I'm back!

I am finally done except for writing a blurb. Well, editing one anyway. It took longer than I thought it would to do what needed done. LOL. I was sure I'd be finished by Monday but then life stepped in. Now... yeah! I can relax. No, they weren't 'official' edits. It was me cleaning up my submissions for two books I wrote. I'm still learning the 'smoother' way to write and so I had to fix my mistakes and clean them up quite a bit. LOL.

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How was everyone's weekend? I'm sleep deprived a bit but I'll catch up on it soon enough. I've missed reading blogs, trolling around myspace looking at people's pages (I'm probably the only person who does this but WOW is that interesting at times - there are some really different kinds of people on there), and going to some of my favorite websites. I kept up with my emails but that was about it over the weekend. Tonight I was trying to play catch up with a few groups I belong to. You never really realize how involved you are with the Internet until you aren't really on it much. LOL.

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For the next few days I'm just going to relax, get more sleep, and do a little writing for pleasure instead of just for editing purposes. Big difference. LOL. Well, unless life steps in.

I'm going to be very busy this weekend

While I'm really busy this weekend doing edits... I thought I'd give everyone something nice to look at on my blog.

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I'm editing two books and am turning them in on Monday. In other words... I am going to pretty much stay off the Internet for the most part while I get seriously emerged in the Planet Zorn. LOL.

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I hope everyone has a terrific weekend! I'll be back on Monday when the craziness is over or maybe before if I really dig in and get this done. A huge thanks go out to my critique partner who is going over what I'm editing when I finish each chapter so she can catch my mistakes!

Saving money with kids/grandkids

Hello, everyone. I had a long discussion this morning with a friend of mine. She usually isn't a very thrifty person. If you look up the word... there's my picture probably. LOL. My friend is having some hard times financially. They cut her hours at work. Her boyfriend got laid off of his part time job (luckily he still has a full time job), and she wanted to know how in the world we do it because we live on a super tight budget, have 4 kids to her 1... and she had no idea what to do. Christmas is approaching...

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By the time I got done... she said I should write a book. Not my style to write that type of book. I don't do non-fiction. Where is the fun in that? LOL. Anyway, I got to thinking about it and I know everyone is having tough times. I'm not the only person with multi kids that has to break out in a cold sweat with Christmas looming ahead. I always plan ahead. There's no way I can come up with a ton of money to buy gifts in December. I buy all year round. I have a 'special' closet the kids are forbidden to go near. So far they have never broken that rule and the fact that I have a wheel shelf loaded with books in front of it helps. So... here's some great advice.

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I love Amazon dot com. They have some really great toy sales all year round. They also have major DVD sales a few times a year. I bought one daughter a Buffy the Vampire season set for $14! They are usually twice that. They recently had some of the older seasons of Rosanne, shows like that, for under $10 a season! They always have great deals on box sets and children's movies. Just check frequently. I got seasons of scooby doo for one of my kids really cheap recently too. It was 70 percent off.

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One payday a month I go on there to hunt up what is on clearance in their toy sections or electronics. If you spend $25 on most items... free shipping and man can shipping add up otherwise. It's sad when what you're buying and the cost of shipping it equals out or just about. I usually manage to get away with spending $50 per child yet get about $150 worth of stuff. If I only spend $25-$30 a month it pays for Christmas and birthdays for all 4 kids. It's just remembering to tag one paycheck a month, hunting up those sales, and having a place to stash what you buy until said holiday.

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Last year they had dollhouses for $15 (usually $69.99) and buying 2 of them got me free shipping (saved almost $30 there). I bought MP3 players for my girls (Barbie) they had marked down from $39.99 all the way down to $11. My son is 4 so he can't read this. His birthday is next month. Has anyone seen those remote control fighting robots? They are like car/robots, they talk, they have fists, and they fall apart to later snap back together when they punch each other out if you have 2 of them to fight each other. Really cool and what 4 year old boy wouldn't love that??? LOL. They are usually $50 each or just under. I found them at just under $10 each. I bought 2 of them for his birthday, threw in a clearance tool box talking toy that was dropped to $8 from $17... to get me that free shipping. So... I spent about $29 total for about $117 worth of stuff. NOT BAD! Every month those sales change, you can catch some super deals, and save a ton getting some top rate items at rock bottom prices. I've noticed June/July offer the best sales going the lowest in prices but they also seem to drop in November more drastically too.

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Another favorite online store of mine is a place called collections etc. If you google that... it's the first link. I love buying things for my friends here. I signed up for their email notices and they send me $1 shipping and free shipping codes often. Sometimes they have a spending limit to get those but sometimes... it's free shipping on ANY order. That's when I strike. LOL. They have a lovely sale tab all the way to the right along the top and man do they have cute stuff. I've bought everything from cute happy faced shelf sitters (I collect them and own a few dozen of them...), to artwork, to handy gadgets. It's a great place to Christmas shop too year round to store for December for friends and family. Just hit those sales. Look every month and watch for those free shipping on any order codes in your email.

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So... does anyone else have any internet stores they love to shop and save money at? I kept it to the internet so everyone can shop since in some areas they don't have certain brick and mortor stores. I'd love for you to share! I could always find even more ways to save money.

Today is a special day for me.

What is today? Today... Twenty years ago... I got a phone call from a good friend of mine. She wanted me to go out to dinner with her and two men that she knew. She had run into one of them, her old friend, and they'd invited her to share dinner with them to catch up on their lives. Long story short... she asked me to dress really nice and hey, she was buying me dinner! I love to eat and I DO NOT pass up free dinners. LOL.

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So she picked me up. She drove me down to the city where we were meeting her friends at and then we went to dinner. Now I'm starting to suspect that she's trying to set me up with these guys. Being a good friend she wanted me to have options so there were two of them to pick from. LOL. I wasn't looking. I had just come out of a really painful relationship. I'd sworn off men... well, for a while anyway. I decided I'd just relax, ignore my friend's matchmaking scheme, and just enjoying a good meal and conversation. No way was I getting involved in another relationship for a while. That was set in stone in my head.

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One of these guys I spent dinner talking to. Every time he laughed it lit up his eyes and damn did he have a really great smile. He was really smart, charming, and after dinner we just kept right on talking. I told him everything (fastest way to get a man to run... so I thought...) about my life, about why I wasn't going to date for a LONG time, and just acted like he was a 'girl' friend. You know those things you'd never do around men? I did them. No make-up. I think I even showed him how loud I can burp chugging soda and pizza. (Hey, I was a tomboy raised around boys. LOL)

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Three days later I found myself staring into his eyes, that smile tugging at my heart, and I did something I'd never done in my life. I asked a guy to kiss me! And that... is how I met my husband. So here is to the man who fell in love with the real me, the man who melted my stone resolved heart into falling in love with the real him, and to the man who can still make my knees weak 20 years later with his kisses.

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True love really does exist!

Yeah! I finished the book!

I managed to finish the book tonight. LOL. I still need to edit it. It's going to get a looksy from my critique partner. She's wonderful. LOL. She'll tell me if and where I went wrong so I can fix it. I will spend the week editing it. I'm just happy to have gotten that last chapter done. I also need to decide on a title. I think I'm going with Tempting Rever. That's what I have it as right now. LOL.

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On Monday I'm going to be on Helen Hardt's blogspot called Helen's Heroes. Please stop by her wonderful blog! Here's a link.

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http://helensheroes.blogspot.com/

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Helen was nice enough to ask me to be there and I'm really grateful she did. You have to check it out. It's going to be a lot of fun! I know I'm excited. Ral is going to be on there too!!! How cool is that???

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I hope everyone has a terrific weekend (What is left of it!) As for me... I'm going to relax, maybe read a book off of my list of books I have put off reading... and then I'm going to work on another book. LOL!

My imagination to the rescue! LOL

Yeah!!! I was struggling to concentrate on writing and I said I'd tie myself to my desk. Well, I did it. (Not literally...It's hard to write probably in handcuffs or rope...LOL). I am taking a break right now but I'm on the last chapter!!! I have to do all the edits, read it a dozen times, let my critique partner get her eyes on it... but YEAH! I was stuck and now I'm not. I even have the last chapter in my head so it's just a matter of getting it down so I can smooth it out!!!

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I always feel really excited yet sad when I finish a book. I live and breathe these characters while I'm writing. It's like telling people you've come to love... I have to leave you now... LOL. A part of me wants to stay and linger just a bit longer. I'll get over that feeling after I'm done with all that reading, editing, and it's ready to be submitted. By then I'll be eager to work on the next one.

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Oh... I love starting a new book. I get excited about a blank page. Ideas start to hit me all at once as I put my fingers to the keys. Nothing is easier for me than those first few pages. Usually in one sitting I will write the first chapter of a book. It just hits me upside the head and boom... that 80 plus words per minute typing ability I have comes in handy because I can keep up with my thoughts with my fingers. Of course sometimes it's all crap and I have to dump it but... it's fun! LOL!!!

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I wonder what other authors feel when they finish a book or are close to the end. Excited it's done? Sad that it's time to wrap up the story? Please share! I'd love to hear it. I hope you all have a great weekend!

I'm going to tie myself to my desk!

By Monday my plan is to have the third book done about Zorn! That's my goal! LOL. I of course need to finish it for real by Saturday morning so I have time to edit it and go through it for any errors. I've been distracted a lot this week. It's not normally like me but then, a lot has happened. LOL! I've been reading blogs about distracted authors so I'm not alone. Maybe it's something in the air or the like an Internet virus. Zap... you were infected. LOL. Well, my distraction days are over so maybe the cure is going around too.

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After I'm done with that book... I will be cleared up to work on the other WIP's I have going. I usually bounce around between books to avoid writer's block. I've put them all on the back burner to get the third one done. I'm also working on a contemporary western ( I just finished the first in that hopeful series, edited it, it's waiting to be submitted, and I wrote the first two chapters of the second one to it). My other WIP is a Cyborg series.

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"Hi, my name is Laurann... and I'm a series addict!"

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I REFUSE to seek help. I admit it proudly, chin raised, and I'm even buying the T-shirt. LOL! Okay, I love to read series. I love to write them. I just love being able to get invested in them. You want to get to know their friends, family, and neighbors. I do anyway. I just... love them. So... I write them. LOL.

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TONIGHT... Bones and Fringe returns to TV!!!! We're really excited. My husband and I love TV. He works long hours. We have 4 kids. Until they are in bed... we are NOT getting any alone time so we've made power cuddling on the couch a favorite pastime. LOL. I love to sit next to him on the couch. Sometimes foot massages are involved. WHOOO HOOO. I'm really glad all the shows are returning. More cuddle time with my favorite man!!!

OMG! My first book review!!!! Happy Dance!!!

I just checked my email and I got my first book review! Heart in hand I read it. Then I got all teary eyed, yelled for my husband, and we read it. Ready? 4.75 out of 5!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!

(I was so nervous about my first book review.)

Chris at Night Owl Romance reviewed Ral's Woman. I'm attaching a link at the bottom but here is what was written!

Review:

Finding out there is life on other planets hasn't been a good experience for Ariel. Deemed useless by her captors, she is made a prize for other captives to fight over. When the largest man she has ever seen wins her, she doesn't know what her fate is. Is she to be his dinner or his bed mate?

Ral is Zorn. A leader among a warrior race he was taken captive while on a hunting expedition. His captors think he and his like are simple and stupid. They are not, but play the game to their advantage. When he wins a woman, he usually hands her off to one of his pack, but when he sees Ariel, he fights for her for himself. And he'll do anything to keep her. Heart, body and soul.

This book was such a guilty pleasure I almost expected women activists to bang on my door while I read it. I absolutely adored it. Everything a woman could fantasize about is artistically written for your reading enjoyment. Capture, a man killing for you, fighting all to keep you. Sigh. Ral and Ariel smoked the pages and kept it burning until the end. A true love story with enough controversy and misunderstanding to keep it captivating. I look forward to a sequel; soon I hope.

Here is the link :

http://www.nightowlromance.com/nightowlromance/reviews/Review.aspx?daoid=4643

I'm so over the moon about a good review! I'm going to celebrate!!! LOL.

Laurann

I'm glad I have a lot of hair. LOL.

I'd be bald other wise from tearing some of it out. I am so distracted lately that it's driving me nuts. I was writing away and then life distracted me. I updated my website by adding some pictures to it. It was payday so... me and my credit card went shopping. LOL. Fifteen dollars got me ten pictures so not bad. (Look right.... TOTALLY worth the hunt time and money for that pic! - Go to the bottom of my blog and see my other purchase.... Now that's a hot book! LOL) I ordered business cards because I'm a talker, I run into other women, and we get going. Every time I tell them about Ral's Woman I find myself digging for a pen, something to write on... so yeah, I ordered business cards. LOL. It will make my life so much easier when they ask how to buy it or where to go to see the info for it to just do the 'cool' thing and whip out a card! LOL.
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So now I get to go back to work! I'm ready to go visit another planet and see where my characters go together. I sometimes wish I was a writer that actually plots their books. I don't. I never know what's going to happen to them next until I'm there putting it down!
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I hope everyone has a great weekend! I want to thank anyone who stops by here and to thank again the people who have written to me. I'm still getting a few emails every day from really nice people who take the time to drop me a line to let me know how they felt about Ral's Woman. It just makes my day! I'm floored at the ratings and comments left at EC. There are so many of them and more were added since I last checked. WOW! LOL.



Laurann

Working and sipping my Carmel Iced Coffee

I'm back to writing! I've been distracted with a lot of things. The kids started school. It's great! I get three hours a day by myself! No human jack in the box, up and down, chasing after small children for those hours, so I can really concentrate on the latest book I'm writing. I'm working on a third book to Ral. I've hit the half way mark in the book. I always have the hardest time at that point. You can take it to so many places and I have a wild imagination. LOL. I get too many ideas and that's the problem. I finally 'felt' where to go with this one so I'm typing away! There is light at the end of the tunnel!!!

I love writing. It's my escape and my 'special place'. A friend of mine goes to a park when she needs an 'escape'. I don't have to drive anywhere. It's right here at my desk. LOL. I don't have to worry about weather, about how many people are going to crowd my 'space'. It's all good. Between writing I'm checking my emails. You know, people are just so darn nice. I forget that sometimes because I'm at home. My world is kind of small since I'm an at home mom. It revolves around my kids, my husband, the few other people I see in my day when I take breaks to take in some fresh air on my porch, or when I'm playing taxi to the kids. I read the news which is usually grim.

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Since Ral was released I've gotten quite a few emails. I am actually stunned by the amount considering I was told to expect 1 or 2 at most. Every day since it's been released there are always a few. I'm shocked at the amount of comments and ratings. I've blinked back tears just so touched that people took the time to do that and some of them...WOW! It's up to 19 ratings, 12 comments at EC! I'm just... floored. Seriously. As a new author, first book out, I never in a million years even dreamed that I'd get such a response from Ral's Woman. I have no idea how many people have bought Ral's Woman but I'm just so darn overjoyed at hearing people tell me they loved the story and some of the wonderful things they said. Even the ones who had a complaint said nice things. How great is that???

So... I'm back to Zorn. LOL. Thank you to everyone that stops by to read and to comment. I appreciate it.

Laurann

I've survived a first book release... LOL

It's been a very exciting long weekend. Ral's Woman was released on Friday. I was nervous...okay... terrified... of that fact. I'll be blunt. Before I submitted it ONE person besides me had read it. Usually I have a few good friends that I can shoot anything I write to. They are my biggest fans, these few women (3 of them). One of them has been really busy at work, is a single mother, and hasn't had time to read. Another one lost her job and her Internet because she likes eating more than checking her e-mail (right choice), and that left my third friend that got to read Ral's Woman. LOL. I had never written anything like it before and I don't think she'd ever read anything like it before. It was my first venture into outer space, aliens, and that made me even more nervous.

It came out and ask my new best friend Valerie who is also my critique partner... I was a basket case. She and I shot e-mails back and forth at the speed of light almost. Me freaking out, her trying to not laugh too hard at me while trying to calm me down. I had worst scenario running through my head. The dreaded 'bomb'. You know... no one will like it. (Yes, that's what I was freaking out about the most.) My wonderful husband woke up Friday morning to a note on his lunch bag where I admitted I was freaking out. He left me a note back. Here's what my wonderful husband wrote. "There is nothing better than the day a dream comes true." Yes, I'm a lucky woman. He always knows what to say and how to get me to smile. Clutching his note since I can't curl up to him (He had to work) I drank my Carmel iced coffee and wrote to a few people, checking my e-mail every few minutes because Valerie was keeping me sane with those rapid e-mails. She has a day job too so she was working while keeping me from going off the deep end.

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A wonderful thing happened. A few emails started coming in from readers. They loved my book! They were even nice enough to share why they loved it. I had hoped that maybe one or two people would take the time. Cross my fingers that they liked it (okay, maybe my hands were clasped together too a few times). I got emails every few hours. They started adding up and I was just floored. My website got hundreds of hits. Valerie, bless her heart, sent me to the EC site to look at the comments and ratings that had been left. I forgot about that feature in my haze of release day. I got a lot of support from other authors who took the time to respond to my group email about how nervous I was. Wow are authors some really great people and so darn friendly and supportive! A HUGE thank you to them!

So... I survived release day and the days following. LOL. I am still getting emails from readers. I got three of them today and a facebook friend request from someone who read Ral's Woman that also sent me a really nice message, and that reminded me... Oh yeah. I set up a facebook. I'd forgotten in my haze. LOL. Whoops. I wrote myself a note. FACEBOOK! I'll go work on that this week. LOL. It's just been so hectic the past few weeks. My kids start school tomorrow. (Me jumping up and down in my chair because my youngest will go to kindergarten for three hours which will leave me 3 hours of quiet). Now I'm settled down. I can get back to the writing part.

I admit I was a bit distracted and didn't write much of anything this weekend. That's really unlike me. I'm a writing plow horse. I sit in the chair (strap myself in mentally) and there I go. This weekend was the exception. I just couldn't focus and that's unheard of for me. I know people who write suffer from writer's block occasionally but not me. I have a way around that. I have more than one work in progress always. If I get caught on one... I have others to work on happily so I'm always writing. Now I can say never say never. Release day weekend can make me nuts. LOL. I survived and now life can resume. I had started a third book about Zorn so I'm going to get back to work! LOL.

Thank you to everyone who has been so wonderful and supportive. Thank you, Regina Carlysle, for putting Ral's Woman up on your blogspot this weekend! You are a wonderful woman and damn can that woman write! Check out her books! She just released Ringo's Ride, the third in the High Plains Shifter series, and MAN is it a HOT read!

Laurann

Ral's Woman is out and wow.... LOL

Yesterday Ral's Woman was released. I was so nervous it wasn't funny. This being my first release... it was just flat out scary. I had my fingers crossed that people would enjoy the story. I hoped Ral and Ariel's story could do that SUPER HOT cover justice...LOL. A wonderful thing happened. I braved checking my e-mail that is linked to my blog, website, and ellorascave (it's all the same e-mail account). I had an e-mail waiting from a woman who bought the book, read it... and she said she "LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it!" It was a really nice letter.

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It touched me that she took the time to not only read my book but to hunt up my e-mail and drop me a line. I was THRILLED! Then I went back a few hours later. There were a few more e-mails from readers. And so it went. By the time I went to bed late last night I'd heard from just over a dozen readers and they all had really positive things to say, more than half of them wanted to know if there were going to be more books, hoping it was a series, and I just about floated to bed. I don't know who was happier. Me or my very proud husband who has been very supportive of my writing.

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I have four children and this year my youngest is starting kindergarten. I finally have the time to commit myself to writing and giving it the full attention it deserves. In honor of that some months back (I think it was March) my husband bought me a new computer with this huge 24 inch widescreen monitor. I was using an old, breaking down, overheating laptop that was constantly giving me problems before he bought me the new computer. He wanted to support my dream and make it easier on me to work. He's actually the reason that Ral's Woman came about. He encouraged me by telling me to write it and gave me the tools to write comfortably. I wrote Ral's woman immediately after bringing the new computer home.

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He's always had faith in me, he's always been very understanding when I spend hours with my headphones on while I write, keeping the children away from me. LOL. We're both really overjoyed that Ral's Woman is out there. I've also gotten a lot of wonderful support from fellow authors and it floors me how wonderful and kind people are. What a great world full of terrific people!

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So... this weekend I'm going to check my e-mails, spend some time with my loving husband, and enjoy the fact that Ral's Woman has been released! I hope everyone has a great weekend.

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Please go check out Regina Carlysle's blog! She was terrific enough to put up the cover, blurb, and excerpt. You can also find her link to the right.

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http://reginacarlysle.blogspot.com

Today is the big day. Ral's Woman is released!!!

Wow. It's just after midnight on September 4th. My first book comes out at some point today on the http://www.ellorascave.com website. This is my first release and it's really exciting! A hundred things are running through my mind. Will other people love Ral and Ariel as much as I do? Will they fall in love with the characters as much as I did? Will their story entertain and captivate? I'm about to find out. Those are just a few thoughts running through my head. I'm also nervous. LOL.

I really hope that you enjoy it if you read Ral's Woman. I had a lot of fun writing it. Now I'm going to go drink some iced coffee, celebrate getting my first release out there, and stare at the cover on my computer screen because... isn't he hot??? They really nailed Ral. My thanks go out to everyone involved in the making of that cover. I hope my story does it justice!

What puts you in the mood?

I'm starting a new book. I usually write by the seat of my pants. I literally think 'I want to write a... (insert type of book here)'... open up a new word document... and start to write. There's my planning stage. LOL. This one is a second book to a western I just finished that I am now editing to submit in a few weeks. I'm prone to series. I will admit that right now. I love reading them, I love writing them, and I wanted to write about this guy's brother. LOL. That's all I had in mind when I opened a new document. A story about Navarro's brother River that is a busted up ex-rodeo star.

It's a contemporary western. I need to get in the mood which got me wondering what other people do to get in the mood. Me? I pulled out the CD's I have. I popped them into my computer, downloaded songs from them into my MP3 player, and turned it up loud. I use headphones because everyone is sleeping. I tend to write late. I love to dance. I probably shouldn't admit that but it helps get rid of 'writer's butt'. LOL. So I downloaded my CD's to said Mp3 player, got up, and danced around. LOL. Then I sat down and wrote out the first chapter listening to the same songs. (Hey, don't knock it. I've lost 25 pounds this year making myself dance! LOL)

Song list includes - Bob Seger's Fire Down Below (I love Bob! I listen to a few of his songs actually), Joe Cocker's You Can Leave Your Hat On (Yes, I giggle at his last name), The Chemicals Between Us by Bush, I Want To Be A Cowboy by Kid Rock.... just to name a few. LOL. It puts me in the right mindset to write. I put them on my playlist and listen to the music while I write. It keeps me zoned in on the story, the characters, and keeps me from getting distracted by the cats playing or the neighbors driving past or whatever else is going on around me.

I took a little break and it got me thinking... I wonder how weird I am??? LOL. So I thought I'd ask what other people do to 'get in the mood' when they write. Do you do things to get in the mood? Does it just 'come to you' or do you do things to put yourself into your writing 'zone'??? I'd love to hear it if you're willing to share it. LOL!