The Dynamic Trio - Blog

I’ve just googled April Fool’s Day, and it seems the origin of the day is a bit of a mystery. According to the National Geographic site the most popular theory is that France changed its calendar in the 1500s so that the New Year would begin in January to match the Roman calendar instead of the start of spring in late March or early April.

However word of the change traveled slowly, and many people in rural areas continued to celebrate the New Year in the spring. These country dwellers became known as “April fools.”

Another theory is that April Fools’ Day simply grew out of age-old European spring festivals of renewal, in which pranks and camouflaging one’s identity are common.

Wikipedia says April Fools’ Day or All Fools’ Day, though not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, enemies and neighbors, or sending them on fools’ errands, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.

As a child I remember my father waking us up extra early. He was very excited and said that one of our horses had foaled. When we stumbled outside in our pajamas, rubbing our tired eyes, he shouted, “April Fool.” Color me not amused. I still remembered my lack of humor!

I also remember purchasing a block of rubber, cutting it into pieces and decorating them with chocolate icing and shredded coconut so they looked like Lamingtons. I took them to a class party and still recall the priceless look on the boys’ faces when they tried to eat the rubbery lamingtons.

And sort of in the funny ha-ha category - I broke my bike today. I’m not sure what happened but the front wheel caught somehow and I almost flew over the handle bars. It must have looked funny, but I managed to save myself from greeting the footpath with my head. I think hubby should be able to fix my bike. The chain has come off and I couldn’t get it back on so I had to wheel it home. Luckily, I always wear my helmet. I know some people don’t but during my teenage years I used to ride horses quite a bit. I never fell off much, but I did trip over while crossing the road one day. The riding hat was the only thing that saved me from gashing my head open. I ripped the felt on the hat but was otherwise uninjured. The moral of the story is that I learned to wear protective helmets whenever necessary! It’s actually law to wear a helmet while cycling in NZ, a law I’m happy to obey.

I hope everyone had a fun weekend. Watch out for pranksters on April 1st!

Fated

Wheee! Posting my Sven progress on Fated made me think about story pacing and how the level of backstory and detail is dependent upon overall story length. For instance in a novella, you have less space for character development and detail so it’s important to use guidepost scenes to do the work. In category, you have more room but still not as much as when you’re looking at 90 - 100K.

It occured to me last night as I was writing that I’m at the stage where I keep note of this stuff mentally and I sort of have these little alarms in my head - okay by this point I need to have laid the groundwork for the dark moment, by this stage I need to have the main storyline well developed - that sort of thing. I know my ending will be X long so I keep that in mind as I hit the middle. I don’t keep notes really although I do outline for the books I sell on partial and proposal. But over the last years, I’ve developed a mix of plotting and pantsing. I write as loose a synopsis as I can - essentially hit the highlights of the bones of the story and then fill in the colors and lines as I go. This enables me to have the freedom I love when writing to let the story take over, but also keeps me to timelines and schedules and *most of the time* helps keep me from wandering off track.

Now I am a huge believer in the idea that there is NO one true way. Every author has what works for her and she might tinker with it over time and even across certain books. My way works for me. Another author might do it more efficiently and better, but each of us has our own process.

And now, off to do laundry and hope the sleet outside does not make its mind to go into full snow. Yes I said snow. Yes, it’s March 29. Gah!! And then I shall finish up this scene in Fated later on tonight.

My next release, coming out on April 17 2008, is called Wanderlust. You’ve probably realized by now how much I love to travel, and luckily my husband humors me because he enjoys exploring the world as much as I do.

Wanderlust features a New Zealand girl — one a little bit like me in fact. She has the travel bug and has combined her love of travel with a job. She’s a tour leader for an overland company called Wanderlust Adventures who specialize in tours across the continents. Anna, my heroine is currently leading a tour from London to Kathmandu. The reader joins the tour in New Delhi, India where three new passengers are also joining. Unfortunately for Anna, one of the new passengers is her younger sister Elizabeth, and Anna is not looking forward to her presence. There is another surprise addition to the tour, but I’ll let Anna tell you about that.

The tour leaves New Delhi and the passengers start dying off. Anna is under pressure from all directions and it seems there’s a murderer on the loose…

I have two excerpts up on my website and I’m also running a contest to give away a downloand of Wanderlust.

Writing Wanderlust was so much fun. Not only did I get to pull out my old diaries, photos and tour books to live the experience along with Anna and her passengers, but I got to kill people off as well. Life as a writer is never dull!

Yesterday we started our move to Washington…sort of. In my Sunday post I mentioned the madness of trying to move. We’re doing a 6 month stint in a new house until we move away for good. While the rental madness all worked out, my back is protestingl. Loudly. We moved so much stuff! Where the hell did it all come from? Now, look, I am the QUEEN of ‘throw it away.’ I don’t do the pack-rat thing and I’m quick to have the Salvation Army come and get anything I haven’t worn in a year or two.

So, after having them come take away the desks and livingroom furniture, and tossing out all the stuff (and I mean ALL the stuff that we haven’t touched in a while) I’d like to know how we still ended up with a garage full of crap that we don’t have room enough to throw away? Anyone? Anyone? I’d give half my right leg to know how this happens.

Oh, I did learn one thing - I know where at least half of my missing socks ended up…behind the dryer! Gack!

So, TJ is living on Advil for the next day or two. And we’ve still got cleaning to do at the old place. If I weren’t looking forward to hitting the coast here soon, I think I’d just sit down in the middle of the floor and blow a gasket! ROFL!

Okay, as for book stuff…I don’t have any internet connection the next few days while Comcast gets it’s $#@%! together and shuffles over to my house to hook it up. So perhaps I’ll actually get some writing done on a cute little contemporary I’m working on. We’ll see…

TJ

You wanna know what happens? Well, you’ll have to read the upcoming anthology featuring what Loveromances calls: Fasten your seatbelt, because four of the best authors of the erotic romance genre take you on a wicked and wild trip to Sin City. 

Now, here’s the thing - you can wait until May 1 when the book comes out or come by the Pittsburgh Hilton on Saturday April 19 and get one there.  OR

You can enter to win one of the shiny, pretty author copies I received.  

If you choose the latter, simply use the handy dandy contact form at my website and be sure to put VEGAS CONTEST in the subject line.  I’ll begin choosing winners at random, oh any old time I want to and up through they’re gone. Just make a note of where you’d be putting your review up (and no, it’s not going to make a difference if you post at Amazon v a review blog) - it just helps me to know where things may be going up.

Is there a catch? Not really. What I would like is if you’d put up a review of the anthology either at your blog, another review blog or at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.com.  A good review is obviously desirable but not required - all four of us want you to love our stories but we want you to be honest too.

So that’s it - you want a free, early copy, enter to win!!  I’ll be notifying winners via email so be sure the address you use is valid.  ONE ENTRY PER PERSON PER HOUSEHOLD PLEASE

So as it happens, April 4th I’ve got a new chapter in the Witches Knot universe coming out from Ellora’s Cave. I’m pretty excited because I’ve wanted to do Minx and Connor’s book since I wrote Vengeance Due in 2006! Anyway, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for my Witches Knot books because they’re where I started and they’ve given me so much enjoyment and creative energy over the years.

Anyway, I thought for Titilating Tuesday, an excerpt from CfoD would be fun…

Adult content behind the jump - 18 and over only please…

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had all of Easter off. No writing, although I did think about stuff and made a plan for the rest of the year, which is unheard of and another topic entirely.

Today it was time to get back to work. I don’t wanna do it!! I have procrastinated big time. I read my email and took care of correspondence. I took the dog for a walk. I had breakfast and made the mistake of turning on my PDA - just to read a chapter of Lorelei James’ latest book you understand. Yikes!! I’m going gunnin’ for that lady. She writes an awesome book. One chapter turned into several. The news came on. Aghast, I realized it was ten o’clock. Okay, time to start work. But did I? No, it’s such a nice day I went for a bike ride. Now I’m back and I’m blogging. Oh dear!

I am gonna work today. I am! Except I need a shower first…

If you’re looking for ways to procrastinate tomorrow pop over to my blog and say hello to my guest Amanda Ashby. Amanda is giving away a copy of her paranormal You Had Me At Halo. It’s a great book and was awarded a 4 1/2 star Top Pick by Romantic Times.

Emily Ryan-Davis is having a List Mom day at the Ellora’s Cave reader’s list tomorrow. She and Cara Carnes are all about kisses. It sounds like fun.

What are your favorite ways to procrastinate?

Okay (pant, pant, pant), I’m back from what turned into a six hour stint of signing a new lease, hauling boxes and running back and forth from our old house to the new one. Talk about thankful - we found a house and were able to start moving in within just a couple of days.

So here’s what happened. Basically our lease it up in our current house and the landlord wanted a two year lease. Well, we’re moving to Washington in six months and it wouldn’t have been fair to sign a two year lease knowing we wouldn’t be around to fulfill it. So we found a short term lease and informed our landlord we’d be moving.

THEN, the owner of the house we were moving into started having problems. Not her fault at all. Her current tenant’s lease is up. But she won’t move. After this person made several promises of a move date and breaking every single one of them, we and the owner lost all faith. So, three days before we were supposed to move we went and did a walk-through of the house and saw that the tenant hadn’t packed a single box. Not to mention the entire house looked like it blew up, wreaked of god-knows-what (probably due to the bags full of poopy diapers spilling out onto the floor) among other things. There was no way that house was going to be ready for us to move into TOMORROW!

So the owner was nice enough to give us our deposit back, plus a little extra for our trouble, AND she even found a few houses for us to look at in hopes that one of them would meet our needs.

Thankfully we did find one. So today we went over to the new house, checked it over, signed the lease and started moving…all within an hour. And that damn hour went on FOREVER! We moved boxes and boxes and boxes…and more boxes. And we haven’t even gotten to the big stuff yet.

But at least we have a roof over our heads and there’s one less thing to be concerned about. Whew!

TJ

Hi all,

I’m running out to go look at a new house! When I get back I’ll tell you the story of why we’re running about with our hair on fire trying to find a house with a six-month lease…

See you when I get back.

TJ

My husband is home! Yayayay! He’s been away for the last week on a business trip and between all the writing work I’ve needed to do, running three kids around and sleeping like ten kinds of awful when he’s not here - I was just TIRED yesterday afternoon. But he’s home and I missed him and we had pancakes and did the nice, Saturday morning family thing.

I did manage to order stuff for the RT Love Shack party I’m hosting along with Ann Aguirre, Anya Bast, Cynthia Eden and Megan Hart. Our swag bags will have books and cool stuff we’re doing only for that party so don’t forget to stop by on Friday if you’re going to RT.

I did update my website with excerpts for Taking Care of Business and Undercover should anyone be interested in checking those out and also, I put up a page for my next Cascadia Wolves book, Fated. Yes, Unexpected is now Fated because as the very clever Angie pointed out, Unexpected sounds a lot like Undercover and we didn’t want readers to confuse the two. Anyway, there’s a loose blurb up now.

AND…I’m told the author copies of What Happens in Vegas are on their way! Which means I’m going to be doing some contests soon so keep an eye out. I didn’t want to start a contest until the books were actually here though, LOL. I can’t wait to see them. Anya has hers already and she said they were very pretty so I can’t wait.

That’s about it. I need to deal with laundry and get some writing work done. It’s sunny today so I’d like to get out and plant some of the seeds the kids and I picked up last week as well.

Enjoy your Saturday afternoon!