My husband and I went to Knoxville yesterday for Thanksgiving at my sister’s house. Because of the rock slide on I-40, we went by way of highway 25 into Hot Springs and then over into Tennesse to Newport where we picked up I-40 into Knoxville. It’s a longer trip, but beautiful and really ineresting, at least to me. When I was a kid, back before I-40 opened, this was the way my family traveled to visit our grandmother and great aunt so it brought back a few memories. Also, when we crossed over the border into Tennessee, there’s an interesting little saloon there. Though most people wouldn’t pay much attention to this small building, the fact that it’s in the Paint Rock area and on the border of North Carolina and Tennesse thrilled me.

Why? Because my sister and I are writing a book about our great aunt’s life growing up in Hot Springs back in the late 19th century. Her father, or Papa as she called him, was the constable of Hot Springs and he also built houses and worked as a blacksmith on the side. One of the chapters in the book deals with a story we heard many times growing up, both from our own father and from our aunt about her going on a trip to the Paint Rock area with Papa who had some business with a saloon owner.

Christy and I have been up to the Hot Springs area several times. The last time we went, we knew we we going to include that story in the book so we looked for Paint Rock, hoping to find some information about the saloon or at least get an idea of the general layout of the town. What we found was that there isn’t actually a town called Paint Rock. There is a Paint Rock, or Painted Rock as some people call it, which is interesting in its own right but…no town.

Yesterday, when my husband pointed out the Rock House Saloon which sits right on the border, very close to the Paint Rock, I immediately began wondering if that was the saloon. It’s an old building made of river rock and it looks like it could’ve been built way back in the 1890’s when the story took place. So I’m going to put on my researcher’s hat and see what I can find out about the Rock House Saloon. Oh, and the next time we go home for the holidays, which should be in a couple of weeks, I’m going to stop there and if they’re open, talk to them about the building. Maybe someone can confirm my suspicions or at least give me more information about the place. And hopefully, I’ll remember to take my camera with me!

Hope everybody had a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving!

scratching your head over Harlequin’s new self-publishing imprint Harlequin Horizons?  I admit to a little bit of confusion–okay, make that a lot of confusion–about why they would do such a thing and the more I read, the more puzzled I became.

So, yeah, I went searching for answers and I have to tell you, this thing is all over the Internet.  Blogs everywhere are talking about it.  I’m surprised it hasn’t become one of the hot topics on Twitter.  Of course, since I’ve been busy with the edits on Storm Shadows, I haven’t been paying much attention to Twitter, so it very well could be the “Trending Topics” list.

Anyway, in my search for understanding–okay, okay, my inbred nosiness–I went looking for someone who could make sense of this for me…

and eureka!  I found a post on Jackie Kessler’s blog!  It’s long but Ms. Kessler breaks the whole sorry mess down for you and doesn’t pull any punches.  Believe me, you’re not going to find a better explanation than this one.

Thanks, Ms. Kessler!

Received this on the authors’ loop of one of my publishers and wanted to pass it on:

Xerox is doing something that really touched my heart and I wanted to forward it along to you all.  I always try to find a way around this time of year to say “Thank You” to the men and women who serve our country overseas.  If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is serving in Iraq . You can’t pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services. How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them. This takes just 10 seconds and it’s a wonderful way to say thank you. Please take the time and please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you’s.

Here’s hoping everyone will remember our troops this holiday season.  Let them know that you’re thinking of them and are grateful for all they do for us!  It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s free–thanks Xerox!–so go ahead, click on the link and make someone’s day–in a nice way, of course!

in your inbox when you’ve been away for a week.  I’m finally getting to the last of the emails that I couldn’t get to last week when I was in Florida and lookie what I found from one of my favorite sites, Cata’s Single Titles:

with the latest Dames’ Dozen.  Denise Dietz, author of the Diet Club Mystery series is in the spotlight today on the Dames of Dialogue blog.  Her answers, not to mention the titles of her books, will put a smile on your face and give you some insight into what makes this fascinating woman tick.  Throw in a few promotion tips for authors and a romance that will warm your heart, and you have a highly entertaining and informative interview.

So instead of strangling a loaf of Italian bread or beating up a cookie or even chaining a lamb chop to the bed, hop on over to the Dames of Dialogue blog and check out her interview.  You’ll be glad you did and it just might save the life of a cheesecake!

A few months ago I had to buy a new vacuum cleaner because my old one–which I’d had for a long time and dearly loved–died of natural causes.  So I bought a Bissell Easy Vac because it was lightweight and if you can believe their hype, easy to use.  It worked fine the first few times I used it but since then I’ve found that the Bissell Easy Vac is the most worthless piece of junk I’ve ever owned.

Lightweight, yes.  Easy to use, not on your life!  Unless you enjoy taking your vacuum cleaner apart and cleaning out the hoses every time you use it.  And I do mean every single time.  The hoses on this thing clog up at least twice every time I vacuum my house–which is once a week, by the way–and it’s not an easy chore to take the thing apart and clean them.

I should’ve taken it back the first time it happened, but I thought it was a one-time thing and so I gave it another chance.  Not to mention I no longer had the box it came in and I wasn’t sure the store would take it back.  When it continued to happen, I thought I’d use it only to vacuum my hardwood floors and buy another vacuum cleaner that could handle the carpet in the bedrooms and the area rugs in my living and dining rooms.  Problem is, when you use the Bissell Easy Vac to vacuum hardwood floors, all it does is blow the dirt around.  Seriously, you can see the pet hair, dust, etc. being spewed all over the floor.  Like I said, the most worthless piece of junk I’ve ever owned.

Thinking there was no way the store would take it back, I went on Bissell’s website and emailed them about the problem I was having, hoping they’d do something to help.  Another idiotic move.  After multiple emails back and forth with their “Consumer Services” department–a joke if I ever heard one.  Bissell, it seems, has no interest in servicing their consumers–during which it was implied that I must have a nasty house–how dirty can a house get in a week with only two people and one dog living in it?–and/or I was an idiot–hard to argue with that one because I did buy this useless piece of junk–they told me to take the vacuum to a registered dealer and have it professionally cleaned.

Oh, and by the way, I’d have to pay for the cleaning since that isn’t covered under the warranty.  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.  I may be an idiot for buying this thing, but I’m not stupid enough to throw good money after bad!  And I have to say, a vacuum cleaner that’s only a few months old SHOULD NOT have to be cleaned or serviced, professionally or otherwise…unless of course it’s a piece of worthless junk like the Bissell Easy Vac!  I’ve had vacuum cleaners for years and never once had to take them in to a registered dealer to be serviced.

So, here’s the deal, Bissell, I will never purchase another product with your name on it and I will tell everyone who’ll listen that Bissell puts out garbage and the company is not the least bit interested in standing behind their products or trying to keep their customers happy.  They’re only interested in taking your money and after they have, they don’t give a flying flip whether the customer is satisfied or not.

Apparently, I’m not the only person who has had trouble with Bissell’s Easy Vac.  Sure wish I’d seen that review before I bought!

after a week in Florida visiting my dad.  The weather was horrible, cold and rainy thanks to Hurricane Ida, but I enjoyed myself anyway.  Of course, that had a lot to do with the fact that my sister was with me and we spent a great deal of time with our dad, listening to stories about my great aunt Bessie.

Also, we worked on the outline, timeline, and plotline–that’s a lot of lines!–of Whistling Woman, the book we’re writing together about our aunt Bessie’s fascinating life.  We’re hoping the stories we grew up hearing and the ones we still love to listen to today will live on through the book.  There are so many stories that we’re talking about  doing a sequel which will deal with the second part of her life, after she met and married Uncle Fletcher, moved with him from Hot Springs, North Carolina to the Black Moutain/Old Fort area, purchased 400 acres of the old Zachariah Solomon plantation, where she lived for the rest of her life while teaching for almost 40 years in several one-room schools in the area.

But that’s for the future, right now, we’re about a third of the way through the manuscript of Whistling Woman so we decided to start a blog.  We’ve just gotten the bare basics up but I hope we’ll be able to get it going soon and I’ll be sure to post it here when it goes live.  Hope to see ya’ll there!

New Dames’ Dozen up today with author and world traveler Sybil Baker.  Her first book, The Life Plan, has been called a “screwball comedy for the 21st century.”  Yay!  I love screwball comedies and can’t wait to get my hands on that one!

Click the link above and do a little traveling in cyberspace to read Sybil’s entertaining interview.  There’s no waiting in a long line for boarding, no turbulence, and I guarantee you won’t get jet lag!

It’s raining here in the mountains of North Carolina and for the sake of all the pint-size Trick or Treaters out there, I’m hoping it clears up before tonight.  I can remember trick or or treating in the rain when I was a kid.  It wasn’t fun.  Still, free candy so I guess it’s worth it.  Me, my favorite house to visit when we were kids was the one at the end of our street.  The old couple who lived there worked at a printing press that printed comic books and they would give away three or four comic books with the covers torn off and rolled up into a neat cylinder.  You never knew what you would get but hey, free read + caramel apples from the people next door = heaven as far as I was concerned.

Tomorrow, after all the Trick or Treaters have eaten their way into a sugar coma, is the first of November and if you’re an author, you know what that means; National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us.  I don’t particiapte in NaNo, there’s just something about committing myself to write a novel in a month that goes against my grain.  First, I’m no good with deadlines, especially the self-imposed ones, and second, well, I have way too many WIPs as it is.  I don’t need another one, I need to clean up and/or finish the ones I have and start submitting them.  So, no NaNo for me but I do want to wish all those participating good luck–you’re a stronger man woman author than I am!

And that brings me to my next subject, National Authors’ Day–or is it Author’s Day?  Authors Day?  I’ve seen it all three ways but I prefer the first one–is also tomorrow.  Hmm…I guess I really should celebrate this since I am an author, but I’ll probably let it go by without even thinking about it.  Or maybe I should eat all the leftover Halloween candy–Butterfingers, yum!–resulting in a sugar high and write a novel in one day.  Who needs a whole month?  Well, okay, that’s probably won’t work because whatever I turn out will most likely be garbage but who knows?

The day after that, November 2nd, is Plan Your Epitaph Day.  Okay, I admit, I probably won’t be participating in that one either.  Too depressing!

Next up on November 3rd is my favorite, Cliche Day!  Yay!  I love cliches–I know, I know, cliches are bad when you’re a writer, but I still love them.  I have a Friday Favorite post scheduled this week on the Dames of Dialogue blog so I guess I should save anything else I have to say about cliches for that post.

Then on November 4th, we have Mischief Night.  Huh?  Shouldn’t that one be celebrated on October 31st?  November 5th is National Men Make Dinner Day.  I can get behind that one…except whatever my husband cooked, I probably wouldn’t be able to eat.  I’d much prefer National Men Pay for Dinner Out Day.  After that comes, take a deep breath, this is a long one, UN International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.  Seriously, shouldn’t someone come up withh a shorter name for that one?  I mean, I’m all for any day when people put the environment first but that name needs trimming.  I’d say go with an acronym, but that wouldn’t work either; UNIDPEEWAC.  Then again, maybe it would.

And that takes us through the week ahead.  Happy Halloween to all the Trick or Treaters out there, happy National Authors’ Day to all the authors and if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, good luck!  And remember if you’re at a loss for words, using cliches is a no-no, you should avoid them like the plague!  To finish off the week, make some mischief on Wednesday, let a man cook you dinner on Thursday and plant a tree on Friday–hey, it may not meet the purpose of UNIDPEEWAC, but at least you’re trying.

**a special thanks Holidays on the Net for all the fun info on holidays!

I admit, I don’t “get” why so many people are fascinated with vampires these days.  I mean, sure, I used to watch Dark Shadows and I loved every single minute of it.  I’d rush home from school, plant myself in front of the TV and for 30 minutes I wouldn’t move.  I guess you could say I was a fangirl of vampires back then but now, well, not so much.

Hey, wait a minute, maybe it’s that old soap opera that did it.  Maybe I got my fill of vampires back when I watched Dark Shadows religiously.  I guess you could even go so far as to say Barnabas Collins is my vampire soul mate–aren’t soul mates very important in today’s vampire stories?–since no other vampire has ever tempted me to spend hours of my life in their world.  Maybe no one else can ever do the same thing for me that Barnabas did back in the late 60s and early 70s.

Or maybe I’m just too old.  Could be, but I write paranormal romance and love writing in that genre so maybe I’m not that old.  Still, I rarely read any books that have vampires.  I’ve only read one Sookie Stackhouse book, the first one and it was pretty good, but I don’t watch True Blood and have no desire to read the rest of the books.  I’ve never read a single one of the Twilight books–is it true the vampires sparkle?  I’m sorry but that’s just wrong to me–and I’m definitely not tempted to see the movies.  I did read Salem’s Lot when it came out and I enjoyed it though it’s not my favorite Stephen King book.  I’ve also read Interview with the Vampire by Ann Rice, but was never tempted to pick up another one in that series either.  One series I vaguely remember enjoying was by an author whose name I can’t recall, nor can I remember the titles of the book or series.  Only thing I do remember is in the first one, the hero is a vampire and he wants to be turned back into a mortal and the heroine is a waitress at a diner.  I read another two–or was it three?–books in that series but I didn’t read all of them.

These days though, when all the world seems to be caught up in some sort of “Vampire Fever,” I just don’t get it and I definitely don’t want to write about them.

It could be because there seems to be a glut on the market when it comes to vampire books these days and again, no one will ever top Dark Shadows.  I read something somewhere the other day that they are making a Dark Shadows movie and Johnny Depp is rumored to be starring as Barnabas Collins.  Meh, I like Johnny Depp but I probably won’t go see the movie because that’s another thing I’m sick of.  Why do the people in Hollywood feel compelled to remake perfectly good movies–they can never improve on the original in my opinion–and movies based on TV shows–too much of a good thing and in most cases the movie is nowhere as good as the original show.  

Heck, maybe I am old…and cranky…and I know for a fact I’m most definitely tired…of vampires!  Which brings me to the real reason for this post, I’ve finished with the second book in my Apprentice Angel series and I’m thinking for the third one, the main character, Mac the Angel, is going to be sent to help a goth teenager who’s fascinated with vampires and all the lore that goes with them.  Not that there will be any actual vampires in the book, but the underlying theme will be a sort of vampire mania so…I guess I’ll have to get over my aversion and embrace the world of vampires again.