Better Late Than Never

Woops! I almost missed my opportunity to blog today. Sorry! I was traveling and plans changed mid-stream. But I'm here now... with some news...

First, INFERNO is out now, so if you haven't gotten your copy yet, check it out at MBAM, ARe, or wherever ebooks are sold! INFERNO is a great adventure tale that has some incredibly naughty bits with menage and lots of sexy vampire/werewolf action.

Also, I just got the cover for my upcoming anthology from Kensington Brava. The anthology is called HALF PAST DEAD and my story within it is titled, SIMON SAYS. Here's the blurb:

Special Forces soldier Simon Blackwell ended his affair with Mariana Daniels three years ago, but he hasn’t stopped protecting her. Mariana has no knowledge of the dark, deadly creatures that lurk in the forest surrounding her clinic, or of the mysterious powers that make Simon the only one who can defeat them. But soon he’ll have no choice but to reveal the truth, and urge her to trust in an explosive passion that never faded….

To get a peek at the most awesome cover ever, check out my blog.

All The Best Things Come From Writing...

For me at least. While researching Deaf Culture for a secondary character I came across the state Relay program. Whenever a deaf, hard of hearing, or speech impaired individual needs to place a phone call, they use TTY (TeleTYpewriter) or TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf) devices that to connect them to a communications assistance and from there to their party. The communications assistance or CA is a transparent agent that types everything heard and speaks everything typed, allowing the speech impaired and those in the deaf community the same effortless information exchange the rest of us enjoy by just picking up the phone.

Looking further into the program I found out that my state Relay was hiring and jumped in with both feet. It was an opportunity to leave a typical EDJ (evil day job) and pursue something that was fulfilling, non-profit, and writer-friendly. More importantly, it was the chance to learn more about Deaf Culture and move my secondary character to a primary with confidence.

See all the best things really do come from writing and the research involved. I not only got a new job, but a new story and an atmosphere to do it right. And it all brings to mind a few questions.

For the writers: Have you ever considered writing your hero (or one of your heroes, you know I love the multiples) with a disability, or who was differently-abled? If so, did you feel confident in your choice to do so? If not, do you think it is because the concept of “hero” and “impairment” don’t go together easily?

For the readers: What’s the last book you read with a main character that was impaired, but the book was not about the impairment? Did you feel the impairment was fairly portrayed and dealt with in the course of the story?

For everyone: Do you think that in paranormal fiction preternatural handicaps have replaced mortal impairments? What would you like to see explored in more depth when it comes to character diversity? Do mundane impairments make it difficult for you to see a character as a full “alpha male”?

Answering one of my own questions; the last prominent character with a mundane physical impairment I remember (and deeply love) is Nick Andros from The Stand by Stephen King. In that same story is a central character with a mundane mental impairment, Tom Cullen. Without ever thinking about them in terms of the impairments, The Stand has been and will likely always be my favorite book because the characters were people before they were anything else. The way it should be.

(M-O-O-N, that spells favorite. All of you who get the reference are my new best friends. Call me)

Art Story

Mr. DeMille, I’m ready to get my brain back…

Seriously, I just finished the technique section of Fantasy Art Templates (Barron’s, January 2010), my next nonfiction project, and it’s like the first day well after a long illness. The house is a wreck. The living room is stacked with boxes from the 78s the spouse person ordered while I was “in the zone”. The path from the so-called writing desk to the sofa where I actually do most of my writing is strewn with papers and reference materials. Hastily kicked-off shoes carpet the kitchen. And I. Am. Not. Cooking. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Until I started the tech section (the portion of the book where readers learn how to emulate the art contained in the main portion of the book) writing was a breeze. The editor shipped me a batch of illustrations, and I wrote captions, usually on the sofa watching TV.

But the artist was ill earlier this year and still playing catch-up. So our editor suggested I get to work on the “Backgrounds and Technique” chapter. I stared her email in horror. The way I understood it, the final chapter wasn’t my problem. The artist would provide ten landscapes to be used with the figures depicted elsewhere in the book. The rest of the chapter would consist of standard instruction pages drawn from other books in the publisher’s series.

There was just one problem. Our book wasn’t like any other book in the series. Remember that “templates” part of the title? The figures in the main section of the book--wizards, warrior women, dragons, unicorns, elves--were designed for copying in traditional media or digitally, or redrawn and adapted as needed. There wasn’t anything quite like it in the catalogue.

Which meant not all the standard instruction pages worked.

Which meant I had to write pages that would.

Gulp.

I’m the classic case of those who can’t teach critique. I studied art until I realized my talent for drawing lay somewhere on the poor side if mediocre. In college, I switched to writing, politics and art history, and never looked back. To presume to instruct other people in skills I hadn’t used since high school… I repeat, gulp.

So I fell back on the other skills that never let me down: reporting and fiction. The reporting part was fairly straightforward. I wrote the artist and asked a few questions. That told me his process, which I knew would interest the reader, but I couldn't exactly drill him on the basics. That would be like asking another writer where they get their ideas. Seriously. This is where my inner fiction writer took over.

Instead of telling people how to create art, I focused on the stories the art could tell. Fantasy paintings, I wrote, have characters and settings like books and movies, but instead of words, the artist uses scale, perspective, lighting and color to get his or her point across. I organized my instruction pages around that theme, but it wasn’t easy. It required as much time and focus as writing fiction. But it worked.

Er, I think it worked. I won’t know until my editor gets back to me.

It's like that in fiction too.

Speaking of which, if you’re going to be in the Washington DC area for the Romance Writers of America National Conference, feel free to give me a shout-out. I plan to drop in for the Samhain party and a few of the other non-RWA events, and I’d love to say hi.

Cheers!

Smallville Addiction

Finding family together time that makes both a 7 year old girly-girl and a 15 year old too-cool-for-his-sister happy is a challenge. There's not much they have in common, other than their gene pool, and even there they seem to be swimming in opposite ends. One is over in the deep end doing dolphin flips and the other is spiking the volleyball over the net and yelling "Eye of the Tiger!" when no one can return it. I'll let you guess which is doing which.

But a month or so ago we stumbled on something that has kept all three of us entertained for an hour a day. Smallville, the television series that tells the story of Clark Kent's teenage years, has given us a happy meeting place.

The violence level is mild enough that my daughter can watch without me worrying about nightmares. Most of the sexual tension is kept to heated looks and the occasional kiss, although there was a Clark-gone-bad episode that my son and I saved for a day it was just the two of us watching.

My son can completely relate to the high school angst and drama. He's old enough to catch some of the nice asides in the dialoge (Clark: If aliens came to Earth, don't you think they'd find someplace a little more exciting than Smallville?)that show up a few times each episode.

My daughter is totally caught up in the Lana / Clark / Chloe love triangle (we're only up to season 2). She doesn't "get" a lot of the inside humor and points, but the relationships are the hook for her.

I'm enjoying the series, even while I'm sitting there laughing at some of the stories. We all laugh together about how many people Clark has saved from car accidents / explosions, and how many episodes in a row someone has said some version of "Clark, it's not your fault." There is little that is subtle about this series. But it has turned into a bit of a character development class, and my son and I especially have had some great conversations about how both script and book authors use some of the same devices - foreshadowing, character development, cliff hangers, plot moving grand revelations.

We're watching the episodes in order(yay Netflix!), and I've resisted the temptation to peek ahead online or watch the current season that is in repeats Mostly I'm just glad I've found something that for an hour a day lets us all do something together, each getting their own bit of enjoyment out of the time.

If you've seen Smallville, what do you think of it? Melodramatic good vs evil, or an entertaining view into the past of one of our favorite superheroes?

Hot off the presses!

Contrary to my previous info, the print edition of DREAM WALK is available beginning today!

You can order it at your favorite on-line bookseller, or try any of these links: My Bookstore and More; BooksAMillion.com; Powells.com; Amazon.com.

If you'd rather, you can also ask your local brick-and-mortar store to order a copy. :)

“Dream Walk” by Meg Allison

Genre: Paranormal Romance
ISBN: 978-1-60504-317-3
Length: 288 Pages

Some nightmares are deadly real.

The Sentinels, Book 1

Camille Bryant is a gifted medium being slowly driven insane by terrifying dreams. When she is forced to accept help from a Sentinel—a mysterious warrior of her race—her comfort zone is quickly invaded. Try as she might, she can’t seem to stop the erotic visions that fill her mind when her rescuer is near.

Ian Spain is a dream walker who’s been assigned to banish the dream demon from Camille’s restless nights. But complications quickly ensue. This is no ordinary demon and Camille is no ordinary woman: both are far stronger than anyone realizes. So strong, Ian suddenly isn’t sure he has the power to vanquish her demon—not when his own hound his every step.

Their passion ignites even as the body count rises and their courage is put to the test in a battle as old as time. Winner takes all.

Warning: Scenes of leather-clad hero may induce spontaneous drooling, erotic fantasies, and unfair comparisons to spouse or significant other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A glimpse of a hero:

Chapter One

Savannah
Present day

Camille jerked awake, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. Images from the nightmare hovered like nebulous ghosts in her mind. Long damp strands of hair stuck to her face, the thin cotton nightshirt clung to her skin. Kicking off the sheet, she swung her feet to the floor and took a deep breath.

Nightmare. More like night terror. She’d had them as a young girl—moments of absolute horror that had her seeing things crawling up the dark, empty walls. Camille remembered little except the transparent images superimposed on the real world, and her mother’s soothing voice.

She clicked on the bedside lamp. Her shoulders drooped with defeat as she glanced at the clock. Five in the morning. She hadn’t gone to bed until two. With a heavy sigh, she rose and crossed to the adjoining bathroom. She stripped off the sweat-soaked garment and climbed into the shower.

Over the past four months, she had relived the same terrifying visions with the same conclusion. Camille had all but lost her ability to sleep. Lack of sleep made it hard to think, let alone write. Work suffered, not to mention her sanity which hung by a thread.

“He’s coming.”

She jerked her head up from beneath the hot drizzle and glanced around at the swirling steam. With a sigh of relief, she shook her head.

“Don’t scare me like that,” she whispered.

“No worries, child.”

She closed her eyes as a warm, peaceful wave filled her from head to toe. Her guide, her spirit mentor, was the only man she trusted. The only man she’d let close since her nineteenth birthday over ten years ago.

As she allowed the blank screen in her mind to change, colors swirled like a kaleidoscope. An image formed of shoulder-length dark hair pulled back from a bronzed face. The features sharpened to reveal eyes as dark as pitch, a straight nose, heavy brow and full mouth. Camille’s breath caught. He was beautiful and frightening all at once. This man would help her overcome evil? He looked like a warrior or a fallen angel, not a savior.

~~~~~~~

Also enjoy another great print story now available from BTV author, MK Mancos:

“By A Silken Thread”

You can never have too many great paranormal reads. :)

~~Meg


Indulge your senses...
http://www.megallisonauthor.com

A Butt Kickin' Friend is Good to Find

Dungeonmistress's Note: Due to circumstances beyond her control (she's still looking for her brain, at last report) Jean Marie Ward was unable to post today. [grin] I hope you'll enjoy a piece cross-posted from The Romance Studio blog.
*****
Friend: noun
1. Someone who knows when to offer her shoulder
2. Someone who knows when to kick your ass (q.v. true friend)

-----

I’ll get right down to the nitty gritty. I lost my father about a month ago. Actually I’d been in the process of losing him for at least the last ten years; May 23 was simply the final chapter in a death-cheating odyssey that confounded the best specialists in central North Carolina. I mean, Dad would show up for an appointment and his doctors would say half-seriously, “Dude, are you still alive?”

I had this idea that when his end finally came, I’d be ready for it. Shake it off, secure in the knowledge that Dad’s was a life well lived, and move on to do likewise.

When I’d share this with my best friend J.C. Wilder, she’d nod and smile. She’d been down this road. She knew better.

Last December, my most recent title hit the virtual bookshelves right about the same time I visited my parents for the holidays. One look at Dad, and my Mom and I exchanged glances that said we knew it wouldn’t be much longer for him. He always went to great pains to sound hale and hearty on the phone, when in reality he couldn’t walk more than a few steps.

I took a deep breath and told myself I was okay. I wasn’t. I went back to Ohio ready to dive into book three of my Legends series — and found myself staring hopelessly at the screen, my mind as empty as the rest of my life looked without my Dad in it.

J.C. and my editor, Lindsey, were patient. They were kind and supportive through the final ordeal that ended May 23 as Dad passed peacefully into the next life. They bided their time over the next two weeks, waiting for me to turn back to the writing that has been a huge healing force in my life.

By early June, they lost patience. They knew better than I did that if I wallowed in my funk much longer, there might be no getting out again. There was only one way to get me back on task. Spring a carefully planned trap.

I knew something was up when I observed the two of them huddled over martinis in a dark corner of the bar at the Lori Foster conference. And how they’d stop talking whenever I came within hearing range. They even waited to strike until I was driving home.

My cell phone rang.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” said J.C. without preamble. (She always assumes I know it’s her.) “Starting tomorrow, you are going to start writing a novella. We don’t care what it’s about. You will write for two hours a day for six days a week. At the end of that two hours, you will email me the file, and I will forward it to Lindsey. Neither one of us will read it, you just have to send it.”

“Um, okay.” I knew there had to be more. She didn’t disappoint.

“Here’s the catch. You will immediately delete the file from your hard drive. The next day, pick up where you left off and keep going.”

My heart nearly stopped. My crippling Internal Editor was already screaming bloody murder. Write without the possibility of going back to fix mistakes? Yikes!

“You may not have the files back for editing until you hit 10k words,” she continued as if she had a perfect right to boss me around.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” I croaked.

“Trust me, this is going to work,” she said with a confidence I didn’t feel. At. All.

I hemmed and hawed for a few days. Then I opened a new document and started typing with only the vaguest idea of what the story was. Two hours later, I emailed the file to J.C., swallowed hard, and hit DELETE.

Then I went to bed, curled up in a fetal position and bawled like a baby.

Next day: Lather, rinse, repeat.

By day three, I found myself tentatively looking forward to my two hours of seat-of-the-pants writing time, even knowing that by the end I’d be a basket case. By day seven, I was writing on my laptop in the car, hauling it with me everywhere to cram in a few minutes here and there. And I have a first draft half-way finished. This has to be some kind of record for me, folks.

My talisman is a picture on my computer's destop of my Dad. He’s sitting in a boat, grinning and holding up a miniscule fish that’s not much bigger than the bait he caught it with. Even he understood that if you catch enough little fish, eventually you have a “mess”, which in Tarheel-speak means enough for a meal.

In other words, even baby steps eventually get you to your goal. So, step by painful baby step, I’m emerging from the numbness.

And it’s all due to the friends who have my back. Everyone should be so lucky.

Carolan Ivey
Romance that will haunt you…

Web site ~ Blog ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Myspace

Independence, Benchmarks, and Other Things That Make You Go WOW!

Today is a holiday for a lot of people in America. It's a chance to get ready for tomorrow's 4th of July Independence Day cookouts, fireworks, and other celebrations. Tomorrow, we'll mark the freedom from tyranny, the liberty of personal choices, and the joy of free speech.

So why wait? Today's a banker's holiday launching it all, so let's start now.

On a personal front, I've passed a benchmark in my career in the last couple of weeks and been welcomed as a professional published author in the RWA circles. It's a humbling and exciting moment for me, but it brought me back to a question I've asked before: When does an author decide they've really "made it?" What validates your writing career?

Is it selling the book of your heart? Last month, Samhain Publishing contracted the book of my heart, ANGELIC AVENGER, for an October release. I'm very excited to go through the process of getting it transformed from a promising manuscript into a book.

Or maybe it's seeing your book leading the Best Seller list? My friend, Vivi Andrews, had her Sexy Shifter release, SERENGETI HEAT, do just that over at the My Bookstore and More. I've enjoyed sharing that benchmark with her. Since I'm a fan of shifter books, I'd like to take a moment to recommend Vivi's release and Kinsey Holley's Sexy Shifter book, KISS AND KIN. They are great reads if you're shopping for a novella to get you through the holiday weekend.

However we, as writers, validate our chosen profession, one thing is true. Independence Day celebrations are doubly important for us. Freedom to write whatever we want without censure is one of the greatest gifts of being an American. Though I doubt the Founding Fathers realized they were blazing a path that would ultimately lead to the choices we enjoy today, I'm certainly glad they marked Free Speech in the Constitution.

So, in the spirit of Independence Day, what are you doing this weekend?

Kaye Chambers

Thanks For The Memories

Passenger, how far will this plane take us?
Ron White: All the way to the scene of the crash.


Walk outside, even early in the morning to pick up the paper from the end of the driveway (the paperboys never hit the porch) and you’ll get hammered by the summer heat. That is if you live in the south, where the main commodities are heat and mosquitoes and fire ants. But this summer of discontent doesn’t come from sizzling like hot boudin in the nearest Cajun bistro. And it’s worse than being bombed by mosquitoes the size of F14’s, or even stepping into a nest of fire ants on your way out to work. It’s even worse than the so called pandemic of H1N1—more affectionately known as the ‘Swine flu’—that paralyzed us all with fear a few weeks back. No, this summer is more than that. Its become a sad summer. A summer of losing our 70’s and80’s icons. A summer of our discontent. A summer reminding us that nothing lasts forever.

Michael Jackson’s sudden demise leads the pack by eclipsing everyone else who passed this last month, including Ed McMahon. But I have to talk about Ed first. Dear old Ed, who was Johnny Carson’s sidekick for as long as I can remember, and that’s quite a ways back, the man who launched the first of what would later become cheesy talent shows (Star Search, which btw, I did like) such as the dreaded American Idol (I pronounce it American Eyeball just because I want to) and of course who could forget all of those Publisher’s Clearinghouse contests. (Did anyone actually win any of those things?) I loved his voice, I loved his calmness and his affability. I loved the jokes and jibes between him and Johnny. Although there was charisma between Jay Leno and his band leader Kevin Eubanks, there just wasn’t that same spark of wit and love that came with the Carson McMahon duo. But that was as it should be. And although I liked the Tonight Show with Leno, the torch has been passed once again, and I just can’t seem to care much about the newest incarnation of the show. It’s just not the same any more. Besides, there’s Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network.

Now back to Michael. It always creeps me out to find out someone who’s the same age as I die suddenly. But there it is. He’s gone. It’s heartbreakingly sad, as he was such a brilliant talent, and I did love watching him perform, especially in the 80’s when his talent seemed to bear the most and best fruit. He was a sad soul, I think. Sad and confused and lonely in a way that probably none of us could ever understand. And now, he’s gone in as much spectacle as anything done in life. He’s gone, but will never be forgotten. In fact we’ll probably hear more about him in the months—and dare I say—years to come. The King of Pop is about to become indelibly marked on our cultural conscious as the King of Rock—which is of course—Elvis. Somewhere in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder if some dork is going to make a religion out of him, much like those who founded the “church of Elvis.” I’m sure, someone will, and I’m certain his poor mother will be mortified.
My “niece” (Southernese for my BFF’s daughter) was just a few years old when the Thriller video was launched. My bff and I wanted to see it. Her daughter sat between us when Michael performed. We of course, enjoyed the video, however the transformations scared little Nikki silly .We had no idea it’d have such an effect on her. For weeks afterwards she’d come up to me and point at the TV and say “dat wolf, Aunt Patty, dat wolf!”
Another dear friend of mine, Renee Witterstaetter, artist agent and owner of Little Eva Ink., once met him on the set of Red Dragon. Here on her facebook wall, Renee Reminisces:

Renee Witterstaetter On the set of "Red Dragon" one day to meet with the director, Ratner. Limo, entourage, umbrella on sunny day..We were setting a house on fire, so the crew wore smoke masks! The first thing MJ did was ask if we were making fun (he use to wear a mask, you see). Brett of course told him that was not the case, and that all as well, and then Michael was fine. I liked him. Nothing negative. Just a memory...

When I was a kid back in the 70’s, Farrah Fawcette’s famous pin up poster was the solution for every teenage boy’s case of morning wood, and every girl wanted that incredible smile and feathered locks. Among other things….I liked “Charlie’s Angels, not because of Farrah (she did only one season) but because it depicted women as detectives, something that was virtually unheard of back in the stone age of women’s rights. Oh yeah there was that obscure series back in the Sixties called Honey West, and in some ways I think it’s a better show, but still, Charlie’s Angels brought to the screen three capable women who could not only catch the bad guy but look good doing it.
And of course I spent months trying to get my thick heavy main of red-gold hair to look like Farrah’s. I begged my mom for ‘the cut’ which put her out about twenty five bucks (I was stunned when she agreed to it) and bought the super big rollers with insanely mutated bobby pins. I bought a magazine where Farrah had described in an interview, then went to work forcing my hair to cooperate. I even slept in those rollers, although in retrospect I can’t see how I managed it. I guess I slept upright. But the effects afterwards, after weeks and weeks of rolling and brushing and spraying, I got the style just right. So on the night of our Senior banquet (The school board were members of the Church of Christ and some very strict Baptists so we didn’t have an official prom due to the ‘sin’ of dancing) myself and two of my friends attended the banquet stag, yet glamorously dressed and beautiful as Charlie’s Angels. That night, we actually were applauded when we entered the gym where the banquet was held. It was truly a night to remember.
Billy Mays, the loud, fast talking hawker of all things crapolicious also passed from public view last week. He died suddenly, peacefully from what I understand, in his sleep after suffering a heart attack. I have no special memories of him, but his commercials are still playing, and it saddens me to know that soon those commercials will end and we’ll never hear him hawk another cheesy product again.
Last night, of course is the last, thus far of a long and sad line of celebrity passings. Although I adored Karl Malden, especially in great films like “On the Waterfront,” “Patton” and “Streetcar Named Desire” (I am after all, a vintage film junkie) I think Karl could best be remembered as Lt. Detective Mike Stone in the television series “Streets of San Francisco.” Karl had a very long and successful film and television career. He died at the tender age of 97. 97. I should be so lucky.
Even though I no longer drink alcohol, I raise my glass of ice water to the five of you, who made the seventies and beyond great with your genius and say, in the immortal words of my long time hero Humphrey Bogart, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

Patricia Snodgrass

Congrats, Becke Davis!

Congratulations to Becke Davis, winner of the Beyond the Veil blog's prize basket at the recent Lori Foster Readers and Authors Get-Together conference! Hope you enjoyed the goodies and the books. :)

(Becke is moderator of bn.com's Garden and Mystery book clubs. Follow her on Twitter!)

Flawed Release Day!

It's here! Today is release day for Flawed, the sensual tale of a princess in dire need of a bit of help and the two shadow elves who fall head over heels for her.

Elves and magic and betrayal and hot, burn-up-the-sheets love - this novella has them all. This is a fantasy for adults, a love story for everyone who ever felt the weight of the world rested in the throw of a d20.

I hope you enjoy the story of Emilia, Rorek, and Jo'el.

Here's a snippet from the opening scene -

Attempting to calm herself from the ugly scene she had fled, she rolled her flushed face against the coolness of the wood. First one side, then the other, before she let the warming surface press against the useless dark rock that rested in her forehead. There was a distant sensation of pressure where the stone met her flesh, an unwanted reminder of her most obvious shortcoming. The stone that should have been a source of great magical power was nothing more than a daily reminder that she was, indeed, as flawed as a princess could be.

A low moan from the room behind her jerked her from her thoughts. Spinning around to find the source, Emilia stared openmouthed in surprise at the scene before her.

Gods alive.

Firelight cast a dim light over a couple near the fireplace. A large male body reclined across the brocade cushions of a finely carved settee, one long leg propped against the back of the small sofa and one braced on the floor. His thighs were spread wide, giving her a clear view of the naked muscled chest that rose from a slender waist. A cream-colored shirt of the finest shadowsilk was unbuttoned across his skin, framing the sculpted muscles and smooth ebony skin in light.

His head was thrown back in abandoned pleasure, allowing shadows to flicker across the planes of his face. A rising flame threw him into light, and then his features were cast again into the shadows. Through the haze of shock she felt a stab of recognition. Rorek Northmark, Lord Magician of Darkknell, the visiting ambassador and blood cousin to King Torek of the Shadow Elf, was sprawled in lusty abandon as she had never seen him before.

I'm giving away a copy of Flawed - this one is open to anyone who comments here or on my blog between now and midnight, July 2nd.

Happy reading!

A Flawed Contest

The hotter it gets outside, the more I want to retreat into my cave. Lock out the world, tuck my legs under me, and type away the hours.

Unfortunately, there is no door on my cave. The real world intrudes often. Usually in the form of a sweetly pleading six year old (six for now - my baby will be seven next week!) or the hubby, who will sprawl on the couch and ask if I'm busy. No dear, never to busy for you.

But they've given me enough quiet time to keep my sanity. That's good enough for me.

I don't have a lot of travel ahead of me this summer. I won't be able to make the trip to DC for the RWA conference in July, and even the family trips to North Carolina and Kentucky that I had considered during the spring never came together. Too many things on my calendar, and not enough free time to string together travel days. A weekend getaway with the kids to Orlando and a short trip up to Alabama looks like it will have to be enough to keep my traveling feet satisfied for this year. But as long as I've got my family, my keyboard, and a book release to look forward to, it's all good to me.
~
Flawed releases next week! Only 7 days until my sexy elves are turned loose on the world. I think the warning that comes with this book says it all :

Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex (including m/m and m/f/m), naughty language, some magical sex along with sexual magic, a desperate princess and the men who love her, elves and spells and betrayal oh my! and enough heat to start small fires. Cold drink recommended.

So I've got a question for you. Do you like contests? How about really, really easy ones? I've got a copy of Flawed to give away, and it doesn't even require jumping through flaming hoops to enter.


Really, they don't get much easier than this. Drop me an email at ember @ embercase . com [remove the spaces] before Midnight EST on June 29th. Put the word Flawed in the title, and I'll enter you into a drawing for an ebook copy of Flawed. One entry per, please.

Baltimore-Area Booksigning

If you happen to be in the Baltimore area this Saturday, you might want to drop in at the Parkside Restaurant anytime from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. DC Area Storytellers D. Renee Bagby (also a Samhain author), Stephanie Burke, Anthony Stevens and I will be reading from published stories and upcoming works, and signing and selling our books. Knowing this group, we'll probably manage to get into a fair amount of trouble too. I mean, they serve drinks and food at this place, and I saw Animal House at a very impressionable age. Just don't say you weren't warned...

The Pre-Conference Breakdown

It happens every year, no matter what conference I'm planning to attend, I get the pre-conference breakdown. It's not an official diagnosis mind you, but some kind of internal chaos that hits my system when it knows I'll be traveling away from home to meet and greet and hobnob with my fellow writers. It's not that I don't enjoy myself once I get there, but the anxiety that enfolds me is rather daunting in the planning stage.

About a month out - like around now for instance - I start to think of all the reasons why I shouldn't go. 1) travel - until there is real teleportation, there will not be a safe way to travel from point A to point B. And even then, who says all your little molecules are going to get put back together correctly anyways. Lord knows, you might come out looking like a Picasso. Not pretty. 2) people - as an agoraphobic, putting about 900 people together in a room and telling them all to run find a place to sit before all the places are taken is not good. If the meals weren't included in the price of the conference, I'd probably go eat all mine in a restaurant or order room service. 3) agent/editor appnts. - Oh boy! So nerve wracking. The entire night before, I can't sleep. I sit in the chair across from the person who holds the fate of my writing career in their hands, and suddenly my mind goes blank. Forget putting the stuff on notecards, because I forget how to read as well. Heiroglyphics would probably be easier to neogiate in such a situation than the plain old garden variety alphabet. 4) wardrobe malfunctions - it doesn't matter how many new outfits I buy or pairs of shoes I bring along, they are never the right ones. NEVER! Clothes that fit nice and looked good before the trip, suddenly morph into potato sacks and shipping boxes. Hmmmm, I wonder if I pack just potato sacks and shipping boxes, if my luggage will morph them into Valentino clothes and Gucci shoes? Not worth the risk, I'm thinking.

All right, now that I've firmly got myself up on the ledge, anyone care to join me? What does your pre-conference breakdown include, or do you even have one?

-Kat

Grilling Your Hero

A.K.A. How To Get It Smoky and Hot

Welcome to the latest Agent Double D.3 Report. Spring is over, Summer is well and truly on it’s way and the pool, patio and garden beckon with tendril fingers of peace and tranquility. You simply know this is the time of year for sitting outside watching the sunset, the stars, your lover’s mooning... It’s also the time to escape those regular chores of the kitchen and dump upon your hunky hunk the responsibility of providing the evening repast. Mainly through that tried and trusted method of heroic cooking passed down from manly man to manly man over centuries of masculine generations. But is he really qualified in haut BBQ cuisine? Does he know a patty from a party, a steak from a stake, or a kebab from a rehab?

Never fear, our special Agent Double D.3 has risked life, limb, food poisoning and smoke inhalation to bring you this exclusive report on how to assess your hero’s grill skill, so come on in and check it out now with Agent Double D.3’s special guide on Grilling Your Hero.


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Agent Double D.3 Reports.

1. Vampires: With this delicious hunk, grilling on the BBQ is something you need to approach cautiously. Firstly, most BBQ’s are done in the afternoon, full sunlight, bright and warm days. Something guaranteed to give your beau instant sunburn even before the first beer is popped. Then, if you go and mention you’ll be preparing stakes, I mean, steaks. Well, chances are you won’t be seeing your fella for a least a few centuries, if then. Best thing to do with this chipper lover is to go ahead and have your party while he’s hip deep in his beauty sleep. Then later, with a bottle of his favorite blood type handy, you can await, naked and smoking, for your after BBQ desserts.

2. Werewolves: We all know that werewolves are party animals, and what better way to party than to have barely cooked New York Strip while basking beside the pool in his new Hawaiian swim shorts. All you’ll need is salt, grill and loads of fresh meat, to stoke your beloved up and recharge him for a night of furrish delights. Hmm. Yes. Just one thing though. Avoid having a BBQ close to the full moon. Not that the damage would be permanent but, dammit, the only thing you want charred on the grill is the steak, and that fur is awfully flammable. Of course, if you’ve been wanting him to have that full body shave…

3. Ghosts: Mention BBQ to a ghost and he’ll probably be thinking of a five hundred pound pig slowly roasted over an open fire for, ooh, four or five days. Not that he’d think anything special about it anyway since that’s the way the kitchens always cooked in his day. Probably the best thing here is to quietly let him drone on about the banquets you know he used to hold in his old mansion, (when the French chef specially imported from Spain cooked that delicious Greek food.) Meanwhile set your brother, father, male friend up with the latest in portable gas gadgetry and get something decent on the grill. Trust me, there’s nothing more off-putting to a good pork chop than to see it staring at you with a soggy apple in its mouth.


4. Invisible men: Super scientific geniuses like invisible men are just simply terrific—except when it comes to cooking on the grill. Once they’ve managed to explain the simple processes of carbon/charcoal combustion, the increased rate of cancer forming agents in the cooked food and the resultant pollution to the atmosphere, we’ll finally get on to the relative merits of gas vs. charcoal and comprehensive design critiques as to which grill cooks best for what and where. Really, if you want a BBQ, just cook it yourself before he gets home. That way at least you’ll get to eat tonight.

5. Mermen: Overall mermen tend to be allergic to flame—something to do with having spent most of their time underwater. Still, if you throw them a good mackerel or salmon they tend to do a pretty nifty job in charring it to tender, tasty perfection. Oh, if you’re looking for a little after party teaser, don’t let them get too carried away with the water filled spray bottle. If it happens to blow the flame in their face, well, anyone for blackened fish…

6. Incubus: Okay I’ll only say this once. Put the Brats down and step away. I mean, it’s not like your incubus beloved has anything else on his mind, ever. So why give him ideas by presenting food to remind him of his favorite occupation. Hell, anything food-like will remind him of his favorite occupation. Just give up on it lass, take your clothes off, go to bed and wait for him there. You know you’ll end up there anyway so why waste the time? Just make sure to take a big tub of Godiva chocolate ice cream with you. You’re going to need some sustenance after all.

7. Djinn: Your Djinn lover will be the most inventive and excellent when it comes to grilling on the BBQ. Well, okay, so it won’t actually be him doing the cooking, but hey, if you can cast a spell and make a thousand servant slaves instantly appear and put on a feast fit for the Maharajah, wouldn’t you? So why complain, just pull up that gold plated chair, sit yourself down at the carved emerald table, and enjoy. Oh, make sure your hunk magics up a gas mask for you. Breathing the smoke from a hundred cooking fires can be hazardous to your health. Not to mention half the counties fire engines will probably be waiting outside...

Agent Double D.3 report ends.