The third installment of Cat Tails: Bad Moon Rising is ready to read!

This is the story that you are helping me plot, chapter by chapter. And what a fine job you’ve been doing. I’m enjoying incorporating your suggestions. Be sure to catch up on the story, because we have work to do!

That’s right, it’s time for you to start thinking about what you want to see happen next. Give me your suggestions. Think about the questions you want answered about the cats and about that full moon that’s coming. Think about that old house she’s inherited. What’s special about the house or her lands? And what about those two sexy guys? You tell me.

Once I have your suggestions, I’ll conduct another poll so that you can all vote on what happens next.

DiDi woke with a start, the sound of the shower reminding her she needed to pee. But that wasn’t her only problem. She lay naked and dirty on top of her coverlet. A shiny handcuff affixed her right hand to one of the wooden spokes of the headboard of the bed in her motel room. Which narrowed down the possibilities of who was responsible for her predicament to precisely one man…

I stay pretty healthy. Yeah, there’s more I could do—shed some more pounds, get some more exercise—but on the whole, I don’t have many complaints. Which is why the nagging aches in my shoulder, neck and lower back are really beginning to annoy me. I’m close to the finish line with a couple of projects, but this is going to wreck my concentration. I haven’t done anything so far to fix it. I have a regularly scheduled doctor’s visit on April 5th, but in the meantime, all I can think to do is pop aspirin and sleep on a heating pad. Why now? Why me? Okay, there’s the whine.

The whole back pain thing does make me realize how important health is to writers. We need our sleep to keep our minds functioning at top peak performance—you can’t have wild, hallucinogenic dreams without it. We need our fingers strong and agile to slam those words onto the page (imagining little finger calisthenics now?). And we have to be able to sit for long periods of time, so we really need to build those butt and back muscles to stand the strain of our everspreading rears. Yeah, had to have some fun with it.

But y’all wanna know who won the contest, right? By random number generator, the winner is…(drumroll) Lisa J! Lisa—email me!

Just a quick progress report. I like to do those—just for me. I figure if I put my writing life out there, including my goals, successes and failures, I’ll shame myself into stepping up my game up.

In April, I will finish Beloved Captor. I will get to the end of the short novella for Samhain. I will write a proposal for a Nocturne Bite, and I will write two short stories. That’s a lot. But I can do it, if I stay focused. Here goes…

Remember, you can still enter yesterday’s contest. I will pick the winner tomorrow. Today, you can earn two more chances to win!

Just a quick note here because I’m blogging at Access Romance today.

I wrote the big external climax, the big exciting battle, yesterday—and now, I can see the end of the book wrapping up very quickly over the next two days. Then I will have about a week’s worth of edits to complete before I can ship my Berkley book out the door. Cross your fingers it isn’t complete crap! I’m enjoying it.

I finished the rough draft of chapter 3 of Bad Moon Rising. Today, I’ll edit it, then I’ll look for a Beta reader or two to see how they like it and hopefully find any typos I couldn’t see. So it’s just days now until I will put it on my website for you to enjoy. If you haven’t read chapter 1 & 2—do it now! Bad Moon Rising

I don’t know what this will tell you about me, but these are all the things that clutter up the top of my large, light oak corner desk:

* monitor and printer
* Galileo thermometer
* desklamp
* small bottle of purel
* hand lotion
* two fruity coasters waiting for a cup of coffee
* three flash drives
* bamboo plant
* dragon holding a letter opener
* crystal pendulum
* small King Kong statue
* pink plastic bucket holding Post-its
* telephone
* address book
* pink computer paper
* flower-bordered notepad
* flower-bordered Post-it cube
* small yellow basket holding two cameras, Iron Man Pez dispenser, smiley-face stress ball, sucker with a grasshopper in it, chapstick, nail file
* Russian lacquer-ware pen holder
* Dragon pen holder
* electric pencil sharpner
* crystal frog with more pens
* candle
* glass star with “Superstar” written on it
* book of affirmations opened to “I am talented”
* leather-bound, hand-made book, intended to be my personal Book of Shadows but which instead has pages of pretty stamps because I was experimenting with them
* tape recorder
* dragon stapler
* standing file with things I haven’t looked at in months
* three worry stones: carnelian, bloodstone, clear crystal

Tell me 5 things sitting on your desk now!

I had a terrific day with my daughter’s family yesterday. Didn’t worry about making a wordcount. Didn’t itch to get to my computer. I headed to Hot Springs with my camera and a credit card.

My SIL, his mom, the red-headed hellion, the 5-year-old, and 1-year-old were all loaded up, and we headed first to downtown Hot Springs. Parking was tough to find because it was a beautiful sunny day with a nice breeze and EVERYONE headed to the strip.

We started at Bubbalu’s for hot dogs and hamburgers. A woman came up to ooh and ah over the baby. The baby gave her a scowl. “She must be shy,” the woman said. SIL said, “No, ma’am, she’s just mean.” And that’s the truth. Little Girl doesn’t have a shy bone in her body, but she has a temper and she did not want to stay in her stroller.

We stopped in at several little specialty shops, the 5-year-old and I bought matching shiny pink scarfs to wrap around our necks and blingy necklaces. The girl-child got stopped several times to be told how beautiful and “fashionable” she was. The same folks chuckled at me as they passed. This was the girl-child’s last day of Spring Break, and we’d told her it was her special day. She kept remarking on how great it was that everyone showed up to help her celebrate.

While we were walking, I passed a family with this dog and had to stop them to get a picture. Don’t you know there’s a story somewhere in that picture?

The shopping was nice. Stopped in Tillman’s which is an estate sale store and saw some amazing pieces. Faberge eggs, jewelry from The French Quarter that dated back to the late 1800’s. So much bling I thought I’d died and gone to heavan. I forgot to ask if they had lay-away… But never mind. Daughter and I are already plotting our next trip there—just have to save a bit to get something special!

Girl-child’s wish was to go to the petting zoo, so off we traipsed. This is us in the goat cage, feeding bread to the goats. It’s the only shot you’ll see of me, because after I saw what the wind did to my hair that was over!

The highlight of course was the alligator house. They keep them inside in winter and the gators huddle under heat lamps in the pools. Being so close, with only a 4-foot fence surrounded by chicken wire, didn’t make me feel very safe. I know they can jump that height and that chicken wire isn’t enough to hold them back if they do attack, but they looked very well-fed and lethargic.

Read the rest of this entry »

For all you writers, I’m blogging today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog, talking about one of my favorite things—working the plan. I’d love to see some familiar faces there today!

And for those of you who aren’t writers, I have a question for you…

What is the c-c-c-coldest you have ever been in your life, and what is the (whew!!!) hottest you have ever been in your life?

My answers will be in the comments!