Blog Spooktacular!

The Spooktacular blog tour continues here! Come on in, grab a cookie, and join the party! I'm honored to be part of the Shifters blog tour. My latest release has a shapeshifting Native American spirit.

I never thought I'd ever write a paranormal but for me adding spirits to a Native American story seemed natural and seamless. Less of a paranormal and more the norm.

If you're a paranormal reader what is your favorite type of paranormal creature? If you're not a paranormal reader what is your favorite genre to read?

Like I said I never thought I'd write something with a paranormal twist. The abominable snowman on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer scared me as a child. I can't watch commercials for horror movies. I have to close my eyes and ignore what I hear. I've always been a scaredy cat. I don’t care for vampire or werewolf books or movies. I have read a few books with good witches and some ghosts that I like and could believe.

Do you like the movie Casper? I loved the cartoon as a kid and like the movie. There's something about a friendly ghost- Like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Anyone remember that TV show? My brothers watched the Munsters and the Adams Family. While being a little creepy, they were too klutzy to make me hide my eyes.

But I've always loved Halloween. A night when I could get dressed up and be anything I wanted to be. I only wanted to go trick or treating to get to wear some costume I'd put together for the occasion. When I married, we had many Halloween parties at our house and always helped out with the Fall Carnival at the grade school which fell during Halloween. I dressed up and helped with games. Back then, my husband had a moving floor semi-trailer. We'd fix it up like a haunted house and send kids through, making the floor move and having scary things along the way. And I could set the thing up, go through it in the daylight, but come dark… I couldn't go through--you guessed it--it scared me! I admit. I’m a light-weight when it comes to being scared. I've even had to stop reading some murder mysteries the bad guy was so well portrayed. I barely finished Brenda Novak's White Heat last week because it was getting too intense for me. That's being a big baby!!

I'm attaching my No Fail Soft Sugar Cookie Recipe. These cookies are always light and fluffy no matter how thin you roll them and they taste Yummy!
Cream together ½ Cup Margarine or Butter and 1 Cup sugar. Add 1 egg, 1 ½ tsp vanilla, and ½ cup sour cream. Mix well and add; 3 ¼ cups flour, 1 tsp. soda, and ½ tsp salt. Mix well.
On a floured board, roll out a third of the dough to a 1/4 inch thick use cookie cutters to cut out. Bake at 375° for 5-8 minutes. They shouldn't be brown. Frost with either a buttercream or powder sugar icing. Enjoy! Aprox. 4 doz. depending on the size of the shapes you make.

The next stop on this blog tour is Simone Eden. Hop on over there and see what goodies you can find on her blog. To catch all the blogs on this tour visit Marie Beau the first blog on the tour.

Leave a comment and your name could be drawn for your choice of one of my books. I'll pick a winner on Halloween Night!

Happy Haunting!!

Paty

Monday Mullligan Stew

Back from Emerald City Conference. As always an inspiring conference! Rode up and back and roomed with the lovely Julia Drey. The drive didn't seem so long chatting all the way, but we both were hoarse when we arrived back at my house last night at nine. LOL

I met new people and reconnected with old friends. Sat in on two wonderful workshops on promoting/publicity, met the infamous Barbara Vey of Publisher's Weekly. She was wealth of information and friendly. I was sorry we left before her speech on Sunday.

There was a hilarious uplifting speech by Alyssa Day on Friday night, and an inspiring speech by the wonderful Brenda Novak on Saturday.

Saturday night I had dinner with a dozen Wild Rose Press authors attending the conference. It's fun to put faces to names I see on the WRP author loop.

I had a good time visiting with Christy Karras my table buddy at the book signing and attending her workshop on how to talk to the Press.

My workshop on Sunday went well. I was surprised to see about twenty people for 8 am on a Sunday morning. I guess my lure of homemade scones worked!

I had appointments with three agents and one editor. Two of the agents asked for partials of the contemporary action adventure I just finished.

I'm tired and have a million things banging around in my head, but I'm also inspired and challenged from my conference.

Have you ever attended a conference(for anything, work, fun) that you went home from exhausted but exhilarated?

Wednesday Promo- Brenda Novak

Today, I'm happy to Welcome New York Times best selling suspense author Brenda Novak. Brenda and I became acquaintances through her annual online auction for juvenile diabetes.

Bio:

New York Times Bestselling Author Brenda Novak has three novels coming out this summer-THE PERFECT COUPLE, THE PERFECT LIAR and THE PERFECT MURDER, all part of her popular Last Stand Series. She also runs an annual on-line auction for diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com. To date, she's raised over $770,000. Brenda considers herself lucky to be a mother of five and married to the love of her life.

What lured you to writing suspense?
I'm fascinated by the criminal mind. If you think about it, so much of that kind of behavior is illogical because it's also self-defeating. And yet we still have people doing terrible things to others. The motivations behind these actions overcome all prohibitors. It provides a puzzle for me that I will probably never solve. LOL

What is the hardest part of writing a suspense novel? Plotting, making realistic characters, or just the writing?
The hardest part of writing is trusting your intuition. This trust is a learned process. It takes time and practice. And I don't think you ever get "perfect" enough at it that you don't have to occasionally go back and rewrite and restructure. It is nice to know, however, that our subconscious mind seems to be ahead of our conscious mind in whatever it is we're trying to create. If we can free ourselves from our internal editor long enough to trust our intuition, it really helps the pages fly.

How long does it take you to research for a book? Does the research and gathering of information get easier over the years since you can fall back on some of what you've already gleaned for an earlier book? It's tough to give an estimate on research time because every book is different, and I don't set aside a specific amount of time for this. I do some preliminary reading to get the creative juices flowing, and then I research various points as they come up in the novel. I'd say that it gets easier as you go along, because your vault of knowledge grows, but there are always things that change or are very specific and need to be double-checked.


Blurb for The Perfect Couple:

A mother faces her greatest fear...

One afternoon in May, Zoe Duncan's thirteen-year-old daughter goes missing from her own backyard. The police think Samantha ran away because she's unhappy about her mother's upcoming marriage--but Zoe doesn't believe it. In fact, she's willing to do anything to bring Sam home, even if it means losing her job, her beautiful home, her fiance. Even if it means divulging all her secrets to a private investigator.

A detective faces his hardest case...

Jonathan Stivers is a P.I. who donates his time to The Last Stand, a victims' charity in Sacramento. He's good at what he does, the best. But never has he had fewer leads to work with--or been more attracted to a client. Jonathan's sure of only one thing: Sam was taken by someone close to the family. He doesn't know how close until he realizes that the "perfect" couple next door is anything but...

Friday Faves!

May 1st! Big things happening today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILD ROSE PRESS!!! It is the third birthday of my publisher, The Wild Rose Press. In honor of the occasion all the lines are blogging all day at Behind the Garden Gate. They are giving away a book an hour to people who comment. So head on over leave a comment and you could be chosen to win a book!

Today is the start of Brenda Novak's online Auction for Juvenile Diabetes. Hop over there and start bidding on items. Not only can you nab some good stuff, but if you are the person who places the most bids (you don't have to have the winning bid, just bid the most) you will receive a new HP computer from Brenda. And don't forget, I have a barbwire wreath on the list of donated items. I'd love for it to make at least $100 for the cause. And if you have the winning bid and prove to me you have read one of my books- I'll throw in something special along with the wreath.

Friday Faves

I now have my book signing junket for the summer complete. Not as impressive as a NYT best selling author but it works for me! Miner in Petticoats comes out June 12th. I have a signing in Bend at Camalli Books on June 26th and the next day I'll be at a signing/book fair in West Linn. Then in July I'll be two days at the Miner's Jubilee in Baker City. It doesn't look like much, but in between I have weddings to go to, and eight day junkets of irrigating in Princeton and judging at county fairs. If this summer whizzes by and I ask, "Where did it go?" You'll know why!

May 1st is the start of the Brenda Novak online Auction for Juvenile Diabetes. Be sure to sign up as a bidder and hunt down some good stuff. It's for a good cause and If you hunt around you just might find a barb wire wreath made by moi and up for auction.

I picked up my booster antennae for my internet at Princeton. If there is a post on Monday, you'll know it works.

Sunshine all week! I have been loving the sunshine and warmer weather. I mowed the lawn and watered the flowerbeds. The daffodil's perky yellow faces are wonderful to see when I drive up to the house. There's something about a flower in bloom that lightens the heart.

What was a fave of yours this week?

Friday Faves

Another week has gone by! Wow! Before I know it, it will be 2010!

Again this year, I've donated an item to the Brenda Novak online auction for Juvenile Diabetes. The auction is in May you can go to the site and check out all the great stuff that has been donated. My donation is the barb wire wreath you see here. We don't have a child in our family with diabetes, but I had the fortune to watch a young girl grow into a wonderful young lady through my 4-H work. She struggled with the disease. Some of the things her mom told me about the struggles has me very aware of the need for funds to combat the disease.

Good news! My Characters of the West presentation was picked for the Emerald City conference in Seattle WA in October. I love this conference. It was the first one I went to when I joined RWA. This is the presentation I gave last summer on the historical day at Nationals.

And along that line, my daughter, the clothing designer, sent off wedding gown designs to a company in Canada that is going nationwide with a new magazine and they picked one of her designs and want to feature it in the first magazine. To say she is over the moon is not an exaggeration. I couldn't be prouder! She's worked hard to work her way up the ladder.

Oh, and another fave this week- is CP's that come through in a crunch. You ladies know who you are and I appreciate your feedback when I throw something at you out of the blue and ask for input.

That's if for the faves today.

How did your week go?