Happy Holidays

     Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah.  I’ve been gaining weight just reading all the cookie recipes on my fellow author’s blogs this week. 

     I’m at that in-between stage of life. My son is grown and has a wife who loves to bake and a daughter who’s not old enough to appreciate it. Maybe I’ll bake again when she’s older. We’d planned to have them visit after Christmas, but he tore his Achilles tendon and is in a full leg cast. So, it’s just my husband and I.

    For years I’ve made the same meal. I suggested a change one year and got voted down. We begin all our special meals with soup. At Christmas it’s always lobster bisque. The main course is Herb Crusted Prime Rib of Beef (called Roast Beast) with a Madeira sauce, pureed potatoes, (depending on which country we’re in) either Brussels sprouts sautéed with shallots or salted green beans and Yorkshire pudding.  Dessert is always apple pie. But this year, Christmas dinner will be served on Christmas Eve and the lobster bisque replaced by grilled lobster. Unless my husband can convince me he’ll eat the whole apple pie, he may not get it. On Christmas Day, we are joining a bunch of other people on the beach at Christmas Cove for a pot luck.

     Email me or post a comment if you’d like the recipes. I’m happy to share.  I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

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Manic Week

This post is late, by almost a week, and I’m feeling guilty. Not for my post being late, but that for the past week I’ve not been on the blogs of my fellow authors to show support. And it wasn’t just the blog, twitter and FaceBook suffered as did my critiquing; I even cut short Skype calls with my husband and told my son I couldn’t talk with him. What happened? I got an email from an agent that said if I cut 16,000 words from my MS she wanted the full.

Fortunately, I have not only a CP going through the same torture, but a community of cheerleaders who supported me with emails and tweets while I tore my heart out doing cuts someone else wanted. Is the book better? My mother-in-law doesn’t think so, she did a beta read. Truthfully, it did benefit from some cuts. I’m just not sure it benefited from so many. On the other hand, I’m probably not going to scare agents and editors with the word count now. So I want to thank everyone who helped me. I sent it off today, and tomorrow I’ll get back to commenting, blogging, tweeting, and critiquing.

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Blog Block

I didn’t post last week because I was having too much fun running around to other author’s blogs. Because it was Thanksgiving, most of them were about giving thanks. A thread started running through my mind as I asked myself what I was truly thankful for this years. The biggies were that my son returned from Afghanistan in one piece, mentally and physically. That my husband finally stopped smoking and started paying attention to his health, my mom died over two years ago, but my mother-in-law, whom I love dearly, is still going at 80 years of age. After years of hosting Thanksgiving parties of up to 40 people and cooking for five days straight, we went to a friend’s house this year, had a wonderful time and still had leftovers. 

But I’m also thankful and humbled by the wonderful women I’ve met since I started writing romances. To a woman, they are generous of their time and expertise. From my critique groups who challenge me to write better to individuals who have taken their valuable time to help me through my queries, I hate writing queries, and it had to be like pulling hens teeth, and venting. Thank you all. I am a much better writer because of you and when I finally get published you’re all going to be mentioned.

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