Sometimes I worry about myself.

My car has been acting funky. Just the other day it wouldn’t start for no damn reason. Then don’t you know it started right up for My Honey later when he came home. Nothing pisses me off more than that. I’m pretty good with car diagnostics and I hate looking like a fool.

That being said, after a long and soul crushing day at Bank of No Forks, I hopped in my car. I have the satellite radio turned to the Christmas channel. I was in a better mood leaving work than I was when I got there in the morning, so I turned down the radio and called my mom. I’d been pretty awful to her earlier in the day.

Let me remind you, I was in an absolutely WRETCHED mood. It was Monday morning, Bank of No Forks SUCKS, and there was another guy from corporate there today so we couldn’t bring the cat. Ava describes our attitude as “painted with hate.” Don’t we sound like model employees? We’re really quite fun to work with, I assure you.

Anyway, my mom called this morning to ask me – gasp – what I wanted for Christmas. The conversation deteriorated from there when I accused her of ignoring our Words With Friends game. And then I hung up on her. I’m an awful ungrateful child. She called right back and asked, “Did you hang up on me?” I told her, “all of a sudden you were just gone.”

I don’t deserve presents.

SO, I called my mom back as I was leaving the dark parking lot and remember I turned down the radio down a bit so I could hear the phone.

While I was waiting for the phone to ring, I kept hearing one of the warning bells that usually accompanies a warning light on the dash board – only no lights were coming on. Ding! It would do it again and yet no damn light would come on. **Ding** What the hell? Great now the **Ding**  stupid lights aren’t even coming on to tell me what’s **Ding** wrong. God Damn it. **Ding**

Then I realized it was a bell on the stupid Christmas carol on the radio.

What a maroon!

PS – I’m very sorry Mommy. I do want a present.

I have a cover. I have a cover! A COVER!!!

The lovely and talented Jaycee DeLorenzo of Sweet & Spicy Designs did an outstanding job of making my vision come true.

This makes it feel like the book really is coming out. For real.

Tell me what you think….

Once Ava got to work today, she realized that she had an after hours work-function she’d totally forgotten about. She didn’t feel that she’d dressed up sufficiently, that her make-up wasn’t fancy enough, and her hair was too bleh. We were also the only ones at work today so we were handling everything thus there wasn’t enough time to run to the mall to do anything about it.

After lunch she came to my office to see what make-up I had in my purse. “That purse weighs 90 pounds. Surely you have a black eyeliner in there.”

“Nope.” I don’t wear much makeup. In fact, on a day to day basis I think Ava has on more than me.

“I don’t believe you. There has to be some in there.”

To prove I didn’t have black eyeliner on me, we dumped my purse out on my desk and took inventory.

• There was one fat wallet – not full of money, I assure you.
• 2 brown bobby pins – one she prompty lost in the carpet
• 1 very wee safety pin – completely useless unless you need to pin butterfly wings together or something
• 1 very, very small bandaid
• A checkbook – fairly useless, but still I cling to ancient technology
• 1 stolen pen
• 3 different thumb drives. I have no idea what is on two of them.
• 1 Susan Elizabeth Phillips paperback book – Hot Shot – with a used envelope as a book mark.
• An empty cell phone case with a pink cupcake on it. It’s adorable but mostly useless and I can’t bring myself to throw it away.
• a mostly empty lotion bottle. You have to bang the crap out of it in order to get any to squirt out. Why don’t I throw it away? I have no idea.
• Wicked Evil Apple Mints tin substituting as a Quill Sister business card holder
• A leather holder with gift cards I will never use.
• A White Out tape
• Uber cheap, mega scratched sunglasses
• a package of hair ties. I have to hide them if I want one to put up a ponytail. Sassy wears them by the dozens as colorful bracelets.
• two packages of gum
• Car/house keys – note they are in my purse, not locked in the car
• Dental floss – in case I need to facilitate a prison break
• a pretty stamped-tin I got at the Unicef store that holds Excedrin Migraine and RelPax – in case a headache threatens
• several nail files in various levels of decay
• miscellaneous business cards for editors and such I collected at the national convention. I threw most of them away.
• 2 house keys I had made that don’t work. I haven’t figured out what to do with them yet. I can’t bring myself to throw them away because they are red and have ladybugs printed on them.
• A wee notebook for jotting things down.
• Book notes and plot map for a current Work In Progress
• 3 lip glosses (Ava made me throw one away), pressed powder, 2 different concealers (in case I need to conceal a volcano on my chin) a mostly gone lipstick in my favorite shade (which I haven’t worn in at least 2 years), lip balm, and a sample of Ralph Lauren perfume.

Do you notice a conspicuous lack of black eyeliner? I suggested she race over to Target and I’d cover the phones. No – she didn’t want to do that. Mostly she wanted to whine that I didn’t have an eyeliner. She took the little handful of stuff I did have and disappeared.

Guess what she did. Guess. You’ll never guess. Never in a million years.

I swear to Zeus and Apollo and Hera above that she stole the black Sharpie from my desk and used it as an eyeliner.

“I used it as a mascara, too,” she proudly told me when I stared at her open mouthed.

I swear I can not make this shit up.

Ava defends herself –

I’m not totally reckless, I drew on my leg with the Sharpie to make sure I wasn’t allergic to it before I put it on my eyes.  Did you all notice how Amy tried to avoid the blame for this?  Her purse weighs 19 lbs.  How, in the name of all that’s holy, was there not an eyeliner in there??  How?

Our friend Alica Mckenna Johnson – the author of the charming blog, Comic Con Queen Trapped on Planet Zero – tagged us in the Next Big Thing blog hop. The point of which is to tell readers about your latest work in progress or what you have coming up next, and to introduce you to other writers your favorite blogger knows and loves.

It’s gonna be fun. You’ll see.

1- What is the working title of your book? – Lady Belling’s Secret.

2- Where did the idea for the book come from? Ah, well, I’d been reading devouring the Julia Quinn catalog and thought, hey, I can write one of those. Besides, I was tired of never finishing anything. Or being excited about anything I’d written. THIS I’m super excited about. It’s also notable that it’s the first of a trilogy (there may be a fourth book. We’ll see) Book 2, Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret, will come out in the beginning of 2013. The third, The Duke of Morewether’s Secret, is coming along nicely.

3- What genre does your book fall under? Technically it’s historical romance but I call it Regency Romantic Comedy.

4- Which actors would you choose to play your characters in the movie rendition: Oh, this is so easy. Isla Fisher as Francesca. Carter Oosterhouse as Thomas. Gabriel Aubry (before the beat down) as Lord Dalton.

4- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? The first draft was eleven months. I started it on Halloween  and decided it was done in September the following year. I was a complete idiot. This book has been torn apart and  completely rewritten no less than three times. Besides the character’s names and the Happily Ever After, this final product has very little resemblance to the original work.

5- What other books would you compare your story too within this genre? If you like Julia Quinn or Celeste Bradley you’ll like mine. Remember – comedy, romance, comedy.

6- Who or what inspired you to write this book? I’d like to throw my Sister Ava under this bus but really, the blame can be leveled on Julia Quinn.

7- What else about your book might pique the readers interest? I have a Pinterest Board dedicated to the book. Follow the jump.

Here’s the blurb from the back of my book 

Francesca Bellings is torn between two worlds—her past infatuation with her brother’s best friend and her future obligations. She never intended to end up in the bed of her longtime crush, Thomas Wallingham, but that’s exactly where she finds herself.

Unfortunately, mail is slow during a war. She thought he knew everything. He had never suspected.

Thomas has always wanted to be a part of the Bellings family but he was too foolish to grab the chance when she threw herself at him before. Instead, he ran off to war.  Emboldened by his new-found appreciation for a grown-up Francesca, he finds that dream is within his reach.

If she thinks he’s running away this time, she has no idea what she’s in for.

In order to pay it forward, here are some of the authors we know and love. Check out what they’re working on. You won’t be sorry.

Jaycee Delorenzo

Ed Hoornaert

Cynthia Garner

Tara Simone

Vicky Loebel – Vicky’s book is free through 11/29. It’s fabulously sarcastic. You know how I love sarcasm.

Sassy and The Bandit had dentist appointments today.  The appointments were actually made because The Bandit chipped a tooth. Yes a permanent tooth. Sigh. When I got home from work last week and saw the damage, I just shook my head.

“Dude, you’ve only had that tooth, like, a year. Is that how you take care of your stuff?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. I get that look a lot.

“Really,” I continued, “You’re going to need that tooth for, like, 90 more years.”

I went in to the appointment with The Bandit cause he was quite nervous. Also, I wanted to be sure the dentist was properly stern about his appalling brushing habits.

With an absolutely straight face he told the dental hygienist that he brushed his teeth three times a day and ALWAYS flossed.

I fell off of the rolling doctor stool I’d appropriated.

Fortunately, she wasn’t falling for it. She pulled out the tooth polish and commenced to explain the procedure.

“What flavor is that?” he demanded.

“Vanilla.”

He looked skeptical. “Are you one hundred percent sure it’s not mint. I really hate mint.”

“It’s not mint,” she assured him and kept her smile hidden behind her face mask.

He stared at her a good long time before he consented to open his mouth and allow her entry to clean his teeth. She tossed me a look across the room that said, “Dear God. Is he always like this?” I closed my eyes and nodded, because, yes, he is always like that.

Once she started cleaning, the boy got a bad case of Wandering Butt Syndrome. You know how that works. He started at the top of the dental chair and shrunk and slithered until he was half way down the chair.

“Sit up, please,” she said.

Up to the top of the chair then wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, he was half way down the chair again. Rinse, suck-y tube, repeat.

At the end of the appointment, he got a nifty toothbrush with a suction cup on the bottom. I’ve already found it stuck to various inappropriate places in the bathroom.

I really love Simon’s Cat.

Ava called, all concerned. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“It’s Saturday,” she told me.

“Alright.” I drew the word out really long like you do when everything is not, in fact, alright.

“You never wrote the Five Things,” she told me.

OH. HOLY. CRAP. What day is it again?

Needless to say, I got all confused with leaving Bank of No Forks early on Wednesday then having Thursday and Friday off. I was horrified that I’d forgotten a day. I ALWAYS post. It kinda drives Ava crazy because I’ll pester her and pester her if I don’t have a topic. And then to just completely blow off a day!? Shocking.

Then I said, screw it. You people will all be OK, right?

Whew. I worried about it there for a minute.