FIVE LIPS - WOOT!

Destiny by Design got a 5 Lip rating from TwoLips Reviews!! Here's what Kerin had to say:

Destiny by Design is a delicious read that you don’t want to miss. Simon is the perfect mix of hot construction worker, intelligent businessman and talented lover. His sense of humor is fantastic and his commitment to doing what’s right is admirable. Ellis is a bit quirky but oddly I could relate to everything that she said. She’s a delightful combination of unique and sassy and her inhibitions with Simon makes for some hot, hot scenes!

With a dash of humor, a bit of intrigue and a whole lot of chemistry, Destiny by Design is juuuust right! I look forward to reading more by the talented and entertaining Wylie Kinson!

Ouch!
Damn it... I think I just threw my shoulder out patting myself on the back...

VOTE Destiny by Design in FAVE SPRING EBOOK POLL - closes June 15th

Update - June 15th: Destiny by Design won!

Thanks very much for your votes ;)

Author Ciar Cullen is doing a "Fave Spring E-Book" poll and Destiny by Design has been nominated!
You can vote here: http://ciarcullen.blogspot.com/ if not for me, than for another of your faves. Please support E-books!!

~~ SCROLL DOWN FOR NEW POSTS ~~
this one gets top billing thru June 15th ;)

Coming soon from Ellora's Cave...

Blog buddy and fellow EC author, Christine, has just announced the July 20th release date for her book The Bond That Ties Us. She's posted an excerpt on her blog. Go check it out. I'll wait.

... (what are you waiting for? Go!)

... (la-la, tra la, dee-dum-dee-dum, doo doo, too doo)

... *filing nails*

And, you're back. Don't forget to download The Bond... on July 20th.

Reading Christine's excerpt reminded me that I have yet to post the blurb for Destiny by Design, my own little creation that comes out on MAY 18th.

Destiny by Design

Interior designer Ellis Strathmore has been chosen to compete in the Oak Ridges Development Competition, along with a handful of other designers—including her former boss and nemesis, Cynthia Travers. With the deadline just weeks away, the design teams are under intense pressure to finish. A relative novice known for her unusual approach to decorating, Ellis is determined to prove her talent, artistry and professionalism when creating the perfect home office.

One week into the Oak Ridges Competition and Simon Callon would happily trade Callon & Son Construction for a string of donut shops. Tools and supplies keep mysteriously disappearing and two of the designers are making his life miserable. He’d worked with Cynthia Travers before and knew how to handle her demands, but quirky Ellis Strathmore, with her uncanny ability to both annoy and arouse him, has Simon questioning his normally solid judgment.

Ellis and Simon clash over paint colors, work schedules and cabinets, but they can’t deny the sexual chemistry that’s building between them. The perfect palette for passion comes together with a brush of danger, tones of teasing banter and a touch of naked painting in Destiny by Design.

Available from Ellora's Cave in only EIGHT more days (not that I have the countdown written on my calendar in red ink. That's SO something Christine would do *eye roll*)

And finally, my mom arrives on Thursday morning for an eagerly anticipated visit so I won't be as regular around the blogosphere. I'll be lurking, but not posting. Miss me y'all, okay?

Catching up, Thinking Blogger torch gets passed...

I've been a bit out of the loop the last few days. I've been lurking, making a quick comment or two, but my heart hasn't been in blogland lately.
Let's catch up, shall we? (cue dramatic music...)

Thanks for all your comments and prayers for my friend's son. Good news - latest cat scan indicates that Owen's brain tumor was excised in its entirety. Bad news - still no clue what caused it as the biopsy results are still pending.

My Sweetness (aka almost-three-year old son) had to undergo a horrible test at the hospital last Friday which I still have trouble thinking about. The poor little munchkin had to be catheterized while me and two nurses held him down. It was awful!! He was crying hysterically, I was fighting tears and the whole thing went on too long. They pumped dye into his little bladder for a series of x-rays, then... I can't even go on.
Emotionally, I'm just all beat up. Poor kiddo is back in diapers cause he's so afraid his 'willy' will hurt. I'm very mad at our doctor for not preparing us for this ordeal. We thought it was an ultrasound, as in No Pain. Had I know it was such an invasive procedure, I would have exhausted all other avenues of diagnosis first. Totally unnecessary...

It get's happier from here, I promise...

It's MAY!! My book, Destiny by Design comes out in 17 days. Yes, I'm counting! Wouldn't you? :) I'm going to be posting the blurb, a few hook lines and an excerpt over the next few weeks and have already decided on a Destiny-themed Thursday Thirteen.

I finished book 24 in the 50 Book Challenge: Margaret Moore's The Duke's Desire.
Yipee! Almost 1/2 way to my goal and I'm slightly ahead of schedule. I've got a Jennifer Crusie to tackle next. This is my first Crusie, so it better be good!

And speaking of books, I just received another installment of Notes & Reflections from Uncle Mike, which I shall post tomorrow.

My wonderful darling husband is creating a new website for me. It's AWESOME! I scrutinized every author website out there looking for components I liked in terms of tone, color, headers, content, rollovers, you name it. Yes, if you have a website, I've examined it thoroughly!
There are some AMAZING examples out there -- author's truly are a creative bunch! The hardest part was capturing the essence of 'me'. It's great to say that Daisy Dexter Dobbs has a fun site, or KJ Howe's is da bomb, but I needed an image, a look, a design that screams WYLIE! And because I haven't really put myself in a tidy little 'niche' box just yet, it was difficult to pinpoint the feel. Having said that, I'm tickled red white and pink with what my DH has come up with. We've still got quite a bit of content to upload, but I hope to debut it within the next 2 weeks.

Finally, I've been terrible to ignore the fact that Susan Helene Gottfried honored me with the Thinking Blogger Award over a week ago and I haven't passed the torch. So here goes, in no particular order:
Thomma Lyn - her writing quotes always stir interesting discussion and make me look at particular aspects of my writing that may not have come front-of-mind unless provoked.

Candy Minx - I don't even know where to begin. This woman is smart, and talented, and creative and inspiring. Her eclectic posts - art, music, television, movies, books, issues - are so thought provoking that I often have to go back and reread them a second time just to absorb it all.

Here are the rules, for you newly tagged folk...
How participation works: If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

(I know I'm supposed to tag five, but I'll start with these two and give some more thought to the others. There are just so many great blogs out there!)

Finally, finally,... If you haven't yet voted in the The Blogger Awards, don't forget I'm up for a Blogitzer and would greatly appreciate your vote. Just click the link and do your thing - THANKS!

Warning: Self Promotion Ahead

Destiny By Design, coming MAY 18th, 2007 from Ellora's Cave

You have no idea how tickled, TICKLED PINK, BLUE, ORANGE AND SIDEWAYS, I am to announce that date. Didn't think it would be out until late summer so I was pleasantly surprised to get this news from my editor.
Just writing the words 'my editor' makes me get the squealies inside.
I have an ISBN! Only my fellow writers will understand the thrill this random 13 digit number brings.

Pirates are finally talking in my head

Yipee - school starts tomorrow!
It's not that I haven't enjoyed having Light (aka older son) home from school, contantly looking to me for amusement, but I have missed the day-to-day routine that accompanies school term. Meanwhile, during the craziness that is Christmas, Sweetness (aka younger son) decided that the holidays were the perfect time to outgrow his afternoon naps. It's been rough going the past few days, but I believe we're over a major hump. Though I cannot, under any circumstances, take him into the car after 4pm or the little minx will fall asleep by the end of our street.
I made the mistake of dashing out to the craft store for model glue with Sweetness at 3:30 today, and after a suspicious silence, noticed his wee head bobbing in the rearview mirror (fellow parents - you know that if I let this child sleep, even for five minutes, he would then be up until midnight!) So I sang, told knock-knock jokes, pointed out fascinating oberservations about anything I could find out the windows: lights, trees, cars and people going by.
I put on a bloody good one-woman show! *ta-da DA*

Starting to make headway with the pirate story - finally. There were too many odd bits floating in the space that is supposed to house my brain. Loose ends that didn't fit, bits and bobs that wouldn't gel. As usual, these things usually begin to weave themselves together about 3am. More again at 4:30am, etc... through a sleepless night. I awoke this morning determined to get the new scene committed to paper. A new opening scene to tie my two central characters together. I scraped what I had before (it was only about 1000 words, so no great loss. My goodness - did I really say that? This time last year I held on tightly to every sentence I wrote and now I'm willing to sacrifice 1000 words!?! I must be growing...), and managed to scrape together about 2,500 NEW words. Ahhh... nothing like starting over. Perhaps I'll sleep tonight!

In other writerly news, I received the contracts from Ellora's Cave this weekend and it renewed my excitement for the next-step - editing. Tomorrow I'll tackle the POV glitch in one of the scenes, and then the real editing begins. The nit-picky stuff that makes both you and your editor want to claw each other's cheeks (not really - but I'm feeling dramatic tonight. Must be the one-woman show thing.)
I also had to come up with a bio. How to make one's self interesting... not as easy as it should be. Of course I chose the tongue-in-cheek approach. What else can one do with an alias?! It's not really me, for heaven's sake...

I'm totally getting into the Christmas season, though what little snow we had melted in the rain last night. It's just not right having temps warm enough to melt snow, revealing the GREEN grass underneath. It's absolutely f%#ked-up to be able to walk around jacket-less in the middle of a Canadian December!!
Al Gore - I'm listening, dude!

Got our Christmas tree yesterday and it's perfect. Absolutely the finest most asymetrical tree I've ever seen. Shame it had to be cut down, really. I'll post a pic once it's trimmed, though it's so dang flawless I almost don't want to decorate it!

I'm working on assignment one for my children's lit course. I have to write a story based on a picture (one of a few choices they offered) of bears in a bathtub. I've decided to go with 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears II: Revenge of the Bears". It will be a picture book for 3-5 year olds.
Hmmm.... I may have to change the title.

The pirate story is up to a whopping 479 words! Just 9,500 more to go. Needless to say, I have NO IDEA where I'm going with it. I've changed my mind on the plot so many times that I've actually gone backwards in productivity. Is there a word to describe this? T.L.? You're good with words.

Good News/Bad News -- I sent a query off to an agent (kid lit) and got a request for full manuscript. Then I went on Absolute Write and found out they're a bunch of scammers. OUCH! Just as I was about to run for the hills, I rec'd an email from them saying they want to represent me. DOUBLE OUCH!! Better lace up my sneakers. Meanwhile, I'd sent a query to another agent (this one, legitimate) and rec'd a request for full ms today. Yipee! I'm used to getting rejections in the query phase, so this is a very positive step, even if it goes no further.

Two weeks have dragged by and I still haven't heard from Dream Editor at Dream Publishers re 'Destiny By Design'. She said she was swamped and it would be two weeks minimum before she'd get back to me, but despite her warning, I've begun the obsessive habit of hitting my 'check mail' button. My finger is starting to blister.

Hey - I've just found these label thingies. Cool!