Athletically, I was a late bloomer. Oh sure, I ran around and drove my mother nuts like most kids, but sadly, my Chinese mother thought girls should play violin not basketball. I was told to study math, not the perfect volleyball serve. Sure that helped me pass calculus, but did nothing for my body’s shape which has always tended toward plump.

Then at the ripe age of twenty-two, I discovered racquetball. It’s fast, it’s competitive, and best of all, I never had to go chase a ball anywhere. Since it’s played in an indoor court, the ball always rolls back to me. Oh, and girls can beat boys in racquetball. Maybe not at the pro levels. Men just have so much more power behind their swings than women do. But at my level? At my local fitness center? Heck yes! I could obliterate the guys and swagger off the court with the best of them. In fact, I do that on a regular basis (tee hee)!

So now I’m in my forties, and not at the low end, I might add. I’ve built a successful writing career, my kids are gone from the house, and I’m getting back into my favorite sport. This weekend (long over by the time you read this) I’ll be playing in a Pro racquetball tournament. I’ll be the slow woman with aching knees in the amateur division. The one they usually say has a lot of heart. Some will say grit. I don’t really care what they call me. And frankly, I’m not sure I care if I win. Okay, I do care, but as an older athlete it’s not really about winning. It’s about competing despite that extra 10 or 40 pounds. It’s about playing your hardest against someone else who is sweating and grunting as much as you are. And it’s about hanging out with people who love talking splats and roll outs and recounting that perfect serve.

Anyone else out there discover a sport in their less then prime years? Who plays in age divisions? And who loves beating the guys as much as I do? Tell me if you’re a player or a cheerer and one lucky commentor will win an early copy of my March blaze, IN GOOD HANDS. (And isn’t that a pretty cover!)

One night years ago, my fiancé had a huge project due at work that required a ton of data entry. Because I loved him, I agreed to help. We finally got it done at 2 a.m. when, flushed with elation, we realized that we were alone in a huge office building. And given that he worked in an electronics firm, my mind quickly danced through a zillion gadget and gizmo fantasies.

I will never tell what exactly happened that night, but suffice it to say that I had much more imagination than stamina. I will also confess that we did not resort to raiding the lab. Turns out there’s a lot you can do in an office that has nothing to do with high end electronics!

So there you have it. My deep, dark secret: I have office fantasies. Thankfully, I was able to put some of them to paper in Taking Care of Business, my November Blaze. It helps that I modeled my hero after my own special geek of a husband, a man with more integrity than sense, more heart than he-man. Hopefully you’ll fall in love with him as quickly as I did.

But before you rush out to buy my very own fantasy put to paper, tell me something naughty you did—or thought about doing—in an office and one lucky winner will get a copy of my earlier Blaze, Under His Spell.

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.

My must-read-NOW pile has gotten out of control.  I’m not talking about my to-be-read pile.  No, we’re ignoring the floor to ceiling stacks (really.  I’m not lying here) of paperbacks found my bedroom, office, and two bathrooms.  Those are books that I picked up because they looked interesting, or someone gave them to me, or I got them at conference for one reason or another.  And I’m definitely not talking about the three boxes of books that I haven’t yet unpacked from the Romantic Times conference last month.  (Or the two more from last year’s RWA).  No, I’m talking about the books that I’m dying to read.  So much so that I start salivating whenever I think about them.

First off, I’m a finalist judge in the RITA awards.  I’m judging the regency era historicals and you can see the list here.  There’s not a book on that list that isn’t good, if not excellent.  I’m enjoying reading them, and I’m not done yet.  They’re due soon, so I must read them now.

Next is Jim Butcher’s Changes  which I bought in hardcover and has been taunting me for a month now.  It’s one of his Dresden books, and I love the series!  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Love it, love it, love it!  I’ve even bought all the Dresden comics.  But I can’t read it until I finish the RITA books.

Also up there tied with Dresden, is PC and Kristin Cast’s book Burned  which is right now burning a hole into my Kindle until I can read it.  I love the House of Night books, and this is from a woman who really doesn’t get into vampire books.  This is a great series!

Okay, now it’s your turn.  Tell me what you’re dying to read.  It’s okay if it’s not out yet.  Double bonus if it’s one of my books (either by Kathy Lyons or Jade Lee)!  And one lucky commentor will get a copy of my very first Kathy Lyons book, Under His Spell!

  I love conferencing. I’m the rare person who is both a writer and an EXTROVERT! And yes, I’m the kind of extrovert you put in capitol letters. I’m just that loud and (hopefully) that fun. Right now, I’m in Chicago for their Spring Fling conference.  Then starting Monday morning, I’m going to be in Ohio for the Romantic Times Convention.  I love meeting people-fans, booksellers, random people in elevators-they’re all just part of my world wide playground. But that’s me.

What if you’re one of the more typical SHY writers? It’s hard to make the NY connection if you (a) can’t afford a convention, (b) haven’t the time for a convention, and/or ( c) end up staring at your shoes in anxiety. Don’t hear me criticizing you. Some very big NY Times bestsellers still struggle with being shy. They’d much prefer to hang out at home and write.

Well, Harlequin Historical has started a program just for you! Here’s the link: Editor Pitch  It’s for virtual pitches. Yes, you too can connect with an editor without showering or changing out of your jammies! There are specific rules which should be adhered to closely. But prospective HH authors submit a two-paragraph blurb and then must be available to pitch in an on-line chat at the specified time. This is especially cool because Harlequin Historicals is based in England. So any US, Australian, or wherever else writers can connect without an overseas flight.

Okay, it’s now time for you to dish. Tell me your embarrassment woes or lack thereof. I’ll confess that I have indeed been THAT author that followed an editor into the bathroom. But in my defense, we were talking from a workshop and just kept going into the bathroom. Still, looking back, it was really tacky of me.

One lucky commenter will win an Are you a Tigress tee shirt?!

And don’t forget! My Blaze UNDER HIS SPELL is in stores now!