An Almost-Johnny Depp-Sighting... But I'm Still Feeling a Bit of the Betty!!

I know, I know... where have I been!! Long story, so sit a spell.

You never know what's coming at you next. Best way to deal with life's pot shots (some of them fabulous, so stay tuned)? Strap on you flight suit and enjoy the ride!!

Work-week interruptous #1

My LA-working husband who's been doing the coast-to-coast thing for a while now says, "Why don't you guys come out for the weekend?" My response--do I look crazy to you? Of course it was, "Heck Yeah!!" So off my son and I went for a jet-lagged frenzy of a long weekend that included Legoland and Knott's Berry Farms. Johnny Depp scooped up Disney all for himself Saturday night, so the Magic Kingdom-West got dropped from the agenda. I could be bitter, but Johnny's one of my fav. artists, so let's take a moment to drool instead.... Sigh...

So off I went, in the middle of discussions with my editor about revisions for The Perfect Daughter--you guys are going to LOVE what where' cooking up for that book. The excerpts you read a few weeks ago...we're kicking them up a notch or two. Can you say HERO TO DIE FOR??? I have the world's best editor ;O)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, off I went with a notebook and a carry-on bag, and of course my son, for a roller coaster-filled weekend of husband time, amusement park mayhem, and hand-writing the first few chapters of the contemporary paranormal I've been teasing everyone about...I think this book's going to be freakin' good, my friends ;O)

Did I take pictures, oh yeah. Can I share???? Well, that leads us to...

Work Week interruptous #2

Death to all who spam or aspire to spam like the demons plaguing my site.

I couldn't tell my online buds I'd be away from home, because who knows what kind of hoodlum would take the info and do something nefarious with it. I have lovely pics of my family and me stealing our little weekend of fun in the sun, but can I post those??? Not a chance, because my beautiful child is in each and every frame, and too many website friends of mine have received ucky emails about their kids lately. So, so much for inviting my blog faithful for an upclose and personal glimpse of my happy homelife.

And to top it all off, I come back home to an inbox full of some hacker's idea of a qick way to make money--spamming me through my guest book!! So, now that my email address is gone from everywhere online but my contact page, and my contest page is being revamped even as we speak because the only safe place to run my monthly giveaways is through my password-protected blog, it's time to yank the guestbook, too, and find some other way to communicate to readers who only make it as far as my site...Ask me how I really feel about my personal spam monkeys, then stand way back or lightening might strike us both as pure evil pours forth. Yes, this what I look like as I'm grinding away at the HTML code that will hopefully protect us from more interruptions. Can you see the jet lag setting in??? Care to join me in a malevolent chant or two!! I'll settle for website housecleaning...gotta get every last spammer out of my inbox, leaving them no nook or cranny to grab hold of on my site. Sorry for the changes to come, but we'll all be better (and less violent) for them, I promise.

I've saved the best for last--you're going to be cheering instead of jeering before I'm done, I swear...

Work week interruptous #3

Remember when I said I'd be guest blogging on wnbc.com/romance later in July (a huge site with tons of regular readers, based out of NY)? Well, hold onto your hats. The website editor read my July book last week, LOVED it, had a spot open up, and emailed me Monday asking if I could get back to her ASAP, because she'd like to spotlight me and The Prodigal's Return next week. You know, on the romance page where she's never spotlighted a category book before...where her latest spotlights have been for Julia Quinn and the likes...where thousands of folks come every week to see what's new and what's hot... Could I get back to her instead of getting back to work when I got home...oh, okay...HECK YEAH!!! She mentioned The Prodigal's Return in a single post in her blog last week, and the amazon pre-release purchaces of the book shot up...here's hoping next week will deliver a windfall ;O) The thought of new readers discovering my stories has me quite giddy!!

So, the interview's done, she's going to review the book complete with a cover shot and my photo, and I can hardly wait. How, HOW, and I supposed to work on revisions and new pages while all this cool stuff is going on???

Help me folks!!

Remind me that I'm only as good as my NEXT book. I want The Perfect Daughter to be great. My still-to-be-titled, single-parent continuity is due in August, and I'm loving the three chapters I sent in last week--too bad there are fifteen more unwritten ones to go. I love my work, but I want to take a few weeks (that I so don't have) to have some more fun as the buzz for my July book builds... I wanna be Betty for just a little while longer, as stare down the tunnel at slaving the rest of the summer away at my computer in all my Wilma glory...

Best thing you can do for me is to hang out here and have fun with me. A few minutes a day with my online buds will keep my going... I'm counting on you... Maybe slapping at a few online spammers would be fun, too. Wanna help me with that, too ;O)