April 19, 1995 – April 19, 2014
Someday, maybe humans will learn to seek healing instead of harm.
(c)Clary Carey 2013
Tomorrow is April 19th. With 9-11 and the Boston Marathon, and other more current examples of human inhumanity, this 19th anniversary of the event that rocked Oklahoma and the world will likely slide by with little notice from the national media. But for those who lived through it, who responded in the first wave of rescuers and didn’t go home for days, we remember. Always.
I’ll be offline most of the weekend. The ugly ghost of PTSD rears it’s head this time of year. I close my eyes and the scenes of that day are superimposed against the black screen of my memory. I don’t need the photographs I took, dutifully recording the scene as was my job, to remember.
I’m going to read, catch up on TV shows, and maybe work on SWEETHEART. And while I’ll do my best to sleep through 9:02 a.m. tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be awake. If you remember, take a moment to send a prayer to the Universe that something like this won’t happen again, that humans will learn to deal with each other with honor and respect for life.
See you Monday.
I originally saved this back in November of last year. I do that. Sometimes, one of the Universe’s emails pops up, I want to keep it but I’m not ready to use it, so I tuck it back as a draft.
At the time I saved this, I had a whole lot going on and every bit of it scared me to death. I was releasing The Penumbra Papers and not seeing great sales. I had COWGIRLS DON’T CRY with Harlequin and had been told to wait longer. (I won’t mention how long that deal actually took!) I was really questioning my writing career.
The problem was, I was afraid of things staying the same and failing because I’d tried to change them. I think that’s called a Catch-22.
When the fear of “things staying the same” exceeds the fear of “failure,” Silver, stuff happens.
Ch-ch-changes…
~The UniverseIf you could see how well things will be going for you, Silver, you’d probably be skipping every day.
Fast forward almost six months and wow! Granted, Penumbra hasn’t caught on as I’d wished but I’m still proud of the series. And I have a two-book deal with Harlequin, with a chance for more in that series. The Wolves remain popular and an editor I’d previously worked with asked for me specifically to participate in a Christmas anthology. Deadlines! I have them! 😆
So yeah. I’m doing some skipping, and the occasional happy dance. And my advice from all of this? Don’t give up. Don’t hide from change. And don’t let things simply go on exactly the same way. Shake things up. Because when you do? Yeah, stuff happens. And more often than not, it’s good stuff. Now go forth and skip. 😉
As I’ve been mentioning a lot lately, I’m reading contest entries so no book quotes catching my eye–at least none I can share yet. So, I’m falling back to one of my favorite topics. COFFEE! And I figure at least some of the people I know were up way late last night drinking the stuff and working on taxes. Can you say #procrastinate?
I believe humans get a lot done, not because we’re smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee. ~Flash Rosenberg, humorist, cartoonist, photographer, and turtle wrangler
This is what sets us apart from LOLcats. *nods* Opposable thumbs.
Sleep is a symptom of coffee deprivation. ~Anonymous
Yeah, I need a tee shirt with that on it!
When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army. ~Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright
See? Writers know about coffee. *nods* Yeah, we do. And by now, you’ve probably figured out why some of my characters *koff-Sade-koff* drink it in giant-sized mugs.
So, have you had your coffee fix today? And if you don’t drink coffee, how do you ingest caffeine? 😉
These sliders are quick and easy to put together, warm and gooey, and utterly delicious. They work for cool nights and warm days–in other words, perfect for a Spring when Mother Nature can’t make up her mind whether she’s coming or going.
Hawaiian Sliders
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350
In a saucepan, melt butter then add minced onion and cook until onions are soft. Add mustard, Worcestershire, and poppy seeds. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Line 9 x 12 baking pan with foil. Slice rolls in half. Place bottoms in pan. Spoon 2/3 of butter/onion mixture on rolls, layer ham and cheese. Put the top of the rolls on. Spoon rest of onion mixture on top of rolls. Back for 20 minutes.
Easy peasy and not hard to clean up, especially if you eat on paper plates. 😆 And great for when I’m under deadline. Or the St. Louis Cardinals are playing on TV. Or it’s tax day and you need easy comfort food. Or it’s the day of the blood moon. The Wolves love my Hawaiian Sliders. 😉
Happy Tuesday. I’m working. *nods* Stop laughing. What are you up to today?
It’s Monday. All day. But that’s okay. A new week, a new celestial event, and a big sale! Tomorrow’s lunar eclipse is being billed as a Blood Moon. Well, that obviously means I need to put the entire Moonstruck series on sale. BLOOD MOON is marked down to 99 cents and all the others are marked down to $1.99. Tell your friends! Prices will go up next weekend!
I’m at work on the novella for the Christmas anthology for Wild Rose. Returning to my Faerie world, this will be Abhean’s story. I plan to work on it until I get the go-ahead on COWGIRL’S SWEETHEART. Yes, it was sent off to Mr. HEd on Friday. He had some great news for me. COWGIRL’S DON’T CRY may have an early 2015 release date!
I spent the weekend cleaning my office, sorting through 3 years of paperwork that had stacked up (I’m looking for some documents that didn’t make it into a file like they should have 😦 ), and getting a knockdown on cleaning the house. While under deadline, I let things slide. Lawyer Guy did his thing out in the garage and we got a bunch of crap thrown out, given away, and generally rid of.
Still reading contest books so I can’t discuss titles. Ah well. That said, I did request two books from the library that I plan to squeeze in, THE SHAMBLING GUIDE TO NEW YORK and GHOST TRAIN TO NEW ORLEANS, both by Mur Lafferty. I read GUIDE a year or so ago and enjoyed it. I want to reread it before reading the second in the series. The main character is a human who goes to work for a preternatural publisher writing travel guides for the Coterie, which pretty much covers all the paranormal critters in the world. 🙂 I obviously enjoyed the first book, but it’s been long enough since I read it, I want the reread to remind me of the characters.
What did y’all do this weekend and what’s on your reading list for this week?
TGIF! We survived another week. I’ve been getting my ducks in row so didn’t have much time to figure out a blog. Instead, I thought I share a couple of short videos.
This should not have made me laugh until cafe au lait splorted out my nose. Yes. I am one sick puppy. And warped. Very, very warped. Welcome to the theme from the Game of Thrones, goat version…
So, lets go from the ridiculous to the ridiculously sublime. And I promise, no more goats…just dogs, cats, The Wizard of Oz, and the BBC. 😉
I’m working and/or cleaning house and hoping we get rain on Sunday. I also hope to get some reading done. What’s on your agenda for the weekend? Anything fun?
Spring has finally sprung. Maybe. We’re due another cold front the end of the week. But the daffodils have bloomed, and the tulips. The redbuds are flaring and I’m waiting for my wisteria to develop buds. I’m a big fan of Nature, even when she’s pissed.
As the Universe points out, there are lessons to be learned.
Silver, don’t you marvel at nature? I do, but then I’m partial.
It holds so many clues about living the life of your dreams, don’t you think?
For instance, have you ever seen a mama duck waiting around for her ducklings to line up before crossing the street?
Never. Because she knows that the only way her ducklings are ever going to line up is if she just goes!
Just one of your ducklings,
The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®Silver, it’s the same for you, just go!
Yes, indeed. It is that time. How many projects do you have sitting there languishing? Listen up people! Be a duck. And just go!
I’m still reading contest entries and can’t talk about them. However, I also got sucked in by Allison Brennan’s new Max Revere series. There’s a prequel novella that I enjoyed but the first full-length novel, NOTORIOUS, is glorious! I love Max. I want to hit her upside the head with a clue-by-four about half the time but that’s part of her endearing personality. 😆 This little snippet had me splorting Diet Coke when I read it. She’s referring to Det. Nick Santelli, of the Menlo Park Police Department.
Damn. He knew he was hot. A hot cop.
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
She almost laughed out loud. Yes, hot cops were her vice. ~Max Revere in Notorious, Allison Brennan
And yeah, Nick is definitely worthy! *fans face* Warning NOTORIOUS is a suspense novel with a touch of romance, not a romantic suspense. It’s a damn good read!
I really need to stay away from blogs that list books for sale. SEVEN YEARS by Dannika Dark caught my eye. It was $.99 cents at the time and I thought it sounded interesting. Yeah. About that? Couldn’t put the dang thing down! This is a paranormal romance with Shifters, which are different from werewolves. I loved her voice. The following are a few of the snippets that caught my eye.
He shook his head. “I forgot to buy cotton balls.” He set the brown bottle of peroxide on the washer.
Before I could make a suggestion, Austin peeled off his shirt, wadded it into a ball, and doused it with peroxide.
I was pretty sure I would never buy another cotton ball again if this was the alternative solution.” ~Lexi Knight [heroine] in SEVEN YEARS by Dannika Dark
People say time machines don’t exit, but they do. They’re your friends, and being around them takes you right back to that place in time you had long since put away. ~Lexi Knight
The price has gone back up to $3.99 for the Kindle edition. There is a paperback available too. I’d buy it in print if I didn’t read Kindle. Austin Cole is a swoon-worthy hero and Lexi is a first-class, sassy heroine.
And as soon as I finished SEVEN YEARS, I had to buy SIX MONTHS, which is the second book in the series. I found this snippet highlight worthy.
After eating eleven of her homemade peanut butter cookies with macadamia nuts, I could testify on her behalf in a court of cookie law. ~April Frost [heroine] talking about Lexi’s baking skills
There’s just something about The Court of Cookie Law that makes me smile!
So those are the words for this Wednesday. I’m here all day, working. I have three chapters and a synopsis to get polished. I want SWEETHEART headed to NYC by Friday. That said, any good words y’all have read? Share! I mean, it’s not like I don’t have anything to read. 
I’m not sure if today’s blog is a Tuesday Treat or a Tuesday Tease… Have I mentioned that Iffy is a b…witch? She’s trying to hurry me through COWGIRL’S SWEETHEART, totally ignoring FAERIE FREE (or FEUD), and longing to revisit both the Wolves and Sade and the gang.
Those of you who follow my Author’s Page on Facebook know that I participate in a flash fiction writing exercise prompted by Siobhan Muir on her blog. Called Thursday Threads, she offers up a writing prompt, participants slap down 250 words using the prompt somewhere in the exercise and post it. She has a guest judge, just for fun. I’ve won a couple of times and place as an honorable mention often. More than a few of those prompts have ended up in my stories.
So, do you think Iffy would help me out and gear those words toward the current WIP? Oh hell no! 
The past few weeks, she’s been pushing me toward Wolves and Penumbra. So…here’s the current plan because my personal publishing schedule is whacked. Once I get FAERIE FREE (June 1st deadline) and COWGIRL’S SWEETHEART (April 21st proposal and July 17th final deadlines) submitted, I have plans for one more Wolf novella–BLUE MOON, which is Antoine’s and DJ’s story. DJ is the Deputy US Marshal who’s appeared in some books, and Antoine is Izzy “feral” uncle. I’ll follow that with the crossover novella with the working title of MOON SHOT, which introduces the guys of the Hard Target series. My NATO SpecOps team has a few secrets of their own and I think fans of the Wolves will like them. Anyway, that’s the plan. In the meantime, I thought I’d toss a tease out here for those of you who want a Wolf fix. This scene may or may not make it into BLUE MOON–and I’ve edited it so it’s a bit more than 250 words now. 😉
****
DJ threaded frustrated fingers through her short hair. Her boss’ order had sounded so simple sitting in his Las Vegas office.
Go get the man.
Only the man was a freaking ghost. After the debacle in New Orleans, she was lucky to still have her badge. Deputy US Marshal. She was a manhunter, right? Right. Her job was to track and arrest fugitives from the law.
Go get the man. So much easier said than done. Especially after crashing her car and stumbling around lost in the bayous for hours. Something growled nearby. She froze. Did alligators growl?
Crouched in the cypress knees, Antoine filled his lungs with the woman’s scent. He’d followed her as she wandered lost. Her scent seemed familiar so he trailed her, keeping a cautious eye on her activities. This was his bayou. He didn’t like strangers, especially when they were so close to his pack.
Another scent intruded. Sweat, sour and full of testosterone. She was being hunted by someone else. The thought pissed him off. Royally. She was his woman.
He stilled. His woman? Snarling, his wolf ranged just beneath his skin. Yes, his wolf agreed. She belonged to them. Antoine would kill any man who touched her. His prey tensed, wary, sensing she was being hunted. He sniffed the air. Three intruders—but human. In a boat. He smiled. Laissez les bons temps rouler.
Slipping into the water, he submerged, coming up behind the boat like a wily ol’ gator. Surging up, he grabbed a man, hauled him into the water, and broke his neck. The others quickly followed.
DJ stood frozen on the bank, all sense of self-preservation deserting her as she watched the scene unfold out on the water. A few moments later, ripples appeared, and then a head. A man rose from the turgid water and stalked toward her.
“You should be more careful.”
She’d hit system overload. Her eyes rolled back in her head but he caught her before she hit mud.
“I will take care of you, chère.”
Oh, hell. She was caught in a real-life “Deliverance.”
****
Okay, I’m off to work. On cowgirls and cowboys, not Wolves. Not today. Iffy will just have to go play with herself. 😉
So what are y’all playing with today?
NEW RELEASE
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Silver James 