Storms and Satellites

Don't mix.

Each afternoon/evening for the past week we've had storms, and the second a cloud shows up, the satellite apparently cowers in fear. Oh, for an alpha satellite! One that is not swayed by cloud nor thunder, one that communicates at no thought of the personal cost.

But we just have the regular kind.

This morning, my friend, Susan Floyd (who also writes for SuperRomance), called. I hadn't really noticed how much nourishment the rain has brought, but the beloved was doing some work so I went outside to cackle to my heart's content without disturbing him. Suddenly, I noticed, the fall haze has begun. I love mornings with fall haze, but I digress! The grass has turned green and filled back in, and the dew had coated some longer spots with a kind of teal sheen. Beautiful! I just hope the beloved won't notice and mow it all down. He prefers tidy to oh-that's-gorgeous!

Decatur Book Festival

Are you busy this weekend? Do you love books? Come over to the Decatur Book Festival. You can read about it here. Several Georgia Romance Writer authors will be speaking and signing, and you'll also be able to see/hear authors from many other genres.

Who doesn't want to spend a few hours talking books and writing?

Speaking of books, I gotta go to the library!

Rain and Assorted Musings

It's a lovely day here, all gray and kind of cooler than we've been used to. Sometimes, when the heat goes on the way it has, I start to think the weather will never be cool again.

However, my rather brown and dry world is turning green and red and gold and orange. The leaves are starting to change and blow into the pool--with the frogs. So many frogs. I'm not sure why they all come to us. ;-)

The rain has made me believe we'll have cool weather again some day, and going outside won't be a chore. The summer will change into autumn. That's the way of things. I'm a person who tends to worry. About everything. But this time of year reminds me worrying is sort of pointless. Life happens as it's supposed to.

School Days

The girl's going back. I never enjoy saying goodbye to my children.

However, I've lined up a little Thin Man marathon to tide me over after we get back from moving her in, and she's coming back for breakfast in the a.m. ;-) Afterward, I'm off to B&N to buy my first Laura Kinsale. In some strange romance writer's bend-in-time deficiency, I've never read anything by her, but a writer friend swears she's the best at emotion. I need some of that!

Now to see if this posts. Our satellite went belly up so I haven't been able to get online very easily. It's like starting over again!

Watching for Cooler Temps

The current book is set in winter, but it's 93 degrees (Heat Index 104) here right now. I have on movies with snow in them, because I wnat to remember what the sky looks like. I want to remember how people move when they're cold.

My heroine is a fish out of water because she's taken care of herself before now. The hero is in the same boat because he started all the heroine's trouble. Normally, he tries to avoid ruining women's lives so he's finding his actions unacceptable--thought he could not possibly have made any other choice.

Snow is working to isolate my characters.

It might be time for a pool break, though. Maybe the reptiles will stay away as the ground's too hot to slither or hop upon! I don't want the environment to cool down and become hospitable for them!

Swimming with the Snakes

Literally. Well, one snake and four frogs. Tonight, I am not fond of nature. We've had really hot weather. I guess nature wanted to cool off. So I finally gave up on the pool.

Have finished my deadline! Yay! And now I'm working on the next Welcome to Honesty book. This one is about Maria, who was Eli's doctor in Temporary Father. I loved her. She loved being on the page, and she got all feisty so we made a deal. If she stayed in character for Beth and Aidan's book, she got a book of her own.

I'm enjoying it so far. Maria's the black sheep of her family because she has a job and a home and she pays her bills and stays in one place and doesn't need rescuing.

Until now.

But she's not a woman who takes kindly to being rescued. The interesting difficulty about writing strong women is remembering that readers don't always come to them, knowing what I do, that they often have a soft center they're protecting with their outer shell of strength. Hinting at the softness, without letting them fold is walking a tightrope, but ya gotta have empathy.

Best Romantic Ending

I post regularly on the SuperRomance message board on eHarlequin.com, but today I can't seem to get in, and I don't have time to figure out why, so I thought I'd move part of that post here since I don't have blog time either.

First, since I've been whining about my girl, an update. She's up and about--and she's visiting a friend. Her eyes look normal, instead of as if she's sick. (moms understand that, huh?) So, even though she's still exhausted (anesthesia, I'm guessing), everything else is working out mighty fine.

One of the writers on the Super board asked for our favorite romantic movie ending. Immediately, Pride and Prejudice popped into my mind. And a welcome pop it was. I even pulled out the DVD. I didn't much care for the Keira Knightley/Mathew Macfadyan Pride and Prejudice whilst I was expecting it to be P&P. But the moment MM came striding across that field, my attitude underwent a miraculous change! And once I remembered how to breathe, I thought there were hidden charms to this "loosely based" version! So--my fave--starts with MM crossing that field and continues through his efforts to tell Lizzy he loves her. Sigh....

Back to work!

A No-Blog Blog

I'm dizzy with a deadline and the girl. No time to think about anything more.

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday

All I'm gonna say is I don't like when the children don't feel well, but my tooth-troubled offspring is in bed and I'm back at work, hoping she'll wake up feeling astoundingly better.

Cutting and culling today and finally adding some new stuff. I like adding better than culling.

Too tired to even ramble.

Distractions

William Powell and Myrna Loy day on TCM, including the Thin Man movies.

A friend telling me how much she loves Laura Kinsale's books. (I must be the only romance writer who's never read them, but they're on order now).

A filthy house that looks as if its normal cleaner is on deadline.

Fast food, which I'm not eating as I'm dieting, but ohmygosh, anything with grease in it smells so stinking good!

My girl's having some toothwork tomorrow. My brother-in-law, a wise man, invited me to "get over it." So, I'm going to try to do that.

Maybe those characters who are impatient to have a tidied happily ever after will help distract me!

The Man Makes a Good Showing

Please excuse the boasting, but I’m so excited. At least for this morning, The Man from Her Past is the #1 Superromance at Barnes and Noble online! Yay! Thanks so much to the folks who’ve bought it! I hope you’re enjoying.

And now, back to the next Honesty, VA book, working title The Bad Twin. The thing is, she doesn’t mean to be so bad. ;-)

Singing. Out Loud. In Public.

I'm drowning in deadline and distracted at home, so I got up, swam, did errands, and now I'm at a sandwich shop working because people won't like it if I buttonhole them to chat about whatever's in my head. (Not that people are enjoying that at home lately!)

However, today must be Mommy and Me at the sandwich shop because there are at least fifteen under-one-year-olds here. I love little 'uns, but gosh, they're noisy when you're hiding from distraction. So naturally, I put on headphones and iTunes--and Keith Urban. He and Rascall Flatts appear to be the only country music I like, but I really like them.

Imagine the dismay of those poor little babies, trying to eat their lunch and shout and cry and--whatever, when I suddenly forgot I wasn't home and burst into song. I'm not even sure Keith needed my assistance, either. He was doing fine on his own.

I probably ought to leave, but honestly, when you come to a sandwich shop, don't you sort of expect some wild-eyed writer on deadline to belt out a little Keith Urban at you?

Uneasy

It's silly, but my girl is having her wisdom teeth pulled this week, and I feel it hanging over my head like an anvil. Maybe if I do the worrying she won't.

I find writing romance difficult when something like this is going on, even though I'm being a little ridiculous. But I hate seeing her in pain. (Yeah, we've been lucky and our offspring have been healthy--no broken bones, etc.)

Anyway, this is one of those weeks where a muse would be helpful, but since I don't have one, I'd better just bang away at the story and throw my angst into the pages.

I hope you're looking forward to something fun and fine this week!

The Man from Her Past, Showing Up Any Day

Welcome back to Honesty! I'm starting to receive lovely letters about The Man from Her Past. A new book on the shelves is always exciting. I love this series, set in the small town of Honesty, VA. I hope that readers will enjoy it, too.

I've written a couple of series before, The Talbot Twins, set on a fictional island near Savannah, Georgia, and The Calvert Cousins, set in Bardill, Tennessee, another fictional town in the foothills of the Smokies. The thing I didn't consider was that I was going to run out of cousins and twins before I ran out of stories for these two settings. Hence, Honesty came to life.

When my son was little, we read a set of books about a community of foxes in a medieval English town. I loved the maps and the recurring characters and the life in those stories. That's what Honesty means to me--life going on in a town with real buildings and roads and people who know too much and care too much and love just enough! I hope you'll join me there.