I’ve spent the past two years composing dark suspense fiction for St. Martin’s Press. My second book comes out in January 2007, my first one is coming out in paperback in March, and I just signed for two more.

So, it’s a relief, really, to switch channels, if only for a bit. I just sold a mystery series to Berkley Prime Crime, that I TOTALLY love. It’s light and funny, and …. hey, can murder be light and funny? Because it is mystery series, and people DO die in it…. Hmmm.

I’ll have to ponder that, but Jenny T. Partridge, the heroine, is a dance teacher in Ogden, Utah, and she’s just barely eking out a living teaching dance to other people’s children, most of them without an iota of talent, but some who have great promise.

She has some great friends, no love life, and an addiction to potato salad. Well, ALL potatoes, really. But when one of her psycho dance moms shows up, er, ends up dead, suddenly she’s surrounded by hunky cops and they are all interested in her. Too bad it’s because they think she did it!

I wrote this book after working for the past four years with my daughter’s dance teacher. I’ve seen a lot of interesting things in that time, including women who flat out brawl at dance competitions. Crazy stuff. Pyscho dance moms aren’t a lot different from psycho moms (parents) of other children involved in competition sports.

Although there is glitter, and hairspray, and sequins and rhinestones involved in the dance world. You don’t see a lot of that in soccer, or baseball or football. I think. Please tell me you don’t.

Anyway, with the experiences of my own daughter, and because her dance teacher is a great friend of mine, and I’ve listened to the stories of hundreds of dance moms, I ended up creating this totally fun, crazy character.

Dancing off the Edge is the title of the first book, scheduled April 2007. I am very, very excited for this series.

AS OPRAH TURNS: This episode, THE FREY FRY, and THE EDITOR IS SACRIFICED.

I’m a big admirer of Oprah. BUT the spanking on her show last week annoyed me. Yes, she had reason to be angry. I understand that. No one likes to be wrong. But it looked to me like she lashed out at the editor of the book, castigating her for not fact checking, etc. She stated that she felt it was the publisher’s job to make sure the book was an accurate memoir, and that she had lent her name in good faith.

Please, Oprah, you are too savvy, too experienced, to believe that horse drivel. You passed the buck. Frankly, I am not upset that you lent your name in good faith and it turned out to be a mistake. Big deal, we all make mistakes. But the truth is that with a powerhouse name like Oprah comes responsibility. You (and by you, I mean anyone of your numerous employees under your direction) should have fact checked. It’s your name. The buck stops with you.

DRIVEN TO MURDER

Okay, two of my cars are fine. One of my cars, the car my son drives, is collecting mechanics and parts at my expense. Now it’s doing something that no one can figure out—jerking hard to the left.
Mechanic # One: It’s the Drive Shaft.
Mechanic # Two: It’s the Control Arm.
Mechanic # Three: I had a car doing that not long ago, let me wrack my brain and remember what the problem was…
Mechanic # Four: It’s normal (Excuse me, do I have STUPID stamped on my forehead? Do you think its NORMAL to have the car shift gears and jerk the vehicle and occupants into the next lane of traffic? That’s Normal?)

This car’s life span is about to be dramatically shortened.

DAYS OF THE POOL

Not enough stress in your life? Build a pool! If I could figure out how to post pictures, I would show you all the progress.

One funny experience, just before the dig, the receptionist of the pool company called. We chatted, and she asked me if I was worried about anything. Just my deadlines! I told her. So we started talking about books, etc. The next day, I see a man wandering in our backyard. As a precaution, I mention it to my son. In the next second, my son stormed out the door. I’m standing there completely stunned as I hadn’t meant for him to do anything. But a couple minutes later, he comes back in grinning, and said, “It’s a guy from the pool company checking to see if everything is ready for the dig. He said the office told him that you are an author on a deadline and not to bother you.” Both my son and I cracked up. I’ve tried to let the guys working around the house know it’s fine to “bother” me if they have questions.

Seriously, nothing has upset me about the pool building process yet, but we are only a couple of weeks into the endeavor. Stay tuned!

BOOKED TO DIE

I’m in Ground Hog Day Hell, writing the last fifty pages of my book over and over. The file where I keep the pages I cut out of the book has grown to 259 pages. The good news is that I seem to get about five pages closer every time, so I guess I’m making some progress.

So what’s the problem?

My characters aren’t as stupid as the author. See, I need to get a few characters in one place. But every time I come up with what I think is a plausible way to do that, the characters balk. I had my hero ready to put his key in a door and go inside. Perfect. I could visualize the scene, it was going fine! Just as I went to type, “He turned the key and opened the door,” my hero turned, looked me right in the eye (he has to-die-for green eyes) and said, “You don’t really think I’m stupid enough to go in here, do you? People are trying to kill me!”

Sigh…back to the drawing board.

So what are the latest soap operas in your life?

A Prince of a Man
My apologies for my lateness. This past week has been a long sad one for myself and my family. My husband’s Grandfather, Pappy, a prince of a man, passed away Wednesday after a massive heart attack last Thursday night. As a family we have been at his bedside non stop. Tuesday morning he requested the doctors take him off the life support. We were all able to say goodbye, and it was extremely difficult knowing Pappy was conscious as we all gathered to tell him how much we loved him. My biggest fear was that he was afraid. I was afraid.
But Pappy went in peace to be with his wife and other long gone family members.
I’m a better person for knowing him, and I’ll cherish the memories of him jitterbugging with my daughter Rhianna last May at my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary. Of him saying in response to our successes, “Baby, that’s beautiful, just beautiful.”
Pappy lived hard, played hard, drank hard and loved hard. He did it his way. Every memory I have of him puts a smile on my face.
As I think of his life and how he led it, and how he was such a stabilizing force in the family, my writer analyzes him. I analyze how supportive he was for all of his children grandchildren and family members. He was quiet Alpha. Pappy didn’t have a malicious bone in his body, he never put a family member down, he was always up, positive and saw the good in people. Oh, there were a few ex husbands he could do without and it was funny to hear him refer to them as “Thatsonofabitch.” All one word.
I was glad Pappy lived long enough to see my son Jeff go onto a bigger college to play football, on a scholarship no less. “That’s beautiful,” he said when Jeff called him to give him the news.
Pappy never made decisions for us, but he let us talk it out, mull it over, he was a sounding board, and ultimately by his calm presence he allowed us to make the decision and it was usually the right one even though it could be, and often was the hard one.
In thinking of his support I look closer to my immediate family. My parents, my children, my husband. Never once have any of them stood in my way of writing. Never once have any of them told me I couldn’t do it or told me my dream was stupid or what I wrote was junk. They were always encouraging, and the times when I was too tired of the rejections, feeling all was for naught, they all reminded me of my motto. “Quitters never win.” Pappy never quit, not until the very end when he knew his body could no longer sustain him in this life. He was brave to tell the doctor it was time. He was brave for us all. I love him more now for being so brave, for comforting us, when it was he who was leaving. He was a quiet hero, a decorated WWII hero, a hero who blended in, but by his quiet strength he gave us all the courage to slay our own dragons.
Pappy was one of the most special people I know, and for those of you who have those people in your life, you are truly blessed. I know I told Pappy I loved him every time I saw him, and I know he knew how much he meant to us all. There are no buts, no, I should haves, no regrets. He was a prince of a man. Even as I type through the tears right now I’m smiling ear to ear. He was my hero, and every time I write now, I know he’ll be peeking over my shoulder whispering, “Baby, that’s beautiful, just beautiful.”
My heroes will be dedicated to my Pappy.
Albert Louis Magorno May 23, 1920-January 25, 2006
A Prince of a Man

…we have a NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR in our midst. Yep, our own Allison Brennan hit the NY Times extended list this week. In her own words stolen from her own blog….

I am still shaking with the news, but THE PREY hit the NY Times extended list at #33. I keep having typos as I’m trying to write this, so I’m leaving it short and sweet . . . thank you to everyone who bought my book and those who recommended it! Remember what I was saying about buzz? It’s word of mouth that helped propel my debut novel to become a bestseller.

I am amazed and giddy and I was giggling this afternoon. I do NOT giggle. My agent was near tears, and she’s not a crier.

Time to celebrate. I’m going shopping

I knew she wouldn’t crow herself, at least here, so I am doing it for her.

Way to go, Allison!

I’m a binge writer. I can write a lot of pages really fast, or nothing. With The Kill, for example, I wrote the first 140 pages in 2 weeks . . . then nothing for months. True, I had other things to do like revisions on The Hunt, but the beginning just rolled out, and then I was stuck in the coroner’s office, not knowing if my heroine should watch the autopsy or not. Seriously.

You’d think I could just skip that part, right? That I could just write the scene that comes next and get back to it. Not! It was an important turning point and whether she observed the autopsy or not would mean different things to both her and the hero.

Ultimately, I had to re-read the 140 pages I’d written and get back into the story before the solution was SOOOOO obvious you’d think I was plain stupid not to see it before. My heroine was telling me all along exactly what she would do, but I wasn’t listening. I was trying to force her to do what I THOUGHT she should do, not what she would do in “real” life.

When I’m in the zone, the characters take over. I merely dictate what happens.

For example, when I worked on the revisions for The Hunt, I made far more changes than my editor asked for. I started working on the book logically–I read the revision letter a dozen times, a made notes, I had the manuscript with her comments in the margins right there in front of me. I worked on the book slowly, reviewing the comments, thinking about the scene, reworking it, layering in, whatever.

Then they–the characters–took over.

About a third of the way through the book I wasn’t even looking at my editor’s notes anymore. I knew what the problems were, I’d absorbed them for lack of a better word. The story just rolled out–nearly 300 pages, most of them brand-spanking-new–in less than three weeks. I was in the zone. It was fabulous, the ultimate high.

I can feel the zone circling around me again. I’m itching to get back to my next book. I’ve written about forty pages, but I wasn’t happy with all of it. I started re-reading it, and then I talked to myself last night while driving to the mall to shop. I talked out a lot of the little problems I’d had with the first chapter (thank God it was dark and no one could see me talking to myself!) and now I can move forward. The muse is calling, and I can’t wait to lose myself in the story.

If you’re a writer, do you ever find yourself in the zone? How does it feel? Is what you write unusually good or not?

If you’re not a writer, do you ever engage in any activities–cooking, video games, exercize–where you lose track of time because you are so absorbed in the task at hand? You don’t know where the time goes?