How can you tell when you’re on the backside of a wicked wind chill?

When it’s 7:30 in the morning and the school drop-off is once more a hive of social activity. People stand around, talking and laughing. You hear the comment—Nice day today—and it’s a balmy one degree above zero. Compared to yesterday, the lack of wind makes it feel downright warm.

I mean, you wouldn’t want to lick a flagpole or anything, but at least your eyelids don’t freeze open if you go too long without blinking.

I’m going to make Ezmerelda park the Mini Cooper and actually get some work done today. Like the Tuesday To Do List:

I need to tweak the RTB post I wrote for tomorrow so I don’t sound quite so much like a pathetic lump of neuroses.

I need to get the blurb for Taming Eliza Jane done. It took me half the day yesterday just to get the tagline right. I hate writing blurbs—there’s so much pressure on them. And I’m struggling with the tone for this one—it’s a funny, sexy historical western and the versions I’ve discarded so far either made it sound much too dark or made it sound like it was written by the Monty Python crew. (Okay, so I’d read that one in a heartbeat, but since this wasn’t written by them, it doesn’t work.)

And I need to work on On the Edge edits. I’ll have to hide Ezmerelda’s keys for this one, or she’ll hit the open road back to Guatemala.

I thought Kiss Me Deadly was hard to write. The foray into the worldbuilding of shapeshifting paranormals. And it was hard. But On the Edge? Kicked. My. Ass. I had to fight like hell for every single word. And, with action-adventure romance, it’s so easy to get caught up counting how many bullets would be left in the magazine and just how long a bullet wound would really hurt and so easy to forget other things. You know, like the romance.

It’s always a huge relief to ship a book off. But with this one I would have thrown a freakin’ party if I was at all social and could tolerate having people in my house.

But…sending a book off to your editor is kind of like holding a flaming boomerang. You throw it, and you’re so relieved to be rid of it, you turn around and start something else. Then…WHAM! It comes back and whacks you in the head, knocks you on your ass and then sets your hair on fire just for grins.

Nothing for it but to pick yourself up—bald and concussed—and dive back in.