I owe a huge apology to all my adoring fans/readers out there - did you miss me when I didn’t blog last week? Of course, I have a wonderful excuse. We didn’t have internet access in PA like we did the last time we were up on “The Property.” It took a while to get it figured out, and by that time, you were all enjoying our lovely Tasha and that was that. I promise to write any future blogs ahead of time if I expect to be away from the home fires.

Sorry.

Forgive me?

In addition to no internet, we had no snow. It’s hard to go skiing without snow. I learned that last week. Actually, despite the mid-50 degree weather (and we’re talking zone 5/6 in January for all you gardeners out there) there was some snow - man-made snow - at both of the ski resorts close to us. There were also a lot of brown patches. And mud. Lots of mud.

What I also had lots of was time to sit around the woodstove and edit Taking the Village. (Check out the first chapter that was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger here). If you tuned in to Laura’s post on Tuesday, you may have seen my DECISION (NOT resolution) to have Taking the Village finito by the end of January. In pursuit of that goal, I have only one new scene to write and a couple of plot points to strengthen. I also have a hot dinner date with a homicide detective lined up for next week.

Don’t get all excited. First, she’s a lady. Second, my husband will be chaperoning (paying for dinner). So it will be a threesome.

What? That’s gotten you more excited? Down, bad doggie, down!

Really, I’m kind of nervous. I mean, I have two hours worth of stupid questions. Little nit-picky boring questions. What will she think of me?

Then I got an idea. Maybe I could pass off some of the questions as coming from others. That is, I could say, “So, I have this friend who was wondering…” And then I thought you all might actually have some good questions, some interesting questions, some mind-bogglingly insightful and intelligent questions.

So, shoot. I’ll ask her anything. Or, at least anything that won’t set my husband to blushing across the table. Hit me with “What I Always Wanted to Ask a Big City Homicide Detective Is…”
I’ll have the answers for you next week.