Swiped from Charlie! Who got the idea from Michelle Rowen who is challenging blog-landia to share their dusty bits and bytes.
Feel free to join in and post your own……This is the original beginning for a book that was supposed to be a Blaze…then wasn’t and is now lying in a dusty heap on my computer. I can’t even begin to tell you how HARD it was not to edit…and how much I cringed :lmao:
See below the cut
I’m back! Yaaaaaaaaay!!
Okay, so Disneyland has that reputation as being the ‘happiest place on earth’ or something like that, right? Well, as a young kid I never got that. Sure, it was fun, but the happiest? Hmm. It had some competition. Then I went back as a late teen and early twenties. Basically, before I had a kid. And yes! It WAS the happiest place on earth. I couldn’t get over it. I’d run from land to land, riding every ride I wanted to do. Stay late at night to avoid lines and devour churros galore.
And then I went back again. This time with a child of a my own. A four year old. And I’m right back to ‘not so much the happiest place’. Now you have to switch into cranky kid waiting in lines in 100 degree or more heat–lines for rides you haven’t done since you were a kid. And forgettaboutit on the big scary fun rides. No time for those and the kid won’t go. And no late night parties closing down D-land. We didn’t make it past noon before melt downs started.
But despite the new version of doing D-land, it was still a lot of fun. Truly. Dumbo rides and getting hugs from people in costumes is all good. And yes, obviously I was in denial about how I’d surely have ‘me time’. 
Beyond that, we did a day at the beach that was just brilliant and fun! I loved it. I had to get over the fact that we were the only obese/overweight people on the beach. And I was sure I’d end up on TMZ when I a wave knocked us down, and the two big girls were rolling around on the shore trying to get up–which in the midst of that I had a Tara Reid moment. My breast popped out of my swimsuit but no one told me for like a minute. I’m sure it was quite the entertainment for the Barbies’ watching in fascinated/horror on the beach. I could see the headlines ‘Somehow, non svelte women were able to infiltrate the hot chick beach and did their best impression of beached whales and Tara Reid’.
And we had dinner with Diva Dana who is so sweet and too much fun. It was just so much fun over all. Though yes, I may sound a bit negative nancy about it all typing it up. I’m simply trying to be sardonic. Or something. And I’m in the midst of a really dirty scene I want to get back to writing, so my thinking is a bit raw right now. I had a fabulous trip and it’s good to be back!
Oh, and be sure to ask Emma Petersen about the dirty hotel neighbor and the Giant Peach (bra). 
Hi it’s Karen. I’m writing this post for the lovely Ms Lillian Feisty. Why, you ask? Well I just received a phone call from her and she let me know that, well…
She broke her leg. In two, possibly three, places.
Man!
But at least she did it in style. Yep, she was at roller derby practice last night and well, she fell. Ouch! She says she’s in a lot of pain. She’s nervous because she’s going to need surgery. She’s mad because she might have to be in a cast at Nationals.
Poor, poor Feist.
So let’s send lots of healing vibes her way. Right now, she really, really needs them.
We love you Feisty!
*Sob* I’m sad - half of the NAS girls have ditched us. No Amie…No Shelli…Only me and Feist! We’re lonely!
Sorry I just had to have a little fit. *Deep breath* I’m better now. Really.
Since I’m in such a sorry state I thought I would share an interesting article (source: Wall Street Journal) I found recently. A stay at home mom who was running her kids around all over the place started writing a novel in the back seat of her mini van. She wrote pretty much the entire thing in her mini van.
Now she’s published by St Martin’s Press (Four Wives by Wendy Walker)!
She said at home there were too many distractions. I can relate to that. I have a laptop but most of the time I stay at my little desk and write. Sometimes I move around but for the most part I’m right here, writing my life away.
How about you? Where do you write? And if you’re not a writer, where do you get your best work in?
Like my little boy band title line do ya? No?
Well, everyone, I’m actually on a plane right about now heading for Disneyland!!! Sadly, no more seeing Karen 
cause of a strep throat incident. But better safe than sorry, and I’ll see her next month in San Fran!
So since I’m not ‘really’ here, I didn’t want to do some big deep post that I can’t return to chat with you about. So instead, how about some gas humor? No, not that kind of gas, gas for your car!! Or maybe you’d already guessed.
See you all next week!
How I Stopped Living (and Writing) in the Past
I’ve always loved history. As a kid, I was fascinated by books set in the past, from the Little House books to the Caddie Woodlawn series to Summer of My German Soldier and Farewell to Manzanar. I devoured an entire set of biographies in my elementary school library about famous women like Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Harriet Tubman, and Julia Ward Howe. I was a history nut.
When I got into my teens and first discovered romance novels, it didn’t take me long to discover historicals. I read early Kathleen Woodiwiss, Rosemary Rogers, Judith McNaught, Johanna Lindsey, and Bertrice Small. My mother scoffed a bit at my fascination with what she alternately termed “bodice-rippers” or “soft-core porn,” but I begged to differ. I knew more about both American and European (especially English) history from reading those books than most kids my age knew about what happened last week. I figured it was not just fun, it was downright educational!
In any event, it seems only natural that when I started writing my own books, I gravitated toward historical romance. In point of fact, I remember telling my critique partners quite early on in our relationship that I would never write a contemporary romance because I couldn’t possibly invent a solid plot and conflict for one. All of my story ideas were set in the past, and I was sure I’d never be struck with the inspiration for anything “modern.”
Well, I’ve learned I should never say never. My first idea for a contemporary is actually still a work in progress, but the
inspiration for that story (a presentation I saw at an RWA chapter meeting last year) seemed to unlock something in my head, and to my surprise, I found myself bombarded with plots and conflicts set in the here and now.
The first of these to see publication is The Gospel of Love: According to Luke, which comes out today from Cobblestone Press. It’s the first in a planned four novella series (though I have no idea when I’ll find the time to write the final three installments) starring four brothers, predictably named Luke, Matthew, Mark, and John.
Luke’s story came to me seemingly out of nowhere. I had gotten about two-thirds of the way through the Regency-set historical I was working on at the time (Wickedly Ever After) and hit a road block. I was casting around for something to fill in the time while I waited for the rest of Wickedly to “come,” and for some reason, the words “Gospel of Love” popped into my head. From there, the “according to” part seemed only natural, and suddenly I had a title and a protagonist and an angle (first person male narration). I sat down and started writing, and two weeks later, I had a 22,000 word novella that I loved. Lucky for me, Cobblestone loved it, too, and offered to publish it.
Because this book is such a departure from my two historical novellas at Cobblestone, I’m interested to see how readers react to it. I wonder if those who don’t normally read contemporaries will read this story because they’ve read one or both of my historicals. Similarly, I wonder if some folks who don’t typically take to historical will read Luke and like it enough to give my historicals a try. And then I wonder if they’ll think I suffer from multiple personality disorder! Especially since, in the wake of writing Luke, I’ve come up with a sci-fi futuristic series and a high concept for a paranormal series. I’m starting to wonder if there is any subgenre of romance I’ll leave untouched…
But enough about me. Let’s talk about my book! (Okay, technically, I guess that’s still about me, but humor me.
Blurb
Luke Finley, the eldest of four brothers, is a committed serial monogamist. He’s all for one woman at a time, but not one woman forever. He knows a lifetime of fidelity just isn’t in his genes. But when his latest girlfriend kicks him out–of his condo–the woman he’s always thought of as “one of the guys” turns out to be the one woman who can make him believe in forever.
EXCERPT BELOW THE CUT:
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