Sorry I missed the other week folks, I was knocked on my butt by a nasty virus.  But I’m up, I’m moving…I’m shilling for votes.
Voting for the LRC’s “Best of 2009″ Awards begins on FEBRUARY 15th and ends on FEBRUARY 22nd.
I’m up for three and other’s here are up as well!
I’ve proposed naked Jell-O [...]

Has hit our house. The first to go down was the 11 year old. Four days of headache, grumpy-butt and vomiting. The last day he gave it to my husband. three days of headache, body aches, vomiting and grumpy-butt-ness. The second day into it the oldest’s girlfriend (who lives here or might as well) goes [...]

Neal stepped back into dim of the kitchen. At the back door, he edged it open quietly as possible, pleased to see the evening light had extinguished to a cloak of starless black. The courtyard was wrapped in a shroud of darkness that would cover his movements from prying eyes. The footprints in the snow would support Ayana’s claim he had been there and gone. The still falling snow making it impossible to tell when they had been make if they didn’t look at them any time soon. With luck, no one would be aware of the truth.
It took him extra time to maneuver through the side streets to the place where he’d left his horse. It was wiser to wait until morning to travel but Neal needed to put distance between himself and this place. Needed time to think things through. Time for events to settle down and his heart to start to mend.
He was worried about leaving Ayana there alone to handle things if Williams’ death wasn’t accepted for the natural demise it truly was but he was keenly aware she was a strong, clever woman. A woman that seemed to think as long as Neal removed her trinket from Williams’ possession she would be a free woman as well. Which was ridiculous. With Williams dead, she was a free woman, the pouch had nothing to do with it. Still…
He slipped his hand into his pocket and fingered the crude bag for a moment before taking it out. On impulse, he tied a knot in the broken ribbon and slipped it over his head and under his own shirt. When it touched his skin he felt oddly comforted by it. Ayana’s gentle, exotic voice whispered in his head “be strong, child, be strong”, a phrase she had spoken many times to him in the last few humiliating weeks. She had endured ten years with that monster while Neal was ready to be branded a thief after only a few weeks. She was stronger than any man Neal knew, including Williams.
He slowly retrieved the damning watch from the pocket. He was a fool to have ever engraved it. A fool to have given it to Williams. The metal was cold and hard against his palm, the uneven edge of the bent cover sharp against his skin. It felt somehow heavier than before — heavier, colder. Touching it now gave him a sense of unease.
Neal decided it was the added guilt and shame it had brought to his short life, the embodiment of a disastrous attempt to find love and acceptance. He decided to keep this watch forever, a reminder of the deceptions love could play on an unsuspecting heart. Maybe it would keep him from making the same mistake again. He had learned a valuable lesson from this. Love was fleeting and there was no such thing as the ‘right man’. At least not for another man.
An ache pressed up under his breastbone so intense it made Neal swallow hard to try and dislodge it. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. If anyone would ask, he’d say the moisture on his face was melting snowflakes.

I’m attending a romance event I haven’t done before next year in NJ. It’s the AAD (NOT attention deficit disorder! *g*) convention for readers. I think it will be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to it. So many of the conferences are far away and in huge cities like NY and LA. [...]

Yesterday was cursed. I swear it. No fiction involved.
I had a plumber at the house to install a fireplace connection. for our gas fireplace. That turned into a four hour ‘hunt for the gas leak’ event that included finding some crazy-assed brown squirrel stuck in one of the down spouts. He must have fallen [...]

It’s official–Fall is here. My furnace–set VERY low–kicked on this morning. The first sign that not only is fall here but winter is close on its heels! The furnace is running as I type this. It’s kind of a reassuring, comforting sound, almost primal in the way it makes me feel more cared for and [...]

[ July 15, 2009 to July 18, 2009. ] Laura, Jade, Jet, Ally and Kimber will at be at RWA Nationals in Washington DC this week. Look for us!

A friend forwarded me this link to NY Times article about romance sales. It verifies something I have been saying all along.
… on the popularity of romance novels during this recessionary period.
http://nytimes.com/2009/04/08/books/08roma.html
People will buy books to escape uncertain times and they want happy endings. You can long for more fulfilling creative license as an author [...]

Okay, so I’m told all REAL authors write because they have to, that even if NO ONE read their work they would write any way to satisfy a need deep within themselves. I must not qualify.
If no one read my work, if my stories didn’t reach out and touch at least one other reader, I [...]

I was contacted this morning by the fabulous and darling Elisa Rolle, Italian bookstore owner and a huge supporter of the M/M romance genre that she had made me the author spotlight of the day on her LJ! How sweet and wonderful of her! I’ve been feeling a little stressed lately over some [...]