Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

Every year I set goals. For the past couple of years one of them has been to come up with a Christmas themed story. After three years I still have nothing. Zip. Nada. Not a hint of an idea. I can get ideas from the weirdest of places. I was talking to a friend about good names for heroes and she mentioned her grandfather’s unusual name. I got a whole story in about 10 seconds. Mad scribbling ensued and the idea is pinned to my board. The most recent ads for the Western Australian Opera  were very inspirational (not that I’ve written that story yet either). A conversation on a plane about ménages and what made them work or not (in our opinion) triggered another story (which is now on my pile to polish up). However Christmas is eluding me. I see all the Christmas stories and the novella anthologies coming out. I like reading them. I love A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I loved the Doctor Who version with the flying fish in the fog (it’s awesome even if you don’t ...

by Amanda Forester Can I see a show of hands of people who are utterly stressed right now? Do you see my hand waving wildly in the air? December for me is full of deadlines. I must send packages by a certain date. I must have my house ready for people to visit. I must buy presents, and cook the dinner, and decorate the house, and send the cards, and (most important) be filled with holiday cheer. This year to add to the normal pressure I've had writing deadlines, work deadlines, and illnesses of myself and my family pressing for my attention and time. We are also remodeling part of our house and hosting a family reunion (hopefully the remodel will be finished before my family arrives next week.). Oh yeah - I've been STRESSED. This type of pressure can lead to unfortunate incidents such as using some very un-holiday like language after burning a pie, or screaming the kids to stop wiggling and SMILE for the camera or so help me... Ahem. Of course those would be just random example...