Tina Leonard | MAKING LISTS

I love lists. I am a list-maker, a list-keeper, a doodling scribe of anything on any surface. My kids have picked up a dinner napkin as we left a restaurant because I had jotted a few ideas down on the paper. Bless their hearts, they were afraid to leave behind one of Mom's Big Ideas. Lists keep me organized, make me aware of how much I get done in a day or not done as life may have it.

I also love bestseller lists, especially when one of my books or a friend's book makes its way onto the hallowed spaces. Recently, my four-book series, The Morgan Men, was fortunate enough to make a few lists, one book being first on the eharlequin.com list, and another staying on same list for about eighteen days in various spots. Throw in a Waldenbooks/Borders list for three weeks in a row for my March book—culminating in the #2 spot in the third week!--and I began to ponder the scattered good fortune in the universe. (Remember, I am a student of listing—I try to figure out these random occurrences, whether or not I can find an answer being irrelevant). Greater minds than mine have written about the quirky fate in making bestseller lists, but my house is on the market so I have time to scattershoot while I'm scrubbing floors and cleaning out shrub beds.

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Charlene Teglia | When the To Do list is as long as the TBR pile is high

I have a dilemma right now. July is a busy month for me, with two releases hitting the shelves; Naughty Nights (Pocket) July 15, and Wicked Hot (St. Martin’s) July 22.

Add preparations for RWA Nationals in San Francisco to that, with all the accompanying To Dos. Then there’s the list of things to be done to get child #1 ready to start school in August. And let’s not forget the weeds in the garden, the laundry pile that’s waiting, the people who expect me to feed them three times a day, and the book that will not write itself.

So I should be doing all of these things, right? Yet I look over at my TBR pile, and it is as high as my To Do list is long…and full of temptation.

There’s Lynn Viehl’s latest installment in the Darkyn series, Twilight Fall. There’s Hope Tarr’s historical Blaze, Bound to Please. There’s a terrific-sounding SF/romance, Mathematicians in Love by a new to me author which I could not pass up once I read the premise. And Marjorie Liu’s Iron Hunt is pretty hard to resist.

This is too much enticement for my book-loving soul to withstand. Some days the To Do list needs to be put on hold while I read just one more chapter. Because loving books and wanting to spend my professional life creating and dealing with them was my dream, and I refuse to be too busy to allow myself the pleasure of a great read now that I’ve achieved that dream.

There will always be the clamor of daily demands, but there should also always be time to treasure the joy of reading. Even if it’s fifteen stolen minutes in a hectic day.

Do you let the To Do list wait when the TBR pile calls?

Charlene Teglia
www.charleneteglia.com/

Wicked Hot Excerpt