Bestselling Author Delilah Devlin
HomeMeet Delilah
BookshelfBlogExtrasEditorial ServicesContactDelilah's Collections

Archive for the 'General' Category



Your Fun Collections
Friday, May 21st, 2010

Yesterday’s post was a lot of fun. I’ll have to solicit photos from you all again. Here are the pictures some of you sent me to share glimpses of your addictions!

Heather has a thing for skulls. Her mother indulged her with a great purse. I think I could like this addiction too!

Julie has a collections of Dreamcicles—and I learned something because I had never seen them before. The big sad eyes really pull a person in!

Ilona isn’t collecting daughters with vivid hair (she can’t have mine!), but her husband has an extensive collection of dragons that you can catch a glimpse of in the background. It’s a good thing she didn’t include her address… Just sayin’.

Anna loved the post so much, she put pics of her obsessions on her blog. Her first love, books, was a common theme yesterday. And another I share, although I collect mostly history and mythology books. I wouldn’t consider the romances (other than a few keepers) as a collection, because as I read them, I let them go.

Here’s Anna’s other obsession, costume jewelry. My daughter would love her.

If you’d like to add a picture of your obsession, it’s not too late!

Ilona sent me a link to add her collection of soft toys to the list!

Dragons, dragons everywhere…
Thursday, May 20th, 2010

I started to take just a picture of my growing Disney/McDonalds collection of dragon action figures from the movie How to Train Your Dragon, but realized when I looked around my office that I’m becoming a little obsessed. Dragons are my new collectible.

I think I only lack one dragon—the one with the boy riding his dragon’s back… hint, hint!

My sister brought this one back to me from Guam. It’s carved in jade.

The little green one is another of the Disney dragons, but behind it is a dragon clutching a letter opener, part of my dragon desk set.

I didn’t know until just now that there’s a dragon pen sitting inside that dragon cup. See his golden snout sticking out? (Unusual pens are another thing I love to collect. I’ll show you them another day.)

Doesn’t everyone need a dragon stapler?

Don’t we all have something we collect that makes us almost giddy whenever we find another object to add? What do you enjoy collecting? If you send me one picture of whatever it is that you collect, I’d love to post it!

Guest Blogger: Meg Benjamin
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

I’ll name Monday’s winner at the bottom of this post. In the meantime, welcome my an old friend of mine from Texas, Meg Benjamin! Here’s what she has to say about her latest release:

As I’ve said before, probably way too many times by now, I can’t listen to music while I write. Wish I could, but I can’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t like to listen to music while I’m doing other things, however. In fact, one of the things I really miss about Texas is the great music you hear all the time. Texas musicians just rock, and no matter where you live in the state, there’s always a road house around the bend somewhere. You know how there are some songs that just kind of wash over you, like audible warm water, and some songs that make you just want to, well, move? Texas musicians specialize in the latter.

Which brings me to my subject—James McMurtry’s song “Red Dress.” Now McMurtry is one of my all-time favorite Texas musicians, probably best known for his “Choctaw Bingo,” which is a real rave-up. But “Red Dress” is one of those songs that makes you want to do a little hip swinging. Every time I hear it, I end up swaying in my seat. It’s slow, sensuous, with a really heavy beat and oddly ominous lyrics (you get the feeling the singer is going to be ripping that red dress to shreds any minute). And it haunted my thoughts when I was writing Wedding Bell Blues. I wanted a scene where my heroine, a “good girl” named Janie Dupree, could cut loose and give some hints about the bad girl that lies beneath the surface. That gave me the idea for a scene where Janie and her friends danced to McMurtry’s “Red Dress” while the hero, Pete Toleffson, watched. I have to say, every time I worked on this scene, I started by playing “Red Dress” to get myself in the mood. Here’s an excerpt. If you want to judge how well the song fits the action, there’s always iTunes!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A series of guitar chords, rhythmically hypnotic, came over the sound system. Docia jumped to her feet. “Come on, ladies, let’s do it,” she called, heading for the concrete slab. Allie trooped behind her, as Janie turned to beckon to Bethany.

“Oh, Christ,” Cal murmured. “Here we go.”

“Here goes what?”

Cal shook his head. “You’ll see.”

The song had something to do with a red dress. Pete managed to get his brain to register that much. The singer seemed to be upset because his girlfriend was wearing a red dress he didn’t recognize and he figured she was playing around.

The slow, sensuous rhythm of the guitar and bass filled the air and the four women moved their bodies more or less in unison, like some cowgirl chorus line.

Pete glanced at Wonder and saw him swallow hard as he watched Allie.

Then he looked back at the women again.

Janie Dupree moved in a graceful swaying motion, her eyes closed, as if she were dancing for herself alone. She raised her arms above her head and moved her body back and forth, the most elegant bump and grind he’d ever seen.
Read the rest of this entry »

Just a drive-by…
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

I have a winner to name, but I’m thinking I will do that on Thursday AM, so if you want a second chance to win, go ahead and post a comment today to let me now you stopped by!

The reason I sound a little rushed is that I have two houseguests, Allie Standifer and Shayla Kersten. We stayed up late last night plotting world domination and trying to figure out if we wanted to hit Hot Springs for a spa day. I’ll let you know later whether we made it or just lazed around the pool.

I’ve known Allie for a number of years. That makes her sound old, which she isn’t, because she’s the baby of the Rose’s Colored Glasses Roses. We met when I lived in San Antonio. Now, I have known Shayla since before cell phones so we really are that old.

Sorry for the short post, but I have to make some coffee and pry my eyes open before the other two stumble out of bed. It would never do for them to think I’d rather stay in bed than have an adventure! I’ll try to remember to take pictures today. Until tomorrow, adios! ~DD

Sunday Report Card
Sunday, May 16th, 2010

It’s 5 AM and I’m bleary-eyed at the moment. I brought the 5-year-old home for an overnight. She decided that sleep was a waste of good Nina-time so we’re curled up on the couch watching Shark Tale. Will Smith at this hour is damned annoying.

Not a stellar week. All right, so I did finish a rough draft of a short novella, but it was a really ugly first draft and that stopped me in my tracks. I put it aside and played with family for a couple of days. I’m hoping tomorrow morning I’ll be able to start afresh and finish the thing.

With my sister, Elle James, I taught a class for my Diamond State Romance Authors group on World Building. While I was talking, I got the itch to write another paranormal. Have to give it a little more thought. I think I want to go back to another medieval vampire book or maybe do a succubus. Blood-sucking or soul-sucking—either way it looks like I want to write about someome doing some sucking.

This next week, I have to wrap up that short novella. It’s half of a duet that Sasha White and I intend to publish on Kindle all by our little selves. Sasha just started her story, so she’ll probably be done days before I finish revising my horribly flawed little lump of coal into a glittering diamond.

Sis reminded me yesterday that we are on the hook to teach another Plotting Bootcamp online May 31 through June 26. I completely forgot about it. Now I have to get into the mindset, review our material, and start to talk about it so that folks know they can jump in and begin planning their summer project.

A Question for You
Saturday, May 15th, 2010

Since I will be on the road today heading to Little Rock for my RWA chapter meeting, I will leave you with a question…

What was the most interesting course you ever had in school?
On the other hand, what was the most boring?

I will be back later to see your answers. Enjoy your Saturday! ~DD

What I'm thinking about today…
Thursday, May 13th, 2010

I zipped through the end of the rough draft of a new novella yesterday. I asked for beta readers for this one because I knew something was off, but was too close to it to see how to fix it. Between Heather, Masha, Virginia and Renee, I got some great feedback. My puzzle today is how to implement changes without a complete rewrite. The parts of the story that are there are good, it’s the glue between the scenes that needs to be applied because I rushed my couple and the ultimate four-ple (my word) into bed. It’s days like these I really wish I hadn’t quit smoking.

Last night I rewarded myself with a TIVO’d episode of one of my favorite shows, In Plain Sight. Yeah, I miss the adorable Rafael in Mary’s life, but the older, and more flawed, FBI agent Faber is completely right for Mary. All through the episode, I was silently nudging Mary to give him a chance. I think last night she finally succumbed to his charm. That awkward little peck he gave her at the end made me smile.

However, as much as I loved the show, I miss the drama of her dysfunctional family. Her sister Brandy is off to New Jersey blowing her boyfriend’s $20,000 doing who knows what, and we’re only getting an occasional phone call to remind us she exists? Really? Her mom is working in a dance studio, but has she also moved out of Mary’s home? Nooooooo! I need Jinx to fall off the wagon, to fall in love and fall apart. I need Mary to wallow a little more in family-made disasters because when shit hits the fan that’s when she shines.

Okay, so I’d much rather be thinking about Mary and the letter I want to send to the show’s writers than thinking about how to fix my own messy manuscript. It’s time to shut up, pull up my big girl’s panties and get to work.