Stressed Damsel (and NY meeting!)

Yeah, I've been MIA, but this is the psychotic phase in my life. In fact, I saw the preliminary cover sketch for Damsel Under Stress this morning, and boy, is that what I feel like these days (you'll have to wait until it's a done deal before I post it).

I had a lot of fun Saturday at the East Texas RWA conference, and it seemed like the audience stayed awake during my speech on using mythology and psychology to create fascinating characters, which is good. I was the last speaker of the day, and goodness knows I was barely conscious by that point. Sitting still all day and having a big lunch have that effect on me. I think I'm going to submit that workshop for the RWA national conference.

Then Sunday was the Buns and Roses tea in Richardson. We had a great turnout, with nearly 200 people. What was fun for me was that the people at my table hadn't actually read my books, so I got to recruit new readers. I even had a reporter from my favorite local TV station at my table, but I didn't put two and two together and figure out why she seemed so familiar and why I felt like I should know her name until much later. I'm so bad about recognizing people out of context. I suspect I could run into my own mother in a place where I didn't expect to see her, and I'd be going, "You know, you seem really familiar. Why do I know you?" Someday when I have a shorter to-do list, I'll have to tell the story about Troy Aikman in the grocery store.

I've pretty much finished going over my copy edits, and the copy editor really saved me on one thing. I did so much rewriting on this book, compressing and changing scenes, that I lost a day out of my timeline early in the book, which threw everything else off, and it became obvious later in the book, which is where the editor questioned it. But I needed the days to line up like that at the end of the book, so I had to go back to the beginning and fix the place where I lost the timeline. Now I think I want to rewrite my author bio completely, but I can't think of what to say. Maybe that will be work to do on the plane tomorrow.

Final word on the New York meet-up: Let's meet at 6:30 Tuesday evening (tomorrow!) in front of Posman Books in Grand Central. I pretty much do look like the photo in the back of my books, but I likely will not be wearing a spaghetti-strap dress at this time of year. Depending on the hair day I'm having, weather conditions, baggage problems or whatever, there might be a ponytail and glasses. But still, I'm the average-sized brunette with crazy curls. If you get there after we've found a place to go, we'll leave word with someone in the store. Now, some of you better show up so I don't feel like I've been stood up!

And finally, I've been too big a flake to remember to say anything about this, but the Out of the Blogosphere group has been doing a block party the last week or so. Today's my day to play host, and in my post today is a sneak peek at the opening scene in Damsel Under Stress. Check it out and check out the other authors while you're there.

Now I have about a zillion and a half things to do before I catch a plane in the morning. I may play with phone posts at LiveJournal, or something like that, but don't count on seeing anything here until Saturday.