You Know You're A Suspense Writer.....

You know you're a suspense writer...

when you walk into a bank, it's deserted and you wonder if everyone is held at gunpoint in the back.

A Week Later....

Hi-ho, hi-ho!  I'm still here. I've been visiting with the family, working and....WRITING! I finally cancelled my home phone (got my cell though), cable & internet in the house. Right now I'm using the internet at a friend's house who only lives a few doors down to me. It's been different without all that in the house, but I can't believe how much time I'm saving. I've been able to get back to the business of writing, which is so important if I actually want to sell something! 

I'm so excited about my current story. It's the novella with an American woman and a Scotsman set in modern day Edinburgh and the Highlands. At the moment it's called Her Highland Champion and here's my latest blurb for it:

She needed a hero.

He had no courage to be one.

Can her love renew his confidence and make him her Highland champion?

Yes, I know that blurb isn't the best, but I'll be revising it as I get closer to submitting the story. I'll be sharing more about the story in the next couple of weeks. I expect to finish the rough draft tonight and then have it all ready to be submitted by the end of next weekend!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Hello! I've had an amazing weekend! My family dinner was fabulous on Friday-good food, good drinks, good company! Everyone sang to me when they brought out a cookie & ice cream for me. Then yesterday was fantabulous! Okay, my Texas Longhorns CLEARLY did not get my memo that I needed them to play well, but other than that it was a good day. I got some gift cards (1 for Barnes & Noble!!!), a beautiful necklace, some money (always helpful, especially since my RWA membership is up for renewal), a happy birthday hat, Bunco game (I've heard it's fun) and some other neat things. Today we had some much needed rain in TX. I had leftover birthday cake & tea for breakfast, lunch with 2 of my brothers, my niece & 1 nephew, then dinner with the British relatives & the parents. Now I'm just reading birthday wishes on Facebook and emails.

If you have a free minute, you could give me a birthday present. The Mills & Boon New Voices Competition ends tomorrow. I'd love some more comments on my entry!

Let The Party Begin!

I worked a 1/2-day sub job today and now I'M FREE TO PARTY!  I've got my family b-day dinner tonight, then a bright and early start to my birthday party day. My Texas Longhorns (okay, they're not mine. I don't own them, but...) are playing the Oklahoma Sooners in the morning and then I've got friends visiting to celebrate with me!  We'll be hanging out, listening to music I've loved over the last 4 decades, looking (and giggling) at pictures of me over the last 4 decades, eating, drinking, swimming and being merry!  Then Sunday, my actual birthday, I'm having a nice breakfast, recovering from Saturday, hanging by the pool, then going out to a favorite spot for drinks at sunset.

A Slow & Painful Death

Tell Me No Lies, my entry in the Mills & Boon New Voices Competition is now around 154 out of 624 entries. I've received 1 comment in the last week and a half and that was from my FANTABULOUS CP. I know the ratings don't really make a difference and I still don't have any illusions that I'll make the top 20. I really only entered to get comments & feedback, which I did. I'm thrilled with the reactions I've been getting. I really feel like I'm doing something right!

BUT I'm soooooooo ready for this competition to be over. I spend lots of time tracking comments on all the manuscripts, reading some entries (I'll never get through them all!) and obsessing with my own. Monday, the last day to enter, can't come quick enough. Quite frankly, I need to get back to actually writing my current novella so that it can be done and submitted before NaNoWriMo & my next bounty hunter story!

October So Far...

No writing on the sexy Scottish contemporary, although I think about it quite a bit
Many beers have been consumed...I blame it on the visit from the English relatives who are here to celebrate my birthday.
No word from the Chinese recruiter (about a teaching job in China)
No rejection yet after 14 weeks on my last completed manuscript
I'm back to being a substitute teacher (but so far I'm managing to work only in the "good" school district)
Tomorrow I start training for a new PT job, tutoring with a well-known company
Still in the Mills & Boon Competition, managing to stay within the top 10%-20%, but haven't gotten many more comments since last week. Thank goodness it's now less than a week before it's over!

More later.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTH TO ME!

Yes, it's true! My 40th birthday is this month and I've decided to start celebrating right from Day 1!!!! How am I celebrating? I'm cleaning the house, grocery shopping....WAIT! No, that was last month.

This month I'm working on a brand new series of novellas. I'm hard at work on the 1st one, Her Highland Champion, which is set in modern-day Scotland. The hero is an operative in an international organization and the heroine is being hunted by her ex-fiance.  When she has no one else to turn to, she relies on the hero. Too bad his choices put her in more danger. (For more information about the rest of the series, visit my Manuscripts page on my website!)

Other than that, I have English relatives coming in for 2 weeks to help celebrate my birthday. (Finally figured out where to have my family birthday dinner!) I foresee MUCH celebration in the next couple of weeks!

And now, I'll share with you a picture of me when I was about 4 or 5 from the 1st house I lived in. I LOVE this picture and used it for my party invitations.