which Night Owl says is “a page turner”. A lovely ranking!

I’ve had a wonderful month! Spring’s in the air, my Blaze is still on shelves for another few days. Because I’m feeling a touch of Spring fever I’m giving away 1 copy of Possessing Morgan for the best “miscommunication” story we get here today.

I’ll post the winner at around 8 p.m. Eastern. So, what’s your story? Where has a conversation gone wrong for you? (Seriously, that clerk looked desperate for help – ack! A lunatic thinks she’s a gorgeous 20 something romance cover model – I’m still chuckling!)

Last week, my husband and I went on a cruise to San Juan, Puerto Rico, Grand Turk, St. Thomas, and the Bahamas. That’s me on the left, swathed heavily against the sun. Unfortunately, that is not my husband on the right. Nevertheless, I had a great time. I had hoped to go kayaking and be able to trade stories with the intrepid Blaze Senior Editor, Brenda Chin, but it was not to be. Instead, I toured del Morro, annoyed iguanas, shopped in St. Thomas, and made friends on the beach (see left). I handled an alligator and went on a pub crawl–and I won the toasting contest with this limerick:

There were two couples from Texas
Who could have been driving a Lexus
But they went on a cruise
And are enjoying the booze
And afterward hope they’re not exes.

My prize was a lovely key chain.

The fact that I was on a pub crawl at all is solely due to the Blaze influence. Blaze heroines are confident and go after what they want. Their attitude has begun to rub off on me. Would a Blaze heroine sit around moping about her cancelled kayaking trip? Absolutely not, and neither did I. And now I have a new key chain and a new friend! (see above)

While I was cavorting in the Caribbean, did I forget the Blaze Blog readers? Why no! Straight from St. Thomas is a lovely, dainty, sterling silver Larimar necklace that a lucky blog commenter will win. Larimar, or blue pectolite, is found only in the Caribbean and is the result of lava merging with copper. The more times you comment, the better your chances of winning. On Sunday night, I’m going to ask the girl next door to draw a number and will post the winner on Monday morning.

I don’t know my new friend’s name since I, er, didn’t bother asking. It didn’t seem important at the time. What shall we call him?

In the last 18 months or so, I have had the chance to write three Blaze short forms, novellas. I’ve found, as a person, I like both long and short projects for different reasons. For instance, when it comes to sewing, I make large quilts than can take me a year to finish (or more), and those are really wonderful to see come together, but I also love to make bags and small projects I can finish in a day, because I get the immediate gratification, and I learn a different set of skills. It works the same with writing.

I have an online read (which I believe starts on Aug 17 on eHarlequin — the title is Caught by Surprise and it’s a linked story to my October “Dressed to Thrill” Blaze, Caught in the Act), and my other two novellas are anthology books, my story “No Reservations” which came out last July in the What I Did On My Summer Vacation collection, and my upcoming 2010 Bedtime Stories two-fer. All of these novellas were different lengths, different formats, and from them I get that same short-term, immediate gratification blast that I get from any other short project — it’s a brief, intense experience that teaches you a lot about focus and pacing in a whole different way than writing a full novel. I also learn to be flexible in my story telling, to break out of the well-worn lessons we learn in writing long contemporary.

I love writing the short form, though I know some people find it more difficult. But I also love subplots, and I suppose those are a kind of short format, as well. I think I’ve brought some of that focus and speed that a short-form teaches you back to my regular book writing. I hope so, anyway. I find the expansiveness of the longer book a much bigger challenge. In a long book I need to dig deep and pull out a lot of layers, an experience that I find satisfying in a different way, like mining for gold. But it can be stressful, and stressful over a longer period of time. Still, I think writing shorter format has taught me how to get into stories faster and how to hit a level of intensity in a more focused way, and I think that will make writing longer books more interesting as well.

As a reader, I tend to like full-length books over anthologies or serials. I don’t even like short chapters — I never understood how people enjoyed The DaVinci Code because it was so chopped up for me, all those one or two page chapters, it drove me batty. I didn’t feel like I could get into it, like having commercial breaks every 3 pages. I like the feeling, as a reader, of really soaking up a story and staying in there for a while, and shorts never let me do that. However, though now that I’ve discovered how much fun they are to write, I think I will go get some anthologies and read some novellas b/c I have a feeling I would read them differently now, too.

How about you? Reader or writer, long or short, or both? What are the benefits and downsides for each? Share, and for those of you following me long in my blog tour, this post counts to qualify you in my contest to win a handmade bag and signed books (details at ). Even if you missed my initial post, it’s not too late to join the tour starting with this blog, so I hope you’ll hop on and follow me through June blogging.

Sam

In honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to give away some books!

My Harlequin Blaze, UNDERNEATH IT ALL, features a heroine who has moved cross-country to track down her birth mother. I can’t think of a more suitable story line for this special day, so I’ve got three copies to give away to bloggers today. All you need to do is post in the comments your answer to this question:

What is one trait you appreciate about your mother?

Winners will be announced here in the comments tomorrow so be sure to check back.

And to those of you celebrating this day, Happy Mother’s Day!

Welcome to the Blaze Blog! To celebrate the launch of the blog, we’re kicking off with a HUGE contest!
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