Independent

This Independence Day I’ve come to understand the real meaning of being independent. Rott and I are out from beneath the yoke of being renters. This house is our house and no one can tell us what do with our house or demand entrance. The sense of freedom is amazing. As much as I struggle a bit to pay that loan payment, I derive a huge sense of satisfaction from writing that check and knowing that it pays for the walls around me to belong to me…to us. This is our sanctuary and no one controls what we can and can’t do here. It feels amazing. Having a landlord feels and is oppressive.... 

date4 Jul
commentsComments Off

I Am Mom

I spent a good portion of the past weekend putting the finishing touches on my friend David’s new WordPress blog BellaDaddy. David is a Daddy blogger and I think I was more exposed to mommy and daddy bloggers this weekend than I’ve been in the whole 3+ years that I’ve been blogging. As I copied feed links and worked on widgets and badges, it dawned on me that these people are passionate about their children and their lives as parents. And they started to make me feel that I’d missed out on something. Now, it’s pretty obvious to most people that I just don’t have... 

date26 Jun
commentsComments Off

Resurrection of the Dead

Yesterday, I put Socially Dead back up. Motley wants to blog again but she wanted a less teenager-y template than Skully. Although she liked Skully, she was tired of the pale blue and pink.  So Motley’s back (hasn’t posted yet though) with a new template (Cold Stone, same as I use at Lex Valentine) but those of you who used to visit her will recognize Skully at once. There’s still some updating of info we need to do (I need to fix my CafePress stuff) but it’s all small stuff at this point. The blog has now been resurrected and hopefully it will have more of a life than... 

date10 Jan

Judge Not

I spent Saturday judging some writing contest entries. It was fun, but I have to say, the first few I read were disappointing. I guess I expected them to be better stories. I don’t know why I had that expectation but I did.  The writing was okay, the mechanics not bad, but I felt nothing when I read them. They weren’t exactly boring, but they just weren’t interesting enough to capture my interest. Of course, I could tell with a few of them that they just needed a better vocabulary, better word choices, to pump up the story and give it more oomph. Others, well, let’s just... 

date26 Jul

Tour To Win

Short post this morning. I awoke with a gasp at 5:30 am realizing that I forgot I have to take Motley to school this morning and didn’t set the alarm for 5 am. We switched over to a new server on Saturday and I spent some time dealing with a few things over the weekend related to that. The big test is this morning when the full staff walks in and has to use it. So I need to hightail my ass into the office ASAP! Since I’m now short of time and need to run off to shower, I’m just gonna tell you about a chance to win a Sony eReader and other prizes in 1Romance Ebooks’ Birthday... 

date19 Jul

The Long Goodbye

Do you remember when you were 20 or so and everything you felt seemed so overwhelming, larger than life, and never ending? I remember those days. OMG. I was such a drama queen. Not so much overtly as in my head. Those days were brought back to me this weekend when Nikki (Motley) broke up with her boyfriend.  This is the boyfriend everyone had reservations about because he was possessive (and talking about getting married and having kids when neither of them even has a job) and did controlling things like yell at her demanding she hang up if she was on the phone with me and we were disagreeing.... 

date12 Jul

Now Comes the Night

This past week has been a rough one. Friends are having trouble with all sorts of bad things. I have my share of stuff too and stress over them is really bogging me down. Despite where I work and what I write, mortality isn’t something I think about every day. At least not in a conscious, personal way. Yet, a few things have happened that reminded me that I don’t live in the Darkworld where the immortals die mostly when they feel like retiring, giving up their bodies, and moving on to the Afterlife. Two of the nicest people I know have had tragedies befall them. Both things happened... 

date10 May

Whew!

I’m done. With Ride the Lightning. Sent it off to my publisher last night. Yeah, there’s edits to be done (I used the phrase “like X spilling through a window” three effing times! You’d think I would have a better grasp of the English language, wouldn’t ya?), but I’m a good girl and spin through the edits pretty quickly. RTL will be out December 3. With RTL Dave2 makes his literary debut, following in the footsteps of Karl (Karl with a K), Gooster (Corey Green), Marty (the Fairy Godfather), and Vahid who is the star of RTL. In this book, Dave2 is David... 

date9 Nov

Old and New

In IT news… the damn board still isn’t moved. I keep getting errors. I need the SQL database god to come and snap his fingers and make it all magically move to where it’s supposed to go. I’m paying hosting on a site that isn’t up because I can’t move the damn thing. I may have to pay someone to do this. You’re wondering what this has to do with my title, aren’t ya? I’m trying to move an OLD message board to a NEW domain and hosting company. But the fucker isn’t cooperating. Or I’m just not smart enough to do this. Moving on to other... 

date28 Sep

Bullet Rider

So I have this guest blog post at a review site today. It’s title is Six With a Bullet. The reason for the title is that Fire Season is now #6 on All Romance eBook’s Top Ten List. This sort of equates to being the #6 most sold book at Barnes and Noble. ARe is one of the biggest distributors (e-bookstores) on the internet. Because of riding this bullet up the bottom half of the top ten, I’ve been invited to be on ARe’s Blog Talk Radio show What’s Hot in Romance. It’s been awhile since I did any radio, but I’m sure I’ll remember how it works. I’ll... 

date24 Aug

Drumroll Please!

I has winnahs. Many winnahs. This was soooo much fun. Louie was asleep so he couldn’t pick a winner like last time. Last year for Blog Reader Appreciation Week, Motley drew a name out of a Dooney bag. This year, she just picked numbers and I looked to see whose comment was that number. So here are this year’s Blog Reader Appreciation Week winners! Winner of the Goodie Bag is Comment #22 DEBBY! Winner of the Snarkcoaster is Comment #33 KIMMY L! Winners of a book are Comments: # 25 – Del #1 – Maurya #15 – Christina Engels #2 – Trinity #6 – Val Pearson #16... 

date29 Jun

The Motherlode

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... 

date18 May