The Duchess of Love

Here's the cover for my May e-novella, "The Duchess of Love," that introduces my new series about a matchmaking mother and her three sons.

I originally planned the series as only a trilogy with the duchess a widow, but then my agent suggested I write the duchess's love story. Once I met the duke, I couldn't kill him off! I had to revise my plans. The duke became a character, and his oldest son got "demoted"--he couldn't be the title holder any longer. That changed a lot about his story--more than just how I referred to him.

It's a good thing I'm more of a "pantser"--a "go with the flow" kind of writer--than a strict plotter.

Judging a book by its cover

So it's RITA--a Romance Writers of America contest for published authors--judging time, and I got my panel of books to read and score. I'm not one who likes to make decisions, so a number of years ago I had my youngest son stack the books in the order he thought I should read them. He went away to college and I was on my own for four years, but now he's back, so I asked him to put the books in order-to-be-read again.

I was in the living room and he was in the kitchen where I'd spread out the books for him to choose. He calls over--did I want to read them best to worst or worst to best? Hmm, I thought, this should be interesting. I knew he knew nothing about the authors and would never knowingly read a romance. I also knew he was going to spend about 2 and 1/2 seconds on this decision. "Worst to best," I said.

After he left, I went out to the kitchen to see how he'd ordered them. I wasn't surprised. The "worst" books had covers that were sexy or sweet; the "best" books were rather stark, looking like they might offer murder and mayhem.

Have I mentioned my family consists of one husband and four sons?

More resolutions and San Francisco

I managed to get through a week without playing computer solitaire.  Yay, me!  I had to fight the urge far too many times, but maybe it will get easier.  My next step to reclaiming my life and being more productive is to limit my time on-line.  This will be a far bigger challenge since the Internet is my main method of communication.  And I did do a little bit of tidying—I recycled a few ancient papers.

And now, as promised, some more pictures from our San Francisco trip.  I’m writing this on Windows Live Writer, which I haven’t used for a while and never mastered, so we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, San Francisco is a wonderful, walkable city (assuming you’re part mountain goat).  It’s a little like Washington, D.C., that way—except minus the mountain goat bit.  And because of all the “hills” and man-made vantage points like the Coit Tower, there are lots of places to take in the view.  Here’s a shot of the skyline, I think from the Coit Tower:

And a view from the bay side:

For a more close up “experience” of the hills—Mr. M. took this shot while we were riding on a cable car, though I’m not sure you really get the vertical “feel”:

Perhaps this helps:

This was taken at the bottom of the famously crooked Lombard Street.

 

Suffice it to say, we got plenty of exercise, even just walking the few blocks to one of the local Starbucks!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2012! The start of a new year is always a good time to make resolutions, so here are three of mine.

1. Live in the moment. Of course, I can't live totally in the moment. I have doctors appointments, book deadlines, and other things cluttering up my calendar. I have to plan in various ways to be sure those things get done. But I don't have to worry about them. Worry and regret are two useless emotions--or at least so I tell myself. I do better if I can think about the paragraph or the scene I'm writing right now and not the 400 pages or 100,000 words I still have to write.

2. Tidy. There's lots of tidying that needs to happen around here, especially as son #3 and daughter-in-law-to-be say they'd like to have their rehearsal dinner here at our house this summer. Oh, dear. I'm not much into interior decorating, and I'll admit to hoarding tendencies. Mr. M says I'm a bit rodent-like, making piles of papers and books and other stuff. So I need to try to get rid of things, organize what I want to keep, and maybe--probably--buy some new furniture.

3. Stop wasting time. I've given up playing computer solitaire. This is my second day of going cold turkey. I know it will get easier each day I manage to resist its siren call--or at least I hope it will.

Anyone else have some new year's resolutions? Feel free to share--and good luck with them!

Christmas presents

After our trip to San Francisco (more pictures to come...eventually), I had a serious case of camera envy. My husband's camera isn't terribly fancy, but it takes (or maybe HE takes) much better pictures than I get with my little point and shoot. Not that small cameras don't have their place in the world. Having something that will slip into a purse or pocket is great for taking spur of the moment pictures or shots at writers conferences--except now if I remember to take any pictures, I tend to use my phone. But a bigger camera with better lenses--in this case, a single lens reflex (SLR)...well, there really is no comparison.

Back when I was in college many, many moons ago, I took a photography course. I had somewhat artsy aspirations then and an SLR with a zoom lens...which used film. (I even learned to develop black and white film.) I wasn't a particularly educated photographer; I just liked to look through the lens and take pictures. Sometimes they turned out well...and sometimes not so much. But it was fun. Once I had kids, I took pictures of them. It's much easier to photograph a baby in an infant seat than the same baby--older, of course--running cross country. By the time I pushed the shutter button, all I usually got was the heel of his spikes. And then the babies went off to college and I never made the jump to digital.

So now I've got my fancy camera--not TOO fancy, I hope--and I'm pouring over the instruction booklet. Son #2 just spotted a heron in the park across the street. Husband ran to open the front door while I grabbed the camera and tried to remember how to turn it on. I did get a picture of the bird as he (or she) took off again, but the photo won't be making its appearance here. The only way I know I captured the image was to use another cool camera function and zoom in on the picture to find the blurry image of the large bird with its wings outstretched.

I think for a while--hopefully not forever--I'll have more luck shooting pictures of trees.

Holiday music

Need some music to get in the holiday spirit? Here's a flash mob rendition of the Hallelujah chorus that made the rounds last year, but is till a winner in my book.

And the Maccabeats had a hit last Hanukkah with Candlelight. This year they're back with Miracle.

Enjoy! I'm off to finally decorate our Christmas tree. Yes, I'm a little behind.

Happy holidays!

I love the holidays, but I'm sadly not very organized about them anymore. I seem to have had writing deadlines clustered around these dates in the last few years--a nice "problem" to have, I will admit. And now that all my kids are adults, the season has an entirely different energy level than it did when they were children. We used to have to decree that no one could get up before 6 on Christmas morning; now we have to wake some boys up or we wouldn't start opening presents until afternoon.

This year we'll miss third son--he's staying in California with his fiancee and her family--but we'll have oldest son and his wife back from Denver. In fact, they'll be living with us while they look for apartments--oldest son has taken a job here. (Yay! says mama.) But having guests--especially a female guest who might actually appreciate some level of cleanliness--requires a massive tidying effort. And I'll confess my house is massively untidy. So with Bookmas over, I'm hanging up my blogging hat for a bit; I do hope to get back here on a somewhat regular basis in the new year. I still have San Francisco pictures to share!

Have a wonderful holiday time with family and friends--and find time to read a good romance, if you can.