Falling into Romance? by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

The leaves are turning brilliant colors of orange and yellow, the air is crisp, and there’s frost on car windows in the mornings.  Mums decorate gardens and pumpkins proliferate everywhere. Pumpkin flavor is all the rage, though honestly the thought of pumpkin ice cream or pumpkin-flavored coffee strikes me as rather gross. Spooky decorations abound.

Fall is the time of year when I have clothes strewn all over the house while I’m in the process of washing and storing all my summer clothes, digging out the sweaters, and trying to decide how to dress in the changing weather.

Fall once had its good points. As a child I’d be excited about the start of school. (Yes, I was that kind of kid!) I enjoyed raking leaves into a big pile and setting it on fire, which was legal at the time. And of course there was Halloween when I trudged from door to door filling my pillowcase with yummy treats.

But now…fall means it’s about to get cold!  It means I have to set aside my sandals and squeeze my feet into confining shoes. It means no more Jersey tomatoes or sweet corn from the farm stand.

For me, fall is redeemed by one thing—my wedding anniversary starts off the season. It’s become our tradition to take some sort of special trip in honor of the occasion, and I do love to travel. As the years go on our celebrations have evolved from something along the lines of an overnight trip to the Poconos complete with the heart-shaped whirlpool tub to a week in Europe.

Under normal circumstances this year, our 45^th, would have involved some sort of extra special destination.

What we ended up with was two nights in upstate New York in a resort called Mohonk Mountain House, which honors the spooky part of fall by resembling a haunted Stephen King-like castle. With some trepidation, we ate our meals inside a public place for the first time in over six months.

I swam in the indoor pool and he worked out in the gym, the only guests using them. What a treat after missing my daily swim all these months!

And we walked and walked. Up very high hills where we could look out over the landscape and gaze at the colorful leaves. Through gardens and greenhouses festooned with pumpkins of all sizes. We were lucky to have sunshine and fairly warm weather.

So if my fellow Gems are celebrating Fall into Romance this month, I suppose you could say I qualify, and maybe fall isn’t so bad after all.

Last Chance Beach: Summer's End is here for only a few more weeks. The box set is still only 99¢ and is available on Amazon.

If you haven't picked up your free copy of Cocktails on Last Chance Beach, do that too. Our little recipe book is still in the Top 100 of Bestselling Special Occasion, Beverages, etc. on Kindle.

For girlfriends and readers... by Liz Flaherty #RomanceGems

I didn't realize that when I write blog posts, which I truly love to do, I tend to aim them at writers as well as readers. Because virtually all writers are readers and a good many readers are writers in their hearts.

They run together in my mind.

However, being reminded that this blog is intended for readers meant getting rid of the post I'd already written. It was about that picture up there in the corner. About having stories rejected and how it feels and about why stories get rejected. I'll use it later, on another blog.

That's what we do with stories that don't quite work in a certain place or a certain time. When you hear one of us complain (who, us, complain?) about having to dump a whole scene because it was crap, we don't really dump it--we put it into a file folder with a businesslike label that says something like "crap I've dumped" and then we pull it out and use it later. In another time and place.

In the post that isn't here, I was whining about being told I didn't start my story in the right place and about how I use too much backstory. I was pretty devastated by that because I love backstory. Not just writing it, but reading it, too. And there I go again, having readers and writers running together in my mind. But, hey, as a reader, how do you feel about backstory?

I hope you readers (who aren't writers) understand how we feel about you. You're girlfriends who go to the beach with us, who sit in tearooms and coffeehouses and the occasional pub with us. You build us up, support us and our writing habit, and sympathize when that thing up in the corner happens. We thank you for all of it. I can't begin to tell you how much we appreciate you.

My goodness, I do go on, don't I? Thanks for listening to me complain. But, come on, girlfriends, lets head on down to Last Chance Beach. It's Summer's End and there are 14 good stories I was talking about just waiting for you. And a free book of cocktails. Sit still and read--we'll fix you one.

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