Road Trip by Diane Burton

I’ve mentioned a time or two that Hubs loves to drive. Being a passenger is an invitation for him to snooze. I’ve adapted by being the navigator. Give me a map (a GPS thingee or my phone) and I can get you anywhere. As you can tell by the map above, it's one I've used a lot--actually, since our first visit after our son moved to Arizona in 2010. Can you imagine Hubs wanted to throw it out and get a new Southwest US map from AAA? Heck, no, I told him. It's got all my notes. Anyway, after all the driving trips to Arizona, the old route is pretty much same-old, same-old: Michigan -> Illinois -> Missouri -> Oklahoma -> Texas -> New Mexico -> Arizona.

When we’re concerned about snow in the mountains (Flagstaff), we’ve taken a diagonal route across New Mexico. I even got to stop in Roswell. Twice! Perfect for someone who writes sci-fi. Soon, that became old, too. So, I suggested we go through Texas on our way home. First thing Hubs and Son mentioned was how close we would be to Mexico. On the map, it looks like the highway runs alongside the Rio Grande. We hear horror stories all the time about Americans being kidnapped, and my imagination worked overtime. I thought about bad guys creeping up the river bank and jumping out in front of our car. Wild imagination, right? For about a hundred miles east of El Paso, we drove next to the river, which we were so far away from that I saw it once or twice.

Next thing the guys said was won’t that take longer. Possibly. But…I’ve never been through that part of Texas—diagonally up through Odessa and Midland then through Fort Worth and Dallas. I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to see oil wells. Not just the pump jacks in the fields that I can see in Michigan, but the rigs/platforms for doing the actual drilling.

You might think that odd until you consider that for four years I worked for an oil and gas company. When I was sent there by a temp agency to do secretarial-type work, I was asked by my boss if I knew anything about oil and gas. I told him I put gas in my car and we heat our home with natural gas. That was the extent. He tried hard not to roll his eyes. What he didn’t know was I’m very curious. I wanted to know everything about how oil got out of the earth and into our cars. Or how natural gas came out and heated our house.

I’m like a sponge when I want to learn something. The guys I worked with were eager to explain things to a novice. After my temp stint was up, I was hired to work in the Land Department—that’s where leases are drawn up before the drilling can start. I still did a lot of secretarial work and learned more.

The thing is…I worked at the corporate headquarters. Never out in the field. I suggested to my (new) boss that we should do a field trip so we understood our jobs better. He said we could. On our own time. LOL Now I suppose Hubs (you know, the one who likes to drive?) and I could have driven up north to see the drilling. Never happened. When the opportunity to see oil rigs from the highway in Texas arose, I had to grab it.

So I convinced Hubs to go that route. Mistake #1: Texas is big, towns are far apart, towns with hotels are even farther apart. Mistake #2: not making a reservation. Hubs likes to see how far we can drive and then stop when we want to. Usually, that works. But not when drilling is going on around our designated stop, Pecos, Texas. Our first clue were the “Christmas trees” (oil rigs) on both sides of the highway. And since it was now dark, they were lit! Just like the nickname.

 

USA Today: Photo Courtesy Sacco, AP

All the pick-up trucks in front of the hotels was our second clue that we might not find a room. Well, there was one room we could have at $245 for the night. Did I ever tell you about Hubs’ Scot’s ancestry? Even though we’d been driving for eleven hours, no way was he paying that much for a room at a Comfort Inn. We drove on down the road. The hotel apps on my phone weren’t working. The internet wasn’t working. How the heck do you find the number for reservations?

Shakespeare said, “All’s well that ends well.” I found a phone number, got a reservation for a room at the next town. We’d driven 700 miles in 12 hours through two times zones. We were whipped. It’s amazing what comfortable beds and a good night’s sleep can accomplish.

In our youth, we could drive through the night and think nothing of it. We’d take turns sleeping and had a blast. Newsflash. We aren’t young anymore. The second day, even though we drove through (around) Fort Worth and Dallas, we stopped earlier. I'm writing this on Saturday, our 3rd day on the road. No problems. Until the storms started. Thank goodness, we're in a hotel room where we watched on TV about all the flooding...of the highway we're supposed to take in Illinois. Hopefully, we'll make it home. (I'll let you know in the comments.)

I don’t think Hubs was thrilled with my route. But we saw parts of the country we’d never seen before. I got to see the oil rigs. If I’d planned ahead, we could have stopped at the Petroleum Museum in Midland. I saw the sign as we whizzed past going 75 mph. Oh, well. Maybe another time.

As an aside, I’ve used my experiences at the oil and gas company in my Alex O’Hara PI mystery series. In The Case of the Meddling Mama, one of the characters worked in the Land Department of a fictional oil and gas company. Can’t let experience and good info go to waste.

Once again, Alex O’Hara is up to her ears in mysteries. After surviving an attempted murder, all she wants is R&R time with Nick Palzetti. But his mother leaving his father (“that horse’s patoot”) and moving in with Alex puts a crimp in their plans. Then Nick leaves on assignment and the teen she rescued from an abusive father believes his buddy is doing drugs. Meanwhile, Alex has two easy cases to take her mind off her shaky relationship with Nick—a philandering husband and a background check on a client’s boyfriend. Piece of cake.

Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Kobo ~ Barnes & Noble ~ iTunes ~ Smashwords

Diane Burton combines her love of mystery, adventure, science fiction, and romance into writing romantic fiction. Besides the science fiction romance Switched and Outer Rim series, she is the author of One Red Shoe, a romantic suspense, and the Alex O’Hara PI mysteries. She blogs here on the 30th of each month.

Spring & a New Release by Diane Burton

Where has the year gone? It’s the end of March already. I know that’s not very original. We all seem amazed at the quick passage of time. Remember when we were kids and time dragged? Spring has finally come to Michigan. I don’t dare say it’s the end of snow. If past years are any indication, we’ll get more—hopefully, only flurries. Trees and bushes are budding and spring bulbs are poking their heads through the dirt.

Easter will be here before we know it, and that signals the release of my newest book. Connecting a religious holiday with a PI mystery probably sounds sacrilegious. In recent posts, I promised to have The Case of the Meddling Mama published by Spring, then I narrowed it done to by Easter. This is the book that seemed to take forever to finish. And I have no idea why. I love my character. Alex O’Hara is quirky, fun, and gets into almost as many scrapes as Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum. Alex’s main squeeze Nick is a mystery. He comes and goes at the will of his employer, a secret government agency. A hot topic in today’s news—opioid addiction—is featured in the story.

Even though the manuscript is with my editor-extraordinaire, our own Alicia Dean, Meddling Mama is up for pre-order on Amazon and Kobo at a reduced price. You might think that’s an odd combination. I have a good reason. Amazon covers the U.S. and its subsidiaries hit most other countries. Kobo is huge in the rest of the world. Amazing the things you find out on writer loops. I’d never even heard of Kobo when I first started to self-publish. The Case of the Meddling Mama will be available at most online vendors on April 17, the day after Easter.

My wonderful cover designer, Florence Price at The Novel Difference, did a fabulous job on the cover. When I started the series, she suggested we use the same scene but change with the seasons. The Case of the Meddling Mama takes place in Spring, so she added pots of tulips in front of Alex’s office. Although people are enjoying a sunny day at the beach, they’re too smart to go into Lake Michigan’s frigid waters. A big event in West Michigan is Tulip Time, a week of Dutch-themed parades, crafts, food, and dancing. Of course, I had to add that to the story that takes place in the fictional resort town of Far Haven, similar to Holland, Michigan.

Here’s a little bit about The Case of the Meddling Mama.

Blurb:

Once again, Alex O’Hara is up to her ears in mysteries. After surviving an attempted murder, all she wants is R&R time with Nick Palzetti. But his mother leaving his father (“that horse’s patoot”) and moving in with Alex puts a crimp in their plans. Then Nick leaves on assignment and the teen she rescued from an abusive father believes his buddy is doing drugs. Meanwhile, Alex has two easy cases to take her mind off her shaky relationship with Nick—a philandering husband and a background check on a client’s boyfriend. Piece of cake.

Excerpt:

When two women entered the exclusive dress shop, Ellie left to greet them while her assistant chivvied me to put on the shoes. White socks, black strappy heels, and the gorgeous emerald green bridesmaid dress. I made such a fashion statement as I stood on the platform. Call Vogue.

I so didn’t want to be there, especially when I recognized one of the women. I’d been the bearer of bad news to Nora Finley last week. Her Mr. Perfect turned out to be a Black Widower. He and his cohorts had the perfect plan to kill her. A plan I thwarted just in time.

“Oh, you’re here,” Nora cried out when she spotted me and tugged on her companion’s wrist, practically dragging her over. “Ginnie, this is the PI that saved my life. Alex O’Hara!”

I cringed while heat bloomed in my cheeks.

Nora looked up at me. “I’ve been telling Ginnie here that she absolutely must hire you to check out her boyfriend. She met him on one of those online dating sites.”

Ginnie winced, like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. I knew the feeling.

The Case of the Meddling Mama is now available for pre-order at $1.99.

Amazon ~ Kobo

Diane Burton combines her love of mystery, adventure, science fiction and romance into writing romantic fiction. When she isn’t writing cozy mysteries, like the Alex O’Hara PI series, she’s writing science fiction romance and romantic suspense. She’s a regular contributor here on the 30^th of the month, at Paranormal Romantics on the 13^th, and on her own blog every Monday.

Rituals by Diane Burton

Are there certain things you always do or don’t do? Like not wearing white until Memorial Day or after Labor Day. Hey, who cares anymore? What about putting up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving? Dress in costume for Halloween?

One of mine is not to turn on the furnace until November. Broke that one this week when Hubs looked at the thermostat and said, “It’s 60 degrees in here.” Until then, we’d been layering up—a sweater, sweatshirt, long pants, socks, wrapping up in an ultra-soft throw. Gray skies and rain had a lot to do with turning on the furnace besides the inside temp.

In the spring, I don’t turn on the air conditioning until I’m sweating. Hubs tolerates heat better than I do (while I can put up with more cold). Besides, you can only take off so much. We have great cross-ventilation and ceiling fans so I can wait on the AC, hopefully until June. My rationale with the furnace/AC thing is economics. As newlyweds, we saved wherever we could until we could buy our first house. I guess my Great Depression-era parents had a lot to do with my penny pinching. Waste not, want not was Mom's mantra. All those years of saving are now paying off in retirement.

Another of my rituals is reading before I go to sleep. Before I started writing, I used to read everywhere and any time. It's different now. I have too many stories to write to take the time to read. Still, I love to read, even if it's only a few pages at night.

Grabbing a cup of coffee in the morning before I begin writing is more habit than ritual. Does the caffeine help? Maybe it wakes up my Muse. She’s a lazy thing in the morning. But when she’s in the zone, so am I. Funny how that works.

One of my new rituals—done under protest—was prescribed by my physical therapist. Get up and move every hour. In theory, this is good. Sitting too long stiffens the joints and muscles. It also interrupts my Muse, who then takes off and goofs around. Like my old dogs, she doesn’t come when called. Obviously, my therapist is not a writer. He doesn’t realize how long it takes to get back in the groove. Is he satisfied if I get up, go to the bathroom, grab another cup of coffee,  then get back to work? Of course not. He wants me to do exercises! That’s guaranteed to make the Muse disappear for hours. But I guess if I want to walk without pain, I’ll have to adhere to this new ritual.

How about you? Any rituals?

Diane Burton writes science fiction romance, romantic suspense, and mysteries. She's currently working on the 3rd book in her Alex O'Hara mystery series,The Case of the Meddling Mama. Diane blogs here on the 30^th of each month, with Paranormal Romantics on the 13^th, and on her own blog on Mondays.

Flexibility by Diane Burton

“To succeed you constantly have to reinvent yourself. Try different things.” Bob Mayer, last week on Elizabeth Meyette’s blog.

My 7-months pregnant daughter-in-law, who with her friends, remember their gymnastics coach by doing handstands on the anniversary of his passing. Is that flexibility or what?

 

One thing you learn early on in married life—especially with children—is being flexible. Life throws us curves, or as Brenda Whiteside wrote here last Thursday, “Make a Plan and Hear God Laugh.”

Another thing we learn as we get older is that our bodies become less flexible. I was never as flexible as my daughter-in-law, even in my younger days. My physical therapist tells me that for relief from chronic back pain and to gain the ability to walk longer, straighter, etc., my hips have to be more flexible. That they're too tight, too rigid. Thank God, he wasn’t talking about my mind.

When I first started writing, I wrote romances, like the Harlequins I’d devoured ages ago. That didn’t work. Rejections abounded. Then I tried romantic suspense. Suspense always came up in my romance stories anyway. I wrote this great story, but nobody wanted it. For fun, I wrote a story about a woman who was kidnapped by aliens, by mistake. I was surprised when Switched was picked up by a small niche publisher back in 2000. Alas, my publisher didn’t like the second book. She thought my heroine should be pushed out an airlock into space. I disagreed.

Time went by, life threw some curve balls, I dropped out of the writing game for a while. That’s when everything changed. Social media? What’s that? Facebook was what my brother-in-law used to show off the fish he caught. Blogs, Twitter, Triberr, LinkedIn, Pinterest. My head spun. The multitude of publishers became the Big Five. Or is it now the Big Four? If I wanted back in the writing game, I had to readjust my thinking. I had to learn new things, new ways of doing things.

A friend suggested since I had the rights back for Switched, I should self-publish it. After all, it wasn't doing anything anyway. Talk about being surprised. Wow. I wrote more science fiction romances and people bought them. Double wow! Then I took a chance with that romantic suspense and The Wild Rose Press wanted One Red Shoe. Our own Alicia Dean was my editor. I couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic editor for my book. While I haven’t published any more romantic suspense, I have some hiding in my computer that need to be hauled out and looked at.

I love writing sci-fi romances. But I wanted to try something else. A mystery series with a female detective. A PI who takes over her father’s business in a small resort town. The Alex O’Hara series was born.

Without being flexible, I wouldn’t have tried the different genres. If that’s reinventing myself, I’m having a blast doing it. 

Diane Burton writes sci-fi romances, romantic suspense, and cozy mysteries. She blogs here on the 30th of the month and on her own blog every Monday.

Falling in Love by Diane Burton

Forty-two years ago, I fell in love. Many of you know that I met my love on a blind date. The first time he called, we talked for over an hour. That was how easy and comfortable he felt. It turned out we lived in the same apartment complex, his building kitty-corner from mine. If not for our well-meaning friends, we never would have met. He worked odd hours at a steel mill while I was a teacher with regular hours. We met in June, got engaged in August, and married on Thanksgiving Day. Yep, the actual day. Just like my mother and her mother. And my daughter. She and I made a pact that my granddaughter would NOT follow that tradition.

I didn’t think I would ever love anyone as strongly as I loved my Hubs. I was wrong. Two years later, along came our daughter and I fell in love with her. A year after that, our son arrived. Another love fest. Okay, that was it. I was blessed three times over.

Seven years ago, another little girl stole my heart. From the first time my granddaughter snuggled in, I was lost. Three years after that, a little boy made me fall in love again. How could I not? Those two precious children love me unconditionally. There’s a saying that if I knew how much fun grandchildren could be, I’d have had them first. How true that is.

The grandkiddies are here this morning. They stayed overnight so their parents could have “date night.” Hubs and I moved closer to them just for this. Our daughter tries so hard not to take advantage of us that we almost have to beg so the kiddies can come over. In turn, the kiddies frequently plead with their parents to let them stay overnight here. I love it!

I thought things couldn’t be any better. Then our son and daughter-in-law gave us more good news. In May, another little girl will arrive and I just know I’m going to fall in love again.

The heart is amazing. It just keeps expanding, allowing us to love more than we thought possible. While it’s usually just Hubs and me, we’ve fallen into the routine of two people who have been together for a long time. Our mornings usually start with “How did you sleep?” and end with “I hope you get a good night’s sleep.” Real romantic, huh? Yet in between we still find things to talk about.

Falling in love is exciting and wondrous. Staying in love is even better. As I usually say in the acknowledgements at the end of my books, I’m so glad our friends fixed us up on that blind date.

Lasting love is why I write romance. I want my characters to find that happy-ever-after, even though some of them go into relationships with a happy-for-now attitude. They don’t think they’ll ever find everlasting love. That’s the situation in THE CASE OF THE BYGONE BROTHER. Alex O’Hara is so busy she doesn’t have time to fall in love, have children, and live happily ever after. Since this is a mystery, not a romance, that’s okay. Of course, she’s had a mad crush on Nick Palzetti ever since high school. Nick didn’t show interest in her then and he doesn’t now. Bummer.

Blurb:

PI Alex O’Hara finally gets a case that will give her bottom line a much needed boost. She might even be able to change her diet from ramen noodles to prime rib. All she has to do is track down a man who’s been missing for over ten years. Piece of cake . . . until an old flame arrives and a mugger roughs her up with orders to back off.

Excerpt:

“Hello, gorgeous.”

I whacked my head on the display shelf.

Well, what would you do if you were lying across the top of a four-drawer lateral file cabinet, and your arm—yardstick attached—was wedged between the wall and the cabinet, trying to retrieve the license renewal application that if you mangled, crushed or couldn’t get would mean the end of your business, and the ex-love-of-your-life stood in the doorway looking at your butt?

The shelf shook on its braces from contact with my head. Never mind that the encounter didn’t do much for the aforementioned body part. The Fair Haven Chamber of Commerce awards rattled, and signed Detroit Tigers baseballs pelted my head, shoulders, and the back of my thigh. I dropped the yardstick and swore.

“I thought you promised your mother you wouldn’t swear anymore.” He would remind me of that vow.

“Relapse,” I muttered as I looked over my shoulder.

In that loose-limbed, cocky manner I once thought scary, sexy, and so cool, Nick Palzetti stood in the doorway to the spare office. He even dressed the same in a black leather jacket, black knit shirt, and jeans that molded his hips. Lordy, he could still make my mouth go dry.

As I wiggled back and sideways across the long cabinet, I felt my skirt ride up. Of all days to wear a skirt. With my foot, I searched for the desk chair I’d climbed to get on top of the cabinet. I’d kicked off my high heels before standing on the chair, probably the only smart thing I’d done so far.

“Red panties, you naughty girl.”

Available at Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00P1GPR0Q