Guilty Secrets: Mary Jo Putney

For anyone who has been reading me for years, it will probably come as no great surprise when I confess that I adore that hoary old plot device, amnesia. That's as both reader and writer, which isn't surprising, since what we love to read is probably what we'll want to write. (I also love stories about identical twins, but that’s a confession for another day.)

So why amnesia? It’s the question of identity, really. Part of the fun of historical romance is the over the top plotting. Stable boys who are dukes. Actresses who are the daughters of French nobles. People thought dead returning alive and well. I love them all! I get enough reality from my daily newspaper, even though it's been shrinking steadily.

Hence, my new release, Loving A Lost Lord first of my Lost Lords series. And the hero is indeed lost, and very likely dead. Except this is romance, so maybe less dead than presumed.

I think it's getting late, and I should probably draw winners... I have kept a list of everyone who followed me through my blog tour, and picked from a hat (only 6 people managed to stick with me through the whole thing, and I thank you all, though I also met a lot of new and wonderful people along the way -- it's been a lot of fun!)

So... the big winner of my bag, with some goodies inside, including a copy of Hard to Resist is.........

I'm not a real "believer" in horoscopes, but I do get a kick out of reading them. Hubby is so horrified by this habit that I kinda do it behind his back. It's not that he doesn't know, but more that he doesn't HAVE to know when I do it. This way, everyone is happy. Usually, I check mine out at the end of a month or middle, checking to see if the astrologist got anything right. But since I'm awake and hubby isn't, come with me while I look into the stars and see if anything good is ahead...

The Winners of the Cowboy Comes Back are:
Tucco
Fedora
Jane...

We’re right at the half year mark and instead of reviewing resolutions, we’re going to take a look at the year. Is it just me? Or did the first six months fly by? We're going to take a look at accomplishments--even ones not involved in resolutons today. And there are free books to be had if you participate...

I’m taking an in-between books break and traveling, catching up on things. I love when I have time for this. It’s a nice sanity break. At other times, I might finish a manuscript in the morning, email it off to the publisher, then start on the new book after lunch with not even enough time to clean off my desk in between.

It’s been nice to be able to have a break this time. But I’m ready to go back to writing.

As just about everyone knows, Michael Jackson passed away yesterday. I know, in later years he morphed from Genius to Strangest Person Alive, there's no real ignoring that. But hearing the news still shook me to my slightly numbed core.

This year has been pretty rough on me, which has left me either too weepy to like myself or too numb to react properly. My emotional synapses have been worn to little nubs, I think. But as I was sitting on my stairs yesterday, opening my computer to check in for work, I just never saw the loss of the legend coming. And I never expected how it would effect me.

Why is Violence Better Than Sex? by Leslie Kelly aka Leslie Parrish

In recent years, when people heard I wrote Harlequin Blaze novels and other light, sexy contemporaries, they would usually have a few predictable reactions. There was the snooty eyebrow lift combined with the slight flare of the nostrils, prefacing, "Oh, you write those books?" Or perhaps the eyebrow wag and the smarmy snicker. "How do you do your research? Yuck yuck!" Some people might even look genuinely intrigued…then ruin it by saying, "Oh, those are the formula books, right? They tell you what to do and you plug in the details? I was thinking about doing that sometime to make some extra money!" (Uh, yeah, you go right ahead and do that and call me on the day your first book gets published!)

But something has changed. Since I have become Leslie Parrish, the author of dark romantic-thrillers, I'm getting different reactions. "Oh, cool! I love thrillers!" Or "Wow, do you think they'll make movies of these books?" Or the capper, "You must be so happy not to have to write those sex books anymore."

I'm done the first 150 pages of my next book, which is coming together very, very slowly. This is how I write, though, and there's no sense in fighting it. I just can't go on until these pages are perfect. It's an awful process--slow and lots of going back and changing, fixing, shining.

Some might call this masturbation.

Good thing I'm a romance writer and would never be so crude.

Anyway, this is around the time I start thinking about titles. I love titles. A lot. But this book is tricky. It's about....

I had to laugh when I read Dee's blog post (and feel a little envy!) because she is where I want to be, LOL. Right now, I'm on the other side of what she talked about--smack-dab stuck IN the cave. And Dee, sorry, but it's miserable in its own way, LOL. Especially when the weather is nice and the fam is going to the lake and you have to say...sorry, have to stay in the cave and finish this book.