electric mist

come hell or high water, now with more water

2011-05-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

I really really keep forgetting this blog over here. I'm mostly on facebook (http://facebook.com/ToniMcGeeCausey) if you want to check in for regular updates.

Meanwhile, we're watching the levees here on May 10th, since we're in the area that's most likely to get flooding here in Baton Rouge. If they open the Morganza, and it's likely they will, we might miss the flooding, or have a foot or two in the house -- hard to tell. Meanwhile, if they do open it, people will lose their homes. If they don't open it, LSU and many neighborhoods here will flood. There is no good answer here, just like upriver.

And I'm polishing the last polish of the current book before it goes to my agent (a very dark psychological suspense), come hell or high water. Now with more water. Wish us luck.

Winner announced for the free Kindle or Color Nook (pick one) + a $50 bookstore gift certificate

2011-01-10T06:28:00.001-08:00

Okay, I'm posting earlier today than I had thought I might. We had a lot of entries for the ALLISON BRENNAN, CELEBRATE HER NEW BOOK, LOVE ME TO DEATH giveaway, but not quite a 1000, so there's only one e-reader being given away. HOWEVER, just because I really appreciate so many of you posting and mentioning it on Facebook, I decided to throw in a couple of extra prizes/winners, just as lagniappe.

So the extra runner-up winners of an (email) $25 gift certificate to an online bookstore of your choice are:

Anne McQquiston (from Facebook)

@lovesbooks2 (Lori)

@s_muha (Sharon Muha)

@BusyWorkingMama (Aleks Nearing)

@slylady (Sandra Brodeur)

@dfrenchkss (Diane McMahon)

[Everyone above -- to claim your prize, email me at toni@tonimcgeecausey.com and tell me which is your online bookstore preference. It must have an email gift certificate option (most do) and also let me know which email address you'd like your gift certificate mailed to.]

And the grand prize winner of the e-reader of her choice (between a Kindle and a Nook Color), plus a $50 gift certificate to that e-reader bookstore is.....

@momof3boysj (Denise Holcomb)

Denise, congratulations! Please email me at toni@tonimcgeecausey.com and let me know your mailing address so that I can get your prize ordered for you OR let me know if you'd rather the cash value of the Kindle+gift certificate in a cash (paypal) prize.

FAQ

2010-09-27T15:12:00.001-07:00

Just a note to say there is finally information up in the FAQ section (click on my name above to bring you to the home page and you'll see the new intro and a link to the FAQ on the right).

What do you see?

2010-08-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

One of the difficult things about writing is narrowing down your options to the ones that best resonate with the story you want to tell. For me, it’s much easier to write a story when I already have the field narrowed. When I have to write a blog, for example, and if I know it could be about anything, I’m almost always stumped. If I narrow the field down to writing, then that helps me focus–but even with the category of “writing” there are all sorts of sub-categories, from marketing to creativity to time management to craft. And within each of those, more nesting categories. It’s a matter of choosing a subject and then refining, drilling down until I find the one specific point that resonates with my mood the day I’m writing the blog and then plucking that idea out, and examining it from as many sides as I can.

It’s also the same thing with life. You have so many choices every day–from simple things like “Will I apply for that job?” to “Will I have patience with the idiot co-worker or go postal?” to “Will I pursue my dream?” Each one of those choices then beget more… and if you focus on the totality of all of the choices, you’re very likely going to be paralyzed. You have to take the project–any project–step-by-step.

Fiction’s no different. You have to look at each set of choices you’re making and think about how they’re going to help you throughout the story. Do you want to do first person POV? Or multiple third person POVs? What type of story do you want to tell? What sort of tone fits that story? What sort of characters fit that tone? What sort of setting and premise fit those characters? What sort of ambience and socio-economic backgrounds fit that setting and premise? Etc… drilling down until you find the details that illuminate your original inspiration / goal.

This is where voice comes in–it’s your take on those choices that ultimately define your voice. It’s showing the world how YOU see the story, and giving us a slant on that that makes it uniquely yours. Which will make it memorable.

Instead of using a writing example to show you what I mean, let me jump into a different arena and use a couple of examples.

When I had the idea for this blog, I grabbed a couple of photos I’d taken, and I decided to show you the “before” image and the “after” results once I’d noodled with it in Lightroom. (I also have Photoshop, but for the purpose of these photos, Lightroom did enough of what I wanted, fast enough. If I were going to print and frame these photos, I’d pull each of them into Photoshop and clone out some of the flaws until I had it exactly as I wanted it… i.e., a “final polish”.)

I want to walk you through this process, because it’s going to show my voice and my editing process (same as I use for writing, in a lot of ways).

When I was vacationing in Moab, Utah last year with our oldest son, Luke, and my fabulous daughter-in-law, Amanda, I was experimenting with my camera, and I had a goal of getting some shots that I could play with for dramatic effect.

That right there is the first level of writing: the area was narrowed down: Moab. The tone: artistic–something that I could show off certain ideas I had in my head. So that eliminates me selecting for this exercise all sorts of candid shots of people. As I sifted through dozens of images, I had an idea of what I wanted to play with that would further my goal of an artistic take on a subject. This means eliminating shots that were perfectly good, but which didn’t have an angle or lighting or a detail that I could emphasize.

Okay, let me show you. Here’s the first shot that caught my eye of the ones I took. Now this is straight out of the camera, untouched. It’s a lazy shot–I didn’t bother to stop to get a good light read on the leaves, nor did I bother to frame the shot much. I knew, though, when I saw the leaves originally that I would end up turning the photo in a different direction from the image and playing with it in black and white and cropping it.

It started here:

It’s kinda boring, huh? But when I was walking by those leaves, I didn’t see what’s in that photo up there. I saw this (click on the image to see it in better detail):

The first photo is an example of writing that’s decent, serviceable. The second is voice: I not only converted it to a black and white, I boosted the contrast, the highlights and lowlights, the exposure, and futzed with things like luminescence to gain that “painting” quality. I then framed it tightly. In the first photo, there’s a little fluidity to the leaves, but we’ve got too much backstory around it: the wall of mud, the other leaves, the other sticks, and the dull, monochromatic color. By tightening in on the fluidity of the curves, I tell a story here: something dying can be beautiful, too. I love the almost lace-like quality of that bottom leaf, and I could’ve zeroed in on just that one detail, but I’d have lost the movement this image now has.

A lot of times, writers are afraid that readers won’t “get” the whole idea if we don’t lay out every single piece of information for them in one big information dump. But by giving so much, we render the overall “image” stagnant. There’s this resistance to getting in tight in a scene–a resistance to trusting that the reader will “get” the big picture. Often, it’s too easy to forget that you’re not going to just have that one scene. You’re going to have dozens of them, and if you’re giving us just the information that we need right then, we’ll “get” what we’re looking at, but we’ll also “get” the overall idea as you string a series of those tight images together. I could do an entire series right here on these kinds of details.

A second example I wanted to show you is one where what we see is not what I want you to focus on in the original. Here’s one of the arches in the National Park there in Moab:

Again, kinda boring. I was in a hurry at this point, and tired. I remember thinking about what I’d do with this image, and I took several quick shots. I should’ve metered better for the lighting, but I was starting to lose the sun. Here’s what I ended up with, after playing with it for about five minutes (again, click to see better detail):

That’s the same image, but the second one has drama. It’s going to grab your eye much better than the original, and you’re going to focus on that contrast between the sky and the mountains, whether you knew that’s where I intended to force your eye or not. By converting it into black and white and adding some sepia tones, I was able to get a lot more detail out of the rock face, and more contrast and boosting of the blacks in the photo gave me that effect with the sky.

So if you have a scene that you know is just sort of there, doing its job, looking decent, but it doesn’t feel like it’s grabbing the reader (and if it’s not grabbing you, it’s very likely it’s not going to grab them), then ask yourself, “What’s my vision here? Where do I want them to focus?” I took several shots of that arch above from different angles, but this one had the rockface in the forefront pointing to the sky and so I chose this angle to manipulate. Then I started playing with the colors, with converting it, playing with the contrasts, until the photo started telling you the story I wanted you to see.

In a scene, I’ll do the same thing–I’ll have a scene that’s functioning okay, but it’s too easy for my eyes to pass over it. I want you engaged in what you’re reading–or seeing–and to do that, I’ve got to think of ways of bringing out the details that create a vivid mental image for you. I ask myself, what’s the conflict here? (contrast) What do I want to highlight? What is the emotional response I want to have in the reader at the end of this scene? Do I need the reader to be close in on the detail, or pulled back for the perspective?

Imagery inspires me. If I were to do a final pass on these two images to make them into something that I actually liked enough to frame, I’d pull the top b&w leaf one into photoshop and I’d clone out that bottom stick that protrudes up into the lacy-leaf area. I’d probably futz a bit more with the contrast and texture, and I might add some actual textural overlays onto it to see how they looked (giving it more of an antique feel). On the bottom one, I’d pull it into photoshop and isolate the sky and then increase the contrast just in the sky without screwing with the rocks… so that there was a bit more of that lovely contrasty-sky feel to the piece. Or maybe not. I’m not sure–which is what happens sometimes in the final draft–I’ll put things in, decide they don’t help, and take them back out.

I love editing. I’m a far better editor than I am a writer–or a photographer, for that matter. It’s where I get to refine the choices I made, or throw them out and start with something else.

Imagery inspires me. I love photography for this reason, because it interlaces with how I see the world and informs how I write.

What inspires you? No matter what field you’re in, what is it in your life that inspires you to look at your world with a clearer eye? A happier eye?

A Writer's Workspace (Mid-Book)

2010-08-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

JT has her idea box and her official book box. Alex outlines (I think?). Allison brainstorms as she goes. Rob has a hole in a cave somewhere. (Kidding.)

I have whiteboards.

and...

(photos taken with my iPhone because my big digital camera died on me)

I also use Scrivener for Macs -- which has many of the same capabilities of these whiteboards + a Word-like software... and I will dump a lot of photos there, images of my characters and such. But when I am working on specific scenes, I like having the photos right there on my board.

(photos are random, from the internet... not my own)

I like Scrivener for the organizational information-at-my-fingertips convenience. I am actually very lazy about organization--and I've paid for that countless times by wasting hours looking for something that I couldn't remember how I worded (and therefore a simple "find" search wasn't helpful). Or I'll forget a character's last name from the time I mentioned them (which drives me nuts when I can't find a last name, and then I can't remember if I actually used it or changed my mind but maybe mentioned them by last-name-only somewhere else). So the organizational ability to just plop a folder under a heading called "characters" on Scrivener, and drop bits of info in there (cut and pasted description, a photo of an actor or anyone I find on the internet who most resembles the character)... and later on, it's there to remind me of details without me having to search.

Mostly, though, I use the whiteboards. And lots and lot and lots of Post-It notes.

I hate writing a linear outline. I don't "see" the story like that. I see it playing out horizontally, like a movie. And that might seem like splitting hairs, but I was finally able to structure a story solidly once I allowed myself to write it out horizontally and "hang" the bigger turning points along a timeline, rather than try to write down the page, vertically, in a paragraph-by-paragraph explication.

[So far, I have never had to go back and make any big structural changes--once I get this structure up on the board. When I start blind, without the structure, I end up re-doing the first act too many times to count.]

When I start a project, both of those boards are empty. My husband, Carl, made those for me. [We ordered the magnetic whiteboards online where I found them at a pretty significant savings over Office Depot--especially for these sizes. Carl then framed them and hung them for me.][Yes, he is my hero.] The first thing I'll do on the board that you see on the second photo is draw that timeline across the time--Act One, Act Two, Act Three lines in place, then turning point lines, climax, resolution. And I start plugging in the major emotional moments / major plot issues.

Weirdly, I will not write down every scene I "see" in this pass. I don't need to--if I have a major turning point, I'll know what I'll need to do to build up to that turning point. Those things will fluctuate and change, though, so I'm not fond of nailing them down too severely.

The Post-It notes start showing up at some point around the mid-book process. I'll start seeing too many things at once and I don't want to forget the smaller details. I'll have a note up there about motive, or a twist, just to remember to layer in those clues as I go so that when I get to that scene, it's ready. As I write, I'll realize I'll need to go back and layer something in earlier, or give it more depth because it's turned out to be more important or useful than the initial throwaway comment indicated back when I wrote it. (I often find I planted things I had no idea I'd planted... I'll think, 'Oh, I need to go back and do X' only to go back and lo, there it was, already there.' That, my friends, is freaky.)

By the end of the book, I'll have dozens of Post-Its up there, of things I still need to go back and check. I'll discard the ones I know I already finished, so it's not confusing.

[During the edits and then later, the copyedits, I will do more Post-Its. I think the company owes me a thank you for keeping their revenue up.]

You see that notebook on my desk? That's the second one for this book. It's a five-subject college ruled thing, nothing fancy, and I'll brainstorm in there. I will work out motives, or the characters' traits, backstory, habits, etc., and I almost never go back and refer to anything there because once I write it, I know it. It's very stream-of-consciousness and hard to follow, but I will often start babbling in there if I have a knotty story problem and usually, the physical process of writing it down helps me brainstorm it out. I don't know why. I can't actually write the story in longhand--I freeze up. I've been typing too long, having started writing back in the early eighties on an IBM selectric typewriter.

My office used to be in a front room of the house--a room not-quite-double this sized room, and with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I never got anything done. Part of it was the fact that I was too accessible to everyone (kids, employees, husband), and part of it was that the wall space was too visually busy. I don't have much on the walls in this room, and I like that it's in the back of the house, where almost no one but my husband will go. I can write in public places when I have to, but it's difficult because I am naturally nosy and want to eavesdrop on everyone, and then I end up in conversations. Which are great, but then I get nothing done.

[I am just one of those people that complete strangers will tell absolutely everything to. If I'm in a restaurant, people will want to tell me stuff they've never told anyone else. Little kids love me. They will be terrified of everyone else in that place, and if I sit down, they are going to try to come over and crawl in my lap. I have had new moms hand me their infant and say, "Can you hold her a sec? I just have to run to the restroom." or in the grocery story, "Oh, here, I'll be right back, I have to grab some cereal." And then I'm standing there, with this kid I've never laid eyes on, who, for some reason, thinks this is perfectly okay. At least they don't cry.]

Anyway, I digress.

I have worked in a very tiny office space made out of a closet. A back porch that we turned into an office. A converted dining room. My "desks" have included everything from a piece of plywood or a lap pillow to an old table to a hand-me-down desk, to, finally, a new desk. I've worked with just a typewriter all the way up to my Mac and a big honking monitor. (Yes, I know it's huge. That wasn't on purpose. That is just one of those, "Well, fine, if you insist," moments when they did not have mine fixed, couldn't fix it, and had to replace it with something bigger. I should get an Oscar for the straight face I had when they asked me if I would mind the bigger monitor.)

I've also written while lying in the backseat of a truck, just after having had surgery, while my husband drove us to Colorado--pen and paper and only occasionally, the laptop that was on its last leg.

So I'm curious about your workspace, no matter what you do. What's on your desk? If you don't work at a desk, tell me something about what you do and see when you arrive at work? What's your ideal working environment (whatever you do!). What is the one thing that will derail your efficiency? (Mine is the dog barking next door. There is one of seven which sounds like you are stabbing her, and stabbing her some more and oh, wait, stabbity stabbity stab, and I swear, I think she's dying and it upsets me. But that's just how she barks.) (Not too coincidentally, I have begun to write to music all of the time, now.)

Tell me about your workspace!

follow-up to yesterday

2010-07-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

In a follow-up discussion over on Murderati, regarding my post (below this one), this question was asked by Catherine, and I thought it a great question. Here's her question and my reply:

I have to answer Catherine's question, because I think it's a fair one. You asked, "In reference to Toni's post yesterday...why would you want to create a situation where you suck the joy out of creating?"

And my answer is: Well, it wasn't obvious at the outset that it was goingto suck the joy out of it.

I know in my case, I was trying to do something that I knew I loved doing, and I knew I'd had some success with that genre, and I knew that there were editors who were actively pursuing me for that genre (including a very big-name editor from a different house), and you put all of that together, and you think, "Well, duh. Of course I can do that."

Professionals show up and do their jobs. As a civil contractor, I don't get to say to a client, "Ya know, I just am not 'feeling' the concrete pour today. I poured so much yesterday, I need to recharge, rethink my plans. How do you feel about limestone instead?' " And when you've created expectations (whether it's with your audience or your agent or your editor/publisher), there's a certain element of the fact that this is a business and we don't whine and we show up and get the work done. It really cannot always be about where the muse takes us--because what if we're in the middle of a contracted book and the muse suddenly wants to switch genres? That happens... and the professional writer recognizes it for what it is--a method of procrastinating--and stops that nonsense and gets back to work.

So it's not always easy to look at a path that you're about to go down and realize that there lies the wrong path. We'll often assume that it's procrastination or a short-term feeling of inadequacy masking itself or ennui. Or any of a dozen other things, because we want to make the other professionals around us happy.

It's much much harder, in my opinion, to have an editor actively pursuing you for one genre, someone who is a dream editor, and then saying to yourself, "I can't do that right now, because this other book is burning a hole in me, I have to get it out." That is when you wonder if you've sort of lost your mind--because you could be potentially derailing your own career. Until you start down that path, and realize, no. No, this is exactly what you were supposed to do, because you just learned all kinds of things you wouldn't have learned down that other path. And so when you do go down that other path, you now take these new skills with you that will make that dream editor happy.

At some point, you finally realize that everything is a risk. Staying in the same place can be a risk. Sometimes a bigger one than change would be.

Which is kinda freeing, really.

there is joy

2010-07-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

I can tell you up front, I know no secrets about writing. I had sort of hoped that, by this point, I would have found the mysterious code, the secret handshake, the door in the back that opens with just the right combination of knocks and pauses. There may be such things; I don't know them.

I've thought about that a lot this last year. When I knew that I was going to write something else besides a Bobbie Faye novel, I felt a sense of exhilaration, followed almost immediately by a sense of terror. I'd been hostess to that set of characters for almost seven years, at that point. It was a bit like growing up with the same friends, going to the same school, living in the same house in the same small town; at some point, you yearn to see what the rest of the world is like.

That series started off as a script, and then after deciding to adapt it to a novel, I had to work long and hard to break myself of a bunch of script-writing habits and re-learn how to write fiction. The whole ability to show internal thoughts? wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Seriously. That was a trip and a high after years of having to keep everything external and yet somehow physically convey the internal, or use dialog, without getting to dip even a toe into the interiority of a character. (The exception, of course, is voice-over, and I'm not a fan. I think it shows a weak script, most of the time.)

It was time for a change, though, and the problem with suddenly having that freedom is that there were too many options.

For the first couple of months, I thought I'd develop something funny, since that seemed to be my "niche." The oddity about that as my niche is that it's really not what I first loved to write. Everything I'd written in the early script years had been very dark, psychologically. The humor was something I didn't think I could write. Oh, I was a natural smartass, and I learned early on to curb that online (bit me in the ass a few times, it did)... but conveying humor on paper? I hadn't really planned on it, and yet, my screenwriting agent at the time felt like I should give it a try. [And that script still gets calls, almost 14 years later. It's been optioned and re-optioned. I refer it as the script that refuses to die.]

Funny became my bailiwick. I loved it, it was a joy to get letters from people who were going through really crappy days or months, and learn that I'd helped them through it. There's just nothing quite like that feeling, when you read those letters. So I thought I'd do that again, just set in a different world.

I brainstormed the world, had the characters, and tried to write. And a frustrating thing happened: it went dark. Not just a little dark. Not like mildly slate gray when you were aiming for the whitewash of dawn. It went very dark. Bleak in places.

The story and I had a talking to--a come to Jesus meeting if you will. It seemed to agree to shape up, to do what it was told, so I would throw out the pages and start over, and try to go back to the lighter side. It curved on me, swerving back. Nothing I did worked.

I got a lot of well meaning advice at the time about sticking with what I was known for, keeping my fans happy, and so on, and every single bit of that is valid. People who have built amazing long-term careers said these things to me, so there was no doubt they were speaking from experience.

And the more I tried to pretzel that story, the more miserable I was. I sort of hated writing there for a while. In fact, we kinda broke up. I didn't mention it here, but I had started to wonder if I was a writer, you know? I couldn't get that damned story to work, and I couldn't leave the idea behind. It had grabbed me by a chokehold and I was squirming away.

It was back in October and early November when several friends said a few things to me. I would like to think it was provenance, fate. I hope it wasn't because I was whining incessantly. [I was whining, people.]

That's when I had the realization that I hadn't gotten into writing to do just one thing. I get bored easily. I hadn't become a writer because I thought I'd be famous. (The Naked Cowboy is famous. These days, you can do the stupidest thing on the planet, and be famous. Thinking you're going to write a book, one among hundreds of thousands and suddenly be famous? Not likely.) And nobody sane gets into writing for the money. Just look at the flux publishing is in today--nobody really knows what the hell is going to happen two years from now. Two years ago, e-readers were the clunky dim future and nothing worth worrying about. Now? The percentage of ebook sales is rising, fast, and there are all sorts of quakes ripping through the industry. It's going to change by next month, and definitely by next year, so writing for the money is fairly laughable. The majority of writers either have a job to support them, or are lucky enough that a spouse can handle the bills while they toil away, hoping to create something that will sell.

So, then, why the hell write?

Because I can't not write.

I quit fighting the story.

If it was going to go dark, then fine, we'd go dark. If it wanted to be told in first person, then dammit, we'd do first person. (Scared the living hell out of me, that one did. I had never written a first person story. Ever. Thought I never would.) If it was going to break my heart a dozen times over how hard the main character's life was, well, then, fine.

I would simply tell the story.

And it started working.

I'm here at a point in the story where today felt like I was carving each word out of my own skin, syllable by bloody syllable, because the scene was painful. People lose things, in this scene, that cannot be recovered. It changes everything for them in this story. And as painful as it was, as scared as I had been to go here, I have to tell you, I sat back at the end of this day, and there was joy.

I am so grateful I didn't listen to the peer pressure of doing the same sort of thing I'd done before. I will go back to lighter stories--I have another one I already know I want to do, eventually. But I am so grateful that my friends encouraged me to go with my instincts. I can't write that to you as someone who sold this thing--I've held it back, with the blessings of my agent--because I didn't want it out there until it could be a whole book. If I do it right, if I pull it off, it will be heartbreaking, but the end will be worth it. So when I tell you that there is joy, it's a joy of the writing. There is no other reward, here, than that, because everything else is fleeting.

The first couple of years of being a writer, there is so much pressure to promote. No one really knows what works; it's all a guess. I've tried a lot of stuff, because people said I needed to, and some of it might've helped, and a lot of it was completely useless, as far as I could tell. The first couple of years, you spend a lot of time suddenly caught up in the spin cycle of publishing--writing as fast as you can, sending things off, getting the next book started or the next proposal done, proofing copy edits, writing a bit more on the current one, starting up promotional stuff, proofing the galleys, frantically writing more of the next one, trying to squeeze living and family in there, having very little time to breathe, much less enjoy.

None of it matters more than the work.

At the RWA conference last year, I went to an early morning no-holds-barred chat giving by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. (She's got a gazillion NYT bestsellers under her belt and is gorgeous and nice. You kinda want to smack her for being perfect, except she's funny and disarming and you end up liking her a lot before you know what happened.) She said a lot of useful things, but at one point late in the hour, she said, "Whatever you do, protect the work. The work is all you have."

There is a joy in that. I honestly know that I am writing far far better than I did before. Everything about how I write has changed with this book. That part is neither better or worse--just different, I suppose. What's important is that I didn't keep thinking, "Well, I should do it this way or I should do that other thing, because that's what's expected." Instead, I said, "What does this story want to say?"

I love what I do. I am so incredibly grateful I get to do it. I may never sell again, and I will be bummed, if that happens, but I'm here to tell you that this part? This writing what is gut-wrenching and honest and letting the story stay true to itself?

Pure joy.

Sometimes, it's going in the complete unexpected direction that will break you free of the chains, and bring you joy.

What brings you joy, my friends?

(By the way, I'm woefully behind on updating my website, through no fault of my excellent webmistress, Maddee, so if you want to follow me, it's easier to find me on Twitter or Facebook.)

It's personal. Please read.

2010-05-10T12:07:00.001-07:00

Please bear with me for this. This is a personal plea.

When Katrina hit, so many people lost so much, it was overwhelming. We made the news, constantly. We watched as FEMA responded so ineptly, that a week to a week-and-a-half out, there still wasn't help in critical areas.

What you may not know about is that I was one of the few bloggers who had connectivity during the hurricane itself, and the aftermath. Because Carl (my husband) had managed to rig up my computer to a generator, I was able to blog and get the word out that the situation was much much worse than was being reported by the national news sources. I wasn't the only one, but I was one of the few. My broadcasts were picked up by an NBC affiliate, which then syndicated them around the world.

People wrote to me, to ask me what I needed. In the days immediately following Katrina, as many of you remember, there were simply no goods on the shelves to buy. There was no help to speak of. Carl and I personally went into areas in New Orleans, Metairie, Covington, and Harahan to shelters where we found they were out of water, food, diapers, and personal hygiene items. We also went into the LSU triage area where they had zero-- and I mean *zero*--supplies left, and 300 more people being bussed in at that moment. We scrambled to find things like thermometers, and bandage supplies. Carl built them shelves so they could get the supplies up off the floor.

But where did those supplies come from? Let me tell you -- it came from friends on the internet.

I put out a call to people on the internet to ask for things we couldn't find. All of the above items, and more. I expected maybe one or two boxes from dear friends would show up. Maybe. After all, everyone assumed FEMA or the Red Cross were going to take care of us, and they had donated. Well, we all know how that went.

You know what happened? I heard the mail truck backing up to my door. He's never backed down my driveway, so I knew something was up. The *entire* mail truck was full of boxes of supplies that people had sent--some from as far away as England--and that was only the first load. Every day, he kept coming, and every day, the supplies poured in. We processed over 2000 boxes here at our house until the following week, when the shelters finally started getting help from FEMA and the Red Cross. We housed a doctor and a nurse who'd dropped everything they had to come and help.

Everything they had. That doctor worked 20 hour shifts, for three weeks. I don't know how that man did it, but he pushed himself hard, for free, because that's what he does--he's a trauma surgeon and he dropped his practice to come help.

He is from Nashville.

Look, I know we have all seen terrible things happen all over the world. It's hard to know what to do and the knee jerk reaction is to give a little bit and forget about it. Well, these people didn't forget about us. They came. They gave. Thousands of boxes. At one point, a huge box truck backed up into our driveway, sent by an amazing group in Chicago, with another two thousand boxes of supplies. We brought these supplies into shelters where the elderly were sleeping on gym floors in 95+ degree temperatures. Where little kids had nothing to eat and most of the families had nowhere to go.

Right now, Nashville is flooded and hurting and they have gotten maybe fifteen minutes of national coverage. It's offensive and insane that people who are clearly trying to help themselves should be ignored.

I have researched charities, and I have found one where 100% of the proceeds go directly to flood relief. The families who are affected can apply for grants for everything from trash bags for clean-up to fans to dry out their homes to food and money to help them find a place to stay until the water recedes and they can begin clean-up in earnest. 100% people. You just don't get any better than that.

This unit is an emergency unit which is activated by the governor of Tennessee (and is paid for as a part of their governmental expenses, so it doesn't require one penny of donated money to operate). They are annually audited by outside CPAs to confirm they are handling the money correctly.

So I am asking, this once, for you to give. I won't make a habit of this, but I cannot sit quietly by and hope that Louisiana does itself proud and gives back to the people who gave so much to us.

Please, consider giving. Any gift, any size, will help. We're pledging $1000.00. We're asking you to pledge at least $5. Or match us. Or beat us.

Here's the link: http://www.cfmt.org/floodrelief/

I hope you will consider this; I hope you'll organize donations at your place of business, or with friends and family. I hope you'll send this letter on, so that these people will know they are not forgotten.

Thank you,

Toni McGee Causey

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2010-04-02T16:38:00.001-07:00

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cold...

2010-01-04T20:34:00.000-08:00

I don't remember how long ago it's been since it's been this cold here. Tonight it will be 25 (F) and by this weekend, the nightly low is expected to be 16 (F). That's just insane, for the deep south.

But as cold as it was, it wasn't cold enough for a certain 2-year-old granddaughter to want to play outside:

catching up

2009-12-17T12:48:00.000-08:00

I have been running around with family stuff, and keep forgetting to update here.

For a couple of funny posts I have up elsewhere, see my "When In Doubt, Throw Hard Candy (aka, The Santa from Hell story)" up at www.popculturedivas.com

and

My very tongue-in-cheek "An Author's 12 Days of Christmas (with apologies to cover artists everywhere)" up at Murderati.com.

I hope you all are having a great holiday season.

Lafayette tonight!

2009-10-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

I had this on my schedule and meant to blog about it last week -- I'm going to be speaking to the wonderful Lafayette Friends of the Library tonight at 6:30. The event -- which includes dinner -- is at the Petroleum Club:

Petroleum Club 111 Heymann Blvd, Lafayette, LA

I'm very much looking forward to tonight! If you're in the area, I think they have a few seats left.

Confidence

2009-09-10T13:18:00.000-07:00

[originally posted on Murderati]

Confidence.

You see it in some athletes. They walk out onto a field and in spite of being in front of a huge crowd, they’ll look like they belong there. They’ve put in the practice, they have the skills. They give the impression that they are formidable, that they came to win.

You see it in some performers. They take the stage, grab the mic or step into the role and whoosh, you believe in them. Just like that. Snap.

You see it in some professionals. The doctor under pressure in a life-threatening situation. The attorney arguing a case. The SWAT team running into a building with a hostage situation. You know they are going to do the job they came to do.

You see it in some writers. They start the story with an evocative sentence, something that pulls you in, that says, “Yes, you want to be here, reading this, right now.”

As a kid, I didn’t have a lot of confidence... until one day, I did. And the only thing that shifted was a fundamental understanding of what confidence was. See, for a long time, I kept thinking, “One day, I’m going to feelconfident, and when I feel it, I’ll know I’m good enough to be confident.” It was as if I were waiting for a cosmic permission slip to believe in myself. Like at some point, whatever it was I had accomplished was going to ding ding ding on some giant meter and I would get my Certification of Confidence from the Universe. (The Universe, by the way? Doesn’t give a rat’s ass.)

The problem, of course, was that there really never was going to be any giant certification from the Universe. Rationally, I knew that all along, but I kept thinking that with the next accomplishment, I would feel it. With thenext “A” on an exam, or the next strike-out on my softball team or the nextaward, I was gonna know. And because I was waiting, there was a hesitancy. I didn’t quite realize there was a hesitancy. If you’d asked me at the time, I couldn’t have explained it, but everything—particularly my writing—felt tentative.

I was thinking about the nature of confidence one day as I happened to be on a long drive, and I punched around the radio stations, craving background music. Unfortunately, I was between decent stations and I ended up on a talk-radio show I hadn’t heard of, some psychologist talking about something entirely different than what I was thinking about. I barely heard the first half of the story she told, annoyed that it wasn’t music, and then suddenly, I was in that story. It likely won’t mean the same to you, because it was a specific moment in time, me cocooned in that car on a long, hot drive in the deep south one Sunday afternoon. It was classic... and it wasn't something new to me, but it had a profound life-changing effect.

The story was about a woman who bites her nails. She’d gone to a doctor for a consultation and as they sat there, him in a chair near hers, she explained how she was desperate for help. Her hands were nearly ruined, and she held them up for him to see, and sure enough, bloody, horribly bitten nails. She told him she’d do any sort of program he’d want her to do, and she had been all over creation trying to get help, but nothing had worked thus far. As she told him the story, she started chewing on a nail and the doctor reached over, pushed her hand down and said, “Stop biting your nails.”

“But that’s what I’m here for,” she cried. “I need to stop and I don’t know how. I have tried…” and she listed off a number of programs, and as she went into detail, she started chewing on another nail.

The doctor reached over, pushed her hand down and said, “Stop biting your nails.”

“That’s what I need help with!” she said, clearly exasperated. “I don’t understand what’s causing this need. I’ve been tested for…” and she listed off a string of tests various institutions had run and as she talked, again the hand went to her mouth.

The doctor pushed her hand down again and said, “Stop biting your nails.”

“Are you crazy?” she asked. “That’s what I’m HERE FOR. I don’t understand why—“

“You don’t need to understand why to change the behavior,” he said. “Quit putting your hand to your mouth. Choose. We can always explore the why later. But make the choice. And keep making it.”

That’s when I heard the ding ding ding. (The Universe is SLOW. I’m just sayin’.)

Because I happened to be thinking about the nature of confidence, I realized that a lot of people don’t have confidence because they’re successful… they’re successful because they choose to have confidence. Now maybe that got reinforced somehow when they were kids, or maybe they were just more predispositioned toward confidence. And maybe this is a concept every single other person on the planet got by the time they were two. (I doubt that. We all have insecurities.) The thing is, confidence isn’t borne out of a surety of success. Confidence is choosing to believe that the outcome will eventually warrant the faith and then acting on it by practicing for that eventual success.

Confidence is choosing. Practicing for the outcome we’d like to have.

I looked at my writing, then. Saw the hesitancy. Sure, there was skill there, but it lacked faith. When I recognized that, my approach to writing changed. Voice rang a bell and showed up to the game.

The thing is, in sports, you can’t play someone else’s game. You might practice as many hours, with all the same coaches, but no two people are going to play exactly the same. As long as you know the rules (and how to break them), if you try to play just like someone else, that’s all you’ll be: a copy of someone else. You might even win some, but you won’t be the best you.

But true confidence… true voice… is playing your game. It’s taking all of that practice, all of those hours and weeks and years of dedication and tackling the problem with faith that you have the skills and you can have the eventual outcome that you desire.

True success is rarely without practice. It is almost never without failure. Maybe even many failures. Failure is just an opportunity to learn and improve. It is nothing else. It is not personal. It is not a value judgment on you as a person. It is a circumstance, and most successes are successful because they’ve learned and grown and had faith that the practice they put in was going to be worth it.

Also? They competed. Performers put themselves out there for jobs, doctors compete for grades, athletes compete for position, SWAT teams practice relentlessly. Sometimes life isn’t fair and they failed, but they keep going.

So practice.

Play your game.

Choose confidence.

And keep choosing it.

I put that lesson squarely in the “better late than never” category. How about you? What did you finally learn to do (can be anything) that changed your life?

email...

2009-08-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

If you wrote me in the last couple of weeks, I swear, I am not ignoring you. I just saw a slew of items that my email software had apparently decided goes over there (random folder I did not remember creating) instead of over here (inbox) (you know, the logical place for oh, say, new mail).

I am going to try really hard to get caught up this weekend, so if you're checking here some time after the weekend (8/23) and you have not heard back, please re-send. I may not have seen it.

Also, I have a few letters to Bobbie Faye and she is answering them and I will try to get those posted soon. As soon as I pay her bail. Again. That woman is going to be the death of me, yet.

Y'all take care.

Julie, Julia & Me (and a raccoon)...

2009-08-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

(blogged this over on www.popculturedivas.com)...

I feel I ought to step up to a microphone somewhere and look bashfully out at the audience and say, "Hi, my name is Toni. And I love cooking competition shows."

My particular faves are Top Chef (though Top Chef Masters is kinda boring), Iron Chef and even Hell's Kitchen (though I squirm through half of that show, and sometimes wish someone would just give Ramsay a hug).

I love how, on Top Chef, the contestants are forced to create something in like two nanoseconds using cardboard, mustard and a piece of celery and feed 300. It amazes me how they are thrown these challenges where they could not possibly know what to do, and yet, thirty minutes later (for the Quick Fire challenges), they have something that generally looks not

only edible, but quite pretty and tasty. This would never happen at my home, if you were asking me to create something, and I am granting that you would give me a full pantry and an entire stocked refrigerator / freezer. When I open that pantry, I am immediately stumped. There are soup cans in there (I recognize those), and some cereal I'm familiar with, but all of that other stuff? A mystery. (My husband, on the other hand, knows what that stuff is and how to use it. I, very wisely and at a young age, realized that this was the thing he loved and it was to my advantage to stay out of the way.)

It's funny how people [particularly people in the south] look at a woman and expect her to be able to cook well. I used to amass dinners that didn't kill the children. I'm fairly certain that there was a point somewhere back in the Pleistocene era when I concocted meals that were tasty. Uh. Edible (Let's not throw that bar up there too high.) But when the writing took over my brain sometime back when the kids were in elementary school, whatever part of my brain which felt competitive about cooking just... went AWOL. It stopped caring about amount of ingredients or ratio of spices or little minor details like, oh, say, cooking time, aka setting the house on fire.

One time, I madejambalya from a mix. Now, Zatarain's has a really great mix, very authentic flavor (said by the woman whose house was a stop-over for firemen district-wide)... And whenever I was deep in writing mode and didn't want to order pizza (they had my order memorized), I would pull out the Zatarain's box and know that the kids were getting something that they liked, which wasn't horribly unhealthy.

I cooked the jambalya, dished up portions for the boys, and had turned to go back to work when my oldest spat it out and my youngest started making gagging noises. I tried it and sure, I had somehow managed to go slightly off recipe, but it really wasn't that bad. Boys, however, can heap on the guilt factor and make you think they will DIE if they are forced to eat something that is not pizza or cookies, and I was so deep into whatever it was I was writing, it wasn't worth the argument. I gave the dish to the dog and went about ordering something deliverable.

The dog, finicky eater, wouldn't touch it. (She was always difficult about that. Weird dog.) I gathered it up to throw it out in the garbage (I did not have a disposal), and then I remembered the raccoons. Since they'll eat anything--they were tearing through our trash on a regular basis--I figured it would just be wise if I left the bowl out there, let them have at it, and then wash the bowl later. No strewn trash, happy everyone.

We sat outside to watch the raccoons since they came up to the house about the same time every evening. The biggest Cat-Daddy of all raccoons sauntered up. I swear, if there was a barroom for raccoons, this guy would've been the bouncer. The kids were fascinated to watch him, so at least my cooking provided a little entertainment. That raccoon reached into the bowl, scooped up a big handful of jambalaya...

...and spit it out. Spit it out and ran away. Raccoons will eat garbage.

I think that may have been the last day I attempted anything that could be reasonably called "cooking" at my house.

But I am fascinated with cooking shows. I love how they know so much about their field, how much they have to believe in themselves, in their own vision, and how almost every single one of them battles fatigue and self-doubts to push through the competition.

Which is a very long way around to talking about the new movie, Julie & Julia which I saw on Sunday.

I think the device of using the blog written by Julie Powell to delve into the movie works, because honestly, I'm not sure that anyone would really go to a movie if they thought it was just a biography ofJulia Child. The film, however, is so much more than that, more than the quasi-reverent look at Child from Powell's hungry gaze, and the film really does well in showing where women stand with each other, how the current culture perceives who we are and defines us frequently by outside standards--what we've achieved, where we rank, what new ground have we broken, and how to be true to ourselves. How to find ourselves in the midst of the hustle.

Both Julie and Julia faced searching for their dream, each in their own way, and it's amazing to realize that Julia Child faced down her own inner desire to "do something" back in the late fifties--nearly sixty years ago--when options for women were so slim and no one believed she had a smidge of a chance to do what she did.

Meryl Streep is amazing as Julia Child. For her performance alone, I'd rate this a "definite go-to" film.

So how about you? Do you watch cooking shows? Have a great relationship with your oven or have your served it divorce papers? If you like to cook, what is your favorite thing to cook? And if you are like Julia in the movie, who "loves to eat" -- tell me what your favorite thing in the world would be.

covers

2009-08-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

There is an occasional letter asking me why I changed the covers on the books from the crawfish trade paperback covers to the new ones. Mostly I explain that the covers are a choice of the publisher, but I do love the new covers.

I do want people to realize that CHARMED AND DANGEROUS and GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS are re-releases of the first two trade versions of the books. I had that on the front page, and then the splash page this summer made that not quite as prominent (and I am sorry for the confusion).

In the mean time, several people have asked how the new covers came about, and I had blogged this over on AccessRomance, but thought I would put this up here for those of you who are cruising by and may have missed it over there:

titled: Covers

I love make-over stories. I have to admit I am a total sucker for those before / after shows, whether it’s house porn over on HGTV or it’s Stacey and Clinton ranting about What Not To Wear. It’s encouraging when something old (as in a house) finds its new potential—when it’s updated, and yet, honors the original design or era of the house. I also love it when Stacey and Clinton help a woman focus not on what the media or public think is “good” or “skinny” or “beautiful,” but instead, help that person focus on what’s good about their body, where they are in life right then. That’s the earmark of a successful make-over: not only showing hidden potential, but doing it for the right reason. I tend to record a lot of these shows and watch them—they’re inspiring.

I just never dreamed I’d be smack in the middle of one myself. Or, rather, that my book would be.

This is the story of a make-over.

Waaaay back in the Pleistocene era before there was an Internet and before I was published in fiction, I picked up books and looked at the covers and secretly wondered what crack the author had been smoking to pick that cover out. And sometimes, I’d assume that their bad taste in covers reflected their skills as a writer—because surely if they thought that cover was appropriate / interesting / not boring, then they probably didn’t have any real discernment about what was appropriate / interesting / not boring and I’d be turned off. Most times, I hate to say, I put the book down.

I kinda sucked, didn’t I?

What’s worse was that as I started to learn more and more about the business, I’d still have a hard time ignoring a bad cover, or a blah one. Even when I learned that the author rarely had cover approval and, honestly would be lucky if she even had input into what went onto the cover. Even when she was a New York Times bestselling author.

And really, it’s difficult to get past the outer package sometimes, when we only have a few seconds to make a snap judgment. Anyone who’s tried on something and thought it looked decent, only to see a photo of the outfit later and that’s when they realized that it sort of rode up that way that it did or, instead of hiding that bulge, might as well have pointed neon arrows at it knows the feeling. We only have to look at the sheer volume of people who posted about Susan Boyle’s bushy eyebrows and choice of dresses to know that even being well-groomed isn’t always enough.

The thing is, the outer package says something about what’s inside, whether we want it to or not. It’ll tell us if that person is stylish, up on the latest fashions, or if they’re stuck back in the eighties. We also get a glimpse about what they want to project to the world—whether that projection is intentional or not.

Now, when it comes to book covers, that cover has to do a lot of work simultaneously. It has to draw your attention away from all of the other books around it (so it wants to be different), and it’s got to communicate what type of book it is (so it needs to have some element that’s familiar so the reader immediately understands the category of book). It needs to tantalize you (so it needs to raise some question in your mind, some element of tension that induces the reader to flip over to the back cover to learn more), and yet, it’s got to feel satisfying (some design element speaks to you, makes you want to pick up that book). That’s quite a lot for a book cover to do.

Then, if the book crosses genres? The job is ten times harder for a book cover.

I didn’t fully appreciate this until I’d sold the Bobbie Faye series. Titled “Bobbie Faye’s Very (very very very) Bad Day,” it was purchased with the intent on shelving it in general fiction as a trade paperback original. The series sold on proposal, three sample chapters and a synopsis, and in my mind, it was always a combination of romance and action/adventure. In fact, I pitched as a “southern fried Romancing the Stone.” It’s full-speed adrenaline and sexy bad guys and yet, Bobbie Faye is so take-no-prisoners herself, so tenacious and determined to save her brother or maim everyone trying, that we slammed up against a conundrum of how to convey this.

It is especially hard to figure out how to communicate that to the art department. There is no way an art department could read every book that they have to create a cover for—there’s just not enough time in the day. They work off our attempts to give them enough word-clues that will help generate some sort of mental image about what direction to go in. I love the people at St. Martin’s – and the art department has been very very good to me, willing to listen and work with me and seriously? That’s pretty amazing. So it’s with their permission that I post some of these first attempts that just didn’t work.

Here’s the very first cover that showed up in the catalog.

My editor immediately rejected that one—she didn’t like the tone or the girl hanging out of the truck (though there is a truck that figures into the action). And she wasn’t really fond of the next two attempts (for which I will forever be thankful):

I’m not really sure where the winking theme came from. Bobbie Faye doesn’t wink. She’s pretty damned sarcastic and self-deprecating, and she doesn’t wear hardly any make-up. I could not get past the purple eyes (and neither could my editor). I understand what the art department was going for: fun and yet, dangerous. The TNT there being the “dangerous” part, although that eye shadow gave me a heart attack, so that was pretty dangerous, too. The second example was from the same attempt—how do we communicate sexy, fun and dangerous? Well, we WINK at people… while a truck explodes.

However, one of the reasons I love St. Martin’s is because they weren’t happy with it either, and they tossed all of that out and started from scratch again. That’s a lot of work for an art department to do.

This next design was a result of hiring a model and styling her. The photos actually included a gun in her left hand, but that was cropped for reasons I’m not entirely sure about. I thought the cover was beautiful. This is one of those times where you’ll wear something out that is your absolutely favorite dress, ever, and only a very dear friend who loves you will take you aside and say, “Honey? That thing makes you look fat. Quit wearing it.”

I still like this cover. However, Barnes & Noble (or maybe it was Borders? My memory is failing me here) was essentially that good friend. They looked at the cover copy for the book, looked at the cover and said, “No. This cover does not fit the genre. This looks like a Young Adult novel.”

Well, holy cats, they had a point. None of us saw that aspect of it, but when you hear that comment and then look at the cover again, it does lend itself to a sort of young adult feel, especially with the gun cropped out. Now, if the best friend was with you while you were getting dressed and they didn’t say anything about your dress, but waited ‘til the party and then commented, then that would be very bad and heartbreaking, because there’s not a damned thing you can do about it then. But if they tell you while you’re getting dressed (or even better, when you were first going to buy the dress), then you really appreciate the honesty. It might hurt a little, but you appreciate it.

So we went back to the drawing board, and we all (me included) tried to figure out the direction to go. We all started thinking that maybe some sort of “icon” could work—something that would be on every book and identify it as a “Bobbie Faye” novel. That sounds good, doesn’t it?

That is how the crawfish came to be on the cover. (Yes, it is a crawfish. Not a lobster. Or, as one of my friends put it, a “crawster” – because yes, it is too fat to be a crawfish. But when it was drawn skinnier, it looked like a spider from a distance, and spiders on books are not supposed to be good for sales. I don’t know if that’s myth or not, but I wasn’t going to argue.)

Now, I love crawfish. I love the danger sign. I love the quote from Harley Jane Kozak, who is an awesome writer. Mostly, I loved that I got to keep the original title. Loved loved loved that part. I fought for that title. I fought for those verys in the parentheses to be lower case. (My publisher loved the title. Even when he was agreeing that we were going to have to change it for the mass market release, he still lamented that fact, because he thought it conveyed an essence of the story: dangerous and fun.)

That book was released as a trade paperback original, and then the second one came out last year. It did well, and I’ve been mostly lucky in the reviews I’ve gotten, one thing we all realized was that the books had a lot of romance in them—but the covers did not “say” romance. They really weren’t saying “action” or “adventure” either. And because St. Martin’s Press is so cool, they said, “Let’s take the mass market release as an opportunity to address that.”

How cool is that?

We realized there was no way to shrink that original cover down to mass market size and the words still be readable, really. By the time you put that long title plus my name on a smaller format, it was going to start looking jumbled. Most people don’t really like to parse out something jumbled when they have a hundred other simpler things to look at, so I was completely on board with this change.

Plus, my biggest desire? For people who looked at this to get, immediately, that there was romance in here. There is a lot of heat—and that heat grows through the series. While there is a lot of danger and action and high-wire, high-octane adventure, there is a deepening romance, a threat to that romance, and there is sex. Hot. Fun. Sex.

That crawfish just did not say “sexy,” did it?

So when I got the new covers (and new titles) for the series, I was in love. Love love love. All of a sudden, I could see what the other covers lacked, because this one finally had it. I never even really realized what was missing, ‘til now:

book one is out June 2nd

book two is out June 30th

book three is out August 4th

I love the taglines (courtesy of my editor), love the couple’s playfulness and Bobbie Faye’s humor, but the gun and the titles imply the danger and action inside. I think the colors will pop in a lineup of books, and the titles are fun. (I will always love my first title, but I can see how the shorter titles work so much better.)

Right now, I feel like the “after” in a Stacey and Clinton make-over. I want to keep twirling in front of a mirror, because I’m so thrilled with the outcome.

There are a tremendous amount of amazing books out this summer—and the authors on this site have several coming out that I am champing at the bit to buy. I hope, though, that if you’ve bought all of theirs and you have one more book to purchase, that you’ll consider trying out the Bobbie Faye series. Check here for the back cover copy and the first chapter of the book. There’s also a free (hot and sexy) new short story up on that same page.

All the summery and make-over best to you all,

-toni

Contest WINNERS!

2009-07-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, thank you so much to everyone who entered and tweeted / retweeted! You guys rock--and it was so cool to see so many entries.

Winners of the books+gift certificate combo -- please contact me via email toni [dot] causey [at] gmail [dot] com -- and tell me an email address for the gift card and a snail mail address for the books.

Winners of the gift card -- send me your email where you want to receive the card!

Okay, here are the winners of Allison's first two books in the FBI series (SUDDEN DEATH and FATAL SECRETS) and my first two books (CHARMED AND DANGEROUS and GIRLS JUST WANNT HAVE GUNS) -- plus a $10 gift card (tell me your preference between B&N and Amazon):

blakesmomma (entered on RT board)

Aimee (entered from blog)

Crystal GB (entered from blog)

mad4rombks (entered from twitter)

Brooke (entered from blog)

Robin (entered from RT)

Has_Bookpushers (entered from twitter)

Judi (entered from RT)

Margie (entered from blog)

GLMorrison (entered from twitter)

Winners of the $10 gift card:

Ainsley (entered from RT)

SarahLovesBooks (entered from RT)

Asphaltcowgirl (entered from twitter)

Mgbraden (entered from twitter)

SiNn (entered from blog)

Again, thank you all! There were so many entries... I wish I could send books to everyone!

CONTEST

2009-07-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a really great day and you just want to do something fun for people? Well, I'm having one of those days, today. And since Allison so very kindly celebrated my books over here a few weeks ago, I wanted to do the same, plus a giveaway of my backlist and a gift card. Her newest book CUTTING EDGE is out TODAY (July 28th) and I am thrilled for her--I love her books. (She scares the crap outta me, they are so tense, but wow, they are page turners and keep me up all night.) (I do *not* recommend reading them while alone at a vacation cabin because you *will not sleep* and your husband will get tired of you jumping and shrieking every time an owl hoots.)

Here's what you get:

1) 10 readers will get SUDDEN DEATH -- the first in this latest and terrific FBI trilogy.

FATAL SECRETS -- Allison's second in that series.

CHARMED AND DANGEROUS -- the first in my caper trilogy featuring Bobbie Faye. (My books are humor/action-adventure.)

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS -- the second in my series.

A $10 gift card to B&N or Amazon.

2) Five readers who do not receive the above will each get $10 gift card to B&N or Amazon

What you have to do: reply to me or twitter reply to me (twitter = @ToniMcGeeCausey ) by midnight central time on THURSDAY, July 30th. If I receive more than 15 entrants, I'll draw names from a hat. All cards have to be sent by email (which will not be shared, used, donated, or obligate you to give a kidney).

Meanwhile, if you haven't checked out Allison's work, I highly recommend CUTTING EDGE. And if you like funny, crazy, action-adventure, my newest one is out next week titled WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON.

banana nutbread recipe

2009-06-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

I gave this recipe out to a friend, who loved it. *We* love it, too, and my mom gave me permission to post it here.

Jerry McGee's* banana nut bread recipe:

2 c. sugar
1/2 c butter (or oleo)
2 eggs
2 c. flour
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda (put soda into milk & stir well)
1/2 c butter milk (I use regular milk and add about 1 tsp. vinegar, stir well & let sit a minute or two before I add the soda to it)
1 c. chopped pecans (I usually use Bergeron pecans, don't know if it matters)
3 ripe bananas (very ripe, soft but not too mushy - skin spotty brown)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 or 1 tsp cinnamon

Soften or melt butter in microwave, add sugar & mix til sugar is absorbed, then add eggs, mix well, add flour & milk (with baking soda in it), stir. Mash bananas thoroughly, add bananas, pecans, vanilla & cinnamon to other mixture, mix just until blended together.

Spray pans with Pam, bake at 325 degrees, approximately 1 hr.

This makes 6 of the breads the size I gave you (I use the silicone pan you gave me one year, has six pans in it with a rack included)
Fill pans about 1/3 to 1/2 full - divide batter evenly between the six pans.

If you use the individual small pans, I put them all on a baking sheet so it's easier to take them in & out of the oven.

Can put all the batter in a bundt pan to make a cake. Or you can put it in 2 regular loaf pans.

Of course the smaller the pan, the faster it cooks, For small pans should start checking it in about 45 minutes. Can take it out of the oven & stick a toothpick in the thickest parts to see if it's done. If the toothpick comes out sticky, needs to cook longer!

Good luck!

*She added that she'd found a recipe in a cookbook somewhere and altered it to suit her tastes. That's been years ago, so if someone comes across the original somewhere, let me know.

Charmed and Dangerous is out...

2009-06-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

...and in the stores now. But if you're looking for other great summer reads, I highly recommend all three of these:

See descriptions below!

Atlantis Unleashed:

Poseidon’s warriors swore an oath eleven thousand years ago to protect humanity from those who stalked the night. Now those powerful forces are uniting. So are two souls who are all that stand between justice and the eternal darkness…

A warrior prince…Lord Justice made the ultimate sacrifice for his brother and paid for it with an unimaginable torture. Now he’s back, rescued from death, his sanity shaken, and his mission inescapable—the search for the lost Star of Artemis. But the beautiful human female whom he has sworn to protect is shadowed by an evil that could destroy them both…

A woman of science…The archaeological artifacts of Atlantis speak to Dr. Keely McDermott, sharing visions of life long ago. The ancient revelations have cast her into a world between past and present, between reality and illusion—and, when she meets the fierce Atlantean warrior assigned to guard her, between terror and temptation. Now as their two worlds collide, so too will danger and desire…

A quest for a lost star…Atlantis is unleashed.

KISS AND HELL:

Delaney Markham doesn’t just see dead people, she hears them too. And FYI—communicating with tortured souls all day can really wreak havoc on your love life. Sans boyfriend, Delaney makes the best of her gift by holding séances to make ends meet—that is until one incredibly annoying ghost just won’t go away.

Besides being sinfully hot—in a college professor sort of way—all signs point to Clyde Atwell being much more than the ordinary spirit. In fact, he’s a newbie demon whose first assignment is to take Delaney back down to hell with him. Yeah, like that’s going to happen on the first date. Order Kiss & Hell and visit Dakota’s website.

BLACK AND WHITE:

It’s the ultimate battle of good versus good.

They were best friends at an elite academy for superheroes in training, but now Callie Bradford, code name Iridium, and Joannie Greene, code name Jet, are mortal enemies. Jet is a by-the-book hero, using her Shadow power to protect the citizens of New Chicago. Iridium, with her mastery of light, runs the city’s underworld. For the past five years the two have played an elaborate, and frustrating, game of cat and mouse.

But now playtime’s over. Separately Jet and Iridium uncover clues that point to a looming evil, one that is entwined within the Academy. As Jet works with Bruce Hunter—a normal man with an extraordinary ability to make her weak in the knees—she becomes convinced that Iridium is involved in a scheme that will level the power structure of America itself. And Iridium, teaming with the mysterious vigilante called Taser, uncovers an insidious plot that’s been a decade in the making…a plot in which Jet is key.

They’re both right. And they’re both wrong. Because nothing is as simple as Black and White. Order Black and Whiteand visit Jackie Kessler’s website and visit Caitlin Kittredge’s website

I am just about...

2009-05-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

the world's worst at posting over here. Yeesh.

I post four times a month -- every other Sunday at Murderati (www.murderati.com) and every other Thursday at Murder She Writes (www.murdershewrites.com). I tend to send random stuff to Twitter (because hey, 140 characters, I can manage to do that fairly frequently).

Other than that, I am writing like crazy on the new book. Which means, I am *very* happy.

stand by me

2009-03-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Totally swiped this cool YouTube from Max.

test-screening

2009-03-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

We had a test-screening Friday night of the film, LA 308 that I helped to produce. (I am listed as producer, but we all split the duties.)

The screening went great. It was a wonderful small crowd, just the right size. Their responses were incredibly positive (and the score cards were very high!).

gut-check

2009-02-26T13:47:00.001-08:00

I blog about following our gut instincts (and a whole lot of example from TOP CHEF)... go HERE and come on by and comment.

the tao of publishing

2009-01-29T07:37:00.001-08:00

Everything you really need to know about publishing can be learned from a garage sale. Crazy, I know.

I've blogged about it HERE

History

2009-01-20T12:44:00.001-08:00

A great day, a beautiful speech, a new beginning. A lot of work to do. Here's to hope.

over on Murder She Writes

2009-01-15T09:09:00.000-08:00

I have blogged about willpower and distractions:

Go here.

Not Dead Yet

2009-01-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

Well, hi there. I know, I know, I kinda suck at this whole "show up to your own blog" thing. I am going to try something new here. New for me. Short, quickie blogs, random things going on in the day, with links to the longer subjects over on Murderati or Murder She Writes as they go up.

So, yeah. My big observation for today? It is extremely cool to get something in the mail that you weren't expecting but had wanted:

An ARC for Allison Brennan's SUDDEN DEATH.

Ha! I wanted to run tell the internet NEENER NEENER NEENER. Because I am so cool and mature. I cannot wait to read it.

Bite the Vote!

2008-11-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

I hope all of you, no matter who you're gonna vote for, that you go VOTE TODAY.

And then, when you're done, go to Michele Bardsley's site and BITE THE VOTE for a great contest and her very funny book!

BITE THE VOTE...

…ON SUPERNATURAL TUESDAY

Tired of the same old bloodsuckers? Cost of medical insurance so high, you wish you were immortal? Between death and taxes, you're leaning toward death?

Whether you're human or not, everyone has a voice in Broken Heart, Oklahoma. YOU can Bite the Vote and choose the candidates that have forever to keep their promises. Unlike *other* elections, voters who cast their online ballots will be entered to win an awesome prize package with goodies from Michele Bardsley, Dakota Cassidy, Renee George, Molly Harper, Mark Henry, Jackie Kessler, Richelle Mead, Jaye Wells, Toni McGee Causey and MORE! (Complete listing at voting site. One winner will be chosen.)

Bite the Vote at:

http://www.BrokenHeartOK.com

And don't forget to check out the newest novel in Michele Bardsley's Broken Heart vampire series: WAIT TILL YOUR VAMPIRE GETS HOME.

Read Chapter One:

http://tinyurl.com/58nzdq

Pre-Order:

http://tinyurl.com/5q4u6m

where I am...

2008-10-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Oops, keep forgetting to update over here.

Today, I am blogging over here at Murder She Writes -- Allison Brennan and I will be sharing Thursdays at MSW and Sundays at Murderati. Today's blog is a confession... and one of the best writing tools a writer can use. It's my first official day at MSW, so come on over and say 'hi' whydoncha?

I am also currently staying here:

That's the view from the window where I'm working. And just to the left of me is this view:
I know! I am suffering the hardships here, let me tell you. Meanwhile, I have about a billion people in my house right now doing stuff, (work stuff), so it's nice to have the quiet while I'm editing book 3. (I am actually working. You know, in between staring out the window, hiking around the place to take photos, sitting in front of the fireplace...)

updating Gustav #5

2008-09-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

The front tree that luckily fell away from the house.

Limbs in the yard. As you can see, no flooding.

That's our driveway.

That's the tree that broke in half in the back yard, falling on the neighbor's fence.

Still without electricity, but still have the computer and the router on the generator and, surprisingly, still have the DSL.

Gustav #4

2008-09-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

Two trees broken in half, both fell away from the house. Neighbor's tree fell on his, on the corner of his house, but we couldn't see that corner well (watched the tree fall, hit and roll, so it may not have gone through the roof). Still gusting, big limp just missed Carl's truck.

Nothing on the house so far, so am feeling very lucky.

Gustav #3

2008-09-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

Lost electricity--Carl got the power and the router running on the generator. There are gusts of wind up to about 80 mph, and we have a few limbs down, but so far, nothing bad.

updating Gustav #2

2008-09-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

I worked 'til 4 a.m last night; adrenaline and curiosity combined kept me from being sleepy, and I needed to hit a certain spot in the book before stopping anyway.

The hamburgers Carl grilled were excellent.

Not much rain and wind outside when I checked. It's windier this morning, short bursts followed by stillness, which is typical on these outer bands. Lots of small limbs and leaves all over the yard, nothing serious yet. Our electricity blinked off once and came back on, as did many here, but the news reports that 33K households are without electricity in this area.

I'm going back to writing.

blogging Gustav

2008-08-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

Light rain, nearly ten p.m. Carl has decided to grill burgers. I'm writing [deadline in two weeks] and no one here is sleepy anyway. Large supply of eats and beer. Hoping the wind isn't as bad as Andrew [92, had multiple trees down].

2008-08-31T02:00:00.000-07:00

Gustav is on his way in and there are preparations going on all over Baton Rouge--some to evacuate, but most of us here are not in a flood plain and we are the places that a lot of our southern family and friends evacuate to. So we'll stick and ride it out.

My house is about a half a mile from the Mississippi River levee, something I never thought about pre-Katrina, and really, I don't think about it as a worry as much as it simply there, a giant earthen wall that quietly affects where or not my house is flooded. I'm sure pre-Katrina, everyone there felt about the same about their own levees.

We have seen a lot of PTSD type of symptoms in people normally very calm--nerves, to sitting down and wanting to cry. If you were one of those people stuck in a hospital, for instance, it can be very traumatizing to relive those days again... especially if you're working in another hospital.

For now, it seems like our family is pretty well taken care off. Everyone has food and supplies, fuel, generators (or a place to go which has them), lots of the basics, like batteries. Most everything outside that could be picked up by high winds and turned into a missile has been picked up and stored away.

I imagine we'll take photos as the storm progresses. I didn't get many photos of Andrew when it came through here in 92 -- it came up through almost the same route and when it hit Louisiana, it was a CAT 3, and it looks like Gustav will hit at a CAT 4. (I know it's going to increase to a 5, but there is speculation that it'll hit at a 4 because it'll slow down and cool off slightly those last few miles nearest the coast.) Fingers crossed for a miracle that it stalls out there and falls apart, instead of coming ashore.

I will also be Twittering. In the case of loss of electricity, we have a generator hooked up. If the DSL holds like it did last time during Katrina, I'll be updating sporadically here.

email snafu

2008-08-23T00:46:00.000-07:00

I knew I was having a few minor glitches with email over the last couple of months -- the city is four laning a couple of places around here and it seems like every time that happens, the server lines get severed by accident or have to be relocated or maybe just were snotty to the workers and the workers beat it with a shovel. I don't know, but just sometimes, I'll get a sudden burst of email... that turns out to be from a previous month. Happened again tonight, with some emails going as far back as early June. I answered every one (and these were such fun)... so if you wrote me in that time frame and you didn't hear back, I may never have gotten it. There is some gnome in the gunks rabidly clutching to it, shouting "mine, mine, all mine" and if we can get some tequila into him, he might turn it loose and give it to me... but it might be better in the meanwhile if you just re-send, because I really would love to hear from you.

There is going to be a real newsletter at the end of Sept. The first one this year, but a real one with prizes. Quite a few prizes, actually, as I keep finding cool things I want to include. So sign up on the front page of the site here. It's going to be no more than 2 newsletters a year IF THAT. As you can all see, I'm not exactly speedy getting these things done. But like I said, prizes and fun and very possibly, an excerpt of something from either book 3 or a short story I'm working on. Maybe. Did I mention prizes? Yeah, go sign up so you'll be eligible for those.

Third Strike

2008-08-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

How much is it killing me not to have Zoë Sharp's Third Charlie novel?

Seriously killing me.

I love this series, and Zoë's writing skills make me woozy with happiness when reading.

Here's the great PW review:

Third Strike Zoë Sharp. St. Martin’s Minotaur/Dunne, $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-312-35897-6
At the outset of Sharp’s gripping third Charlie Fox thriller (after Second Shot), the British soldier-turned-bodyguard, now settled in New York City and working for an exclusive close-protection agency, is shocked to see an interview with her father on the morning TV news. A prominent U.K. orthopedic surgeon, he is under investigation after the death of one of his patients. Joined by fellow bodyguard and boyfriend Sean Meyer, she encounters some of the most ruthless criminals of her career as she seeks to exonerate her father. Sharp expertly captures the frenetic energy of New York without sacrificing her trademark British wit. Charlie is as tough as she is damaged, and readers will kill for the next installment. (Oct.)

goings on...

2008-08-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

I really mean to post stuff over here, meatier stuff, and then I poke my head up and realize, holy crap, weeks have gone by. I dust the place off (and seriously, the dust bunnies? could eat the dog), settle in, thinking I'm going to be all normal and regular blogging and then... weeks. Again.

I do blog every Sunday over on Murderati.

And I do mean to brag on my friends here.

So, lately, some good news: my awesome friend, Stephen Blackmoore just landed an agent, Allan Guthrie. Stephen is one of those writers who both is darkly twisted and very funny and his blog is a daily stop for me. Go give him some love.

And speaking of giving love, Jackie Kessler's terrific follow up in her Hell series has hit the bookstores: Hotter Than Hell.

From Publishers Weekly
In Kessler's newest, Daunuan, master seducer and incubus, returns badder than ever. Pan, the new king of lust, wants to appoint Daunuan his second in command, but Daunuan must first prove himself by seducing a woman destined for heaven, claiming her soul for hell. Daunuan thinks this will be an easy assignment, but he doesn't expect to fall in love with Virginia, his target, and be willing to give up hell to ensure that she doesn't get damned for all eternity. Complicating his mission is that someone in hell has it in for him and has sicced a crew of demons on him. Daunuan also cannot come to terms with his feelings for Jezebel, a succubus. The plot is sexy and bold, and the atypical ending—a happily ever after pairing is not in the cards—is satisfying, even if the unconventional conclusion may rub some readers the wrong way. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Jackie is a stellar writer. She takes risks, she's smart, she's funny, and she's also just an AMAZING person. If you ever even thought about paranormal romance, go pick up her books.

fantastic trip

2008-08-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

Back home, completely bleary-eyed and happy. I think this was one of the best conferences for me, personally, because I really knew so many more people from previous conferences and online blogs / groups, that it genuinely felt like hanging out with friends *and* learning stuff. Our panel was packed and our audience seriously rocked -- they asked great questions and lots of them, which just made everything fun and flowy.

More details up soon, but meanwhile, my friend Emilie saw this at Barnes & Noble -- it's a new promotion they're doing and they're including Bobbie Faye:

RWA / San Francisco

2008-07-29T17:46:00.001-07:00

I am nearly packed and will be in San Francisco for the week at the RWA conference. This is going to be an awesome week, and I know I'm going to see a lot of familiar faces.

(I'm also one of those people who will look straight at someone I know and if I see them out of context, I will not recognize them. I've even done this to my husband.. er... after we'd been married eight years. So all the faces are going to be a challenge, and I'm just telling everyone ahead of time, I am totally cheating and reading the name tags first.)

I hope to take photos and get 'em up next week. I would say I will get them posted here next week, but you all know that would be a total lie.

y'all take care,

-toni

gun expert...

2008-07-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

Gun expert Nancie Hays answers questions over on Murderati today (and on The Lipstick Chronicles yesterday). Both blogs are chock full of helpful Q & A's for writers. Check it out!

Contest winners...

2008-07-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

(The winner of WILL SHE FREAKING EVER ANNOUNCE ANYTHING contest would be me, because clearly, I am waaaaaaaaay behind. But below... winners of various contests.)

For the photo contest (which was a very cool one with a lot of prizes, including a $50 B*N gift certificate and signed books and other stuff), here are the three winners (in order, first, second, third) and their terrific photos! Yay!

Lori C****** and her daughters! Pictured is Elodie and oldest daughter, Kaylee is the photographer! Great job, Kaylee!

Second place was Beatrice C*** -- who took the shot at the bookstore (after intrepid researching to find them):

Third place was Mia M****n:

The photos were all TERRIFIC and I loved seeing where everyone took them. Next time, I will make that contest easier. And the prizes should all be mailed out by the end of the week. Thank you for participating!

On to other contest winners:

Dakota Cassidy's winner has been announced on her site: Gina G**** -- YAY Gina. You will get a signed copy of book #1 and the $15 gift certificate to B&N as well as a couple of goodies.

Fresh Fiction winner: Shelly C****n -- congrats to Shelly for winning a signed copy of the book *and* a Bobbie Faye survival basket. (address received, Shelly, thanks!)

CJ Lyons contest winner: Jeanne P -- should have received a notification tonight.

AuthorBuzz Winners -- have now all been notified by email -- and they include the following (I am not writing last names here for privacy issues, but you should have an email from me in your in-box as of 7/7/08):

Jackie La*****
Kay M*******
Sydney P****
Melody C********
Carol M****

AND LOOK: ANOTHER CONTEST UNDERWAY: A Christmas in July... a bunch of Bobbie Faye stuff: go here

I think that might have gotten me caught up on the pending contests, but if you know of one I've missed, let me know. (It is entirely possible.)

CONTEST!!

2008-06-30T18:00:00.000-07:00

New Contest -- (photo contests winners announced on the yahoo group tomorrow. AuthorBuzz winners will be notified by email by Wed.)

The really big (like way big) Accidentally Dead giveaway contest!

Today, July 1, 2008 marks the release in the second installment of the Accidental series, ACCIDENTALLY DEAD, by the totally fabulous, utterly amazing, stupendously brilliant, always in her color wheel Dakota Cassidy (She made us say that--all of it. We fought back. Don't laugh. We did. It got ugly. She threatened us with heinous acts of yellow. She won.).

ACCIDENTALLY DEAD picks up with über potty mouth Nina Blackman and her newly acquired vampire woes (not to mention his undead hawtness, Greg). Here is a link to Amazon (We are subtle, aren't we?): http://tinyurl.com/4pntvc

In celebration of Nina's release, and because Dakota's such a bitc--er, so charming, we're having a scavenger hunt where you can win big! (Don't whine. Didn't we say killer prizes were involved?)

So here's what ya gotta do—Visit the blogs of Michele Bardsley, Mark Henry, and Toni McGee Causy (in that order, people) then hit Dakota's blog and get yer quiz on. That's it! All entrants who post correct answers in the comments section of Dakota's blog will be thrown into a random drawing. The prizes:

* Dakota's giving away a signed copy of THE ACCIDENTAL WEREWOLF, a $15 Amazon Gift Certificate, and an RT tote bag from RT 2008 filled with some goodies!

* Mark's upchucking an autographed copy of HAPPY HOUR OF THE DAMNED (and maybe another surprise or two … it's a purge, darling, you never know what'll show up).

* Toni's offering an autographed copy of BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (very, very, very) BAD DAY and other Bobbie goodness. We promise she won't blow up another bridge (at least not near you).

* Michele's spewing (again … gah! Can she get control of that spittle issue already?) an autographed ARC of WAIT TILL YOUR VAMPIRE GETS HOME and some Broken Heart swag.

Those damned contest rules: Entries must be posted to Dakota's blog by midnight (CST) Wednesday July 2, 2008. All correct answers from participants will be placed in a random drawing. ONE winner will be announced on Dakota’s blog on July 3, 2008. The winner must contact Dakota to collect the prizes.

Go on with yer bad selves (and remember visit the blogs in the following order)…

Michele's Blog: http://blog.michelebardsley.net

Mark's Blog: http://mdhenry.livejournal.com/

Toni's Blog: http://www.tonimcgeecausey.com/blog.html

Dakota's Blog: http://www.dakotacassidy.net

Three questions for Dakota:

So... three questions for Dakota:

1) Kick-ass heroine character traits like Nina's in ACCIDENTALLY DEAD seem to cross over and show up in our personal lives sometimes. Tell me, if you could be a heroine for a day (without the ramifications of "consequences"), who's ass would you kick and why?

For sure it'd be John Cusaks sweet ass I'd be kicking. I mean, helllloooooo, how long does it take osmosis and the love I share with him via said vulcan mind meld for him to GET IT and CALL ME???

2) What's the single most important perk you'd LIKE to have when writing and what would you have them do? (examples: Masseur? Grape peeler? Hunky entourage?)

Well, truthfully? I'd have Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer come and herd my beasts into "calm, submissive states" so that they didn't keep getting into everything while I write :)

3) You can pick one character from ACCIDENTALLY DEAD and they will magically come to life--but you have to let them live at your house. Who do you pick and why?

Larry--Nina's guinea pig. 'Cuz he's a whole lot less maintenance than Nina, Marty or Wanda :)

And now, three questions for Nina (though if she tries to smack me around, I am calling on Bobbie Faye)...

Okay, spill -- and no, I am not letting you off the hook,... of your two closest friends, Marty and Wanda--who do you like best (our little secret)?

That's like asking me if I'd rather have a Poodle or a Yorkshire Terrier. Both have equally annoying qualities, but can be killa fun to watch when they hump someone's leg and pee on trees.

I know there are a lot of undead perks (like hello? sex for all eternity? where is the downside here?)... but there's gotta be something you hate most about being a newly turned vampire. DETAILS.

You people and the eternal sex--what is up with you bunch o' pervs??? I've said it before and I'll say it again--chicken wings. I miss them. I love them. It sucks big, fat man hooters that I won't ever be able to eat them again. I miss those hot, little bastards smothered in bleu cheese like J-Lo'd miss her booty if it was tragically amputated. So can the reminders, okay?

John Cusak has been taken off by Martians determined to see if they can start a whole new race, so you cannot pick him. Given that, who is your favorite celebrity?

Barry Manilow--and one little wisecrack about that and I shove my fist so far down your throat you'll have to get the jaws of life to extract it. Feel me?

Q & A's

2008-06-25T01:21:00.000-07:00

I've got a random list of questions my publisher sent and I'll answer them here and store the answers permanently on the site (probably under "other writing" or maybe a FAQ section. So here are the first four:

If you were granted you one wish, what would you wish for?

World peace.

If you won the lottery, what would you do with your newfound wealth?

World peace.

[What? No? Maybe a little corner of world peace? Surely a lotto win of a kajillion dollars would get a corner? Oh. Right. The dollar is dropping.

How about a smidge? I could do with a smidge. And if that’s too much, then can we get that guy—you know, the one who is determined to start shouting at four a.m. in some drunken rant about mice and how they have been totally overlooked as a source of protein and then he goes outside and starts up a chainsaw, yes, him—can we get him some Prozac? Or time alone on an island? That would be a nice start.]

[Some of you reading this are shaking your heads, thinking she’d totally go for the 911 Carrera S Cabriolet but noooo. I would never buy the S. That would be ecologically wrong. And bad. Like brownies.] [But I might stand there a long time and look at it pitifully.]

Besides being an author, what is your fantasy job?

World peace hero.

[Oh, you totally knew I was going to go there, didn’t you?]

What do you enjoy doing the most with your free time?

Wait a minute. There’s free time? As in… free? Seriously? When did this start? Who do I see about this? This is a trick, isn’t it, like where someone sets a plate of brownies out there just for the taking with a sign that says “100% calorie free, tastes great” and then you reach for one and that’s when they cuff you and cart you off because anyone insane enough to believe that anything can still taste great and be calorie free has clearly lost every single marble they were given to play with and needs to be locked up for their own safety.

I am not falling for this one ~~again.~~

great trip and contest winners...

2008-06-17T21:33:00.001-07:00

I had an absolutely fantastic time in Decatur at Wordsmiths...

...and I am buried twenty feet beneath the pile of "to-do" lists. I have had two contests and I have winners to announce--will try to do so by Monday. Both the CJ Lyons contest and the Author Buzz contest winners to be announced via newsletter. Um, some time next week. (Email to winners will go out as well.)

...and I am also waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind on email. My apologies, but I am definitely responding. I'm just slllllllllllooooooooooooow.

I am utterly jazzed about book 3. There are moments when the ideas fall into place and the characters take over, and that's what's happening, so I might be scarce around here. (I know, HUGE shock there.)

Crawfish boil, fais do do and books

2008-06-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, Sat., the 14th, I will be at the absolutely fabulous Wordmith's Books in Decatur Georgia for a CRAWFISH BOIL sponsored by Baby Got Books' owner, Tim. How cool is that?

Extremely cool.

J.L.. Miles (Divorcing Dwayne) and C.J. Lyons (Lifelines) and Derek Nikitas (Edgar nominated Pyres) are all going to be there, making this a fantastic party. So if you're anywhere in the Decatur / Atlanta area, come on down for a good time.

fantastic writer's resource

2008-06-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

Author Lynn Viehl has an absolutely terrific blog called "A Paperback Writer" which I highly recommend. I am probably the last person to discover it (I am slow at this internet stuff sometimes), in spite of the fact that Lynn's always posting terrific and helpful comments over on Murderati.

Her "Complete Friday 20" index of Q & A's is one of the best resources I've come across. I will be checking out her books now, because anyone this smart is someone I should have already been reading.

Safe and Sound

2008-06-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite mystery writer's newest book has just come out in paperback and if you love mysteries and great writing, SAFE AND SOUND is a MUST buy book. Seriously. J.D. Rhoades is one incredibly cool writer, stellar person, and my personal internet stalk-ee. (I am still stalking him.)

So go. Seriously. Awesome, fantastic writer.

chaos, and contest...

2008-06-05T09:34:00.001-07:00

Hey folks, I am running out the door to go do a stock signing for a couple of places that requested it yesterday (woot! they have my book!)... and I'm attending a wonderful library signing / talk event early this evening (Denham Springs Library for anyone who's in the area)... so I am moving the new Bad Advice column to next week. Otherwise, the entire column would have been Blah and I think blah blah and yadda something yadda, maybe. Oh, and blah.

Meanwhile, Bobbie Faye is guest blogging tomorrow over on The Lipstick Chronicles, so come check it out!

WINNER, MORE CONTESTS

2008-06-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hey - wow, you guys were great. I cracked up and so enjoyed the comments.

And before I announce the winner, a couple of small details. REALLY--quick and painless.

1) Bobbie Faye's (kinda, sorta, not exactly) Family Jewels got a starred Booklist review yesterday. So if you were thinking, "Hey, maybe I'll enjoy that one!" or "Wow, that would make a great doorstop!" -- well, there ya go.

2) There's a newsletter, and there's going to be another CONTEST on there in a few days. So click on the header and it'll take you to the front page where you can sign up. And NO WORRIES -- I managed to get out a grand total of one newsletter last year -- you're not going to be inundated.

3) I love talking to y'all. And I've been getting wonderful emails, asking questions about writing, humor, comedy, the publishing business, the screenwriting business (I have sooo got to get a FAQ up there). And because I love visiting with people and talking about the books and all of this other stuff, I've started a yahoogroups discussion list. COME JOIN -- tonimcgeecausey-subscribe@yahoogroups.com -- and there are gonna be giveaways over there, too. It's brand spanking new, so don't mind the bare walls. We'll get it painted soon.

4) The winner, picked at random because my brain is broken now, and I can't possibly think of how to do it any other way, is angie-la! YAY ANGIE. So write to me care of the website (see the front page of the site), and I'll get that t-shirt ordered for you (tell me the size you'd like) and I'll have that B&N card sent by them to you.

See? That was quick *and* painless.

MORE BOBBIE FAYE'S BAD ADVICE COMING THURSDAY -- and another contest. Come check it out.

(And if you want to write Bobbie Faye, no matter how crazy the letter is, she'll see if she can give it a whirl. Seriously, you already know in advance she's crazy--how much worse can she make it? Send it to me via the front page email, and I'll let you know when she's going to answer it.)

Thanks everyone!

CONTEST...

2008-05-31T22:38:00.000-07:00

BOBBIE FAYE'S (kinda, sorta, not exactly) FAMILY JEWELS has hit the stores!

(If you're new to Bobbie Faye, think "action/adventure" and comedy. Or as I like to explain, if Elmore Leonard and Janet Evanovich were to have a bastard love child, it would be Bobbie Faye. Here's where you can see the craziness that went on in book one: here.... and an except of book two: here.)

And to celebrate, it's CONTEST time.

We (and by we, I mean the super cool, amazing and fabulous Michele Bardsley and Dakota Cassidy) are running a blog contest today. Bobbie Faye has been slammed by the editor of her local paper--she owes him money--she sort of blew up a couple of things and ran over a few other things that he owned and he's really not happy about this. She's trying to pay him back by doing an advice column.

Three letters to Bobbie Faye and her BAD advice back... means THREE chances to win... read the letter and then see what ya gotta do to enter below.

And now here's the latest letter to plague Bobbie Faye:

Dear Bobbie Faye:

I have a sort of itty bitty problem. My girlfriend says I'm accident prone, and I'm beginning to think she's right. I'm not sure what to do about it. First, that radio fell in the bathtub, and honest-to-God, I don't remember setting it up there on the edge of the tub, and I almost didn't make it out of there fast enough. And then the bed caught on fire--man, that was a freak accident! I could have sworn the iron wasn't even plugged in on the ironing board next to the bed, but Sally says I sleepwalk sometimes, and turn things on. And then yesterday, the gun fell out of the closet, hit the floor and shot a hole clean through the other side of the bedroom. It's getting to where I just don't know what I'm gonna do next, and Sally and her good friend, the doctor, say there's nothing wrong with me, that I'm just clumsy.

I see you've gone through a whole slew of crazy disasters, and you're still in one piece. Can you give me some advice to help me not be so clumsy?

Signed,

Not Who You Think It Is

Dear Not A Lick of Sense:

Harold. Honey. I know that's you. I tried to tell you last year when the car fell off the jack stands while you were working underneath it that maybe Sally hadn't quite forgiven you for that time with Loretta. It's probably a good bet that she's also found out about Cindy. And probably Mary Lou. And I don't care how you want to think about it, no guy accidentally falls into another woman's vagina. Ever.

And Harold? The UPS guy mentioned he'd just delivered a big ass chain saw to your house, so you might want to re-think that whole nooner thing you've got going with Betsy Ann and get busy packing, while you still have parts to pack.

signed,

Bobbie Faye

NOW, for the contest....

So here's what ya gotta do to enter--

Read Nina's cry from the lovelorn here: http://www.dakotacassidy.net/

Read Patsy's plea here: http://www.michelebardsley.com/

Read Bobbie Faye's newest letter for her column (above) and comment here!

We're all giving away prizes, and you could be entered to win 'em all! Just leave comments at each blog. Each author will choose a winner. And here's what you could win if you come play with us!

Dakota's giving away a signed ARC of ACCIDENTALLY DEAD and an Amazon gift certificate for 15 smackers :)

Michele Bardsley's offered up an ARC of her November release WAIT TILL YOUR VAMPIRE GETS HOME and some Broken Heart goodies.

And I'm giving away a 15$ Barnes and Noble gift certificate and an awesome T-shirt: http://www.cafepress.com /bobbiefaye.245732603

And now those damned contest rules--

Contest begins Sunday June 1, 2008 and ends Monday June 2, 2008 at midnight CST. One winner will be chosen from each blog--so go enter them all!

All winners are chosen at random and must check back at each blog on Tuesday June 3, 2008 to see if they've won in order to claim their prize.

super cool contest STARTING SUNDAY

2008-05-26T15:56:00.000-07:00

Hey -- the book is out! I've gotten several emails so far and THANK YOU to everyone who's already bought it, and to so many of you who've said such kind things already. Wow, you know how to make a girl's release week great.

There is a super cool contest on Sunday -- come back here for details, but there is going to be great giveaways. It's a very SHORT contest, 'til Monday at midnight, so come check it out.

Blogging on Murderati...

2008-05-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yikes, forgot to put up this link:

the tipping point...

And there's a contest running for the comment section!

Blogging over at Fog City Divas today...

2008-05-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm over at the fantastic Fog City Diva site... and there's a great prize for one of the commenters (come on over and see).

This one is... nutty. Swear, I was not drinking. I had a FEVER. That is my story and I'm sticking to it. ;)

Contest up over on Murderati...

2008-05-11T02:02:00.000-07:00

Come by the blog -- titled Dear God... (the stick turned blue)... and leave a comment to be eligible for two signed books, the first one (Bobbie Faye's Very (very, very, very) Bad Day) and (Bobbie Faye's (kinda, sorta, not exactly) Family Jewels -- which will hit the stores on May 27th, but I have a couple of advanced copies for this contest this week and next.

Come in and say 'hi' or wish someone a happy mother's day (your mom, someone else's, doesn't matter), or tell something you did to drive your mother batty.

And spread the word if you know someone who'd like two free books, one not even available for another two weeks. (You can see the good reviews on this site under the books section.)

-thanks,
-t

2008-05-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

I loved this blog entry of Joshilyn Jackson's:

Treat or Retreat (were sitting in a boat?)

Trust me, you'll enjoy.

okay, now I'm curious

2008-05-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

To the person who found my blog by typing in the search string, "guy i've been dating disappears"... I am curious. Were you looking for Bobbie Faye because you'd offed someone and needed advice about how to find them? or help hiding the body?

(Bobbie Faye is kinda a pro at both, but right now, we're trying to behave ourselves over here.)

book 2, first sighting

2008-05-06T01:56:00.000-07:00

There is nothing quite so otherworldly as receiving the package from the publisher that has the first copy of your new book inside. In spite of having seen it in its many incarnations (from manuscript to copy edits to first pass page proofs to galleys), none of those are really the book yet. They make it almost real, but it's not until you're holding that final copy that you feel that sigh, the smile spreading across your face, that your hands keep touching the cover reverently, and you know, it's real. It's done, here, your new baby, about to go out into the world.

There is also a strangeness to holding your book for the first time, because so much of what we do is via the internet, that these final stages feel like a real countdown. The cover is a nicer green than what shows up on the online jpegs (and I noticed for the first cover for Bobbie Faye's Very (very, very, very) Bad Day, the jpeg shows up as very blue, but then when you see it in the bookstore, the actual book cover is way more of a pale green.) In fact, the book looks a lot better with that pale green, and I still haven't figured out why the jpegs were so different than the final cover.

For this second book, the green you see online for Bobbie Faye's (kinda, sorta, not exactly) Family Jewels looks almost turquoisey green, but when it arrived today, it actually looks a lot hipper... it's more of a spring green, more olive to it, more of a current color (to me).

But those are just the first things you notice when you're holding you own book for the first time. Much like you run your hands over a baby's face, memorizing features, so you catch yourself doing with the book cover. Oh look, you think, they embossed all of the diamonds, too. Even the crawfish and the TNT plunger have nice embossing and depths and shadows. You turn the book over, reading the back copy and are thrilled. And you peek inside, flipping through the pages, looking to see how certain things finally came out once the final art was done, and you're very happy.

When I set that book down, I think about the year that was the making of that book; that needs to be an essay somewhere all by itself, because there were about a million changes in my life, most of them for the good, but all very very busy, and woven into that craziness was the writing of this book. At times, it seemed impossible that it was going to work out, but at the end, at the next to the last pass, I realized it had finally come together. This book make me work harder than I'd ever done as a writer, because I was reaching for more, bringing Bobbie Faye more into her own, more into having to deal with consequences and facing choices, more into having to start facing some of those things she'd really rather have been happily in denial about.

It was a tough year, physically, but extremely gratifying, with family and friends and now... a book to show for it. I think I will always look at that book as my most difficult challenge to date, but the one I'm proud of.

I can't wait to see them in the stores at the end of this month.

Stuff Cajun People Like

2008-05-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is probably my new favorite website. I think it's funny and accurate as hell:

Stuff Cajun People Like

(swiped from the wonderful Cajun Kitty)

wow

2008-04-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

I am having a lot of fun working on book 3 right now. It's one of those times when I can see the story, see it playing out in my head many many steps ahead of where I actually am right now and I can't write fast enough to keep up with it.

That feels amazing.

I'm going to be having some contests up within the next few days, so stay tuned... and I've got some nice packages to give away -- two books each (Bad Days plus Family Jewels galley), and a "shuck me, suck me, eat me raw" item (choice of button or magnet). If you want the first notice to be able to enter, sign up for the newsletter (on the home page) and you'll be one of the first to know.

Also, those who've signed up for the newsletter will get an extra excerpt from book 2 ahead of publication.

I'll be blogging Sunday on Murderati, so come on over and say hello there, too.

blogging over on Murderati

2008-04-26T22:42:00.001-07:00

Some of you may not know that I have a regular gig every Sunday over on Muderati, a fantastic collection of mystery / thriller / caper authors.

The newest one is up, titled "The Most Important Contract A Writer Will Ever Have"

Come on by and say hello!

fun and craziness

2008-04-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

You know, I wasn't entirely sure what the RT convention was going to be like, but I have to say, I had a lot of fun. I hung out with terrific people the entire time, laughed more than I think I've laughed in a year all in one weekend, signed a lot of books, sold out at the author signing after the Mystery Chix breakfast, and generally got to be associated with terrific people in this business. Debby, one of the wonderful readers I met there, took these (sometimes incriminating) photos (and geez, mine is pretty pathetic, but everyone else looks cool, so I'm linking anyway). I think every writer should go to RT at least once, because you just have not lived until you've seen a six-foot-tall woman wearing a rubber dress and spikes, or a male model, dressed as a construction worker, also wearing pink wings and pink ears. If this doesn't spark your imagination, then you are dead and should quit writing.

The only downside to the trip was the hotel, which was under construction. In true Bobbie Faye fashion, I was excited to be getting away from my house because we are having, you guessed, construction done here. There was a lot of roof damage during a recent storm, and we're having to replace all of the soffit and facia boards, and then next is the roof, and I was going to get away from the banging and the sawing and the radio playing music I don't understand. So I arrive in Pittsburgh and get to the hotel all pretty uneventfully, only to discover that they don't have a room for me. I could have booked an overflow room to another hotel (about six or so blocks away), or wait an hour for the room to be "cleaned" and then have a king size room right that at the conference center. Seemed like a no brainer... I picked waiting an hour. At which point, I checked my luggage in with the bell desk, and lugged my computer around with me, (erroneously thinking I'd go sit in the bar), met up with some wonderful friends, including Jackie Kessler (whose books ROCK the paranormal world, go get them), and we walked over to a different bar and hung out. My drink arrived after a while... as did the call to come check in.

The room was rather nice. A little tight on the space, but pretty. And clearly, they had just finished construction on it, which is what they had meant by "cleaning" the room earlier. There were a few items not yet placed in the room, though... like a trash can, hair dryer, soap, refrigerator (though there was a lovely spot for one in the future), pillows... Kinda had to call the front desk. But overall, I thought, no problem. Until 8 a.m. the next morning, when the construction started in the adjoining bedroom. Drilling, sawing (skill saw), hammering, sanding, music playing that I didn't understand. The construction went on from 8 .m. to 8 p.m. every day, even Sunday. They started earlier one day and scared the crap out of me, the noise was so sudden and so loud and I hadn't fully awakened (though I was standing there brushing my teeth), and I probably need to apologize to a bunch of construction workers who saw this woman fly out of her room and stand there with her toothbrush in hand, foam still in her mouth, demanding that they go work on a different wall so I didn't have to kill them while I got dressed. I may have freaked them out a bit. They were very very quiet after that.

Who knew a toothbrush and a little foaming at the mouth could be so effective.

Oh, and on a completely different note, I owe a special thank you to the anonymous person who turned in my lost credit card, which I stupidly dropped. It was gone less than five minutes, and it kept me from having a major snafu for the weekend. So whoever you are, thank you.

I'm going to be getting contests up here soon. And updating a minimum of once a week, and guest-blogging several other places, so it's going to be a very busy few months around here.

FIRST BLOG POST:

2008-04-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

Wow. It's been a while. This year has flown by, and many many things have happened, and here we are, brand new look to the site, brand new beginning.

Right now, I'm prepping what I'm going to need for the Romantic Times Convention. And if you check out the schedule on my site, I'll be speaking on two different panels, as well as helping to host a terrific morning mixer on Saturday morning. We're going to have tons of stuff to giveaway Saturday morning, so if you're anywhere in the area, don't miss this one--it's going to be a blast.

Also, Thursday night, if you're near Oakland, PA (near Pittsburgh), there's a terrific multi-author signing at Mystery Lovers Bookshop. Check out our Mystery Chix page for bios on many of the attendees.

I'm bringing my camera, and I'll be blogging here on the signing as well as RT--should prove to be some crazy photos, since so much of RT is a party.

Plus--more blogs on writing and movies and books and the crazy, frantic world of Bobbie Faye. There'll be contests and excerpts and more. Check back soon!