Maggie

Hi folks,
If you follow these blogs, you’ve probably figured out I’m an animal person. Since you’ve heard about The Crystal and Boji Stones isn’t due out until September, I thought I’d introduce you to the animals in the family. Since the dog is out numbered six to one by the cats, I’m going to start with her.
Maggie is a ten year old Springer Spaniel. I’m a cat person, I admit it. Therefore, my relationship with Maggie over the years has been rocky. I like dogs as long as they are well-behaved, which unfortunately Maggie is not. I put the blame squarely on my husband who was always ‘too busy’ to take her to obedience classes and whose idea of correcting her behavior was a mild ‘Maggie be a good girl.’ I dealt with her chewing up a red ink pen and ruining the carpet, chewing holes in the bathroom walls in our brand new house, tearing up her bed and chewing through the seat belts in our SUV. But when she messed with my chocolate she’d gone too far. On holidays I make derby pie (chocolate chip pie). Since not everyone likes pecans on their pie, I make two. One with, one without. It just so happens I’m the only one in the family that does like pecans on my pie, so I basically make a pie for me and a pie for everyone else. The day I’d made them, I’d left them on the counter while we went to the movies. When we came home MY pie was missing. Miss Maggie had managed to reach up on the counter and get down MY pie and eat the whole thing. Now we all know chocolate is bad for dogs, but to add insult to injury she never even got sick. She was really in the dog house over that little stunt.
But on Maggie’s plus side of the ledger: she has a generous heart. And she loves cats. Since I fostered cats for several years, that’s been a good thing! She and Jo-Bu, the Himalayan and Faux Paw, the tuxedo, will get together and slobber all over each other.
Over the years, I’ve become more tolerant and Maggie has left my chocolate alone. My own little liver-spotted Achilles heel has become quite dear to my heart. Maybe because she considers herself just one of the cats.

My turn again?

Hmm seems like just yesterday, I was here telling you that Dragon in the System is now available. If you haven't checked it out, please do! My wonderful editor has approved the sequel, so you can look for Djinni and the Geek which will be an Ellora's Cave release, coming toward the end of 2007.

I thought I'd invite a friend to join me today. This is Circe, one of the great horned owls at the Nature Center where I used to work and now am still a volunteer and on the list as a back-up wildlife program presenter. And yes, he really is as cranky as he looks.

I think it's important to keep at least one to out in the real world. Nature is aprecious, fragile thing, and working with these animals, which are all unreleasable rehabbed crittters is a great reminder of that for me. It's also just plain fun. But definitely messy. And stinky. And when blood is spilled it's always mine, never theirs. :)

Today we did a Harry Potter event for a day camp, so Circe got to perform the role of letter-carrier. I find it particularly cool when my two worlds collide. Real animals and magical fiction. What could be better on a sunny summer day?

Alive and Well

I'm alive and well and living on the beautiful west coast of Canada. It's my day to Blog with the Goddesses. I should be out in the sunshine weeding and fertilizing plants in the garden but the Blog is calling me. Little is new and exciting in my writing life. Creating new stories and keeping them going is a lonely task. I am bobbing and weaving around a new story I've launched and am not sure where it's going yet. I know it will be a contemporary gothic with a cast of interesting characters.

The setting is Cornwall and features a very large house. It has a Widow's Walk and my heroine glimpses a shadowy figure up there looking out over the sea. Is it the ghost of a woman whose husband was lost at sea? Or ... I haven't decided yet. This is the fun part of writing. A story is born and like a baby is not fully formed. I'll nurse the plot along and see where it wants to go.

I am looking forward to having my first book in print. Lee Mackenzie, a writer friend, had a gathering to promote her first book with Harlequin American. It's called A Man for Maggie and is a delight. So there's my plug for Lee.

When A Very Difficult Man, my historical romance, is in print and available in Canada I will definitely gather family and friends to celebrate. This will be my first fiction book in print and I will announce it to the world as best I can! I don't like cocktail parties where everyone has to stand around and chat but hosting a dinner party would be a horrendous expense. Is there another way to bring the nearby world to me to promote my book? Suggestions are welcome

Anita Birt
www.anitabirt.com

Good Stuff Comes in Twos

I’m excited about two things today. The paperback edition of Everglades Wildfire was just released (yes, you can get your copy by visiting the Ellora’s Cave site, look on the right side) and the upcoming RWA National conference is only about two weeks away. (!)

The prospect of seeing my book on the shelf at the bookstore is darn exciting. Although I think my kids are a bit nervous, worried that I’ll run around the bookstore, dragging random people over to the shelf, pointing and shouting ‘there’s my book! I wrote that’. Now why would they think that? I’d never do that to random people, only to them.

Every year the RWA conference is exciting, intense, and a *bit* tiring. This year I’m looking forward to meeting other EC authors at the Ellora’s Cave luncheon, signing the newly released paperbacks of Everglades Wildfire (please stop by and say ‘hi’), and attending as many workshops as I can squeeze in.

In addition to my plans I always set goals. Sometimes the goals are fun, places I want to visit like historical sights (last year it was Margaret Mitchell apartment), but most of the goals are business related. Checking out new hot genres, talking to booksellers and librarians... My goals this year: meet new people (please say ‘hi’ if you see me wandering around), see something I don’t expect (I’ve been to TX a bunch of times and feel like I’ve seen everything but of course that can’t be true) and come home with a fresh batch of ideas (enough to last me the 365 days until the next conference).

Watch for my next post, I’ll let you know how I did.

IT'S HERE!

Today's the day and I'm so very excited!


My first Cerridwen Press book Dragon in the System was released today!




Blurb:
Computer science professor Eric Gordon has been asked to find the hacker responsible for a virus that is embezzling from University accounts. When his investigations indicate that some sort of large reptile may be living in the steam tunnels under campus, he turns to biology professor Lori Tremain for help. Lori’s life is crazy with her tenure review looming, but she’s too curious and attracted to turn down Eric’s request. Together, Lori and Eric start to uncover things that their scientific minds can barely imagine. Can they find the thief and still find time to fall in love? Is everything on, and under, campus what it appears? Or could there truly be a dragon in the system?

Excerpt:
Lori was working late in her lab—again. So what if it was Friday night and everybody else on campus, whether student, faculty or staff, had a date? She had better things to do with her time, right? Right. Like getting this research paper finished and published before her tenure review next December.

She automatically brushed back the strand of hair that had escaped its barrette—again—and fallen into her eyes. As a result of not watching what she was doing, as usual, her elbow bumped hard into the wooden two-by-four forming the corner of a large wire cage. Lori swore out loud, jumping up and down until the irritating tingle receded from her funny bone. A hiss from inside the cage let her know that the occupant hadn’t appreciated the jolt either.

“Sorry, Q,” Lori told the iguana that served as her lab mascot and, too often lately, Friday night date. She bit a big chunk off a half-eaten apple, then slid it between the wires to the five-foot long, bright green lizard. Nodding as regally as a cat, the iguana accepted the peace offering, graciously allowing Lori to scratch the top of his head while he ate.

The loud knock echoed through the empty hallway, startling Lori, who narrowly missed whacking herself on the cage all over again. Oh, crap, she’d almost forgotten she had a visitor coming.

“Dr. Tremain?” called a hesitant male voice. It was a nice voice, though, deep and faintly husky. She spun around to face the open doorway.

“I’m Lori Tremain.” She smiled at the tall, slim man framed in the opening. “Hi. You must be Dr. Gordon.”

“Eric,” he offered, holding out his hand, which he’d apparently forgotten held a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Lori grinned to herself. Shy and absentminded, in a cute sort of way. Yep, this was definitely the guy from the computer science department.

“Come on in,” she told him, ignoring the hand. He seemed to notice his glasses then, because he rubbed them off with the tail of his Hawaiian-print shirt, then stuck them back on his face. Somehow, instead of detracting from appearance, the spectacles made him seem even more attractive, calling attention to the friendliness and intelligence that gleamed in his green eyes.
Hmm, Lori thought appraisingly. Not so geeky after all. Maybe she needed to revise her stereotypes. She assessed his appearance again, this time with distinctly feminine approval. He was tall, well over six feet and slim, but his snow-dampened shirt clung to a form that was lean and muscular, not the scrawny body she’d expected from a computer geek. His straight hair was a light golden-brown, liberally streaked with blond and it was just beginning to recede a little from his forehead, adding a faintly cerebral quality. He’d probably forgotten to get a haircut recently, she figured, considering the damp strands that hung past the rims of his oval wire glasses, with the ends curling just slightly on his collar in back. His big, slightly lopsided grin was engaging and hopeful.

They stood awkwardly for a moment in the front section of Lori’s lab, which was divided from the rest by open metal shelving. This front portion served as her office, housing an ancient, cluttered desk, several metal file cabinets and a small round table of chipped wood-grain Formica surrounded by three mismatched vinyl chairs.

“Have a seat.” Lori pointed to the blue chair, it was the tallest and best suited to her guest’s lanky frame, then sat across from him in the chrome and orange one, which was patched here and there with silver duct tape. Dr. Gordon obediently folded himself into the seat she’d indicated. His hands were never quite still, she noticed. He tapped his fingers, adjusted his glasses and periodically slicked his hair away from his face. Lori couldn’t help but feel sorry for his obvious discomfort even while she wondered just what a computer science professor wanted from her on a Friday night.

“Want a soda?” she asked, trying to break the ice. Without waiting for a reply, she leaned over and retrieved two bottles from the small refrigerator next to her desk, which had been her birthday present to herself last month.

“Sure.” He accepted the Diet Dr. Pepper with a strong, lean hand that Lori couldn’t help noticing. Yum. What was it, she wondered briefly, about big masculine hands that always got her going?
He opened the screw-top lid of the soda and took a long pull, while Lori shuffled an overflowing stack of papers out from between them. When he rested the half-empty bottle on the table, she decided it was time to get down to business.

“So how can I help you, Dr. Gordon—Eric?”

He looked away, fixing those brilliant green eyes on Q. Their colors weren’t that far apart, Lori noted before she could stop herself. Her guest continued to avoid eye contact, but at least he finally spoke. “You’re a herpetologist, right? You study reptiles.”

“That’s right.”

“What kind of lizard is that?” he asked, pointing.

“That’s Q,” she answered, confused by his apparently idle question. “He’s a green, or common, iguana.”

“Q, as in Star Trek?” Eric asked, his eyes shifting back to Lori. She liked the way they crinkled at the corners. “Or the James Bond movies?”

She grinned back. Okay, so he definitely was a nerd, even if he was kind of cute. “Neither, although some of my friends like to argue the point.” For scientists, after all, science fiction was practically a part of the standard curriculum. “Actually, Q was a lab reject back when I was in grad school. He was too mean to handle, so they were going to euthanize him. I couldn’t stand the thought of them putting him down, so I asked if I could take him home and my boss agreed. At first, he used to bite me all the time, so I kept threatening to turn him into a barbecue. When we eventually made friends, the name got shortened to Q.”

“So you’re into lizards?” he asked, almost eagerly.

She nodded. “Lizards, snakes, turtles, frogs. They’re all part of herpetology, but most of my research focuses on lizards. My current study is on the use of chemoreception by leopard geckoes.” She waited for the glazed look as he asked her what the heck was chemoreception, but he seemed to ignore that part of her speech and his eyes actually brightened.

“More lizards?” he asked, looking around, probably for more large cages.
Lori nodded. “They’re little guys, not like Q.” She used her fingers to indicate a span of about six inches. “Want to see them?” She didn’t know why she offered, but hey, it was Friday night and she had a sort-of-cute guy in her office, who seemed marginally interested, in her work, at least, if not in herself.

She led him around Q to the main part of the lab. Several rows of small glass aquaria topped with heat lamps filled the rough wooden shelving lining one cinder-block wall. Each of the tanks held two or three brown-and-yellow spotted lizards.

“Cool,” Eric remarked absently, studying one of the tanks for a while. “But, if you don’t mind my asking, how much can you tell me about big lizards?”

“How big?” she asked. They moved around back to the table, where he downed another quarter of his soda.

“Really big.” He pointed to Q. “Say, five or six times as long as that guy.”

To read the rest, head over to www.cerridwenpress.com today!

Excuses, excuses!

I can't remember the last time I wrote anything on my Work in Progress. My critique group meets tonight and all I have to hand out is excuses -- busy getting ready for vacation, busy getting my promo stuff made for the RWA conference, busy going to physical therapy for my shoulder, and the shoulder itself-- I had rotator cuff surgery, but I have been able to type since the second week after surgery, and it has been a month. I don't think I can use that last excuse much longer.

I need to learn some discipline. If I want to keep selling books -- and believe me, I DO! -- I have to get into a writing routine. That is what all the speakers will tell you -- even if you only write for 1/2 hour a day, it will get you further along in your book. I have to keep telling myself, "BICHOK, Kate, BICHOK." For those of you who are readers and don't know what that means, it stands for "Butt in chair, hands on keyboard." And that is really all it takes.

I think it was "La Nora" who said, "I can't fix a blank page." That is so true. But I think I have this mindset that what I put down has to range from very good to very, very good or it's not worth my time. It sounds like I'm a perfectionist, and I am, but only in my work and my writing. I have to get over that -- well, not the work part, if I want to keep my job -- and just sit down and WRITE!

I'm not taking my laptop on vacation, but I will take a notepad. I am one of those people who think better on paper, anyway (yeah, I know, that's another excuse). I will try to at least make notes so that I can really crank out the pages when I get back.

I have to -- I am running out of excuses!

Hope to meet many of my fellow bloggers at the RWA conference.
TTYL,
Kate Poole

Twinkle, twinkle, little star…

Since childhood I’ve had a fascination with the night sky. A trip to the planetarium in 4^th grade solidified my interest in star watching – but not to the degree that I chose to make a career out of it, nor did I want to be an astronaut when I grew up. As a kid, I loved lying on a blanket in the grass at night staring up at the sky. It is the mystery of ‘what if?’ that held my curiosity. Of course, that explains why I enjoy reading and writing science fiction (with a romantic twist!). I learned a few planetary and stellar names in grade school and to this day I can find them. The majority, although once learned for school, now elude me. Doesn’t matter, I still enjoy looking at them and wondering: what’s really up there?

Well, how about 10,000 man-made satellites? And they are quite easy to find! If you go outside about 45-90 minutes after sundown, on a clear night, you can easily see one or two every fifteen minutes. Satellites look like stars because their hulls reflect the light from the sun. But they move in straight, steady lines. They can be mistaken for high-flying aircraft unless you look carefully and then you’ll see – they don’t have the blinking lights of aircraft. Quite fascinating, really!

Last night, under a perfectly clear, Illinois night sky, I happened to see a remarkable thing: the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station! They were visible over the Pacific coast sky on Monday (as a single bright object), as two separate objects over the midwest on Tuesday, and will be visible in the southern states tonight. They appeared at 9:40pm as two very bright stars traveling in a straight line one behind the other. Atlantis separated from the ISS on Tuesday morning, and races about 30 seconds ahead of the ISS in preparation for maneuvers back to Earth, landing in Florida on Thursday. Even though the space station is much bigger, it appears less bright than Atlantis. It took about 5 minutes for both to traverse the sky from west to east. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

It is amazing to think that there are people up there, living and working in both the ISS and the space shuttle. Were they looking down at our planet at the same moment I looked up? I hope so. And I wish them safe journey back to Earth.

~Rita Sable