Gifts of May Gardening

There are certain times of the year that are just lush. That's the best way to describe them. In Northern California, we've had a lot of rain this spring, and even some last week, which is nearly unheard of. So the weeds are crazy strong, but so are the plants when I can weed them.

Never seen so many rose blooms. The soil is just perfect for working in it. I've lost my fingerprints from patting down soil around new plants. My toes and fingernails look like I lived in the time of Outlander, they are eternally black around the edges, no matter how much I scrub. Good that it doesn't interfere with my writing - except these times I make sure to use a keyboard protector!

Because of the weather, and our schedules, our garden is very late. So these pictures, compared to last year, might look less full. Have no fear. As my favorite sign says, "My Garden Isn't Dead. It's Sleeping."

So I've planted literally about 100 little flower transplants and bulbs. I should be good in about a month with some lush pictures, if I can keep them properly weeded. I went all out and planted 9 melon plants, including 5 watermelon mounds. We heard that the rind is actually very healthy - more so than the fruit, so we'll be adding these to our healthy smoothies this summer.

My peas are just starting to peek out and I hope the shady area I grew them will help promote some yummy pods. I have yellow, purple, French and Blue Lake beans. I've planted a dozen asparagus plants, 3 new violet artichokes and a couple new green ones. I planted about 50' of potatoes, with the onions around them (my only tried and true remedy for gopher and mole control). I've got red cabbage, red cauliflower. Celery and yellow beets. Seven kinds of cucumber including Armenian, Burpless and a new Russian variety (how appropriate, right?). I am babying some volunteer turban squash, hubbard squash, zuccini, and patty pans. And of course, 14 tomato plants of all varieties - several cherry (chocolate, yellow and red) and two Heirloom brands. My lettuce is doing great. I have onions all over the place. I was delighted to find a new variety of Hydrangea - nice and purple.

We are checking our watering on the roses, and the fruit trees and discovered our apple tree had termites! Yuck. Sprayed that sucker with that tar spray (only thing in my garden non-organic) and will fill up the hole they've eaten in the trunk with (you guessed it) concrete! We always have that lying around for repairing our rock walls.

So while finishing this next book, Paradise, I'm watering, planting and doing other things outside to get me moving and stimulate ideas. It is a great way to craft a love story.

I'm not sure whether the love stories inspires my garden or my garden inspires my love stories, and I don't care to find out.

All I know is, it's lush here in Northern California. I don't travel for a couple of weeks, and, being a Taurus, I'm very firmly planted in the soil of my garden, even though my head and heart is in the clouds.

Enjoy these last few days of May.

And who could forget Richard Harris with this timeless piece.

THOSE DELICIOUS NEW WORDS

First roses from my garden collage

Is there anything more precious than new words? We love new roses from our gardens, new little starts that stick up from the warm brown soil in the Spring. We love new love, and what it feels like. We love meeting a new friend, or rekindling with an exciting old friend. Other new things I love: a new quilt pattern, new dress, colorful scarf, new haircut. I love new fabric or a great colorful fabric discounted! New bright red in my hair. New car! New jewelry, or a new candle scent or perfume. New shower gel! I love meeting a new reader who loves my books, or getting a great new review!

All these lush things are wonderful, and the most exciting of them all for me are New Words.

With new words, a new character develops. Like a chess game, the hunter and hunted meet, the warriors clash over a battle of wills. The Beast becomes the gentleman, and the Beauty becomes strong and supportive on her own. It's a classic tale of falling and having love burn so brightly in your chest that you just have to tell every stranger.

It's what makes a book something nice into something I gotta have!

It happens when I become the pro writer and not the amateur writer. It bashes through all obstacles and walls, limitations of funds, time, age, distance. I turned from being a reader who loved to read compelling books to wanting to create them. That creative process stimulates and excites everything in my world. It no longer is work. I ask my brain to be patient with the thoughts so I have the time to get everything down on paper. When I feel this way, I have to stop whatever else I'm doing and submit to that great spirit.

My beautiful music is even more beautiful. The colors are brighter. Scenes are more stunning. I wear loneliness like a badge and let the emotional energy spur me on to bring about a closure and connection that wasn't there before. My perceived lacks of the physical world I live in disappear in the fantasy life I create. My characters are my best friends and lovers. They don't leave. They love as fiercely as they play, with as much passion as I can imagine. I know there's even more off the screen of what I can hold at one time.

Bought this in Sao Paolo, Brazil

Today I give myself to new words. After all, it is World Book Day.  #LovetoRead

Of course, you could always watch Cinderella with someone you love, too.

So, here are some FIRST WORDS for you of a book called Paradise - The Search For Love (unedited):

I remember well the day John Gage stepped into my office. He had a whale of a tale about an island no one knew about, a white sandy beach with no telephones or internet, and a little thatched-roof bar tended by the most beautiful girl in the world.

            He called it Paradise.

            I hadn’t even looked at his paperwork, or how much money he had to invest. I didn’t look at what he did for a living. I just listened to him talk. His blue eyes and tanned skin, relaxed mode of operation, with his kaki pants and canvas slip-on shoes, two or three day’s stubble all painted a picture of a guy who was enjoying life. Way more than I was.

            Only remnant of his former life was the fact that he wore button down shirts, expensive ones too, with his initials on the sleeve, if you were ever to see them. He wore them wrinkled, right out of the dryer, or maybe off a clothesline somewhere, and rolled up to his elbows. He buttoned them one button too low, revealing a tanned and muscled torso. The guy was ten years older than I, but he looked ten years younger.

            I was helplessly hooked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzc_3arId8s
#LovetoRead

Amazon Spellcheck - Do You Make Up New Words?

Amazon always gives me little notifications when they think my spelling isn't up to par. I'm a creative speller. Oh yes, I know the difference. A creative speller makes up words that fit the moment, like some of my SEAL characters nicknames: Fredo becomes Frodo, Kyle Lansdowne becomes Lannie or Landmine. Armando Guzman becomes Armani. And of course they also get creative - very creative - with swear words.

If I had to clean up my prose and take out that certain word that begins with the letter "F", my manuscripts would lose about 10,000 words, I'm sure.

So here are a couple I found today. I love Spellcheck Days!

Minidrone - I actually think that's a word I've read somewhere. Amazon doesn't recognize it.
Microwinery - well, they have microbreweries, why not microwineries. I really think I did make this one up.
Sexploits - I think that's a valid description of some of the "in search of" capers my SEALs go on until they come smack up against someone who snags their attention.
F**kbunny - I love that word and use it all I can. My editors usually limit me to a diet of 2 per book.

How about you? Do you like to use favorite words, make up words? Find words you've read or heard and loved them into existence?

SEAL Of Time (Paranormal SEAL, Trident Legacy) or the Water of Love

I'm having a good time with a little novella, taking a break to finish my project due in March, SEAL Of Time, about the son of Poseidon. I'm doing this as a collaborative venture with Kathryn LeVeque. Our boys are from different earthly mothers, as Poseidon is known for loving mortal females. Their mothers have long passed, but the boys are also immortal, and may be able to father immortal children.

You know, if you've read any of my books, I like orphans, half-breeds and heroes who don't fit into the scheme of things, yet can come together to form a bond with others and in that capacity, become part of the glue of a powerful team. In romance, we want the hero to have major conflicts, especially when it comes to love, or the power of love in their lives. Try as they might, love is just too powerful for them and they all fall, one by one.

So we like opposites in our heroes and heroines. In my SEAL Of Time story in the Trident Legacy duet, my son of Poseidon has qualities he inherited from his father and his birthplace, the fierce ocean, as well as those of his mother, the grounding influences of a mortal woman on earth. He doesn't fit into either world, except to exist as a warrior defender of mankind. And yet, the conflict comes when he falls in love. Will this affect his mission to protect mankind? And is this a selfish move on his part, or the calling to which he was destined, now realized?

Here's a little excerpt of the character (unedited):

            He knew dolphins to be some of the happiest of mammals, and he fully understood their drive to follow the large vessels that frequented the open waterways, exercising to capacity, and becoming one with the iron behemoths that traveled there. It wasn’t that they enjoyed playing with the big shipping traffic, they couldn’t help themselves. They were engineered so that they had no choice in the matter.

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            His directive alerted him to a possible foreign object some mile or two away, so he sped up to search for its origin and meaning, not wanting to put the pod of friendlies in danger. Though the dolphins were not human, they possessed enough human traits that they remained a species, like humans, he was honor bound to protect.

            The object was beneath the surface, propelled by some enclosed motor without external blades or bubbles, except for one curious detail. Attached to the rear of the object was a human male form, as if they formed some symbiotic relationship. The speed of the combined object and man made him consider perhaps this was a new life form: half man, half machine. The man’s torso was encased in a rubbery sharkskin type fabric. His face and head was covered in a mask with glass portholes.

            Poseidon’s son hung back so those portholes wouldn’t turn and focus on him. He swirled around the man, searching him from all sides.

            As if realizing some big mammal had tacked him, the man sped up. Tay heard the muted whir of an incredibly advanced motor. He saw the displacement of water coming from a tube the size of his finger, still without bubbles. As he crossed paths with the rivulet, his gills sensed the chemical of some sort of rebreathing apparatus.

            Ingenious! He’d heard of such things, but never seen one. Man’s inventions were an enigma to him, as they allowed their human species to defy their birthright and do the impossible, live in waters they wouldn’t be able to on their own, soar through the sky and drill through the earth.

            As the device continued to speed up, Tay joined him, like the dolphins, unable to resist satisfying his curiosity. He cloaked his body just in case the human’s vision was enhanced, so he could be undetected. The cloaking was warm, as his body heat was not allowed to dissipate into the cold ocean, much like the man’s sharkskin suit. It would continue to heat up the faster he went, sometimes even causing a small chafing burn he’d have to heal when he got back on land.

            The man’s body was well developed and efficient in muscle, with thighs much larger than most human males he’d seen. Unlike Tay, the man had flexible rubber blades attached to his feet, which helped steer and propel him further.

I hope you enjoy this new series. I know I am!!
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BEING A BEST FRIEND AND BIG SISTER TO MYSELF

The recent celebration with my granddaughter, who was chosen as Student Of The Month, inspired this post. Her standard, adorned with her funny picture and smiling face, chronicles all her favorite likes. It is an award for the whole student she is, not just the academic part. It's a "Hey, look at me, and this is who I am!"

Social media has made it possible for me to interact with my readers and other author friends, essentially saying the same thing: "look at me!" I work on writing things that readers and others will want to hear about, not just about my books, but the journey, things that might be interesting about my life and the ups and downs of it. As authors, we invite others in. We call it "being sticky" in the business.

It takes years to develop a following, to brand a name or series, or to be known for something. And then we try to give readers something different, ask them to go on another journey, expand their tastes a bit. Sometimes it works, others it doesn't.

There is no magic formula. In the meantime, and between the highs and the lows there is one constant. For the most part, I think I've been pretty good with it: confidence in ourselves. My goal is to be a good writer for my readers, but for myself, my job is to stay positive, and to continually be my own best friend.

I've probably told this story before, but one day in Real Estate I'd listed a big home, got another one sold, made my designated number of contacts (44 per day) and coached several other agents on coaching calls. I closed a big escrow. It was a huge day for me, spoken in terms of "deals" as 7, my record at the time. I was on cloud 9. I drove home, and on the way passed a house with a competing sign in the front yard. Those were my people! How dare they? But the truth was, they'd chosen someone else when I thought I had it in the bag.

I drove up my driveway feeling dejected, a failure. I was grumpy and tossing things around, making lots of noice in the kitchen. My kids picked up on it immediately and we discussed it. "What do you mean, Mom? You had a great day!"

And they were right. I'd forgotten the cardinal rule of mine, a rule I'd taught agents for years: "Give yourself that pat on the back. Be your own best friend first." By being upset I didn't do 100%, I completely wiped out all my previous wins. Big mistake.

Writing is lonely and most people would be surprised to learn how insecure we can be as writers. We wonder what happens when a reader we used to hear a lot from doesn't communicate any longer. We think it's us, and not something going on with them and their lives. We take compliments sometimes and judge the sincerity of them when we just should be grateful for the compliment in the first place! We don't encourage ourself or celebrate our wins.

I'm going to a collage/art class today up at Bishop's Ranch. It's the first class in a series of 5 given by the resident artist there. Like when I quilt and when I garden, doing something else than writing brings me new life and I come away feeling so good about myself and what I'm doing. I'm launching into two new series, and completing one trilogy. Spring is almost here and my daffodils are coming up.

Loved this blog post the other day, here,  which talks about some of the same issues. Have a fabulous Sunday my lovelies!!

Remember, you are exceptional!!

SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: SEAL STUFF!!

Yes. I'm all in for SEALs. I have some precious mementos, collected during my journey as romance writer. One of the most cherished items is my plank from the Navy SEAL/UDT Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida. I am a supporter of the museum, and have donated a portion of all my sales there for years, as well as raised money from quilts we've had made and auctioned off.

This last year we earned over $400 on our Operation Aloha Shirt Quilt project. I rounded it up and we sent $500 to the Museum. This quilt contains Aloha shirts sent to me by people from all over the US, lovingly stitched together by Sandie Greis, and quilted by the women of the Santa Rosa Quilt Guild, the oldest of this group who is 90 years old.

When a SEAL detaches from his Team, he is given a plank, like the one in the picture. I was so surprised when I received this. If you ever want to learn about the history of the Teams, how they came to be and how they have developed, you'll love spending a day there. This museum is run by the SEAL community, friends and family of the community. No Federal funds are used for its support.

Another of my cherished possessions is a signed autograph by the man who eliminated OBL, Rob O'Neill, who says "SEALs are sexy!" It hangs just above my plank from the Museum. Thank you, Rob, and thank you Cherokee and J.D. Hart for helping me get this cherished gift.

I received a Challenge Coin from Anne Elizabeth's former Navy SEAL husband. Anne (who also writes Navy SEAL Romance) and I were in an anthology together a couple of years ago, along with a dozen other of my favorite military romance author friends. Anne awarded us all this Challenge Coin. It is a symbol of a mission, a job well done, and I have to say it was! Thank you, Anne.

I have my tattoo of the Hippy Bone Frog, as I call him. Made a little alteration to this picture, and sucked it up and had it done. I also have a frog print frog print tat on my right forearm for every SEAL book I've written. I'm going to have to start on the other arm now...lol.

I was honored to be given this helmet for safekeeping. It's now been returned to this SEAL's children, but it was on my desk for nearly six years while I wrote my first SEAL Brotherhood stories, and was a constant source of inspiration. These helmets are worn by BUD/S recruits on their way to becoming worthy of wearing the Trident. Whenever things get tough for me, I look at that picture and I remember, "Only Easy Day Was Yesterday."  How true.

It's been my honor to write about Navy SEAL heroes for these past six years. I hope to be doing so until they have to yank my laptop from my lifeless body!!

Working on a Son of Poseidon SEAL duet with another author which you will hear about very shortly, and then comes Jake, my 3rd book in the Band of Bachelors. I can hardly wait for you to read them both!

Crossing Genres, Mixing It Up, Making It Dangerous!

How does an author cross genres and still keep his or her audience? Or have her audience risk traveling with her on a journey into a new genre?

Along with pen names, this topic has been discussed many many times in writers' groups. It can be a scary thing for an author to change genres, or add genres. But I think the realities of the marketplace are such that we have to be prepared for genre tastes to change. Or become over-saturated. I think it's healthy to have a couple of sources you can draw stories from and pick up new readers.

The Indie community allows us to explore all these options at our own will. We don't necessarily have to give up one genre to explore another one. And we don't necessarily have to just chase the rabbit of "best selling genres" which I see so many try to do. That's something that is guaranteed to make a writer go crazy in a heartbeat.

Speaking only from my personal experience, writing in more than one genre is healthy for my writing. Not everything can be quantified in terms of sales, although that's what we're doing as authors, writing books readers will buy. But adding "sparkly body parts" to the mix of stories in our fantasy worlds is a good thing. Like exercising a new muscle, it can be painful, but overall adds to our overall strength.

I think what makes us stronger writers is that we take chances, not stupid chances, but chances nonetheless, and we have confidence in the work. Tastes change. What is the rage one day may not be the next. There is the phenomenon that readers are always looking for new writers they can discover, like treasure hunting. Someone with a good backlist is at an advantage because of past reader loyalty, but at a disadvantage if we're not the new shiny penny anymore. The work has to be shiny, not the author.

The answer? Just continue writing what we like to write, what tickles our fancy, and what readers in the past have loved. It has been said that every author tells the same story, just with different characters. Whether they are a Dark Angel, a Golden Vampire or Navy SEAL hero, the heroes in my book all find their true calling and higher selves through finding true love.

So, here are a couple of rules I think apply when writing across genres.

1. Have confidence readers will enjoy creativity and introduction of new characters.
2. Your voice as a writer doesn't change.
3. In romance, it's still about the hero and heroine's journey to find each other.
4. Be patient with yourself and listen to the writing voice inside your heart. Let that intuition serve   you and feed the faith, not the fear.
5. Explain what you're doing and make sure past readers know you are not leaving one area permanently, that you'll be back.
6. Take the new excitement of learning new things to your new writing, even if it's an old genre.
7. Writers make it every day, break out, do the impossible and defy odds all the time.
8. Payoffs are not always in dollars. Write from your heart, not just for the market.
9. Embrace change and know we learn from our mistakes.
10. Keep everyone guessing! (What the heck is she doing now?)

What about you?

Pearl Harbor

In February, I attended a writer's conference in Hawaii, organized by the wonderful author, Violet Duke.  It was my honor to sponsor a tour of the Arizona Memorial. I've been before, but wanted to make it so others who hadn't, got to experience it. December 7th is just three days from now.

Words do not do this beautiful memorial justice. I watched the peaceful waters of the bay, the oil still leaking from the Arizona herself, flowing out to sea, mixed with my flower lei I brought to honor those who served for me so bravely and paid the ultimate sacrifice. I really don't get into the full holiday spirit until after this milestone is passed. Just like I don't ever get to Thanksgiving without remembering 9-11 or the assasination of JFK. These are just points in my life I celebrate. And yes, I say celebrate.

The ones who are gone would want me to do so. I can't bring them back, but I can make sure they live on forever. We came together during these huge times in our country's history. All creeds and races, religions. Everyone knew where they were during that time, or remembered going back to visit the memorials if they were too young to remember the live event. We think about those gone, and vow they will not be forgotten. It's our job, because right now, we are the living. Won't always be so but for right now, we are.

I was struck again by the photographs of the young pilot, Setuo Ishino, who flew into the Missouri, and the military send-off he received, draped in a Japanese flag sewn by a crew of Navy kitchen swabs. The letter that was written to his parents, telling of his bravery. The men who saluted as he was returned to the sea. I see the other letters written by the other Kamakaze pilots to their parents before their missions, men who would be screwed into their cockpits for no escape. I saw the picture of his family when the boy was two, holding an airplane.

There is insanity in war. And there is decency and honor even in the worst of times. I am reminded of what someone said, "Circumstances don't make a person. They reveal a person."

My little part of this is only to help people remember what bravery and true honor really is all about. The selfless courage of common men and women, who do uncommon things. Things they never dreamed they would or could do, but somehow they just do.

And I say thank you to all who have served and are serving today.

AND NOW THE MADNESS BEGINS - OR DOES IT???

Some of you understand what it's like to be a romance writer during the holidays. Those family get-togethers turn bizarre in a heartbeat, don't they? I know as a child, the weirder and weirder it got, the better I liked it.

My Grandma Fox had trouble swallowing, due to a series of strokes she'd suffered that left half of her body paralyzed. It never failed that for each big family meal, she'd start choking on something, and there were more than a few moments of tension when she'd remove her false teeth, leave them on the side of the plate on the beautiful table my mother always set, with all the finest crystal and china. Grandfather would stand up, and slap her back while she leaned over her dish and expelled whatever had gotten stuck.

She was beet red afterwards, sincerely ashamed for the spectacle. My grandfather never swore, but he could be heard saying something like, "Ah, Shaw," and we filled in the blanks. We were used to her drooling, and she wore a little purse affixed to her wrist with a strap, lovingly made by one of the ladies in the church, which contained a couple pretty hankies she used all day long. In fact, she was always with a hankie in her hand.

My other grandfather would go off on some political tangent, sure that the whole country was going to Hell quickly, and often we'd wake up Christmas morning to find that he'd had such a difficult time sleeping, they'd packed up in the middle of the night and drive the long way home to Fresno, California. Yes. I was born in Fresno. A good place to be from.

The stories were exaggerated, as family stories go. I'd heard them every year. Every year they'd get more and more fantastic, and I didn't care if they came from morphing, or told by people who always instructed me to take the moral high ground and never lie. They were family stories, and as such, were exempt from the normal constraints of reality. It was a kind of better than the truth: it was fiction. Was there something wrong with me for preferring the morphing stories of our family history? And does it really matter anyway?

By candlelight, those tales were told, passed down from the mouths of people now long gone. And I think I must do some of the same.

We always enjoyed visiting my aunt and uncle in San Francisco. My uncle could have made it as a comedian, he was so good with his jokes. Especially during the years when he was drinking. Afterward, he was just as funny, by the way. As an insurance salesman, he had stories of all the creative ways he got past the secretaries who tried to screen him from seeing the execs he wanted to sell to. He called it his Zippo Success Institute.

Between my uncle and my grandfather, the preacher, I learned what it was like to sell. In one case, it was a safety net to cheat death's impact on a family, in the other, redemption and a life everlasting. But trust me, it required a good salesman to do either. I knew long before I married and started having kids that life is one sales job after another. Raising children or being long time married, it's still the same thing to me today.

So I guess the madness of the season isn't really that for me, is it? I can get behind the crowds, though I don't participate in it. I don't mind people selling things, even things I don't need. I get caught up in it just like I did as a child. The stories, the pitch given to inspire change, the way to figure out problems and not get stuck by them, how to alter another's opinion with a smile or the right choice of words. Life is sales.

If it weren't so, we wouldn't take this most sacred of holidays, and turn it into one huge gift giving bonanza in this country. The idea of giving a gift is doing the unexpected. To show to someone what the inside of our heart looks like, to make the act one of love.

I don't remember the gifts, but I remember the love. Yes, sometimes I remember the pain too. I don't remember the words, but I remember the story. I remember what it felt like and how it feels now.

That gift is one I shall cherish forever.