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Am I really here? My internet service hasn't been working all week and did I ever miss it! The tech adivsed us it may go down again however because our modem needs to be updated. Terrific. Since Thursday was my day to post at Prairie Chicks Write Romance, I went into the local library Wed afternoon and used their computer to submit my post. It's the last day of October which means National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow. In the coming month, you'll see me refer to it as NaNoWriMo or even NaNo. I've signed up as a Nano participant at eHarlequin so I'll be reporting my progress there as well as here. Plus, I've been invited to report my progress on Michelle Levigne's blog Living Proof . So, my Thurs Prairie Chick post was Nanowrimo Tips and it's all those things I've found and used for getting the most writing out of Nanowrimo. I've spent October working on Emma's Outlaw and it will be my Nano project this year. My goal is to have Emma...

Kate Bridges, a Harlequin Historical author and winner of numerous awards, is guest blogging at Prairie Chicks Write Romance today . She usually uses Alaska or the Yukon for her settings. Kate is also a screenwriter and her post shows how this technique can enchance your novel writing. If you have time to go over and post a comment or question today, you may win a copy of Kate's upcoming November release - Alaskan Renegade . Kate's questions are: Have you ever tried screenwriting? Do you prefer seeing a movie or novel open chronologically in time, or does it matter? Here's a blurb on Alaskan Renegade : When the Skagway town nurse, Victoria Windhaven, sets off on a dangerous medical journey across the Alaskan wilderness, she’s forced to ride with a man from her past - bodyguard Brant MacQuaid. Five years ago in St. Louis, Brant left her sister standing at the altar and Victoria has never forgiven him. They’re accompanied on the trip by a young medical student who has a crus...

I'm blogging over at Inkwell Inspirations today about my rocks . It was supposed to be a travel piece about somewhere I've been and every time I sat down to think about it, I kept coming back to the Souris Rock Pit and all the treasures I've found there. I asked hubby to read my rock post when he came home for lunch. He was eating with one hand and holding Lynnette Eason's latest Love Inspired Suspense, A Silent Fury , in the other. He looked up and asked, 'Do I hafta?' 'It's got lots of pictures,' I told him. I even brought my mini over and put it down on the table in front on him. Then I sat down to eat my own lunch. And no, I didn't feel bad that I was able to read Margaret Daley's Love Inspired Suspense Poisoned Secrets while making him read my blog. Heh. But a funny thing happened while he was reading it. He started chewing slower until finally, he put his sandwich down and kept reading the blog. I was so astonished I had to remember to...

It's a brilliant sunny, Saturday outside and I'm inside coughing away. Can't even say 6 words without hacking. Of course the little guy doesn't mind 'cause I can't yell at him to clean his room. My cough has come back with a vengeance and I believe it's because of working in the cold on Thursday afternoon. Seekerville 's BIAW ended on Sunday :( and I haven't worked on Emma's story now since Tues. I miss it. I like the accountability that BIAW and Nanowrimo offers. Here's what I've been doing: Wed - writing Prairie Chick Writes Romance (PC) blogpost Thurs: - blogging at Prairie Chicks (answering comments) - drafting post for Sat's PC guest blogger - emailing/scheduling PC guest bloggers for Nov/Dec - writing Tues 'Travel' blogpost for Inkwell Inspirations And then at noon on Thurs, the furnace started squealing! What a racket! Hubby was in the house eating lunch so I called him over and he said the motor was shot and he'd t...

What? I haven't blogged for a week? Ah - it's because I've been working on Emma's story. I've also been sick with a sore throat and hacking cough. For a couple days there it felt like my head would split every time I coughed. Not conducive to quality writing. Now that it's too cold to work in the sunroom I've had t o move my cave into the renovated garage we've christened the rec centre. Here's a photo of my new cave in the back corner behind the furnace (on the right) but it's only temporary until we can get the carpet down. Then I'll move to the other side of the room and set up shop. I shut the furnace off at night and put it back on the next day. Because it's all one big room, it heats up in about 15 mins flat. But that's with the temps hovering around freezing. I suppose it'll take longer as the temp drops. Since today is Thursday, I'm blogging over at Prairie Chicks Write Romance. My post today is my agent appt in Denver...

Today I'm blogging at Prairie Chicks Write Romance about negotiating with your family to give you more time to write during what Prairie Chick Helena calls 'writing binges'. For me, these writing binges come in the form of Book in a Week (BIAW) and National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) which is only 3 wks away. I find I write best when I'm accountable for my writing and that's what these 'binges' give me - accountability. Instead of just talking about it, I'm forced to actually do it. I say yay! to writing binges. Who will care for your family while you're ignoring them? That's where the trade-offs come in. The questions I've asked the Prairie Chicks today are these: - Do you use trade-offs during intensive writing periods? - Are there any trade-offs you’ve thought up but haven’t tried and why not? - What's stopping you?

I've signed on for the Seekerville edition of Book In a Week (BIAW). If you follow my blog, you know I do BIAW every January with the Sask Romance Writers , but this is a new one for me. I won't be starting a brand new book but using this week to add the 20,000 words I need to Emma's Outlaw . That means I'll be hunkering down in my writing cave this week. I may put out more blog posts here with my progress, but I won't be appearing on many blogs around the net except for the Seekervile one which is encouraging us on. And in case you're wondering, yes, it's now too cold to work in the sunroom so I've had to move my cave into the rec centre. We've got the furnace fired up and I've set up an old comuter desk on one side of the room where I've been working the past couple days. I'd love to set it up permanently but the cement is cold under my shoes. We'll be putting the old living room carpet out there but have to wait for the crews to c...

I'm blogging today over at Prairie Chicks Write Romance about how I finally chose the genre I'm going to concentrate my writing on these next few years. I wanted to show you a current farm image so I opened my door and took a few pics. Imagine my surprise when I loaded them and discovered I hadn't downloaded the photos I took of Montana on my last day of travel. Now these photos are special because I was finally - just hours from home - able to capture the elusive hoodoo on film. I tried to describe a hoodoo to my crit partner/roomie Gwen at the conference but I didn't do it justice. So hopefully she'll get an idea from these. This photo was taken looking up a hill on the north side of Culbertson in the northeast corner of Montana just 65 mls/104 kms south of the Can/US border. Now, it doesn't look like much, right? But my fingers started tingling. I got back on the road and headed north, up past the hoodoos, turned around and parked close to them. Here's a ...