And I’ve got the cover of my simply beautiful December release Millionaire Under The Mistletoe to remind me about that…

This evening we went along to a local shopping centre to welcome Santa…and watch the lighting of the Christmas tree. Santa? But it’s only 13 November…Friday, 13th November to be quite correct. Thankfully I’ve never suffered from triskaidekaphobia! Santa arrived unscathed and the lights on the tree all went on.

But I can’t believe that it’s almost time to unpack my Christmas decorations. It seems like only a few weeks since I packed them up. Where has the year gone??? I need to think about Christmas cards too. Eeeek.

So when do you put up your tree, send off your seasonal greeting cards and do your baking? And does any one else have this feeling that they’re just running out of time?

All comments (along with previous comments) go into the draw to win a $50 B&N voucher. Winner will be announced in December in the comments section of this post…so keep a look out.

Tessa
www.tessaradley.com

Got home earlier this week…to CHAOS.

You know, that state of devastation that Fly Lady calls Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome–CHAOS.

But it’s still home. I was away for over a month in June-July. Home for just over 2 weeks, then it was time for Romance Writers of New Zealand’s annual conference. I love conference. Catching up with my friends. Meeting new people.

But I love getting back home.

Even if it was a messy and muddy welcome. Hey, it’s winter and my boys play far too much soccer. But it’s still home. Even though have a young dog who has discovered how to dig holes in the lawn–eyeroll–yep, more mud.

It was fabulous to be hugged, to missed…to be mom–and wife–again.

Now I just have to get on top of the mess. The piles of washing. The snail mail. My email. And the 101 tasks I meant to do before going off to conference…

So tell me what’s your best part of coming home?

Tessa

I was reading through Kathleen O’Reilly’s fun blog post about Romance Cliches we Love to Hate, nodding in agreement—I haven’t read any clumsy heroines for a while either—when I had a horrrrrrrible thought.

Okay, I’m not clumsy.

Really I’m not. But I am technologically challenged. I have a complicated relationship with my scanner. And my fax is incredibly temperamental. And my cell phone starts taking photos when I’m trying to enter a new contact. Okay, maybe I am clumsy. It’s enough to make me feel extremely intimidated around such gizmos. As for my broadband…well…I returned from a month away to find that it was on strike.

It was enough to make my heart sink. When it rains my Internet goes down. Sometimes I think I just have to think about email and it stops working. Hah. The problem has the poor technician who has been out here too many times for his comfort, flummoxed. All the cables in my yard have been replaced. So has much of the wiring in the house. The poor guy is now starting to whisper about a ghost. And I’m the woman who is actually contemplating getting an eReader???

Now, a lot of my friends are on facebook. They’ve been saying it’s easy, come join us. Hmm…it feels like another world. Another INTIMIDATING world. One that’s definitely waaay out of my comfort zone…but I’m taking that step.

So what FB for Dummies advice to do you have for the technically challenged setting out into that alien, too scary, territory?

I’ll draw 1 random winner from the comments to this post for a copy of Billion Dollar Baby Bargain, my August 2009 release…AND everyone who posts on the my posts from now until December 2009 go into the draw for a $50 B&N voucher that will be drawn in December 2009.

Tessa

PS Winner for the Jan to June 09 $50 voucher was Lois—thanks Lois for letting me know that you received it! Again, wishing you lots of happy reading!!

Some readers ADORE babies in books. Others ABHOR ‘em.

I’ve been thinking about this plenty since receiving the cover for The Billion-Dollar Baby Bargain, my August release from Silhouette Desire. Part of the Billionaires and Babies promotion, the books feature strong alpha heroes and…a gorgeous baby. It’s not a continuity, the stories aren’t linked. Each is a stand alone story linked only by the Billionaire and Baby theme.

Ever since the first secret baby book I read, I’ve been hooked on babies in books. I love the war between the protective mother and the possessive father. I love the way the tough alpha hero melts at the thought of a vulnerable baby. But some of my best friends are convinced kids kill romance and a book with a baby on the cover will send them running from the store.

What about you? Love ‘em or loathe ‘em…or simply don’t mind?

All commenters will be put in the draw for a $50 B&N voucher that I’ll draw in a day or so (so comment quickly) from everyone that has commented on my posts over the past few months.

Tessa

One of my deepest most primal fears as a writer is losing a manuscript.

Yeah, you read right. Losing a manuscript. Not the casual “Oh, I forgot the printout in the coffeshop.” Or left it on the bus. But the honest to goodness primal fear of losing hundreds of pages, thousands of words.

Blue screen. Meltdown. Burglary. Those are words that burn into a writer like a stake into a vampire’s heart.

Just this week I heard about a writer who lost 90 000 words in a harddrive failure—that’s a whole damned book! Gone. And her deadline is just around the corner…I can’t even bear to think about what her life must be like right now.

Last year I heard about a writer whose computer was stolen…and the thief very kindly unplugged the memory stick on which she’d backed up a her latest book and left it behind.

Urban legend? I don’t know. All I know is that at least it wasn’t a tragic ending. As for me…once I get past half way on my manuscript and my deadline is rushing toward me, I make sure I save my manuscript onto a memory stick…AND I email it to a gmail address…(just in case the house burns down)…AND I back it up onto a remote access website where I save my photos as well. Not that I’m convinced that anything is being saved there, because I can’t really SEE it and for me seeing is all about believing!

So how do you back up the things that really matter? Your will? Your bank records? Your manuscript? Or the photos that you never want to lose?

All commenters will be put in the draw for a $50 B&N voucher that I’ll draw end of June 09 from everyone that comments to my posts over the next few months.

Tessa
The Untamed Sheik-out now!
All commentors will be put in the draw

Okay, so  Valentine’s day is not far away…

If you could pick a hero from any book (or movie) to spend Valentine’s Day with, who would it be? And where would you go—what would you do? What would you wear—and most importantly what would you eat?

 Would you choose someone from years gone—like the proud Darcy or a modern guy, say Jerry Maguire? Or would you go for someone totally otherwordly, like one of Nalini Singh’s Psy heroes?

 And yes, for a bit of fun, I’ll do a draw for a $50 Barnes & Noble voucher  at the end of June 09 from everyone that comments to my posts over the next few months.

 PS – Congrats to Catslady who was the lucky winner of the $50 Barnes & Noble voucher in December!

 Now let’s talk about those hot dates!

 Tessa

Man of the Month: The Untamed Sheik
Coming from Desire April 2009

As a reader I don’t generally buy books by cover. I don’t generally even rave about book covers.  

But I have to say that I really, really love my cover for Spaniard’s Seduction my Silhouette Desire book that comes out on 11 November.
I honestly think that this has to be my favorite of all my covers—although I was pretty fond of The Desert Bride of Al Zayed and The Kyriakos Virgin Bride.  

I thank everyone who worked on it and put so much time into it—because they absolutely managed to capture Rafaelo’s machismo (he’s hot!) and Caitlyn’s fragility (she’s so lovely). Anyone have any idea who these cover models are? 

What’s your favorite book cover ever? And what made it so special? 

Don’t forget that all commentors go into the B&N giftcard draw that I’ll do in December.  :grin:   

Happy reading! 

Tessa

www.tessaradley.com