Bye, George!

By George, he's gone.

George, that is. He took his heroine and cyberspatially took off on the weekend so he'll be spending Christmas on the other side of the pond.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Neither could his heroine, Sophy. I am sooooo glad they finally got it together and managed their happily-ever-after.

I hope the ed likes it when she reads it which, she tells me, will probably not be until January. Not a problem. The last thing I want is George coming home for Christmas. Even though I love him dearly, we need a little space. A little less togetherness.

I'm now in the throes of planning Christmas in a week. Or less, obviously. Fortunately before I threw myself headlong at the last few chapters of George, I got most of my Christmas shopping done and the presents that needed mailing were mailed. And a week ago last weekend we put up the tree.

But since George left the building I've been baking and cleaning and washing sheets (for descending grandkids and kids to have places to sleep) and shoveling snow and figuring out Christmas dinner. At Thanksgiving I came within a blink of forgetting potatoes. So I need to start making lists.

It's snowing again tonight. It's supposed to snow for the next three days. That should make the indoor preparations easier and the shopping preparations tricky, to say the least.

I'm off now to write my blog for Tuesday for Tote Bags 'n' Blogs. Drop by and say hi.

To get you in the holiday spirit, in case you're not, this is where Sophy and George are spending Christmas.

Where are you spending it?

Splish Splash

Anne Gracie wrote me an email the other day and said, "The weirdest thing just happened. I went to your blog and it sounded like someone was throwing stuff in the water. So I left. And people stopped dropping stuff in the water. But when I went back, they were doing it again." Or words to that effect.

Um, yeah.

Because there's this fish... Or rather this dolphin on my side bar.

I changed the skin of my Neoworx widget listing the Number of Countries that have visited my blog -- and the new one comes with a dolphin.

The water goes up and down -- the dolphin jumps (as dolphins do) up out of the water and splashes back in again.

Hence . . . if you are here more than a minute or two, your computer may sound as if it's being dunked in the sea. Sorry about that.

Except I have to say I'm not terribly sorry because I like the sea. I like listening to it. I don't get to do that a lot. So this dolphin is an extra added benefit to my changing the widget skin. Who knew?

If you're curious, this is the widget you're looking for.

It says people from 124 countries have visited my blog. I'm amazed -- and impressed -- that so many places are represented.

If you know some that aren't, send them on over for a visit. I'd love to have them drop by. Thanks.

George is approaching 40,000 words now. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to say everything else I need to say in the 12,000 or so left to me. Might have to do some judicious cutting. But better to run long than be short. It's always easier to cut.

Where I've Been . . .

Nowhere interesting, believe me.

I've been holed up in my office writing George. And writing an article. And creating a Power Point presentation on immigration trails.

George has been the most fun part of my life, which ought to tell you something.

At least I'm not battling him to a standstill the way I did Demetrios. He's actually turning out to be entertaining -- right now -- before revisions and deep in the middle of the first draft.

How often does that happen?

Not very, to be honest. But sometimes it does, and so I'm just enjoying it. Nice to go to work every morning for a change.

I've done a little Christmas shopping, too. And I'm struck, when I do it, how much of it I do online these days. What about you?

I started doing it online when I was looking for things for the older grandsons when they were little -- and I got tired of dragging from store to store to find that what I wanted wasn't there. Or it was there at a price I couldn't bring myself to pay.

So I started looking on the internet and, wow, what a time saver. Money saver, too.

Have your shopping habits changed like mine have?

I'll be back tomorrow when, I hope, George will make it into chapter six, and I will have something new to write about -- a reprint or two (well, that's not new, but it's exciting). I'm just trying to get the information sorted.

In the meantime, if you see Christo hanging around a bookshelf anywhere, do me a favor and put him up at eye level. He was gone at my Target when I looked last week. I was happy about that.

Also happy about the review on the Pink Heart Society where Julie Bonello said, "Anne McAllister never fails to come up with the goods and One Night Mistress...Convenient Wife is one of her best books yet! Funny but poignant, tender but sensuous and moving and utterly engrossing, One Night Mistress... Convenient Wife is a spellbinding Harlequin Presents novel readers will just devour.

"With a spunky heroine, a gorgeous hero and oodles of love, passion and laughter, One-Night Mistress... Convenient Wife is the perfect book to cuddle up with on a cold autumn's night!"

How nice is that? If you want, you can read her whole review here. Thank you, Julie.

Me and George

I got home from New York last week and threw myself at George.

He threw me back.

He wasn't ready to talk, even though I'd found him a fantastic brownstone to live in, a good office at Columbia University to work at, and a plot that would get him Sophy in the end.

He was busy, he said. He had experiments to work on. He had things to think about. He couldn't talk to me now.

So I threw him under a truck.

That'll teach him.

Now he's in the hospital recovering. And when he opens his eyes he's going to find himself staring into Sophy's big brown ones.

We might have a book here, folks. I'll see what George thinks tomorrow when I turn up at the computer and open his file.

At least now he knows I mean business.

ps: I'm putting together my Hugh and Dan contest -- which I would have had up by now, but battles with George, and piles of laundry and suchlike have kept me from sending the stuff to Heather my webmistress.

But you know what next Monday is, don't you? Whose birthday it is?

Send me an answer to that question, and I'll put you in my contest before it even starts.

Charley's Postcard

Charley the studly laptop has been recovering from his exertions getting Demetios and Anny finished and sent off to Richmond.

He was heartened in his efforts by the arrival of a postcard from one of his admirers, Scarlet S O'Dell (a very classy red English lass) who was holidaying in Lindos with her family.

Hearing from Scarlet (and heaven only knows what The Powers That Be at Mills & Boon thought of the postcard when it arrived) made Charley's -- and my -- day!

We send thanks to Scarlet (and Rach who had to write it for her because Scarlet couldn't get any connectivity out in the Grecian boondocks apparently) and are very happy to have it. It has pride of place on the bookshelf now. Charley is lobbying for a trophy case in which to put it. This is sort of like a notch on the computer bedpost, I guess.

Next thing you know he'll be getting postcards from lovely lissome lady laptops all over the world. There will be no end to his preening then.

I am in the process of cleaning my office (a long process) and watching physics lectures by Richard Wolfson (sort of physics for non-believers, er, scientists) which I'm thoroughly enjoying. This is in preparation for George's book. Fascinating stuff.

The Prof keeps looking at me strangely when I say that. I think he expected me to be bored out of my mind. Not at all. It all makes perfect sense and as long as I filter it through George's brain -- and his relationship with Sophy (whom you will meet in Christo's book) -- has a great deal of relevance to my life.

Well, I suppose the laws of physics have a great deal to do with everyone's life (gravity among other things), but I just don't spend a lot of time thinking about it specifically. Nice that George does, though.

Scarlet -- and Rach -- thank you for making Charley such a happy guy! Hope you had a good time on Lindos!

What's in a Name?

A few days ago Kate Hardy said she was stuck in her current manuscript because she hadn't got her hero's name right and thus he wasn't cooperating.

People who don't write probably think that's daft.

It's not. Trust me.

I have had heroes who flat out refused to say a word because I didn't know their names. They just stood there, defying me to guess who they were. And finally, when I got it right, they opened up and eventually I got a book out of them.

Jared Flynn from my novella, Marry Go Round in With This Ring, was a case in point. He absolutely refused to do a thing until I figured out his name.

Lots of us have been tossing names at Kate for her quintessential English banker hero. Got any ideas? Go see Kate on her blog and tell her.

I'll be curious to see who he turns out to be.

In the meantime, I have something of the opposite problem.

Not Demetrios. I know his name. I know what he does for a living. I know a lot of his backstory and he's cooperating nicely. He even got off the street corner last night when I found him a good reason to leave and a means of doing so.

But he has a brother, George. George is a physicist. A reclusive brainy physicist.

George, against all odds, is destined to be my next hero. At least that's what my editor and I have agreed on. This was not, let me assure you, my idea. But apparently some people, editors included, think George can be a hero.

Probably he can be.

But he's got his work cut out for him. And so do I.

So I'm trying to get inside his head right now -- even as I work on Demetrios's book -- because I know I'm going to have to do some heavy-duty thinking about this man (and probably replay Kate Walker's master class in Alpha Heroes) before I get to grips with what situation is going to bring out the hero in George.

You're going to meet George's ex-wife, Sophy, in Christo's book, One-Night Mistress, Convenient Wife. I figure she has something to do with George being heroic, but I don't know what. If I don't start thinking about it now or I'm going to be in trouble when I need to start on his book.

So what do you think a physicist named George with an ex-wife named Sophy is likely to be confronted with that will make him pull up his socks, get out of the lab and act like a McAllister hero?

All suggestions seriously considered, believe me.

Just don't tell me to change his name. One of the problems of linked books is that names stick -- and authors are stuck with them -- and the most unlikely people become heroes and heroines because of it.