Heather Rae Scott

Okay, so while my trip to Kansas was almost free to me, that isn’t what this post is going to be about. It’s going to be about the friendships and bonds writers create virtually and then face to face.  I have a lot of friends in my area that are so very supportive of my writing and I cannot thank them enough, so this is not to take away from them in any way, shape or form. A few of them, including my mom have helped me try to brainstorm stories.

With all that said, there’s absolutely nothing like getting together with people who truly get you. They too have voices in their heads, stories that need to get out and they understand how rewarding, frustrating and solitary writing can be. And sometimes even though you might talk to them every week–sometimes more, there’s nothing better than sitting down and having a face to face.

I had the oppurtunity to do that last weekend with two lovely women whom I think the world of, Sunny Cole and Carla Cassidy.  Mostly, we talked about our families, changes afoot with moves and kids leaving the nests, but we also talked about writing and Carla helped me to flesh out this story a little bit more that I’ve been working on.

I also made some new friends, who I hope will drop me an email or come to the boards so we can chat over there. Although, Kari might not want too. I think we were both peeing our pants in the parking lot of Cinzetti’s when this Mastiff poked his head out to say hello to Carla and then Sunny. I missed Carla’s interaction. For those of you who don’t know, I have a very distinctive laugh. My brother claims I have mad-jackass-disease. Kari? She sounds like an honest to God, witch. She cackles and when she’s really going, she snorts. So, with the two of us, it sounded like a Witch had dropped in on a barn and there were people doubled over in the parking lot.

With that, I’m going to share a couple of pictures and open up Word to uh, put some words in it.

Sunny and I at Cinzetti’s and Carla and I before I left her house.  

Last Friday I embarked on a new adventure. I was leaving the family for the first time in a couple of years, getting on a plane and heading to Kansas City to speak to some ladies and a couple of gents about what it is that I do working from home on eHarlequin.com.  I love to fly, so I wasn’t really nervous about that, I was however worried slightly about security. This was the first time I hadn’t checked a bag and security and I have a love/hate relationship because well, I’m the one who always gets checked and rechecked because apparently, cute little me looks like a terrorist or danger to the other passengers. But this time, I got through security without so much as a pat down and when I posted something similar on FaceBook, the best comment left was:  “Next time wear clothes.” 

The wonderfully talented Carla Cassidy welcomed me into her home. She and her husband picked me up at the airport and the fun began.  Carla has written over a hundred books and you should check her out if you’re into heart-pounding romantic suspense. Seriously, you should!

We had some down time before Sunny, my dear friend and Gretchen, my new mother-hen and saving grace for this trip as far as anything technical joined us. They were a bit early, so we left to go eat earlier at a fabulous Mexican restaurant called Abuelo’s. We ate until we could eat no more. Then we went back to Carla’s to do what women do best—talk!  I love and adore my friends here, I do. And they humor me a lot when I talk about writing or books, but there’s nothing like getting with like-minds who really understand where you’re coming from. I haven’t had that in a while. I mean, I get it on the phone with my buddies, but being able to sit around a kitchen table and talk shop is priceless.

Saturday, I got up, got showered, got dressed and out the door we went to a nice little place called Waid’s for breakfast. There were about ten or more members from MARA who came. I know I won’t remember all of their names, but they were lovely and so were the conversations during breakfast. I met Elisabeth Burke, who is a finalist in the Golden Heart and had hoped to meet Heather Snow, who is also a finalist, but she wasn’t there.

After breakfast we drove the community building where MARA has their meetings and I sat through their meeting. They seem to have a lot going on and there were twenty-three members who attended and two visitors. Nerves were starting to get the best of me a little, but thanks to Sunny misplacing my camera, it took away from what I was there to do and when the time came, I just did it—with chocolate.

It’s a damned good feeling when you’re speaking and watching the room and you see smiles, you see inspiration, you see people taking notes and then finally when they rose their hands to ask a question based on what you’re talking about. It’s also awesome to have to be cut short because you’ve run out of time and people are still asking questions as you walk out the door and continue too at the restaurant. Laugh? OMG! I never laughed so hard in my life at Cinzetti’s, an Italian restaurant that has strictly buffets. I’ve decided that this area needs BOTH of these places, and I’m wondering why we don’t have them now.

So, I think my trip went extremely well and I think that I was nervous for absolutely nothing. I want to thank MARA—I can’t thank them enough for their hospitality and graciousness. To Sunny, thank you for setting this up and for Carla, for allowing me to be a guest in her home and for being so kindhearted.

I have a very good and legitimate excuse as to why I haven’t been blogging.

There aren’t enough hours in the day. And when I sit down in the evenings to blog, well, I forget anything that isn’t a whine-fest. Or I haven’t been able to figure out how to say what I want too without swearing–a lot. There’s been ups and downs, drama and trauma…I have teenagers and an eleven-year-old–need I say more?

And with all that I mentioned above, I’ve completed two editor pitches this month and created a presentation which I’ll be giving this weekend *gulps* in Kansas City, Kansas to MARA–an RWA group on what it is that I do exactly online and why they should check out www.eharlequin.com and the editor pitches that I coordinate. ( Holy runon Batman!)

I’m nervous as all get out. I haven’t spoke publicly in front of a large crowd for awhile and when I did, I had back up. I break out in blotches, I trip over my tongue when my brain goes too fast and I’ve been known to roll my eyes (at myself) and I fidget with rings, necklaces…but once I relax, I’m golden. It’s the same with singing. I worry I’m going to bore people to tears, that my humor won’t come across, that even though I know I can speak pretty well that I’ll end up sounding like Ben Stein or Steven Wright.

I’ve started packing, which is an achievement. I’ve printed handouts and stapled them. I have a Powerpoint slide ready to go and I just hope that I can hook this baby up to a projector or else, I’ll be flipping the screen so that everyone can look at it from my laptop.

I’m also excited because I haven’t been to a conference in forever and while this isn’t one, I’m going to be around other authors and writers and I get to talk ‘shop’ with others who totally get me and I get out of here! Which is always a plus and I desperately need a break from the everyday mundane things. But not without worrying because the oldest works and someone has to take him to work. My daughter is in the school musical, so I’ve been the taxi to afterschool practices. I don’t mind this. But she’ll possibly want to go skating and so will the youngest and my bathroom is still tore up! Was almost hoping a small miracle would occur and I’d come home to a finished bathroom, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Hopefully I’ll have some Adventures With Rae to post…or Forest Rae Moments when I come back. Have to reconfigure how to tweet things from the cell phone and then hook up Twitter to my main blog page.

Any tips to share about speaking in front of a large group? I don’t want to picture a bunch of women in their underwear, so don’t give me that one.

I hope you’re all humming along to Richard Marx. If you’re not then you can cuss me out because you’re now humming the song.

We live in an old house. It has lots of character or else we wouldn’t have bought it, plus the price was right at the time and we saw the tremendous potential in it. From the outside, it almost reminds you of a cottage because it’s dwarfed by two-two story homes. Ours is a Cape Cod.

When I saw My Guy with the tape measure last week, tool belt wrapped around his waist, glint in his eye, I too got excited. It meant he’d figured out the bathroom and who can resist a man wearing a tool belt? He got up Saturday and set out to work. He shut the door. I heard demolition noises and I got even more excited. I was so excited in fact, for lack of a better adjective this morning, that I grabbed my friend Becky to help us remove the four foot cast iron and porcelain tub from the bathroom.  The three of us managed to get it out of the bathroom, out the back door and down the deck steps where the tub is now sitting underneath the deck. Anyone want a tub? $200 or best offer. It’s in awesome shape, just needs refinished. You haul cuz, well, my butt can’t do that again!

So, that’s the first Shoulda known better. I shouldn’t have lifted it. But you see, I have tunnel vision. In this case it’s Office Space. *cue Star Wars theme* I have no strength in my wrists and well, my hands are still hurting, but dammit, like a spot, I wanted it out! And it’s out.

The problem is, it’s an old house. An old house with an old addition that serves no purpose. There’s no floor plan and in order to get a floor plan more walls need to come down and need rebuilt. It’s a mess and I just want to throw my hands up and sell this place. However, we can’t sell it without a bathroom so we be screwed. Hoping My Guy has an ephinany while at work today and comes home and tells me we don’t have to spend a million dollars and that it’ll all be done in a snap.

…and then I drank the coffee that finally brewed and woke up!

What about you? Any remodeling disasters?

We’ve lived in our house for almost 10 years. In that time, we’ve redone rooms one at a time. We left the bathroom, kitchen and my office space that has a cheap shower stall in it. I’m going to make Mark sit in the tub because it’s very hard to describe just how tiny it is and before we put up the shower stall, we all took baths in the old claw foot and made the best of it. I’ve been waiting as patiently as I can for my office space. Some days, when I get really frustrated searching for something that I know the kids have moved, I’m pretty vocal about having my own space. Others, I’m more subtle. Today, I’m joyous because soon it’ll be a reality. I’ll have my space back!

It’s going to be frustrating though because we only have the one bathroom. It’s also going to be dirty and messy because it’s an old house that had coal fireplaces in every room. Ya know what that means, right? Lots and lots of dirt! I keep telling myself in a Dory from Nemo voice to the tune of ‘Just keep swimming’. “It’ll be worth it, It’ll be worth it.”

Here’s a before….it’s pretty pathetic, yes? Can’t wait to show you afters!

Happy March! Or not. haha Okay so there are some highlights but with the sweet, always comes the sour.  I have a lot to do this month, almost too much.  I have two editor pitches, if you’re interested in writing for Silhouette Desire or Harlequin Medicals, then head on over to The Write Stuff and check them out. You still have time. And if you can’t make the pitch, that’s okay. You’re welcome to come to the live one-hour moderated editor chats with editors of the lines an hour before each pitch session.

I’ll be traveling to Kansas City at the end of the month to talk to Mararwa about the benefits of the eHarlequin.com community, so I have a presentation to work on. I’m uber excited about this trip and nervous all at the same time. It’ll be so nice to catch up with like-minded people–not that I don’t adore everyone around me. But there’s something about being around a bunch of writers that always stirs the creative juices.

The sour? My mom is selling her house. Her closing date? The same day I leave for KC. Nice, huh? She’s a widow and my brother is going to take her in until she finds a place, but she has years worth of stuff to go through to decide what she wants to keep and what needs to go. The good news is that my brother has enough friends with trucks and good backs that he can move her stuff into storage and into his house rather quickly and efficently. It’s just going to be getting her to that point and I’m not sure with my day job, evening job and kids if I can give her the support that she needs right now. She hasn’t complained, mind you, but you can hear it in her voice–you know, that mom tone that niggles? Yup, that’d be the one.

So, as per usual, my blog will probably suffer this month. Then again, it might not. What about you? Is your March coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion or the opposite?