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AppearancesCheck out my chat loop and publisher loops! Nothing "officially" scheduled. Other InfoBooks available from Changeling Press Books available from Ellora's Cave Books available from Samhain Publishing To subscribe to my monthly newsletter please send an email or visit my newsletter page for alternative methods of joining. To subscribe to my chat loop please send an email or visit the group site.
Reviews"The storyline was pure reading heaven..." - Talia Ricci, Joyfully Reviewed, for Riding Partner "This
novella is an erotic romance and delivers on both counts - it is quite romantic
and is full of some hot bed play." Marina, Cupid's Library Reviews for Revealing
Photos " UNDER HER SKIN is so much more than a wonderful romance, it’s
a lesson in love and acceptance. It is an experience not to be missed."
Recent Posts
Writing Wednesday: Scruff your inner editor Sexy Feet - Some Thoughts on Cover Art Writing Without Distractions Writing Wednesday: Is it really work? Marketing Monday: Code Everything You Send Finding Your Bliss...Bears? Writing Wednesday: Writer's Organizations Make A Difference Monday: Get out of the Box My March 2008 newsletter is out! New Release - Mission: Carnal (Live Action Hero 1)
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Yesterday I read this article about how Brego, a 22 year old Dutch Warmblood who played Aragorn's mount in the Lord of the Rings movies underwent emergency colic surgery. He's expected to recover, but I thought once more how much I love Viggo.
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted! View More Thursday Thirteen Participants  
I'd heard of the Dresden Files books before I heard of the television series. However, I saw, and loved, the series before I read the books. One of my purchases last weekend was the first book in the series, Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Like most book to tv/movie transitions there were a few differences. Not sure which hair color I prefer on Murphy, but for the most part, I am just as intrigued with this series of books as I am with the TV series. If I had to narrow it down to one or two reasons why, I'd have to say, the voice. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a fan of first person stories. The character has to have a really strong voice, like Anita Blake, or Harry Dresden, to really make it work. I find there are a couple of genres I've read in which the first person works well -- urban fantasy and chick lit. Voice is a nebulous thing. It's hard to define. You either got it, or you don't. Writers take classes on it. They read books on it. They try to find it in other author's works. Take a look at the last couple of books you've read and really enjoyed. What was it about them that you liked? Even if you can't put your finger on it, I bet voice is included in it. So, which authors have voices you really like to read? What is the latest awesome book you've read?
First off, just want to give a big thanks to Dayton Ward for the shout out in his blog today (http://daytonward.livejournal.com/ ). At ConQuest (http://www.kcsciencefiction.org/) this weekend, Dayton joined me, and Beverly Hale on a panel about books into movies. What makes a good book turned into a good movie? What are some of the good ones? What are some of the bad ones? As an author, what would I want to see if my books were turned into movies. It was an awesome discussion, and I very much enjoyed meeting not only Beverly and Dayton, but everyone else I met this weekend. It's pet Tuesday here at the blog, and I'm going to talk a bit about respect and horses. I'm a huge fan of Clinton Anderson's Downunder Horsemanship. I first saw him at the Iowa Horse Fair a couple of years ago and everything he said made sense. Two eyes are always better than two heels (i.e. the horse is looking at you and not trying to kick or run away). I started off slowly with Fortune, but even the little I implemented made a huge change in our relationship, and it was a change for the better. Well, last weekend a friend I met on the No Worries Club (Clinton's Club) message boards came to the barn to help me with Fortune. She tweaked my working and really made Fortune work. The change -- amazing! I've kept it up, and yesterday, I went to the barn after a few day hiatus (for the convention). Fortune remembered what I'd taught her. She's giving me respect. For a 1000-lb animal used to getting her way, that's a major change. One that improves our relationship as well as my safety when I'm working around her. I can enter her space whenever I want. She can't enter mine. Whether it's from our cats, our dogs, our horses, or whatever pets we have, getting their respect means taking a great leap forward in our relationship. I'm thankful to Clinton Anderson for helping me make that connection with my horse. And yes, two eyes are always better than two heels. :) http://www.clintonanderson.net
Sometimes things just don't work out the way we hope or expect. It happens a lot for those of us who are working on increasing our health. Take for example me and this week's weigh-in. I lost weight, so that wasn't the problem, though the fact that it was only 0.2 lbs certainly was a sting. No, it was the fact that as of Thursday I had at least a pound and a half weight loss. I had made all the right decisions this weekend at the convention, eschewing the ice cream social, eating Weight Watchers yogurt and oatmeal for breakfast, fat free chips (only 14, just 1 point), basically doing everything I could. I took the stairs. I walked. I spent a sweaty thirty minutes in the fitness area. And, in spite of the large weight loss pre-convention, when it came time to step on the scales this morning, I had lost squat. Yeah, it was negative movement on the scales. I can thank the gods for that much. But you see, I should be ecstatic. I have reached what many of us in weight watchers call one-derland. You know, that magical, mystical place where there is a "1" in front of your weight instead of a "2." Except I don't feel like I "made it." The scale bounces between 200.0 and 199.8 (or in the case of this week 199.6). So, I still see that dreaded "2" on my scale. It doesn't matter that I've lost over 85 lbs to get there. There is still a "2" on my scale. Mean little number. *pout* It's important to remember the positive things when something like this happens. I have come a long way, and yes, that is something about which to be proud. I will get where I need to be going. It just may take me longer than I want, and that, my friends, is a disappointment. But it's a new week. Let's make it a great one!
Today's theme of Fantastic Friday seems very appropriate for today. I mean it's Friday. The weather is gorgeous. And .... I dropped off three boxes STUFFED FULL of promotional items that paranormal and erotic romance authors sent me to the science fiction convention that's in town this weekend. I am absolutely awed and overjoyed that so many authors responded to my calls for promo items. I'm sure the convention goers this weekend, and next, will love them. If the overwhelming generosity of the romance author community isn't enough to celebrate (and of course it is, but hey, what's more celebration, right?) I got my new computer today. All set up and working. A few bugs to work out, mostly in the transferring of files, but I think this will be so much nicer for me, my back, and well, for having some fun and getting some work done. So, what's exciting about your Friday? What did you do to make your Friday fantastic? I work from home. It's me, the cats, the parrots, the parakeets, and Fuzzbutt the hamster, home alone for several hours. Granted, I work in a call center so I'm on the phone, but there's still plenty of time to have a conversation with myself, and with the critters. So since I'm quite often saying silly things, here we go... And of course, you must realize that these are all terms of endearment. LOL!!!!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted! View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Hemlines are getting shorter; shoulders are getting barer. This is the time of year that most people, large and small, dread. I used to. I hadn't worn shorts since 2004. I ran around in long, ankle-length skirts once I outgrew my size 28 jeans, and generally hated the hot weather. Not so this year! I just picked up the most adorable swimsuit off of ebay. Sure, I'll only be using it for one weekend (no pools around here that I'd visit regularly), and I suspect by the time I get to another hotel with a pool I'll have shrunk out of it. But you know what? It's a new swimsuit, and it doesn't have a skirt/shorts or anything to cover up my thighs. Yeah, I'm still a big girl (though much smaller than I was last year at this time), and I still have fat thighs (don't we all?), but this year instead of hiding them, I'm taking pride in how far I've come. I dare you to do the same. Show off those legs in shorts. Not Daisy Duke short shorts, but good, solid walking shorts. (You can wear those shorty shorts if you want.... but sometimes we have to take baby steps *grin*). Show off your shoulders (something I consider one of my best features) in tank tops or halters. Get outside, tip your face to the sun and SMILE. So many people want to hide up their flaws. They concentrate on the little things, like too much cellulite on their legs, or the way their underarms hang a bit. Yeah, we all have things about our body we'd like to fix. Who doesn't? But you know what, summer is the time when the sun smiles down on the Earth and warms it. Plants grow. It's a season to enjoy, to be outside, and frankly, to be HAPPY! It's summer. Let's get out there and enjoy the season.
First off, a happy mother's day to all my readers. Although Mother's Day is just one day out of the year we should take time to thank our mom's every day. It's only appropriate I've spent the weekend gardening. You see, my grandma is an avid gardener, and it's a tradition that I help her with the gardens every year. So, yesterday, I went to her house where my little Mantis tiller saved the day. I tilled her garden and we planted. Then today, I worked in my own yard tilling up several flower beds and planting several things. I'm sore, but happy.
 It may be late Saturday or Sunday before this is posted (sorry, going out of town tomorrow!), but I wanted to make sure I continued my roll of blogging every day (or almost every day). This picture finds me sitting in Bliss Gardens, a place where you can purchase plants (indoor and outdoor). It also has a place where you can "camp" which means in exchange for staying on a certain parcel of land, the land owner in Second Life pays you money. In the world of Second Life money is Linden dollars, named after the creators of this world, Linden Labs. If you play SL (Second Life) you can find the gardens here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gardens%20Of%20Bliss/189/211/502 For more information about Second Life go here: http://www.secondlife.com/ I must confess, a virtual world where I can be or do anything (within legal limits, of course) makes the perfect escape when the real world gets too crazy. Plus, it's a great way to talk and meet people. And, since it's a virtual world, it's a place where people are already familiar with technology, and I hope, ebooks. So, my hope is that every Saturday I'll talk about some of the neat places I visit. For today, I'll leave you with an image of a fountain to which we should all pay homage. 
It's Friday! It's fantastic! The weather is gorgeous enough to make me wish I could just knock down a wall in my house so I could work "outside". I get to garden this weekend (even get to start my tiller today, whee!power tools!). And I just finished an awesome book. Saddled with Trouble by Michelle Scott I love horses and everything that has to do with them, so, of course, when I saw this book, I just HAD to have it. I love equestrian fiction and to this horse lover there's not enough of it on the shelves. I've read very few mysteries, though I love Dick Francis, and thought that this book would be a nice change of pace. I simply could not put it down. I read it over the course of two nights, and last night I told my other half I was staying up until I got the book finished. Luckily by that point I only had about 40 pages left. I could not guess who killed Lou, a renown horse trainer, and frankly, if you've spent any time at all around the horse show scene, you know the characters in the book. You know, the primadonna Rodeo Queen bitch, the hard working trainer. I felt like I knew these characters and that they were my friends. The action ran non-stop, and I loved the low-key romance between our heroine and the handsome detective. But, there's a hitch. The hunky vet may have stolen her heart a long time ago. And there's the asshole of an ex-husband. I'll admit it's been a long time since a book picked me up and carried me along like this one. I can't wait to read the next book in this series, and I'm wishing you a fanastic Friday!
Okay, today's list is brought to us by a question from last week: how do you pamper a horse? Well, let me tell you...
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted! View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
I didn't know what I'd write today until I returned from the post office. At the end of May I make my annual pilgrimage to ConQuest, a science fiction convention held in the Kansas City area (www.kcsciencefiction.org), and since I love spreading the word about cross-genre romance, I put out a call for promo items. So far, I've gotten probably items from nearly a dozen authors, and don't worry, there's room for plenty more. It's like Christmas at my house. Package upon package full of bookmarks and postcards and even bumper stickers for awesome books that need to be added to my "to buy" lists. If we get good karma for buying books, I've got it made. :) And this is what makes me excited to be a writer at this point in my career (no, not the good karma, haha). The cross-genre love. I discovered fantasy when I was 16 by finding a copy of Mercedes Lackey's Magic's Pawn at my local K-Mart. The book featured a very handsome young man (Vanyel, too bad he's gay), and a horse on the cover. Boys and horses. Yep, even back then I had my priorities straight. LOL! And thus, my personal fusion of fantasy/science fiction and romance was born. Now, I can write across genres. I mix my polar bear shape shifters with romance, or maybe set my love stories in a science fiction universe dominated by the Concordance. Or, I have a fantasy priestess needing to find the love of her prince. No matter how you categorize it, most of what I write is science fiction romance. I write across genres, baby, and yeah, I can feel the love!
It's Pet Tuesday here at the blog, and today I'm going to talk about one of the "old man" kitties of the household, Tigger. I adopted him when he was 7 from the local animal shelter. My long-time cat, Bouncer, had just passed away, and I wanted a companion for Nermal, who was still quite young then (like 3), and it just seemed right to have two cats. So, I went to the shelter, and there amid the cute kittens was this older male cat, already neutered and declawed. His story was that he belonged to an elderly woman who had to go into a nursing home and couldn't keep him. He purred at me, and I feel in love. Tigger has always been the old man kitty of the household. He's there to collect his kitty social security and pretty much just live out his retirement in comfort. He loves nothing more than to sleep in the sun or be petted. A laid back guy, he readily took to the arrival of my partner's cats about three years ago, although the fact that they are beautiful part himalayan girls might have had something to do with it to. Six months ago Tigger was diagnosed with diabetes. Luckily with the help and advice from some very wonderful people, I am able to test his blood sugar at home, and he gets insulin shots twice a day, which he takes purring. It's attention after all, especially all the petting and cuddling I do afterwards. After being on insulin, well, he's as happy a cat as he has ever been, and lately his favorite thing is to hop up on the bed or wherever you happen to be, purr, and flop over with all four feet stretched out and get his belly rubbed. Of course this makes for interesting gymnastics when you're trying to read and he flops on your book. Or better yet, when you're folding laundry and he chooses your underwear pile to lay on (no, not jeans or t-shirts.). He often can be found snoozing in his chair, usually one of the girls sleeping on the couch beside him or nearby. And since we finally opened up the telescope we got for Christmas, well, now he likes to sleep in the telescope box. Tigger is a study in how to grow old gracefully, accept all the wonderful things that come your way, and simply enjoy life. And most of all, he reminds us all to enjoy the finer things in life.
Travelling on I-80 westbound toward Des Moines, mile marker 180 has the rest area that sits right on the Poweshiek/Jasper county line. This rest area also, like most rest areas, proudly proclaims that the next rest area is 30 miles away. It's not. It's lying. The next rest area falls right around mile marker 145, which would make it more like 35 miles away. Weight loss goals are kind of like that, just a little farther away than they appear/say to be. Trust me. I know. My friends tell me I've plateaued. I don't think so. After all, it can't be a plateau if you're not doing everything you can to keep up your end of the weight loss bargain. The body can only work with what it is given. If it's given over eating and limited exercise, well it sure can't lose a whole heck of a lot of weight. It's time for a little tough love on my part, I think. I can do it, just like you can do it, too. Just remember, goals may be a bit farther than they appear, but, just like that elusive rest area, we'll get to them eventually. And when we do, we will celebrate!
 It's fantastic Friday and what could be more fantastic than a new cover? This is the brand new cover for my July 27 (mark your calenders) release from Ellora's Cave, Bjorn's Mate. This book starts the first book in the Arctic Hungers series, the first, of what I hope to be many books about polar bear shape shifters. I do love my bears!And also on the fantastic front, my purple tulips are open and gorgeous in front of my house. The lilac bushes I planted three years ago have finally bloomed. Spring is in the air. It may be rainy, but it's gorgeous! Went to the dentist today. No cavities. See, another awesome thing about today. And my mom is coming up to visit. I know she'll be as excited about this cover as I am. She kept asking "Do you have Bjorn's cover yet?" LOL!!!! I can't wait to show it to her. I'm sure I could think of a lot more fantastic things about today, but I'll turn it over to you. What's fantastic about your Friday?
I must confess, I'm really getting into this whole "pamper myself" thing, especially now that I'm on the cusp of dropping below a major milestone in my weight loss journey. So, without further ado...
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted! View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
It's pet Tuesday here at my blog, and today I'm going to talk about Lucretia, my cat who loves werewolves. Recently I treated myself to Sexy Beast II, Wild Nights, and Kiss of the Wolf as celebratory book purchases after finishing a manuscript. My preferred reading time is between 11pm and midnight, usually as a good way to end the day. Since I like to read sprawled out on the bed, you can usually find one, or more, cats accompanying me. It's not unusual to see Lucretia, our big orange cat who is affectionately called "cranky lady" curled up near by. However, I've noticed since I've been reading these books (instead of the non-fiction civil war history books I had been reading), she's taken to curling up right beside me, her white-tipped paws on my arms, and reading over my shoulder as it were. Yes, I do believe Lucretia likes werewolves. If I'm reading a novel, such as Kate Douglas' awesome Chanku tales, or Morgan Hawke's Kiss of the Wolf (which I started last night), then Lucretia is right there, peering over my arm. Sometimes she puts a paw on the page as if to say "wait, I'm not done reading," and after a few moments she'll take it away again and I can turn the page. She's a regular reader of werewolf tales. If the story doesn't feature any wolves, then she can be found curled up on the pillow or a corner of the bed or somewhere else, but usually not where she can see the book I'm reading. Most animal lovers think their animals have somewhat human qualities. We make jokes all the time about my partner's cats, the "princess" and the "queen." We attribute all sorts of emotions and feelings to our pets. But I wonder, how many has a cat who likes to read werewolf books?
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