Still More Katrina

Note—I'll be updating this post throughout the day as I uncover new information about relief efforts for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Check back often.

Once again, Instapundit has the links.

al.com has also put together a list of links for relief efforts.

And don't forget the FEMA list I linked to yesterday.

A warning, by the way—e-mail scams have already begun. Just know that legitimate charitable organizations aren't e-mailing you to solicit your donation. Scammers can be very sophisticated, putting up what look like reputable websites for donation funds. Stick either with the charities you normally give to, the charities recommended by reputable organizations like FEMA, or help individuals that you personally know are affected by the devastation.

Speaking of which, I'm getting news trickling in about romance writers affected by the hurricane:

Writer Larissa Ione lost her home. Some friends have started a fund-raising drive for her: http://www.writemindedblog.com/?p=137 Please help if you can.

Delores Fossen was also affected by the hurricane and has asked for everyone's prayers.

Kelley St. John has family affected by the storm, but she's personally okay. She also mentions that in the Alabama town where she lives, the local school is opening their gym at night to the refugees so their kids can have somewhere to run and play. They're also giving them free admission to the high school football game over the weekend and free meals at the concession stand. It's a small thing, but sometimes in situations like this, those small things mean a lot to a family who's lost everything. If you have refugees in your area and you have contacts with schools or local governments, give someone a call and see if your town can't do a little extra to help out the affected people sheltering in your area.

Vicki Hinze has a Hurricane Check In page for writers in the affected areas. If you're in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana or Florida, drop her an e-mail so she can put your name on the list so others who might be worried about you will know you're safe.

I'm personally looking for information about my friend Giselle Carmichael, a writer who lives in Biloxi. If anyone has heard from her, please let me know. I'm worried about her.

UPDATE:

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity is collecting eyeglasses and disposable contact lenses for people affected by the hurricane. You forget how every tiny part of a person's life is changed when disaster hits. This particular relief drive is a vivid reminder.

UPDATE TWO:

Following are a few news stories of interest:

The BIRMINGHAM NEWS is reporting that Jefferson County is opening up some hospital and nursing home facilities to take in refugees with medical problems.

There's also a B'HAM NEWS report on some Birmingham doctors helping a New Orleans hospital evacuate premature babies to Birmingham facilities.

Also, Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama is offering lodging at all 22 Alabama State Parks to refugees of the hurricane. Several of these parks have very nice, motel-like facilities as well as camping areas for people with access to that sort of gear. The linked press release tells people what to do to take advantage of this offer of temporary housing--basically, FEMA is coordinating the effort. I suspect this is going on in other states surrounding the affected areas.

UPDATE THREE:

National Review Online has good advice from Karen Woods of the Acton Institute about complex needs verses simple needs in a time of crisis.

UPDATE FOUR:

Don't forget the animals! Here are some links to organizations helping with pet rescue:

Humane Society
Houston SPCA
Humane Society of Northwest Louisiana
Noah's Wish

Plus, Petco stores are asking customers to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar, and all the extra money will go to the Petco Foundation to aid in their animal rescue efforts.

One organization I do not recommend sending any money to—ever— is PETA, for reasons I've outlined in the past.

More Katrina

Displaced blogger Wizbang has a few ideas about some specific, helpful things bloggers can do to help with the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. I don't know the answers to any of his questions, but maybe some of you will.

Don't forget Instapundit is gathering up links to reputable relief organizations. He's updating frequently. (I can personally vouch for the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief agencies, having worked with them here in Alabama on holiday meals for the homeless).

And for more immediate, on scene blogging, the Times Picayune staff updates frequently.

Craigslist New Orleans has set up a lost and found site for people trying to find their family, friends and loved ones. There's also a missing persons site here.

UPDATE:

Blog giant Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has picked up on Hugh Hewitt's suggestion that bloggers pick a day for concerted blogging in support of Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts. Glenn suggested Thursday, Sept. 1st, to give bloggers time to organize their efforts.

I challenge other writer blogs to get on board for this effort. When you blog tomorrow, take time to remind people of the need and give them links to reputable relief organizations that can help (check Instapundit's list for a place to start).

Also, FEMA has posted a list of recommended relief organizations.

Wretched Katrina

It's been hard for me to concentrate on anything over the past few days because of the hurricane that slammed Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I feel extremely lucky that we lost power for only a few minutes; I have neighbors with trees in their yards and in one situation, on their house. By the time I went to bed last night, over 600,000 people in Alabama were in the dark.

But nothing compares to what's happening in Mississippi and New Orleans. Large swaths of coastal communities in Mississippi are nothing but rubble and matchsticks. In New Orleans, things are only getting worse by the minute as the levees fail and the water rises.

When this is over, we may be staggered by the loss of life. It will be hard to fathom, and for the people directly affected, very hard to overcome.

In days to come, there'll be time to glean lessons from what happened and what steps we need to take to make sure we lessen the loss of life next time. For today, however, I'll just encourage those of you who believe in the power of prayer to pray for those affected and those who will be affected in days to come. And for all of us who can, donations to organizations like the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross and other reputable agencies like Southern Baptist Disaster Relief or similar relief efforts are an excellent way to put a little muscle behind our concerns and good thoughts.

UPDATE:

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has compiled an excellent list of disaster relief organizations who could use your financial support.

Die, SPAM, Die!

I've been getting some SPAM in my comments, so henceforward, I'm using a word verification system (where you have to retype a given word to prove that you're a human and not a spambot) to kill off some of the SPAM. We'll see how it goes. I know it's a hassle, but I hope it won't stop people from commenting. If it does, I may go back to the open system and just delete the SPAM as it pops up.

It's Official

FORBIDDEN TERRITORY has been approved as the title for my June '06 Intrigue.

I can't believe I just typed that. ;)

The dreaded Art Fact Sheet has gone to the editor, and I'm about a third of the way through my revisions (with the bulk of the revisions being in the first half of the book), so I'm feeling just a little bit more like a published author with every day that passes.

Revision-o-rama

Just got finished with an afternoon brainstorming session with my friend Jenn. I think we've worked through the details of how I'm going to do the big-picture revisions my editor asked for. It's just a matter of doing them now.

I'm finding the whole process both exciting and alarming. I really love the changes I'm making to the manuscript; I think it's going to take the book from pretty good to compelling and increase my Romantic Times review score by at least a star. ;) At the same time, I'm making so many fairly radical changes to the book that I have to wonder why my editor ever bought it in the first place! Whole characters have been dropped and added, whole scenes deleted or shuffled--including my favorite kiss scene in the book.

I wonder if I'm taking my changes TOO far and deleting the very things she loved about the book in the first place.

But I do think the book is going to be better when I'm finished, and I guess I have to trust that my editor will think so, too.

Go, Sharie!

My e-mail buddy Sharie Kohler, who's finaled in a bunch of contests with me (usually she finaled in the paranormal category), just sold her first book in two-book deal to Avon! Congratulations, Sharie!

A Little Afternoon Cat Blogging

I've always wanted to cat blog, but I never got around to scanning my photos of my cats.

Until now.

The following three photos are of my old cats, taken when they were considerably younger (by probably a decade or more).



This is Samantha, about age one. She's fourteen now. She's gorgeous, but she's got a prickly attitude and a bad habit of hacking up hairballs on my sofa. She can be a big sweetie when she wants to, though.




Tess is fifteen now. She was probably two here. Tess was a rescue from the place where I worked several years ago. A feral mother cat kept having kittens behind the house that served as our office. I trapped three kittens; one died within a couple of days of distemper, another ran away when he was a little under a year old (probably heard me talking about having him neutered), and Tess is the only one left. I've tamed other feral kittens, but for whatever reason, Tess never fully tamed. My mother's had a lot more luck with her than I have, actually. Tess lets my mother manhandle her like she's a sack of grain, but she gets skittish and jumps down from my lap if I so much as flex a muscle.



This is Chunk. Best. Cat. Ever. She was three in this photo; she's sixteen now. I adopted her from an animal adoption place not far from where I worked at the time, right after a stray kitten I'd rescued had to be euthanized because of feline leukemia. Chunk was about six weeks old, a fat little lump of a kitten with a sweet disposition. I called her Chunk as a temporary name until I could find the right one for her. Turned out Chunk was the right name. She was always a heavy cat, but in the past few years, she's shed a lot of weight because of a thyroid condition. We had surgery done to remove the most diseased gland, but the other one has gone bad on her now, so we're keeping her thyroid levels regulated with medication now.

Chunk loves drinking water from a running tap, lazing around the back deck pretending she's the queen of the world and ingratiating herself with anyone who glances her way. She's sweet natured, good with other animals and with children, and the loudest purrer I've ever heard. Love that old cat.

How Do They Ever Get Covers Wrong?

I'm trying to fill out the Art Fact Sheet for my book (it's the sheet they use to help the artist design the cover), and I've never seen so many questions in my life. They practically want to know what toothpaste my heroine uses! It's much more confusing than I imagined.

And, of course, being me, I'm drawing a blank under pressure. What IS the theme of my book? What's my hook? What kind of scene would be representative of my story? I'm a graphic designer, for pity's sake--this should come so easily! I should be able to practically sketch them out a mock-up. And yet, here I sit, completely at a loss about what my book should look like.

Tell me I'm not the only writer this ever happens to.

Okay, Computer Didn't Crash

I couldn't get it to turn on the other day, after the brownout, so I assumed the motherboard had gotten zapped just like it did the last time. But I happened to be in the room where the computer was this evening, and, what do you know? The computer was on. So I'm up and running at home again.

Got my revision letter from Intrigue. Somehow, seeing it in writing wasn't as daunting as hearing it over the phone, but I do have a good bit of work to do between now and my deadline.

I had a fun day today--my friend Kris Robinette and I went to the Heart of Dixie chapter meeting. We're both members of HOD, but living as we do in the Birmingham area, we don't make the HOD meetings as often as we make the Southern Magic chapter meetings. But it was great seeing all my north Alabama pals and getting hugs of congratulations from the writers who were among my earliest cheerleaders--Beverly Barton, Linda Howard, Linda Winstead Jones, Sabrah Agee and Bonnie Gardner--as well as new friends including Deb Webb and Kate Lyon. These talented writers have been an inspiration to me over the years, and it was wonderful to be able to share my good news with them and see how happy they are for me. The Alabama writers in the two chapters I belong to are amazing, talented and generous women, and I'm so blessed to know them.

Computer Crash

Over the weekend, I had a bit of a computer crash. I'm pretty sure I didn't lose any data, but the motherboard got zapped by a brownout. So if anyone e-mailed me over the weekend and I haven't responded, please know that I'm not ignoring you. It's just that any e-mail I downloaded before the computer got zapped is trapped on my powerless desktop computer until I get the motherboard replaced.

(And this time, I'm going to get a good surge protector, darn it).

Newly Revamped Website

So, since I agreed to the terms of my first sale, I guess I'm now more or less officially an author, not just a writer. ;) In honor of agreeing to the sale, I radically revamped my website to make it more an author's website and less an aspiring writer's website.

For one thing, I was getting tired of the all black background I had on the other site, and of course, I needed to revamp my books page so that it included only the book that has sold (although I hope to be adding to that list before long!)

But is the change too much? Is the page now to bright and peppy for a romantic suspense author's page? Also, do I have missing links or pics?

Tell me what y'all think.

RWA Conference Awards Controversy and the Bigger Picture

I didn't attend the RWA National Conference in Reno, didn't attend the Golden Heart and Rita Awards, and therefore all of my information on the brewing controversy is strictly second and third hand. For the best rundowns of the situation I've found, I suggest you look here and here.

However, I would like to address something that bothered me as I read over the various accounts of what sounds to be a perfectly awful awards ceremony, regardless of your political persuasion. And that's the vilification of conservative-leaning writers in the comments I read.

Granted, it sounds like someone used very poor judgment in setting up the award presentation, but I've seen terms thrown about such as "Reich Wing" (obviously to describe conservatives of any ilk) and "cabal"—with all its nefarious undertones—used to describe RWA members who have reservations about whether or not RWA's definition of romance should be so elastic as to include stories that are not traditionally considered romances (such as romances with multiple partners, sometimes at the same time).

At the risk of tarring myself with the Reich Wing cabal brush, I don't think that having reservations of that sort is wrong. At some point, an organization has to define itself to have any meaning at all, and sometimes, defining oneself means putting limitations on what's acceptable within the confines of the organization.

This doesn't mean I think romantica or even erotica should be censored (except where it causes explicit harm, such as pedophilia). It doesn't even mean that I have yet come down on one side or the other. All it means is that I don't find it unreasonable to question whether romantica and erotica should be defined as romance if they steps outside the traditional monogamous, happily-ending relationship.

It's not fascistic to think that way.

Nor do I think that people who have reservations about the inclusion of certain types of stories under the umbrella of "romance" should just shut up and sit down without expressing those opinions. Do we believe in free speech or not? Because if we do, then the so-called Reich Wingers have just as much a right to express their opinions and work to implement their ideas as people on the opposite side of the question, and calling them names for doing so is, in my opinion, childish and distinctly unhelpful in framing the debate.

We have some difficult issues to face in RWA over the coming months and years. I think we'd all do well to take a deep breath and listen to each others' perfectly reasonable concerns and stop the namecalling.

And that goes for people on both sides of the issues.

It's the Little Things

I know over the course of my writing career, I've daydreamed about what it would be like to finally get The Call. I've even planned for it, reading all the "what to do when you get the call" articles on the RWA website and trying to commit the finer points to memory. But what has struck me over the past few days is how The Call is only the jumping off point of a million little shivers of realization you experience once you've gotten the offer on your first book.

When I announced The Call on the eHarlequin Intrigue message board, author Julie Miller said, "Welcome to Intrigue." And I realized in a way, I HAD joined a pretty exclusive club of writers whose work I adore. ::shiver::

Then, talking to a friend yesterday, I realized I could soon join the Harlequin/Silhouette e-mail loop with a bunch of writers whose books I've been reading for years. ::shiver::

I downloaded RWA's PAN provisional membership application from the website yesterday, in anticipation of that moment when I finally sign the contract and qualify. ::shiver::

Today, I realized that when I make revisions to my local RWA chapter's brochure for our upcoming Reader's Luncheon in November, I get to add my own name to the list of attending authors. ::shiver::

I can't even imagine what it's going to feel like to see my first book cover or see my first book or have my first booksigning! ;)

THE CALL

I can't believe I'm finally writing those words.

Harlequin Intrigue has made an offer for my 2004 Golden Heart finalist, WHAT THE HEART SEES.

I'm sneaking this in at work, and I promise I'll have more details later!

UPDATE:

Okay, I'm home now, I've had my dinner (what I could eat before my stomach said it was too excited for shrimp and fried green tomatoes at the moment, thankyouverymuch), and I'll see if I can remember anything from the call.

First, the call didn't come as a complete surprise. The thing that came as a complete surprise was the e-mail from Allison Lyons, telling me the phone number she had wasn't working and could I e-mail her an alternate number, pretty please?

After I freaked out for a second, I quickly jotted back an e-mail with my work number and my other home number (the business line I'd gotten a few months ago went out a couple of days ago and I haven't had time to get it fixed, wouldn't you know???) So I send the e-mail and begin a major freak out. I emailed my friend Kris Robinette (SIM and Next author) to tell her I'd gotten the e-mail and oh my gosh, what did it mean??? I also IMed my critique buddy Jenn, who lives in New Jersey, and asked her, oh my gosh, what does it mean??? Unfortunately, she was apparently away from the keyboard because she didn't reply, which was very frustrating, let me tell you!

About fifteen minutes later, the phone rings. My co-worker buzzes through and says, "It's Allison Lyons for you." So I take a deep breath, answer, and pretty much the rest of it is a blur, although I remember the words "revisions." (Of course). I was too frazzled to go over the details with her this afternoon, and she's going out of town or something and won't be back until Monday, so she's going to call me Monday to go over everything in more details.

At that point, I go back to the IM (where Jenn still hasn't responded) and type:

OH. MY. GOD.

Allison Lyons at Intrigue wants to buy WHAT THE HEART
SEES!!!!!

Fortunately for my blood pressure, she IMed me back in a few seconds and we had a cyberscream of joy together. Then she had to leave work (she's in New Jersey and an hour ahead) so I checked e-mail to see if Kris had responded. She had, with the subject line: COLD CHILLS. She gave me her cell phone number (which was good, because she's moved and I wasn't sure I had her current number). So I called her and we had a big happy throwdown party on the phone for a few minutes. Then she had to go and I had to try to track down my mother, who took my nieces to Gulf Shores for the next four days.

I finally got a hold of her when I got home from work, and she and I had a nice tandem scream before she had to go because they were heading to the beach or something.

So, that's what my afternoon was like. ;)

Anti-Book of your Heart

Ever had one of those? A book you wrote, one that even gets some accolades and attention from editors, but you just don't much care what happens to it?

CODE NAME: WILLOW was that book for me. I spent the better part of two years on that book (and it actually spanned more years than that, since it sat languishing, about 1/3 written, for several years). I put in a lot of blood, sweat, tears, cursing and hair-pulling on the book just to get it finished and revised to the point that my critique partner didn't look at me in disgust.

And yet, it won a contest, finaled in several others, and was eventually requested by two different editors.

Today, after a requested revision, a Silhouette editor gave CODE NAME: WILLOW its walking papers. And while I'm naturally bummed at yet another rejection, I can't seem to gin up much emotional pain at the rejection. It helps that the editor is already looking at another of my projects, and that she made it clear in the letter that she'd like me to query her with future projects, all good news. But even so, rejections usually hurt a lot more than this one seems to be.

Maybe it's because by the time I sent it out, I pretty much hated the story and the characters. Seriously, I strongly considered not submitting it anywhere, but I told myself that since I'd worked so long and hard on it, I'd never feel that it was complete if I didn't try to sell it. But now that it's over, I'm just not that upset about it. It's almost a relief.

Is that weird?

Guilty Pleasure Movies

Doesn't everybody have a few? Movies that you know aren't really that good but you love them anyway?

Here are a few of mine:

INDEPENDENCE DAY - I know, I know--all flash, no flesh. But you've gotta admit, the special effects are pretty amazing, and I'm a sucker for a story that pits a few scrappy survivors against a seemingly unbeatable foe and lets them use their native ingenuity to come up with an answer. And being a slightly jingoist sort myself, I never fail to be moved by the president's stirring speech as they go into the final battle. Plus, Will Smith is adorable and I've always loved Bill Pullman.

CROSSING DELANCEY - This is a quirky little romance starring Amy Irving and Peter Riegart. Isabel is young Jewish woman in New York, a book store employee who loves literature and sees writers as romantic figures, especially the one man whose books she loves. Meanwhile, her grandmother has given her photo to a matchmaker, who sets her up with Sam, a picklemaker from the neighborhood. Torn between her desire for a more sophisticated life and the pull of her culture and history, Isabel overcomes some of her own preconceptions and finds love where she least expects it.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING - While this sweet romantic comedy doesn't have the brilliance of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman (finally playing the romantic lead rather than the other man who gets dumped) and a fun cast of supporting characters are delightful to watch, and the Chicago setting is lovely. I'll watch it any time it comes on TV.

DON'T TELL HER IT'S ME (aka THE BOYFRIEND SCHOOL) - You know when a movie has two titles, it's probably not Oscar material. Nevertheless, this little fluff of a movie charmed me when I first watched it, and its held up pretty well in subsequent viewings. It's about Emily, a journalist who's assigned to cover a romance writers' convention, meets Lizzie, a popular and very intelligent romance writer, who decides Emily is just the right woman for her brother Gus, a recovering cancer patient. But first, Gus needs a makeover to turn him into the perfect romantic hero. All very fun, with gentle pokes at romance writers written with love, not disdain.

APARTMENT ZERO - This dark, twisted psychological study about a lonely, repressed cinephile (Colin Firth in one of his most gripping roles) who befriends an American charmer (Hart Bochner) who isn't what he seems. The exotic Buenos Aires setting, the haunting score and Firth's tour de force performance as a man unraveling inch by inch was hard to watch, but the experience lingered with me for days afterwards. I bought the DVD and rewatch it whenever I'm in the mood for something dark and disturbing.

Do you have any guilty pleasure movies?

Scores from the Daphne

Got my Daphne scores back in the mail today. Overall, very nice. I got a request for the full from the editor judge (although I can't send it to her, since someone else at H/S already has the full), and the agent who scored me so low on the same manuscript in the Rebecca scored me slightly better in the finals of the Daphne (from a one to a four in manuscript prep, although the entry wasn't appreciably different in any way).

I have to wonder if I might have placed first had the agent judge been someone who didn't have such a visceral disliking for my writing. But we'll never know, and I'm sure Karen Docter's winning entry was superb, so it's pointless to speculate. Shame on me.

Got very good scores from the preliminary judges, including one perfect one. Yay!

Golden Heart and Rita Winners

Golden Heart and Rita winners are up on the RWA website. Special congrats go to my GH 2004 pal, Nadele Jacobs, for yet another Golden Heart Win (I think she has, like, seven). And to my e-Harlequin buddy GG, way to go on the Golden Heart win for VIVA LAS VEGAS!

I may have missed some other pals who won; at the moment the RWA site seems to be down. I'll check later and give extra kudos as they're warranted.

And to all the folks who didn't win, trust me on this. Just finaling is a very big deal. I still get comments about my Golden Heart pin.

No, THIS is the Best Rejection Letter Ever

Just got another agent rejection, this time for CRYBABY FALLS. But she was very complimentary of my writing, and while she didn't think CBF quite worked (not romantic enough for Romantic Suspense; not big enough for straigth suspense), she wants to see other things from me, especially category-length manuscripts. Honey, I've got plenty of those!

Blogrolling

I've only just figured out how to put links to the blogs I read on this page, and I have only put a few links at the moment because I haven't had time to sit down and write the code for all the links I want to put on here. There are several more I read pretty regularly that I want to include.

Daphne du Maurier Awards

WILD CARD placed second in the Series category, which is much better than I expected, since the same agent who gave me super low marks on the same manuscript in an earlier contest was one of the judges.

Better yet, my friend Gayle Wilson placed first in her category in the Pubbed Daphnes with IN PLAIN SIGHT--and won the overall published Daphne! I can't think of anyone who deserved it more; she's a fabulous writer and IN PLAIN SIGHT is a great book.

Garden Update and a Little Cat Blogging

It's been a while since I posted on the status of my back deck garden, especially the seeds I found in the freezer a while back.

Sadly, the Tommytoes didn't make it. They just never really got a good start. However, the Atkinson tomatoes, the crookneck squash, the eggplant and the bell pepper are all thriving. The squash plant already has itty bitt squash, and the pepper plant looks like it's about to bloom. The eggplant hasn't bloomed yet, but it's big and healthy. The tomatoes are getting bigger every day, and I figure by mid-August, they'll probably be blooming as well, giving us a nice late summer/early fall harvest.

My old cat, Chunk, who's sixteen, likes to hang out on the deck these days and enjoy the sunshine. A couple of times, she's fallen off the deck, but she didn't get hurt, thank goodness, and managed to pick herself up and toddle back up the stairs. I make her sound more decrepit than she really is; the vet actually says she's in pretty good shape for a cat her age. She had to have thyroid surgery earlier this year, and since then her remaining gland continued to deteriorate, so now she's back on the pills. But her heart is strong, and the arthritis hasn't set in too badly.

She seems to like to lounge in the shade of the potted plants, pretending that she's out in the wild and not just on a wood deck behind a house in the suburbs. I suppose compared to her first thirteen years or so, spent indoors in a series of urban apartments, living in the 'burbs is probably like going on safari every day. She doesn't roam, being old, spayed and used to indoor life, so it's probably pretty safe to let her play her pretend games out on the deck, I figure.

Soon, I'll try to post some photos of Chunk so you can see what a sweetie she is.

What Else I'm Listening To

In the same vein as yesterday's post, here are a few songs I like a lot, but so far I haven't decided to buy the album they're on (or in a couple of cases, the albums aren't available yet):

"Georgia Rain" - sung by Trisha Yearwood - This is a haunting song about a long ago love that just won't die. Many a reunion romance has been written about just the sort of relationship this song describes. And, as always, Yearwood's gorgeous vocals sell every heartbreaking note of the song.

"Pickin' Wildflowers - sung by Keith Anderson - A bluesy, sassy, euphemistic romp of a song about sex, performed tongue in cheek with a twangy beat that makes you want to get up and dance.

"Hillbillies" - sung by Hot Apple Pie - I'll admit, the hip-billy video for this one is what really sold me on the song, but like "Pickin' Wildflowers," "Hillbillies" takes a good old fashioned roll in the hay and makes it into a rollicking fun song.

"Probably Wouldn't Be This Way" - sung by LeAnn Rimes - This one hurts. Deep. Especially if you watch the video. It's a song about a woman dealing with the unexpected death of her lover, and it covers most of the bases. What I really like about it is the truth it tells about the grieving process from the inside—how people want to help you but end up saying all the wrong things, how you want to help yourself but just can't figure out what will fix things and finally realizing nothing will but time and patience.

"Goodbye Time" - sung by Blake Shelton - Shelton plays against type with this one, a heartfelt ballad about being on the losing end of a relationship gone sour and realizing you have no choice but to let go. For those times when you just need a good sniffle.

"Help Somebody" - sung by VanZant - This song, and the one below, are two signals of something interesting happening in country music—the influx of some good old fashioned rockabilly/southern rock influences. Since I like my country a little edgy, I count this as good news.

"4th of July" - sung by Shooter Jennings - Waylon and Jessi's boy combines the hard edges of rock and roll with the country boy grit of a young Hank Jr. This song is a good example of the mixed influences on Jennings, who insists he's a country artist even though he likes to push the genre to its limits.

"The Mists of Down Below" - sung by The Duhks - This group from Manitoba blends many different acoustic music styles, from bluegrass to celtic to french folk to rock, to create a memorable, edgy Americana sound. I definitely have their album on my Amazon Wish List.

Also, don't miss my update to yesterday's post. (scroll down)

What I'm Listening To

My taste in music is pretty eclectic, but my primary choices fall in the country, bluegrass and Americana range. Here's who I'm listening to these days:

Mindy Smith - ONE MOMENT MORE Contemporary acoustic Americana with a distinct indie edge. Love her haunting version of the Dolly Parton classic "Jolene." And speaking of Dolly...

Dolly Parton - LITTLE SPARROW The Queen of Country Bluegrass casts her spell on a mix of old fashioned folk songs and classic rock. Her bluegrass rendition of the Eagles' "Seven Bridges Road" is worth the cost of the CD, but there's a whole lot more worth listening to here.

Patty Loveless - MOUNTAIN SOUL Patty Loveless has one of the great voices in country music, and with this album, she visits her Kentucky bluegrass roots.

Big & Rich - HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR This duo defies labels, although in their songs you can hear hints of country influences including the Bellamy Brothers and Montgomery Gentry. Their break-out song, "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" is a silly, irresistible romp. More than just a duo, they—and their Musik Mafia cohort—are the new outlaws on the country music scene.

Gabriel Yared, et al. - Soundtrack to COLD MOUNTAIN While the actual soundtrack cuts are lovely, I bought this CD for the two Alison Krauss cuts, "You will be my ain true love" and "The Scarlet Tide." Lucky for me, "Lady Margret," two Sacred Harp songs and Jack White's version of "Wayfaring Stranger" are delightful bonuses.

Old Crow Medicine Show - O.C.M.S. Hmm, how to describe this band? Depression era folk grass, I guess, with a decidedly modern edge. "Wagon Wheel" is my favorite cut.

And I don't have it yet, but when I get some cash to spare, these two are going on my "to buy" list:

Alison Krauss & Union Station - NEW FAVORITE and LONELY RUNS BOTH WAYS. Because you just can't go wrong with AK&US.

UPDATE:

Can't believe I forgot this one:

Nickel Creek - THIS SIDE I love this bands eclectic fusion of bluegrass, alt rock and acoustic folk. They have a distinctive sound that draws from many influences without mimicking any of them.

No Reno for Me

Money being tight and all. I didn't make it to Dallas last year, either, and I was a Golden Heart finalist that time. (Not so lucky this time around).

However, I'm up for a Daphne, so I'm hoping someone will be liveblogging (posting, whatever) from the Awards on Thursday so I'll know how badly I fared. And I do expect to fare badly, given that one of the judges in my category was the agent who gave me a one on manuscript preparation--on the same manuscript. Nope. Not expecting much from the Daphne. Still, I'll be interested to know if I placed.

Synopses: My Achilles Heel

I can't write a synopsis for the life of me. And believe me, I've read ALL the articles available. I've tried every trick. And still, after all these years, when I enter a contests where the synopsis is judged, I get slammed for my synopses.

Which is really embarrassing, considering that in my day job, I work in advertising as a copywriter and a graphic designer. You'd think a copywriter, of all people, would know how to write a synopses that "sold" her manuscript, wouldn't you?

Tomorrow, at my local chapter meeting, Donna Wright is speaking on synopses. I hope she gives a mini-workshop, because I need all the help I can get.

Do any of you have the secret to writing a great synopsis? In five steps or less? (Because apparently I have a hint of Adult ADD).

I Love Sharing This Kind of News

Two friends of mine, Jennifer Stimson and Terry McLaughlin, got The Calls this week! Jennifer just sold two YA romances to Simon Pulse, the YA line of Simon & Schuster, and Terry sold her GH '05 finalist to Harlequin Superromance.

Congratulations, ladies!

Contests Ups and Downs

I admit it—I've been really lucky with the contests I've entered. Even when I haven't finaled, I've usually gotten really good feedback all around. So I was a little flummoxed yesterday when I got the scores back from a contest I'd placed third in. Most of the judges' sheets were great, but I got one, from an agent, that blew my mind. Forget the abysmally low scoring all around—I can take that if the agent thought I merited such scores, even if no one else (including the editor judge) was nearly as harsh.

But a one (i.e. "poor") on manuscript presentation? I got fives from everyone else, which makes me wonder if the contest coordinator accidentally sent this agent judge a rag-eared copy stained with cat pee or something. Because how else could you possibly merit a one in manuscript presentation????

I've been submitting to contests for three years now, and submitting to editors for the same amount of time, and I consistently get top marks for manuscript prep, so this is just confounding.

(Just kidding about the contest coordinator sending a pee-stained entry, of course. I was actually very pleased overall by the contest. Just a bit confused by the one, that's all).

On the upside, got my scores from another contest in the mail today, and all the remarks were consistently fair and constructive—at least, the ones my mom read me over the phone. I look forward to getting home and reading the full critique from Shirley Hailstock, whose work I admire a lot. I'll be interested to see what she has to say.

Ooo, Pretty

I do like the look of the new Harlequin Next books. Here's the Amazon.com page for my friend Kris Robinette's upcoming Next book, HELL'S BELLES.

Looks great!

Agent Impersonator Warning

Go read this post on the Knight Agency blog.

If you have received anything like this, please let the Knight Agency know so they can pursue this imposter.

World's Best Rejection Letter

If you're going to get a rejection, they should all be as good as the one I just got from agent. She complemented my voice and urged me to submit the manuscript directly to the house (which I've already done); she just wasn't looking to take on an unpublished category author at the moment.

I'll take that kind of letter over a form R any day!

New PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I'm a bit of a Jane Austen freak, so when I ran across a couple of websites for the upcoming theatrical film version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and viewed the trailers, I was stoked! The new film casts Matthew MacFadyen as Darcy, which is a great choice. MacFadyen proved he could brood with the best of them in his role as Tom Quinn in the British series MI-5.

I was a little less sold on Keira Knightly as Elizabeth; though I'd liked her in BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, I hadn't seen her as Lizzy material. However, I recently caught her in the role of Guinevere in 2004's KING ARTHUR, opposite the yummy Clive Owen, and she convinced me she has the chops to play the role of possibly the most delightful romantic heroine ever.

These two sites are the ones I came across yesterday. The second one has the best trailer, IMO.

Summer Colds

Isn't that an oxymoron or something?

Nevertheless, I'm in the throes of one, and it's making me more than a little cranky.

I'll be back when I can stop coughing long enough.

We Are All Britons Now

My prayers and condolences go out to the citizens of London in this time of loss and suffering.

"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival." - Winston Churchill

A Little Post Vacation Catch Up

I hope everyone who celebrates it had a happy Fourth of July.

I'm back at work now. ::sigh:: Fortunately, my boss is on vacation, making easing back into the daily grind a little less stressful. Unfortunately, she'll be back next week, stressed out because she and I won't have been in contact for two weeks. Should be a barrel of laughs.

I didn't do anywhere near the writing I planned to do during my vacation, thanks in part to my back problem, the fun of hanging out with my mom and the nieces, and the lure of the three hour afternoon nap normally unavailable to me during the standard work week. However, I did manage to squeeze out twenty-six new pages and moved past a slight bump in the road. I have a clearer idea about my story and characters, although I'm still missing one vital element--the plot.

I know what the overarching story problem is, the inciting incident that sends my characters running for their lives. But I want to insert a secondary suspense plot to enhance their daily lives while they're hiding from the bad guys, a plot which will lead to a choice between doing the right thing and protecting their anonymity (not to mention enhance and imperil the romantic development as it unfolds). Still got some thinking to do on that, although I do know I want it to involve children, since my heroine is a daycare teacher when she's not on the run from bad guys, and I want it to involve the Smoky Mountains tourist industry in some way, since my hero grew up in the Smokys and his family has a carny-style connection to such tourist showplaces.

I also got a little reading done over my vacation--Kathleen Long's Intrigue debut, SILENT WARNING. Very slick, sophisticated writing style, intriguing mystery and likable characters. I guessed the bad guy a little earlier than I'd have liked, but I don't think it hurt the story since the characters themselves didn't have a clue (and it wasn't a stretch for them NOT to have a clue), and part of suspense is knowing something the characters don't. I thought that as a romance, it was good but not stunning. The characters seemed well-matched and I could buy their relationship, but the conflict keeping them apart was a little too one-note for my tastes. That said, the mystery elements more than made up for the thinness of the emotional conflict, and the writing was excellent. I'm definitely planning to read more of Kathleen's books.

Up next, when I get some time free, is Gayle Wilson's newest Intrigue, TAKE NO PRISONERS. It's another installment of her fantastic Phoenix Brotherhood series, and the set up looks terrific. Plus, Gayle dedicated it to me. Well, me and the other forty-odd members of the Southern Magic chapter of the RWA. ;)

I'm still waiting to hear on three manuscripts with editors, two manuscripts with agents, two queries to agents and the outcome of the Daphne du Maurier contest, which should be announced later this month at the RWA National Conference in Reno, Nevada.

There. All caught up.

Third Place for Wild Card

In the Rebecca contest. Congratulations to my Heart of Dixie and Southern Magic chapter mate Kira Bazzel for taking second in the same contest. Way to go, girl!

Owie Ow Ow Ow

Threw out my back on my birthday. Sadly, I don't have a really cool reason for it, like I was lifting a tree off a hapless logger or anything like that. I was...walking. Yup, just plain walking. Turning the corner around the kitchen breakfast bar when I felt something sort of pop and excruciating pain shot down both legs. I cussed like a sailor until I could grope my way to a chair to sit down. Only now, two days later, am I finally able to find a position where I'm not in pain. It only hurts when I turn or bend the wrong way (and boy, then it REALLY hurts).

I have a history of pinched nerves in my lower back/hip area, so it wasn't a big surprise or anything. But really--on my birthday AND during the first full week of vacation I've taken in years?

Not fair.

It's also wreaked havoc on my writing plans for this week, sadly. I did manage to write four new pages today on my WIP, but I'm way behind where I'd planned to be by now. Thank goodness I'm not on any sort of deadline.

On Vacation

I'm officially on vacation until July 5th. I'm not going anywhere (and I have to confess, I've been a lazy, napping slug today), but I'm going to try to get some extra writing done this week to jumpstart my WIP. So posting may be light.

Or not. I'll decide day to day whether or not dragging my lazy butt downstairs to the computer with internet access is worth my time and effort. :)

Does Anne Marie Lucas Know About This?

PETA not so ethical when it comes to shelter animals.

I am on board for the humane treatment of animals whenever and wherever possible, including food animals and research animals. I have multiple pets, all of whom I adopted or took in as strays. I believe firmly in spaying and neutering, regular vet visits, holding pet owners responsible for their actions and humanity's responsibility to balance our needs and desires against the health and well-being of earth's living creatures.

That said, I find what PETA does largely appalling because their excesses and hypocrisies make it too easy for people to dismiss the legitimate concerns about the treatment of animals. Moreover, their philosophy about animals is often anti-scientific and illogical, and their goals, if met, would mean unmitigated disaster for the environment and the ecological balance of this planet. When one's belief system is based so thoroughly on half-truths and fallacies, even one's reasonable messages are bound to be lost in the barrage of refutations.

Like anything else in this world, moderation is key. I hope that conservationists everywhere become the real face of environmental responsibility and push the extremists on both sides out to the hinterlands where they belong.

Out of Advil

But my last dose provided one more doozy of a dream. I won't go into the details, but let's just say it included a road trip to south Alabama, a hybrid bobcat/domestic cat caught with a fishing hook, me yelling, "Eat it or release it! Eat it or release it! Those are your only options!"--and Senator Richard Durbin wearing a blue sequined evening gown while explaining his remarks on Gitmo to a church I was visiting.

I think I'm going to miss the Advil.

Blame it on the Advil

I've been taking Advil at night, just a regular two pill dose, because I'm starting to feel a bit arthritic these days. (It runs in the family). An interesting side effect of the pills seems to be extremely bizarre dreams. (See the post that precedes this one).

Last night's installment involved three separate but bizarre snippets of dream. In the first part of the dream, my friend Jenn, who lives in a different state, was supposed to come visit me. But when I go to the airport to pick her up, she doesn't show. I'm kind of flummoxed---she's usually really good to be where she says she'll be. I can't seem to track her down the rest of the day, but the next morning, a cab pulls up in front of my house and there she is, dressed to the nines and acting very mysterious. She insists we take a tour of my town immediately--and she's driving. Apparently in that weird dream state where you don't question why a woman who's never been to your town before thinks she can drive around in it, I gave her the keys and off we go.

We then proceed to end up in the seediest part of town, with people shooting at us. Jenn's saying, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing," and I'm saying, "Um, no you don't, now give me the darned keys!" (Only, I'm pretty sure I didn't say darned).

From there, the dream segues, inexplicably, to a really nice condo somewhere in town, where a gay couple, let's call them Mark and Matt, have started their own designer pasta business, making ravioli squares with their designer imprint on it. As dream logic would have it, the designer ravioli squares are all the rage, and they want me to do some graphic design work for them to promote it. But, horrors! A competitor has come out with their own branded ravioli squares, only theirs are a trendy, chic navy blue. Needless to say, Mark and Matt are beside themselves with outrage.

But, alas, I didn't get to find out what happened next, because the dream shifted back to my house, where I walk in to find my mother and my dad there--my dad who died two years ago. Of course, being a dream, I don't really question this, either. But the lovely homey scene isn't enough for my Advil-addled brain. Because Oprah Winfrey is there, bouncing my niece on her lap, talking to my parents. And my dad keeps calling her Okra (which, if you knew my dad, you know he'd totally do, just to show he's not THAT impressed with the richest woman in America).

Then I woke up.

So I Had This Dream...

It involved a panel of "Characters I would have killed off shows I love if I'd been given the chance," a surprise visit from British actor Colin Firth (complete with a gift box of Colin Firth t-shirts and memorabilia), and the subsequent frantic attempt to IM my best friend and fellow Colin fan Jenn to tell her that OMIGOSH, COLIN IS HERE RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Then I woke up.

::sigh::

Bummer.

Abby Z. rejected CRYBABY FALLS. Not a form R, and she had a few nice things to say, but it's still a rejection.

Oh well, I knew it was probably a long shot. I have other options for it.

My Seed's Older than Your Seed

And I thought my freezer seed miracle was something to behold: After 2,000 Years, a Seed From Ancient Judea Sprouts

(May require registration)

Garden Update

Well, I had a freak-out moment the day after my last post on my attempt to grow plants from seeds my father had stored in our freezer over a decade ago. The next morning, when I checked the two plants that had sprouted, I discovered that both plants had lost their little leaves and were nothing but sad, dead-looking little nubs of stems.

I put them in the shade, figuring maybe the hot sun had been too much for them. Sadly, I was afraid my little seeds just didn't have the stamina to make it after all this time in the cooler.

However, the Atkinson Tomatoes perked back up immediately, and the Tommy Toes are starting to struggle back. Plus, the squash sprouted with a vengeance and is thriving, and the eggplant seeds also sprouted and are doing well. Last I checked, the bellpepper plant had a little sprout that looked as if it was going to finally come up, but as of this morning, it was still mostly under the potting soil. I'm hopeful that it'll be sprouted by the time I get home this afternoon.

So far, so good.

Go, CRYBABY, Go!

An agent liked the partial of CRYBABY FALLS I sent her and asked to see the full. (Best of all, this was my preferred agent among the ones I queried--keeping my fingers crossed!)

Memorial Garden Update

In a previous post, I mentioned the seeds I found in the freezer that my father had put there years ago, back when he was gardening regularly. I planted them a few days ago. Since then, it's rained daily and the temperatures have been warm but not scorching. You'd think that would be good for little seeds to sprout, wouldn't you?

But as of this morning, nothing was happening in my little seed cups.

As of this afternoon, however, the Atkinson tomatoes and the Tommy Toes were sprouting. I darned near cried.

The eggplant, green pepper and squash seeds haven't sprouted. They may not. I don't much care one way or the other about them—they were store bought packets my father stored away and don't have any real meaning for me other than their potential as food. :)

The seeds for the tomatoes, however, my father harvested, dried and stored away himself, from his existing plants. They were part of him in a way that the store-bought packets could never be. So when I saw the sprouts this afternoon, it almost felt like a smile from my father.

I hope they make it to maturity!

Vicarious Thrills and the Value of Friends

I think the part of being a writer that appeals most to me is the vicarious thrill of it all. It may even be why I'm drawn to romantic suspense; having lived a life blessedly free of violence yet very aware of the danger and evil lurking all around, I'm constantly exploring the question: how do people survive meeting danger face to face? What inner resources must a person possess to triumph over evil? How does an average person find the strength to conquer a threat?

The other part of the vicarious thrill that appeals to me is exploring new places through the eyes of my characters. In CODE NAME: WILLOW, it was the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, all places I'd been before but didn't know intimately. In CRYBABY FALLS, though most places were fictional, I did a lot of research into the Appalachian Piedmont up around DeKalb County, Alabama, where Little River Canyon and Fort Payne are located. WILD CARD was set in a fictional town in southeastern Georgia, near Savannah. I didn't have to do as much research for that, since most of the action took place in the fictional town, but I did do some research into Savannah, and I expect I'll do more when I get around to writing Shannon's story.

SHOWDOWN, my new WIP, may turn out to be the biggest adventure of all. I'm taking my characters on a hair-raising cross-country road trip to escape some ruthless, well-connected killers. They'll travel from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Townsend, Montana, with stops all along the midwest, from a campground outside Youngstown, Ohio to a high rise apartment in Chicago, to a detour through the South Dakota Badlands. I've been to none of those places, and I won't have a chance to visit any of them before the book is finished. But that's one good thing about being involved in RWA and other writers' communities--I now know lots of people who HAVE been there, even live there now, and are willing to help me work out the details.

So if I ask for help, please take a little pity on a southern girl without the means or the time to take a whirlwind tour of the midwest.

The Joy of Meeting a Quota

I'm 27 pages into my new WIP after three days of writing. I met my quota for today (check here for my Excel Spreadsheet Writing Plan explanation) and I'm starting to get comfortable in the skin of the story, if that makes sense. I'm learning all sorts of interesting things about the characters, even though I had already done a lot of backstory character work before I started writing. It's not been as easy as my last manuscript, Wild Card, which flowed from my fingers like magic, but it's moving at a decent clip, and I have a fairly clear idea where I'm going for the next few chapters, at least.

I've finished chapter one--do I dare try entering it in a contest before I'm a whole lot closer to the finish line? I've been burned that way before--got a request for a full that I wasn't able to deliver for over year.

Maybe I can shoot for something with a mid-July postmark date. I'm going to try to have the first draft finished by then.

Maybe.

Memory Garden

For most of my life, my father kept a garden. Though we lived inside the Birmingham, Alabama, city limits, my country born and bred father found a way to set aside a little room in the back yard for his beloved vegetable garden. He'd till a little patch about twenty feet long by six feet wide, planting two or three rows of his favorite vegetables. Always tomatoes. Usually yellow crook-neck summer squash and sweet banana peppers. Sometimes he'd set up bean poles and we'd have fresh green beans. We tried zucchini for a year or two until we realized we'd never be able to eat as much zucchini as the plants produced. And there was what I call The Year of the Turnip Greens. I didn't eat turnip greens again for nearly a decade.

But the tomatoes were his true love. His favorites were the firm, sweet Atkinsons and the Better Boys, but from time to time he'd get adventurous and we'd have Romas or Tommy Toes. We ate them fresh and warm from the garden, sliced and salted between two pieces of bread smeared with mayonnaise. To this day, there's nothing that tastes better to me than a homegrown tomato sandwich.

About twelve years ago, my father had a debilitating stroke. Though he regained his speech and his ability to walk, his right hand ended up curled into a mostly-useless claw, and his balance was off. But he still managed to grow his garden every year, with my mother's help, right up until the last year of his life, when my parents moved out of the city to a suburb north of town. The new house had a huge back yard and plenty of sunshine--the ideal place for a new garden. Ironic that my father was too weak by that time to be able to take advantage of the larger space.

I moved out of my rental house, which I hated, to move in with my parents. Combining our incomes helped make the move financially viable for all of us, and I liked being with my parents as they were getting older. Sadly, a little over three months after we moved, my father had another massive stroke. A week later, he died in the hospital while my mother held his hand.

Not long after my father died, I was cleaning out the refrigerator and freezer when I came across a small box in the freezer. When I opened it, I found dozens of vegetable seeds, some store-bought and others saved from plants my father grew himself. On one small envelope, in my father's spiky scrawl, were the words: "Atkinson Tomato Seeds—guard at all costs." Tears filling my eyes, I turned to my mother and told her, "I can't throw these out." She agreed, and the box of seeds went back into the freezer.

A couple of weeks ago, I got it into my head that I wanted to start a potted garden on the back deck. The deck gets plenty of sun and we could attach long boxes to the wood rails and plant herbs in them, and put large pots along the edge of the deck for some tomato plants. Now we have a lovely herb garden and large, thriving tomatoes on our back deck. Excited about my horticultural success, I decided to start some plants from seed, which also quickly began to thrive. Heady with green-thumb power, I started thinking about what other kinds of vegetables we could grow in a potted garden.

Then this morning, as I was getting ice from the freezer, I spotted the box of seed packets. And in those packets were all sorts of vegetable seeds--summer squash, eggplant, spinach, and my father's precious Atkinson tomatoes, among others. All the seeds I need to create a special sort of memory garden in honor of my father. It was as if my father was telling me, "It's time to let these go. To use them how I would have wanted."

Will the seeds still be viable after over a decade, in some cases, in the freezer? I have no idea. But in honor of my father, this week, I'm going to find out.

How WILD CARD Came Into the World

As promised, here's installment four of "How did Paula get her ideas?"

WILD CARD was one of those rare, amazing stories that wrote itself. Seriously. From the first germ of an idea to the working synopsis took about four days. From working synopsis to first draft took eight weeks, two of which included no writing whatsoever, thanks to the presidential election of 2004. (I'm a bit of a political junkie). And when I sat down to revise and polish for the editor who asked to see it, I discovered that there wasn't a whole lot I wanted to change about it. Bits and pieces here and there, but overall, I thought it was pretty solid. (We'll see what the editor says).

I'm a little worried that WILD CARD spoiled me. Let's just say my other three manuscripts weren't quite so easy to give birth to!

Now, for the idea behind it. I had decided around the middle of October that I wanted to write and finish a book by the end of the year because I needed to enter something new in some writing contests. All three of my other books had finaled in contests by that time, and I didn't want to keep sending the same three manuscripts out. During the time I was ruminating about what I wanted to write next, I caught a news segment about a bus crash somewhere out west, I think. The bus had rolled off the interstate and split open, injuring and killing dozens.

The news segment showed the bus; it looked like a watermelon split open, an image that apparently stuck in my head, because as I was driving to work, thinking about that wrecked bus, I thought, "I wonder what it was like to be a survivor of that crash, with bodies spilling out onto the shoulder of the highway around you?" Next I thought, if the bus crashed into a river, with bodies swept out and downstream, a person on the bus could easily fake their death. People would just assume they'd show up sooner or later downriver, and that would give a person a lot of time to get away if they wanted to.

Perfect, said my writer's brain. You could have a woman on the run from something or someone. Maybe she witnessed a crime and the F.B.I. wants her to testify, but she's afraid for her life, so she runs from both the bad guy AND the F.B.I. And she hops the bus to get out of town--a casino bus, up in Atlantic City. Being the gregarious type, she meets a nice boy from Georgia who keeps her company on their way out of New Jersey, telling her his life story. And then the bus crashes, tumbling down the side of hill and into the river below. The woman lives, but her busmate dies--but not before he gives her something to take to his estranged family in Georgia. Yeah!

Look at all the hooks! Fish out of water--a Jersey Girl in smalltown Georgia! She's a woman in jeopardy, and she's hiding her identity! And she meets a sexy Southern lawman who thinks she's hot but doesn't trust her as far as he can throw her! And there's even a ticking clock--how long can hang around the little Georgia town and the hunky southern cop before the men who are after her finally track her down?

I wrote 75 pages in the first six days, skipped a couple of weeks, and wrote 245 more pages over the next five weeks, by far my most prolific performance to date.

To paraphrase Dionne Warwick, I know I'll never write this way again. ::sigh::

RWA Rocks!

If you're a romance writer, you should be a member of RWA. There's just not a more supportive and informative professional writing organization around, IMO. The Romance Writers Report (RWR) that members receive monthly is chock full of writing goodness for aspiring authors, from innovative ways to hone your craft to how to find time and motivation to write when the world is falling down around you. You get in-depth editor and agent interviews, writer profiles, and up-to-date information about romance publishing houses and what they're seeking.

And if you're a member of RWA and there's a local chapter nearby, join it. My local chapter, Southern Magic, is amazing. We have over a dozen published authors, several PRO authors and quite a few contest divas, including brand new Warner author Kelley St. John. Today at the meeting, Kelley and her two partners in crime, American Title winner Janice Lynn and GET BUNNY LOVE author Kathleen Long, gave a wonderful workshop on using hooks in your writing. Titled "I'm a Hooker, She's a Hooker, Wouldn't You Like to be a Hooker, Too?", the workshop addresses how to find your hooks—the story elements that keep readers reading—to get an editor to read and love your work. If they offer it at a workshop in your area, go. You'll enjoy it. And three nicer women you'll never meet.

After a week of waffling over what I wanted to write next, now that all my other manuscripts are with editors, something they discussed today at the workshop sparked the perfect idea for a new manuscript. I can't wait to start!

If you live in the Alabama area--and that includes Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida, bookmark this page: Southern Magic Romance Writers. We have some programs coming up in the next few months that will be worth making a two or three hour drive to attend.

And if you're an unpublished writer with a manuscript you want to put in front of editors or agents, be sure to keep an eye out for the first annual Linda Howard Award of Excellence for Unpublished Writers, coming up at the beginning of 2006!

Blog Illiteracy

Oops, someone told me I had my comments limited to people on Blogger only. I certainly didn't intend to do that. I've changed the settings so that everyone should be able to post comments.

Don't everybody rush to comment at once! ;)

What's Behind WHAT THE HEART SEES

Y'all are going to have to forgive me a bit on this one. I started WHAT THE HEART SEES about ten years ago, so I'm not 100% sure what gave me the idea. I can tell you, generally, what I was thinking about as I developed the plot.

I'm the sort of person who would like to believe in the paranormal. I've just never experienced it (with one small exception, which I'll get to at the end of this post). However, I find the notion of being able to "see" things other people can't--the future, what's going on in other parts of the world, what happened in the past--fascinating and a little scary. I mean--would you really like to know when someone's going to die? Or that your husband is cheating on you? It seems like one of those "gifts" that could just as easily be a curse.

I wanted to come up with a trilogy, and I thought three sisters with special "gifts" that could also be curses would be interesting. Lily's story was the first of the three. Rose's story my screenwriting partner Jenn and I turned into a romantic suspense screenplay, but we never got completely happy with it. It's plotted out, though, which means I have the outline for book two if book one ever sells. Iris' story, however...not a clue. :)

Now, about my one paranormal experience....My widowed mother and my divorced sister and her two children live with me. Her ex-husband's 9 month old baby also stays with us sometimes because he and his current wife work early morning shifts at McDonalds, and they can't afford child care. (Yes, we're saps. Yes, it's veering into Maury Povich Show territory. But the baby needs us, and we're in a position to do this for the child, so we do).

Anyway, back to the story. One early morning, around 4:00 am, I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. As I was entering the bathroom, I heard voices in soft conversation. I didn't think much of it, since the baby sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night, which gets both my mother and my sister up. It's not unusual for them to both be up and talking softly as they deal with getting the baby back to sleep. The only thing I remember thinking was, I'm glad they're up, because my sinuses are hurting, and maybe my sister knows where there's some saline nasal spray. (I know, TMI).

So I finish my business in the bathroom and come out. The voices have stopped, so I assume my mother's gone back to bed. However, it was a matter of maybe thirty seconds since I'd last heard the voices, so I figured she'd be awake and I could ask her about the saline solution. But Mom was dead asleep. The dogs who sleep with her were both dead asleep, too. Okay, my mom can fall asleep faster than anyone I know, but thirty seconds? And the dogs asleep, too?

So now, I'm a little weirded out. I go into my sister's room to see what's going on. And my sister, her younger daughter (who still sleeps with Mommy) and the baby are all sound asleep. In fact, my sister is wearing her CPAP mask (she has apnea). Nobody in that room was doing any talking. I even check her older daughter's room to see if she has the radio on. Nope. She's asleep, no radio is on. No television is on. Nothing is making noise but me.

Now, I'm a skeptic by nature--but I've checked with everyone in the house, and nobody was awake at 4:00 am but me. Nobody had a radio or television on. I have no logical explanation for what I heard that night, and I've looked for logical explanations. The fact that my mother has had a similar experience in that house only exacerbates my sense that I experienced something that is, by definition, paranormal.

Your mileage may vary.

The Idea Behind CODE NAME: WILLOW

Believe it or not, I got the idea to write CODE NAME: WILLOW from the Tom Clancy book EXECUTIVE ORDERS, specifically some of the "at home" scenes with Jack Ryan and his family at the White House. There was mention of a Secret Service agent assigned to one of Jack's children helping the child with homework. That sparked a thought in my mind: what if the agent was young--late twenties, maybe, and the president's fourteen year old daughter was his charge? And ten or fifteen years down the line, they met again, when the president's daughter needed help protecting another child?

From there, the book morphed quite a bit. My critique buddy, Jenn, suggested that the age difference between the characters might be offputting, and also that their friendly, almost father-child relationship in the past would make a romance in the present hard to swallow. Since these were elements that bothered me as well, I went with her suggestion that Maggie, the main character, be older when she meets Jack, and their relationship considerably more contentious.

Since these changes solved some of my problems and dovetailed perfectly with other elements of the story, I took her advice. It was a rough road, writing this book. A lot of research went into it, a lot of hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing as I sorted out the backstory to give more oomph to the present-day story. I also had to write a heroine with a troubled, scandal-prone past that was completely alien to my own very quiet, conservative, scandal-free history (unless you count the time I got in trouble for staying out til two a.m. discussing religion with a platonic male friend--and my sister. Woo, I was a baaaaad girl!)

Anyway, I hope one day you get the chance to read CODE NAME: WILLOW and see if you think I succeeded.

TOMORROW: The genesis of WHAT THE HEART SEES.

Form Rejection Letters Suck

Just thought it needed saying.

What I'm Reading, Redux

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was reading WEDNESDAY'S CHILD by Gayle Wilson. It was excellent--I recommend it highly. I also just finished reading DEPTH PERCEPTION by Linda Castillo, whose writing first caught my eye when I was reading her Silhouette Intimate Moments novels. DEPTH PERCEPTION is dense (in a good way) and intense (in an even better way). When I get the chance, I'm going to pick up some of her other single titles.

Keeping in mind that my tastes run to romantic suspense, anybody else have any book (or author) recommendations?

(Working Title)

I hate titling books. Everything I come up with has either already been used, sounds stupid, or has nothing to do with what my manuscript is actually about. Each of my manuscripts has gone through at least two different titles. CODE NAME: WILLOW was originally WILLOW AND THE FALCON. WHAT THE HEART SEES was originally DOOR TO FOREVER. WILD CARD was originally OUT OF LUCK. And poor CRYBABY FALLS started out life as FATAL FLAW.

The genesis of CRYBABY FALLS as a title was kind of interesting. I was doing some just for the fun of it web browsing at Paranormal Research sites (I want to believe in ghosts, even if I don't) and kept coming across places called "Crybaby Bridge" and "Crybaby Hollow" and the like. I remember thinking that CRYBABY (SOMETHING) would be a great title for a book, especially one in the rural south. I filed the idea away until I pulled out FATAL FLAW to look at revising it as a single title. I'd never been happy with that title, so when I was considering changing the name, I thought, "How about CRYBABY FALLS?" Just one problem: there wasn't a Crybaby Falls—or any kind of falls—in the book. But the first murder victim did end up in a river, so it wasn't that hard to stick a waterfall into the mix. Then I used Crybaby Falls as a sort of metaphor for a time and place in every life where something unexpected and devastating occurs, knocking the ground out from under you and challenging you to survive against tremendous odds.

Another small factoid about CRYBABY FALLS: I got the idea for the book from the Richard Marx song, "Hazard," specifically the lines "I swear, I left her by the river...I swear, I left her safe and sound..." If some kind editor will buy my manuscript, maybe you'll get to find out why that makes sense.

Hey, maybe I've found a blog topic for the next few days—sharing what gave me the ideas for each of my four complete manuscripts! Next up: CODE NAME: WILLOW.

WILD CARD Happenings

Well, the full of WILD CARD is off to the editor at Silhouette. And finally some good news on the agent front: an agent who was at the Washington Romance Writers' retreat over the past weekend got to see the awards ceremony for the Marlenes, heard my name and recognized it from the query I sent her, and ended up sending me an e-mail on Tuesday requesting the full. I don't know if the contest win spurred her to pull my manuscript out of her slushpile or not, but whatever happened, I'm about to send WILD CARD to an agent. Whee!

Good News, Bad News

Third first place showing for WILD CARD, this time in the Marlene contest. Plus I got an editor request out of it. That's the good news.

The bad news is, I just finished reading over some recent posts on Suzanne McMinn's blog, and I'm totally depressed at my inability to blog well. I admit it--I'm a blogger wannabe. I can't seem to come up with enough interesting things to write about to sustain a blog. I post at best every week or so--forget everyday; ain't gonna happen, apparently.

Maybe I just don't have enough going on in my life to keep a blog alive. No, that can't be it--I'm busy as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.

Maybe I'm just too much of an introvert (INTJ on the Myers-Brigg test) to spill my guts to the masses (okay, masses is a gross overstatement) of readers who check out my blog periodically to see if I'm still alive.

But I really am going to try to do better. I'm going to try to be witty and interesting and lively and all the things I imagine I am when I'm alone in my car driving home, rehashing all the lively, witty and interesting things I WOULD have said that day if I'd been able to think of them in time.

Really. I am.

A Little More Book News

Crybaby Falls is now officially out the door. Yay!

I'm using this weekend to do some reading. I'm currently reading Wednesday's Child by Gayle Wilson, who's a chapter mate in Southern Magic Romance Writers, my local RWA chapter. I'm about 95 pages in, and so far, it's typical Gayle Wilson--beautiful writing, compelling suspense and great characters.

If you've never read anything by Gayle, run, don't walk, to Amazon.com or one of the online bookstores and order whatever you can find. I'm partial to her Harlequin Intrigues because I'm a contemporary romantic suspense kind of girl, but I also enjoy her historicals, which is saying something, since I don't usually read historicals.

After my reading weekend, it's nose to the grindstone on my new WIP. I'm giving myself until the end of May to get my characters worked out and my working synopsis done, then I'm going to try to write the first draft by July 2nd. Ambitious, I know, but I want to see if I can do it.

Book and contest news

Just received word that Wild Card made it to the final round of the Rebecca contest. I'm hoping one of these finals will garner me a request for a full; I do so hate querying!

Also, I sent the requested revisions of Code Name: WILLOW to the editor yesterday, and the full of Crybaby Falls goes to another editor tomorrow. That clears all the requested material off my desk. I have minor changes to make to Wild Card before it's ready to send, mostly because I've come up with a killer idea for a sequel, featuring the heroine's sister, that requires a slight change in the heroine's backstory.

Then I get to start on the new book idea. I'm very excited about it for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it has echoes of a great Hitchcock movie I love, Notorious. And also, it's going to be the first book I've ever set outside the south. I've had two heroines who weren't southern girls (Maggie in Code Name: WILLOW and Carly in Wild Card), but this is the first time I've tried to set a whole book in Yankeeland. ;) Fortunately, my best friend Jenn lives in southern New Jersey, which is where the soon to be WIP is set, and she's promised to give me all the local flavor I can stand.

The Little Manuscript That Could

Wild Card has come through again, this time with a final in the Daphne du Maurier contest. Big deal, that; it's a prestigious contest with really tough competition, in a specific subgenre of romance that happens to be where I want to park my happy butt for life--romantic suspense.

Oops, Forgot Some Contest News

Lessee...Code Name: WILLOW just placed second in the 2005 Laurie Contest. I was very pleased, as you might imagine.

Crybaby Falls finaled in the Marlenes, in the Single Title category, and Wild Card finaled in the Long Contemporary category.

As always, remember to visit my website regularly for more updates.

Query City and Some Ruminations

I've been a querying fool over the past few days, sending out agent queries for two of my books. Now comes the fun part--biting my nails (what's left of them, anyway) while waiting for those SASEs to start trickling back in.

But like they say, you can't sell anything if you never send it out.

My revisions of Crybaby Falls and Wild Card are now complete. I'm down to just the requested revisions of Code Name: WILLOW that Susan Litman offered to look at again. I've written one draft of the revisions, but now I'm going to go through the book and make sure I've maximized the emotional punch of every scene and answered all the questions and concerns Susan had about the story. Then, I'm shooting for sending it back to her by the 15th of this month at the latest.

I've learned a few things about myself during these last few busy weeks. First, I can still write. After the struggles I went through just getting Code Name: WILLOW finished last year, and the subsequent struggles to drag it kicking and screaming into shape, I'd begun to wonder if I still had the creativity and the emotional and mental stamina to write fiction anymore. There were definitely times when I wondered if I shouldn't just concentrate on my day job and quit torturing myself with my dreams of being a published writer. I have a decent job that pays a pretty good wage and my family and I are financially in pretty good shape--nothing spectacular, but we're not living hand to mouth, either.

But after a brief respite, and a few false starts at a new project, Wild Card came along. I'm a little afraid it's spoiled me; it came together in a rush, the story almost fully formed within a day or so after the initial idea for the heroine came to me. But it did prove to me that I still have good ideas, that I can still take those ideas and put them together into a story that holds together plotwise and satisfies the emotions. It gave me back my confidence, which is a good thing, because soon after that, I received editor requests for two other books that weren't ready to head out the door just then. I took some of the organizational skills I learned from writing Wild Card in "Book in a Week" style and applied them to my revisions of the two requested books. I'm proud to say that one of the books is already with the editor, and the other one should be ready to go out in a week.

Here are some random lessons I learned from my descent into writer's despair and my journey back to hope:

1) Don't enter an unfinished manuscript in a contest unless you're sure you can finish it in a timely manner. Because as sure as you do, you'll get a request for a full from an editor.

2) If you do get an editor request for an unfinished manuscript, and you know the project is going to take you a while to finish, don't hesitate to write the editor and offer her a different manuscript while you're working on final revisions of the one she requested. Be sure that the manuscript you're offering is suitable for the editor's house and line, but take advantage of the opportunity to keep her thinking about you while you're working on the unfinished project. If an editor asks to see a full from you by way of a contest, she probably thinks enough of your writing to be willing to look at another project from you.

3) When you query an editor with whom you already have a relationship on a new project, try this trick: Instead of sending an SASE, send a self-addressed, stamped postcard with the following typed on it:

Please check one of the following options:

___ Please send me the full manuscript and synopsis of (Your Book's
Name Here).

___ Please send me the first three chapters and full synopsis of
(Your Book's Name Here).

___ I am not interested in seeing (Your Book's Name Here).

I've tried this twice and both times, I've received a request for the full, and pretty quickly.

4) Keep writing. Don't stop. Don't give yourself more than a week's break. Put your butt in the chair, your hands on the keyboard (or the pen and paper) and write. It's who you are. It's what you do. It's your gift. It's your curse.

5) Learn what motivates you to write. For me, it's an Excel spreadsheet with pages per day that I have to finish to reach my goal. I check the spreadsheet every day when I'm working on a project, whether it's a first draft or a revision. It keeps me focused because the work is broken down into doable increments that add up to me meeting my self-imposed deadline. It keeps me going because I can see tangible results of my work, right there on the spreadsheet.

Your motivations may vary. Maybe you reward yourself with a piece of jewelry or a piece of chocolate or a trip to a favorite museum or park when you reach your weekly writing goal. Whatever it is, use what motivates you to keep yourself writing on a daily basis.

6) Ultimately, every writer has to decide for herself whether or not she's got what it takes to keep going. But if you have a dream, and it's within your grasp if you just work at it hard enough, then give yourself permission to go after it. I know other things have to come first--families, marriages, jobs--but there will probably be a time in your life, sooner or later, when those things don't interfere as much with your dream. Until that time, keep the dream alive. There are a lot of successful writers who didn't write their first book until they retired from a job, or their children were grown and on their own, or whatever other obstacle existed earlier in their lives disappeared. You're never too old to follow your dream if you have the talent and the will to pursue it.

Yikes--Eight Days?

It's been that long since I posted anything? Bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger.

Let's see...well, I've finished the third draft of CRYBABY FALLS and it's off to my critique partners, finally. I have two people to thank especially for my most recent changes--Karin Tabke and a guy named Jerome, last name unknown, who both answered my police procedural questions with alacrity and specificity. If this book sells, they're both going in the credits.

I'm about three-fourths of the way done with my edits to CODE NAME: WILLOW for the editor who suggested I revise it to fit Silhouette Intimate Moments. I like the changes, I think. It's made the book richer. I still think the story is going to be too mystery-intensive--it was written for Intrigue--so if the editor still passes on it, I think I'll submit it to Intrigue instead after some edits for length.

Did I mention that I'd already submitted WHAT THE HEART SEES to the editor who requested it? I'm trying to clear all my finished books off the table and out to editors so that I can concentrate on writing something new.

The Marlene awards are supposed to announce today. I have a submission in that one (can't remember if I have two). Keeping my fingers crossed.

And WILD CARD's On a Roll!

Add another contest final to the WILD CARD tally--it made the Long Contemporary finals in the Winter Rose contest.

I've been trying to pick and choose my contest entries based on a handful of criteria: who the final round judge is and whether or not she's already seen the work I want to enter; how many pages at a time I can enter (the more, the better); the contest's prestige and whether or not I have a new book that I want feedback on.

Primarily, however, I'm looking at the final round judges, because I've had a lot of luck using contest finals as queries. Four of my completed manuscripts have finaled in multiple contests. So far, three of those manuscripts have been requested by editors through contests. The fourth may yet, as it's only finaled three times and the final winners haven't been announced yet.

I like the idea of using contests as a sort of backdoor query. I've had occasional trouble getting an editor to ask to see my book off a query/synopsis; contests make the editors read my first chapter and let my writing sell itself. Not to say that knowing how to write a query and a good synopsis isn't important; it is. But contests take the pressure off me AND give me contest finals and wins to put on my writing resume. Two birds, one stone, etc. etc.

Even when I don't final, I usually get plenty of useful feedback on my stories, which is well worth the entry fee. There's just not much of a downside to entering contests that fit my criteria.

Another Contest Final for WILD CARD

WILD CARD made the first round finals of the LERA Rebecca Contest. I think this means the entry goes to Pattie Steele-Perkins, who's the agent half of the agent/editor combo judging the first and second rounds.

Hmm--April Fool's Day is a bad time to be posting anything. Nobody will believe it's true!

If You're Going to Get a Rejection...

Getting a rejection with a request to revise and resubmit is the way to go!

The editor who's had CODE NAME: WILLOW since last November gave me some notes for revision and said that if I'd like to revise the manuscript with her notes in mind, she'd be happy to reconsider it for Silhouette Intimate Moments.

I'm going to put aside, for the moment, the fact that the book was actually targeted for Harlequin Intrigue and bask in the glow of her complimentary comments and the request for revision. Beats the heck out of a form rejection, let me tell you!

CRYBABY FALLS: Close But Not Quite

Heard back from the Romantic Suspense coordinator for the Heart of the Rockies contest. CRYBABY FALLS didn't make the finals, but it was awarded an honorable mention. (There are only three finalists in each category, and in my category there were two honorable mentions).

So, not quite a final but I'm fairly pleased anyway.

WILD CARD Gets Lucky

My newest manuscript, WILD CARD, just made the finals of the Heart of the Rockies contest! I haven't finaled with this manuscript before, so I'm doubly excited. That's six finals with six different manuscripts over the span of my contest career (which is a looooong span).

Now if I could just sell something!

Remembering Simi

I was doing a little spring cleaning today and came across an old photo album of my cats. There were several beautiful photos of Simi, my half-Himalayan cat who I had to have put to sleep a couple of weeks ago after she came down suddenly with a severe neurological deficit (probably due to an undetected brain tumor).

I cried for days during and after the decision to have her put to sleep, and just seeing the photos made me start crying all over again. I didn't cry this much when my father died three years ago.

Why is it that losing a pet makes us so sad? Simi lived fifteen years and had a good life. That's pretty long life for a cat, after all. But I can't stop feeling heart-broken about losing her.

Maybe it's because she needed me. I was responsible for feeding her, cleaning up after her, giving her love and attention. She rewarded me with unmatched devotion, responding with a head butt or a soft mew when I spoke to her. She took obvious delight when I stroked her fur or scratched behind her ears. And I'm told that every morning when I left for work, she walked around the house meowing for me, her voice plaintive as she realized I was gone for another eight hours.

I miss her.

Why Romance?

It's a question a lot of us romance writers get when we tell people about our work. Why are you writing those trashy novels? It's all about sex, sex, sex.

Well, no. It's not. At least, not entirely.

So if you wonder why romance writers choose that particular genre, check out Diana Duncan's answer. It's remarkably personal to her life. At the same time, there's a passage that I think is universal to romance writers:

I hope that through my stories, I can help ease these women’s sufferings a little. I hope they forget their own troubled lives and take off on an adventure with my characters. That they escape from the real world.

And when they finish, when they reach "the end," and close the covers of the book, they go back to their own lives with a little more peace in their hearts.

Refreshed.

Uplifted.

Better able to cope.

Because in romance novels, good always defeats evil. Tomorrow is a better day. Relationships are mended, hope is restored, love triumphs over all.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Catching Up

I've been a very bad blogger this week--and when I actually had news to share!

My single title romantic suspense novel, CRYBABY FALLS, placed first in the Romantic Suspense category of the 2005 Duel on the Delta contest. The judging editor also asked to see the full for either MIRA or HQN (I'm thinking it fits MIRA better, since it's not a pure romance).

You may not be able to tell it from the tone of my post, but I'm way past excited!

Done! (Well, sorta)

I finished revising WHAT THE HEART SEES to fit Harlequin Intrigue more snugly. Cut back to 300 words while simultaneously beefing up the mystery element. Whew! I'm tired.

I'm going to give it a week and read back over the last half of the book (where most of the revisions lie) before I print it out and send it to the editor who's requested it.

The Tribulations of Contests

I've had some pretty good luck in contests. Won a few, placed in several, finaled in even more. But this weekend, I not only found out I didn't place in the top three in the MARA Fiction from the Heartland contest but I also found out I placed fourth in the NOLA STARS Suzannah contest. Yeah, yeah--I placed in the finals. And I'm very happy about that. I was just hoping this book, CRYBABY FALLS, would place higher and maybe get an editor request or two. No luck there.

Oh, well, there are always the other contests I haven't heard from yet...

Chicken Pox averted, I think

No spots have shown up on my niece, and she's meanwhile developed symptoms that would suggest her fever was due to an upper respiratory infection. So I think I'm out of the woods. (famous last words).

Chicken Pox Watch, Day 1

Well, it looks like my niece is coming down with chicken pox, despite having been inoculated against it. And, as I've never had the chicken pox (despite being exposed more than once), I guess I'll be sweating this one out, too.

(I should note that my sister and her children, as well as my widowed mother, all live in the same house with me, hence my anxiety).

I hear that chicken pox is not a pleasant disease to have as an adult. I hope I don't have to find out first hand.

THE FUTURE WIDOWS' CLUB also an RT Top Pick

Wow, just when I thought my chaptermates couldn't surprise me anymore, Rhonda Nelson's novel THE FUTURE WIDOWS' CLUB received 4 1/2 Stars Gold - the top rating that RT gives out these days. Amazing!

Way to go, girl!

THE CAPTAIN is an RT Top Pick, too

My Southern Magic chaptermate Lynn Collum's book, The Captain, is also an RT Top Pick. Have I mentioned that my local RWA chapter rocks?

WEDNESDAY'S CHILD an RT Top Pick

In this month's edition of Romantic Times, my friend Gayle Wilson's new HQN romantic suspense, Wednesday's Child, is a Top Pick with 4 1/2 stars. Congratulations, Gayle!