Music to a kid’s ear, nails on a chalkboard to a parent’s. I’m luckier than most. I have one child left at home. I don’t have to play event coordinator this summer, nor do I have to be a chauffer, or a babysitter. I’m freeeeee…almost. My son is, as of today, officially a senior. This senior will return to school July 31st! I told this senior of mine this afternoon that this summer was not going to be one big party and I was to going to foot the bill for the party.

Some of you are scratching your head and thinking, “Why doesn’t the kid get a job?” Well the answer to that is, he plays football. This summer between his school’s team football camp, working his father’s two linemen camps, then summer ball and then double days, the kid doesn’t have time for a job. At least not the kind of job that takes into account his schedule. It works the other way. So because the kid needs to be in football, for various reasons i.e. to keep his propensity for butt-head type trouble to a minimum, keep him active, and on a purely selfish part, to entertain his mother under the Friday night lights this fall.

It’s a win win, except for my bank account. So, as I pondered the kid draining my wallet on a daily basis, I came up with a most excellent idea. Tomorrow I’m taking the bugger to the bank for a student checking account. Not for the checks, but for the ATM card that comes with it. I’m giving him a set allowance each week, money that I will personally put into his account at the beginning of each week. Once he’s tapped out, there will be no more cash until the next week (and I will hold firm on that point!).

It will teach him to budget and manage his money. It will keep me from growling every time I open my wallet to get a buck and find it empty, only to hear, “Oh, I told you I needed gas money.” Double grrr. It doesn’t help that his Bronco swills gas like a fish. We really do need to get him a more economical vehicle. But the Bronco is big, solid and I feel safer with him driving it. Of course he told us a Hummer would be even safer.

So for me, this summer is taking shape to be rather idyllic. When the guys are off to camp, I’ll have a few gf’s spend the night. We eat, drink, watch movies and hot tub. No one asking for money or what’s for dinner. I plan on taking a few days here and a few days there. With company and without. I’m looking forward to quiet solitude and writing. There is no time for a family vacation this summer. Between hubby’s camps, son’s camp, my conference in July and school starting in August there is no time. In fact we have no time until November to spend a vacation together. Such is the life of a player’s mom and coach’s wife. I’m not complaining, I love football.

So, what are in your plans for this summer? Do you have a regular vacation destination?
And if you could chose to do anything or go anywhere this summer where and what would it be?

KILLING FEAR is done and my editor is reading it. Yeah! (Whew)

I write stand-alone, connected books. You might say that’s an oxymoron, but it’s the way I picture my stories. Each one is a complete story with a separate hero, heroine and villain. But at the same time, I’ve created my own world. I can use characters over and over again, particularly secondary characters.

I never planned on writing connected books. I wrote THE PREY as a stand alone. But when Ballantine wanted to published a connected, back-to-back trilogy, I tweaked my heroine’s backstory (gave her two Quantico roommates) and pulled a character from THE PREY and made him the hero of THE HUNT. Suddenly, I had a connected world where whenever I needed someone, I already had a fully-developed person. In THE KILL, I brought Quinn and Miranda back because I needed first Quinn’s character (as an FBI agent in the Seattle field office) and then Miranda’s search and rescue skills.

(Aside: this was totally unplanned. In THE HUNT I had just arbitrarily put Quinn in the Seattle field office. I set THE KILL in Seattle for a completely different reason–Zack Travis, my hero, is based on the first hero I ever wrote, Mark Travis, in my unpublished manuscript HOT LATTE. It just happened to work out.)

Then, in FEAR NO EVIL, I used Quinn Peterson again because I needed a trusted FBI contact. Who better than a man who has already proved himself as a hero and loyal?

My NO EVIL trilogy is more tightly connected than my “predator” trilogy. It follows a family, so the characters more naturally recur in the different books.

My greatest fear is that people won’t pick up my books because they don’t want to begin in the middle, and they don’t have the “time” to start another series and read my books from the beginning. I am painstakingly trying to keep my stories individually complete so that no one feels they missed something, so if they start in the middle, like the book, they don’t mind reading them “out of order.”

I started my “prison break” trilogy with a uniting theme instead of characters. An earthquake under San Quentin precipitates the escape of several death row inmates. Each book is about one of the escapees. The first book is KILLING FEAR, which also takes place in San Diego and while the Kincaid family of the NO EVIL series play supporting roles, they aren’t the leading characters. That ties the book into the second trilogy, while also pulling away from the Kincaid’s for the time being. Books two and three are completely separate–the main characters are not in my previous books. Except for the uniting theme/premise, they stand alone.

I really hope I can pull it off.

The thing is, characters are beginning to creep in. I had no idea Will Hooper had a brother, but his distant relationship with his younger brother Dean Hooper plays a part in Will’s character growth. Surprise is on me: Dean is an FBI agent. Expect him to show up in my FBI series starting in 2009.

Then I brought in a character, Agent Hans Vigo, who was an off-page character in my first series and had a small role in FEAR NO EVIL. But I needed a profiler/agent to be a liaison with the police department and state police coordinating the hunt for these escaped killers. He ended up with a much bigger role than I planned, sort of a mentor to Will.

THEN, I learn about Mitch Bianchi. He’s a fed who, off page, is helping the San Francisco PD hunt down three of the escapees who are terrorizing the city. And guess what? He let a fourth convict walk after taking down the three “bad guys.” What’s with that? I can’t wait to find out what happened during that stand-off, and more about Mitch, because in one short conversation, he has instantly become a compelling character to me.

I realized at that point he’s the hero of book three, DYING BREATH.

Characters creep in, even when I’m not planning it.

I created a page of my books and recurring characters because that’s the number one question I get from readers. Here it is.

What do you think? Will you hop into the middle of a connected series of books (as opposed to a “series” like Stephanie Plum or the JD Robb books), or are connected books no different?

(Apologies for my tardiness! The kids got out of school yesterday. Needless to say, I have been interrupted two dozen times since I started writing this post.)

This past weekend I attended BEA in New York City, and man-oh-man, what an adventure! BEA alone can be overwhelming—thousands of books, thousands of people, all of them parked elbow to elbow and cover to cover. For a booklover, it’s like walking through the gates of glory, only the guard at the gate ain’t St. Peter. It’s usually some over-worked burly guy checking badges. Stick all of that in a city like New York, and you can really wind up feeling like a flea trapped between Gulliver’s butt cheeks.

I’ve been to the City a few times before, but it was always a quick in and out trip. Even when I helped a D-Mort team after 9-11, I basically stayed on site and slept on a cot in a tent. Definitely not conducive to sightseeing. Aside from that incident, I’ve never stayed overnight, so I was really looking forward to this trip, as it would be a double treat for me. I’d get to see more of the City AND be surrounded by a lot of booklovers and, of course, books. Since there were so many ‘firsts’ for me on this trip, I thought I’d share a little of the experience with you…

Fortunately the plane ride (yes, I flew) was uneventful, which in and of itself, to me, was a good omen. I even survived the cab ride to the hotel—yet another miracle. (For any of you who’ve ridden in a New York cab, you know what I mean!)

One of the ‘firsts’ I experienced was the view from my hotel room window, which was up on the 47th floor. It was breathtaking and intimidating, freeing and claustrophobic all at the same time….

There are so many buildings so close together with so much going on, it’s difficult to wrap your brain around it.

Shortly after arriving, I jumped into another cab to meet some friends, Alexandra Sokoloff (www.alexandrasokoloff.com)and Sarah Langan (www.sarahlangan.com) for dinner at Gigliano’s, an Italian restaurant I’d never been to before. (There are so many restaurants in N.Y. I think you could eat three meals a day for the rest of your life, each meal in a different restaurant, and never eat at the same place twice.) I was expecting a quaint eatery, something nestled between specialty shops, as so many are. Wrong. It was large and beautiful, and the view from the back patio where we ate was definitely another first for me…Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty! Great company, wonderful food, an unforgettable sight and night!

The next day, I took off for the Javit Center and BEA. Now I expected a lot of people since N.Y.C. is the hub of the publishing world in the U.S., but wow….!

It took a while for me to find the booth where I was scheduled to sign, but find it I did….

And I’ll tell ya, it’s really weird seeing your mug on a big-ass poster in the middle of all that hoopla. I was scheduled to sign with Brian Keene, a terrific author with a huge following and Dorchester comrade. Yet another first….

Initially, we were set up to sign from 2-4 P.M, but wound up staying until 5:30 because so many folks stopped by for autographed books. I got to see wonderful friends, like Sheila English (below, far left) with COS Productions (www.cosproductions.com) who creates all my book-trailers and make new friends, like Lindsay Tredent with MySpace (below, middle).

By the end of the day, I was exhilarated but exhausted and starved. I’d been on my feet (in heels—arg!) for about five hours and hadn’t eaten yet that day. When we left the Javit, I was seriously dragging ass. My back and feet were anxious to get in a cab, find the restaurant, where the sales group for my publishing house said they were taking me for dinner, and SIT.

Evidently thousands of other people had the same idea because out of the gazillion cabs in New York, we couldn’t find ONE empty one. So….we walked. Five blocks, still no available cabs—six more blocks, nada on the cabs…I swear by this time I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. The balls of my feet felt like they were on fire, and I was positive someone had driven nails into my lower back. Finally, it got so bad, I stopped at the very next intersection, which happened to be in Times Square, took off my shoes, and walked the remaining ten blocks in my socks! The picture taken below was sans shoes….now that’s a first if I’ve ever heard of one!

Fortunately, the people I was with didn’t seem to mind my countrified manner in the least. In fact, one insisted on carrying my shoes, and she handed them back to me just as we entered the restaurant. Note: If you ever get the chance to visit Manhattan and like Italian food, Bond 45 is THE place to go! The food is to die for, the service is impeccable, and the staff consists of authentic Italians, every one of them determined to fill you with food and wine until you pop!

Two to three hours later, I was toast to the inth degree, so I all but knelt on the streets of the city in thanksgiving when a cab immediately stopped on the first hale. Whether from exhaustion or too much wine or bit of both, the only thing I remember after getting into the cab is seeing the magnificent haven below and collapsing on it. Full belly, sore feet, mushy brains—good night New York.

The next morning, although still tender-footed, (In case you’re wondering, I had to throw the socks I’d been wearing the night before away!), I head back to the airport. Cabs were plentiful that morning, so I got there in no time and was soon zooming away into the wild, blue yonder….

….Only to arrive in New Orleans three hours later and discover that while I was in the air, four Islamic terrorists had been arrested for a bomb attempt on JFK airport. Whew, talk about close calls….Now that was definitely a first!

Jon Benet-Ramsey’s dad, and Natalee Holloway’s mother have become buddies; Paris Hilton reported to jail; and Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, has been videotaped with good enough footage that the BBC actually reported it. What is this, a full moon?

I saw that only slightly tongue-in-cheek. I know that the full moon has passed, but it wasn’t all that long ago (just a few nights). In fact, May 31st was the SECOND full moon in the month, and thus was a blue moon.

Blue moon doesn’t really mean the moon will be blue. From the article I cited above:

The phrase “Once in a blue Moon” was first noted in 1824 and refers to occurrences that are uncommon, though not truly rare. Yet, to have two full Moons in the same month is not as uncommon as one might think. In fact, it occurs, on average, about every 32 months. And in the year 1999, it occurred twice in a span of just three months!

So May was a banner month for werewolves, should you believe in that sort of thing. Me? I don’t consider myself easily convinced or gullible, I will admit that I have known for quite a few years that a full moon really does affect how humans act.

I learned in school, as everyone did, how the moon affects the tide. And I saw firsthand, while working as a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, just how crazy people DID get on a full moon. We had more murder/suicides, domestic violence assaults, car accidents, murders, and general weird calls than we EVER got on any other night. There are no statistics to back this up. And some full moons were very uneventful. But you can guarantee is something really weird was going to happen, the police radios at the paper would start squawking during the full moons.

Which, of course, explains why so many myths have been attributed to the full moons.

As a child, growing up in Utah along the Wasatch Front, a full moon nestled in a bedding of cotton-candy clouds that lined the mountains served as a precursor to the horrible east winds we suffered every winter. It’s been a while since we have had one of these wicked winds, which rip down trees and signs, tear shingles off houses, destroy fences and backyards, and in some cases, carports and garages or worse. But I will never forget how traumatized I was as a child when the full moon and east wind clouds were both present along the mountain skyline.

Back then, an east wind could get a hold of a child and bat you around pretty good. Nowadays, I’m much more substantial.

So, even while I don’t write horror or paranormal, I am intrigued by the moon, blue moons, and the effects of the moon on humans. I spent some time this weekend with my friend Mike, who is a mortician. He spends a lot of time among the dead. And his house is haunted. He has had every manner of priest, bishop, pastor in there to try to “exorcise it,” all to no avail. He called in a woman known to talk to ghosts, and she claimed his house was a portal, and the ghosts were friendly.

Now, to my way of thinking, is it not NATURAL that ghosts would be attracted to Mike? After all, he spends a great amount of time caring for them, cleaning them, getting them ready for burial, presentable for their families. Mike’s own daughter died last year, and he refused to let anyone else prepare her body.

His house is a portal? To my way of thinking, HE is the portal. They are attracted to him because of the manner in which he cares for them.

And he says that full moons bring about more paranormal activity than usual in his house.

All interesting stuff, at least to me. So what say you? Any belief in the effects of the moon on human behavior?

First a warning: I’m knee deep in copy edits, so I’m doing a fairly quick blog here. I apologize in advance for typos and such!

I just read this: http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/06/04/samhain-and-kensington-announce-new-partnership/

It seems that Samhain Pubilshing (an e-pub) and Kensington (traditional) have joined together to create a Samhain imprint that Kensington will distribute. I got this straight from the DearAuthor blog, and couldn’t find any confirmation on the Kenington website, but I suspect it’s true.

So what does this mean? As I understand it, Samhain will aquire and edit the books, Kensington will print and distribute the books. DearAuthor says:

The Samhain books will have traditional print runs and will be marketed to buyers just like the other imprints of Kensington. This will be the first time that an epublisher will make its way into venues like Wal-Mart, Target and grocery stores.

Well maybe, but so far, Kensington isn’t getting a lot of Bravas or Aphrodisias (their own imprints) into Wal mart, Target and certainly not grocery stores. It’s not that easy to do. But maybe Kensington has a specific plan to achieve getting the Sahmain books into those markets.

What this does tell us is that E-publishing is not going away. Ellora’s Cave really broke the mold when they started getting some of their titles into Barnes and Noble and they managed to get on Romance Writer’s of America’s “approved” list of publishers. I remember some talk of Ellora’s Cave making a deal to sell print rights to Pocket books but I don’t entirely trust my memory on that. (I’m doing copy edits right now and don’t have time to go look that up–maybe one of you remembers?)

The reason I find this interesting and maybe a positive sign is we know that not as many people are reading books. I believe I was told the surveys showed that while readers are actually reading MORE books but there are FEWER readers. From my own three sons, I know they do a lot of their reading online. My publisher is offering books in electronic formats to reach that market.

But the real power in publishing is still in the traditionally printed books. So it’s not such a big leap that an electronic publisher would hook up with a traditional publisher to get their books into print and onto bookshelves in stores.

I’m not sure what kind of imprint Kensington-Sahmain will be. From what I can tell, Sahmain does a lot of erotic romances and I can’t see the value of that to Kensington since they have their sexy Brava line and erotic Aphrodisia line. But one thing I know about publishing is it’s impossible to really predict what will sell and what won’t.

So what do you all think?