As I was sitting here writing what follows, I got a call from a committee member for the Daphne du Maurier contest telling me that Hard Evidence is a finalist in the Single Title category. I'm so thrilled!

Yep, it's definitely my year to be a finalist — the RITAs, the AAN journalism awards and now this.

The Daphne awards are given by the Kiss of Death chapter of RWA — a national chapter focused solely on suspense and mystery. If you want to know how to kill someone with poison, the Kiss of Death chapter is the one to join. Extreme Exposure garnered an honorable mention in last year's Daphnes, which was very exciting. The awards ceremony is preceded by the Death By Chocolate gala. We're talking a chocolate buffet that defies the imagination.



I'm so glad that Julian and Tessa are earning some honors! I love them dearly. Speaking of Julian, he figures quite prominently in what I wrote this weekend (and now we pick up where I was before the phone rang).


This is how I envisioned Julian. Is it any wonder I can't get over him?


I'm still on a writer's high, and I don't want the world to ruin it.

I spent this past weekend writing, and by "writing," I mean actually writing. I finished the action sequence I'd been stuck in for a whole bloody month. Less than 1,000 words, it had me in knots. And then it was like someone had pulled the cork from the bottle.


And this, of course, is Marc Hunter. Are y'all sick of this photo yet?

I wrote 25 pages, including the last chapter, and I'm fairly certain that most of it is stuff I'll keep. Which means that I'm so close to being done with Unlawful Contact that I can taste it. I need to edit the last chapter, which I'll do this coming weekend. Then I need to write the epilogue.

I edit heavily as I write, so once I'm done, I give the manuscript a few cover-to-cover reads, tweaking maniacally, and then I'm done. I mail it to my editor in New York — and usually I fall into a "post-partum" depression that lasts until someone gets me good and drunk, or until I'm pregnant with my next book. Because I'm very fertile, that usually happens within a couple of months.

That next book is going to be Untamed, the sequel to Surrender.

But I digress.

I wrote all weekend. In fact, I didn't want to stop. I wrote until almost 3 a.m. this morning, then went to bed and slept until 5:30. Then I had to get up, shower and drive 45 minutes to the office, where I worked a full 8.5 hours. I will admit that some portion of that 8.5 hours was spent watching SNL's "Dick in a Box" sketch on YouTube, however most of it was spent doing editor things.

On another note, I will be in Portland, Ore., for the AAN convention and awards from Thursday morning, June 14, through Saturday evening, June 16. I know I'm going to be seeing Aimee and Linda T. I hope to see Ronlyn, too, and perhaps Debbie O.

Sorry to have fallen behind in posting. But this time it's because I was actually writing the book!

Just before I left for the weekend, I bought JD Robb's Born in Death. I've read about half of the In Death series, so I'm skipping a bunch, but I don't have any problem doing that because I'm acquainted with the storyline. I love aspects of Nora's writing. I like how tight it is. I like how the dialogue so closely replicates real speech. I like Roarke.

If I had five minutes to talk with Nora one on one, I would ask a bit about her writing process, then give her copies of two of my books — one contemp and one historical — and beg her to read them. I'd say, "Isweartheydon'tsuck! Justreadthempleeeeeze!" Then I would ask her for a .jpg of whatever sexy model/man inspired Roarke. I have Adrian Paul here inspiring the MacKinnon brothers and Daniel Bueno as Marc Hunter. Who represents Roarke to her?

Then I'd buy her a drink.



But I've set that aside to read 397 printed pages of Unlawful Contact because I need to get it back into my blood stream after two weekends of not working in order to finish it. I'm in an "I hate this story, it sucks" mood right now, so maybe this will change my mind. I hope so!



However, tonight I have to write the cover story for tomorrow's paper. I'm writing about the raptors that nest in the crags and spires above Boulder. Remember all those reddish rocks on the mountains? Those are prime nesting places for golden eagles, prairie falcons and peregrine falcons. Last Thursday, I went hiking with a ranger to view a raptor nesting site, and it was great. The hike up kicked my ass, but watching the birds was so totally worth it. (Watching the ranger wasn't bad either.)



So tonight I have to write that article and proof "boards" for tomorrow's early press run. Not really enough time to do both. We'll see how it goes. EGADS! I need a clone.

Sorry that I've been a blog slacker. Too much going on!

I spent a three-day weekend with my mother in Glenwood Springs, a town that sits at the end of Glenwood Canyon next to the White River. It's a beautiful little place, mostly a tourist spot. We chose it because it's halfway between our houses, creating a three-hour drive one way for each of us.

We'd been talking about doing this for probably five years now, but something always comes up. I'm always busy writing, and there never seems to be a weekend where nothing's going on to set aside. Finally, I decided we had to do this, so we did. Three days in Glenwood, just me and my mom.



We decided to stay at Hotel Colorado. My mom has stayed there before with my sister, and the two recalled having a very strange time. For example, when they called for a roll-away bed, a guy with a bleeding gash on his forehead brought in a bed that, when opened, was befouled by a pool of what could only have been semen. EW! The guy had a bandage wrapped hastily around the gash in his forehead, which was bleeding down his face. WEIRD! And, yes, they brought a second, clean bed.

I wanted to think that was an isolated incident of weirdness. Hotel Colorado first opened its doors to wealthy guests in 1893. Built to be a western getaway for the rich and adventurous, it was built before there was a town, really. Teddy Roosevelt stayed there several times. Made a habit of it, in fact. Al Capone stayed there. Doc Holiday died there. And so on...

It's a real piece of history. I just couldn't see staying at some roadside motel when Hotel Colorado was available. But the weekend was full of weirdness.

Among the weird incidents we experienced:

The staff insisted that our room, the Ambassador Suite, Room 558, was haunted by the ghost of a little girl who'd fallen out the window and died on the ground five stories below. They told us that guests routinely hear her bouncing her ball and sometimes they see her and can even speak with her. When one of the two phones in the room refused to work, they blamed the ghost — and made no move to repair it.

Our second day there we got massages from a guy who told us that the hotel was built on an old Ute ceremonial ground and that "there's a portal to the spirit world on the other side of this wall."

Hmmm.

The hotel's guide about room service and other hotel services was inaccurate. No, you can't order from the full menu in the bar. No, you can't get room service in the middle of the afternoon even though the information in your room says you can. Sure, we have espresso — but we run and get it from the coffee shop next door, so you might as well do that, too.

Every time we passed a group of hotel housekeepers, one of them said to the other, "Donde esta María?" Where is Maria? Over what was basically a three-day period, that got to feel really weird. Sort of Groundhog Day-ish.

Food ranged from great to mediocre to EW! Service was rendered with a smile, but often to tell us no. Circumstances changed by the minute. The people seated before us for breakfast were offered the option of ordering off the breakfast menu. We, who were the very next, were told, "We're not accepting any more orders from the menu. You have to use the buffet."

The light on our ceiling fan burnt out. A maintenance man outside our room, who insisted the hotel was not haunted replaced it. And then the bathroom light burnt out. The front desk blamed the ghost, and the bathroom light was never changed.

And so on. Getting my drift?

I slept in a roll-away bed next to the window the little girl fell out of both nights — and I wrote sitting next to it by day — and I neither sensed nor saw a ghost. The weirdest thing I saw was the hotel's staff, who were clearly working their butts off and yet unable to meet the needs of the guests.

However, all of the staff antics — which included farting in a very small elevator while we were in it and then laughing endlessly over it — made for some laughs. My mom and I got a couple of days just to talk and be with one another which was absolutely freaking priceless.

Life is short. Enjoy the people you love — while you can.

I spent this weekend hanging with famous romance novelists at the Renaissance Denver Hotel. Gennita Low was there, of course. So was RITA winner Linnea Sinclair. Both gave stirring talks about the life of a romance writer. Jenna (Gennitta) signed my copy of Virtually His, which I had just finished reading and which I enjoyed very much. (Full of baaaad boys — hot bad boys.)

I also spent a lot of time with my agent, Natasha Kern, whom I hadn't seen in person since last year's RWA conference in Atlanta. In the intervening time, she had a terrible accident and broke her neck — an injury she's miraculously recovered from, though she still has some problems. Having had a broken neck myself as a pre-teen, I can sympathize. She and I might be the only agent/author duo both of whom have had broken necks...

The food was delicious — probably the best food of any hotel I've stayed in for a romance conference. Of course, no conference would be complete without time at the bar, so I did that, too.

Friday night, that adorable Badass Warrior Princess, Libby, came down to join me for drinks. Candice, a friend and aspiring writer, also came, as did Michael, a reporter friend of mine from my Glory Days of journalism, and his girlfriend, Cara. It was great seeing them all. I hadn't seen Michael since last year's state journalism awards. We drank and talked. I did too much of both.

On Saturday, I had planned to write all day then meet up with my agent for lunch and then dinner. But I ran into a problem. I. Could. Not. Wake. Up. I slept until 10:30 and had to kick myself in the ass to get myself into the shower in time for lunch. I was so sleepy as we went through the buffet that I couldn't really eat. I guess stepping off the hamster wheel comes with consequences — namely that when you run on empty for so long it catches up with you.



Anyway, the lunch was... lunch, I guess. But Colorado Romance Writers surprised me by giving me a little gold rose pin in honor of my being a RITA finalist. I thought that was cool — an award for maybe almost winning an award.

I went upstairs after that and tried to write, but couldn't get my mind going. Did I mention there were no lattes at this hotel? None. It was either drink coffee (blech) or drink tea. I chose coffee and tea in a desperate bid for a caffeine buzz that never really materialized.

Then my agent and I had dinner, and I pulled out the handcuffs.

I learned last year how to break out of handcuffs as part of my research for Unlawful Contact. It seemed to me that if Marc Hunter, my hero, were going to do this, I should know how to do it, too. I got a pair of police-issue cuffs from a cop friend (one of the two who saved my life that night so long ago), and he gave me some basic instructions, including telling me that I needed a "shim."

Well, as I learned, they don't really sell those in hardware stores. I did try. I walked in with my cuffs and explained that I needed a shim to jam in at a certain place to force the cuffs open. The sales guy stared at me, then showed me some drilling tools that didn't really work. I was forced to innovate and create this shim myself. Then, with the proper tool, I learned how to break out.

I really enjoy doing it and most of the time I do it quickly. But this time I put the right side of the cuffs on upside down so that I couldn't really maneuver the shim properly. I got my left wrist out in about a second, and then struggled with the right. My friend Kally Surbeck, also an author, tried to help but broke my shim.

So there I was in a fine restaurant, my agent watching, with cuffs around my right wrist, a broken shim, and the key somewhere in my hotel room. I had to go through the rest of the dinner with the cuffs dangling from my right wrist. Try picking up a wine glass with any amount of elegance with five pounds of steel dangling from your wrist. (Gennita has a photo of my predicament on her blog.)

All's well that ends well, of course. I got the cuffs off when I went back to my hotel room. But now I am shimless. Alas!

On Sunday, it was back home. I struggled all day with a scene in Unlawful Contact and go nowhere. Since then it's been back to the paper. No writing.

God, I want to finish this book! Does anyone remember what it's about?

The cover as it appeared on the book.

Why in the world would I want to waste time chatting about a book that's been out for more than a year? Well, first of all, it's a RITA finalist, which is really exciting. Secondly, I just finished reading it in preparation for writing Untamed, the next book in the MacKinnon's Rangers series. But thirdly, it's my bloody blog and I can.

I've had a love/hate relationship with this novel. The love comes from what I feel for the entire cast of characters — Annie, Iain, Morgan, Connor, Captain Joseph, Killy, Cam, Dougie, McHugh, Lieutenant Cooke and, yes, Lord William Wentworth. I love and cherish them all. The hate comes from the struggle I experienced trying to write this book, unequaled except now perhaps by Unlawful Contact.

I missed my deadline by months on this book because I got stuck several times and because I was convinced it was crap. When I sent it to my editor, I called just to warn her and said, "This is the worst piece of crap you've ever gotten from me." I don't know why I feel that way except that it must be part of my writing pathology. (Those of you who've read stuff while I'm writing it — you're a small list of very patient people — might agree.) I'm always convinced that whatever I'm writing sucks. I didn't feel that way with Sweet Release or Extreme Exposure or Ride the Fire, which was grueling for other reasons and which, until maybe this week I considered to be my best novel. But that is neither here nor there...

So I turned in Surrender, and my agent and editor surprised me by saying they loved it. But I haven't touched it since it came out, and I haven't read it since I was proofing galleys, when my negative impressions were reinforced. Dial 1-800-Writer-Shrink. What can I say?

So it was a thrill to sit down and read it now so many months later and discover that I loved it. Yes, I loved it. It felt like someone else had written it. I'd forgotten enough for the entire thing to feel fresh to me. I found myself wondering where I'd gotten all the Scottish vocabulary — through hard and constant research, of course — and I found myself falling in love with Iain and his brothers all over again.


An intermediate stage. Notice the lack of shirt and the long hair. But why are there tipis? I said no tipis!

I asked you all to email me and share your favorite moments from the story so that I could compare them with mine. I got several fun emails today, and I cherished each one. I learned your favorite moments overlap largely with mine. So you've shared yours; now I'll share mine.

Annie flees the Abenaki and is saved by Iain: I felt like I knew everything I needed to know about Annie when she faced down the man who was about to rape and kill her. "You dinnae have me yet!" And, of course, I love that Iain can't let her die, even if it means death for him and his men. As he later tells Wentworth, "I could no more have left her to be killed than I could have slain her myself."

The flogging: The whole thing from the scene in the guardhouse to Iain walking through the camp with grin on his face. "I hear you had a bit of a collieshangie in the night. Sorry to wake you so early." I love the way he kisses Annie and how he insists on taking the full 100 lashes. I love the way Annie forces herself to watch each one.

Annie's relationship with Lord Wentworth: I loved all the scenes with Wentworth in them. They were so fun to write, because Wentworth is such a complicated fun character. He's smart. He's cruel. But he's not evil. The chess game, the dinner party, all of it was so fun.

The sweatlodge scene: The fight prior to Annie's near-death experience in the river was fun, too. "Or was that someone else's tongue in my mouth?" Iain is such a baaaad boy. The sweatlodge scene was tricky in some respects -- trying to tell the story and not be disrespectful at the same time.







The original art, which is quite lovely. Nathan Kamp is just hot. But the short hair and waaay too much clothing made me think "men's camping novel," not romance. It was back to the drawing board — sort of. Click on any of these images for detail.

Captain Joseph meets Annie: "She hasna met an Indian who wasna tryin' to kill her," Connor explains. I laughed when I read that.

Connor saves Annie: I have a soft spot for that brat of a MacKinnon. I had to be careful not to let him steal every scene from Morgan. But I loved it when he aimed at that bastard soldier's head and said, "You Regulars have trouble hittin' marks, aye? We Rangers dinnae miss."

The first love scene: "Do you ken the history of the Highlands, Annie?" As Bo once said, "That's Iain MacKinnon at his barbarian best." I knew that scene pushed some boundaries, but I just loved seeing him pushed to the edge and then, in turn, pushing her to the edge.

The shaving scene: SueZ mentioned this one. I had so many emails from people who loved that scene and who couldn't believe I'd put it into a historical.

Father Delavay trying to teach Catholicism to Rangers: The scene where he tries to explain the Immaculate Conception amused me greatly when I wrote it. "She got a big belly wi'out the mess of a man's spunk." "No, you silly Scot!"

The wedding: "Marry me now, here, in this place — while we have time." The idea that Iain might be killed in battle at any time made their relationship so vulnerable. That sense of time as being precious really fueled their relationship for the latter part of the book.

Checkmate: When Lord Wentworth tries to "betray" Annie to the Rangers, only to find out they know her real name and that Iain has purchased her indenture. "Well played, Major." Haha, Wentworth, you randy bastard!

When Iain kisses Annie's pregnant tummy: Oh, yeah. I cried. I'm a sap.

A couple of you mentioned the scene where Annie has Iain by her side when their son is born and says: "You've seen so much death. Now see life..." For me, that moment was a chance for Iain to redeem so much of the joy he'd lost.

And the two that stand out for me more than the others:

When Iain saves Annie from Uncle Bain: "You've never met a man like me." The image of him standing in the road wearing a plaidie, carrying a broadsword and painted with Indian designs and vermillion instead of blue Celtic paint was in my mind for ages. It was quintessential Iain, the strength of the Scots in America represented in one moment.

And when the Rangers rebuild the farm as a way of saying farewell to Iain: This scene was in my head from the beginning of the story, and I didn't even let myself think it because it made me sob. When I finally reached that scene, and the men told their stories about how Iain had saved them and Dougie started up the chant, "MacKinnon! MacKinnon! MacKinnon!" OMG! I was bawling the entire time I wrote that scene. Truly bawling my eyes out. Iain was such an honorable and selfless man that the payoff had to be big. I hope it took you by surprise and meant as much to you as it did to me.

I spent a week working on the last two paragraphs of the story. A week. I'm not kidding. I hope that last page resonated with people — about feeling sadness and great happiness together and not being able to feel one without risking the other. A week! Sheesh!

Well, now Surrender is out of stock at the publisher and backordered nationally by all the big booksellers. It's very hard to find, but they're going to print more in time for RWA's book signing. I'm hoping for a new cover and a rerelease to coincide with the release of Morgan's story.

I am listening to Celtic music again. I haven't let myself do that since I finished Surrender. My editor would understand that that means: My brain is switching to historical mode. If you made it to the end of this very long post, thanks for indulging me!

Never let it be said that I'm a tease...

In this scene, Marc has managed to escape the police who were hot on his tail after using Sophie as a hostage to break out of prison. He hasn't refreshed Sophie's memory, and she still doesn't recognize him. He had broken into a sporting good store high in the mountains for gear to help him make his final getaway, leaving Sophie handcuffed inside her own car, which he used to get away from the prison. But Sophie, still afraid he might kill her, has done a few desperate things to escape, and those things have backfired on her in a very dangerous way...

From Chapter 4 of Unlawful Contact

Marc stepped outside, sucked cold, fresh air into his lungs, savoring the shock, the chill, the scent of it. Wind-driven snow pricked his cheeks and forehead, caught in his beard, sand-blasting the lingering stench of prison from his skin. He couldn’t have gotten better weather if he’d asked for it. The storm would delay the cops, cover his tracks, make it almost impossible for search teams to pick up his trail. By sunrise tomorrow, he’d be free and clear.

Of course, anything could happen.

He rounded the corner, stopped in his tracks. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Sophie lay sprawled in the snow beside the open car door, struggling clumsily to get upright, arms stretched over her head, her wrists still cuffed to the door handle.

He reached her in two long strides, dropped the pack on the ground, and knelt beside her, fear kicking him hard in the gut. “How in the hell did you manage this?”

Apart from a fresh bruise on her cheek, her face was deathly pale. She shivered violently, snowflakes on her skin and lashes, her wrists badly bruised, her fingers bloodless. But when she looked at him, her eyes spat fire. “B-bastard!”

At least she was conscious and aware and cussing.

“Save the name-calling for later, sweetheart.” He covered her with the parka he’d stolen for her and shoved a hat over her head to preserve whatever body heat he could, then dug in his pack for the pocket knife, knowing he had to get her warm if he wanted to save her life. “Right now, you have bigger problems.”

He flipped to one of the attachments on the pocket knife—a thin metal blade—and jimmied it into the tiny space beside the teeth of the handcuffs, forcing back the internal locking mechanism, freeing first her right wrist and then her left. Then he slipped his arm beneath her shoulders and eased her to a sitting position.

Furious with her, even angrier with himself, it was all he could do not to shout. “Do you realize how fucking stupid this was? Jesus, Sophie! Are you trying to kill yourself?”

She tried to push him away, her motions sluggish and weak. “I-I forgot. K-killing m-me is y-your job.”

“Don’t tempt me!” He stuffed her arms into the sleeves of the stolen parka, then dug in the pack for one of the emergency hand warmers. “Can you stand?”

“Y-yes.” But she didn’t budge.

“Damn it!” He lifted her off the snowy ground, buckled her in the passenger seat, then activated the emergency warmer and slipped it inside her parka. “Stay awake, do you hear me? Watching you die is not on my list of things to do tonight!”

-----------

Tomorrow's blog: Email me your favorite moments from Surrender. I'm reading it now, and I'm going to post my favorite excerpts. Let's see how we compare — yours vs. mine. Plus I'll share the unpublished art that preceded the cover that eventually went onto the book and you can vote as to which version you like best.

I'm going to post these relatively small, but they are clickable if you wish to enlarge them...


This is the view I see every day and have seen almost every day of my life. This is Bear Peak. You can see that it snowed above 8,000 feet. I've been on the summit a few times. It's part of the foothills that frame Boulder, part of our city's backdrop. My office is much closer to it, about a two-minute drive from the base of the mountain.


This is Green Mountain. The big slabs of red sandstone are the Flatirons. From right to left the very largest are known by numbers: The First Flatiron, the Second Flatiron, the famous Third Flatiron in the middle (lots of folks die climbing this), the Fourth Flatiron and the Fifth Flatirion (the pointy one). I've been on top Green Mountain a lot. I used to like to climb it year round before going to work. In the winter, I had to wear crampons. Not to be confused with tampons.


This is my wonderful son Ben holding the corsage he'll give to his date in a few minutes.



Ben and Liz pose for photos for pesky parents.


The Humvee stretch limo arrives.


Ben helps Liz get inside.



Ben and his beautiful date Liz inside the limo.

It must be my year to be a finalist. I was just notified that my series about AIDS is finalist for a national award from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.

I spent five months researching the article, which attempted to get down for the first time the history of Boulder County's response to the AIDS epidemic. It was one of the most intense stories I've done because of the personal tragedy and loss and heartbreak involved. At times during interviews, I found myself having to mute my phone so that the people I was interviewing couldn't hear me crying. My heart went out to the parents who'd lost sons, to the women who'd contracted HIV from men, to the children left without fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters due to this terrible illness, to young gay men who faced not only a fatal disease but the hatred of society.

The story ran in five parts over a period of six weeks, each installment telling another piece of the story. By the time it was done, I was very drained, but I also felt very blessed to have met men and women who seem to me to be heroes — the first doctor to treat AIDS in our county (for a long time the ONLY doctor; people whose sense of injustice led them to fight for gay men with AIDS so that these men could have health care and housing; people who donated time and money and came up with creative solutions for the problems inflicted by AIDS. These people are saints in my book.

I'm going to be a guest at the annual AIDS Project fundraiser dinner this summer, and I'm really looking forward to that. In the meantime, the AAN conference/awards is in June.

In other news: Ben and Liz made it back from prom alive and look exhausted. They had fun, it seems, though I haven't gotten a full report. And they were so gorgeous together! I don't have photos back yet, so I'll just have to wait to post.

I might be back with an excerpt later, but I'm in a rotten mood and behind on my writing -- the former the result of the latter. I lost my writing mojo for a while this weekend after someone close to me made some unsupportive comments about my writing career. When I'm down, I just can't write. Then I get angry at myself for not writing. And that's where I am now, although it was cheering to talk with RBL's Frances for the first time.

Have a great Sunday.

Morgan MacKinnon might wear leather breeches and have longer hair, but when he's bound in Fort Carillon's guardhouse, he'll look something like this...

Well, after that last post my life devolved into a nonstop migraine. After five days, I was about ready to lop my head off with a sword. "There can be only one!" (I actually said this outloud while contemplating the benefits of being headless.)

I got a very, very painful massage yesterday and feel sore but better today.

Somehow I managed to get Chapter 29 done last weekend. And now I'm starting Chapter 30. This book, unlike all of my others, will have 31 chapters plus an epilogue. So I'm officially in the homestretch. Chapter 30 contains the last part of the climax — that moment when all seems truly lost. Then Chapter 31 will take us into denouement and resolution. And the real payoff comes in the epilogue.

It's probably going to be the longest book I've written — about 430 pages. I'm hoping and praying my editor won't make me cut. We'll see... Keep your fingers crossed!

Tonight is prom. I'll have pictures of my handsome son and his lovely date soon. They're heading to prom with all of their friends in a Humvee stretch limo. Eighteen kids in one vehicle. At least they'll be safe.



I'm reading Surrender right now trying to get my mind moving back toward Fort Elizabeth and those sexy MacKinnon brothers. I have to say, I'm actually enjoying the story. I haven't really been able to open the book since it came out, so this is very strange. It's almost like reading someone else's book. Every once in a while, I find myself thinking, "I wrote this?"




I'm thinking it's time for an excerpt... But I'll save that for tomorrow. Any requests?