On Vacation

So, for those of you who didn't know, I turned the big 4-0 last weekend. Happy birthday to me and all that jazz. (Seriously though, I don't get the big deal about 40. Other than some extra aches and pains, I don't feel all that different than I did 10 or even 15 years ago.) Rather than clearing out my Amazon wish-list, my husband said I could plan our family vacation around my birthday. Woot!

So, right now, I am chilling in the Caribbean with the hubs and the kiddos. I may regret the latter part of the equation, but I didn't want to not include them.

This trip is also allowing me to check some of the places I use in a new romance novel. I want to make sure I get the feel (and details--at least as much as works) right. In theory, that means I could write the trip off. We'll see though.

I'm also (shoot me now before the plot bunnies eat my brain) debating an attempt at a romance novel in the vein of the married-with-kids rom-coms that have been coming out. For those of you not in that situation, it truly is a completely different world than the falling-in-love style romance. Is it better? *shrug* Maybe, maybe not (and it does bother me when movies make it seem like everyone would be better off married and with kids), but it is an area that is usually given the more serious treatment in the literary world. Someday, I'll give it a go.

You know, when I'm not sipping margaritas, listening to steel drums, and soaking up the sun... while my kids blast me with squirt guns.

Talk to you next week!

Happy Birthday, Evernight!

Quick blog post this week. (But there will be another this weekend with a nice surprise in it!)

So, it's Evernight Publishing's second birthday today, and they're giving their readers all sorts of presents! Starting today is the Evernight Scavenger Hunt that starts at SmexyBooks and continues on from there. That runs until Friday, just five days, people.

Then there's the weekend surprise, so make sure you come back to visit.  I lied! This isn't holding out to the weekend (so no extra blog, sorry...). Evernight has taken a best-seller from each of their categories and put them on sale at Amazon for only 99 cents! You can get the full list of sale books here. Or you can just go buy GunShy right now at this link. Happy Birthday indeed!

And next week is the Evernight Birthday Blog Hop. There are a LOT of authors participating and each one is giving away something on their blog, and each entry puts you in for grand prizes including a Kindle among other awesome stuff. So make sure you stop back here and hit all the blogs on the tour so you can enter as many times as possible!

(Once all the birthday goodness has ended, I'll be talking about NaNo prep for a couple weeks and then probably only doing mini-blogs through the month of November. It's not that I don't write like a crazy person all the time, but... it's NaNoWriMo and that ups the crazy factor all on its own :P)

Happy Birthday Evernight Publishing

As a mom, my kids' first birthdays hold a special place in my heart.

My son wanted nothing to do with his cake. He didn't want to touch the frosting. We had to dunk his fingers in the frosting and actually smear it on his face for him so we could get that required first birthday picture. To this day, he still doesn't eat frosting--he scrapes it off cake.

My daughter, on the other hand, was a sugar-junkie from the beginning. The main reason she had so little frosting on her face was because it all went in her mouth. It's at the point where the two of them basically split cake when we have it. He eats the cake, she eats the frosting.

Saturday, October 1, is Evernight Publishing's first birthday, and I can't wait to see how the party turns out. If you've paid attention to the books they put out, I'm pretty sure Evernight is going to be the kind of toddler that savors every delectable bite of that cake...and you can bet it'll be rich and chocolatey.

With this party on the horizon, it is my pleasure to announce that I've signed my third contract with Evernight. The follow-up to last year's holiday story, Yes, Alana, There Is a Santa Claus, will be included in this year's holiday anthology. Making the Naughty List will be part of this year's anthology Stockings and Suspenders.

This story follows a different narrator, an elf named Daisy. She's not exactly your stereotypical elf. Brady picked her off the streets of Detroit years ago, and now with him dating Alana, she feels left behind. So, Santa sends her on a mission of the utmost importance. She needs to get a man named Gage Thomas off the naughty list...by whatever means necessary.

So, in celebration of Evernight's birthday and my new sale, I'm giving away a copy of my latest Evernight release, GunShy. (I'll be choosing a winner on Friday.**** CORRECTION: The contest runs through the weekend. Winner will be drawn on Monday!****)

And... Evernight is also going to choose a winner from commenters here for a $5.00 Evernight gift certificate.

AND...every time you comment on one of the birthday blogs, you're entered for the grand prizes as well.

In order to enter for all of those goodies, just follow my blog and post a comment (and don't forget to include your email). It's a birthday party, so tell me your favorite memory of a birthday, favorite party game, favorite kind of cake... I'm pretty open as long as it has to do with birthdays :)

Oh yeah, and on their birthday, Evernight will be marking down ALL of their books, including GunShy, by 75%! That means even if you don't win, you can still get it at a great price.

Tuesday Teases: Happy Birthday Skyla!

The wonderful, beautiful Skyla Dawn Cameron (editor at Mundania Press) is celebrating her birthday today. (If you want numbers, talk to her, I'm not spilling.) Instead of asking for gifts though, Skyla is doing things a bit different. As a major animal lover, she's asking you to give a gift to your local animal shelter. In return, she's giving away a bunch of stuff. Click here if you want to know how to enter and what's up for grabs (a digital copy of "Of Course I Try" is part of the mix.)

She also asked that we post our pet adoption stories today. While most of my pets have come from a shelter of some sort or the other, our most recent addition, Zeus, came from an ASPCA adoption event at a local pet store. Like Skyla, if I go into the actual shelter, I want to bring everyone home.

When we adopted Zeus, we already had a senior dog, Bailey. She was kind of an oddball. She loved puppies, but wasn't really fond of other dogs. So when we made the decision to add to the family, she got the deciding vote. Everyone was kind of stuck on the idea of a puppy, and we found a couple at the event we liked (she had turned her nose up at everyone she'd met before this particular adoption). Once we picked her up from home and brought her to the store though, she made it pretty clear she was over the puppy thing. She wanted nothing to do with them. At all.

.

Then there was this kind of dopey, goofy German Shepherd mix that had glommed onto us. He was about a year old and neutered but that was really all the information they could give us (the ASPCA had rescued him from a kill shelter in Ohio). The moment he went nose to nose with Bailey, I knew we'd found our guy. Her tail went a mile a minute and her posture was all sorts of relaxed. We took them outside to walk together, and it was like they'd been hanging out for years. Zeus came home with us that day.

.

For about a week, there were little power struggles between the dogs. Then they seemed to work it out that Bailey was alpha inside, and Zeus was in charge outside. I remember trainers telling us it didn't work that way, that because Zeus was male, she'd defer to him. Obviously they'd never met our crazy kids.

While Bailey'd reached an age where she was content to lie around and just play in spurts, Zeus was boundless energy. When he wants quiet time, he hides by me, lodging himself under my desk when I'm working or between the couch and coffee table in the evenings. In a lot of ways, he became my shadow.

It wasn't long after Zeus came into our lives that Bailey's health started going. I think she'd been holding out until she knew we'd be taken care of. She had a year with Zeus when things were pretty good, but then she developed heart problem that required a pace maker and a spinal condition that got worse and worse as time progressed. This past February, when her therapy stopped helping, we finally made the decision to let her go.

Zeus was the glue that kept me strong for my kids. He held me up when I wanted to fall down and cry. Even now, as I'm writing this, he's here with kisses and his goofy doggie smile.



A long time ago, I said I never wanted a male dog.

Of course, back then, I hadn't met Zeus.

.

.

.

Happy Birthday, Skyla!