Thought I’d start out with a bang and the cover of a collection of shorts Harlequin Spice will release next March! Don’t you love it?! That month is shaping up to be another crazy busy one for me. Darkness Burning (the third Dark Realm story from Avon), Texas Men (my next single-author anthology from Kensington) and now Size Matters, will all be out in the same month.

For those of you who talk with me online, you know I’ve been suffering Internet outages since the end of April that left me with intermittant Internet or email capability. Hopefully, yesterday’s repairs did the trick. I’m here for now, anyway!!

As soon as I opened my email yesterday, I found a message from my editor at Kensington asking if I’d like to be in the next multi-author “Cowboy” book (see The Cowboy and Only with a Cowboy to see what I’m talking about). Of course, I couldn’t resist the challenge. So you’ll hear me cursing cowboys for the next three months straight as I finish up Texas Men then plunge right into the cowboy book. Ack! (I act scared, but I actually do better under pressure, so take all my grousing with a grain of salt.)

Lastly, I have an agent. A great one. Don’t want to talk about it too much for fear of attracting negative mojo, but I’m quietly jazzed about the whole thing!

It’s been such a busy month for me. When I look back at my calendar, I’m amazed I accomplished so much.

I finished another story for Ellora’s Cave. I’m still wrapping up edits for the third Dark Realm story. On Monday, I slammed out a short story to submit to a foreign anthology—finished 25 pages and it wasn’t total crap! I attended a Bachelor’s Auction and gained tons of research on that event that will help me with my next project. I tromped through a graveyard with my Arkansas writer friends and came up with some wicked ideas to fill another tale. Oh, and I wrote another chapter to satisfy my MIK fans (or drive them nuttier, depending on how much you love Quentin!).

Thanks to everyone who participated in the blog contest. I do have a winner. Many of your comments on the blog made me smile. And thanks especially to the volunteer readers who helped me shape the short story into something entertaining on Monday. I really needed the support to keep slamming those pages.

Once in a while, I need a challenge like that to blow out the cobwebs and to see something FINISHED. Most projects take a long time of thinking and dreaming, then weeks of writing. That one day marathon left me feeling flushed and victorious!

Back to the contest. First, here are the answers to the questions:

1) What’s the title of my latest release? Royal Bondage (at least on Sunday, it was!)
2) What’s the title of the book I’m giving away in my newsletter “for readers”, one chapter at a time? Knight Dreams
3) In Sin’s Gift, what police substation does the hero’s brother work in? The East Substation
4) In Seduced by Darkness, what waterway jumped it’s banks, flooding a cemetary and freeing a monster? Bayou St. John

The winner of the blog contest will get a tote with a stash of Romantic Times goodies (a couple of books included)! And she is…Stephanie[dragonstar1974@aol.com]! Steph, be sure to send me your snail mail address privately so I can get your package to you! Congratulations!!

Tonight, I’ll be at Writerspace’s chat room from 7-9 PM CST, first with the Ellora’s Cave authors, then the After Midnight Authors. Take a look at the line up:

Delilah Devlin will chat about WILD WILD WOMEN OF THE WEST II and ROYAL BONDAGE; Mary Wine will talk about STILL MINE; Patrice Michelle is chatting about SCIONS: INSURRECTION; Shiloh Walker will talk about DRASTIC MEASURES, and Sylvia Day will tell you all about ASK FOR IT!

Don’t miss it! You know we will be there to answer all your questions and there will be some awesome prizes!

Also, I’m extending my blog contest (see details below) until tomorrow, so there is still time to enter!

I’ll be hosting Ellora’s Cave chat loop all day along with Myla Jackson and Shayla Kersten. As always, we will post sexy excerpts from your favorite EC authors and run website scavenger hunts with tons of prizes to give away. I’ll give away a signed copy of Royal Bondage and assorted RT convention “stuff” I still have.

Around 11:00 AM CST, we’ll run to FAR’s chat room (without permission—which makes it way more fun) to have a live chat with anyone who wants to come.

So, if you think you’d like to hang out, just stop on by. Here’s the email addy if you want to join the EC loop: ellorascavechat-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

TODAY’S BLOG CONTEST:

The Prize: I’ll give the winner two books from my RT stash (winner will be given a choice!), plus two sets of Ellora’s Cave playing cards and signed book cover flats.

To Qualify:
1) You must email the answers to the questions here: Email Me!
2) Enter a posting on my blog–any entry that interests you–I will see it!

The Questions:
1) What’s the title of my latest release (EASY)?
2) What’s the title of the book I’m giving away in my newsletter “for readers”, one chapter at a time (EASY)?
3) In Sin’s Gift, what police substation does the hero’s brother work in (HARD)?
4) In Seduced by Darkness, what waterway jumped it’s banks, flooding a cemetary and freeing a monster (HARD)?

I’m feeling tired, grumpy. Certainly don’t want to write. But I’ve watched all my TIVO’d shows and don’t have any Monk, Psych, House, Reaper, or Jimmy Neutron to watch that I haven’t already seen.

I think I’m wanting to get out, take a trip, snap some pics of something that could amuse me. That’s what I get for letting my social calendar fill up over the last few months. I’ve forgotten the joys of living like a hermit. Uh huh, there are too joys!!

Like never having to take a bath just to be polite around others. I prefer to take mine every other day—my hair and skin feel much better, I save water-soap-electricity (so its also good for the environment). But if I’m going to be around anyone else, I don’t want to worry about sniffing pits first. Gawd, can’t believe I just admitted that! Whore baths do just fine when it’s just me and computer.

Or like never hearing the jangle of an alarm clock. I can sleep whenever I’m tired—and if I never look out the windows, I won’t be able to judge when it’s daylight so my body will be totally in control. Heady thought!

The only problem with being a hermit is having to cook. Can’t. Won’t learn. Which means, my mom and daughter still have ways to lure me out of my cave every now and then.

Oh, before I forget as I sit here zoning in front of my screen, I’ll be playing at Ellora’s Cave all day tomorrow and will run a contest from this blog. So, be sure to come back tomorrow!

I know. I should be writing. But the red-headed hellion came by for a visit and we had to play with one of my new toys—the cute little Canon Elph. I snapped pictures of her in my office until she gave me the shot I wanted. She never reads my blog because she says she’s afraid to open an excerpt that will make her queasy. Sometimes, I’ll hand her pages and ask her what she thinks just to see her gag. She just can’t imagine her mom writing this stuff—I never had sex, right? This pic is my little revenge.

Then I handed the camera to her. Oy! I so hate to see my own photos, because in my mind I’m still 25 and built like a brick house. I think I have the opposite of anorexia.

I have a fascination with cemetaries.

I know it’s a bit morbid, but you learn so much about people who are long gone by how they honor their loved ones. Sometimes, you see their sense of humor in a glib epitath. Sometimes, you see the tragedies they never recovered from by the carefully chosen poems they leave engraved in stone. “Beloved wife…” “Gentle angels…” The prayers they leave expressing their desire to meet again in the afterlife can bring me to tears.

The writer in me is always inspired by the heavy spirits that linger around the carefully kept grounds.

This weekend I trekked through the Mount Holly Cemetary in Little Rock with a group of writer friends from the Diamond State Romance Authors. Take a peek at some of the things that moved and inspired me.

The daughters of this couple arranged this monument. Not an angel, but a woman sitting by herself and looking very sad. Maybe the daughters thought of themselves and their long wait to see their parents again.

The inscription here gave me the chills! You know it’s going into a book somewhere along the way. In case you can’t read it, this is what is said:

Ever near us tho’ unseen
Thy dear immortal spirit treads
For all the boundless universe
is life—there is no dead

This one was the saddest and most tragic. A husband was buried many years after his young wife and two daughters for whom he had commissioned these statues. The little girls names were Martha and Pearl. Inscribed in their headstones was “Papa’s Baby” and Mama’s Darling” for Little Martha, and “Papa’s Sweetheart” and “Mama’s Pet” for Pearl.

The sentiments had me tearing up, but once I took the picture of the little girls with the robed woman, I realized it looked as though the woman was striding right at me. Got me to thinking…

These are my sisters in crime. If you’re a writer, little field trips like these help “fill the well.” I can’t wait for the next one. I already have scenes playing in my mind set in a graveyard with rustling trees and furtive sounds around me. Yeah, I’ll have nightmares, but I embrace them!