It’s past noon here. I stayed up until after three last night, couldn’t sleep, kept going through my gazillion emails to see what all I’d missed and owed. Woke up around 10:30 AM, and about had a heart attack, because I was supposed to go to the 5-year-old’s school to eat lunch with her today. That started at 10:50, and I live a good 45 minutes from her.

So, did I blow it off? Could you? I dressed, washed my face, teeth, brushed my hair and was out the door in three minutes. Then I flew like a bat out of hell. Got there ten minutes late, and broke a dozen laws to do it, but it was all worth it.

Now I’m back home and going through my pictures. Wanted to post something quick just to get it up and thought I’d share this.

As always, there’s a story that goes along with this. This was our first day at the lake house. Only Sasha and I were excited about the water. The rest thought it was too cold, but Sasha’s from Canada, and I’m just a plain ole crazy water baby. We took out the paddle boat, although neither of us had ever been in one. We laughed our asses off just dragging it into the water and trying to board. But we made it in and started pedalling.

What we didn’t know, that the girls hanging off the balcony knew, was that there were two fishermen in a motor boat watching us. We started pedalling, but couldn’t figure out how to steer, so we were going in circles and laughing like crazy. One guy elbowed the other and pointed at us, and they started laughing. When I finally figured out there was this little lever I could push forward and back to steer with, we didn’t care so much that I couldn’t seem to steer in a straight line, so we kept making circles until our stomachs hurt.

After that day, the ladies always headed to the balcony whenever we started walking toward the beach.

I promise I have some very nice pictures of the lake and the ladies to share, but I haven’t downloaded them yet to my PC, so I’m sharing something Sasha sent me from our first night there. If you don’t recognize it, that’s the moon, looking very like a space ship. And if you look down and to the right, you’ll see a little green orb. Now, if you remember my blog from a really long time ago when I went on a ghost-hunting expedition, that’s a ghost “orb”—only swear to god, I’ve only seen them white. I’m thinking…moon-ship…that has to be an alien’s ghost!

I’ll be back tomorrow, and I promise I’ll have those winners announcements and more pics!

I’ll be in catchup mode for a couple of days. I arrived home around 9 PM CST last night. Only took me an hour to get from the airport (it’s easily an hour and a half drive)—didn’t know I’d flown. Guess I was eager.

I have tons of email and laundry to do. I want to be able to get back to work quickly because I still have Lora Leigh’s RAW to get ready for at the end of this month. September cannot be all about fun.

I’ll do a recap of everything I accomplished, saw, learned in the coming days. For now, I’m unwinding.

Oh! And tomorrow I’ll announce the winners for the Flashback books. Thanks to everyone who checked in here while I was gone. I did get access to read the comments and appreciated it very much.

To my retreat buddies—beware! Pictures are coming! 😈

Anything else? Yeah, the pool is calling me. We missed each other very much. Until tomorrow!

While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Last Day…

Okay, now the song’s in your head. Bwahaha! 😈

Sometime later today, I’ll be back online and pouring through a gazillion emails. If I was lucky while I was away, I got a chance to check in a time or two. Otherwise, it will take a couple of days for me to climb out from under the mountain of messages and laundry.

As soon as I can I’ll announce the winners of the books I offered. I’ll post pictures of my cottage-mates and talk about our wild old time—or at least as much as they will let me without having to plead the 5th. Can’t wait to hear who you’ve been doing, too! Later! ~DD

While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 6…

September’s Moon is the Harvest Moon. According to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft, it’s “a time of protection, prosperity and abundance.”

There’s energy in this month. It’s time to harvest grain—which translated means September’s a time of prosperity. Winter’s beckoning, but for now you can celebrate.

I’ll be thinking of you. And missing my daily blog. Maybe. Depends on how well the ladies and I get along. Six days of togetherness? Don’t they say that three days is the rule—after which company and socks begin to stink? I know I mucked that one up, but you get my drift. Can’t wait to share pictures!

While The Cat’s Away Countdown – Day 8…

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I’m presently sitting in a cottage somewhere near Seattle with five other multi-pubbed authors, hard at work. Since we were told the lakehouse doesn’t have Internet connection, I preposted blog entries to keep you all entertained while I’m gone. And to keep you coming back, I’m offering chances to win some of the books I’ll be featuring here. So, be sure to stop and read, then don’t forget to post a comment to enter!

Tomorrow’s posting will include a chance to win All Knight Long, which originally released in March 2004. What you may not know is that I used to keep a page on my old website for every book, called “The Story Behind the Book”.

Here’s what I wrote back in November 2004 when Joe and Lily’s story first came out!

I love old B-horror movies.

Honestly, the cheesier the better! And I’m not talking about slasher movies. Give me a vampire lurking behind the curtains, or an alien pod-person chasing a woman with his stiff-legged gait. I’ll never ask why she can’t outrun him—because I know she subconsciously wants to be captured!

Growing up, I rushed home from school each day to see the latest episode of the horror-soap Dark Shadows because Barnabas Collins gave me the shivers. “The Blob” was my favorite movie—I watched it so many times I could quote the dialogue. If Peter Cushing or Vincent Price were in the cast, I was glued to the tube. Those were seriously creepy dudes!

I considered myself a vampire and werewolf expert. By the time I was eight, I could tell you every way you could kill a vamp or become one. Before I ever understood what sensuality and desire were, I thought vampires were the perfect boyfriends—attentive, snappy dressers, and they could disappear from your bedroom in a whirl of mist if your mom poked her head inside your room at night.

I also had a favorite fantasy. I knew I wanted to meet a dark, dangerous vampire, be tied between two stakes, and forced by him to become his girlfriend. My fantasy always ended with his teeth piercing my neck because my little imagination thought the excitement ended there!

Of course, my fantasies changed as I grew older—the details about what happened after the bite grew more important. I worried about rug burns on werewolves’ haunches, how a teenage vampire might shower off the blood and be in bed before his parents discovered him missing for the night.

I also watched King Kong again and again. There was something intensely thrilling about that large, hairy male ape and his one-track obsession with Fay Ray. When she was draped over his large, dark palm in her negligee, she didn’t look like terror was the only emotion she was feeling.

Now I’m an adult—perhaps a little arrested in the maturity department—and a writer. Since I never outgrew daydreaming about monsters who stalked unawakened virgins through dark, deserted forests—I’m free now to revel in my imagination. Daydreaming is now a profitable activity!

When I sit at the dinner table, I may wear a little smile because Joe Garcia’s search for his humanity led him some interesting places. I let the poor guy indulge in all his manly-monstery impulses. And the best part is, I can keep “living” in my alternate reality as long as I don’t end the series!

Tomorrow’s the day. At the butt-crack of dawn, I’ll be on the road to the airport in North Little Rock. Then many hours later, I’ll be stepping off the plane in Seattle, where hopefully, I’ll be met by my writer buddies who will have arranged a rental vehicle to get us to our retreat cottage.

And even though I’m the Queen of Focus, this past week has been a bust so far as writing is concerned. I can’t keep from thinking about what to pack, what I want to take to work on—and the many ways I can think of to dodge cooking duty. That’s not something I ever mastered. I burn Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup.

Let me reflect on what I have managed to accomplish, and my setbacks, for the month. Then I’ll give into the urge to turn giddy with excitement about my working vacation.

On August 1st, my “Brief” Eye of the Storm was released by Harlequin Spice.

The first was also the day I received acceptance on The Out-of-Towner for an upcoming Cleis Press anthology, entitled Girl Crush.

From August 9 – 15, my sister and I conducted the annual Write 50 Books a Year free workshop at Rose’s Colored Glasses.

This month I wrote a short story entitled The Obedient Wife and submitted it on August 14th for the Cleis Press anthology Fairytale Lust.

On August 18th, I received a “reject, but would like to see revisions or something new” from an editor I’m targeting. After spending a day wallowing in disappointment, I brushed myself off, enlisted help from a friend, talked to my agent, and came up with a new plan of attack.

This month I wrote chapters 2-9 of my neverending story about two firemen and two best girlfriends. I submitted the story, tentatively titled Juicy, on August 21st.

The rest of this month, I finished a chapter on a futuristic, worked on revisions of a paranormal proposal and dabbled with new projects plotting, but nothing else is finished.

So, yes, an eventful month and a productive one, but I did come in two chapters shy of my goal for the last project. Which if I factor in the two EXTRA chapters I wrote on Juicy kinda evens out. So I could claim success, right?

Now that I’ve bored you to tears with my report card, I’ll sign off. I have clothes to iron, shampoo and conditioner to pour into travel bottles, and undies to find.

I’ve preposted blogs for the entire time I’ll be gone, along with several chances for you to win stuff, so be sure to stop by. I’ll be “live” again on September 10th.

Love ya! Adios!! ~DD

Yesterday when I was cleaning the pool, I rescued the biggest grasshopper I’ve ever seen in my life. And wouldn’t you know it? No camera. The thing had to be five inches long and had a body nearly as big around as a Snickers bar. Even I, who am normally not too freaked by bugs, was saying “Euw, Euw, Euw!” when I plucked it from the water because I didn’t want it jumping at me. Blech.

So yeah. Not a very exciting day. I worked my way slowly down my To Do list. And that’s about it.

Did dream that a Steven Segal look-alike was my boyfriend and I wanted to call him but couldn’t remember his name. Asked my daughter and she said she thought it was “Bond”. “As in James Bond?” I asked and picked up the phone book to look up the number. Never did get in touch with him.

I saw this offer on one of my loops and thought I’d pass it along. Rachel Caine is giving away a free book on her website. She’s asking for donations, but it’s not required. I opened the file, started reading, and have to say I’m completely hooked. Rachel Caine’s Free Download

Since I don’t have anything particularly interesting to say today, I’ll just pose a question to see what interesting things you can come up with!

If you could change the ending to any movie you have ever seen, what movie would it be and how would you alter the way it ends?