kate rothwell

This is my first small dog. The others in my life have ranged from medium to hefty. If I met this dog on the street, I'd think yuick, ew, no way. Sure she's kind of cute, but that chihuahua personality is just obnoxious. SO very yappy. She barks at much larger dogs, barks at people, barks at nothing in particular. She has a special "intruder alert!" bark she saves for when I'm the only human at home and I'm in the shower. Asshole dog. Probably knows I'm still freaked by Psycho. At the vet's office she has to wear a muzzle and last time they decided that wasn't enough to protect them from her wrath and wrapped her in a freaking towel, covering her face so she wouldn't see who was touching her. She's not very bright either. When she gets outside, she takes off, operating on a few neurons that allow her to run and to bark (although I admit it's easier to follow that way--follow the sound trail of yapping) but not think. She's a t...

Tina's one of those generous people who helps other authors -- she's had me as a guest on her blog. Now she has a book coming out March 11 -- so hey! I'm sponsoring her today.  STOLEN DESIRE BOOK FOUR – OUTLAWED REALM SERIES EROTIC PARANORMAL Her freedom depends on one man. A criminal in his realm… Outlawed Realm, Book 4 One minute, Paige Ross is outside a Seattle bar, grieving a failed engagement. The next, she jerks awake in a weird, candlelit room with velvet walls, black silk sheets, and a man who motions for silence. Paige has little choice but to trust the powerful stranger who promises a way out of what looks like Satan’s brothel. And pray his promise to keep her safe is as real as the heat burning in his eyes. Banished from E2’s ruling elite for supposed crimes against the realm, Zekin risks everything to rescue those brought to E5 for the guards’ carnal pleasure. Paige will be leaving this inhospitable realm of fire and ice—i...

Q: Why the new look? A: 1. Nicholas said the old blog design was hard to read. 2. I'm stuck on this story. Only 2k words in and I am stuck. This is a fine method of procrastination but mostly because. 3. Spring! Spring! Spring! The foot high piles of snow and arctic air be damned. Spring is a thing that will exist. Soon-ish. I hope.

The older I get, the less often I look in the mirror, and the more often I shrink away from cameras. Just now I was trying to get a picture of the dogs and hit a button that flipped the view around. From cute little pup to--bam--doughy-faced, double chinned me. The loathing I felt when I saw that image took me by surprise. I've clearly done a good job hiding from myself because that sight really was a shock. God, she's hideous . I looked at myself and saw all the fat blobby ladies I felt scorn for through all those early, more attractive years of my life. God. I'm not talking about a mild hmm that feature can change or maybe less of a chin . It was the entire thing, details and big picture, that I loathed. It was rather amazing how much I disliked that image. This isn't going to work , I thought. I can't walk around feeling that much disdain for me. Anyone else, sure--as in, someone else can feel that way about me. Or I can feel that way about someone else...

Pick a year, any year of the last ten and I'll have had a similar conversation a few times that year, most often talking to another writer at a party. Here's one from last week. This one writes poetry. I write romance. She says in a friendly, pleasant way, "I suppose it's kind of easy because it's formulaic." I've heard those words often enough before: easy and formulaic. She seems interested, so I have an answer. I'd say yes, there are expectations--but I'd call it a structure rather than formula and there's structure in most stories. Yes, the genre is about romance-- but hey relationships and growth and change--isn't that interesting and the focus of many, many novels? Yes, it usually includes an HEA but then again most genres have some kind of framework. Mysteries=crime committed at start, exposure of perpetrator at the end yada yada yada. Even with poetry...You expect a particular pattern. Right?  About that claim of easy? I ...