A New Blog

Well - I took the plunge and started a new Blog, Romance Rules with several other authors. Check it out!
On another note, I got the cover for the story my daughter and I wrote together. She's so excited, she's been running through the house screaming like a banshee. I just bought myself a pair of earplugs! I absolutely love the cover The Wild Rose Press did for this story. It's exactly what we asked for and totally conveys what we wanted.
It's so nice to get the cover you want. A former publisher, that shall remain nameless, totally disregarded what I asked for on one of my books and gave me a cover that I always hated. People had to really stare at it to see what it was. Plus, I saw two other publishers used the same image - not good. But, that's in the past. Good things ahead.

New Writing Partner

About two months ago, I decided to write a Young Adult short story targeted at The Wild Rose Press new line of YA, Climbing Rose. My daughter was so excited that she'd finally be able to read something I wrote, so she sat with me at the computer as I worked. She helped me with plot points, added dialog. Soon, she was fully involved in the process, a co-writer, as it was. When I submitted the story, I listed her as the co-author. Well, the story was accepted. Poor Me will be about 25 pages and is really a cute story with a little bit of a moral. My daughter, a new author at 13 is beside herself.
But she still wants to read my other works. "Not a chance," I told her over dinner the other night. "When then?" she asked. "When you're thirty," I responded.
"My God, Mom. What are you writing?"
I got a good laugh out of this one. But it got me thinking. Why is it that it's easy to put my work out there for countless strangers to read, but not my own kids. I have an eighteen-year-old son and I'd die if he read my stuff. It was really hard knowing my Dad would read sex scenes I'd written, but I have to believe he glosses over that stuff. Please, don't tell me otherwise!
What about you? Are you comfortable with your adult kids reading your sex scenes? What about your parents reading them?

Friday Fourteen

Yeah, I know - I missed the boat on Thursday Thirteen, so I decided to break with tradition and do a Friday Fourteen. So here it is: 14 things I love about summer.

1. Sleeping until I wake up. No school to drive to, nowhere to be (most days) and seeing sunshine streaming through the window instead of early morning darkness.
2. Cherries. I LOVE cherries, my favorite fruit - bing, Rainier, you name it, if it's a cherry, I'm happy. Too bad they're in season for such a short time.
3. Anything made with fresh blueberries. Same thing, just not quite as much as cherries. Blueberry cobbler, blueberries and cream or Cool Whip.
4. Wearing sandals. Yeah, I know. I live in Florida. I can wear sandals almost all year, but for a good chunk of the US and the northern hemisphere, sandals are a summer thing.
5. Wearing white. I love my white purse, white sandals, white accessories that are forbidden the rest of the year.
6. The beach. Yes, in Florida, we can do the beach 6 or 8 months a year, but it's most refreshing in the summer.
7. No homework. I don't know about you, but I find my kids' homework stressful. Telling them to do it, checking it, keeping up with what assignments are due when. The kids are pretty good about this stuff, but being a totally anal person, I check up on it and stress about it.
8. VACATION!!! One of the top things about summer I love. Doesn't matter where we go, as long as we get away together.
9. Floral pattern and bright colors. Sure, I like the subdued winter colors, the earthy fall colors and the pastels of spring, but I love the brights of summer most.
10. Backyard Barbecues. Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day. We always either have friends over and grill, swim and drink fun drinks or we go to a friend's home for the same. I LOVE parties. Writing is so solitary and I'm a super social person.
11. Flowers. They're blooming everywhere. One thing is always for sure when I see pretty flowers: I did not plant them, grow them, or otherwise touch them in any way. If I had, they'd be dried up and brown.
12. Summer clothing sales. Since most stores are a season ahead, they have all the fall stuff on the racks and are discounting the summer clothes that we wear all year here. There are amazing deals to be had. And as DH says, I'm the Shopping Ninja!
13. Pink toenail polish. I love pink. It's my favorite color. But I don't feel right wearing it on my toes any time but summer.
14. Rescue Me. One of my favorite TV shows starts the season over the summer. I get to see new episodes every Wednesday night on FX. Yeah!
What about you? Have a Friday 14 list?

A Challenging Day

Ever have one of those days? Well, it actually started last night when I returned home from a PTA meeting. I went to start up my computer, but no loud humming greeted me, no sluggish internal cooling fans groaned to life. My lifeline had died and I wasn't even home to whisper encouraging words into its USB port.
Not only that, I hadn't backed up my work for two days! Aaakkk! I lost better than 1,500 words on my WIP. And this during the Challenge! When I tried to use DH's computer, his mouse died. Is it me? Are computers like the green growing things I habitually kill?
So after a bit of self pity (added to the pity party I'm indulging in because I'm not at RWA Nationals) I dragged to Office Depot and bought myself a new computer. A light at the end of the tunnel!
But alas - it wasn't to be. I got the thing home, set it up and couldn't connect to our wireless network. Our computer geek (DH's best friend) created the network so un-hackably well that only he can allow a new computer access.
OK - I can share with DH for a few days. So I set out to install my programs and printer. Only nothing is compatible with Windows Vista and I must go online to make them compatible. But I can't get on line. You see where this is going.
OK - I can wait. Patience isn't my strong suit, but I'm a writer - I wait months, sometimes years to hear from prospective publishers.
So I try to open MS Word. But wait! It doesn't have Word. Only a trial version I can use only 25 times.
WHAT????? When I get the trial version open, it doesn't even resemble the old Word. I hate it!
OK. That's all off my chest. Now I can go back to my WIP, which I've opened from a flash drive on DH's computer with good old fashioned Word - the old version. I'm all right now. And I made up all 1,500 words. Yeah - I'm no further ahead than I was 2 days ago, but I've caught up. Life is good. I must keep telling myself that!

Thanks to Julie, I've decided to take the challenge. I'm going to attempt to write 6 pages a day - every day for the next 75 days. I may fall flat on my face. Hopefully, I'll have a finished book and a completed novella at the end of it!
On another note, we drove the girl child to camp in Cocoa Beach today. She'll be there for 5 days in a house 20 feet from the Banana River. She went last year and had a blast. I must say, though, driving through Cocoa Beach, I thought of I dream of Jeannie and that town looks nothing like the adorable town from TV. We passed abandoned businesses, a couple of hookers and one shopping center after another. I know - it was 40 years ago, but what a disappointment. I expected to see Major Nelson look-alikes strutting around, but all I saw were working girls! None was even wearing a harem outfit or a NASA uniform!

Vacation High

Well, we're back from the beach. We had a great time at my friend's Gulf front condo. Here's a couple views from the balcony. The place was gorgeous, the weather perfect and we totally relaxed. Except one of us doesn't care for the beach. No, that's an understatement. When I commented on how much I like the smell of the beach the day we arrived, my son said, "I hate the smell of the beach, the sand, the water, the noise. I hate everything about it." Needless to say, he spent some time playing his GameBoy and surfing on his laptop while the rest of us lazed in the gentle Gulf of Mexico on floats. My DH has always maintained that he could never live in a condo. But after staying in a $2 million, 4,000 square foot beachfront place, he's changed his tune. Only problem is, we need lots of money to get the kind of place he'd accept. I'm not holding my breath.

On another note, I came home to the news that one of my former Triskelion books, Compromising Positions, has been picked up for publication by The Wild Rose Press. Yeah! It's found a home. So what about you? Any vacations plans in the works? Fourth of July barbecues?