Goodbye To The Patriarch

My dad passed away this morning around 2:00 a.m. The Patriarch of our family--our oldest male--is gone.

My sister called at 6:30 and asked how I was doing. First, a call at 6:30 in the morning is never a good sign. Then for her to start out this phone call with a "how're you going?"... Then she broke the news, which was what I had been expecting but it was still so hard to hear.

As I sit here and type this, crying, I think of what my dad meant to me and how I feel about his death.

I feel a lot of regret--regret that he was such a hard man to know. He didn't show his feelings, didn't seem to take much interest in what was going on in his children's lives. Only once in the six years that I've lived in Arizona had he initiated a phone call to me to see how I was doing. One day out of 2,190. One of my sisters-in-law has often commented how much he missed out on really knowing what interesting and funny people his kids were.

Yet he'd drop everything at a moment's notice and go help someone who needed it.

My brother G and I were planning on flying home on Saturday anyway to spend time with Dad (the plan was to see him before he got worse). But with congestive heart failure, he just didn't hang on long enough. Now we'll be going home on Saturday, but we'll be going to his funeral.

I'm gonna give my mom an extra long hug when I see her while I cry like a baby in her arms.

I'd appreciate any extra positive thoughts and prayers you can send our way.

With all that being said, this will be my last post until I return from Ohio. I'll be checking messages/email, but I won't be blogging again until Sunday December 10th.

See you then.

New Review For DRAGON'S BANE

4 Angels!

"Everyone has heard the story of Cinderella, her prince charming, and the delightful fairy godmother that helped Cinderella find her happily ever after. Dragon’s Bane, however, picks up where Cinderella left off with the continuation of Adara, Cinderella’s fairy godmother. Adara is a wonderful fairy that totally commits herself to those in her charge. Ruarc is an utterly intoxicating man that will leave readers wishing they had one just like him in their happy ever after. With each turn of the page, this reader was impressed with both the captivating tale Sherrill Quinn has spun and the passion that Ruarc and Adara find with each other. The various magical aspects in this story are wonderfully told. Dragon’s Bane is a great little fairy tale that readers will enjoy."

Read an excerpt or buy.




"You're never too old to become younger." ~Mae West

One Down, One To Go

Last night I finished my self edits on my dragon shapeshifter novella, Dragonfire, for Amber Heat, and sent it off to the editor for consideration. This story is full of arrogant, sexy dragon men and two feisty sisters that don't let them get away with anything. Already have a response from the editor--contract's in the mail. *G* Dragonfire will be part of the first Beast Master Pax due out in February.

I also typed THE END on the second Praetorians book for New Concepts. (Although I still haven't come up with a title for the darn thing yet.) I was shooting for it to be 40,000 words (a short novel, but a novel nonetheless) and it came in at just under 36,000. I have to put it past my critique group, which will take several more weeks as we only share about 25 pages at a time. Well, those are the rules, anyway, but my gals have been so supportive they've been letting me submit much more than that at a time. Which worked out fine over the last couple of months because I've been the only one submitting anything, but a couple of the others are working really good stories up and will be sending stuff out for us to critique, so I can't load up everyone with all my stuff. Darn it. But what that means is that my editor at NCP won't see this until after the first of the year. Which is all right, except...

I'm getting ready to work on a quickie for Ellora's Cave that's due February 1st. (My critique partner Suz and I are going to brainstorm it over shrimp--and maybe a margarita--at Red Lobster this afternoon.) But that story will only be 15,000 words, so it's, er, a quickie. I should be able to write it fairly quickly, and they should be able to critique it, er, quickly. LOL

Oy. Can you tell I keep my critique group hopping? They've been so fantastic to me, and I'm very, very thankful for them.




"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." ~Ray Bradbury

Another Review For OBSIDIAN'S FLAME

4 Stars!

From Morgan at Just Erotic Romance Reviews:

"I wasn't prepared for the racy cat and mouse energy between (the characters) that I found particularly thrilling. Trey is the dangerous type--sexy dangerous, that is. He is an impressive being and I was filled with awe as his presence graced the pages of this book. His smooth confidence was almost more than I could gleefully bear as I witnessed his slow caress of breaking Sam down. Sam is as fiery as her abilities... Together, they are a hot pair... With an exciting plot, plenty of twists and turns, and moments that are pure sexual bliss, Obsidian's Flame is one sci-fi hero story that is too good to pass up."

Read an excerpt or buy.





"She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success...wrong by wrong." ~Mae West

Another Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sundays are my favorite, especially when I can look at something like this:


Aye carumba! Talk about lickalicious!!




"So many men... so little time." ~Mae West

Life Is About Changes

In the past several years I've had some major changes in my life:

• I quit my job in Ohio and moved to Arizona--without another job lined up.

• I decided to make a career change and focus on writing, so I sold my house and quit my job.

• I started back to work part-time 10 months later (somewhat as planned).

• My dad was diagnosed with colon/rectal cancer. We don't expect to have him with us much longer.

• My part-time job is going to full-time because my boss's last (unexpected) day was the day before Thanksgiving.

I had known I would have to go back to work full-time. Actually, I'd expected to be working full-time by now--the plan was to stay at home for one year and focus on writing and getting myself established, then I'd go back to work full-time (cuz I need the bennies). And I'm kicking against reality less and less. *sigh* Guess it's finally sinking in. LOL

The trick is to accept change and deal with it positively. I try not to worry about things over which I have no control, and try not to worry about how/if things will work out. God always seems to have a path open for me.

Case in point: When I moved to Arizona without another job lined up, I began working at a large credit union 3 weeks after I arrived in town. A year and a half later, I was Assistant Vice President of Human Resources (later renamed/promoted to Vice President) with a nice salary that enabled me to buy a 1531 square foot, 3 bedroom + den house. The sale of the house 3 years later enabled me to quit that job and try my hand at this writing gig. Then, about a month and a half before I'd planned on starting to submit my resume out there to see what kind of day job I could find (because I was realistic enough to know I'd not be able to support myself with my writing, not yet, anyway!), my old boss from the credit union called and asked me to come work 1 day a week, helping her organize the HR department at the company where she'd just started working. And except for the first week or so, I've worked no less than 2 days a week. Now, about 3 months before I'd planned on *really* looking for a full-time job, I have one.

If I'd worried about things, it would've increased my blood pressure for no good reason.

And my dad? All I can do for him is pray, which I do all the time. He'll be 80 in just a few weeks, so he's lived a good, long life. But, of course it's still hard to think of him not being around. When he's gone, that'll be another change in my life, something that will subtly change who I am.

All I can say is, when life hands you a change, embrace it. What other choice do you have?





"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." ~Alan Cohen

Gotta Love Those Cowboys!

No, not those cowboys. I'm talkin' 'bout a cowboy like this:

Sing along with me (to the tune of I Love Paris):

Oh, I love cowboys in the springtime. I love cowboys in the fall.
I love cowboys in the summer when they sizzle,
I love cowboys in the winter when they drizzle.

I love cowboys every moment
Every moment of the year.
I love cowboys.
Why, oh, why do I love cowboys?
Because...


Okay, tell me why you love cowboys!




"Why don't you come up and see me sometime ... when I've got nothin' on but the radio." ~Mae West