Three New Book Covers

Coming Soon

Hell and High Waters, Moongypsy Press

Prophecy, Eternal Press

The Kiss of an Angel, Wild Horse Press

Calendar of Events - March

It's still cold as the North Pole down south in Louisiana and we're expecitng more rain and more cold today and tomorrow. That old groundhog was true to his word....enough already....bring on Spring.

Conferences - (Scheduled to attend)

Epicon 2010 - New Orleans, LA March 4-7, 2010
Romance Writers of America - Nashville, TN July 29-31

Coming Soon - Calendar of Events

"Hell and High Waters" - a horror tale - Moongypsy Press - May 2010
"Something to be Thankful for" - Erotic Romance novel - Total E-Bound - May 2010
"Prophecy" - Erotic Vampire novel - Eternal Press - June 2010
"In Love with a Dark Stranger" - Multicultural Romance - Midnight Showcase Fiction - July 2010
"Pharaoh" - Historical Romance - Siren Publishing - July 2010
"Bitter Fruit" - Yaoi Romance - Phaze - July 2010

Promo - Happy Valentine's Day - Romance Digests

Fall in love all over again. There's no better way to celebrate the holiday than with a great romantic story.

http://www.midnightshowcase.com

Having a Full Moon Day

Having a Full Moon Day

I think I got up four or five times last night. That is usually a sign that my tomorrow is going to suck. It was bad enough that I had to finally break down and take arthritis medicine for my left wrist because it refused to cooperate. It kicked in about four this morning, six hours after I took it.

I got out of the bed expecting to get some writing done this morning but my mother called and after a lengthy conversation at five in the morning I couldn’t get anything started, so I decided to read my email and order my grand-daughter’s birthday present so it can get there on time. She lives in another city and I don’t get to see her that often, but after I got the thing I wanted to purchase into the cart I couldn’t remember what address to send it to since her mother moves around more than any person that I know. So I left the stuff in the cart because I knew she was going to call me at work today. I had just enough time to sign on to MySpace when my ride called telling me she was ready to pick me up for work.

My body was in for a shock when I stepped outside and discovered that someone had stolen yesterday’s sun. I don’t do cold weather well and add the wind coming off the Mississippi and it felt like I was going to die from exposure. I managed to get to my office at work where the temperature there is 20 degrees colder than what it is outside, so you never know how to dress. A lot of people from the “Who Dat Nation” are in Florida enjoying the sun, and I’m in New Orleans wondering why the damn groundhog had to see his shadow. I don’t think I can do six more weeks of winter.

I quickly ate my raisin bagel and drunk my coffee before the phones started to ring. By nine o’clock I was wishing that I stayed home. I spend about seven hours on the phone trouble-shooting computer problems from clients all over the country. Some days are fine, but there are some days when I want to stick the phone into the shredder. This was one of those days. Every call irritated me to the point when I didn’t want to answer the next. I went outside in the blustery cold for a break. I took my tablet with me to see if I could get some writing done…no it was too darn cold.

I got the call I was expecting from my ex-daughter-in-law, well not exactly, she was calling to beg for money to pay for something or other. I swear, sometimes I think I have National Bank of whatever tattooed on my behind. Somehow I managed to get the address out of her and made no commitments to sending her money. Not once did she mention my grand-daughter so I wasn’t interested in why she needed the money.

At lunch time I went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat only to find a long line. So I went to the snack machine and got a honey bun and wolfed it down with a bottle of green-tea. Talk about a sugar rush. I have a bad stomach so there’s no way I should be eating junk like that. Normally I bring lunch, but like I said it was one of those days and I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to bring. I have to stay away from the frozen dinners because of the salt, salad greens don’t last nowadays and I end up throwing much of it away because it goes bad before you can eat all of it. So I went back to my desk and ate the honey bun while working, which is never a good idea…it causes heartburn, so I popped two Rolaids.

I kept hearing a beeping sound and finally put it together that it was my new cell phone. I’m not really a cell phone person. I got it last week and on Saturday I finally found out how to dial it. I placed one call and I still haven’t sat down to read the instructions so when it started beeping I tried to find a way to turn it off. It was beeping because the battery was low and of course the charger was at home, so the phone kept annoying everyone in the office. So I pulled the phone out and then the next thing I know an ATT&T operator started talking and then she goes on to tell me how much my monthly cell phone bill is going to be and I’m laughing because I don’t know what I touched to get her on the line and I sure as heck couldn’t figure out how to get her off. I managed to find the lock button after the phone disconnected and I put the phone in my purse to muffle the beep.

I’m planning to go to the Epicon Convention here in New Orleans in March but I can’t decide if I want to attend the entire conference or just a day of classes. Transportation is still a problem for me since I can’t drive and public transportation is limited on Saturdays and non-existence in my neighborhood on Sundays. I could probably book a hotel room for three nights but it doesn’t make sense to me to spend that kind of money when I live here.

So for the rest of the afternoon I’m still getting these calls from clients who don’t have a clue of what they are doing and then they want to argue with me when I give them advice on how to solve their problems. Of course I’m nice and friendly on the phone, but I’m cursing in my head. So by the time the workday is over I’m stressed out and mentally tired. I ended up eating Pringle crumbs and gummy worms when I started to get aggravated.

I was expecting to see my two grandchildren when I got into the house this evening. Usually I can barely get into the door before I’m baby-sitting. This is beginning to pose another problem because I can’t write and keep and eye on them so I end up not writing, which is not a good thing for a writer with deadlines. I’ve been home an hour and they haven’t burst through my day yet.

So what am I going to do this evening if I don’t have to baby-sit? Order my granddaughter’s birthday present and get started on the edits for my novelette that I received in my email today. I really would like to see the Grammy Awards that I taped on Sunday but unfortunately it is not more important than editing my book. Wait, I hear them coming in the house now and I hear their mother with them. “Yeah, I’m going to get some work done.” They brought me Wendy’s chili and French fries. Where is my Maalox?

Imari

PS – Dear fellow writers. I’m so thankful that I have my own blog because every now and then I get to write something.

It Doesn't Pay to be Sick

It's Monday and for most of us this means we are off celebrating the holiday. Yes, I was thankful to have this long glorious weekend off but unfortunately I am still sick. Normally I look forward to having a Monday off. This is one of the rare days when the babies are at the nursery and their parents are at work, and I'm home alone...not resting.The first thing I attempted to was find a doctor's office that would be open. Yeah, right. Which leads me to make the decision whether or not to go to work tomorrow. I'm not as near death as I thought I was on Saturday but even I'm smart enough to know that somethings on my body just don't feel right. The fact that my head hurts all over when I touch it tells me that I need an antibotic. It's probably really congested and its making my teeth hurt. Anyone who knows me knows that I can take anything except a toothache. It also has my right ear hurting, my face feels puffy and I have a cold sore. Now that I've totall grossed myself out now I can say I spent my entire morning searching for my Carmex instead of resting. It would have been a lot easier just to send someone to the drug store but since I don't drive and no one is home I searched. In the process of searching, I cleared the mail off of my dresser and started cleaning out some purses. Ladies, why do we have so many purses? Geeze. It gave me a chance to gather up my reciepts and put them in gold envelopes for tax time. This was totally depressing to see how much money I spent in 2009. I have WalMart receipts coming out of the yazoo. My grocery bills have gone from about $400 a month to around a $1,000 a month. I don't know about you guys but I am not made of money and I don't have a money tree in the backyard to shake since Hurricane Katrina decided to uproot it and put it through my roof.
My telephone kept ringing off the hook. It was one of my daughter-in-laws. You would think she would leave a message but no. So I answered like a fool and she was calling to tell me that she was in town for the Martin Luther King parade and my grand-daughter wanted to see me. Normally I would have been happy as a clam since I don't get to see her that often. The conversation went like this:
"Your baby wants to see you."
"She can't. I might have the flu."
"But she's going to cry."
"She could get the flu."
"She has a cold anyway.""It could be the swine flu.""Put on a mask."Then the conversation ended. It pissed me off to no extent. I don't know what's wrong with this generation of young adults? I don't have H1N1 but what if I did. Two hours later she called to tell me that my granddaughter said she will wait until I'm feeling better. Speaking of ungrateful kids. The ones that live in my house were so unconcerned that I was sick that no one checked on me. I could be laying in my room dead from rigormortis and they wouldn't know about it until they needed money. I had to come out a couple of times yesterday to get ice and the next thing I knew it I was babysitting. The two grandchildren are already sick, and I'm guessing that I probably caught some baby cootie bug from them anyway. Saturday night they went off to visit their other grandmother (the one that buys them candy and designer clothes, and the one who has a life). Their father disappeared into the back garage to watch the Saints football game with his friends, their mother went off to work, and my youngest son and his son slept most of the day. Talk about a life. In fact the first time I saw my daughter-in-law since Thursday night was yesterday morning and we live in the same house. She mentioned something to me about her knee hurting. I've been coughing up a lung for a couple of days so she think I care about her knee. When she came home last night she was upset because her husband put the kids down for a late nap. First of all, I had to answer the door while holding her big whopper of a baby girl in my arms because she got out of the bed and wanted me. As usual she had that cell phone attached to her ear and I wondered where her keys to the door were."Your son is so damn crazy. Those kids are just going to be up all night and they have to go to school tomorrow.""You're been at work all evening and you haven't been here pulling your hair out trying to keep up with them."I think I offened her. I didn't care. Not only did I have her two but also my other 3 year old grandson. These kids can't hold anything in their hands without wasting it. They fight and argue and they can tear up hell. Yes I love them but they aren't mine. To the children of the 80's and 90's: just because your parents are still alive doesn't mean they are your built-in babysitters.Anyway in the process of dying I donned my mask, cooked dinner and mopped the kitchen and den that was sticky with macaroni, juice and whatever else they manage to spill. Babies don't care that you're sick either. Well, one of the three year olds decided to roll his truck up and down my body Saturday while I lie prone on my bed with chills. "Come play Maw Maw.""Can't. Maw Maw is sick.""You're not sick.""When was the last time you saw Maw Maw in bed in the daytime?"It took a minute or two to register. So he rolled the plastic truck over my body and head. "This should make you feel better.""What makes you think this is going to make me feel better?" I asked.He just gave me that delightful devilish smiles that is going to make some young woman swoon one day. "I'm ready to eat," he said. "I want some macaroni."It was better than Spagettio's. So I got up and fixed the macaroni. When I got back into my room he was fast asleep. It would have been adorable except for the fact that I felt faint like I was about to pass out because I was still so weak. Of course I can laugh about it now. I spent most of my young adult life writing humorous tales about raising my children, and as you can see things are still as insane as ever in my household. This blog is about all the writing I got done even though I've been home all by myself. For a writer its not what you write, its the fact that you write. So if blogging about my dysfunctional family fills my quota...so be it.
Imari Jade

Out with the Old, In with the New

I decided to get busy on the last day of 2009. I started off by printing out the two novels I just finished penning and edited one while cleaning my bedroom. I have always been a multi-tasking type of person. Sometimes this works out real well, but sometimes I fail to complete both projects because the day ends. So far I have cleaned the bathroom, mopped under my bed, washed my clothes, packed up my old comforter and drapes and replaced them with new replacements. Right now I’m putting my shoes into one of those under-the-bed space saving shoe organizers. I’ve seen it on television hundreds of times and I finally broke down and purchased one a couple of weeks ago. Don’t believe the hype. The shoes don’t fit in as neatly as they do on television. Heck, it even surprised me that I owned twelve pairs of shoes. I’m not much of a shopper and I don’t see the need to spend a fortune on shoes that I’ll only wear maybe once. I did manage to find a pair of boots I purchased last year. It’s winter again; maybe I’ll get a chance to wear them. They don’t fit into the bag so I’ll still have one shoe box hanging out in my closet. Okay, so I zipped up the bag and pushed it under the bed. Time to go on to something else.

The doorbell rang just as soon as I typed the period. It was the lawn man coming to check out my side yard. It needs a cutting and a cleaning. The side yard has been a mess for a couple of years since some contractors just left drywall out there. Rain and time has made it too heavy for one person to move. My boyfriend recommended him. Yeah, he mentioned it about a month ago and didn’t call beforehand to let me know that the man was coming. My hair is all over my head and I’m covered in dust from cleaning. Talking about making a bad first impression. Normally I wouldn’t care about what other people think of me, but since it’s one of his friends there’s a strong possibility that the two of us will meet again at some social function. The funny thing about this entire situation is that my boyfriend and three grown sons can go out and clean the yard. The problem…they’re all too damn lazy. The man’s a nag. Nope, he won’t be starring in any of my romance novels.

So I’m back to cleaning and I’m watching this countdown on BET. I’m probably going to change the channel since I don’t recognize any of these groups or singers. Football, basketball and baseball. Nope, nope and nope. Next channel. Reality shows, soap operas and Spongebob. Nope, nope and nope. House Hunters International. Bingo. I put down the remote and go on to my next project. I’m always looking for someplace to relocate in case New Orleans gets flooded off the map. I probably won’t be leaving the country but it amazes me the type of money people spend on housing. Watching this type of show also gives me idea for places to set my story in. The next one is going to be set in Argentina.

I wished I had a bigger closet. I have so much stuff crammed inside that little room it’s suffocating. I might not have a lot of shoes but I have about a zillion canvas bags and tee-shirts. I tote a canvas bag to work everyday. It comes in handy for carrying books and tablets and magazines and pens…you know writer stuff. The disadvantage of carrying a tote bag everyday, I tend to pile other things inside of them like empty gum wrappers, tissue, receipts and anything I need to bring home with me. I have every intention of filing the receipts and throwing away all the trash, but it doesn’t happen as often as I like, and it’s probably not going to happen today. It will probably be a next month project when I have the time. Right now I need to organize my anime collection. It’s getting pretty extensive. I’m trying to find an affordable locking glass case to display them in, but I haven’t found one that I like. My main goal today is to store away the ones I’ve recently viewed. Goal, I like that word. It’s the end of the year and one of my goals is not to spend so much money on anime.

Next goal…do not have so many business cards made. Life changes and now you’re stuck with a lot of outdated stuff. I plan to attend about two writing conference in 2010. I don’t think I’ll meet enough people to pass out a thousand cards. My information has changed so I’ll just buy the minimum. Okay, one trash bag full. I have to walk into the kitchen to get another one. I stopped to warm me a bowl of chili along the way. I’ve got about an hour or so left before I have to make dinner. I’m on babysitting detail tonight. While most of my friends will be out drinking and celebrating the New Year, I’ll be trapped in a house with four kids under five. Lucky for me I don’t drink.

New goal for 2010 – Find my daughter-in-law full time 8 to 5 employment. I love my kids and my grandchildren dearly but I have a life. For the last six months I have been watching babies three or four nights a week. I barely get in from work and they’re there screaming for Spagettios or fighting over toys. Those are the longest three and a half hours of my life that I could be putting to better use like rescuing one of my heroines or sleeping. Next goal, get my grown children out of my house. It’s been nearly five years since Hurricane Katrina displaced everyone. Time for them to spread their wings again and leave the nest. This includes the youngest one who wants to move to Atlanta. Go, mama will be fine. Send me a postcard every now and then. Having all these people in my house plays havoc on my private live. No wonder my boyfriend is so naggy. He has to share me with a lot of people, including publishers and editors.

Oh, well if you haven’t figure out the subject of this blog by now it’s setting goals for 2010. Someone once told me how you end the old year is what you’ll be doing in the New Year. Hopefully I won’t be still cleaning at the stroke of midnight. My last year’s goal was to get organized. I have really met it but it’s a little better now than it was. One of my goals was to clean and organize my desk. I’ve done that a couple of times but right now it looks like a disaster zone.

Okay my back hurts. That’s just nature’s way of telling me it’s time to stop the heavy work for the day. Rome wasn’t built in a day and what good is the New Year if it finds me flat on my back with slipped disc?

Happy New Year

Imari Jade

Review - Charmed and Dangerous

12/27/2009
Review – Charmed and Dangerous by Candace Havens

I was halfway through Ms. Haven’s third book when I realized that it was the third book in a series so I immediately went to Barnes and Noble and ordered book one, entitled Charmed and Dangerous because I just had to find out how this story began.

Bronwyn is a beautiful and sexy high witch with some amazing kick-ass powers, who uses her gifts to protect a British Prime Minister. Bronwyn doesn’t like mixing business with pleasure but handsome men are coming out of the woodworks as she travels to far away and exotic countries with her charge. Back home in Sweet, Texas she meets Doctor Sam, a warlock whom she doesn’t want to form a relationship with since she does not like warlocks, but she can’t deny the chemistry between them. She jets off to Norway with the Prime Minister and meets Sheik Azir. He’s tall and gorgeous with dark hair and deep brown eyes. He’s also rich and does not hesitate to provide Bronwyn with everything she needs once she decides to take him under her protection. There’s chemistry between the two of them too but she does not have time to worry about feelings at the moment since someone is trying to kill the Prime Minister and the Sheik. It doesn’t help matters much that someone is also trying to kill her. Bronwyn finds herself caught between a rock and a hard place fighting off warlocks and handsome men, while trying to help her ghostly relative Darby get back her true love.

Bronwyn has a host of magical friends who come to her aid, a female cat named Casper who hates her, and she can pilot a jet. What more can a girl ask for?

I found the book fun and refreshing and I love the way Ms. Havens uses comments to set the upcoming events at the beginning of each new scene. The book has a fast pace but Ms. Havens doesn't leave you hanging. It’s a page-turner that makes you want to know what happens next to Bronwyn just to see how she’s going to get herself out of it. I give this novel five Fleur-de-lis for excellence.