Please stop by if you get a chance and chat!

Please stop by and join me, if you’re free!

I’m chatting tomorrow at Erotic Book Junkies about all sorts of crazy things. Please stop by and ask a question (or two or three)! We’d love to have you.

We’re also giving away a copy of KISSES LIKE A DEVIL.

Hope to see you there!

Well, I needed to find and enjoy my library again, right? My bookaholic self certainly thought so. My back disagreed but it was overruled.

Now I’m enjoying having all my treasures out in the open where I can see and touch them. All those dictionaries next to my desk, and my volumes of poetry just a few steps farther. My enormous Civil War atlas finally rejoices in a tall enough shelf, while Mount TBR has a bookcase to itself. Okay, it’s deliberately only a small bookcase but it is a dedicated one!

Some odd juxtapositions popped up along the way, too. Cats and baseball coexist on the same shelf. Okay, maybe that’s because the number of books on each subject worked out that way – or maybe cats and baseball players both scamper after balls? Perhaps. And Chaco Canyon, home of fascinating Native American ruins, lives right next to Washington’s spies, who in turn snuggles up to the Battle Cry of Freedom. My family took one look at that grouping and very firmly told me that I really needed to start writing more about pre-Civil War America! Harrumph!

As for fiction – well, at one point, Emma Holly was cozily sandwiched between Robert E. Howard’s Conan and E.M. Hull’s The Sheik. (Personally, I suspect she might have enjoyed their company.) If I find another auto-buy author starting with a ‘D’, I’m in serious trouble; that bookcase is already groaning. I’m barely coping with Kathleen Dante’s career, since I grab everything she puts out.

Of course, there was the horrific moment when I realized a single one-foot-wide bookcase was expected to cope with four auto-buy authors: Emma Holly, Linda Howard, Angela Knight, and Mercedes Lackey. Ack! Peace was restored when Angela Knight and Mercedes Lackey moved to another bookcase. Hopefully, they can coexist with Elizabeth Lowell, since I buy everything she publishes on the first day it’s out. But if not, I’ve got a few spare shelves hidden away for expansion purposes… Life is good.

And if you’re wondering where that unique reference book was, which started the mad rush to unpack my entire library? Right where Murphy would have predicted it: the last stack, the bottom row, and the last box.

Neil Diamond will be the coach this week on American Idol. I totally admire him as a songwriter. “LA’s fine but it ain’t home. New York’s home but it ain’t mine no more” is the most perfect definition of a transplant’s anguish I’ve ever heard. I’m a third-generation Californian living in Virginia and I love both states – but I still catch myself singing that song at least once a year.

The man just has the knack of catching my feelings and putting them into song. I’ll be fascinated to hear which songs the Idol contestants choose, especially David Cook and Syesha.

Next week is also going to be what one writer friend calls “Diane Whiteside’s Psycho Week.” I prefer to think of as the week when my 60 boxes of books come home. Yes, that’s right – we’ve bought a house and we’re about to move into it, God willing and the creek don’t rise. Of course, unpacking all those books, plus all the ones still living with me – have I mentioned those absolutely necessary for Book dot Now? – is going to take a ton of work. That’s where the need for incentives comes in.

Guess what kind of treats I went for? That’s right – music. You’re looking at the proud possessor of concert tickets. For the first time in I don’t want to think of how long, I’m going to take time off from writing and indulge myself. Of course, I’ll have to get Book dot Now finished and my books put away first.

Then I’ll get to see Neil Diamond live in concert! Yeehaw! He is a marvelous performer.

I also bought tickets for the Young Dubliners and Scythian. I do love me some Celtic rock and as for an entire evening of it? Heaven, absolute heaven.

Next step – find more musical incentives to get the books even faster. Hmm, what shall I choose?