Author Jo Leigh is one of my favorite Harlequin authors. Her blazes are an inspiration and I’ve never seen anyone write as tightly as she does. During 70 days of sweat she was an amazingly supportive lady, full of fun and really pushing us all to succeed. It breaks my heart to know that her husband passed on Friday.  She is struggling due to the cost of medical bills. It’s heartbreaking. I found this information via Lynn Viehl’s Paperback Writer blog. So I’m forwarding this message, in its entirety, from  Stephanie Tyler’s weblog:

———————————————————-
“One of our own, author Jo Leigh (aka Jolie Kramer) lost her husband on June 13 after he courageously battled cancer. If you don’t know their story which is the stuff romance novels are made of, you can read it here and see their wedding picture here.

In addition to being a fabulous friend to so many and a mulit-RITA nominated author who has written for Harlequin Blaze, Temptation, Intrigue, Special Projects, Silhouette Intimate Moments and Meteor Kismet, Jo is known across the country for the amazing writing classes she teaches, including one on plotting that is incomparable. She has been incredibly generous to so many in sharing her knowledge and expertise.

Unfortunately, Jo has been left with a lot of medical expenses she will be struggling to cover as they had no health insurance, and we would like to help her out by holding several fundraising auctions. If you have items to donate - books or book baskets/collections, critiques, ARCs of upcoming releases, mentoring opportunities, web or promotional material design work etc., please email the item description to the following email address: forjoleigh@gmail.com. This is the address we’re using to organize the items.

Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Alison Kent, HelenKay Dimon, Larissa Ione, Stephanie Tyler

**edited to add - We’ve been asked about monetary donations - please email me via my contact page and I’ll email you the paypal address, if this is how you wish to help Jo.

We’ve already covered a lot of loops and groups, but if you’d like to post it where you haven’t seen it, or put it up on your blog, that would be wonderful.”
———————————————————

I don’t know what I’m going to do to help. The cost of shipping is so outrageous right now. I’ve got a quilt I could finish and send in. Perhaps a service I could offer. I have several print books I’d love to throw in. What about you?  Anyone else wanting to give? Or do you know another website, author, individual who’s donating something? If so, I’ll be happy to add their links to the bottom of this post.

Lynn is donating a gorgeous quilt as well as some signed Darkyn and StarDoc novels.

Picture this.

5 am and a grumpy redhead with hair resembling something out of a horror movie trudges to a sparsely lit kitchen, pours iced tea into her favorite glass slooooooooowly so as not to spill it all over the counter.

At this time the grumpy redhead is working on a plotting problem involving a hot sexy demon and his soon-to-be target…in more ways than one.  This brings a smile to the redhead’s face.  Her fingers ITCH to type on the keyboard.

She trudges, with a slightly lighter step and less sour expression toward her Writing Cave.  The redhead sets her glass down on the coaster and wiggles her fingers.  It was time to get to work.  When her blurry eyes opened to see the keys in order to her fingers properly (the ridges on the “f” and “j” keys have been worn away by years of sweet tapping) she notices something horrific.

Ants.

All over her keyboard.  She gasps.  Dear sweet chocolate gods, there were ANTS ON HER KEYBOARD!!!!  Not only her keyboard, ladies and gentlemen, all OVER HER DESK.  And the floor.  And the rest of the office.

You see, it appears ANTS in this part of Texas don’t like to GET WET so they look for dry and WARM areas to hole up in.  All this from the nice exterminator I spoke with over the phone.  So it appears I had bugs in my system.  LOL.

I have been INVADED.  Not by little green men or anything else interesting…No, I’ve been invaded by ANTS.  THIS is why I haven’t been online as much as I’d like. I couldn’t run the risk of ants gumming up the guts (technical term LOL) of the laptop.  So I was writing on the ASUS and working on fumigating the office and inner sanctum. I have missed you all. 

This tongue-in-cheek post brought to you by…ME.

As promised, here are pics of my new writing cave. It is *literally* a closet. Almost a perfect square in the floorplan. I have multiple shelves and two desks. I’d bought one for writing and the other one (the corner one you’ll see in a moment) my husband had bought for himself without realizing it had been built for people of curvy fae proportions (SHORT PEOPLE, OKAY???). So we, on a whim decided to see if we could put both desks in here without me feeling claustrophobic. The answer. Yes. Also we have a bookshelf beside the corner desk so I can put all my “to do” notices there. Overall, I think it looks fantastic and most of all, it’s functional!

Tell me what you think.

The Cave Before and After

Here’s a couple of shots around the room. Do you see my beautiful ASUS eee? Isn’t it lovely? If you’ll look at the books on the shelf above (yes, one of those is indeed titled the Pirate Dictionary LOL), you’ll notice that the ASUS is about the size of a trade paperback. I love my writing computer. And yes, that is a chocobo penny bank sitting next to a fairy. WHAT? Notice the corner desk I was commenting on earlier. The notebook you see on the desk is a 5×8 inch spiral. Does that give you an idea of the actual size of the thing?

To the right of the ASUS is my calendar and reminder area. Remember, this IS in a closet. 57inches by 63 inches. If you’ll look in the upper right hand corner of the picture (the left hand side of the dry erase board) you’ll see a very familiar Dark Elf from Jet Mykles. *sigh* I lurve her artwork.

If I turn around we’ll find the business end of my writing. The compaq laptop, my dry erase board and all my office stuff stashed away in lovely drawers. I’m still unpacking so I don’t have all my books up but the ones on the left hand side of that shelf are books that have, in some way, shape, or form influenced my writing career to date. I’m currently missing my Evermore by Lynn Viehl, Guilty Pleasures by LKH, and a few others. On the shelves above I have all of my signed books I’ve collected through the years and paperbacks written by my crit partners. I don’t have pics of them yet b/c I also have my home tool kit open and strewn all over the place. *WEG*

So that’s it. That’s my cave. Not much to write home about, I know, but it’s MINE.

That was a much-longer-than-expected hiatus! The move was successful, somewhat. We are still finding the carnage of their horrible packing jobs. Just to give you an idea of the age group of our packers:

My comic books (I read them, and could care less about the value! I READ THEM like they’re novels…well used) and comic book cards were triple wrapped and padded, reinforced and carefully tucked away, while my Japanese folded steel cutting knife ($125 retail) was thrown in a plastic tin with a bunch of tools (Imagine the gouges!) and my self healing cutting mat (again over $100 retail) was shoved in the back of the moving truck, warped beyond repair and with a HUGE gash in the middle. It’s a SELF HEALING MAT. But my comics made it okay. So did my video games, again extremely well padded.

I’m thankful for movers insurance. There are a lot of other broken items, like the painting the mover stepped through during the unload…but I digress.

This weekend I’ll be giving you guys the scoop on my first ever ménage release! M/M/F yumminess. It’s one of the latest Rookery Coves from Changeling Press and comes out on Thursday! I have an interview with the wonderful and fabulous Emma Ray Garrett on her Pret Ops series…her ending book was delicious! I’ll have to give an impromptu review as well.

I’m working on something delightful for Aspen Mountain Press’s Del Fantasma series. More on that as soon as I hear back from the editor.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend and I’ll hopefully be popping my head into the Changeling Bar and Grill later today (when I wake up) or tomorrow. Have a great rest of the night.

Wikipedia describes Tornadoes as:

a violently rotating column of air which is in contact with both a cumulonimbus cloud, or in rare cases, a cumulus cloud base and the surface of the earth. Tornadoes come in many sizes but are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris.

I have seen three tornadoes form in my life, and been IN five.  I’m not taking bets on my luck but I will say this…I need to get the heck out of this part of Texas.

A couple days ago, about 45 miles south of San Antonio, an earthquake with a magnitude of 3.7 on the richter scale woke up a sleepy town.  It’s funny, though…we all go inside, lock ourselves in our storm shelters and wait it out.  Then we come out and chat a bit and go back inside.  Even the unusual occurrence of an earthquake doesn’t faze the people here.  Texans are laid back bunch.

I’m getting back to writing tonight and I’m not sure when I’ll lose my internet again.  *hugs*

I spent the weekend enjoying delicious colcannon, corned beef, and taters. Man, I don’t want it to end! Since I was determined to continue in my celebration I bought six Irish-inspired erotic romances from some of my favorite authors.

Kate Hill, Michelle Hasker, Aline de Chevigny, Elizabeth Jewell and Jeanne Barrack

As I read them I’ll give individual reviews. They’ll be short, but fun! Have a great week everyone! I’ll be back to writing tomorrow evening! YAY!

Please feel free to check out my new books page.  I’ll be ready to rock and roll with Sven again soon.  My other than writing work will slow down Wednesday.

For all the Irish Catholics, Happy St. Patrick’s Day today.  For all other Irish, I’ll give you another Happy wish on Monday.  Tomorrow and Monday I’ll post my favorite St. Patty’s Day erotic romance titles.

Have a great weekend!

We’re redecorating a bit.  I’m not one to close down my site unless absolutely necessary, so the construction will be going on around you all.  I’m in the process of making my books easier to find/track based on genre interests.  An informal poll of 30 or so readers told me you prefer to search by genre, while about 10% of you want to search by publisher as well.  When the pages are completely live I’d love to hear your opinions.

Hope you have an awesome weekend!

I haven’t posted in a bit.  This week’s new titles at Changeling are AWESOME!  I’ve been taking a much needed writing hiatus to focus on the EDJ.  This week is crazy hectic.  I’m throwing a party at novelspot on Saturday.  Meet me for a chat!  I’ll have the time and date on Friday and again on Saturday.

So tell me if you’ve got a minute to spare.  What have you been reading lately?  Must Love Dogs and Yeti! Again? are on my TBR Changeling list.  I’ve picked up a delicious compilation of yumminess from Black Lace and PBW sent me some FABULOUS books in an awesome contest.

*sings badly* cry if I want to, cryyyyyyyyy if I want to!

Happy January 24th everyone!  Usually not an important day for most but an especially important day for me!  It’s my birthday.  I’m 21 today with *cough* mumble *cough* years experience.  That’s right, I’m 21 and holding.  For the rest of my life.  Mwahahahaha.

So why am I so perky about it?  For one, I really enjoy getting older.  I firmly believe that once I’m gray-haired and wise…okay, at least gray-haired I can release my inner child and do the one thing I’ve always ALWAYS wanted to do…wear hot pink lipstick.  Yes.  I want to be that “screaming pink” lipstick-wearin’ grandma.  Why?  Because I’m a red-head and forced into the earthy mold of browns and bronzes (which I enjoy, don’t get me wrong, but HOT PINK).  So each year I’m a few gray hairs closer to my dream!

*snicker*

Okay, bit much, sorry.  In all honesty, my birthday is a time when I invite my friends over for a party and celebrate life and laughter.  The bonds you create with the people you love are so important.  So in celebration of my birthday this year I’m having a party at the League of Amazing Writers group.  I invite each and every one of you to play and enjoy each other’s company.   Virtual beverages of your choice, of course.  Maybe a hottie or two to keep you company.  A warm roaring fire and maybe an escape to the Bahamas in the fantasy adventure of your choice.  There will be flash fiction, warm excerpts, funny stories, recipes, and hopefully just a really really good time.

So I hope you’ll come out and have fun.  I know I will.  *huge grin*