Archives for “Lori Austin”

Once upon a time this phrase was popular due to a commercial.  Alka Selzer.  I had to look that up.  I remembered the phrase but not the product.  A common complaint for me with commercials. There have been several things that I have resisted trying, thinking I would NOT like them and been pleasantly surprised [...]


I just returned from a lovely week in the Smoky Mountains with a few of my writer pals. We had a great time, especially since the sun shone and the temps were in the 80s.  I will not mention what the temps were in WI when I left.  It makes me twitch.  While I was [...]


As we’re all readers here, I’m sure we have great reading memories spread over our entire lives.  (Some lives, at this point, a lot longer than others.  Achem.) I remember my mother reading to me at night.  I’m sure she read Golden Books (remember those anyone?) because I had a ton on my shelf, but [...]


I never went on one of those wild spring break trips in college.  I was not the type to sleep in my car, live on the beach.  Let’s face it.  I was never a candidate for “Girls Gone Wild.”  My idea of a wild night is more than two glasses of vino. The very first [...]


As I sit here we are expecting 6-12 more inches of the white and fluffy.  As my yard already looks like this   I’m not happy.   The first few snowfalls are so pretty.  When the boys were small a snow day was a holiday.  (They still are, but once you aren’t in school any [...]


I could hear this song in my head but I had to go and look it up to remember who sang it.  The Miracles.  Oh yeah!  And also Linda Ronstadt. Why do I care you ask?  Because we have a new baby in the family and I am very psyched.  What is it about babies [...]


As the Superbowl this year had no green and no gold (to both mine and Karen’s heartbreak) I actually watched the commercials.  If the Packers were playing I would need the commercial breaks for important things like . . . well, you know.  But for most of the first half I could do important things [...]


I start out my mornings (sometimes in the dark) looking at these steps. It’s a bit hard to tell from this picture, but it’s four steep flights that snake between houses to take you to the next street (I live in a hilly location). Once you cross that street above, there is yet another set [...]


Now that the holiday season has passed us by (at last!!).  I have unpacked and put away the gifts and chosen my favorite.  It is my new Keurig Coffee Maker.  For years I looked at this item in stores, considered, picked it up, put it back, didn’t get it.  Rinse, repeat. I am a coffee [...]


After a long holiday season, I got to thinking about the things people ask me to bring to the table.  The actual table.  As in food.  We all know Julia gets to bring the booze. I never get to bring the booze.  But they don’t let me bring anything difficult to make either.  IV says [...]


Some authors use photos of their characters to get an image in their heads of how these people appear.  I’ve always been the type who shied away from that because I could never find exactly what was in my head in the real world. In truth, physical descriptions of my “peeps” are hard for me. [...]


MY two front teeth are intact.  (Knock wood!)  Thank you very much. What I’d really like is for those on my Christmas list to tell me what THEY want so I can buy it without exerting any brain power.  My brain power is being drained by 1871 Kansas at the moment and not available for [...]


Every year around this time I like to think about the little things I am thankful for.  NOT the big things like family, love, health, employment.  I’m very thankful for those, yes.  But there are so many little things that make life a joy, which get overlooked in the shuffle. For instance, I am very [...]


For most of my life I was quite skeptical of love at first sight.  I was never a fan of the device in novels.  I don’t think I’ve written a book where the hero and heroine are struck with the love bug, although I have used love at first sight for secondary characters and back [...]


I’ve written in a lot of genres, but I have yet to write a time travel romance.  This isn’t because I don’t like them, because I do.  A single whiff of time travel in a back cover blurb or review and I’m there.  Same thing with movies.  Planet of the Apes, Peggy Sue Got Married, [...]


Time does fly, except when you’re eagerly awaiting something. Remember when you were a kid–for some of us this is greater stretch than for others–and everything seemed to be so far away? Your next birthday.  Christmas.  Summer vacation.  High school.  Graduation.  Being legal.  Being on your own.  All seemed to be so far out of [...]


There are certain artists who shine through.  No matter what they’re doing, there’s that certain something that  makes them recognizable to others who know them well. For instance, Stephen King wrote several books as Richard Bachman.  A lot of readers read the Bachman books and saw Steve shining through. I’ve read both Nora Roberts and [...]


My family has always been big on games.  Card games.  Board games.  Head games.  Packer games.  Brewers games.  Little league, basketball, pee wee football.  You get the drill.  Games, games, games.  Wheee. As a child, one of my favorite games was SORRY.  Maybe because my grandma would play this with me whenever I asked.  And [...]


We here at the Handeland house watch a lot of television.  Hell on Wheels, Breaking Bad, True Blood, Supernatural, American Horror Story, Boardwalk Empire . . . I could go on but I’ll refrain.  Then there are our old-time favorites.  Shows we’ve watched so repeatedly we know exactly what’s going to happen but we laugh [...]


I am just back from 9 days in Anaheim at the RWA National Convention. Yes, that was NINE days.  As I’m on the board of directors I get to go early.  Whee. However, because I was there early, and we got all our homework done, I also got to go to DisneyLand.  I’d never been. [...]


I love the Internet.  Every day I find a new, cool website to add to my old favorites.  Today we’re going to share and share alike our favorite places to waste time and buy things. My newest time waster is: http://triviatoday.com/ You do have to register, but then you receive a trivia question by email [...]


One of the questions I am asked most frequently is: “Do you write about your life in your books?”  (Although lately I am asked non-stop about 50 SHADES OF GRAY.  Sigh.)  It’s always interesting to me that people would rather believe that I actually know a few werewolves than that I could construct such a disturbing [...]


Do you ever hear someone’s ringtone and wonder just who is calling them based on the song?  I suppose not everyone spends valuable time searching for the perfect ringtone to fit those people who call them often enough to warrant their own tone.  But I do.  I like to know who’s calling without having to [...]


I suppose I’m dating myself by this title.  Those of us who remember the old commercial with the song “Who wears short shorts?  We wear short shorts.  If you dare wear short shorts, NAIR for short shorts,” are women of a certain age.  Show of hands.  Who used NAIR? At any rate, I’m not talking [...]


In the US we have arrived at the first big weekend of summer–Memorial Day. Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday of May.  Originally called Decoration Day, this holiday was begun to honor the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War.  In the 20th century it was expanded to remember all the fallen. Many [...]