A lot of would-be authors, and even some published authors, mistakenly believe that writing a story is muse-driven.  They cannot write unless the muse is upon them, pouring forth with their creativity, and shutting out the world for a time, almost as if they’ve received a vision from On High like a prophet of God.

While we would all love to write in such a way, there are times when you stare at the flashing cursor on the blank screen for hours.  There are times when you literally write a line or two and sit there to think about what to do next.  There are times when you actually avoid your project because you just don’t know where to go or what comes next.

But what a lot of authors don’t realize is that writing is a j-o-b.  If you want to  make any money at this gig, you’ve got to EARN your income.  You can’t wait for the miraculous muse to sprinkle her manna from heaven.  Sometimes, you’ve just got to sit down and make yourself write!

Write…what?

ANYTHING!

For me, to break through my writer’s block, I need to loosen my fingers along with my imagination.  The way I do this is to decide whose point of view the new scene is in and jump in.  Begin with their thoughts of what happened the chapter before.  Move the plot forward with some internal conflict.  Get into their head.  Once I do that, I find that the floodgates open and I can write again.

But sitting down and just doing it takes discipline.  I avoided my current project for a few days because of this problem of not knowing where to go next.  The main plot of the book was finished, I only have some wrap up to do.  But it’s the end of the book that can sometimes lull for an author.  Either they love the book too much to let it end, or the excitement of the plot is over and tying things together with a pretty bow can be a chore.

Today, I decided to just sit down and write.  See where it took me.  What transpired was, perhaps, the most tender and pivotal love scene in the book.  They’d already *said* their I love yous earlier on, however, what I wrote was a scene where they “showed” their love for each other in soft caresses and sweet sighs, with no words to speak of.

I challenged myself to make it different, as after you’ve written X amount of books, you begin to have a pattern to your writing style.  I didn’t want it to be a throw-away love scene that you could cut and paste into any of my other books.  And what it became was probably my favorite scene from the book.

You never know where “just sit down and write” will take you.  But everyone on the planet has only 24 hours a day.  Some of us struggle to find the time to write, while others have loads of time on their hands.  But one thing’s for sure.  The successful authors are the ones who just sat down and wrote, regardless if the TV was on, regardless if the kids were playing, regardless if the DH is home.  True, we all have responsibilities to take care of, but when those are all said and done, anything less than just sitting down and writing is an excuse NOT to write.

Nine times out of ten, we’ll NEVER get that coveted time alone, that quiet time, where we can pour forth our muse.

And let’s face it — even if you DO get that quiet time…how many of you are playing online rather than writing?  **raises hand**  Oh, I’m guilty of that, believe me.

But there comes a point in every writer’s life where they have to suck it up and just DO IT!  Perhaps, like me, you’ll find yourself writing the most inspiring scene of your book. 

~~Becka

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of updates to my blog.  A few weeks ago, my baby daughter accidentally spilled coffee all over my laptop.  It was still under warranty, thankfully, but that meant in order to fix it, the entire laptop needed to be sent off to TN.  UGH.  I waited about two weeks to get it back, and when I did, I learned the only things that hadn’t been replaced were the monitor and the hard drive.  WOW!  It’s like getting an entirely new computer.  I was amazed and thankful that I didn’t have to buy a new one!

I can’t tell you the different levels of heart failure I went through when I saw that coffee on my laptop.  First, it happened in slow-mo, with a long, drawn-out, “NOOOOOOO!!!”  But of course, it’s one of those things you can’t stop from happening.  I felt like Helen Keller without my computer, even though DH sacrificed his work laptop so I could have a computer at least.  But it didn’t have MS Word installed on it, so I couldn’t write, nor could I do my edits on THE JACKAL PRINCE, and it was killing my inner child!

BUT, I finally have my computer back, and I’ve been working on edits and writing.  YAY!  I got my first round edits turned in on JACKAL, Book V of my Desert Princes.  Book IV, THE SPIDER PRINCE, releases from Carnal Passions on Wed., February 16th!  You definitely do NOT want to miss that book, it’s my favorite out of all the princes. 

My current project, HEART OF A SCOUNDREL, is almost finished.  Right now, I just have wrap up to do and then clean it up before I turn it in.  My publisher thinks it’s title is too clunky, and has suggested naming it simply to SCOUNDREL.  That will most likely be the book’s finished title.  But I’ve had great fun writing this one.  It won’t be too long, probably a few thousand words past 40K, but it’s a great little story, I believe! Hopefully you won’t have long to wait before you can read it. 

DH and I have been taking care to eat better and measure our food portions, not to mention getting out and exercising more.  Since January 1st, I’ve lost 16lbs!  It’s very rewarding to see the scale go the other way, considering I lost about 65 lbs before I had my baby daughter, then promptly gained it all BACK!!  Ugh.  So I’ve got to lose all of that AGAIN before I see any “new” progress.  But this time, I’ve been very good about not sneaking food or cheating.  Every week to two weeks, DH and I have our “cheat” days, and that helps a lot.  Couple that with low calorie Skinny Cow ice cream desserts, and we’re doing just fine.  I don’t even miss eating like I used to.

The thing is, whenever we cheat, I feel like I have a gut bomb in my belly now and I pay for it a few hours later.  My insides just don’t like to eat greasy fatty foods after being fed good stuff for awhile.  So I don’t always like to cheat because of how I feel afterward.

My goal is to lose enough weight so that I can buy an affordable treadmill for home.  Ironic, right?!  They do make treadmills for fatties, but you’ve got to shell out the dough.  The moment I can get down a bit, I’m going to buy myself an affordable one.  It’s just easier than packing up five kids and walking around the neighborhood.  It’s very hard for me to get the proper speed I need to get my heart rate up and calories burned when I’ve got to keep five eyes on my kids.  So right now, I’m more focused on MOVING more rather than speed and cardio.  Once I can get my weight down enough with diet and moving more, I can focus more on speed and cardio after I buy a treadmill.  And that IS the goal.  I can’t wait to strap on my iPod and just WALK (or jog) without having to worry about the kids lagging behind or when am I going to exercise if the baby has to nap kind of thing.

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated on my progress.  That’s it from my end.  Hope y’all have been doing well!

~~Becka

2010 was a productive year for me.  It brought a string of rejections that I was able to turn into sales.  BLACK ANGEL, RIDE THE LIGHTNING, THE FALL OF JERICHO, & RENEGADE were all rejected, but were snatched up by Champagne Books and Cobblestone Press.

It brought the return of my BEAST series (OMG Mac..*drool*) and the introduction of a new erotic series about Desert Princes, which people seem to like a bit. 

I was discovered by eBook pirates, but I’m not complaining — too much.  Since I’ve been “discovered”, my sales have gone up, so I suppose once they read one book they like, they buy the rest.   And unbelievably, my fantasy novella, KINDRED, did amazingly well in sales.  Better than I ever thought it would do.  I don’t know what it was about that little book.  Dragon shifters?  Word of mouth?  I don’t know.  But it was a pleasant surprise for me.

I spent the rest of the year finishing that Desert Princes series (it was so much fun!), and I’ve finally begun a new Western, the sequel to IN YOUR ARMS, a book for Shirley Bloom.  It’s also erotic, entitled HEART OF A SCOUNDREL that I’m about halfway through currently.

I decided about halfway through the year to quit chasing the Golden Carrot of NY publishing.  Not because I didn’t think I was good enough, and not because of my rejections.  But because I truly believe eBooks are the wave of the future, and more and more people are buying Kindles and Nooks every day.  If I can be the Best Darn eBook Author I can be, then score!  I would love to be well-known as a best selling eBook author.  Wouldn’t it be awesome to get as well-known as a NY author, but NOT be pubbed in NY?  I think it would be pretty darned sweet.  So that’s my new goal in my writing career–write as many books as I can, reach as many people as I can, and become a Big Name without the springboard of NY.  Anything can happen in five years…

(….so tell your friends and help me make this a reality!  lol….)

And then I had my whole wrist debacle.  UGH.  I still don’t know what’s going on in there.  I think for now, there’s nothing more doctors can do for me.  But it took the entire year to come to that conclusion.  However, I did score surgery on my wrist that helped me tremendously, so it wasn’t a complete failure.  But I can work throughout the day without my brace on 24/7.  That’s a win in my book.

It was a wild ride, 2010.  Up and down, rejections and sales, and too much dang time waiting on doctors to find out what the heck was wrong with me.  Let’s hope 2011 brings all kinds of great tidings!

~~Becka

DH and I were a little “late” doing our Christmas cards this year.  We usually like to get them out by the 15th of December, but this year we were lazy/busy and didn’t get them done in our usual timely manner.  But, since we know friends and family love to have pictures of the kids at least once a year, we knew we had to do them.

My hubby has a nice camera, so we got everything ready and took photos of the kids.  After he put them on an SD card for me, I was on my way to get them processed for our Christmas cards.

I had some grocery shopping to do, as well as some Christmas shopping, and I had to get the photos printed.  This past summer, Walmart just opened a Super Walmart in my neck of the woods.  I love Walmart, and since I could do all three of my errands in one place, I decided to do a one-stop-shop and go to my local Wally’s.

One hour photo was great.  I chose what I wanted and selected my prints.  Did my shopping, got my pictures after an hour and was on my way.  I should have looked at the photos before I left the store.  When I got home, the group shot had the kids’ foreheads chopped.  ACK!!  Are you kidding me?  The pics were perfectly cropped on the SD card, why were they weird in the prints?!

SIGH

This means I have to go back out to Walmart.  And it’s not that close, it’s about 5 miles away.  Okay, well, DH has a prescription to fill and I did want to get some Christmas gifts for the kids while they’re hanging out with Daddy.  So, later that evening, I go back out to Wally’s to get these other errands done — and to have them fix my prints.

Bad idea.  BAAAAD idea.  See, I probably would have gone to Target or Costco to get it done (they’re both closer) BUT, I spent too much $$ on these prints AND I couldn’t find the damn receipt.  *sob*

So I get there, and the lady informs me she can do it in a few minutes.  But while she puts my bad prints aside, someone comes up to the counter with a request to pick up a package at the site-to-store counter, which just so happens to be — wait for it — the one hour photo counter!  Ding ding ding!

So the ONE lady working the one hour photo goes in the back to look for this person’s package.  She’s gone for a good five minutes.  While we’re both waiting, a line begins to form.  The lady comes back, and begins helping all these people in line, who all just happen to be — wait for it — site-to-store customers!  What does that mean?  It means they order something online, and they pick it up at the store.

Apparently, site-to-store trumps reprinting my bitchy prints, because this lady keeps helping everyone in line, supposedly waiting for a break in the insanity.  But none comes.  Person after person is lining up for pick ups at site-to-store, and she disappears time and again for more packages, all the while saying, “I’ll get to you in a moment” or “I’m so sorry, I’ll be right with you.”

LIES, ALL LIES!

After about a 1/2 hour of waiting, I finally just say, I’m going to come back.  She looks relieved, still having a long-ass line to take care of for site-to-store.  I’m rather pissy, because customer service lady told me it would only be maybe 5 minutes to reprint my photos.  So I leave, do my other shopping, and return, only to have the lady tell me she couldn’t print the photos without chopping off the foreheads and she’d have to have her manager do it.  When does the manager come in?

The next day.

I take a deep breath, surpress my inner bitch (because I haven’t eaten yet, and anyone who knows me knows I will bite your head off and chew on your neck if you look at me cross-eyed when I have an empty stomach), and agree to the terms.  ONLY because I have to come back to Walmart the *next* day to pick up another prescription (they didn’t have it in stock) and to return a book I’d bought there previously.  And also because I understood the lady behind the counter wasn’t the brightest light on the tree.

“We’ll call you,” she said.  Lies.  All lies.

So the next day, I decide to call first, and of course, the photos desk doesn’t answer their phone.  I noticed this when the lady had been helping site-to-store the previous evening.  She ignored it.

I’m going in!

I get there, and of course, the prints haven’t yet been reprinted (it’s about 19 hours later, mind), BUT, the manager is IN.  Yay!  She informs me she can include the foreheads, but she’ll have to crop their chests.  UHM…no one effing cares about their chests — DO IT ALREADY!!!

And omg, more site-to-store people.  GO THE EFF AWAY!!!

Boss lady says, “This’ll take 5 minutes, just wait, we’ll be done in a flash.”

Lies.  All lies.

So I’m waiting.  The boss is looking for packages, it seems she’s training a newbie OR this person is a few weeks in, because they had a somewhat deer-in-headlights look about her.  After 10 minutes, boss says, “Sorry, we’ll get to you in a minute”.  After another 15 minutes, she explains, “I’m so sorry, but we had a huge greeting card order to print before I printed yours, and I didn’t know until it came through.”

WHAT?!  So tell me to go shop or something, don’t tell me to stand there and wait because it’ll be “5 minutes”.  But now that I’ve already waited this long, the greeting card order is now finished.  And the boss decides that’s a good time to… leave.  I don’t know where she went, but she left, she might have gone on break, decided to do something else, I don’t know.  But she left my reprints in the hands of deer-in-headlights lady.

I wait another 20 minutes.  And by now I’m right pissed.  With nothing else to do, I take one of their “suggestion box” slips and proceed to write a rant — front and back of the slip — of my saga.  I slammed Walmart for the bad prints for one, for making me wait for two, for lumping site-to-store with one hour photo for three, and telling them I will NEVER order prints from them again OR do the site-to-store option, because I also witnessed THOSE people waiting for 1/2 hour 45 minutes for someone to find their packages in the back.  I told them BOO, VERY BOO, Walmart!!  I even left my phone number.

I will LOVE to talk to someone if they call me.  I doubt they will.

I understand it’s Christmas.  I understand lines will happen.  But my GAWD, Wally, the Customer Service ladies were doing NOTHING at their counter, make THEM do the effing site-to-store!!!  Why does it have to be one hour photo that gets the shaft?!  And if the photo reprints were as easy as chopping a sliver of their chests to get their entire heads, then why didn’t the first lady know how to do that?!

It was an epic FAIL all the way around.  If I were a bitchier lady, I would have been vocal, I would have been ranting — in store — I would have demanded my money back, even though I didn’t have a receipt.  But I’m very non-confrontational, and I do understand when things get busy and hectic.

But I what I expect is some modicum of decorum from ANYONE involved in this debacle to tell me to go shopping — this will take awhile.  Don’t tell me it will be “5 minutes” and then leave for your g’damn lunch break.  Don’t tell me you have everything under control and then proceed to IGNORE me in favor of site-to-store.

Moral of this story folks, because I gotta share this with you so you aren’t stuck in the same FUBARED SNAFU — NEVER get your pictures printed at Walmart, and NEVER do site-to-store.  I told you, Walmart, never again would I utilize you for these two services.  And now, I’ve educated my readers.  Hope you’re pleased with yourself.

~~Becka, who is NOW releasing her inner bitch

Wednesday was the day of my scheduled bone scan.  If you’re not familiar with a bone scan, it’s like the opposite of an x-ray.  Where x-rays send radiation into your body, a bone scan reads the radiation from your body.  How does it do this?  With a radioactive tracer they put in your body, of course!

Yes, I said radioactive.

I’m assuming it’s “safe” or else they wouldn’t do it, right?  Or at least that’s what I thought before I got the injection.  When it came to be time, I was given an IV into a vein in my elbow.  Then the nurse grabs a lead box.  Nestled inside was a yellow syringe, made of special leaded glass, he tells me.  It looks all awesome and old-timey.  Exactly what you’d expect something would look like that held radioactive goo.

“You won’t feel any different,” the nurse says to me.  “Perfectly safe.”  I was more fascinated than scared, to tell you the truth.  He says most people get freaked by the lead box.  Well, I did feel different.  I got a buzzed feeling and it stayed with me all day.  Not too buzzed to drive, maybe more like a foggy feeling.  I couldn’t concentrate, and it was kind of hard to think for awhile.  But the amazing thing was they put your arms on the scanner — it scans you from above and below.  Right after he injected me, I instantly saw dots of radiation on the monitor.

I told him I was surprised it spread so fast and he said, “Yes, once it gets in your blood stream it’s everywhere very quickly — your heart beats 60 times a minute.”

I had pictures taken right then after the injection, of my wrists, my elbows and my shoulders.  My doc had ordered a bilateral upper extremities scan, to compare and contrast the ouchy side from the healthy side, but to also see if there was anything else going on in there.  I had to come back 4 hours later after the radiation had been absorbed into my bones for more pictures of the same. (I know, folks, I don’t like typing that anymore than you probably like reading it. lol)

Anyway, even though I could see the images on the monitor, the nurse explained that I wouldn’t be able to see the finished films that day.  Apparently, they just look like a bunch of dots on a black background until the scans are sent through a special imaging program to read them properly.  He explained it should only take a couple of days to get the results and that I should be hearing from my doctor in two days (that would be today).  I haven’t heard anything yet, but Fridays are my doctor’s surgery days, so I don’t know if I’ll actually hear anything.  He did say he’d call me personally though, so I’ve got my fingers crossed.

And hopefully, I’ll be able to see these scans at some point.  I’m fascinated by it all.  I’m actually praying they DID find something of interest in there, because if not, my doc said there’s not much more he can do for me since the MRI I got didn’t show any other tissue anomalies, and my x-rays were clear, and if this bone scan is clear, then… Not much more he can do.

That’s going to suck if he says that to me.  I don’t have serious pain, I have full range of motion, but it’s stiff in there, and if I press on my hamate bone, that’s when it starts to hurt.  If I do too many strenuous things, it hurts.  And sometimes it just hurts for no reason.  That’s why I wonder if I fractured my hook of hamate — that non-union fracture can’t be seen on normal x-ray films and it seems to have the very same symptoms I’m having.  Treatment is extraction of the hook via surgery.  Of course I won’t know until later today if that’s what’s going on if/when the doctor calls.  So I’ll let you know what he says after I talk with him.

~~Becka

Where?  Back to Yahoo!

If you’d like to come yak with me and my readers, please come and join me in the new and improved The Magic of Romance Yahoo Group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themagicofromance

Google’s deleting their files and pages section, as well as their custom welcome messages, essentially trimming their groups to nothing more than a mailing list.  Since I want more customization, a move back to Yahoo was the right thing to do.  Now, we can post in the files section, have photo albums, hold polls, and mark appearances on our calendar – with reminder emails to the whole group! 

Come and play with me, my readers, and my fellow author friends on my new shiny author loop!

~~Becka

Don’t forget, October 4th – 8th, B3 will be held on this website with guest blogs, my author loop with excerpts and contests, Facebook with fun and games, and Twitter for fun facts and tomfoolery (love that word!)

The list of authors just keeps growing!  Here’s your list of participating awesomeness:

Rebecca Goings

Donica Covey

Ashley Barnard

Evie Balos

Misty Evans

Jinger Jackson

Michael Davis

Cindy Green

Allison Knight

Christine Bell

Mary Eason

D. Renee Bagby

Julie Eberhart Painter

Scarlett Parrish

Lauren Gallagher/L.A. Witt

Here are the links you need:

http://www.RebeccaGoings.com
http://www.twitter.com/rebeccagoings
http://www.twitter.com/beckasboys
http://groups.google.com/group/themagicofromance
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Beckas-Birthday-Bash/162012010482786

Authors!  There is still time to sign up!  Email me at rebeccagoings AT gmail DOT com for this FREE PROMO event.  This is going to be so much FUN!  I know I’m giving away LOADS of books and prizes.  I can only IMAGINE what my fellow authors are going to do…

Readers!  Don’t miss this!  Free excerpts, free stuff!  Free FUN!

See you next week!

~~Becka

For those not in the know, I recently attended PAX Prime in September on Labor Day weekend.  PAX is short for Penny Arcade Expo.  It is a con for gamers, to come on down and see the new shiny games, the up and coming games, including video games, roleplaying games, and board games.

A similar con is E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is only for the media.  Gabe and Tyco, the creators of a webcomic known as Penny Arcade asked themselves why there wasn’t a gaming con for *gasp* GAMERS!!  So, they invented one and it’s taken off.

The con in Seattle is called PAX Prime, because they had gotten so big and popular, they recently added a second con, PAX East, in Boston.  PAX Prime is Sept. in Seattle.  PAX East is in March.  If you’re really hardcore, you can go to PAX every six months.

Anyway, here are my experiences.  Let’s start with Day 1.  DH and I had bought two matching shirts off of Think Geek, The Wesley Crushers.  Not only does it celebrate Wil Wheaton, but also the Big Bang Theory from whence it came.  We wore our shirts this day, and didn’t see any other geeks wearing THIS shirt.  Not for the entire con.  I can’t say for certain no one else had this shirt, but I sure as heck didn’t see them.

Wil was signing every day at the con, so we decided to get all our sigs this first day.  We’d printed out some pics for them to sign for our home theater.

Here’s a shitty pic of Wil.  I took it with my iPhone, and he was backlit by huge windows, so cut me some slack.  LOL  But I got his signature, by golly!  I’ll show you in a minute.  Before we met Wil, we met Paul and Storm, a kick-ass comedy singing duo.

We have loved Paul and Storm for awhile now.  Some of my fans may remember me tweeting or crowing about W00tstock, another geek event here in Portland’s Aladdin theater.  P&S were there as well.  We will see them EVERY time they are in town.  More story on P&S to come…

Okay, so aside from Wil, probably the most famous celeb there was Jonathan Coulton, more affectionately known as JoCo by his fans.  Met him too.    He has some songs on Rock Band, and also on the video game Portal (if you’ve played it).  His famous songs include “Still Alive” (from Portal), “RE: Your Brains” (an epic Zombie song), and “First of May” (a NSFW anthem about how to celebrate spring. LOL)  Also, MC Frontalot was there, a white rapper like Eminem, however, he raps “Nerdcore” lol.  Awesome rap about nerdy stuff.  Very clever Weird Al-type lyrics.

All of these people were signing in the same area.  I didn’t have anything cool for them to sign – except for my symbol of superfluous geekery: my iPad.  How epic is that?  Check it, I’ve got Wil, JoCo, Paul and Storm, and MC Frontalot on this bad boy.  If it ever crashes and burns, I am NOT taking advantage of the warranty.  LOL  It will be a permanent fixture in our home theater, probably. (Or when 2.0 is released. Heh)

We also got Molly Lewis‘s signature, but DH got it on his printed pics, I didn’t get her to sign my iPad.

The day got better.  Paul and Storm tweeted they were doing a short video project and who would like to participate?  Since DH and I are rabid fans, we showed up, along with about 60 0ther people.  It took about an hour and a half, but we lined up outside the expo hall, not really knowing what was going on.  The concept: Paul, at the expo hall, calls Storm, in their hotel room, and asks him for a bottle of water.  Storm then proceeds to hand the water off to a geek, who hands it to another geek, like a huge water bottle relay.  The hotel was TWO BLOCKS away from the expo hall.  They had enough geeks to pass the bottle from the hotel to the convention center in ONE take.  DH and I are along with the geeks lined up against the outer wall of the Sheraton, the ones in the only yellow “Wesley Crushers” shirts.  They have NOT posted this video yet to their You Tube channel, but they said it will be coming, so I’ll definitely shout out when it’s finished.  Because both P&S are in it, along with Wil Wheaton!  I was so jazzed to be a part of that, no matter how small.

Okay.  DAY 2.

Pretty much the highlight of this day was the concert at the end.  MC Frontalot, P&S, and JoCo all on one night.  It was held at the Benaroya Hall in Seattle.  Here’s what the stage looked like.  So pretty:

So, Paul and Storm are a comedy singing duo.  One of their famous songs is “Opening Band”, and one of the lines is – “And, sad to say, as of today, no panties have been thrown.”  Well, it’s “tradition” to throw panties at them.  LOL  You don’t know this unless you’re a FAN.  Myself and two of my friends had panties to throw.  I made sure mine were different than the thongs and lacy bits I knew would be thrown.  I found a cute pair of Hello Kitty panties at the local Ross store and chucked those.  Out of all the panties they had thrown at them, Paul picked up MY panties and said in a sing-song voice, “Hello, Kitty!”    I was asploding like I’d just won The Price is Right. LOL

JoCo sang some cool new songs for us, this time with an electric guitar and a BAND.  That was odd but I liked it, even if my friends were all emo about it.  Heh

Sunday was gaming day.  They have lots of empty rooms set up with long tables for the geeks to get their board gaming on.  You go into the game room, give them your ID, and you can rent any game they have on the tables.  The dudes played Tomb, Castle Ravenloft, Zombie Dice, Cthulu Dice & Nertz.  We brought our own playing cards for the Nertz, but we ended up buying all the games we played, except for Tomb, probably because they played it at the end of the con on Sunday, with no time (or money) left to buy it.  LOL

All in all, great times all around.  I have a few blisters, but I have great memories.  Here are some pics of things I found interesting around PAX:

Two dudes in costume cosplaying in the middle of the aisle in the Expo Hall.  Too awesome not to take a pic.

Fuzzy pic of the cutest Dalek ever!  She was holding a plunger and a wire whisk.  Awesome.  And yes, her head lamps lit up. 

Found at the Dungeons & Dragons bus a couple blocks from the convention center.  This is a beholder, perhaps one of the most recognized villains in D&D.

Of course they also had giant dice in the parking lot as well.  This is a d20.  They also had a d8 and a d4.  Awesome.  Geeks were actually rolling this.  One of them rolled a one.  Sucks to be that guy.  LOL

Awesome statue on the Expo Hall floor right in front of the LotR Online game display.  Obviously, it’s a ring wraith.

Cool new game for the Wii I’m looking forward to getting for my kids.  At this display, they had two real Disney cartoonists drawing your picture with a Disney character from the game.  Didn’t get one of those because the line in and of itself, was epic.  But the game looks good.  Mickey paints his way through a magical world and can jump into every cartoon he’s ever been in, apparently, which you can then play around in.

Sooo much stuff happened, I couldn’t possibly blog it all.  But I had a BLAST.  Next year, PAX is on a different weekend than Dragon*con.  Too many geeks complaining about having to choose, perhaps?  And I was a tad bitter the big name celebs went to Dragon*con.  Then again, only hardcore gamers go to PAX.  Dragon*con is more for anything fantasy/sci-fi, even TV shows.  Perhaps we’ll go there next year. 

Thank you to one and all, and to the beautiful city of Seattle, that made PAX 2010 possible!

~~Becka

There is so much I want to blog about, but I thought I should start with this.  I’ve been MIA recently because my father had a stroke.  He had an inoperable intracerebral hemorrhage deep in his basal ganglia. It was touch and go there for a while, and scared the bejesus out of my sister and myself.  However, he is doing much better now.  He is actually moving from the hospital to a rehab center possibly today or tomorrow.

He’s got a long road to recovery, but he’s in good spirits.  This type of stroke doesn’t kill brain cells, it merely suppresses them from the pressure of the bleed.  But once the blood in his brain is reabsorbed by his body, those cells can regain their function.  He currently has a very weak right arm and the right side of his face doesn’t work very well.  It’s hard for him to talk, so not only does he have physical therapists, he has a speech therapist and occupational therapist as well.  Whew!

I just visited him yesterday, and he was doing much better from when I saw him last on the 1st.  It will take time and he’ll never be back to 100%, but he’ll get some range of motion back.

As you can imagine, I’ve been frantically dealing with everything, from taking care of my dad to juggling the kids and my own family life with DH.  I came home early last week thinking he was on the mend only to turn around two hours later on the same day and race back down to Salem (an hour drive) because he’d taken a turn for the worse.  But thankfully, they were able to stabilize him and he’s much better now.  They are still very aggressive about keeping his blood pressure down as well as his blood sugar.  It’s been quite the roller-coaster.

But I’m very hopeful now, as he’s going into rehab.  He’s no longer at risk for a second stroke, he just needs some therapy to bounce back.

Aside from all that hoopla, I got my second edits for THE FALL OF JERICHO and it’s release date: July 23rd.  Woohoo!  Only thing I don’t have yet is the cover.

However, I DO have the cover for BLACK ANGEL, but I’ll post that in a new post.  It’s glorious!

I’m also about 80 pages away from finishing THE FALCON PRINCE!  I’m so excited.  The Falcon was the one prince I didn’t have a solid plot for, but he’s given me a great story to work with and a way to set up the Spider Prince’s book, which I’m also very anxious to write.  But I was the same way with the Scarab Prince.  Speaking of, I haven’t heard word about my submission on TSP, but my publisher is very busy herself with Canada Day and Independence Day and new releases and just one thing after another.  Patience is a virtue!  But it’s sure not fun!! 

Anyway, that’s my latest.  I’ll post my new cover.  But I wanted to keep everyone up to speed.  I’m back home now, finally, and through the craziness surrounding my dad, DH and I are in the middle of a remodel of our home theater, not to mention DH’s best friend and his son are coming to stay with us tomorrow to attend the wedding of another friend this Saturday.

GACK!  It’s batshit insane these days!  LOL

~~Becka

After a long and harrowing adventure a year in the making, THE FALL OF JERICHO has finally found a home.  I am delighted to announce this book has been bought by Cobblestone Press!

I wrote this story originally for the Harlequin Historicals Undone line, and after six LONG months, they R’d it.  Then, Carina and Samhain R’d it too.  :’(  Hmm.  It’s really not a horrible book, I promise you!  I was told a six month wait time is a long time for HQ Undone to get back to you so I was on pins and needles.  But with their rejection, they sent me a nice letter of plot points that didn’t work for them, another “rarity” supposedly with these short stories.

So close and yet so far!  **sobs into beer**

But being the intrepid eBook author I am, I spiced it up some and handed it to Cobblestone with shaking hands.  It had been R’d three times.  Gack, by the fourth time, you’re ready to throw it in the trash and start over, you know?  Thoughts of “Hmm… Maybe I should offer this as a free read since no one wants to publish this dreck?”

BUT, there wasn’t a fourth rejection.  Cobblestone really enjoyed the story, and I must say, I’m very happy/joyous/relieved they did.  Why?  Well, I finished JERICHO in June of ’09.  Here it is, one year later, and the ink isn’t even dry on my contract.  I suppose I’m spoiled by the fast pace of ePublishing, as one year to get a contract is quite the long haul for us eAuthors.  But I’m also relieved because this story proves that A.) not every house will love every story  B.) Even if you’ve been around the block, you’re never guaranteed a sale and C.) THE FALL OF JERICHO isn’t dreck!  YAY!

So to that end, I will leave you all with my blurb.  I’m hoping to see this story published in the coming months.

Author hopefuls, may this be a lesson to you.  Never give up, never surrender!  Your Plan D might just be the ticket. 

~*~*~

The walls around his heart come crashing down…

Mercy Ainsworth never stopped loving Jericho James after he’d left town. She’d once pledged her virtue to him after a stolen kiss. Now that he’s returned, one look is all it takes to convince her he’s still the reason the sun rises and sets.

After the death of his sister, Jericho became a hardened bounty hunter. When he travels back home, danger follows him, and the girl he once loved is now a woman who desperately needs his help.

Sparks fly as old embers are fanned into roaring flames, but will love alone keep Jericho by Mercy’s side?

~*~*~

Yup, another Western.  Expect anything less??  \:D/

~~Becka