My how time flies...

...when you're having mega fun.

As usual, I'm going to sprinkle this blog with photos.

On June 30th, it was my and hubby's 31st wedding anniversary. Nope, we didn't celebrate. I had a book due, so I spent the day writing, writing, writing and was rewarded with FINALLY being done. Sending that puppy off was about the best gift I could have gotten.

Hubby spent the day with our youngest who opened his own barbershop that day. Pretty cool, huh? More rewarding than anything else, is seeing my kids do well.

We did squeak in time for a few movies and dinner out with friends a few days after the fact. The thing is, we've been an item since we were 17 years old, and now we're 50 and a 1/2. LOL

Not to be mushy or overly dramatic, but we're so good together, an anniversary can't really be any more special than the day before or the day after.

That's a photo of us a few years after we married. Still so young - my face is super-round and my husband has all his hair! ---------->

A good example of how he cares for me in special ways for no reason at all... I was running late on this book, right? Mega stress for me. The whole deal of switching publishers and leaving one book half finished to start over on a new book that would tie up the SBC series before leaving Berkley, really put me a crunch. No one's fault, just a reality.

Hubby knows I write better when I'm off at a quiet RV park without distractions, so there we went. My favorite local spot is on a big lake, but also with a nice pool and a sandy beach. We parked in the woods for the sake of privacy. The weather was gorgeous and no one bothered me.

But with 3 cats at home, I would have felt guilty - except that Allen drove back and forth (a smidge over an hour) each day. He'd have breakfast with me, then pack up his stuff and go to the house to check on the cats and visit with them, then off to the gym (he goes daily) and then he'd pick up an early supper and be back with me by 4pm. We spent most evenings walking and swimming and I managed about 47 pages in 3 days. Not too bad!

My husband does all kinds of special things for me, like bringing me home flowers for no reason at all. Or making a phone call to a pesky relative so I don't have to. LOL. He makes the bed in the morning, fixes my coffee each night and sets the timer so it's ready when I wake up - and he doesn't even drink coffee! Best of all, I know when I'm not around, he babies my littlest dog (who is now an old man with lots of issues) the same way I would.

<---- That's a picture of us at Kings Island when we were still teenagers. My God, we look like babies! LOL And now that I'm older, I think we pretty much were. We met the 3rd day of our sophomore year of HS, and I knew he was the one.

What about you? How did you and your significant other meet?

Is there anything special that your husband does for you? A special way that you celebrate the important times?

Feel free to share one of your fondest memories, maybe something he did that really meant a lot to you.

I have too many of those stories to share, and have probably told you all of them already. :-) But I'd love to hear yours!

Readers often say they wish they could meet heroes like the ones in my books. Well, they might not look like my guy, but at heart, where it matters, they're *all* him.

I'm looking forward to another 31 years!

Happy upcoming 4th of July to all of you!
Be safe, and have fun!

Susan's doing the Book Is Out dance!

I've been making my ears bleed over a chapter in my work in progress. Then today, I finally figured out what the heck I was doing (or maybe I should say where I went wrong). Man, I love it when that happens--especially in a case like this one where I've just wasted 3 days thinking this is just wrong without knowing how to fix it. But that's part of my process: I struggle and struggle and struggle- then suddenly the dam breaks (I know, I'm a writer--I should have a better simile) and the words finally flow.

It's another reason that I love Book Release Day--the book that's hitting the shelf is done and I'm proud of the final result, instead of ripping my hair out trying to make it come together. (You thought I had short hair by choice?)

All of which is a long way of saying: IT'S HERE. Bending The Rules is officially in a grocery or bookstore near you. Wa-hoo! Much dancing and champagne swilling on my part. Okay, maybe I'm not really swilling champagne, but I'm definitely a movin' and a groovin'.

I'm off to hit the local bookstores today to do drive-by signings, so will be in and out sporadically--but I just wanted to toot my own horn a bit and tell you I hope you'll enjoy the final results of all my angst and worry. My mother says this is my best one yet. And you can trust her--she's not the least bit biased.

Really. Would I lie about a thing like that?

Those amazing back cover blurbs

I’ve been writing non-stop for the past few days, in that weird sort of manic phase I get into when the story takes on a life of its own and I can barely type fast enough to keep up with the dialogue and action and just plain stuff that’s going on. It’s like my muse goes on steroids and I merely hang on for the ride. I love it when this happens. There’s a sense of magic when a story begins to flow across the page and it’s happening so quickly and so unexpectedly that I find myself wondering, even as I write, where the words are coming from.

Of course, the downside to this is that what I’m writing and what I told my editor I was going to write are two totally different stories. The characters are the same, but they’re certainly not behaving the way I expected them to as they resolutely march in opposite directions from the detailed synopsis I faithfully sent my editor’s assistant. You see, he needs that synopsis months in advance so he can write the “back cover blurb,” that paragraph on the back of the book that tells you what the story is about so you’ll pick it up, get hooked, and buy the book. Only, in this case, what I sent a few months ago is absolutely nothing like what I’m writing, and once again the back cover blurb will have very little to do with the actual story that appears inside.

Personally, I absolutely hate it when I read a blurb, buy the book and then read the book and discover it’s not anything like what I expected. I hate it, even though I know exactly how it happens, and while I’m sympathetic to the author’s plight, I find myself saying, “Now why in the heck can’t they get the blurb to be about the story inside?” even though I know why they can’t! And this, of course, is a lead up to the back cover blurb on Wolf Tales VIII, which comes out next week. It says:

In the shadows they transform into beasts possessed of boundless sexual energy, with the strength and stamina to indulge every primal urge. Now, six new Chanku have appeared—bold, brash, and very much in need of their elders’ wisdom. It is decided to split the young pack: three will travel to Montana to learn from Anton Cheval, and three to Colorado to be mentored by Ulrich Mason and his mate, Millie...

Having weathered a series of vicious attacks, the Montana pack welcomes the distraction of breaking in the novices. But everything changes with the arrival of a mysterious stranger whose connection to Millie will bring the she-wolf, her partner, and their protégés—including Matt, the sensitive alpha Millie has brought to his sexual peak—to Montana. The time has come for Millie to confront her past, even as the young Chanku prepare for a future of power, pride, and pure pleasure...

It’s not horribly far off, but Millie never really confronts her past and the mysterious stranger has a connection to Ulrich, not Millie, so it reads ALL WRONG to me, even though this is the way the story was originally conceived, so it’s my fault, but it makes me crazy! (I know...I’m whining...) Makes no sense, but that’s the “reader me” complaining, even though the “writer me” is the one at fault. So why am I wasting valuable blog space writing about this? LOL...well, I guess so you’ll understand why it happens—why the paragraphs you see on the back of the book will often sound as if they’re written about a totally different story. That’s because they are—they’re written about a story that was conceived and carefully planned in advance, but which took on a life of its own and turned out totally different from the original idea.

I hope you’ll buy the book anyway, because I can promise you that the story that comes out when the muse takes over is far better than it would have been if I’d written it entirely on my own. Of course, that’s the joy of writing—those bursts of inspiration that take is places we never dreamed to go. Better than any drug—if only they came with back cover blurbs!

Whatcha readin'?

Do you ever get on a genre-within-the-genre reading streak? Recently, I reread Lord of Scoundrels for the umpteenth time and for a while thereafter it was all historicals, all the time. I blasted through several titles each of Sherry Thomas, Amanda Quick, Eloise James and Elizabeth Hoyt.

Then I took a shorter sprint through Urban Fantasy, with the first book in Kathryn Smith's The Nightmare Chronicles, Lori's most recent (to me--I'm always racing to catch up with my TBR pile) Servant book and the second to last in Rachel Caine's Weather Wardens series (see caveat above).

A few days after hosting Christie Ridgway, I finished her Dirty, Sexy Knitting and am now on a Contemporary streak. Dogs And Goddesses, The Paper Marriage and True Love and Other Disasters were my most recent reads. Soon I'll be off on another tangent.

How 'bout you all? What are you currently reading? What's in your To Be Read pile that you haven't yet gotten to? And do you ever go on an author specific or genre-within-the-genre reading bender like I've been known to do?

JAYNE BRINGS YOU THE NEW ARCANE SERIES VIDEO

I was late to the party but a while back I finally slouched into the modern era and began using videos to promote my individual Arcane titles. As we have discussed on more than one occasion, trying to explain the Arcane series to readers who are not familiar with my world is complicated.

The problem, of course, is that the Arcane Society novels cross back and forth between my Amanda Quick historicals and my Jayne Ann Krentz contemporaries. The series has even begun to spill over into my Jayne Castle futuristics. Hey, you try explaining three pen names and three fictional landscapes all tied into a single series! Like I said, it's complicated.

And just to make things even trickier, in January I will fire up the Dreamlight Trilogy within the Arcane series. It will feature a book set in each of my worlds -- past, present and future -- under each of my three names. Now we're talking a trilogy within a series. Eek!

So, I wanted a video that would give readers an overall look not just at a single title but at the whole Arcane series and provide them a glimpse of the upcoming trilogy. I knew this would not be an easy task. Book videos are only about a minute long, after all. That's not a lot of time.

I am absolutely thrilled with the trailer that Cissy Hartley (Writerspace webmaster) and Paula Graves (a great author of romantic-suspense who just happens to hold a day job as a graphic designer) created for me. It seemed like an impossible task but they pulled it off brilliantly!

Hope you enjoy it!

When in doubt, take a shower

Last time it was my turn to blog, I totally dropped the ball. It was the same weekend as my and Dianne's "Reader and Author Get Together," but I knew that well in advance. My plan had been to get a blog ready, then post it on my way out the door on Friday.
Yeah. You know what they say about well laid plans. :::Snort::::

The entire week (month?) leading up to the event was a comedy of chaos, so I totally forgot. Sorry! But I know you're a forgiving bunch, right? :-)

This week I figured I'd tell you about the event, and dazzle you with lots of photos to make up for my lapse last week, AND tell you how I managed to write through craziness.


First, here's a photo of Dianne and me on Friday night, looking a little dazed.




... and then on Saturday, the authors who attended, or at least as many as we could get grouped up at one time:




... and the Tails of Love authors... even though we kept missing two people in each shot.



Sue-Ellen Welfonder, Marcia James, Kate Angell, Donna MacMeans, Dianne Castell, Stella Cameron, Lori Foster, Patricia Sargeant.
Sarah McCarty and Ann Christopher are missing. (Ann was doing an airport run for an agent!)




Back row: Marcia James, Sue-Ellen Welfonder, Patricia Sargeant, Kate Angell, Dianne Castell.

Front: Lori Foster, Donna MacMeans, Ann Christopher.
Sarah McCarty and Stella are missing. Popular authors are forever pulled away. LOL


The event was an enormous success with $6,616.00 made for the One-Way Farm for abused and abandoned children. Here's a pic of Dianne and me handing over a "blown-up" check to the director, Barb Condo. But I promise we gave her a real check too!




And we had a lot of great "physical" donations for the AAF - Animal Adoption Foundation - along with $225.00 in gift cards.



(Note the TAILS OF LOVE car magnet on the van between me and the director, Eric.)


We also had a ton of donations for the Troops (which Laurie Damron takes to mail out) and $506.00 in cash, checks and gift cards for shopping and shipping to the Troops.


And lastly, Allen (my hubby), Dianne, me, Linda Keller (bookseller), and Tammy from the Marriott already met to make arrangements for NEXT year's event!
Mark your calendars for June 4th - 6th 2010!!!



The photo is a little blurry, but it was taken by a harried waitress trying to get drinks out to everyone. :-)


Let me tell you, with over 300 people in attendance, Dianne and I had our work cut out for us. We have the most amazing volunteers in the entire world, but there's a lot that she and I have to remember.

And just as a kicker, I'm on deadline with a book! Let me tell you, there were many, many times when my brain shut down on the plot because it was so busy trying to finalize plans, remember arrangements, make notes of "to do" lists, and just in general stay sane.
So what kept me writing?

Showers!

Honest to goodness, whenever I'd get stuck, a shower would kick-start my brain. I'd be under that water, and entire streams of dialogue would come to me. New twists, resolutions to previous twists... it was amazing!

I still have around 80 pages to write, but I'm hopeful that things will keep moving along so I'm not late on this book. I detest the thought of being late. It keeps me awake at night!

So... two questions.

What do you do when you get stuck and can't think straight?

And if you were going to attend a gathering like mine and Dianne's, what authors would you REALLY want to see there?

I was THRILLED to have Stella around this year. Totally made it extra-special for me and gave me huge bragging rights. :-) And I know the Quills on a whole are mega-busy, so I won't list them as who I want there, but they all know I'd do flips for that. :-)
I'm on a mission to get Kresley Cole to attend, as I'm a giant fangirl for her books!

Hope you all enjoyed the photos!
Have a stellar week!

Lori

Susan has a brand new video!

Check it out! I'm getting excited for this one to hit the shelves. You'll have to ignore the blurb at the end that say's Available Now. Well, actually, it may be in some stores. Mostly, though, it will be in just nine days. Whoo-hoo!