I love the special calls that go out from publishers for holiday-themed romances. So far, I've written one for Halloween and Christmas...but I just wasn't interested in working on a Valentine story. It's not that I don't love hearts, chocolates, and sexy lingerie. I do...but I really didn't think I could come up with a story that was different and yet romantic...and well, DIFFERENT.

Then, the other day, I'm in the shower. The muse loves the shower. I figure it must remind her of standing naked under waterfalls in Hawaii while watching cabana boys deliver towels and margaritas (sigh) and well, over the sound of the water, I suddenly hear her voice whisper "what about...." and she outlines the most freaking genius storyline in my ear. Luckily, that was on Thursday. So I was able to dedicate my writing time on Friday to outlining it. I'm 3000 words in and it's incredible.

I'm not going to share much about it...I don't want to jinx it. I'm even afraid to google the theme and find out that the whole plot/premise has been done to death. I just want to WRITE the book.

And this from the writer who was just saying last week that she didn't WANT to write a Valentine story...

Every year my friend Kathy and I troop off to the fair to eat junk food, drink a beer, see a concert, and then buy kettle corn and cinnamon rolls for the road.


This year, we wanted to see Charlie Daniels and Lonestar...but my daughter's soccer practice put a glitch in that. Instead, we saw Heart. Now, long, long ago, I saw Heart in concert in college (yeah, THAT long ago). I enjoyed the concert...but except for the addition of a couple of Ann Wilson's new songs from her upcoming solo album, they played the same music I heard on that far-away day. Ah....nostalgia.


I heated up the cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning and we'll snack on kettle corn tonight while watching television. We'll go to the fair as a family on Saturday, but the emphasis will be on the petting zoo areas and the rides and the only junk food anyone will want will be cotton candy.

I'm just hoping we don't get run down by a pig this year!

Well...I finished reading Harry Potter last night. I think I went through almost a box of tissue there at the end. Sniffle. Then my husband and I laid in bed and discussed it. Needless to say, it was a late night! My daughter is on about page 306...so we can't say much while she is around.

Amazingly, with all the reading I've done in the last couple of days, I've also done some really good editing on the second draft of Fool's Gold. I'm on page 88/111 and will try to finish the second draft today. I find I add quite a bit of layers and details during this portion of the work...it's at 23K right now and may finish up closer to 24K by the time I'm done. Then I have to go and take out all the *thats* as well as the ands, buts, and thens, thens that I've started sentences with and in that process I'll probably remove 300 words! Ack! I'm hoping to have Fool's Gold submitted by the beginning of next week.

Fridays at the library are back!

My husband gave me babysitting for my birthday so that I could go to the library and write. At the end of the summer, Nati went on vacation for a month. But a couple of weeks ago, I got one last Friday...or so I thought. Since then, Nati has decided to do homeschool/independent study this semester so that she can graduate early. As a result, she has Friday afternoons free and would love to earn $!! So, from 2-5 I'll be at the library writing away. I'll have to hurry back to attend the Cobblstone Press chat and told my husband we'll have to go out to eat on Fridays (that's a win-win situation, huh?)

So, I'll be working on my Vampire Oracle story tomorrow!