Didja miss me?

I’m baaaaaaack! (Cue creepy exorcist voice)

How has everyone been? Didja miss me? Been behaving while I was off in new baby land? How was your Halloween? Ours was super fun this year! I ate my weight in candy, (Okay, I’m still doing that. Totally stocked up on 50% off candy after the big day. I officially have a chocolate addiction, and I’m pretty sure my family is staging an intervention behind my back.) and since all my regular costumes are still too small this year, my concession to dressing up was to wear a pair of devil horns. But they were sparkly! The Big Boy decided he wanted to go trick-or-treating as his favorite video game character, Super Mario. And, of course, since he actually has a brother this year, he insisted that Baby Boy dress up as Luigi. So, here are my super plumber brothers:



And, just for fun, a few more baby pics. Can you tell I’m playing proud mamma lately?

My little pumpkin


Smiles already!


Deep in thought



Baby Boy is one month old as of Monday, so I’m officially back from maternity leave this week. Which is kind of a joke really considering a) I work at home anyway and b) I was taking conference calls on new projects the day after baby was born. Oh, and did I mention I had a book release this month, too? (Yeah, super restful maternity leave. ;))



SCANDAL SHEET is now available in a bookstore near you! This is the first book in my brand spakin’ new Hollywood Headlines series, and I’ve got all sorts of Scandalous goodies available on my website. You can read an excerpt, listen to an audio excerpt of the first three chapters, enter my Scandalous Stories contest, visit the LAInformerOnline.com website for daily updated gossip, or just take the plunge and order yourself a copy. And, don’t forget, if anyone would like a signed copy, you can either send me an SASE and I’ll send you a signed bookplate to stick in the front of your book, or you can send me your book along with an SASE with sufficient return postage and I’ll sign your copy right on the title page. Just check my website for my mailing address.

And, to wet your Scandal appetite, here’s a video book trailer:



So, what has everyone else been up to this month?


~Trigger Happy Halliday

I stink. I admit it. Yes, I showered this morning, but then I proceeded outdoors to burn the piles of leaves I'd raked up yesterday so I'm rather, uh, aromatic at the moment. And, as you can see from the photo of my home below, there is more raking, burning--and stinking to come. Fall. Gotta love it.

Anyway, as promised a few weeks back, I am posting pics of my house post Herbal Wash and Country Brown paint job. I still like the color (imagine that!) and am looking forward to having the chance to relax and enjoy the new paint job next summer. As you can also see, we're enjoying a beautiful day here in the heartland complete with brilliant sunshine and lovely blue skies. At this time of year you really appreciate each and every nice, sunny day!

I'm also posting a pic of my office below. I recently rearranged the furniture (for the twentieth time) and am hoping the new, functional arrangement translates into lots of pages.
Speaking of writing, I suppose I'd better open that WIP file and get to it. Hope you are having a great--and productive--week!

~Bullet Hole~

No Fatalities or Accidents in 7,120 Days!

Tuesday was our 20th wedding anniversary. That's right, me and Mr. Assassin have been happily married for two decades. You know, I always thought we'd spend this iconic day on a beach somewhere. Well, technically speaking, Tom is in the sand. That's calling the glass of vodka half full, right?

Here's how I celebrated:

Jack forgot his lunch. How did I know? Found the dogs playing tug-of-war with one of his peanut butter sandwhiches on the carpet. I had to run it to him, making me late for work.

Spent my lunch hour at the post office buying one stamp. You heard me. One. And arguing with the postmaster because the turquoise ski mask I sent Jana one week ago, 2-day express, hadn't shown up yet and they, for some reason, couldn't track it. Managed to race to Wendy's and scarf down a double stack with cheese, tomato and mayo before reaching my desk.

Struggled all afternoon with a graphic design problem before I realized that it would work with only two mouse clicks.

Margaret called to say she was sent home with fever and a bad headache. The school nurse coyly tossed around the words "swine" and "flu."

Got this text from Bernie, "Leslie, please bring knives." If I had a nickel for everytime someone said that to me...

The cub scout meeting was one hour of anarchy and chaos when one of the boys said the word "eyenipple" while reading a report on the American flag. Eyenipple?

Jack won the popcorn sale for the den by $3. This means in two weeks, he gets to hit me in the face with a pie. He spent the whole walk home telling me how excited he was to finally get his revenge. Revenge?

Watched the pilot episode of "V." Told my kids how much I loved this show back in the eighties. Jack and Margaret tell me that twenty-eight years is like eternity and they can't believe I'm still alive.

And somehow, I am just not convinced that this all "fun-size" Snickers diet is working.

Oh well. Today is another day...right?

The Assassin

I Tried to Give My Dad Away A Wal-Mart But they Didn't Want Him

I Tried to Give my Dad Away at Wal-Mart

But They Wouldn’t Take Him.



Last week I had the great pleasure of my dad and his better half’s (his girlfriend) company. Faye is a sweet, spunky individual. Not that her being spunky is surprising. You see, it takes a spunky individual to put up with my old man. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anything about him that he hasn’t said about himself.

You see, my dad is a smartass. He admitted it while he was here, too. The conversation came about when we were talking about my book reviews and I told him that several people had referred to my writing style as “smartass.”

His retort was, “See, that’s why I should be getting a cut of your royalties. You inherited all your smartass abilities from me.”

My reply to that was, “Yeah, that what’s my mama always said, too, only she didn’t seem to mean it as a good thing.”

His reply was, “Don’t be a smartass!”

That’s when I reminded him of the years he told me that being a smartass wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Obviously, he didn’t deserve a cut of my profits because he tried to change me.

His reply was, “I just told you that to make you mad so you’d work harder at being a smartass. And it worked, didn’t it?”

Hubby passes by and says, “Yup, it did!”

“Watch it,” daddy says to him.

You see, I can say anything about my dad. My dad can say anything about me, but no one better say anything bad about us to each other. It’s a father-daughter thing.

Hubby replies, “I’m talking about her writing. She put a dead guy in a Porta Potty in the book.”

My dad’s reply came quick. “Well, if she put him there, I’m certain he deserved to be there!”

Then Faye, who reads all my books, looks at me and says, “You know, you do get your smart mouth from your dad.”

Fine, I’ll admit it, I might, just might be a chip off the old block. Not that he’s that tough of a block. Oh, he tries to act tough. He claims he hates cats, but three of my four cats decided his lap was a good place to sleep. He claims he hates dogs that slobber and can’t keep their tongues in their mouths, and my daughter’s English Mastiff just couldn’t buy that he didn’t love her. And you know what they say about animals knowing what a person is really made of.

Ahh, but there’s never a dull moment when my dad and I are together. When a waitress asked how he wanted his burger cooked, my dad’s reply was, “On the grill.”

Once at a restaurant when his pork chop was tough, he called the waitress over and with a straight face asked her if they had a hacksaw in the house because nothing less would do to cut the piece of leather she’d just served him.

He loves to pull the wool over your eyes or to just downright embarrass you. And he tried to do that to me on this visit. We were at Wal-Mart and I’m paying for my purchases. He comes up and tells the cashier, “She’s my daughter and she mistreats me. Can you call someone to do something about that?”


Now, this woman doesn’t know my dad and I could see in her expression that she was concerned. I look back at my dad and say, “Shut up, ol’ man!”

Yeah, maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say, but I knew if I went right into trying to convince her that I wasn’t abusive, Dad would have too much fun. And hey, we all know a hit dog hollers the loudest.

Dad looks back at the cashier, picks up his cane and says, “She beats me with my own cane.”

Faye, my dad’s girlfriend says, “She does not.”

I swear that cashier’s eyes got round as quarters and she looks at me and tries to sum me up. Was I the type to beat my dad with his own cane?

I shake my head and look back at the woman. “He deserves a good beating. But if you think you can put up with him, I’ll let you take him home with you.”

Faye looks at me, and I’m not sure she appreciates me trying to give her boyfriend away, but hey, she’s not the one he’s trying to get arrested right now.

The cashier looks back at my dad and she sees it, that devilish sparkle in his blue eyes. She shakes her head. “Nope, I don’t want him.”

I laugh and feel victorious. But as I walk away, she says, “But you know, he doesn’t seem all that bad, maybe you should try to be a little nicer to him.”

Dad snickers. I look back at the woman and say, “That’s only going to encourage him. And now if he starts acting up, I’m bringing him back to you.”

She looks at my dad and says, “I’m locking the doors when you leave.”

And I think she meant it, too.

Anyway, we had a great visit. We did a lot of laughing.

Yup, dad is full of piss and vinegar as we used to say back in Alabama, and I’ll admit that perhaps, I inherited a bit of his attitude. Oh, and dad’s right. The guy in the Porta-Potty in Divorced, Desperate and Deceived deserved what he got.

So, what about you guys? Any smartass stories to share? Any father-daughter stories to share? Come on, don’t be shy.

The Halloween Aftermath

I don't have kids so I don't have to do a big Halloween thing. And since I spent the whole weekend working while watching horror movie classics on television, I don't have a mess to clean up, or a bowl of candy I need to get rid of. At my job, they have a costume contest, so that's always fun to see, but I'm going to share with you a couple of pics I got in one of those joke emails making its way around. Sorry, if you've already seen it, but some of these pics are priceless.

And then we wonder why dogs bite.........?

Deadly DeLeon

Confessions of an Erotica Author

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Please join me in welcoming today’s fabulous guest author, Diamond Taylor. Take it away, Diamond…



Thanks so much to your blog goddess Gemma for having me. She told me I could blog about anything I want so beware it’s no telling what I’ll say! I went through several topics I wanted to discuss so I settled on having a confessional Q & A Here goes…


1. What’s your biggest addiction(s)?
Answer: Coffee, chocolate, gadgets and writing. Or chocolate flavored coffee. LOL. Seriously I have a serious obsession with single serve coffee makers. It’s like a sickness. I’m always looking for the newest coffee makers and coffee flavors. I went away on business this year and there was a coffee shop in the hotel, by the time I went home I was shaking and going through withdrawal. It was horrible (cringe). And chocolate OMG who doesn’t like chocolate? I’m talking: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, semisweet chocolate, bittersweet chocolate the list just goes on and on. Whoever got the idea for chocolate I’m indebted to for all of eternity. Gadgets. Love em. I have gadgets I have no clue how to use!J I can’t watch shopping channels and infomercials for that very reason. I’m the one that you hear about that’s up at 3am ordering stuff I don’t need. I have talking clocks, some kind of swifter thingy that I never use, digital photo frames. You name it and I’ve probably either had, have or thought about getting it. Finally writing. My characters are like family. They get on my nerves till I listen to them and they live with me rent free. They also bring me joy. I love the whole I idea of creating people, places and scenarios for them to work out. Writing is kind of like having a baby (though mothers may disagree). You nurture this story for months sometimes years, preparing it for the world. Then you go through hours hard labor and sleepless nights all in the name of romance. Then when you present it to the world some will say “aw, what a beautiful story!” while privately thinking, “this story sucks!” But you send it out in the world till someone accepts it and if you’re lucking it can become a tax deduction.



2. Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
No! I was pre-law in college when I started dabbling in writing. I still can remember it. I was reading this novel and thought like most writers I could do better than that. And like most writers I found out very quickly with my first novel boy was I wrong. So I had in my head that I could write the great American romance and told my mom I was dropping out of pre-law and taking up creative writing instead.



3. Why erotica?
Originally I wanted to do romantic suspense and I never could finish the book. The characters were to far remove from me and I couldn’t connect with them. So one day my then CP asked me had I ever thought about writing erotica. I remembered being thrown by the question because it had never occurred to me. She thought my writing was much too spicy for mainstream romance and I should consider it. Then I participated in a mentoring program and my mentor told me the same thing. So I began to submerge myself in all things erotica and romance. And then after I was hooked! The stories just started the flow. I had so many ideas I didn’t know what to do with them all. I hope I have enough ideas for years to come.



4.When did you feel you became a bonafide writer?
That’s funny because each time something new happens I feel like I’ve made it as real writer. When I first started taking writing seriously as a craft and not just a dream I thought I was a real writer. When I joined Romance Writers of America who had best selling authors in their membership I thought I was a real writer. When I went to my first RWA conference and rubbed elbows with authors I’d adored from afar I thought I was a real writer. When I finished my first novel I thought I was a real writer. When I got my first rejection I thought I was a real writer. When I made my first sale I thought I was a real writer. When I got my first royalty check I thought okay now I’m a real writer. So I don’t know when I think I’m a real writer I let you know. Maybe when I hit bestseller list. That’s the perfectionist in me.


5. Parting words and latest news
I want to thank everyone for bearing with me as I ramble on needlessly. I want to send a special thank you out to Gemma for letting me use her blog as my little on confessional box.


To all the readers out there, thank you so much for the support you’ve shown to my first release. You rock! I hope you will stop by my little tiny slice of heaven at www.diamondtaylor.net. And read about my latest book news and reviews. Also you can find me on twitter and facebook. Search Diamond Taylor. My first book is entitled Total Package, which was released this Aug through Cobblestone Press. I have three other stories in the works.So keep reading and keep the romance alive!


To all the writers out there, just keep writing and follow your dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you different!


GIVEAWAY TIME! I have really cool giveaway. I’m giveaway Total Package poster and bookmark to the person who can tell me what city Total Package is set in.

~Diamond

Down for the count...

I meant to have lovely autumn pics from the Heartland to share with you today, but despite ample antibacterial wiping and liberal use of the Lysol, the nasty flu bug that got hold of my daughter last week discovered me as well. To speed my recovery I'll be spending today wrapped up in my Snuggie blanket sipping orange juice (now that I can keep fluids down again) and watching the leaves--and rain--fall outside my front window.

Get that flu shot(s) if available. Get proper rest and take care of yourself if you do come down with the flu. I was feeling fabulous one minute and dizzy as the very devil the next so this one sneaks up on you and--like a mooching guest--is very reluctant to depart.

So take care, stay well, and I'll talk to you next week.

~Bullet Hole~