Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

I used to plant tons of trees, when I had a lot of acreage–I love forests. But I was so disappointed to learn the people who bought my home in Oklahoma clearcut most of the trees. Beautiful pines, helped to stop erosion on the hillside, and they provided homes for birds, beauty, solitude. There’s no prettier sound than wind blowing through a forest and hearing the rustle of branches or pine needles. We have old forest in and around our neighborhood. Most new home developments, they just clearcut the trees, leaving barren land. But here, I have several old pines. And behind me, one of my neighbors has beautiful oaks. He wants to cut them down. Why? Because they drop leaves and twigs and he has to pick them up. Really? He has to cut the grass too!  Maybe he should dig it up? In Texas heat, shade trees are at a premium. They’re beautiful. You see them towering a hundred feet above the homes. Why would you want to cut them down??? I had to have one of the pine trees ...

Mother's Day is tomorrow and flowers are a popular gift. So this seems like the appropriate time to talk about the traditional language of roses...and catfish! Did you know that since Victorian times, the different color of roses had different meanings? For Mother's Day, at least in the South, it is traditional to a wear red rose corsage on Mother's Day to signify a living mother, and white roses to honor a mother who is no longer alive. My mother passed three years ago in February and there are several lovely white buds on my rose bush out in the yard this year. I think they will be full blown by tomorrow. When she passed my sister went through the ancient suitcase that held all her pictures and divided them up three ways. One for each of Mama's three kids...bless her heart, that couldn't have been an easy task. I know because I haven't touched that white plastic box she brought over here until today. I went looking for a good picture of Mama ...

For some reason I've received a lot of questions this week asking do I use people from my day job in my books? Do I kill off former bosses? My staff kept asking if some day they'd get to be heroes or perhaps victims? And would they recognize themselves? No. No. No. And another no just to be sure. Then they ask again. So I reply that my books start with a character's voice and often with a season. The voice probably comes from years of running the high school theater and then later working several years in live theater and six more in the opera (where I was a computer tech, but I heard a lot of magnificent voices). I'm also a movie buff which doesn't hurt. Voice tells you me so much about a character. Beyond accent, there is region, and beyond region there is pacing. My characters tend to think quickly and speak abruptly... Of course, I'm currently writing military romantic suspense so that makes some sense. But also season. Book two of my Night Stalkers,...

I love writing, even on the bad days. The things that keep me from writing are what make me truly crazy! A friend calls them Life Rolls. LRs come in all sizes, big and small, trivial and overwhelming. This spring has had its full share and variety of same. Some LRs are pretty easy, just distracting. I just finished reading all of Jane Austen’s books at the same time my wife plugged the last hole in our Jane Austen movie collection. We now have every version of every one. We’re dying to curl up on the couch together and have a filmfest that lasts near enough a month of evenings. Okay, so life gets busy and those get sidelined, for now. After all, I do have a novel deadline and a dream of writing for a living. The only way that happens is spending time in the chair practicing my story-telling craft. Other LRs are a little more challenging. A huge project hit my desk in March. High profile, high hours, short timeline. There’s a reason these are given to me, I’m good at them...