Temporarily Home Again

It has been a while since I posted, as usual, but I finally have something to write about that may be of interest to anyone. In early July, my publisher and I drove to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the release of my new book, Tunnel Vision. It was an eighteen hour drive, but the time passes quickly when you talk all the way. We stayed at our friends, Ruta and Joane's house and had a very nice, although short visit. On Saturday, I did a signing and even manged to give a short reading from an upcoming book at Ruta's bookstore, TrueColors Books. I was excited when fellow authors Ellen Hart, Linda Morganstein, and Catherine Lundoff were able to attend.

About a week after I returned home, I flew off to Disney World for the annual Golden Crown Literary Society convention in Orlando. For me this is always a treat because I can meet many friends and fellow authors, as well as readers at least once a year. Two books released by my publisher, Regal Crest Enterprises, won awards this year. They were Blue Collar Lesbian Erotica by Pat Cronin and Verda Foster, and Land of Entrapment by Andi Marquette. Two of my friends from Blue Feather Books also won and I was almost as excited as they were. Mavis Applewater won for Whispering Pines, a wonderful mystery about a haunted house and a century old murder. Karen Badger won for Yesterday Once More, another great book that starts in the future and goes back in time to prevent a murder. Both were truly deserving and everyone was happy for them.

The afternoon of the first official day of the convention I felt light-headed and was 90% certain I was having a minor stroke. I should have contacted the hotel nurse and gone to the hospital, but I didn't. Truthfully, I didn't want to be stuck alone in a strange city, far away from my home and partner. So I dealt with the weakness on the left side of my body until I could get home. My partner took me to the emergency room early the next morning and I spent a lovely night in the hospital and had a gazillion tests performed. I was sent home the next day. It was indeed another minor stroke, but not as debilitating as my last one about three years ago. So now we are beginning new and exciting diets that don't leave many of our favorites available and beginning a stop smoking program. We both needed that anyway. Overall, with an adjustment in my current medication, I am feeling pretty well until my body can adjust to whatever damage was caused by the stroke and compensate for it. The good news is that typing is excellent therapy to strengthen my left hand and improve my hand-eye coordination. The bad news is that I have a partial blockage of my right carotid artery and will have surgery probably in August to have it cleaned out.

This coming Saturday evening I will be signing copies of Tunnel Vision at BookWoman in Austin from 7 to 9. Then Cheryl and I are leaving bright and early the next morning for a trek to Kansas to do some research for another book. Sitting in a library all day is fairly relaxing and non-stressful and I think this trip won't be as hurried or hectic as the others and be a good thing overall. I will return to work around the middle of August and will almost be glad to do that. Work is calmer than the summers usually. Now I plan to spend quite a bit of time writing and restin whenever possible. Honestly, the lingering effects of this small stroke scared me and I may have seriously damaged my butch card in the process. But I plan to be around for a while longer.

Thank You, Monica

Well, I know I've probably already promised to do better with the blog thing, but what can I say...I'm a liar. By the time life gets through with me each day, writing in a blog is pretty far from the top of my list of things to do in my free time.

I would have been convinced that no one besides me reads these darn things if I hadn't noticed there was actually a comment after the last time I wrote something here and posted it. Thanks, Monica! If you ever come back here, I can't tell you how much I appreciated knowing that an actual human being took the time to read it. There should be a prize for being the very first person to leave a comment.

My life has been mushing along, up numerous hills and over far too few dells. Since the new year began, my partner and I have accomplished more work around the homestead and are now beginning our summer hiatus from home improvement. My fourth book, The Sea Hawk, was released in January. To celebrate, my reading group in Austin held an author event at this cute little coffeehouse. I invited seven of my writer friends from Texas to join us and we had a fabulous time. At least I did. Guess I can't really speak for everyone else. The weather was nippy, but really good for Texas in January. From left to right in the photo above: Stacia Seaman (Bold Strokes Books), Kelly Sinclair (Blue Feather Books), Carsen Taite (Bold Strokes), me (Regal Crest Enterprises), Erin O'Reilly (Intaglio Publishing), Del Robertson (Intaglio), Frankie Jones (Bella Books), and Peggy Herring (Bella Books). Anyone who hasn't read their work is seriously missing many excellent stories and books.

In mid-March my partner lost her job as part of the current economic crunch. Thankfully, she is back at work at a new job. So an economic crisis was averted. In late March I flew to Minneapolis for an education seminar about high school drop-outs (a stimulating topic) and visited with some friends who live in the area. I had a great time, even during the morning snow flurries. I felt like a kid again, standing outside and catching huge flakes on my tongue. I haven't lived anywhere that actually has snow in thirty years.

My publisher tells me The Sea Hawk is doing well and that makes me seriously chuckle. I only wrote the book as a favor and gift for my publisher. You see, romance writing isn't my thing. Now she says it's the best thing I've ever written! Go figure. But I am glad readers seem to like the story and I enjoyed the hell out of writing it and loved the research. Perhaps one of these days I'll write another romance, but it would have to involve a topic that really excited me.

I just completed the final edits on my fifth book, Tunnel Vision, which is scheduled for a July release. It's a police procedural very loosely based on a murder that occurred on my college campus when I was an undergraduate. Over the many years since then, I've never been able to get the event out of my mind and thought it could make a tolerable story. We'll see.

I foolishly allowed someone to convince to become more of a "presence" on the Internet. So now I not only have this blog to deal with, but am also on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and probably a couple of other places I've already totally forgotten about. I'll have to check my bookmarks to keep up. I confess I don't have a clue about what I'm supposed to do on most of those sites. I have put most of the books I've read on my Shelfari site and made comments about many of the books. They are not reviews, just my opinion, so don't take it too seriously. I try to not take too much about writing very seriously. I prefer to have fun with it. Usually I speak to people face-to-face and not as some hazy personage floating around in cyberspace looking for unsuspecting people to annoy. But it's a learning process and I do know that dinosaurs have been extinct a very long time, so I'll reluctantly have to force myself to get with the program or the times or something like that.

I'm anxiously looking forward to my summer vacation. In early July my publisher and I are driving to Minneapolis (again) for the release of Tunnel Vision at True Colors Bookstore. It's owned by a friend of mine who also happens to be the editor for this book. So if you find any problems with the story, please contact her. LOL In late July I am flying to Orlando for the Golden Crown Literary Society Convention. It's always fun to catch up with fellow authors and talking one-on-one with the readers who make lesbian writing what it is today. I feel like I should take them all to dinner or something, but only if I wanted my check to bounce from here to Dallas and back. Hopefully, my sincere thanks will be enough.

I've been working on a couple of new manuscripts which I hope will come out in 2010. One has been fun to research and the other is just spending it's free time jerking my leash while I try to grab hold of the storyline and make it behave. When I get tired of that battle, I just go online and play a little poker. Losing fake money isn't nearly as frustrating.

I'm in the middle of copy editing a monster-size novel right now and am supposed to be doing that instead of writing in my blog. But I am a little ahead of schedule and can spare a few minutes in case someone comes along and wants to read my babblings. I can't think of anything earth-shattering to say right now, but something may come to me later. In the meantime, keep reading and enjoy the day.