Sammie my Fashion Friday columist is unfortunately still busy — BUSY PACKING FOR OUR TRIP TO ROME!

So, this is only kind of a Fashion Friday column as I’m going to take you to the home of Fashion Week in New York — Bryant Park.

When I was growing up it used to be called Needle Park because of all the drug dealers and prostitutes that worked the park.
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I had been bouncing back and forth about what the theme for Thursday should be and decided it would be Thoughtful Thursday, namely discussions on things of a little more serious nature.

Today’s discussion is something we started talking about earlier — What’s a man?

There were so many common themes in that discussion, but it was clear that “a man” was someone who walked beside you and not over you; who held your hand (or kept your head out of the bowl) when you were sick; who supported you.

Using all that criteria, it seems to me in my humble opinion that John Edwards is not “a man”.
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Yes, we are going to be talking about Wicked Sexy today so for those of you under 17 or who are possibly not interested in a walk along the edgier side of life, READ NO FURTHER.

As for the rest of you . . .
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Today’s Tuesday Tip comes from Marta Acosta. I’ve been exchanging e-mails with Marta who is the author of Happy Hour at Casa Dracula. Happy Hour at Casa Dracula was a Book Sense Pick and Catalina Magazine’s Best Humor Book of 2006.

In April, Marta is releasing Midnight Brunch which continues the wildly comic adventures of Milagro de los Santos, Fancy University graduate who lives with a family of urbane vampires.

Marta was kind enough to offer some tips on writing humor, so here goes!
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Thanks to Nisha for pointing out the similarity between Diego on the cover of BLOOD CALLS (actually model Alex Valente) and Cuban-American cutie Eddie Cibrian — this Monday’s Guilty Pleasure!

What do you think?
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It’s one of those lazy, but not lazy Sundays. I’ve already been up since six, working on some revisions. I need to get going on creating promos for RT — fun ones, I hope. For those of you attending RT, make sure to get to the goody table so you can be one of the contestants in my on location RT contests. The grand prize winner will get a COMPLETE collection of all of THE CALLING Novels and all of my CHICAS novels, plus MORE THAN A MISSION.

What else is up with me? Here goes, but tell me what’s up with you on a typical Sunday?
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Unfortunately, my Fashion Friday columnist Sammie is on hiatus. Sammie has been busy working on a project for a FCCLA meeting she’s attending as we speak. So instead, here’s a little something I had written for a short story contest.

By the way, the story is true and really one that touches me because it speaks to the honesty of people and the enduring bonds of friendship.
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To get a sneak peek at the next three which will be out in 2008,
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Wicked is vampire bites. Wicked is exploring 50 Ways to Please Your Lover. Wicked is research that takes you beneath the covers. Wicked is food that entices the senses and enhances your pleasure.

What do you think is wicked?
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Easter is a toss-up holiday in my family and where we spend it depends on who asks us first! If we go to my sister’s, we have a baked ham and other goodies as well as an Easter Egg hunt, even if the kids are all in their teens. They still love it. Sometimes the neighborhood kids will join in as well and it’s a blast. We give the little ones a head start so they can grab the eggs off the lawn.

If we go to my husband’s family, it’s Italian fare with an assortment of traditional goodies, like a delicious egg bread that has colored whole eggs baked into it.

What kinds of things do you do for Easter?
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Okay I have a confession to make. I’ve been a Bond fan since I was a young child. I read all the Ian Fleming novels and watched every movie — even the awful Timothy Dalton ones and dare I say, some of the really really awful Pierce Brosnan ones. (I forgive the latter since I fell in love with Brosnan in The Manions of America and of course, Remington Steele.)

I loved the suspense and spy stuff, but I think in the back of my head, I was hoping Bond would stop being a dog and find true love.

Anyway, when I heard they were looking for new Bond, I thought — tough shoes to fill. But dare I say this new Bond is . . . amazing. Absolutely hot and perfect for the role. What do you think?
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Whoa, you say. Who’s the Celt? You? Aren’t you Cuban?

Yes, I was born in Cuba, but my grandparents — all of them — were from the province of Galicia in the north of Spain. Galicia is a Celtic nation!

The language in that part of Spain is Gallego and it’s very similar to Portuguese, but also sounds quite a bit like Gaelic if you ask me.

Gallegos also use bagpipes, but a Gallego bagpipe has a different number of reeds inside of it.

Gallegos are oftentimes fair-skinned. I have lots of distant cousins who are red-haired and green-eyed. I get my green eyes from this side of the family. My dad’s side traces its roots to the Romans who conquered the region.

So Happy St. Pat’s from this distant Celt!

I loved that we could all share those funny mishaps on the Ides of March. I picked some winners at random from everyone who made comments and decided we were going to have a few extra winners!

The Winner of all the autographed books is:

Also, the following people are winners of CALLING T-shirts:

Congrats to all of you! Please send me an e-mail to cpsromance@att.net with a postal address where I can send your prizes. On the t-shirts, please specify L or XL.

Thanks again for your comments! They were a blast.

Here’s what the Village Voice has to say about the TV show I’m taping on Sunday, March 18th:

So what’s this all about? Is it really a trap to get you unsuspecting readers in for a bite or are we really filming a TV show?
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It’s March 15th and time for my Ides of March Contest!

Remember poor Julius Caesar and what happened to him on the Ides? Well, did you have a day where nothing went right? Or is there a moment where you were embarrassed beyond all belief?

Tell us a little bit about it today by midnight EST (or just drop by and leave a comment) and you could win the following:

DARKNESS CALLS (UK edition) autographed by Caridad
DREAMS AND DESIRES anthology autographed by Lois Winston
KISSES TO GO autographed by Irene Peterson
OVER THE MOON autographed by Virginia Kantra
TWO WEEKS WITH A STRANGER autographed by Debra Mullins

To get you all started, here’s one of my most embarrassing moments!
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What wicked things do I have for you today? It could be a deleted bit from a novel or a never-seen-before wickedly new scene. It could also be something wicked which tickles my funny bone, like this totally fun link that Deb Maher, one of my NJRW buddies, was kind enough to pass on.

What’s this link all about? Does this give you a clue?
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As I mentioned yesterday, Tuesdays will be Tip Tuesdays! Every Tuesday, look for tips on writing, cooking or whatever else may strike my fancy or yours. Have something you’d like to see? Maybe a tip about websites or other things? Feel free to let me know.

For today, a special blog for my Edison B&N Writing Group who is sweating the query letter (don’t we all?) Thanks to my friend and fellow author — Lois Winston — for contributing these tips.
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It’s Monday and we’re all wishing we had another day left to the weekend. Plus, we lost an hour thanks to this new daylight savings time, making it even harder to get up.

So if you indulged in some Guilty Pleasures on Monday, would it make the day easier to start? If yes, then check out this Monday’s Guilty Pleasures candidate.
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I’ve spent the morning writing and researching for my holiday vampire anthology. Why researching? Well, the hero, Hadrian, is a vampire who dates back to 303 A.D and Rome. There are one or two flashback scenes to that time and so I’ve been trying to get a sense for what Rome might have been like at that time and what Hadrian might have been doing during the Christmas season.

Christmas season? Well, the fun part about this “Bah, humbug” holiday vampire anthology is exploring the pagan traditions that have contributed to our Christmas customs. In particular, I’m focusing on the Roman customs (some of them deriving from Egyptian festivals) which have shaped our Christmas holiday.

Of course, online research can only give you so much info. So what’s a girl to do?
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My sister and I headed to Philly for the annual Flower Show today. We took a friend with us who had never been there and we had a great time. The show was very busy today, though. More people than in the past few years.

We toured the displays and they were mobbed. The theme this year was Legends of Irelend as you may be able to guess from these photos. We walked around for a few hours, grabbed a quick bite in Reading Terminal and then returned to the show to buy a few things.

If you love gardens and flowers and are in the area, you really should try to get to the show.

Click here to see this year’s photos!

So I was busy surfing the net and ran across an entry by Alex Valente about his appearance on the cover of BLOOD CALLS. Here’s a link to his site (http://www.alexvalente.com) and one of the pictures on the site down below. Pretty hunky, don’t you think? Plus, he’s really nice. I e-mailed about using the picture and he answered right away and was quite nice.

Is this how you pictured Diego (originally in TEMPTATION CALLS, now the hero in BLOOD CALLS)?
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