The Men and Women Who Rescue Us

Congratulations to Virginia, you are the winner of Candace Havens’ Like A Charm. Thanks for leaving your email, and I’ll be contacting you for your snail mail address.

This week I’ve got an autographed copy of Jami Alden and Karin Tabke's Italian Stallions. Jami and Karin are in my local San Francisco RWA chapter. So, post a comment, you must type in your email address, and I’ll enter you in the drawing. If you don’t leave your e-mail on your post, I’ll assume you don’t want to be entered. I’m doing this because I have trouble hearing back from winners who don’t leave their e-mail address. So please make it easy on me! I’ll announce the winner next week!

Remember I went down to Palm Springs last week? We drove, and we were caught in a horrific traffic jam because they’d closed the main freeway into LA due to an out-of-control brush fire. It took us 4 hours to get around what would normally have been a 20 minute stretch of highway. On the way home, we passed through the devastated area. The mobile home park where 500 trailers were destroyed was a wasteland. The fire had jumped the freeway, and the hills were burned. But what I found amazing was the number of structures that weren’t destroyed. The fire literally burned up to doorsteps, the earth scorched, the grass cinders, the tree trunks kissed with black soot, their leaves sucked dry of life. And yet the houses and businesses were unharmed. The work of firefighters to hold back the flames and save those structures took my breath away. I feel for those who lost their homes in the mobile park, but without the courage and dedication of those men and women on the fire line, the devastation could have been so much worse. My measly 4 hours of traffic was nothing in comparison. Living in a place where forest fires are always a great fear, my thanks to these brave people.

Unlaced is out in stores next Tuesday!!!! I ‘m so excited.

Jasmine, Jennifer and JB!
http://www.skullybuzz.com/
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Scrambling for writing ideas!

Congratulations to Quilting Reader, you are the winner of that very special duo of Teresa Medeiros books! Please e-mail me on skully@skullybuzz.com with your snail mail address. I am in Palm Springs right now and the books are at home, so I’ll have to mail next week!

This week I’ve got Candace Haven's Like A Charm. I also met Candace at RWA this summer, we were seated next to each other at the Berkley signing and she generously signed a copy of her book. You know the drill, post a comment, you must type in your email address, and I’ll enter you in the drawing for the two books. Now, if you don’t leave your e-mail on your post, I’ll assume you don’t want to be entered. I’m doing this because I have trouble hearing back from winners who don’t leave their e-mail address. So please make it easy on me! I’ll announce the winner of Candace’s book next week!

I’m a dreamer. Instead of thinking about the day as I fall asleep, I make up stories. Maybe they have something to do with a news story I saw, or an article on the Internet. Or it could be just someone I saw at the grocery store who sparked my interest. In other words, they come from anywhere! But sometimes, I get a book contract before I even have a story. That’s what happened with Unlaced. My editor asked me if I wanted to be a part of an anthology about corsets. YES! I said. Then I hung up and panicked. What do I write!!?? I had no guideline except that the story had to include a corset. It just so happened that my husband had set up his pseudo photography studio in the dining room so we could take an updated author photo. As we were taking the photos, I’m continuing with the annoying refrain “but honey, I don’t know what to write!” He gave me a look that only a husband can give you and said, “why don’t you write about an amateur photographer who takes erotic photos of a woman in a corset...and go from there.” Wow. That was it. My brain starting working on that scenario. And the moral of the story is that sometimes our ideas come from the most unexpected sources, like my husband! If we hadn’t been setting up for the author photo, the story in Unlaced might very well be something entirely different! And I did dedicate the story to my husband, the idea man!

And here’s the author photo that my husband took. I think he did as good a job as any professional photographer! All right, we did do some airbrushing with Photoshop. But why does my nose look so big? You know, I didn’t think I had a big nose. What’s up with that?

BTW, Amazon still has Unlaced on sale at a great preorder price.

Jasmine, Jennifer and JB!
http://www.skullybuzz.com/
Newsletter: skullybuzz-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Heroines, do they have to grow older as we do?

Congratulations to Tami C, you are the winner of the two books by Pamela and Cherry! I think there has to be something said for psychic thoughts. You professed a huge desire for the books, Tami, and lo and behold, you won. Just to tell everyone how I pick the winners, I write everyone’s name on a bit of paper, fold them up, then toss all the papers in the air and pick one out of the pile when they all land. So, see, there must have been something psychic going on!

This week I’ve got a very special duo of books, autographed copies by Teresa Medeiros, One Night of Scandal and Yours Until Dawn. At the last RWA conference, she was kind enough to sign both for me. I absolutely adore her books. You know the drill, post a comment, you must type in your email address, and I’ll enter you in the drawing for the two books. I’ll announce the winner next week!

I’ve just come off writing The Fortune Hunter trilogy where all my heroines were around 30. I did love writing them all, I enjoyed getting into their heads, and there was a lot of me in them from when I was a working as an accountant in a corportate environment. I sort of relived many of the challenges I faced back then. But now I’m really looking forward to exploring the lives and psyches of some older heroines, mid-thirties to mid-forties. Part of it, I’m sure, is that I’m older (not going to tell you how much older!) so I have a harder time relating to a thirty-year-old. In my story in Unlaced, the anthology I’ve got coming out in December with Jaci Burton, Joey Hill and Denise Rossetti, I wrote a May-December romance. Margo is in her mid-forties and Dirk is 12 years younger. You know, women don’t stop enjoying sex just because they turn 40. In fact, maybe they even start enjoying it more! And wow, wouldn’t I love having my own Dirk! Except of course, I’ve got my very own Viking God. Aside from how hot I found Dirk, one of the reasons I like writing older heroines is for that very purpose, to show that older women can be just as desirable, seductive, and sensual. Sexual life doesn’t end after the big 4-0!

So what are some of your favorite fantasies? May-December? Couples with a history, finding each other again after years apart (that’s Jaci’s story in the anthology)? Best friends falling in love?

BTW, Amazon has Unlaced on sale right now at a really good preorder price.

Jasmine, Jennifer and JB!
http://www.skullybuzz.com/
Newsletter: skullybuzz-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Freaks and Geeks!

We’ll get to the freaks and geeks part in a minute. First, congratulations to Robyn L, you are the winner of Rose Lerma’s Flower of Passion! I’ll be emailing you for your snail mail address to send out the book.

This week I’ve got another special offering from last week’s book signing. Win a matched set, autographed copies of Pamela Britton’s On the Move and Cherry Adair’s Night Fall. You know the drill, post a comment along with your email address, and I’ll enter you in the drawing for the two books. I’ll announce the winner next Monday!

Okay, now for the freaks and geeks part. That would be me and my husband. Who is the freak and who is the geek, I’m not exactly sure. Maybe it’s interchangeable. We were listening to a Suzie Ormand audio book and one of the things she said was that you could tell how a person valued money if they bothered to pick up a penny off the street. My husband and I thought, heck, we wanted to be seen as people who valued money, so we started picking up coins we saw, not just the silver stuff but all the pennies, too. Of course, people always laughed at us whenever they caught us doing it. We finally filled a huge jar after about six years and just set about counting everything we’d found. And we had a lot of fun counting it, too. The amazing total was $332! Of that, the pennies we collected came to $54! Here’s a picture of my hubby with our booty.

So, are we freaks or geeks or what?! And do you pick up a penny off the street?

And now for the big question, can you guess what we're watching on TV?

Another reminder, for those of you who are writers, the Silicon Valley chapter of RWA is having the Gotcha Contest. Finalists go to editors! Dead to the Max won the Gotcha way back when! You have until November 12th to enter.

Jasmine, Jennifer and JB!
http://www.skullybuzz.com/
Newsletter: skullybuzz-subscribe@yahoogroups.com