And The Plot Thickens!

By Robin 'Red Hot' Kaye

I spent all day yesterday sitting at Starbucks with my critique partners, Laura Becraft and Deborah Villegas plotting my next book. I’m so thankful for these two women—they’re my best friends, they're the closest of sisters who adopted me and made me one of them, they're my support group, my bullsh*t meters, and a veritable laugh factory. They are also talented writers and fabulous plotting and critique partners.  I’ve written my last five novels and one novella with their help, and I can’t imagine how I managed to write the first three books without them.

Deborah and Laura at one of our favorite New York haunts--the St. Andrews Restaurant and Bar. 

Yesterday they took my blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year, and made it one filled with joy and laughter. My blue Monday was especially blue because my college boy flew the coop that morning and winged his way back to Boise State for classes tomorrow. Somehow they still managed to make me laugh so hard I was thankful I always do my Kegel exercises—as were the Starbucks employees, I’m sure!

Yes, Laura, Deborah, and I are those weird women cackling at the window table in Starbucks. It is ‘our’ table, and thanks to my Deborah—the shy and reserved one—we were able to get the nice man who was using it to move. I offered to pay him off in coffee, but he kindly refused and said he’d seen us there so often, always at our table, he wouldn’t dream of messing with our mojo. And mojo is exactly what we have. When we work together we feed each other more than just coffee and iced tea lemonades. We call each other on taking the easy way out—and yes, we’ve all been known to try to get away with it, we force each other to dig deeper, to write fresher, work harder, and we help each other finish our books.

Yesterday we plotted an incredible story for my third Bad Boys of Red Hook book and now all I have to do is write the synopsis—a thing that puts the fear of God into most writers—and do it justice. I’m not worried—believe me, they’ll tell me if I don’t make the grade.

A Weekend Away...

By Robin "Red Hot" Kaye

My youngest daughter, Mini-me and I took a mini vacation to Colonial Williamsburg this weekend—just the two of us. It isn’t often we get away together. It seems as if for the last five years I’ve been on deadline as I am now. So why, you may ask, am I romping around Colonial Williamsburg when my book is due in 16 days? My only answer is: Because, maternal guilt is a very powerful motivator.

As usual, this is all my husband’s fault. He took our other two kids out backpacking for five days over Fourth of July weekend leaving Mini-me and me at home with the dogs. Not that there is anything wrong with the dogs. They’re cute, cuddly, and you know, loyal. But it’s not as if Mini-me and I got to do anything fun.

Now, between you, me, and the doorknob, Mini-me and I don’t think backpacking is much fun—after all it involves bugs, a hell of a lot of walking, poison ivy, going to the bathroom in the woods, and eating freeze-dried food, but that’s not the point. The point is that they got to do something they thought was fun and we didn’t.

When my husband and the kids came home, I told them that Mini-me and I were going away just the two of us to do something fun which would not involve woods (we’re allergic), too much walking, bad food (we’re food snobs), bugs (that darn allergy thing again) and questionable toilet facilities (just because we know how to shit in the woods, doesn’t mean we want to). I had no idea what we were going to do, but I had a strong feeling it would involve someplace with 24-hour room service.

Luckily I found a great deal through Travel Zoo, signed up, and even paid for it. Two nights in Colonial Williamsburg was ours any Sunday through Thursday, the only catch was that it had to be used by September 27th. No problem. After all we had the whole summer. September was months away.

Isn’t it amazing how time flies while you’re not having fun? Well, we had some fun. After all, if you’ve followed the blog you’ve read allabout my trip to Idaho.

Right after I killed myself to make my deadline for Back To You: Bad Boys of Red Hook, my editor asked if I could write a novella, Hometown Girl, to introduce the new series. I said, sure, no problem. I whipped that puppy out, had a fabulous time writing it, sent it in (a few days early in fact—a first for me) and went back to my contracts to see when my next book was due...Imagine my surprise when I realized it You're The One: Bad Boys of Red Hook was due October 1!

Now mind you, this was mid-August and I hadn’t even written the synopsis for You're The One. Any sane person would have gone into apoplectic shock. It’s a good thing I’m not sane. I just thought I’d hunker down and write like the wind. No problem.

Then my husband went missing. (See above—it’s all my husband’s fault) Okay, so he wasn’t missing in a literal sense. If you read my last blog here at Killer Fiction you’d know that for the last few months he’s been working 16 – 20 hour days, seven days a week. Now that I think about it, the last weekend he had off was when he and the kids went hiking.

So instead of hunkering down and writing like the wind, I spent the majority of time not only in deadline hell, but in deadline hell without my domestic god to do laundry, cleaning, and at least the partial feeding of kids and dogs. Yeah, I was on my own, rediscovering how much I dislike housework, laundry, and taking care of teenagers on my own. Every time something came up, my work got put down and when school started and things got really crazy. It was then it occurred to me that I still had a promise to keep. I had to take Mini-me to Williamsburg and I had to do it on a holiday—Mini-me couldn’t afford to miss more than one day of school.

Thank God for Rosh Hashannah! So here I am, running all over Williamsburg with Mini-me and having a great time.

See... I got to put Mini-me in the stocks to show her what happened in the olden days when teenagers didn’t listen to their mothers.

We enjoyed looking at the dresses women wore, but Mini-me decided that if she had lived back in the colonial days, it would have been “way better to be a dude.”

We ate at the King’s Arms Tavern—twice. Yeah, it was really that good...

We shopped...

And did our share of flirting with the men in uniform.

There is really something to be said for men in tight breeches. 

I can't wait until we see what trouble we can get into tomorrow morning before we leave. I have a feeling it's going to involve a candy store and the world's longest Gummy Worm...

So? What have you done in the name of maternal guilt, or if that’s not a problem for you, what was the last time you went out and did something fun, even if it wasn’t at all convenient?

Welcome To My Office

By Robin "Red Hot" Kaye

I’ve spent a lot of time on my office. It’s perfect.


I have a TreadDesk—yes, you read it right, a real treadmill desk, the desktop is on hydraulic legs to adjust to walking height with a press of a button so I can write while walking 1.4 miles per hour whenever I get the urge, and an exercise ball to sit on when I don’t feel like walking.

I have inspiration in front of me—a life-size stand up of Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs from NCIS—my favorite show and one of Abby too because my kids gave them to me for my birthday.




I have bookshelves filled with hundreds of books on writing and three different yet beautiful dictionaries.


I have not one but two beloved Mac computers with two screens because one can never have a big enough desk top.

I have my Writer’s Clock which tells me what time it is—closing in on a deadline, unfortunately.



I even have a sound machine so I can hear applause and laughter whenever I need it.

I have my sidekicks, Raja, my three-legged Bengal cat, and Jasmine, my Pointer mix always there to talk to or give me love.



I’m a lucky author!

The only fly in the ointment is that my DH—dear husband or damn husband depending on my mood—has decided, since we share everything else, my office has magically turned into our office.

Every evening and weekend, he’s sitting directly in front of my desk and I can’t work. Now my DH is as close to perfect as anyone possessing a Y chromosome can be. He built me my office, my desktop, and even bought me a second monitor while he’s using one of those teeny tiny notebook computers on the desk in front of mine with a ten-inch screen. He does the cooking when I’m on deadline, all the laundry all the time, takes care of running the kids around, reads my contracts, and is the most supportive husband anyone can imagine. It’s really hard to complain—and yet somehow I find a way. It’s frustrating as hell because as perfect as he is, he’s still a man. So how does an anything-but-perfect wife, mother, and author tell her near-perfect husband to get the hell out of her office because he’s a walking, talking, breathing writer’s block?

She doesn’t.

She packs up her MacBook Air and goes to Starbucks. Yes, I know it doesn’t make any sense. How can I write at Starbucks with a ton of people, screaming kids, beeping coffee timers, and insanely loud Frapuccino machines, and not be able to write with my husband typing quietly on his little notebook computer?

Practice.

For two years I home schooled my daughter (who used the same desk my husband does now) and drove her ninety miles each way to Carlisle, PA to attend the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and dance forty hours per week. I had no choice but to make the Carlisle Crossing Starbucks my office. It took me a few weeks, but I’d go to work, get my coffee, and write my books. I wrote four books while Twinkle Toes danced. Then she decided to move to Carlisle, live with a host family, and go to Carlisle middle and high school. I thought, yay! No more home schooling, no more driving three hours a day! I’ll get so much work done. I sat in my lovely office and I couldn’t write a damn thing. It took me about two months of twiddling my thumbs before I got any decent words written. But finally, after much practice and Twinkle Toes withdrawal, I was able to work. Things went swimmingly, I did run back and forth to Carlisle to see Twinkle Toes and my Starbucks family, but for the most part, I was happy working in my lovely office until you-know-who decided it was OURS!

Now I’m at the Mt. Airy Starbucks—if I squint my eyes, I imagine I’m in Carlisle so it’s not so different. I do miss my favorite baristas—Laura, Lauren, Jess, Gina, Ben, Trudi, Christine, Shannon, Steph, the Manager, Nikki, the District Manager but I’m making new friends at the Mt. Airy Starbucks, and I’ll be working there until I finish Call Me Wild.

Last night, the guys closed up shop, and I sat on the patio working away since it was nice out and still before DH’s bedtime. My barista buddy Edward dropped off a box of coffee to hold me over until my MacBook Air’s battery ran dry. I swear, if there were an outlet and a porta-potty, I’d have stayed all night!

I figure I’ll eventually get used to sharing an office with DH, but I don’t have the time to twiddle my thumbs right now. I have a book due in nine days. Yikes! If Starbucks was open twenty-four hours a day, I’d move in until I finished the book.