My work

Friday 27 June 2014

Exhausted just watching.

Last night, I was playing on Facebook at a release party. Running into familiar names and faces, meeting some new ones. Good times.

My attention was somewhat divided, feeling a bit under pressure with other things going on in – what's that thing called? Oh, yeah. Life. I got awfully proud of myself when I tossed out some tweets for participating authors, helping promote their work, and then got in a bit of a sweat thinking about my own three-day event, starting today on FB:

Beat the Heat Summer Giveaway


Don't get me wrong! I love the events. Love being invited, either as participant or guest. Love playing, commenting, tweeting, sharing – it's great fun. And the readers who come out to play! They're awesome! They're funny and smart and generally jazzed to participate. Love meeting them. So, I'm going to have a good time during the event, as I always do.

As I've told anyone who would [and even those who wouldn't] listen to my whining, June's been a hellish kind of month in my schedule, and I'm so glad it's almost over. I see wine, and friends, and barbecues, and a diminished TBR in that fantasised future called July. That's all I've thought about for weeks, going well back into April. And in the middle of last night's multitasking, I wondered if I would ever see the Magical Land of Outside ever again.

One of my sidebars of the evening was having a PM chat with Katerina Baker, who blogs every day, works on her novel[s] and WiPs every day, has a personal and professional existence, and is busy, busy, busy all the time. It exhausts me just thinking of what she accomplishes in a day.

At the same time I was having this chat, I was conversing with the person hosting the FB event, Angie Martin. Wife, mom, best-selling author, FB-event planner . . . I have no idea how she does it. It makes me dizzy just thinking of it. Sure, I can spend eighteen hours in front of my computer, but I don't accomplish a fraction of what Angie does.

So this is my shout out to women like these. You are phenomenal role models. Don't stop being your energetic selves. I want to be you when I grow up [though I doubt that's going to happen any time soon, since it hasn't happened yet]. Thank you for your support – and I'm not the only person who is in your collective debt.

But thank you, thank you, thank you, both. You are inspirational. And I promise to still be inspired by you while I'm catching up on my reading in July . . . and I'll toast you with my glass of wine.

Thursday 12 June 2014

Time Out to Play #LuckySeven

I’m taking time out of my currently insane schedule to have a bit of fun.
The brilliant Katerina Baker, whose sample from her romantic suspense WiP The Secret Wife is posted on her blog, tagged me in this game.

The rules:
Go to page 7 or 77 in your current WIP
Go to line 7
Post on your blog the next 7 sentences or 7 lines – as they are!
Tag 7 people, who'll do the same.
Okay, must get back to work . . . but here’s my sample from page 77 of my contemporary romance WiP, Public Frenemy, due out in August.
 
“Why did he call you the other night?”

“Speed-dial ass call, I gather.”

“He has you on speed dial?”

“That was my reaction, if you recall.”

“I was paying closer attention to other things,” he pointed out, and pointed out.

She laughed. For the first time, a conversation about those days lacked some sting. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about our miserable former lovers.”
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I am tagging: