It turns out that I have several fans. Hey, now stop that.  Be nice.  I can have fans if I want to without you people accusing me of being delusional.  Anyway, my first fan is home from a looooong trip.  You may have heard about it from Ava.  I am of the understanding that the lizard still lives even though Isabella thinks it has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Ava poking it with a stick three times a day to make sure it’s still alive.  Anyway, welcome home, brother!  Our Sister missed you – not as much as the dog, but still, quite a bit.

I have stopped and started this blog entry three times.  I can’t think of anything to say, and let me tell you that is weird.  I always have something to say, some smart alec witticism or observation.  I guess I could tell you all the things I have done this evening to avoid more revisions of It’s Clearly Love.  I honestly think that the revisions are sucking my soul dry.   So this is what I did instead.  I’m currently watching Ghostbusters on TV – it’s still just as funny as the last time I saw it.  I have gotten on the floor and wrestled with the dog until I was concerned he might be going rabid.  I ate seven mini, white powdered donuts all the while berating myself for my deplorable lack of control.  At least I did all that high intensity wrestling huh?  I gave the short people a bath and put their whiney little butts to bed.  I finished a chapter in an completely unrelated book I’m writing.  I am very excited about this new project.  It’s just a slight diversion from It’s Clearly Love and its sequel.  This one is a pirate story with a certain catagory publisher in mind.  I’ve been wanting to write a pirate story for some time so it’s really fun.  I just sank a ship and sent the heroine drifting off to sea in a tiny life boat.  I sure hope our pirate hero finds her in time!  I gotta tell you, it’s really fun playing God.

Over here at Amylynn Central, there is a frustrated writer in the house.  I have a desk in a beautiful office that a certain contractor we know built for us where once we had a patio.  I spent a great deal of time choosing wall colors and finding a desk.  I sent my poor husband all over hell and gone searching for a certain bookcase I saw online.  I have decorated my side of the room and it is very representational of me: there are old Hollywood autographs, and Buddha and Ganesha and Quan Yin for a calming influence and good luck, a little Bruce Springsteen for poetic inspiration, and tons of my beloved research.  I have my “W” on the wall (if you don’t know what that is you need to follow the link to the right).  My chair is comfortable and properly squishy.  There is good light and the air conditioning keeps the room nice and cool.  It’s a great room for writing.  Why don’t I use it?  Why instead do I have all my stuff crammed on the end table in the living room, the laptop balancing precariously on stacks of papers and books?  Why do I do all my writing sitting sideways in a giant chair in the living room rather than in the beautiful office?  Really, tell me.  This is not a rhetorical question.  I can’t figure it out.  My husband gets a ton of work done in the office.  He’s a musician so his side of the room has a completely different vibe than my side.  His walls are  lined with guitars of all description and stacks of amplifiers and speakers , recording gear and musical stuff.  Even a digeridoo.  Instead, I constantly complain that kids won’t leave my stuff alone.  Although, it’s true they don’t leave my desk alone either.  Is it because I’m afraid my husband will pester me?  That he’ll distract me?  I don’t know.  I think writing in the living room with the TV on is really just another way to distract myself from the work that needs to be done.  Like solitare on the computer isn’t enough.

The Quills attended the meeting of our local chapter of Romance Writers of America, Saguaro Romance Writers.  It is a great group and we always, without fail, come back from the meeting with renewed vigor and a wealth of new ideas.  My friends, I will tell you, that this is a phenomenal group and I suggest that you join a good writing group.  But the key of course is to find a good group.  Unfortunately, the Quills have not always been so lucky.  I have known other groups that exhibited jealousy and mean spiritedness under the guise of critique.  Our current group however is wholy supportive and wonderful.  I am so pleased to be involved with them.  We had two speakers this week, both successful published authors, and they inspired the Sisters so much.  There has been a flurry of activity here at our various compounds as we research these new possibilities.  Hang tight, dear Readers, there is a little curve in the road.  It’s  not a bump but, rather a detour that might end up being the fastest road to our destination.  Nothing more exciting than vigorously working Quills.  Can you smell the ink from there?

Oh you romance writers out there, I am so gratified to relate some very exciting news information that I’ve come across.  According to the New York Times, romance is the only genre of books not declining in popularity.  In fact, according to Harlequin, it is up 7% from the last four years.  And further proof that it’s our time, Nielsen Bookscan, the people who track this sort of information, say that while adult fiction is generally declining, there was a 2.4% rise in romance sales.  And most exciting, many houses are buying historical!  So apparently, while we are all poor poor poor, we are reading like crazy.  And why wouldn’t we?  And reading romance is the logical choice for women seeking escapism.  Who doesn’t want a story that is guaranteed to end happily ever after?  Now is the time.  My Sisters and I are writing, and blogging and working on marketing strategies.  What are you doing to further your career?  Let this be a forum of ideas and advice.  There is a big pie out there and we for three want a big ‘ole piece of it.

If you are looking for ways to screw around, let me suggest getting a new blog.  The Sisters and I are famous for our abilities to find things to do other than writing.  House cleaning, at least for this Sister is not a good stalling mechanism.  In fact, this house is just short of a sty.  It was Phyllis Diller who said, “Cleaning the house while the kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk while it’s snowing.”  I try, but really she was right.  So call before you come over, it takes a while to hide all those dirty dishes in the oven.   But the point was goofing off.  Research is a favorite.  You can ask the Quills when sugar cubes were invented or the history of muffins.  We know.  We’ve all been caught up in a research frenzy more than once.  I have so much to do with Francesca and Thomas – their love affair needs my focus – but it seems that I have the attention span of a squirrel.  I love accuracy, and that leads to research, and then I inevitably end up Googling like a mad fool.  Wikipedia will be the death of me, I’m sure.  Our goal with this site, besides the obvious desire to become published authors, is to share our struggles and impart our wisdom and our resources.  We’ll keep adding these links that have been so helpful for us, hoping that they will do the same for you.  I only hope that you are better able to control yourself than we have been.  Remember, knowledge is power.  So, now that I’ve mentioned it, you’re dying to know about the sugar cubes aren’t you?

You faithful readers may recall that I was meeting my family at the lake this weekend.  The more astute of you make also have surmised that I was less than thrilled with the prospect.  You are very bright, dear Reader, I was not excited about going.  I was forecasting extreme heat and epic sunburn.  Alas, I am of the fair skinned variety.  Actually, that may have been an understatement.  I am so fair skinned in fact, that I can get a sunburn on the way to the mailbox 15 yards from my front door.  I think it might have something to do with that whole “vampire” thing I have going on.  But I digress.  I do have a tendency to ramble on.  After a 3 1/2 hour drive that concluded with a 12 mile trek down a one way, washboard, dirt road with a sheer drop to the lake far below, my daughter and mom-in-law didn’t get to the lake until 8:00.  And then we had to search for “our” campers out of literally thousands of drunk revellers in the dark, winding, narrow lanes through the camp grounds.  When we arrived, I discovered no electricity.  A brief spate of panic set in and I texted the Quills, and like good Sisters, they offered to launch a rescue mission.  I got a grip and put my lap top away.  There was no better excuse for why I didn’t get anymore revising done!

It turns out, my brother and his wife and kids and his best friend and his kids, were already there with my husband and son, and a score of other family and their friends.  It turns out that my day at the lake was mostly enjoyable, I am pleased to admit. Believe me, no one is more surprised than me.  It rained in the morning but by 10 am the sun was out and it never became too hot.  As expected, I was the one in charge of keeping the children alive.  That is my usual job, a role that I recognize I have thrust myself into but, nevertheless a worthy assignment.  Maybe it’s the automatic lot in life for a mother to do frequent head counts and add to the the expected total any stray tots that come in her range.  The children I counted numbered 6 and their ages ran from 2 to 8.  I am proud to say that – at least on my watch – all six remained alive and mostly unscathed.  That is not to say that said children were in the same condition they were in when they arrived at the lake.  My Sweet Babaloo was, for lack of a better word, rank.  By the time I caught up with him, he had spent four days at the lake living the bachelor lifestyle with his father.  They boated and jet skiied, swam and fished.  Babaloo will be more than delighted to tell you the tale of catching his first fish:  a bluegill that he reeled in, by himself, petted and let go.  His father contends that there was a shower, but I’m here to tell you that child reeked of stinky boy and lake water.  Not a pleasant aroma, I assure you.  But all in all, I had a good time.  We made s’mores and had steaks from the campfire,  the stars were out, there was much laughing and, probably most gratifying for me, the water was entirely too cold for me to be expected to put on a bathing suit and swim.  The world was safe yet again from that unnecessary horror.  My niece and nephew are always a delight and the kids had a great time playing together.  Really, is the water ever too cold for kids to want to swim?  They’ll stand there shivering and, with blue lips, assure you it’s not cold, the little sadists.  Aside from the fact that I got no writing done and, even more unlikely, nearly no reading accomplished, it was not entirely the dreadful experience that I anticipated.  And by far the best thing of all, no sunburn!  There is a God and, apparently, she takes pity on the translucent.

So it’s today! Today is the day that I feel like our little endeavour is bigger than just the three of us Quills.  We have all been so very enthralled by the birth of this new idea…this new project.  Between creating logos, and designing blog sites, and realizing it’s really a blog site we want, not to mention trying to get in some writing and raise children, we’ve been nonstop enthusiastic about this whole thing.  But still, it did seem a little encapsulated.  I’m not sure I thought that anyone that wasn’t directly involved with the creaton of this site was paying attention – at least not yet, anyway.  But today I was entirely thrilled to have a comment posted.  A comment people!  A real honest to God comment.  I am just thrilled.