We had Ask Editor Laura, and now it's time to put my darling agent Michelle under the microscope! You guys know what to do--post your questions to DA Michelle here, and I'll collect them and send them to her. I will not pass along questions concerning submitting books to her--if you're interested in that, you can visit her website and look at the requirements.

But if you've ever wondered what an agent does, what she does for me, how many times a week I call her up and giggle into her voice mail, etc., now's the time to post those questions! I'll collect them for a few days, then zap them off to her.

I was going to use an older guy for today's DGM, but then I saw Nir, and I figured I'd give those of you who like your eye candy fresh would enjoy him.



He certainly does know how to do brooding well, doesn't he?



I mean, shoot, even lying wet and naked on the sand, he's brooding. Maybe the sand is chafing?



I, for one, would be perfectly agreeable to looking at him again in about ten years. Maybe seven. Oh, what the heck, five.

Clunk.

Clunk.

Clunk.

Hear that? It's the sound of me banging my head on my desk. Yes, as those of you who wander the Twitter path know, I had a moment yesterday afternoon when it suddenly struck me that I'd made a serious error in the plotting of the book I'm writing now, and I needed to stop and do some serious replotting in order to fix things.

Normally such moments are about relatively minor things, but this one...*clunk*

So I spent part of last night, and most of this morning working out a replotted structure. This isn't a huge deal, as Editor Laura, in consideration of the Swineyness that held the hub and I in its viral grip a few weeks ago, gave me some extra time to write this book, and thus it's not due in ten days (when it should have been turned in). But still, it's a quarter written and now I have to tear bits of it apart and add new stuff. The good news is that most of what I've written can be worked into the new vision of the book. Yay for salvaging that love scene!

That's what's consuming me today. No actual writing of the story itself, just writing pages and pages of plot. So. Much. Fun.

Clunk.

Happy Friday, everyone!

The hub is home again today (although he is feeling much better, and thanks all of you who sent him warm fuzzies). I have high hopes that he shall return to work tomorrow, hurrah! Normally I don't mind him underfoot...er...home, but not when I'm writing. Especially when I'm trying to write something requiring a lot of focus, like a love scene (and for the record, it's not the idea of a love scene that makes me so focused, it's trying to A) write something that suits the characters and B) isn't the same love scene used over and over and over again).

Even though my daily wad o' writing is a bit short today, I'm calling it good and going to take care of other pressing matters (reader e-mail! Black dragon sept membership cards! Updating my websites!).And maybe, just maybe, get a little play time in to see how the Sims 3 World Adventures is.

Fingers crossed that tomorrow brings with it a hub off to work, and lots of peace and quiet so I can deal with Fran pouncing on Ben.

Break out your good gnus, everyone! My happy dance this week continues to be in gratitude for everyone's support of Me and My Shadow, and for the fact that it's sticking to the bestseller lists, woohoo.

I'm also very pleased that while the hub is sick again with the second round of the swine flu (evidently it's quite common to get hit with another round 2-3 weeks after you've made a "recovery"), he's not contagious, so I can stop threatening to do mean things to him with a grapefruit knife and two egg cups. Now if his meds would just kick in so the poor guy can stop coughing up his lungs...

In other fine news, the official Me and My Shadow chat is coming up this Saturday. Did you all read about it in the newsletter? I surely hope so. We have a fun time at the chats, even if they are a bit crazy, but luckily the chat wranglers keep everyone (mostly) sane.

And last but not least, the new Ben and Fran book is chugging along nicely despite Mr. Katie being home sick. Oh, sure, I'm having to forcefully kick the Vikings out of scenes where I want other things to happen than them being their outrageous selves, but that's all well and good. I think we've come to an understanding, now: I let them steal some scenes, and they graciously go off to pillage electronics stores and let my other characters have a little attention.

I'm thinking a shower scene is due to come up soon...*fans self*

Your turn! I can has gnus?

Today's Dishy Guy is the delicious David.


It's entirely possible we've had him on DGM before, because he looks somewhat familiar to me. But what the heck, eh?



There were a lot of great pictures to pour over, so many I had a hard time limiting myself.



In fact, I may have to go look at some more, just in case I missed some. Because I'm dedicated that way. *cough*

The great Steamed ARC Contest Contest is now over, and I've been through the many excellent entries to pick ten that I thought were unique. I will say that it was difficult to winnow down the suggestions to just ten--you guys had some great ideas!

Keep in mind that if your suggestion didn't make the final ten, that doesn't mean you're out of the running for an ARC. The person who suggested the top voted idea will receive an ARC of Steamed, but that won't be the end of things, no sir!

I will pick one of the suggestions from the vote list and use it for the actual Steamed ARC contest, where five more ARCs will be given away.

Even if you didn't suggest a contest idea, feel free to vote on which contest you'd like me to run to give away the five Steamed ARCs. Please note that you may vote only once (and yes, the polling software checks your IP addy to make sure no one runs amok). You have until midnight, Friday November 20th, to cast your vote!

Vote!

Me and My Shadow is #9 on the Publishers Weekly list? Why, yes it is, and thank you for pointing that out!


Sorry. Just had to get that out of my system before I continued.

Today's Field Trip Friday is to one part of an extremely not safe for work blog article (and very disturbing in some cases), but I found a bit that I knew I had to share.

Three years ago AOL had some sort of an internal blunder, and they burped out a huge data file of all the searches their members had done. This is interesting because we've all, at some time or another, typed something into a search engine that I'm sure we'd prefer others not know about (that search for sex shops in Amsterdam was PURELY FOR RESEARCH, thank you very much!). And here was a big AOL file that not only contained the search strings, but the AOL user's number, search date, and resulting links that the person clicked on.

Some enterprising folks sorted through that data, and the people at somethingawful.com put up a blog entry highlighting some of the choice extracts. And by choice I mean don't read this around kids, at work, or if you are bothered by the really creepy things people get up to. At the end of the blog entry, however, is one extract that tells a story all on its own. It's by an individual and at the end, assumedly a family member.  The sad tale of User 711391.

Link to full article (again, be warned it's not even remotely safe for work or young eyes).

I've seen some questions asking who Ben and Fran are, and why everyone squeals with delight when I mention Viking ghosts in context to them. Since I hate to confuse people any more than I absolutely must, allow me to clear up some of the mystery.

Ben and Fran are Benedikt (a Dark One) and Francesca (human girl who is a psychometrist) who have their origins in my two Young Adult vampire books, Got Fangs, and Circus of the Darned, both of which are now out of print.

Those of you who put up with my mental meanderings may remember that sometime last year I started yammering about bringing Ben and Fran into the adult world of books, and finally giving them a relationship that went beyond the platonic level dictated by the YA books.

Sometime around that time, I also mentioned a new paranormal series that I wanted to write, one that was connected to the Dark Ones, but which would include necromancers and liches, and would wrap up some of the unfinished business in the two Pia and Kristoff books. Not the least of which was the fate of Ulfur, but also Alec.

The day came when I had the brilliant idea of how to blend the two together...Ben and Fran would be secondary characters, I decreed, and eventually Fran would be a narrator and would finally get to have her time with Ben.

Then came the request by NAL that I write a short story to go with the release of Crouching Vampire. And with that short story, I realized that I could, in fact, deal with Alec and his once-deceased Beloved. Happy day! I could just toss him into the mix and all would be well, right? Um...yeah.

Then I wrote Unleashed, the novella for the pet shelter anthology which is technically named Cupid Cats (please note that this anthology is not mine or my editors, and although we urged as strongly as possible to use a different title, we were overruled. I will continue, however, to refer to it as "the pet shelter anthology."). Unleashed deals with Jacintha, the sister to Corazon, who appears in the short story that came out with Crouching Vamp, and gives a little more insight into Cora.

Everyone still with me? Good. Here's the way my muse, in particular, works: she gives me ideas, and I try to give her direction. Note the word try in that sentence. Sometimes it works, sometimes she fights me. When I recovered from the swine evilness that clutched the hub and me, and it was time to sit down and actually write the next book, I decided that rather than have Ben and Fran be secondary characters for a few books until they got their own, I would give them the limelight. And I tried in vain to merge together the leftover stuff from Pia and Kristoff, the new series, and Alec and Corazon.

It just didn't work. So I scrapped my labored plot ideas (which hadn't gone very far because my muse cocked an eyebrow and drawled something about me not paying her enough to deal with all that), and decided that Alec would just have to wait. I could segway into the new series, I could even include some bits from the Pia and Kristoff books, but I couldn't bring everything together all at once. Thus it is that the book I'm presently writing, The Vampire Also Rises (title courtesy of Editor Laura), is in Fran's point of view, tells the story of her reunion with Ben approximately five years after we last saw them in Circus of the Darned, and brings back three of the Viking ghosts from that book.

So the answer to the question of what I'm writing is yes, it's a Dark Ones book, yes, it's going to lead into the new series, and yes, ultimately all the stuff from Pia and Kristoff's books will be dealt with. Whew. Aren't you glad you asked?

The last twenty-four hours have been officially designated as Twilight Zone Mail Time. It started with a letter I opened last night while working diligently on the reader request letters (I'm almost up to the ones postmarked August, woohoo!). I knew it was going to be a good one when I saw stamped on the back: NOT CENSORED NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENTS followed by the name of a prison.

Yeah. That's always a sign the letter is going to be a good one. And it was. It was so...interesting...I showed it to my husband, who just shook his head. That pretty much sums up my response, too.

Now, don't get me wrong--I love to get reader mail. It lets me connect with readers, find out what they really liked, and what they're looking forward to. It allows me to share my world, and know that people are enjoying it as much as I do.

Then there are the odd letters. Fortunately, the prison letters are not very common, although they are definitely memorable. There was the one where the writer wanted a piece of my clothing, and some of my hair. That letter was archived wtihout being answered. Another prison letter begged me to write the life story of the letter writer. A third wanted to know if I'd send several signed photographs. Not one--several copies. I fervently hoped it was to share, not to make a life sized image of me (which would have taken up a cell wall, let me tell you).

Not to slam the folks in prison, I get a few odd ones from other people, as well. Some readers tell me quite adamantly what specific events they want to see in future books, others tell me that the latest book they read wasn't up to their standards, and would I please get on the ball and write books they like. Still others tell me they used to like my books, but don't any more, and why can't I do what amounts to writing the same book over and over. I hesitate to point out to those folks that they'd be just as unhappy if I did that, but I learned long ago that there is no use in trying to explain the hows and whys of writing to people who don't want to hear it. And then there are the folks who expect that because they read my books, I owe them a debt, and they will kindly accept me helping them get published as payment.

Not all the odd letters are as blunt as the above examples. Since folks know I have an extremely strange sense of humor, people feel free to indulge in the same in their letters. And as I always enjoy a chuckle, those letters receive much more attention than the person who tells me she hasn't ready any of my books, but she'd be happy to do so if I sent some to her. I've had letters from Newfoundlands (usually those are directed to Jim) offering to replace Cecile as Jim's girlfriend, letters written in poem, and several charming drawings of characters from my books. I've also received grateful letters from husbands who benefited from their wives enjoying the steamier moments in my books, and even letters from grandmothers telling me to turn up the heat, for criminy's sake.

As I said, I love reader mail, even the ones that are a little off center. The rude ones leave me rolling my eyes, but the others I greatly enjoy. It's kind of like people watching, an activity I find fascinating--letters offer you a peek into someone else's mind, and that's never boring. So keep those letters and e-mails coming with all your thoughts about my books. But please, no more requests for bits of my clothing and hair.