In case you missed it, Allison Brennan is giving a great class on The Romantic Suspense Triangle over at Romance Divas this week. You have to register, then click on Forum and scroll down to Class In Session. Great stuff there, even if you don’t write RS.… Read more »

I’m sick. Again. How is this possible? Seems I’ve been more sick this year then I was during my first year of teaching. ARGH. Sucks. I did drag myself to boot camp hell, er, my group power weight-lifting class though this morning. Of course, now I have no energy to do laundry. Wonder how the Gremlins would feel about wearing dirty underwear tomorrow…

Today’s my day to post over at Romance Worth Killing For. Check it out.

Gotta go proof a couple of submissions and think about the WIP. Must. Finish. Soon. (Gonna keep repeating that until it … Read more »

I love secondary characters. They are the good stuff in a book. The best friend, the comic relief, the valley between the mountains, the tension relievers. My problem with secondary characters is that in my own work, they tend to try to take over. Case in point, the heroine of my current WIP was a secondary character in a previous book who I toned down in revisions of said earlier book. After that, I vowed never to write her story. I lost.

So in honor of my conniving heroine-who-used-to-be-a-secondary-character, I’m going to share some of my favorite secondary characters with … Read more »

When I was in college, my DH bought me a book one year as a Christmas present (among other things). It was Alexandra Ripley’s Scarlett: The Sequel To Gone With The Wind. I loved GWTW. Loved the book. Loved the movie. And I waited, rather impatiently, for the sequel to be released. DH knew that, hence why he got me the book. Now, if you’ve seen Scarlett, you know that it’s thick, and loooooong. And after my DH bought that book for me, he vowed never to buy me another book as long as I lived.

You see, … Read more »

So it’s not as great as selling, but . . .

MMB won the grand prize in the Romancing The Tome Contest! I got the news on Tuesday and didn’t have a chance to post because I was without internet access. The grand prize winner gets a paid RWA Nationals conference registration . . . so it looks like I’m going to Atlanta!!!

That news made my week!… Read more »

Well, that’s all from here for a few days. I’m off on vacation until Saturday. Woohoo! Don’t know if I’ll have internet access, so I probably won’t be around. I’m taking my laptop, a couple of new books and my CP‘s final chapters to crit. I hope to get a lot of writing and reading done, and hopefully relax a bit with the family.

On the writing front, I managed to write twenty pages today (woohoo!), so I definitely feel like I’m making progress. I’m closing in on the last 25%.

In case you missed it, my post is … Read more »

In case you missed it, this week the girls over at Murder She Writes have been blogging about their first books. Not necessarily their first published books, but the first books they wrote. It’s been a hoot to read…and very interesting.

The general concensus seems to be most authors sell their 4th or 5th book. Why that is, I’m not entirely sure, although I’d bet it has something to do with practicing your craft enough so it finally hits home. (BTW one girl at MSW did sell her first completed ms. And we struggling writers all hate her! LOL – … Read more »

I’ve played about twenty games of spider solitaire this afternoon and finally realized I need to get my butt in gear and get writing.

So…I’m blogging.

Well, it’s writing in a form, right? At least, that’s what Piper keeps trying to tell me. *sigh* Sorry, Pipes. I ain’t buyin’t it. This is what we call wasting time and avoiding the WIP. BIG time.

Why am I avoiding the WIP? Not sure. I think the main reason is because I have to write a crime scene, and I hate the thought.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. But, Eli, you write … Read more »

This is one of those holidays I used to love when I was teaching. A day off that wasn’t a major holiday you had to prep for like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Just a day to hang at home and veg out. And it was sure a kick to know all my non-public sector working friends all had to go to work and I didn’t. (Snicker, snicker)

Of course, that’s when I was teaching. Now that I’m home, it’s a day when all my Gremlins are home from school, when the banks are closed and the mail isn’t delivered, … Read more »

I’m taking this new workout class called Group Power at my health club. Basically, it’s set up like your typical aerobics class, but it’s all weight lifting. You have a bar and weights, and an instructor up on a stage shouting orders through a microphone attached to her face. And it’s all set to music. So you do one muscle group to one track…for example squats (oooh. I hate squats!) for 5.5 min, thereby working every major muscle group in your body in one hour. The idea is mid weights with high reps to tone instead of bulk.

Okay, that’s … Read more »