m the book and drawings for prizes every four hours, starting at midnight and wrapping up at 8:00 p.m. with the grand prize drawing. I’ll have a special blog setup to ask questions and make comments.

Please join me by visiting my Web site at http://www.genenevalleau.com/ and follow the clicks!

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Head on over and help support Genene on this big day!

It’s technically spring break, but I’m in Central Oregon on a mini-vacation with the family where it’s been snowing ALL day. We’ve gotten about 8 inches of snow so far today and it just keeps piling up. It feels like a winter wonderland!

I’m blogging over at my chapter blog today about irrational fears – I have my fair share. Stop by and say hi.

And I’m looking at websites. Which authors – in your opinion – have fab websites?

My multi-talented CP, Joan Swan, finaled in the Romantic Suspense category of the Golden Heart today. Go over and congratulate her!!!!!!!!!

Way to go, J!!!!! I knew you’d final this year.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I said I was going to update the blog more often and here it’s been a whole week already. What’s up with that?

*Sigh* A few things.

First, I had to send my computer in for service. Sticky key thing. The loaner laptop I was using was fine, but the screen would randomly short out now and then – which was very irritating. Then to top that off, I’ve been working like a fiend trying to finish my paranormal RS before I dive into my revisions on my first two contracted books with Dorchester. Which has actually worked out good because I’ve been mulling over just how I’m going to tackle those revisions. While neither book requires big revisions, you know how it works. Change one thing here, it changes another thing there…

So here I am, a week later.

In other news, tonight was my RWA meeting. We had such a great time. Multi-published author Jenna Bayley-Burke spoke about writing to deadline, which was very timely for me. Jenna is a hoot, and I thoroughly enjoyed her presentation. Also got some fun stuff from her including the following:

The How Romantic Are You? Quiz

(Apparently, I rank right in the middle of the romantic scale. According to the quiz, I know where to draw the line between emotions and good judgement and I can also be romantic enough when needed. Good to know.)

And…

The Color Sex Test

(This one is a lot of fun. I came home and quizzed the DH. He pointed out that everything in our house is red, btw (and I’m the decorator), and that I wear a lot of red – even my new computer bag is red! Not sure how that equates…)

And finally…I know I promised a contest winner to be chosen on St. Patty’s day in my tagline contest and I’m late in posting. BIG apologies…I got busy writing yesterday and forgot to post the winner. (Happy Belated St. Patty’s Day, BTW!!).

So without further adieu…the winner of Alice Sharpe’s March Harlequin Intrigue Release, Avenging Angel, is…

Maureen McGowan!!!!!

Maureen, please email me your snail mail addy at emcamp99 at yahoo dot com and I’ll get your book in the mail. Avenging Angel is a great book, and Alice is a fabulous author (and dear friend of mine). I know you’ll love it.

Tomorrow I’m blogging over at my chapter blog. Stop by and say hello. I still haven’t a single clue what I’m going to blog about.

And in closing…a question. Inquiring minds (me!) want to know. Go take the color sex test and tell me…which color are you???

I have deadlines!!

Okay, that shouldn’t make me so happy, but it does. Between getting the Call, accepting the contract and now, I’ve been in a place called limbo. It’s not a fun place to be…waiting for this, waiting for that. I know waiting is the name of the game in the publishing industry, but I’ve never been good at it.

My deadlines are all pretty far off. Book One – which only needs a few minor edits – is officially due July 1. Book Two – which needs a handful of revisions – is officially due August 15. And book Three – which isn’t written yet – is due October 15th.

Obviously, most of my time will be spent on Book Three, and I’m confident I’ll have plenty of time to get that one done. I’m hoping to have Books One and Two wrapped up in the next month so I can technically call them done and move on. With deadlines like this though, I could easily see how writers could get themselves into trouble if they weren’t goal oriented. Luckily, that’s not my problem.

My release dates still aren’t set but it’s looking like they’ll be sometime late Spring ’09.

And the only other news I have at this point is that I’m searching for titles. Book One – Make Me Believe – needs a new title, something more in line with the suspense/adventure/danger angle. So if anyone has any great suggestions, I’m taking them. The book was reported to Publishers Marketplace as:

Elisabeth Naughton’s MAKE ME BELIEVE, in the tradition of Romancing The Stone, while racing against the clock, between the flying bullets, blackmail, and murder, a spitfire archaeologist and her thief partner search for three legendary (and priceless) artifacts…

If you’re a whizz with titles, leave me a suggestion in the comment section or email me at emcamp99 at yahoo dot com.

First things first – good news is all around!

Fellow Mid-Willamette Valley RWA chapter member (and past Prez) Paty Jager won an Eppie on Saturday at the EPICon conference, which honors the best in electronic publishing!!! Head on over to Paty’s blog to read more about her win and to congratulate her.

We’re starting up a new challenge over at our chapter blog. If you need some motivation to get busy, head on over and join in the fun. Everyone’s setting their own goals and we have check-ins on Saturdays.

I’m still looking for a new tagline. Remember it has to have something to do with romantic adventure. On St. Patty’s day I’ll be drawing a name from a hat from all the people who email me suggestions at emcamp99 at yahoo dot com, or leave a suggestion in the comment section of my blog. The winner will get an autographed copy of Alice Sharpe’s March Harlequin Intrigue release, Avenging Angel.

And finally…I need some help from those of you who are familiar with San Francisco. I’m getting set to book my flight for the National conference in July and because I’m flying in Wed. morning, I need to figure out which airport is the better choice. I’m wondering how far the Oakland airport is from downtown SF. There’s a flight that gets me in to Oakland earlier than the SFO flight, but if the drive from Oakland into downtown is longer (and worse in rush hour traffic), it cancels out the benefits of flying into Oakland. Anyone know?

I am not a morning person. Never have been. Lisa and Alice – my National roomies the past two years – do this great impression of me shuffling around in the morning sans coffee -clothing skewed, hair all over hell and back, one very bleary eye open. I have to admit, it’s a pretty funny impression. (Though, for the record, I look nothing like that!)

The past few days I’ve been having trouble sleeping, so instead of lying in bed trying to will myself back to sleep, this morning I got up and decided to work. (In the dark, no less!) Made a pot of coffee, turned on the fireplace, settled into the leather couch with my laptop and got busy. Finally, the words were flowing on the new wip. And wouldn’t you know it? Not more than twenty minutes later I hear the patter of little feet, see a light flick on near the stairs and watch as my nine-year old waltzes down the steps like it’s eight AM. Of course, all the noise she made woke up the three year old. And all his door slamming woke up the DH. The TV’s now on in the other room, the oldest and youngest Gremlins have moved like elephants in and out of the kitchen a dozen times already and my concentration is shot. The DH retreated back to bed, but the damage is already done and it’s only a matter of minutes before the trouble-maker – Gremlin #2 – wakes up.

I’d hoped to make some serious progress before the house came alive. As it is, I got about 1500 words in, but I want to do more. Hopefully this afternoon during naptime I can get back to work.

When do you write? And do you find you’re most productive during the morning or evening hours?

So remember I was talking about my laptop keyboard yesterday and the whole “sticky crumb” thing? Yeah. Well. It got me.

Yesterday one sticky ‘e’ key turned into a ‘you lose your computer for at least two weeks’ thing. Turns out it wasn’t something stuck underneath the key (wahoo for cake!), but that the key itself is damaged (or the stuff underneath the key…I’m not sure what you call that little rubbery thing the key is attached to. It’s just too technical for me). Solution, of course, is that it has to be repaired. And because my laptop is still under warranty with Best Buy and they don’t do in-store service, they have to send it out. Hence the whole – you lose your computer for at least two weeks thing. Lovely, huh? Of course, this time I got smart. I backed everything up, emailed myself my books and made copies of EVERYTHING (not risking losing it all like I did last spring). Then I begged and pleaded and told the guy at the store I was on deadline and needed a laptop. They ended up giving me an open box that someone had returned. It runs Word, it has wireless Internet. It’s got everything I need for the next (hopefully only) two weeks. The only drawback? It’s LOUD. I had to install my word program and the dang CD drive is L-O-U-D. But at least it works. I’m not complaining.

Other “new stuff” includes the new blog design. Okay, it’s the same design, I just updated the pic at the top and overall color scheme. What do you think? Personally, I love it. Gives the blog that whole romantic adventure flavor I’m going with in the books. But I’m interested to know what you think.

And finally – I have to share – I got a new laptop bag today while I was out and about. I found one at BB that I wanted – red Liz Claiborne computer bag. Didn’t look like a computer bag at all. Really trendy and chic. But I was afraid my widescreen laptop (when it comes back) might not fit, so I opted not to get it (and frowned the whole time I was putting it back on the shelf). Then, when I stopped at Target to pick up a few things, I saw the SAME bag (different designer) for forty bucks less. AND this one will work with my widescreen laptop. So that’s my “3-book sale gift” for myself. A new bag. I’m easy to please.

What’s new with you?

Contrary to what I thought would happen, my world did not magically transform to perfection when I got the call. (I know, weird, huh? I can’t quite figure out why.) The Gremlins still fight, they still expect me to chauffeur them around, cook their meals and tie their shoes (okay, the five-year old still expects the shoe thing. Thank goodness the three-year old is happy with his Velcro Spiderman shoes). The toilets still need scrubbing, the dogs continue to bark despite my telling them over and over that because I’m going to be a published author now, I can’t continue to cater to their every whim, and laundry still has that weird habit of continuing to pile up. I still have to balance the checkbook and find my tax statements…and on top of all of that, I’m still waiting.

What’s up with that?!

In all seriousness, the waiting thing is the one part I thought would get easier. (The Gremlins themselves could care less about the fact mommy sold – it’s irrelevant in their world – and the dogs? Don’t even get me started.) Of course, as most of you already know (stop laughing at me), the waiting never gets easier. I’m still waiting for release dates, for concrete deadlines, for possible title changes, to hear if book #2 is accepted the way it is or if it’ll need revisions. The list goes on and on. And what does a smart person do in this waiting period? No clue. But I can tell you what you shouldn’t do…

1. You shouldn’t let everything go until you finally decide to come back down from the clouds and resettle in reality. Remember that laundry I told you about? Ack. Miles high. I’m still nowhere close to being caught up.

2. You shouldn’t decide to feed your impatience neurosis by eating leftover birthday cake near your laptop while hitting refresh on your email because all those sticky crumbs will get wedged into your keyboard and then cause major problems.

3. You shouldn’t expect the muse to magically show up for work on Monday morning, bright and early, because odds are she’s off in Linda‘s basement with a bag of Cheetos laughing her ass off at your new predicament.

4. And you definitely shouldn’t stay up until all hours of the night on IM with your writer friends (because said muse has left you high and dry) and then decide to finally get busy and write at midnight. Not your best hour to start fresh.

So now that I know the rules, hopefully things will change. The washer’s going, the keyboard’s clean and for once, the house is quiet. I even updated Lisa‘s nifty novel-tracker with my new book info. Granted, I’m already behind, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

So what do you do to keep from stressing while you’re waiting?

I always knew writers were amazing people, but I didn’t know how amazing until this past week.

I can’t begin to tell you how many people have contacted me with congrats on my first sale(s). Some I expected – those in my local RWA chapter, my critique partners, close friends and family – but many I didn’t expect, especially the numerous writers I’ve met along my path to publication who I never in my wildest dreams suspected would remember me or honestly care about my sales. Each time I open my email and there’s a new Congratulations! message in my inbox, I’m flabbergasted at the outpouring of excitement over little ol’ me. It’s very true that you never know who you’re touching or how people will remember you.

A writer friend of mine left me, probably, the most touching message I’ve received so far. She said (and I’m paraphrasing, so apologies to her if I hack this), “…normally I’m so jealous when I hear friends have sold, because I want that for me so much. But when I heard about your sale, I wasn’t jealous at all. I was just so totally happy for you. You deserve it. Congratulations again!” That message, above all others, really touched me because I know exactly how she feels. I’ve been green with envy when I’ve heard of other writers’ sales, and I’ve also been tickled pink when a close friend has finally sold. Knowing others are as excited as I am has made this whole thing that much sweeter.

I’ve been asked – by several people, actually – if this means I’m finally going to be a better blogger. *grin* The answer to that is yes, I’m going to try. Over the next few months I plan on blogging about my trip from call to publication and on, so I hope you stop by and join me along the way. I know I’ll be looking for advice, so please don’t abandon me.

And finally, to all the people – writers, friends, family and beyond – who have called me, emailed me, blogged about me or posted congrats on various loops….THANK YOU AGAIN!!!!! Every single one of you have touched me in more ways than you will ever know. I am truly blessed to know so many wonderful people.