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posted online at Running With Quills May
1, 2008
Mother's Day Blowout!
Have we got a contest for you!! Well, actually,
it's not so much a contest as it is a drawing. But
the Quill Sisters are in the mood to talk Mums — and
I'm not talking flowers here. So from now until Mother's
Day everyone who posts in response to our posts will
be entered for a chance to win. And wouldja...lookit...
All
That
Loot!!!
Yes, my pretties, everything you see here can be yours. Why,
you'll think it's Christmas, Momma's Day and your birthday all
rolled into one when these babies start rolling in. (The mailman
is gonna LUV you. Or maybe hate you--there's a lot of stuff,
it could go either way) We've got books, books, a bag to carry
them in, more books, a tee to wear while reading them, books
and...did I mention books? All personally inscribed to you, natch.
So come on out of lurkdom and join the fun. You might be very
glad you did.
Susan's sweet baby boy and strawberry waffles
Oddly enough, this isn't a story of my mother but about me.
(And yes, I can hear those of you who know me well saying, yeah,
yeah, isn't it always?) But becoming a mom was a very big deal
for me. It took me several years to get pregnant. We went through
a battery of tests, ingested fertility drugs, took temperatures
on a Basal thermometer and had sex on a schedule. (sucks the
joy right out of the act, lemme tell you) When my OB-GYN ran
out of procedures and ideas, he sent me to the University of
Washington's Fertility clinic.
The doctor who did the original workup was on an
Endocrinology Fellowship from Ireland. So when he
found a lump in my throat, everything fertility related came
to a screeching halt. Turned out I had a cancerous growth on
my thyroid. That was in December and I went home pissed off and
discouraged. Which pretty much shows how young I was (25) because
I wasn't as concerned with the fact that I probably had cancer
as I was that they hadn't finished the tests. I decided then
and there that I didn't need a baby, that we had each other,
Steve was back in college, we had a mortgage and a dog and I
was looking at weeks, if not months of tests, surgery and recovery — and
that was more than enough.
 You
can see this one coming, right? Because having decided
this, the next month I began waking up sicker 'n
a dog and, yep, I was pregnant. So the Mother's day
before our sweet baby boy was even born, the soulmate made me
strawberry waffles for breakfast — a tradition that endures
to this day.
(I love this pic. It was taken the day we brought
our baby home from the hospital, then discovered 27 years later
when we took the mantle off the fireplace. It's usually pinned
to my bulletin board in my office)
We aren't talking Eggos — he
makes his own waffles, combines fresh and frozen
strawberries and whips up the highest fat cream in
the universe. And, oh, mama, it is to die for. (Our
son is a chef--I think he got his abilities more
from his dad than from me) In the thirty-three years
since that first Mother's Day breakfast, we've only
missed our time-honored strawberry waffles once — and
that was because the soulmate was on a three month
start up on Ascension Island in the middle of the
Atlantic and my son had to work.
So how about you? Have any Mother's Day traditions?
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posted online at Running With Quills April
20, 2008
What year was it?
The year I graduated from high school was a tumultuous year
in history.
I was in the senior activity center kind of flirting
with this black athlete from another school when we heard Robert
Kennedy was assassinated. Martin Luther King had been assassinated
earlier in the year and I thought the world was getting to be
a very crazy place.
Laugh In and The
Smothers Brothers Show cracked me up. The
Graduate was different than any movie I'd ever seen and its Simon and
Garfunkle songtrack just blew me away. Bonnie
and Clyde showed
every minute twitch and jerk of the bodies being riddled with
bullets with all its accompanying blood splatter. (To this day,
I'd rather see the hokey slap of a hand to the wound when a character
gets shot and the victim staggering around unconvincingly than
watch the impact of the bullets hitting bodies)
A boy named Steve Cameron read The Catcher In The Rye with the
book barely open because he loved the cover and didn't
want to crack the spine. We argued that one to a
standstill as I did NOT understand how he could sacrifice
the reading experience to preserve a stupid cover.
 The
Beatles dominated the charts but I played Otis Redding's Dock
of the Bay until I wore out the record. Seattle's Jimi Hendrix
was jailed in Stockholm for trashing his hotel room.
(Lots of rockstars seems prone to that. Never got it)
Pantyhose
had been invented but they were sort of one size
fits all, so we still wore garters.
The Viet Cong
launched the Tet Offensive and American soldiers
massacred civilians at Mai Lai. Students protested
the war in the streets, staged sit ins and took over college
administration buildings. I was conflicted because I truly didn't
believe in the war. But I was a middle class American girl who
did believe in the soldiers. I knew people, had lost people to
that war, and the soul mate who was my boyfriend at the time
had been drafted into the Army (and would be shipped to Nam the
following year).
Feminists protested the Miss America contest,
protestors died in the Democratic Convention riot
in Chicago, Baltimore burned.
And I struggled to grow
up.
Man, this is way too easy, but what year was it?
And what happened the year you graduated high school
or college or perhaps another eventful time in your life?
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posted
online at Running With Quills April 3, 2008
Here comes da sun!
Last Friday was my wedding anniversary. As the soulmate and
I boarded a train for Portland for a mini getaway, it was snowing.
Snowing, for heaven's sake! So close to April 1st it makes no
nevermind.
This has been the craziest year for weather. I've seen atypical
temps and weather patterns all over the nation.
 But Spring has come to Seattle!!
Finally.
At last.
'Bout time.
I love the seasons in this town. Love
them all. I have a genuinely tough time deciding
which I like best.
Still, it's hard to beat Spring
with all its flowers.
Not to mention sunshine. Man,
am I grateful to see that again! I thought for sure
it had forsaken our part of the world for ever and
ever, amen. But it's back (if only for a short while) and everything
looks so clean and bright, instead of gray and dismal. The greens
are such a clear, tender hue, and the air is filled with fresh
scents. My Daphne Odora (or maybe its Adora) is budding and Lordy
does it smell divine. Our ancient lilac tree will be in bloom
in about a month. Already I look forward to stepping outside
the lower back door and simply breathing deeply.
How about your
part of the world ? Has winter finally (at
last. 'bout
time) lost its grip? And what's your favorite season?
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posted online at Running With Quills March
20, 2008
A new cover as stand-in for my
brain
 My
cat Mojo is a big fan of bathtubs and sinks. When he's in my
tub upstairs, he often spins in circles trying to catch a glimpse
of his own shadow, which I imagine he sees out of the corners
of his eyes.
That's what I've been doing this week--spinning
in circles, chasing my own shadow. You ever have times like that?
Mine was mostly due to work. The soulmate's out of
town on a job, I've had my nose seriously to the grindstone and
everything else has fallen by the wayside. I sat down early Monday
morning and swear I didn't look up again until Wednesday afternoon
when I realized I'd forgotten to check in here and so had missed
out on Christina's blog. That bummed me out, let me tell you.
But then I got sucked back into the story and just came up for
air a minute ago.
 Only to realize it's my turn to blog. (You don't want to know
the word that came out of my mouth.)
Okay, the above timetables may be a wee bit exaggerated, but
it definitely felt like days had lapsed while I wasn't paying
attention. So because my brain is toast, I'm posting my new cover
for Cutting Loose (Coming to a bookstore near you July
29th).
This is Book One of my new Sisterhood Diaries Trilogy, which
features three BFFs who inherit a notoriously ugly Seattle mansion.
Tell me what you think.
And I hate to look like the absentminded professor all alone.
So do a weary writer a favor, would you? Share some of your own
less than brilliant moments.
I'll love ya forever for it.
~Susan
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posted online at Running With Quills March
11, 2008
We interrupt this regularly scheduled
reading. . .
...To let you know that Susan is now on MySpace.
Stop by and add yourself as her friend at myspace.com/susan_andersen
Hope to see you there! ~Susan
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posted
online at Running With Quills March 7, 2008
Elliot thinks I'm fancy
My great-nephew Elliot loves Olivia the pig books.
The one he's into right now is all about opposites. And apparently
my fondness for makeup is evident even to a two year old, because
everytime he comes to this page, he points at fancy Olivia and
says, "Susie!"
 Okay,
I admit it. I'm one of those women who prefers not to leave the
house without lipstick. Mascara's right up there on my list,
too, along with Carmex to tame my eyebrows. But hey, I don't
wear pearls like Olivia. Or big red bows around my ears. (Girl,
that's just tacky. Love the shoes, though) And I haven't gone
topless since I was three.
Still, I'm a fool for cosmetics. I love the look,
the feel, the smell... the promise. Now, I consider myself an
intelligent, reasonably grounded woman. I know my limitations
in the beauty department. I have zero interest in Botox and no
one's putting this girl under general anesthesia to take a scalpel
to my face. But for a few bucks and no blood spilled you can
do amazing things with a little mineral foundation and a stick
of cream blush. If makeup doesn't precisely hide a multitude
of sins it at least mutes them a little.
 The soulmate and BBF Mimi like to make fun
of my dresser in the bathroom. And I admit, the thing's loaded
with way more crap than one woman needs since I'm not always
great about thinning out the rejects. But I'm an experimenter
by nature and I've discovered some great stuff along the way.
Jane Iredale cosmetics, especially their Sugar and Butter lip
treatment. Cargo blu_ray compact of four lip glosses (seeing
a trend here?) With this little beauty you can customize your
lip color. I usually have oily skin but this winter it got
really dry and I discovered La Roche-Posay Nutritic, which
was great. It healed the dryness without leaving a greasy sheen.
So, Elliot (at the Whaletail) will probably continue seeing
me in lipstick and mascara on our Friday morning walks. But how
about the rest of you? If makeup bores you silly, what does shake
your tambourine? What do you have a lust-on for that friends
and lovers just don't get?
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posted online at Running With Quills February
21, 2008
Fresh meat! Er, that is, a guest
in our abode.
Hey, y'all. Today we have a guest blogger. I'm
not as yet personally familiar with Kathryn
Caskie's
books, but I love Regency historicals, so I'm penciling
her in at the top of my Gotta Check It Out list.
Kathryn is the USA Today Bestselling author of seven
Regency-set historical romances. Her upcoming release
for Avon Books, How to Propose to a Prince, will
be in stores next Tuesday (February 26th). She lives
in Virginia in a 200 year old house with her family,
including two neurotic Border Collies, a Chihuahua
with a Napoleon complex and two cats inclined to
ignore them all.
 Please join me in welcoming her. Take it away, Kathy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for inviting me to come blog on Running
with Quills. You are all queens of romance in my book and I
feel like a fan girl to be in your cyber presence.
Is it just an author thing, or when anyone
meets a couple for the first time, does he or she feel compelled
to ask "So,
how did you two meet?"
I love to hear stories of how someone came to be with the love
of his or her life. You'd be surprised, too, at the number of
time some element of someone's first meeting made its way into
my books. Sure, I make it a little more dramatic and fun, but
the essence of someone's story is usually at its core.
That is, until I wrote the first chapter of my February 26th
release for Avon Books, How to Propose to a Prince. Made it all
up. I was convinced that there was no way on God's green earth
this would happen in real life. The chapter is posted on my site
KathrynCaskie.com so you can read it for yourself.
 In my story, Elizabeth Royle, has had prophetic dreams her entire
life--but only about half come true. But when the man she knows
she will marry steps straight out of her dreams and into her
life, she knows for certain they are destined to marry. Never
mind that he is Prince Leopold, and is in London to woo Prince
Charlotte. She knows Fate is on her side.
But, you know, the chapter hadn't been posted for two days before
I received an email from a woman who read the excerpt and was
startled by the similarities. She said that for years before
she met her now husband, she had had dreams about meeting him.
She knew what the man she would marry looked like, she even saw
the house where they would one day live. And here is the kicker--it
turned out, when they finally did meet, that he had been dreaming
of her too. They have been married for decades now.
Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?
Tell us the story of how you and your significant other met.
Then, tell us what you think. Is there a special someone out
there meant for of each us?
Prizes are to be had for the best stories or observations (signed
books for readers, or a critique of the first ten
pages of the winners manuscript for aspiring authors--add AA
to start of your post if you are interested in the critique,
please.)
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posted online at Running With Quills February
7, 2008
If the ski boot fits...
Sorry I haven't been around much lately. Last week was our annual
ski trip and I ran around beforehand getting ready and have been
chasing my tail ever since trying to catch up. I look forward
to this trip every year--its four days of good friends (there
are nine of us) good food (waaay too much junk food-- all that
yummy stuff I ordinarily at least try to stay away from) and,
of course, skiing.
We go to the Mazama Ranch House in the Methow Valley
in northeastern Washington State, and at the best of times it's
a six hour drive once you factor in stopping to eat, taking bathroom
breaks and getting coffee. (And trust me, those last two are
big factors. The standing joke is that the soulmate knows where
 every Starbucks is--and I know the location of every bathroom
in the state). This year our area has been hit with record breaking
snowfall and a pass that we usually take was closed due to a
series of avalanches. So we took an alternate route and I won't
bore you with what an ordeal that turned out to be. I will say, however,
it took us ten hours to reach Mazama.
But like childbirth, I forgot the pain as soon as I got there.
Because--I know, big surprise to those of you who know me--I'm
a cross-country skiing fool.
(Here's my friend Martha and me in front of the ranch house.
I'm betting she's lovin' this pic, because her shadow almost
makes her look tall :)
This sport is my drug of choice. It's quiet and oh-so beautiful
out on the trails. You use your own body rather than gravity
to move, and that keeps you warm. But X-country also throws in
 some downhill action for the always fun cheap thrill.This year
we mixed things up a little, too, which was fun. The ranch house
is a ski-in/ski-out establishment. I love that, because you don't
have to drive anywhere; you can simply throw on your skis and
take off. But it also limits you to the 40 k of trails around
you when there's 220 in the system. So instead of going shopping
with the women after driving the guys up to Sun Mountain to do
the ten mile series of trails down to Winthrop, I decided to
ski with the men instead. The last mile and a half kicked my
butt, but the rest was great, even my spectacular wipe-out on
a U turn at the bottom of a longish hill, which resulted with
me on my back with a gallon of snow up my shirt. Another day
we took a long, partly riverside trail that I've only been on
once. And we started from the opposite end. It was fun putting
a different spin on the same old pattern and stepping out of
my rut.
Give me a twenty degree sunny day with freshly groomed trails
and a couple of friends to share it with and I'm a happy girl.
That's Martha's husband Gary. I loved the birch trees on this
trail.
What makes you smile and feel at one with the world? Is it a
person, a hobby or sport? Tell me. I love hearing about the things
that give you all peace and happiness.
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posted
online at Running With Quills January 30, 2008
Stella is... A Marked Man!
Susan: Okay, so she's a woman and her book title is A
Marked Man. Sue me, I took literary license. But y'all didn't tune in
to read me. You want to hear about this book! So without further
ado, Heeeeeere's Stella.! Hey, girl. How was New Orleans last
week?
 Stella: Amazing–it’s always amazing.
That city reminds me of a really good stew filled with the
best and most unexpected ingredients.
Susan: What a luscious description. It’s
obvious you love setting your stories there.
Stella: New Orleans has had more influence
on me than any other city I’ve explored–including some I lived in for
a long time. The moment I set foot in the French Quarter I feel
I’ve arrived in the middle of a carnival, or in an old,
French fairground. Not that I’m unaware of the seamy side
of the city and the problems, but every city has those elements.
It’s just that in New Orleans everything is more colorful,
louder maybe, like looking through a kaleidoscope with sound.
Nothing stays still for long yet I can sit back, watch, and soak
up the whole thing. When I come away I see memories in my mind
and they’re all really neon. New Orleans is drama, and
drama is great story stuff.
 Susan: Do you like the cover for A Marked Man? It sure looks
marvelous on the stands.
Stella: I’m so pleased with this cover. There’s
the seething atmosphere of the bayou country, but
the human images are sensual. This is a steamy, sensual, suspenseful
book. Yes, I think this is the right cover for the story.
Susan: But it’s what's between the covers
that we’re
really dying to hear about. So dish! Share a few
sound bites about A Marked Man with us.
Stella: “Just the facts, Ma’am
:)”
Susan: No,
no, feel free to embellish.
Stella: Annie Duhon is a fighter who has
made her own breaks. She has worked her way from high-school
dropout and victim of abuse, to achieving her dream. She is
the manager of Pappy’s,
Toussaint’s most popular place to dance and eat.
Confidence has been hard won and it isn’t
easy for her to accept the obvious interest of Max Savage,
a successful plastic surgeon. Is this incredible man in her
life too good to be true?
Behind the public Max is the secret Max who
was twice accused of murdering women and twice acquitted for
lack of evidence. Legally, he is an innocent man. And Annie
might never have had reason to doubt–or fear–him if another woman wasn’t
missing, feared dead, right here and now in the middle of Annie’s
exciting new world.
Max is a marked man who has unwittingly attracted
danger to anyone he’s cared about. Now he loves Annie, and knows
with chilling certainty that he faces one last chance to unmask
a killer before there’s nothing left to fight for.
Susan: This is such a fabulous book!!! I
gobbled up every word and wanted more. I’ll be waiting
for the next book in the Toussaint series.
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