My Last Gift To You

Tonight's the last night of Hanukkah. I hope you've enjoyed some of your gifts. Remember, Rebecca York's contest runs through December 11th, so scroll down and leave a comment to be entered to win a copy of her book, DRAGON MOON.

And my last gift for you is another Smashwords coupon. This one is 50% off WHEN DANGER CALLS, and it's good through the end of the year. Use Coupon Code ET46A at checkout. I hope you'll enjoy it. This should give you plenty of time to read it before the sequel, WHERE DANGER HIDES is released in May. And if you want a dirt-cheap hard cover, email me.

(I have pleas for reader help at the end of this post—please read through)

My next NOOKcolor discovery really isn't about the device as much as about the programming and communication between the bookstore and the reader. My daughter-in-law gave me a gift certificate for Barnes & Noble for Hanukkah. I went to their website and 'registered' the certificate in my account. Then, I bought a book using my NC. When I checked my account on the website, lo and behold, it "knew" to use my gift certificate funds rather than the credit card associated with the NC account. Frabjous Day. I'm still refraining from going hog wild. I downloaded a slew of samples, but I will buy them only after I read the sample and decide I have to know what comes next.

On the home scene, the remodel is still going well—knocking on my desk. We had our first inspection, and it passed; nothing could move forward until the inspector signed off on the electrical.


Then there's the "this would NEVER fly in a book" scene.

I was washing the sheets, and didn't know that the entire box of fabric softener sheets was in the washer. I'm talking a Costco-sized box, about ¾ full. Not only were there crumpled, wet, softener sheets everywhere, but the cardboard box was reduced to soggy fragments. If you did want to write this scene, it would have to be a secondary character—heroines or heroes don't get into messes like this. But no matter, the fact that it took hours to deal with the mess—running the machine empty, then doing each sheet separately to get out the cardboard globs—would require all sorts of finagling.

In the actual writing, I'm reaching the point in my WIP where everything has to hit the fan. (In my plot 'outline' this would be: Bad Stuff Happens.) A washing machine crisis just won't cut it.

My challenge with this book has been the requisite children. Both were either shown or alluded to in previous books, so I can't exactly pretend they don't exist. However, second only to killing pets in fiction is putting kids in harm's way. So the writing has been going slowly, as I try to come up with logical ways to make sure I'm not going to traumatize these youngsters, while still providing the action/adventure scenes that my Blackthorne books have come to include.

But "only trouble is interesting," and to wrap things up with the action being resolved while the hero and heroine were hiding out (with the kids) won't make for a good story—even with a washing machine crisis.

It's time to buckle down, get the words onto the page, and then deal with fixing it later. You have to know it's all right to write crap, because at least you can fix crap. Once I reach the end (and since I've got 85K words written, it needs to be soon), I can go back and clean things up—no pun intended.

And now, I'm turning things over to you.

I've been asked to host a 'forum' at Coffee Time Romance. It's not until next September, but I'm host for the entire month. What sort of writing-related topic would you be interested in? I see it as much a give-and-take opportunity as a 'I'm the Expert' (because I don't think I am.) Please help me out with some ideas. What aspects of the writing process and/or business would you like to know more about?

I could also use more pictures for my Friday Field Trips. We're reaching the bottom of my supply. I'd hate to discontinue the feature—or are you tired of it?

Please help!