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The sun sometimes does shine out of people’s asses. Or their green eyes. How do you put away nearly 11 years of your life in a neat little box as if it were just a stack of photos and mementos? I need to learn this in case what appears to be inevitable occurs. I can’t armor myself either. There is nothing that can withstand a nuclear blast. And I’m no cockroach.

I thought about posting Comfortably Numb but I’m not comfortable. Not sure how long it will be before I am once more. But I like this song. It’s very me right now if you just take the S off of she.

She Is The Sunlight – Trading Yesterday

You know how you can have high hopes and everything is gorgeous and wonderful and suddenly… it’s just all gone? Yeah. Welcome to my fucking life.

My father was a veteran of WWII. In a war zone. This isn’t about the Pacific or even WWII, but I love the sentiment. Marcus will back next week. Even he doesn’t make me happy today.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Hopefully, you spent a few moments today honoring those who fought for the freedoms we take so much for granted. Really, don’t take anything for granted. The smallest thing can upset the apple cart of your life and take away that which you love most.  At least, no one can take your memories.

Hug your family today.  If you don’t feel like it, do it anyway. For me, ‘kay?

This weekend Motley turned 20. No longer a teen yet still my baby. We celebrated with some Claim Jumper yummies delivered to our door including a slice of The Motherlode. Have you ever seen this thing? It is a chocolate explosion. An overdose. I think I could only eat about 3 bites of it today after having had one layer of the slice yesterday. Man. What a way to turn 20, overdosing on chocolate.

I talked about giving birth to Motley over on the Flirty Author Bitches blog, explaining that I’d been in the hospital for over a month. I’d been really sick and once they induced labor I got seriously cranky. I think I might have stayed that way which is probably why Motley doesn’t always think she’s hit the motherlode when it comes to mothers. I did post a video over at FAB. It’s the video that was playing on MTV when Motley arrived. I about took the nurse’s head off when she tried to turn off MTV. It was the only thing distracting me from the pain. I don’t let Motley forget that she arrived during an Aerosmith video. LOL

Apparently, the term motherlode extends to creativity and book covers too this past week. I was on a roll. After I did Fire Season’s cover I got an idea for the covers of the next two books. I think they turned out quite well. After that, I made a couple of sig tag banners for people. What do you think? Was my creative genius at work or am I tooting my own horn for no reason?

I think I did okay on the graphics front. This week I’m leaving on Friday to pick up Rott in Mammoth. I have a long boring drive ahead of me and a lot of stress. Actually, I’m already stressing. I may have to start work on my next project without a breather because I need the distraction. Well, actually, I have some trailers to do. Hopefully, my creative motherlode holds for a few more days.

Before I go I’ve got to post a Monday motherlode of Marcus! I cannot have a Monday without him anymore. And I really love this photo. Tres hawt. Tidey whities never looked so good. Well, cept maybe for the ones on Travis Fimmel. HEH. Gah. No contest. I’d still take Marcus over Travis, but it would be a tough decision.

If you get the chance, stop by Motley’s blog Socially Dead and wish her a happy you’re no longer a teenager birthday. Hope you have a great Monday!

Yes, this is definitely my pretty. I may be prejudiced since I’m not only the author but the artist, but hey. This is so pretty I think I’m entitled this once.

And here’s the other pretty that goes along with it. A nice little video.

Fire Season is a 55K word novel that is actually a prequel to the first two Tales novellas released by Pink Petal Books. Here’s a blurb from the Coming Soon page.

Black dragon Holden Antaeus isn’t looking for a mate. His life is filled with family, work, and dating. Women adore him and he’s never short of offers for sex, but a relationship isn’t something he’s interested in. When Holden’s brother Sean hires a new executive for Antaeus International, Holden’s whole world, and everything he’s ever believed about himself, is blown to bits. Garret Renquist is a green dragon, intelligent, witty, bi-sexual, and hot for Holden. Despite the fact that Holden is positive he’s heterosexual, the moment he meets Garret, something happens inside him. What follows is a journey through stereotypes and ingrained beliefs as Holden struggles with the fact that his destined mate is a man.

This novel will be out the first Thursday in July. And yes, Becky. It will be in print soon after so that I can sign a copy for you!

Have a great humpday!

It’s pretty sad (or daunting depending on your outlook on life) when I have to use my 15 minute break at work to get my blog post up. I didn’t exactly forget it this morning, but I ran out of time. I didn’t sleep much last night between my sore throat and the fact that I was on the last bit of work on Fire Season.

Fire Season is now off with the betas (thank you Jason Edding, Ethan Day, and Kris Jacen!) and my editor has it too. Anything the betas find I’ll work on in edits. Edits for The Pixie Prince are next and I’ll be getting edits soon for Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Hellhound and Runaways.

Next up on my writing list (after some work at The Bar) is Rousing Caine for MLR Press. I’m hoping it’s good enough for a slot in the anthology. Also up next is a slight change in plans. Originally, Book 4 of the Tales of the Darkworld was Common Ground, Marius Granville’s story. (A menage a quatre for you fans of erotica.) Instead, Vahid and Emily pretty much came alive for me as I wrote Fire Season.  I think it’s time to expose Vahid’s secrets and vulnerabilities. I left him showing a crack in his composure by drinking too much in Fire Season…

So here’s a Marcus I have on my computer at work. He’s just yummy no matter what he’s wearing but this is just to get me in the mood for the M/M cowboy Christmas story I need to write… not that I see Marcus doing men.  I mostly only see him doing me, but well, that’s a whole other blog post, isn’t it? Ahem.

I’ll be back at the Flirty Author Bitches on the 16th so I’ll see you there! Have a great Marcus Monday!

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself all weekend. You see, my nice, neat 30K M/M dragon shifter story Fire Season has become a full length novel… pretty much. And no, it’s not done yet despite having had a May 1 deadline. I’m at 44K and I think it’s gonna hit 50K which is the low end of the full length novel mark I think.

The reason this story has gotten so big is because… men have emotions apparently. At least, my dragons do. And their emotions confuse them, which in turn angers them. Oh, and they get horny at the least little thing and have to get their rocks off. Expending their energy when they get wound up about emotions happens a few times. Tennis, swimming, some porn watching… yes, all these things occur in this book as poor Holden and Garret figure out how to be mates.

Really, one of the things that I like most about this story is that I get to stand on my soapbox and espouse my theory of people specific sexual orientation rather than gender specific. We’ll see who rags on my ass worse over this idea, the gays or the hets. Usually, the way this stuff works is that the group that complains the loudest that I’m full of shit, is the group running scared that it’s the truth and will upset their nice neat apple cart about hardwiring. (Something that can’t be proven conclusively anyway.)

The other thing I really like about this story is that it’s springboarding me into details about Vahid’s story. In Fire Season, you finally get to see Vahid’s cool demeanor crack slightly over another executive in the company, a red dragon named Emily. In my head, the Emily and Vahid story has been taking shape because of their actions/reactions toward one another in Fire Season. She drinks and is seriously unhappy. He never shows emotion but totally gets pissy about her drinking. The reasons for their behavior are there in the story if you care to put 2 and 2 together and make a few assumptions, but the truth will out in Ride the Lightning Book 5 which will be out in 2010.

Now that all the male emotions have spent the weekend exhausting me, I need a nice Marcus to calm me down and prepare me for a wonderfully horrendous work week. I hate month end. I really do.

Would you look at that photo? Yum. Do men still wear cut off jeans? Cause I always thought they looked good on the right pair of thighs…

I don’t know about you, but sorta wish those shorts would come back in style. Especially with summer coming. Okay, especially with the top button already undone. HEH.

Have a great Monday!