That kind of sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? But to all who have served, past and present, thank you so much for your sacrifice and service. And to the families of those who have served, may God bless and keep you, always.

Both my hubby and I were born at Martin Army, Ft. Benning, GA. Both of our fathers were career military, and served multiple wartime tours. My father spent over thirty-four years in. Members of my family have done various stints in the Army, Marines, and Navy, during both peace and wartime.

Hubby and I were originally supposed to get married Nov 18, 1990. We had everything paid and prepped when he was activated for duty Aug 1990 (Desert Storm). That was one of the scariest moments of my life. He was Transportation Corp (stationed at Ft. Eustis) and they’re always the first in. Ironically, I was working as a Civ Contractor at Ft. MacPherson at that time. My father was Infantry and my FIL a combat pilot. Hubby and I ended up eloping in a goat pasture because we didn’t know if he’d be home in time for the planned wedding.

Both hubby and his father went to military colleges. I’m proud to say that there has never been a war for this country that many of my family didn’t fight and bleed in (or in some cases, die), including the current one. I’m even a proud member of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), and that membership through both my Native American and European roots.

I remember growing up, my mother had all these photos of me as a baby with notes written on the back. Sherri’s first steps. Sherri’s first real food, etc. It wasn’t until I was older that she told me it was because my father was at war and didn’t get a chance to see me until I was a toddler. Those were the photos she sent to him, hoping he’d get them. Some were sent while he was MIA and it was how she coped. She pretended he was all right and continued to write every week, even though she had no idea where he was or if he was still alive.

She said it was so embarrassing for her because I would latch on to anyone wearing a uniform and ask them if they were my daddy. Since we lived at Ft. Benning, I grabbed on to a lot men, LOL. But all I knew was that my father was a soldier and since I had yet to meet him…

Once my father returned, he used to take me to work with him. Believe it or not, I thought he owned the Army. Since he was a Drill SGT, everyone seemed to do what he told them. And I’d sit in his office cutting out soldier pictures in magazines, making a collage for his wall while his CPL would watch over me. As a kid, I could hear artillery fire at school and at our house all day long. And it was nothing to see helicopters flying low over the school and house. At night, I thought they were UFOs. What can I say? I was a strange kid :)

It’s a hard job they do, and it’s so hard to be a member of the family knowing they’re forever in harm’s way- and not just during war. I’ve lost many family and friends over the years during maneuvers at home. Those who have loved ones as firemen, EMT and police, know what I’m talking about, too. These are the men and women who put their lives second to everyone else’s. They are willing to give their lives to keep us safe and to save us when we’re hurt. My hat is off to every one of you and to all of you who, like I once did, provide support to them, and especially to those who love them. Thank you all. Each and every one of you is a true gem and I hope that not just this day, but all days are filled with happiness and love.

BIG hugs!

The next Dark-Hunter/Dream-Hunter/Were-Hunter book is The Guardian out 11/1/11. And don’t miss Ren’s book, Time Untime out next August.

I’ve spent way too many hours trying to perfect a formula to help all of us. In the end, I’ve decided it’s magic…

Seriously.

I really don’t know how it happens. I always think I know every character going into a book, but they do things that constantly mystify and amaze me. I’ll think that a hero is going to be dark and then he ends up hysterically funny (Caillen, Solin, Fang, Vane, Dev). Or that he’s going to be really, really funny and then he’s dangerous and serious (Dante, Savitar, Lochlan, Wren).

And then there are those who are particularly poignant. The kind who have humor and at the same time, wrench your heart and gut every other time they speak. The ones who have the most tragic of pasts and yet they are trying to be human while not always succeeding. They’re unexpected and unforgettable. Most of all, we women want to wrap them up and keep them safe even though we know they are more than capable of and willing to kill any and everything that crosses their path.

Those characters are a very rare breed. Like lightning hitting a tree in the same spot twice in ten minutes.

But lightning did strike again with The Guardian, which is what got me thinking on it anew. Sometimes it’s just a matter of living with the character so long that you learn all the horrible details of his life (Acheron, Nykyrian, Syn). Other times, they were designed to be walk on characters you planned to kill off (Zarek, Nick), but they turned out to be so vibrant and lethal, yet vulnerable that I was driven to learn as much about them as possible. And in the end, I couldn’t let them go.

Then there are those like Seth who you think you know them going in and yet they surprise you on every page. Every time I went into a scene, I thought I knew how he’d react and he never did what I expected, yet everything he did made total sense for his background, and it stretched him as a character to a level that made him so real I still expect to see him on the street. Nick was/is that way, too. As is Simi. I never know what they will say or do. I just go with it.

The one thing that I think really helped was all the philosophy, history and psychology classes I took in college. More than any English/Lit class, they helped my writing by enabling me to understand humanity. Why we do what we do, and how we form our personalities out of our experiences. In particular, Pavlov, Jung, Camus, Kierkegaard, Hobbes, Maslow, Plato and Rand really honed my skills of delving deep into the psyche. While I don’t always agree with their opinions, that, too, helped as it forced me to analyze why I differed with their conclusions. What it was in my background that made me feel differently.

And that at the core, is what I use when writing. That and my personal belief that while we all follow a set pattern of behavior hardwired by both nature and nurture, there is always an anomaly or quirk that makes no sense given our pasts. Or the hypothesis I used for a paper in a college psych class: Our individual personalities are defined not by our consistencies, but rather by our inconsistencies.

Case in point, I was raised around nothing but Y chromosomes. I played quarterback and running back (though I did get to be a cheerleader for one year- only because my sister feared my male sports tendencies). I can flush a radiator, rebuild a carb, change my own oil and run with the best gearheads out there. I love heavy metal, thrash metal and brain melting punk (among other music genres). I have knocked a Golden Glove champion unconscious (not TKO) in the ring. I worked IT as a programmer and trainer for years. I throw a baseball so hard and accurately that my bud who is a coach for a major SEC university will not toss a ball in the backyard with me. Can out shoot my military trained hubby. As a rule, I can’t stand girl movies- give me horror or a shoot-em-up any day. Collect comics and manga, and do a whole slew of what most people think of as “male” things.

Yet, I, who wore boy hand-me-downs and cleats or combat boots all my young life and who once sported a mohawk, am very girly. VERY girly. I love makeup, high heels (the higher the better) and skirts. The only thing that makes my heart race faster than hearing a V-10, V-12 or Hemi V8, is a designer handbag or shoe sale. Seriously. I can’t stand squealing of any sort, but I love a good purse to carry (I can hear hubby groaning in agreement). And I’m obsessive about my fingernails and toenails. You will never see me without them polished to perfection or with either chipping, unless I’ve been very, very ill. I won’t leave the house without makeup. I live to crochet, cross stitch, quilt, sew, and while I can hammer on the drums, I love to play the flute and violin. Likewise, my Bauhaus or Godsmack is known to be followed by Opera or Grieg or even on occasion Dolly Parton, or Japanese Pop. I love drinking tea out of both skull and crossbone mugs and the cutest little dainty tea cups you’ve ever seen.

And there is a reason for every one of those.

It was by analyzing my own idiosyncracies that I was able to turn that outward and understand what motivated and drove my characters. Those weird quirks that make them real, breathing people. Why Acheron hates to have his neck breathed on and won’t let anyone stand behind him. Why Nykyrian won’t remove his sunglasses and lives to cook. Why Syn loves art and knows so much about medicine even though he’s an assassin. Why Nick still has a part of his soul even though he was born to be absolute evil. Why Seth and Zarek can’t stand to be touched (for different reasons) and why Seth wears war paint… why Seth hates the swallow tattoo on his body- things that make them vulnerable and that contradict what you expect.

Those are the very things that breathe life into the characters. It’s what breathes life into us. It’s why the same tragedy that turns one person into a serial killer, can make their sibling a war hero. Why one person becomes a driven entrepreneur while another, with an identical background, becomes a drug dealer.

The thing I love most about writing is the ability to explore what makes a person choose one life over another. What tiny or major event shaped them into who and what they are, and how events, big and small, can forever change them or make them willing to change and grow as people.

My father was a musician who played guitar, banjo, dulcimer, dobro, and harmonica. From that list, you can tell what kind of music he favored. I know every word to every Hank Williams song ever written :) It was impressed upon my young mind before I could even speak. Whenever I think of my father, the image that always comes to mind is of him sitting at the foot of his bed dressed in his army BDU pants, combat boots tapping/keeping time to whatever he was playing, and a white t-shirt with dogtags hanging down while he played and sang for hours on end.

On weekends, we would often go visit my Uncle Carlos who played even more instruments. They’d sit out front, on the porch while my aunt fed me pound cake. My older brother also played guitar and harmonica. I tried, but I’m naturally left handed and my right is partially paralyzed so while I love to torture a guitar, it’s not my best instrument.

My entire family loved music so it was always playing in the background of everything we did. We had a stereo in every room and since my crib and later bed shared a room with my teenaged siblings, I always slept to the radio.

I started building playlists for books as far back as third grade. Much like a movie, music added to the mood and it helped me to focus on the characters and stories, especially whenever I found a song that really seemed to capture the feeling of the character or book I was working with.

Another reason music is so important to me is that my oldest sister has severe cerebral palsy and is deaf. Trish would scream at the top of her lungs from early morning to the wee hours of the night. The kind of screams that people equate with someone being murdered. She was so loud that as a teen, I couldn’t talk on the phone much with friends because you couldn’t hear over her, even though she was in another room. She’d also pound on the walls. Since Trish never slept much (2 hours if we were lucky), I couldn’t sleep at night for her screaming and pounding. Not until I discovered the wonderful world of headphones. I used to go to bed with the loudest, heaviest metal and punk songs I could find so that they’d drown her out. I love my sister. She’s just really, really loud.

All of that coalesced to create within me a devout respect for music of all kinds. In fifth grade, I mowed lawns to buy a recorder so that I could join the school band. I wanted to play drums, but my mother thought it was a boy’s instrument and refused to allow me to be a percussionist. It was the flute for me (and still is). I played flute for the symphonic band, french horn in the concert band and was the sound tech for our jazz ensemble.

As a young woman, I ended up working soundboards for local bands, working for years and years as a DJ, was the lead guitarist in several bands, but my favorite was working as a music video producer for local Atlanta and Athens bands. I’ve been a music director and station manager for both college and rock stations. It was a lot of fun.

While I worked as a DJ, I’d be in the booth writing the whole time, and it was there that I started producing a true playlist for my books that I’d burn to a CD to take everywhere I went. I still remember when the first generation of MP3 players came out…

Okay, it was in 1997 and I couldn’t afford one, but I really, really wanted to have one. For Christmas 1998, a good friend took mercy on me and gave me a Personal Jukebox that held over 1200 songs and I was in hog heaven with my book playlists (I was working as a web programmer then and was never seen without my Jukebox which I still have). Yeah, it’s a dinosaur, but I still love it.

So naturally, I still do playlists for every book. My hubby and kids always say they can tell when I’m writing a fight scene by what they hear streaming out of my office.

And while I have as many as 200 songs that I put in a book’s playlist (everything from rock, thrash, punk, alternative, country, opera, classical, hip hop to rap), there is always, always the one that really captures the feeling of the book and characters. That one song that even years after I’ve published the book, when I hear it play, takes me right back to what I was doing and thinking as I wrote.

For Dance With The Devil, it will always be Matchbox Twenty’s Unwell:

All day starin’ at the ceilin’ makin’ friends with shadows on my wall
All night hearing voices tellin’ me that I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for somethin’
Hold on, feelin’ like I’m headed for a breakdown
And I don’t know why

But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know, right now you can’t tell
But stay a while and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me

I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired
I know, right now you don’t care
But soon enough you’re gonna think of me
And how I used to be, me

I’m talkin’ to myself in public, dodging glances on the train
And I know, I know they’ve all been talkin’ about me
I can hear them whisper, and it makes me think
There must be somethin’ wrong with me
Out of all the hours thinkin’, somehow I’ve lost my mind

But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know, right now you can’t tell
But stay a while and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me

I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired
I know, right now you don’t care
But soon enough you’re gonna think of me
And how I used to be

I’ve been talkin’ in my sleep
Pretty soon they’ll come to get me
Yeah, they’re takin’ me away

I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know, right now you can’t tell
But stay a while and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me

I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired
I know, right now you don’t care
But soon enough you’re gonna think of me
And how I used to be yeah, how I used to be

How I used to be
Well, I’m just a little unwell
How I used to be, how I used to be
I’m just a little unwell

Is that not Zarek? I think so :)

My younger brother, Warchild has also helped out by writing songs for specific books and characters. You can always check him out on his site OfficialWarchild.com and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209038518.

My ever quest for that one perfect song has led me to discover some great talents over the years. One of my recent ones was offered as a 69 cent download on iTunes and it ended up being the theme for The Guardian. It completely captured the mood and feel of Seth.

Come Home by OneRepulic

Hello world
Hope you’re listening
Forgive me if I’m young
For speaking out of turn
There’s someone I’ve been missing
I think that they could be
The better half of me
They’re in the wrong place trying to make it right
But I’m tired of justifying
So I say you’ll..

[Chorus]
Come home
Come home
Cause I’ve been waiting for you
For so long
For so long
And right now there’s a war between the vanities
But all I see is you and me
The fight for you is all I’ve ever known
So come home
Oh

I get lost in the beauty
Of everything I see
The world ain’t as half as bad
As they paint it to be
If all the sons
If all the daughters
Stopped to take it in
Well hopefully the hate subsides and the love can begin
It might start now..Yeah
Well maybe I’m just dreaming out loud
Until then

[Chorus]
Come home
Come home
Cause I’ve been waiting for you
For so long
For so long
And right now there’s a war between the vanities
But all I see is you and me
The fight for you is all I’ve ever known
Ever known
So come home
Oh

Everything I can’t be
Is everything you should be
And that’s why I need you here
Everything I can’t be
Is everything you should be
And that’s why I need you here
So hear this now

Come home
Come home
Cause I’ve been waiting for you
For so long
For so long
And right now there’s a war between the vanities
But all I see is you and me
The fight for you is all I’ve ever known
Ever known
So come home
Come home

And then earlier this morning, I found the perfect song that really captures Darling in Born of Silence. Ironically, it’s a song I’ve heard a thousand times and loved, but it never spoke to me the way it did today.

Creed’s Overcome

“Overcome”

Don’t cry victim to me
Everything we are and used to be
Is buried and gone
Now it’s my turn to speak
It’s my turn to expose and
Release what’s been killing me
I’ll be damned fighting you
It’s impossible, impossible
Say goodbye, with no sympathy

I’m entitled to overcome
Completely stunned and numb
Knock me down, throw me to the floor
There’s no pain I can feel no more
I’m entitled to overcome,
Overcome

Finally see what’s beneath
Everything I am and hope to be
Cannot be lost
I’ll be damned fighting you
You’re impossible, impossible
Say goodbye, with no sympathy

I’m entitled to overcome
Completely stunned and numb
Knock me down, throw me to the floor
There’s no pain I can feel no more
I’m entitled to overcome.

[Break]

Overcome

Overcome

You’ll never know what I was thinking before you came around
Take a step, take a breath, put your guard down
I cannot worry anymore of what you think of me
I may be crazy but I’m buried in your memory

[Solo]

I’m entitled to overcome
Completely stunned and numb
Knock me down, throw me to the floor
There’s no pain I can feel no more (to feel no more)
I’m entitled to overcome (to feel no more)
Completely stunned and numb (to feel no more)
I’m entitled to overcome
Completely stunned and numb
I’m entitled to overcome,

I may be crazy but I’m buried in your memory

Several people have commented on how angry Darling’s playlist is. Once you read the book, you’ll completely understand. Darling, much like Seth in The Guardian, is one of those characters who was caught between a rock and a hard place his entire life. Anyone who has lived that way (and that includes me) knows that there comes a breaking point when you really can’t do it anymore and you have to make a decision. You either relegate yourself to misery for the rest of your life and suck it up as best you can, or you find the strength to push back and stand on your own, no matter the consequences (which can be very harsh).

I’m mad as hell and I’m not taking it anymore. Both Seth and Darling have that moment. But while Seth was put there by the actions of others and against his will, Darling wasn’t. Like the Dark-Hunter Ren, he chose his hell and that makes it all the harder to break out and to reclaim his place in the world. What he’s done has always been to protect others, and when those others betray him one time too many, Darling snaps.

I love the journeys my people take me on. With each book, I learn so much about them and about myself. And I hope if you haven’t perused the playlists on the book pages that you’ll give them a look. Remember that in that handful of songs on the book pages is the “one” song always that captures the book best. See if you can pick it out and if you agree with me.

And don’t forget to visit the Warchild profile.

Huh? A what? A monospaced slab serif typeface is a block type where every letter takes up the same amount of space on the page, and it’s considered the industry standard for novels and screenplays. Courier is the most commonly used, but others have been known to use Arial, Helvetica, etc. I’m old school, so for me, it’s Courier.

Now that being said, you seldom see a publisher say 340-400 pages. Instead, you’re normally given a word count: 85,000-100,000 words which happens to be 340-400 typed pages. This is done because if you write a lot of dialogue, you’ll need more pages to make up that word count. The word count is traditionally done assuming that there are 250 words per page and you multiply that by the final page count.

As a rule, publishers usually prefer a smaller book to the larger, especially if you’re a beginning writer. They really don’t want to see anything over 105,000 words (420 pages). And have been known to get extremely cranky at long books due to the much higher cost of printing and shipping them.

How do I know? I make all of my publishers really cranky… a lot, LOL. I can’t seem to bring a book in that small no matter how hard I try. In the beginning of my career, my manuscripts fell between 112,500-125,000 words. Then enter Night Embrace which came in at a staggering 212,500 words (853 pages). Yeah, my editor had conniptions and I was forced to take out almost 200 pages which still made it a whopper of a book. Luckily, I was able to use those pages in other books that came down the pike, such as Seize the Night, Night Play and Dance With The Devil.

Nowadays, my books are much longer than what they were in the beginning. And luckily, my publishers, while still cranky, are much more tolerant of it. Most of my books are in the 127,500-150,000 range. Acheron, of course, is the granddaddy that came in at a staggering 275,000 words… the length of three full novels. There was a lot of story to tell with that one. Bad Moon Rising was 175,000, Born of Night 190,000, Born of Fire 184,000, No Mercy 163,000, Retribution 148,000, and Born of Silence 183,000.

So what determines the length? For me, it’s always the story. I don’t believe in adding extra scenes or “filler” to any book. My personal belief is that those scenes detract from the story and are noticeable when added. Every scene should be pertinent to the story being told or it’s removed. I use whatever page count it takes to get from beginning to middle to end, and as you can see from the above, it varies greatly book to book. I never know final word count until I hit it at the end of the project, and I don’t worry about word count. That is the blessing of being where I am in my career. This doesn’t mean I’m not edited. I have more editors now than I did in the beginning. But editing always adds additional pages to every novel. What it means is that I’m no longer asked to cut scenes or pages from a book. Yaah!

That being said, I will on occasion add a “bonus” scene. These are scenes that don’t fit into any one book because they don’t pertain directly to that storyline, yet I know the readers will want to see them in print and I need them for the overall series arc. Cases in point: Xedrix and Simi meeting for the first time. Ash in the graveyard. The extra scene at the end of Retribution. But I don’t count those as part of the word count for the book. Those are fun vignettes for the readers and fans to enjoy.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Ash was a big book, but it wasn’t 1100 pages in book form. What happened to the extra pages? They are still in the book. Believe me, I checked, LOL. I’ll be honest, it astonishes me to hand in a ream and a half of paper and then get back the galleys (the printed form of the book that is bound) and see it reduced to 450-500 book pages. I always have a degree of heart failure and have to verify that no one left a chapter out (which actually has happened before… and more than once).

Printed novel length has no bearing on the length of a manuscript. If you’ve ever played with the Make It Fit feature in Word, then you know what I’m talking about. You can play with font size to get 4 pages onto 2, and that’s what they do with novels. Mostly, they do it to keep cost down so that the price of the books is cheaper for y’all. Believe it or not, publishers keep readers in mind all the time and do everything they can to keep the cost down so that they can pass those savings along to you. It’s why hardbacks are always reduced the first few weeks of publication. If you buy a book the first two weeks it’s out, you can get it at 30-40% off the cover price– courtesy of the publisher.

So I hope that alleviates some of the mystery of how many pages you need to aim for when drafting your novel. Good luck with it!

6-7 AM (8 if I’m really, really lucky), kids get up and start making loud noises in the kitchen. Roll over and groan that I was seriously stupid for buying a house with a bedroom right off the kitchen where growing boys scrounge in the pantry at all hours for food.

Don’t understand. I fed them yesterday. Why are they hungry again today?

Cat complains that I’m moving her so that I can get up and stagger toward the bathroom. Other cat comes out of nowhere to try and trip me while I walk (nothing like a good obstacle course when you’re less than coherent). Grumble at cat who then jumps to sink to drink from the spigot while I try to brush my teeth around her fuzzy little head.

Grab bathrobe and stagger toward kitchen to grumble at boys that they’re going to be late for the bus and to not forget their backpacks and homework. Oh, wait, new school memo. It’s now called homeFUN, which, even in my unconscious state, makes me wonder what sadist came up with that bizarro euphemism.

Grumble nice expletives about how much I hate mornings as I go to let the dog outside. Hubby comes out of shower while I make breakfast for us and Boo.

For those who asked, breakfast for me is: Apple Juice. One scrambled egg with cheese. Two pieces of regular bacon. Bowl of Chocolate Cheerios and milk. Every single day.

Boo… my chipper morning Boo. Where the heck did he come from? I swear some sadistic alien life form swapped babies with me. How can my progeny be alert and so… so… cheerful before noon? And he’s loud, too. Really loud. Unlike older two who are grumpy like me, and totally incoherent as they stumble out the door. I understand them. They make sense in my world.

Have I mentioned I hate mornings?

But I love Boo so I attempt to smile and converse while hoping I’m not promising him a Ferrari when he turns 16. Unless he wants one from Matchbox.

Hubby runs Boo interference while I try not to burn their toast or myself.

8:05 AM Hubby wrangles Boo into car to take to school (we tried the bus, but let’s not go there. Suffice it to say, Boo does better in the car).

I grab my apple juice and water and stumble blindly to my office where I must move indignant cat from my chair. Sit down and…

What am I doing?

Oh yeah. Morning. Work.

Where’s my brain?

Still asleep.

Wake up, brain. Yeah…

Go to email and gasp. Do I have to answer all that? What do I have to answer? Who can I delay?

Answer email while phone starts the daily ringing off the hook.

10:00 AM dress, then head to gym to avoid email and phone.

11:30 AM am back and head is almost clear. Let’s ignore the new bruises. I really am not alert until noon.

Now it’s time to shower and dress in work clothes.

Grab a chocolate protein shake and head back to office. Sip shake while reviewing new emails.

Why must the email fairy visit so often? Have calls from Kim and Carl to return because they have list of things they can’t answer in their emails…

12 PM hubby wants to know if I’m hungry. Oh yeah, I have to eat. Promised doctor I wouldn’t skip meals anymore.

Hubby throws a sandwich and/or salad at me. Some days it’s leftovers. I’m now on my second or third liter of water. On Wednesdays, hubby and I go out to eat together.

12:30 to 1:30 PM I’m back on emails and calls while trying to write in between.

Must respond to sons’s texts that come in during lunch.

3:50 PM break as kids come home so that I can hug them (okay it’s a mad chase through the house since they don’t want a mama hug, but I trap and pin those little monsters down). Go over the day with them and ask what’s up.

4:30ish PM back in the office, trying to write and complaining that my characters never listen to me.

4:35ish PM pacing around the couch because the characters aren’t cooperating. Thinking of ways to kill them off, but realize a 50 page book isn’t a good idea.

Hmmm….

Grab more water, head back to office to beat them into submission.

Get my butt kicked by characters.

5:30 PM break to make dinner and catch-up with hubby and his day. Dinner is 2 ounces of meat, 2-3 servings of veggie something, a dairy product and some form of bread, though I don’t like bread as a rule. Will add dessert on days when I burn 1100+ calories at the gym.

6 PM eat dinner and apologize to hubby for making the mess he gets to clean up.

6:30 PM make sure boys have done their homework or are working on it. Answer oldest son’s questions about writing (he’s working on his own novel), while he lectures me on how hard writing is and tells me that I have no idea just how hard it is to write a whole novel… yeah. Answer middle son’s questions about art and/or manga (he’s working on a comic). Answer youngest son’s questions about computers and programming (he’s making a game). Answer hubby’s questions about boy’s questions or emails he sent me that I didn’t bother reading since I knew he’d just tell me about them anyway.

Why does he feel the need to congest my congested inbox?

7 PM Avoid ringing phone which most likely isn’t for me. Dodge into office to start the real writing time.

7:03 PM Glare at hubby who has decided to sit in my office while he chats on the phone. Why?

Hubby grins, then heads out to finish call.

3:30-4 AM head to bed, wondering where the time went (unless oldest is still up and decides that he needs help plotting, or with characters, but really, at 4 AM my brain is again mush and I can’t postulate what chromosomal damage would cause fire-eating, ice dragons from Mars).

6-7 AM start over– repeat with variations on the above, such as sick pets, sick hubby or kids, sick Sherri, vicious migraines, school programs, copy edits, book tour, event scheduling or discussing said scheduling, teacher meetings, IEP meetings, signing books for fans, etc. :)

Vacations… wait, I don’t get those :D

Holidays… insert longer family time, but by end of day, I’m back in chair, writing.

Once or twice a week, we have family night which can be anything the family chooses to do together. (6-8), and hubby and I usually have a date break on Wed where we have lunch and usually run an errand or two together.  Sometimes we do a cooking class at night together or have dinner out without kids.

There’s also a lot of letting dog in and out as she needs potty breaks :)

And there you have it. My most glamorous and befuddled days :D

Posted: Wed., Jul. 20, 2011, 3:52pm PT
Amber pacts with paranormal novelist Kenyon
Shingle will develop films, TV and webisodes
By Dave McNary

Amber Entertainment has signed a partnership with prolific paranormal novelist Sherrilyn Kenyon to develop and produce films, television and webisodes based on her books.

First project to be developed is “Chronicles of Nick,” based on the young adult series. In the first book, “Infinity,” 14-year-old Nick Gautier discovers that the football team has been turned into zombies, sets out to stop the attacks and learns he has a key role in an unseen world.

Kenyon will serve as producer alongside Ileen Maisel, founding partner of Amber.

“As a longtime fan of the films that both Ileen Maisel and Mark Ordesky have produced, I couldn’t be more excited,” Kenyon said. “I look forward to working with them to make my characters flesh-and-blood people.”

Kenyon has penned more than 60 novels. Her “Dark-Hunter” vampire series has sold more than 22 million copies and been adapted into a manga published by St. Martins, while her Lords of Avalon novels have been adapted by Marvel comics.

The Kenyon pact is part of the strategy Amber has pursued of acquiring and converting recognizable properties, such as novels by Gerald Browne, Judy Blume and Jackie Collins into films, with the authors becoming partners in the productions. Amber, founded three years ago, is headed by former New Line execs Maisel, Ordesky and Jane Fleming along with Lawrence Elman.

Amber’s Maisel and Elman are teamed with Julian Fellowes (“Gosford Park”) to produce Carlo Carlei’s “Romeo and Juliet” with Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld. It’s in post on “Possession” with Haxan with “Blair Witch” director Eduardo Sanchez helming.

Kenyon was repped in the deal by Erica Spellman Silverman at Trident Media Group on behalf of Robert Gottlieb.

Contact Dave McNary at dave.mcnary@variety.com

A lot of people have noticed that I’ve dropped a lot of weight and many have wanted to know what happened. Some of you were very concerned about it and yes, I did have a lot of health problems last year, but I am healthy now (knock wood). Yes, those problems are what led to the weight loss, however not in the way you may think. But I’m ahead of myself. I’m going back to the beginning. To quote Megamind, the very beginning :)

Like most females, I grew up with an extremely distorted body image. Three of the biggest reasons for this is simple genetics. Because I’m of mixed Tsalagi (Cherokee) heritage, I have physical traits that differed substantially from my friends who aren’t. One of the big ones is my rib cage is completely round and larger than most. It’s always been this way. I have very narrow shoulders, but mondo ribs and a very short waistline (my bottom rib basically sits directly on top of my hipbone).

If that wasn’t bad enough, I’m extremely chesty. By age 12, I was a B cup. By 16 an F which I remain to this day. Believe me, I’m not bragging by any means. I’m extremely self conscious about it and part of the reason I started wearing corsets was to minimize them. The one thing people never talk about is when you’re large on top, you always look three to four times heavier than other women. People assume you’re always heavier, too, and they pick on you a lot when you’re a little kid and young woman. I’ve been asked by fans why I don’t write bustier heroines and this is why. It’s been such an issue for me over the years, that I don’t want to deal with it on paper, too (I’m too busy dealing with other issues I have :). In college, my measurements were 38-23-32. Now you know why I used to wrap my torso with an Ace bandage before I ran or did any physical activity. Sports bras really don’t work for larger sizes.

My next issue that I inherited from my family is that I walk on my tiptoes and always have. This resulted in making my calves larger than most (and given me shortened Achilles tendons). Jeans and boots have never fit that part of my body well, not even when I was a size 0. The benefit is I can bench press about 300 pounds with my legs and I have muscles on them that a weightlifter would envy, but they are legs only a weightlifter would envy :)

Which gets me to the last issue, I carry a lot, and I mean a lot, of muscle weight and always have. My entire life, I have been extremely active as my very skinny yet muscled brother can attest to (I can walk/run him under the table). My mother used to say that touching my legs and arms was like touching granite. Because of all the stuff I do, even at my heaviest I have never jiggled or had an ounce of cellulite anywhere on my body. Yet all of the above is a recipe for shoot-my-lard-butt-cause-I-think-I’m-bigger-than-a-house self image that plagues me to this day.

When I wore a size 0 and no that’s not a typo, I weighed in at a staggering 135-140 pounds (I’m 5′ 2″ in height). According to all medical and BMI reports, I should weigh 108-121 (my mother was 5′ 5″ and weighed 110 yet she wore a size 10 while I was in a 0). Now you would think that my common sense would have kicked in and I’d have been okay with my weight when I wore a 0 in jeans, right? Nope.

First, they were very tight in the calves and then the big problem was while my bottom was a 0, my top and dress size was an 8 and even sometimes as large as a 12 (because of the ribs and girls). My girlfriends wore 4-6 so in my mind, I was a giant cow even though I had to always have the waist taken in on my clothes (hence why I was a seamstress in college). It also didn’t help when I’d go to the doctor and have them gasp when they took my weight or have other people argue that there’s no way I wore a size 0 jeans because I appeared a lot heavier than that (this more from the fact I wore oversized shirts and jackets to hide the girls). Couple this with some serious life changing blows and you can see how I ended up anorexic and then bulimic in college. It also didn’t help that I couldn’t really afford food at the time either. I drank nothing but tap water and lived on an apple a day and Ramen noodles. I never ate breakfast and since I was usually working during dinner, I didn’t eat then either. So basically, I had a tiny lunch (if anything) and I lived that way for years. Yes, I was frightfully skinny, but I was doing major damage to my body.

I paid for that when I became pregnant. Women/girls, please don’t starve yourself. Please. It does such horrible things to your body and you will pay for it in the end. Please don’t do that to yourself. It’s not worth it. I will never forget when I stepped on the scales and weighed 155 pounds in my 7th month of pregnancy (just days before my oldest was born). I burst into tears even though I was wearing a size 10 women’s pants while 7 months pregnant.

After my son was born, even though I was young and thin, I had to stay on blood pressure medicine (another present from my Tsalagi roots) which further lowered my metabolism. To lose weight, I did what we’ve been taught by every doctor and ad we’ve been blitzed with from the cradle.

Lose weight = more exercise + less food

That formula doesn’t work for everyone. I was one of the lucky few it didn’t work for at all. Instead of losing weight, I started gaining. No matter how much exercise I did or how little food I ate, I gained. Now this is the period in my life when I was homeless and we had no money whatsoever. I wasn’t eating Hostess snack items, peanut butter, cereal, hamburgers or cake or potato chips (they are really expensive foods). I was still eating Ramen noodles, store brand watered down soup (whatever they put on sale at .25 a can), and drinking tap water. I have never in my life eaten breakfast and again, I was lucky to get one meal a day.

Then once we got back on our feet and were again in a home, I tried the traditional means of weight loss- Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem and Weight Watchers. I was on WW for so long, I can still give you the count for any and all normal and restaurant foods. I even tried Jenny Craig AND WW at the same time. On those systems, I would lose a pound or two, maybe, but that was it. It didn’t matter that I never cheated or that I was spending 3-6 days a week working out for 1-2 hours a pop. I still gained. Especially when I worked out. I always gained right after a workout to the point, that I went a couple of months without it. Lost about five pounds and then the moment I returned to the gym, back it all came… and this time it brought friends. I was completely baffled.

Then my gym installed a computer key that charted what I was burning. I learned that during my workouts, I was burning 1200-1700 calories a session. Again, not a typo. Even on the days when I slacked, I was burning 800-900 a pop. Now that truly made no sense to me. How could I be fat? And at this time I, due to my weight, was considered morbidly obese (I wore a size 12-14 on bottom). On a typical day, I ate no breakfast. I had a modest salad (usually spinach) with less than a teaspoon of 30-60 calorie dressing and a tiny can of tuna or chicken and a piece of 70 calorie Baby Bel cheese. Dinner was basically the same as lunch though I might have beef and sometimes I didn’t eat dinner at all. I rarely eat breads and even rarer do I eat sweets. I drink 3-4 liters of water a day and a couple of cups of unsweetened herbal tea (flavored water). How on earth could I gain weight?

But I did. I kept telling my doctors what was going on and asking for their help, and you could see it on their faces. “Yeah, right. I’m sure you do all of that and don’t cheat.” (insert eye roll). Their answer was always the standard, “you need to get more exercise and eat less.” It was so frustrating. I wouldn’t have minded the weight gain had it been due to eating Ho-Hos and cream horns, potato chips, etc. But I was getting fat on lettuce and water with the occasional calorie splurge on chili! Where’s the justice in that?

Then last year slammed me hard. I had multiple jaw surgeries which resulted in my not being able to eat at all for days at a time. I only drank soup and took a lot of vitamins. Now, you would think the weight would melt away, right? Wrong. I didn’t gain, but I didn’t lose. When I went four days with no food whatsoever and gained a pound, I knew something was seriously wrong with me.

Still no one listened. I won’t say no one. Kim and a few other of my friends kept telling me that I wasn’t eating enough. “You need to eat more to lose.” Yeah, you people are on crack. Eat more? I’m huge and I’m not eating now. How in the world could that help?

Then Kim sent over a picture of her mother who’d had a dramatic weight loss. Her mother, always a beautiful woman, was now tiny. “What is she doing?” I asked.

Kim laughed. “She started going to a nutritionist and he makes her eat three meals a day, plus two snacks. She starts each day with a cup of cereal, cup of low fat milk, 2 pieces of bacon, an egg and a cup of juice.”

Huh? That was more food than I ate in a day. Seriously. It defied everything I knew. “And she’s losing weight?”

“You’re looking at the picture.”

Still, I didn’t believe it. How could that be? A few more weeks went by. I had more surgery and couldn’t eat anything. I gained another pound and was stunned and heartbroken. My weight was at an all time high and I hadn’t been eating for months. I was desperate.  “All right, give me his number!”

Kim did and it changed my life. What I learned was that my starvation and “good” eating habits, coupled with my blood pressure medicine, had absolutely destroyed my metabolism. My body was so used to starving, that it wasn’t burning food properly. I was in constant starvation mode and my body was fighting to stay alive. It hoarded every single calorie I gave it.

I was burning 1200-1700 calories in an hour and a half to two hours (not counting other activities I do such as walking, bicycling, basketball, roller skating, skateboarding, etc with my kids) and only taking in a staggering 600-800 calories a day, maybe 1000 at most. For years I’d been counting only fat grams. When I did the calorie count in a journal, I was floored. I thought I was taking in at least 1100, but I wasn’t. Mostly because I never ate breakfast or snacked.

And come to find out from my nutritionist on the days I was at the gym, I was supposed to be eating that much in calories, too. I thought the point of working out was to create a deficit. That’s what I’d always been told. I had no idea I was supposed to eat that much in calories afterward. On a bad day when I had a migraine, I’d burn 600 calories at the gym which left my body with only 200 calories to live on for the rest of the day.

Another problem I realized while seeing my nutritionist is that I never get hungry. Because we were so poor growing up, we didn’t have food in the house. Many times in my life, the only meal I had as a kid was the school lunch (when we could afford it). I would get so hungry in class, I’d swallow air just to make my stomach feel full. As an adult, I had the same thing. I was so used to starving that I’d trained myself to ignore all hunger signs. Until I’m shaking and faint, I don’t realize my body needs food so I can’t rely on that to tell me when the furnace needs fuel.

Now I eat my meals at an assigned time each day. I start out just like Kim’s mom with a regular egg, 2 pieces of regular bacon, cup of cereal (chocolate Cheerios) and 1% milk, and a bottle of Apple juice. I eat 1500 calories each day and on days I work out, I eat a lot more (I’m also not working out as much- my doc wants me to burn no more than 800 each session and I have to drink a protein shake afterward). Once my body got used to the fact that it wasn’t starving and that I would actually feed it, it began letting go and the weight has finally started to drop.

So when people ask how I lost the weight, the simple answer is I started eating and stopped working out so much. I know. It sounds ridiculous. But it’s the truth. Who would have ever thought?

Breakfast is the key. If you get a balanced breakfast it really does help with the rest of the day and it jump starts your metabolism. I still don’t snack though. I’m just not hungry. So for all of you out there who are like me, who are doing all the right things you’ve been told to do and you’re still not losing, maybe, just maybe, this will help you, too. The one thing I’ve learned over the last few months is that every body is vastly different. There is no one cure for everyone. The key is to learn your body and to work with it, not against it. I’m still battling with mine, but we’re slowly working it out and are becoming friends again :)

Hugs!