Jaci Burton’s Muse

Don’t forget I’m guest blogging today over at Jennifer’s Random Musings. Jennifer is giving away cool prizes all this week while she’s hosting the Writeminded Authors. So come see me!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I did…mostly nothing, which made it nice.

Saturday was a great day weather wise so we took the bike out all day and rode around to do some shopping. It was just a perfect day, so great to feel the wind in my face. I ended up buying the new Bare Minerals makeup. Anyone use that? I put it on yesterday and love it. Doesn’t feel like I have anything on at all.

Sunday was mostly a stay busy kind of day. It was the day that marked a year since my mom passed away and I really just wanted to keep my mind occupied so I didn’t dwell on it. I hate to make too much of things like that. My mom had lived a nice long life and died at 85 years old, but I still miss her. I stayed busy yesterday and the day passed.

Anyone watch the NASCAR race yesterday? Omg. True nailbiter throughout. Loved it!

My wonderful pal and rockin’ awesome author Gena Showalter is our guest author on Writeminded today. She was nice enough to let me interview her, and in honor of that I’m giving away a copy of her soon-to-be-released-this-week The Darkest Night. Go over there for a chance to win the book!

Also, the awesome Jennifer at Jennifer’s Random Musings is featuring all the Writeminded authors this week on her blog, and she’s giving away prizes. One author a day, so bookmark her site and go play for a chance to win! (Thank you Jennifer! )

On the writing front, I made some decent progress on Riding on Instinct last week, but need to step it up a bit this week. So it’s writing for me all week long.

What’s on your agenda this week?

I used random.org to select the Bloggy Carnival Prize Winner, and the winner is:

Christina W! (post #43).

Christina has won a $25 Amazon gift certificate and two of my print books.

Congrats Christina! I have emailed Christina to notify her she has won.

Thank you SO much to everyone who stopped by and entered. I look forward to doing this again next quarter.

If you haven’t watched this week’s shows yet, there might be spoilers.

American Idol - I thought Jason and Brooke sucked rocks this week and should have been in the bottom two. No way Syesha and Carly should have been. But alas, Carly got the boot. Then again, her time was going to be upper sooner or later. People have got to stop letting thier 10 year old girls dial the cell phones. They’re keeping Jason in the game. Dude just doesn’t have the talent. My boy David Cook rocked it as usual. Who do you like?

America’s Next Top Model - The Italian Commercial just killed me. I thought they were all pretty bad. And I can’t stand Dominique. Why do they seem to like her? Bleh. I Thankfully Lauren the klutz is gone. The girl was a total ditz.

Ahhhh. Grey’s Anatomy returned last night. I’ve missed it. It was good. Not enough McDreamy though. But it was great seeing the whole gang again. Too bad there are only going to be 5 shows until end of season. The writer’s strike really messed with the season, but at least we got our shows back for a bit. Meredith still annoys me. Nothing new there.

Survivor - How dumb are these people with the Immunity Idol anyway? Twice in two weeks? Morons. And some of the women are bitches. And that Natalie chick? Dude. Was she PMSing or what? She’s vicious. I could never be on this show because I don’t think I like anybody on there. It’s entirely possible I’m too nice to be machiavellian. How sad. I really like James the best but now that the women are systematically picking off the men, unless he wins all the immunity challenges, he’s toast.

So what do you watch that makes you happy…or irritates you?

I miss Project Runway.

I’ve been fighting this horrible bout of insomnia the past few months. Typically I lay my head on the pillow and I’m out cold. But not lately.

I don’t drink caffeine past my morning coffee. It’s diet 7-up for me, so I know it’s not a caffeine problem. And sometimes Biker dude and I will be watching tv before bed and I’ll have a hard time keeping my eyes open. Then we move into the bedroom and when it’s time to go to sleep, I can’t. So I don’t know what the issue is, but falling asleep has become this epic battle lately and it’s beginning to really annoy me, because when I do manage to sleep it’s a very light sleep, which means I wake up a lot during the night.

Maybe I should just start getting up and doing some writing. At least I’d be productive while I’m not sleeping

So, anyone have sure fire cures for insomnia? I’m getting desperate.

THE CONTEST IS CLOSED and so are comments. Winner announced in blog post of April 25th. Thanks to everyone who entered!!! Y’all rock!

If you’re coming my way via the Bloggy Carnival, welcome!

As part of the Bloggy Carnival, I’m offering a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate and two of my available print books to one lucky winner.

In order to be eligible to win these prizes, simply take a look around my website and browse my available books, then tell me which two you would choose if you won. Please note only currently available books are eligible, so if the book hasn’t been released yet, sorry, it’s not part of the deal.

I’ll choose a winner on Saturday, April 26th. Good luck!

Had a busy busy weekend and an equally busy week coming up. Finally the weather was nice. No rain, it was warm and we took the bike out for a spin. Was great seeing all the other bikers out on the road too.

Had my granddaughter over Friday night. Always love seeing her. She’s a huge joy in my life. She’ll be 5 in a couple months and already such a ‘big girl’. So smart, too.

Saturday night I dragged Biker Dude to a strip club. It was needed research for my current book, since my heroine goes undercover as a stripper, and I’ve never been to a strip club. I had fun and got lots of great material for the book. Yes, I get to do fun things all in the name of book research

When we got home we stayed up way too late watching movies. We watched The Break Up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. I do not like movies that don’t have a happy ending. That’s probably why I write romance with a HEA. I was pissed about that movie, dammit.

Tomorrow I’ll be sitting on an author panel for the Oklahoma Library Association’s annual conference, then doing a booksigning after that. I’m really looking forward to it.

And now that I have adequate research for my book, I’ll be plugging away this week on writing Riding On Instinct, my current Berkley Heat book.

What’s on your agenda for this week?

Edited To Add: Don’t forget tonight is the monthly chat for the Writeminded authors over at Writerspace. 9 p.m. Eastern time. Click on ‘readers chat’ once you get there. Hope to see you there. It’s always so much fun!

If you haven’t caught Author Talk, with Jill Monroe and Gena Showalter, you’re missing the best videos ever! I think Jill and Gena should win some kind of award for these.

Check out this week’s video below (um because you might find something you recognize ), and then go to the Author Talk website and watch them all!

By these:

Ants. In my house. In my kitchen. And my bathroom.

We’ve had a crapload of rain this spring, and when it comes down, it comes down in sheets. Clearly the ants weren’t happy about the minor monsoon season outside, so decided to take refuge inside. In my house.

Which makes me not happy. I’ve been fighting these bastards for two weeks now, to no avail. I’ve kept dishes out of the sink, no food is left out, everything is sealed up tight. It’s hard to cook when every time I put food down on my counter they come running like eager puppies.

Bastards.

Yesterday we found this new stuff that’s supposed to kill them, made with sugar and Borax. It attracts them, they eat it, take it to the nest and die. Biker Dude put it down and the ants went to partying all over it like it was lines of cocaine. I leaned on the counter and watched them swarm it, a huge grin on my face. Oh yeah. Party down, dudes. (i.e., die, you bastards, die).

My life is so interesting, isn’t it?

I. Hate. Ants.

Where do I get my story ideas?

I get asked this question a lot. It’s probably one of the most frequently asked questions, and one that doesn’t have an easy answer, because ideas for stories come from everywhere. They pop into my head at the oddest times- while watching television, while driving, while lying in bed or taking a shower–usually anytime I’m nowhere near my computer or a piece of paper.

Sometimes it’s nothing more than a single thought–a line, a character, a scene, a face. Sometimes it turns out to be nothing. A fleeting glimpse into an idea, and poof! It’s gone. Other times it’ll catch on and develop into something more concrete, and I’ll mull it over in my head for awhile and see if it takes shape into something I can use.

And I have to say that I usually get story ideas when I’m not looking for them. They usually hit me when I’m knee deep in deadlines for another book, when I have several books I know I need to write. Then another story idea will come to me.

So what do I do then? I write it down, of course, letting my imagination take flight. At that point it may be nothing but gibberish. A lot of random thoughts and ideas. Maybe something a character is doing, or a plotline about something happening. Either way, I take notes of whatever is hammering away at my head and file it away in my plotlines folder. I have an entire folder on my computer for nothing but random plotlines. This is my well of ideas that I go to when I need to pull out something new to write.

And sometimes, when I hit a wall with my current book, I’ll open up one of those ideas and toy with it a bit, see where it takes me, develop it a little further, then close it again until I have more time to work on it.

A writer never runs out of ideas.

And ideas never stop popping into our heads. It’s like a constant turning wheel.

I love my job. :sasmokin: