I have a new novella, Seeing You, out now from MLR Press as part of the Studs & Spurs print anthology! I'm lucky enough to be included with three supremely talented authors: JL Langley, Kiernan Kelly, and Angela Fiddler. Yee-haw!

Blurb for Studs & Spurs

Saddles, spurs, Stetsons . . . and love? Sexy cowboys grab hold of more than a saddle in these entrancing stories from four talented authors of the genre. Kiernan Kelly takes us on an adventurous cattle drive to the Oregon Territory with a greenhorn and an old hand. Angela Fiddler’s retired rodeo men accept each other and the black riders. Two men overcome grief, rebuild a ranch and find love in Dakota Flint’s story. And JL Langley offers a light-hearted tale of a city boy and a rancher filled with love, laughter and a marriage of convenience?

Blurb for Seeing You

Everything changed for Dylan the night his brother, Simon, was killed in an accident. Unable to face the pain–or Simon’s partner, Wade–Dylan leaves life on the Lazy G ranch behind. Over a year later, Dylan gets a call saying he’s needed at home and he returns to find both the Lazy G and Wade in bad shape. Will Dylan and Wade be able to deal with their grief and rebuild the ranch? And will Wade see that sometimes you can find happiness again?

You can buy Studs & Spurs online through IndieBound.org:

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Or you can order through Barnes and Noble or Amazon.


( Read an excerpt. )

It's almost summer, folks. You know what that means: it's vacation time!

I'll be traveling quite a bit in the next couple weeks, and even though it's not for pleasure or fun, it has me thinking about the summer trips my family has planned that are supposed to be fun.

And we're driving, not flying, which is great for me because I LOVE road trips. That's a bit weird, eh?

But it's true. I like the driving part, I like the riding part. Packing the car for a long road trip feels so much more...momentous and adventurous, I guess, than running to the airport to catch a flight. And as a kid, I liked looking out the window as we moved through small towns and big cities, through farmland and forests and mountains. My imagination would run wild as I made up stories about people who lived there. Seems a bit odd to me now, how much I lived in my imagination, but if I'm being honest, I still do that in a way. Only now I'll see something and think, wouldn't that be interesting for my current project or wouldn't that make a cool story.

So what about you? Have any trips planned for this summer? Do you share my love for road tripping or do you feel a little more like this on long car trips:




(Heh.)

 I'm doing this once again kind of quickly, sorry, but I am determined not to miss a day of positivity week.

I'm borrowing my positive thing for the day from my sister, J, b/c we're leaving to go to her college graduation which is this weekend. Yay! Go her!

And since I'm the sweetest little sister ever (*cough*) I won't be teasing her about graduating a year after I did. Slow and steady still wins the race! I'm so proud of her, truly.

Plus, I seem to have misplaced my voice and can only manage odd croaking sounds. It's really kind of creepy sounding, actually.

So yeah, no teasing. I'm sure she'll be disappointed. Heh.

Hey, TGIF and all that, what's good with you folks?

I think this is the first time I've posted regularly on my blog in months. Does that count as a positive? No?

I woke up sick today. So my positive thing is...I showed up?

Yeah, okay it's kind of lame, isn't it? I don't think it counts when you have what is likely just a cold.

But it made me think about other situations and I do want to say for the record that yes, I do think just showing up can be a positive thing. When things are tough and you think that's all you can manage, or you doubt you can even manage that but you do it anyways. You show up. Go you. Be proud.

Anywho, since it's just a cold and I don't think I really deserve points for showing up, I'm going with...chicken soup.

Yes, my positive thing for the day is the chicken soup I just had for lunch. Maybe it's just the comfort thing, but it always makes me feel better when I'm sick (if I can eat, of course).

And now I'm going to climb back into my bed and watch Anne of Green Gables, which also never fails to make me feel better.

But please carry on today's positivity, folks!

So for the second day of positivity week, I had a surprise visit from my sister, K, and my youngest nephew and niece.

Granted they only live 20 min away and I spend a huge amount of time at their house, but it's still a big deal. It's kind of like packing up the mountain to go see Mohammad. It's pretty shocking. K is totally preggers right now, and with 7 kids, soon to be 8, it's always been easier for the rest of the family to go to her and save her having to wrestle the kids into the car.

But today it was such a joy to see them pulling into my Mom's driveway. I can't think of many things better than a "hug tight" from a 3 year old. He smelled like clean laundry, sunshine and grass, and I'm pretty sure a rogue bit of maple syrup the washcloth missed after breakfast. And I love the sweet innocence of a smile from a one year old. Doesn't matter what else is going on, you smile at her and she smiles back. A simple exchange. Joy for joy.

Not to mention, I'm not biased or anything (yes I am) but these are two of the cutest kids ever. And oddly enough--or maybe not so, since I look the most like my oldest sister--my youngest niece looks exactly like  I did at that age. A total mini-me. As I said, cutest kid ever. *g*

And of course I was in their face with my camera...it's a habit I picked up last year.

( Click to see. )

So what's something positive you did/said/saw/thought/received today?

 
( The reason behind my positivy week--just a quick warning, it's quite personal. )


So I thought I'd host a "Positivity Week" on my blog. Each day I'll post something positive I've seen or done or thought, and invite everyone to comment with their own positive thing. It can be anything, doesn't have to be something big or grand...something you did for someone or that they did for you, something you saw, something you think, etc. :)

For my first contribution to positivity week, I did this at my Mom's today:


( click to see what I accomplished today )


So what are some good things going on with you?

I wanted to put up a sticky post (ignore the year) to let anyone know who visits my LJ that I will probably be updating this blog infrequently, if not at all, in the coming weeks. I'm dealing with a family crisis, waiting for a lot of questions to be answered. There are a lot of things I just don't know at this point.

 Well. So much for my promise to blog more. 

Not much happening here, except it seems I'm struggling with a teensy tiny, erm, focusing problem. Which totally sucks, since I was chugging away on my vacation novella (tentatively titled "Holding onto Summer") and about 3/4 through I just...boom. Focusing problem, which I'm not naming in fear that I'll have to face up to it being ThatWhichWillNotBeNamed.

I have the urge to look over my shoulder now.

*cough*

Anyways, so in lieu of me actually saying anything interesting I thought I'd ask what ya'll are reading these days. Or if you're an author, what you're working on, or better yet, if you have a new release out these days.

My TBR list looks a little like this these days:




Heh. Just Kidding. Kind of. That's only my print TBR, and since I mostly read digital these days...my TBR folder has 171 files in it.

Srsly.

So I've been trying out this Twitter thing in the last week or so.

The verdict? Perfect if you want to waste time chat with people. I find I quite enjoy it, though I'm not quite sure how useful it is from a marketing standpoint.

But it's fun. Maybe not as fun as what my characters were doing this morning (*big cheesy wink*), but as a writer you take what you can get.

So if you want to see what I'm tweeting about, you can check it out here: http://twitter.com/DakotaFlint

I thought this was funny though:

I probably sound like a broken record, but...I know it's been a while since I've blogged regularly. I'm not quite sure what my deal is, other than I always seem to be so busy and LJ posts are the first thing to get postponed. Or maybe I've just lost my blogging enthusiasm? Or should I say (hopefully) temporarily misplaced it? Either way I'm hoping to get back into the habit of blogging more regularly now, so I hope you all will bear with me a little longer.

So what have I been up to lately? Writing, of course. Law school applications. (They were eating my life!) And basketball.

Yes, you read that correctly. I love college baskbetball and it's tourney time. The time for face paint and beer practically oozing from your pores, the time for school fight songs and screaming yourself hoarse, the time for bracket pools and game parties, the time for underdogs and incredible stories of triumph. Is March not one of the best months ever?

Take last night for example. My team, Syracuse (18), played UConn (3) in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tourney. Everyone thought UConn would win, but Syracuse won instead. After SIX overtimes. 

Yes, you read that right, too. SIX. It boggles the mind. By the 6th overtime, most of our starters had fouled out and the guys who hadn't were literally drooping, the exhaustion pouring off of them along with the sweat. But they just wouldn't quit (and neither will ESPN...they're replaying the "instant classic" again and again today). All those players, on both teams, left it all on the court, pushing themselves for more, and more, and then still more.

Is it any wonder why I'm such a fan? I mean, look at that heart. You just don't get that in your every day professional bball game.

And you know, it got me thinking. (Yeah, yeah, yeah...that's where the smoke smell is coming from, I know. Heh.) Thinking about writing in general and romance specifically (a natural progression from basketball and uber-fanness). And I realized that some of my favorite re-read romances are ones that maybe aren't what I consider technically perfect--they could use some tightening here or there, or this plot point is kind of weak. But in the end that doesn't seem to matter to me, because they have heart, that indefinable something that keeps me glued to every page--even the imperfect ones. And so I forgive the missteps and they go on my keeper shelf anyways. Imperfect joys.

So yeah...that's what I'm thinking about today. Romance and basketball. A flippin' winning combo if I ever heard one.

What about you? What's on your mind?

So last night I had the TV on in the background and I happened to glance up at the words, "California. Find yourself here."

Then they flashed the Governator and other celebs talking about how great CA is.

And...that was it.

Uh....

I'm guessing they want people to go visit (tourist $). But I can honestly say it was kind of weird. I've never seen a commercial like that on my TV for another state. Cities, yeah sometimes if they're promoting something--like Orlando and Disney World. 

But never another state just saying, "Hey you should be here."

And isn't CA kind of like...um...imploding or something? 

Hmmmm. Strange doings...

I'm not usually one to pimp another author's interview when the author isn't me and I didn't do the interview...

BUT I do like to pimp laughs and they're free, so if you have a moment you can hop on over to the interview of Ethan Day over at Stormy Glenn's blog...and tell me this guy doesn't make you laugh! His response to one of the questions made me choke with laughter and diet coke--and if you're thinking that's as unattractive as it sounds, you're right! I was coughing, laughing, gasping, diet coke was everywhere and tears were running down my face.

But it was the best choke I ever had! (Ha.)

What is it about men at work and the uniforms they wear? What makes them so sexy? So yummy? So hot? So drool-worthy? So...well, you get the picture.

I'm guest blogging about that very thing  over at Jeanne Barrack's The Sweet Flag today, talking about a few of my favorite men in uniform and why I think they're so attractive.

So feel free to stop over and tell me why you think uniforms are sexy (or not, if that's your cup of tea) and what uniform really gets your heart pounding. ;)

need this:

 It's been quite a long time since I've done a book pimpin post...I bet you've all missed them. (right? RIGHT?)

So yesterday started out like any other day. I had some things to do, some scenes I wanted to add to my current WiP. Out of curiosity I hopped on over to the Loose Id site to see what new releases were out and I noticed a new m/m author I'd never heard of before, Ethan Day. My curiosity knows no bounds when it comes to new authors, so I read the excerpt. And laughed. So then of course I googled the author, found his website and blog and read those. And laughed. And before I knew it I was ignoring my plans for the day--and my towering TBR pile--and laughing so hard I got dirty looks from the people in Starbucks.

What a flippin' blast this book was. So. Funny.

The blurbage for Self Preservation:


Davis always assumed they would wind up back together, until Jack calls and invites Davis to his wedding to Tadd Austin, a prominentarchitect in Chicago. Jack's only known Tadd for two weeks, so whatever Jack feels for Tadd couldn't possibly compare to what he shared with Davis. There's no way in hell Davis can stand by and watch the life he always expected to get back slip away to some guy Jack barely knows. Tadd Austin, indeed…more like Toad Ass-ton, Davis thinks.

With his best friend, fashion designer Deseree Wildwood in tow, Davis has to shed his sweet, guy-next-door persona, and re-vamp his image into a self-confident, hot piece of eye candy. He's going to the wedding with only one goal in mind: to do whatever it takes to win back Jack. The Toad is toast!

Once in Chicago, Davis discovers it isn't going to be as easy as he thought. Not only is Tadd very un-Toad-like, but a mysterious British playboy named Alex Parker manages to interject himself into the mix. Only true love will survive as the tug of war ensues in this Bermuda love triangle from hell.



Most of you who have read my book recs or "non-reviews" probably know this, but for anyone new reading I thought I should warn you. I don't usually give a summation of the book. Or any useful information either. Juuuuuust kidding. I give buy links don't I?

Basically, the number one reason to buy this book? It's hysterical. Srsly.

It starts off...mildly amusing, and I was smiling a lot and thinking, "What a great, lighthearted way to spend an afternoon." And then Day must have hit his stride, because I started laughing out loud. When I wasn't laughing, I had this goofy smile on my face. I'm not kidding when I say the peeps at Starbucks gave me dirty looks. The stressed out suit types and the pseudo-intellectuals looked uncomfortable. There was happiness going on at my table.

I didn't care though. And by the time I had made it halfway through the book? I didn't even care where the author was taking the story. Kind of like crack, those laughs, and I needed the hit, so I wouldn't have particularly cared if 3/4 through the book all the characters had donned capes and started unleashing their super powers. As long as the laughs kept coming.

Which is not to say I think the author took this story places it shouldn't have gone. The opposite in fact. I think Day delivered every step of the way. It was all very over the top--in the BEST possible way--so if you're looking for angsty drama or reams of internal, gut-wrenching conflict...this ain't it. This is a very funny romp with some very endearing characters.

So some other reasons why I loved this book:

The cast of characters was great. I think just about every one of them could be one of my friends in real life. They're so funny, and fun, and like all the best characters, they're far from perfect. The main character Davis? He cries waaay too much--which in RL would make me roll my eyes--but I just LOVED him. Full stop, I thought he was a great character. Kind of neurotic, loyal, determined, good-natured, a little self-absorbed, emotional, stubborn, and so darn funny. Did I mention that I LOVED him?

Davis's best friend, Deseree? Priceless. She has some of the best lines and I can totally relate to her. She's spunky, determined, also very loyal, a total foodie, and knows the power of good fashion sense. What's not to love?

And Alex...oh my. I LOVED him too. He's called things in the story by various people like, "scamp" or "scalawag" and that's soooo...him. I loved his style, the fact that he makes a joke of everything, his interaction with the other characters. He's very funny, and I loved the crap he got away with saying. Hee. Loved. This. Guy. And, of course, the interaction with Davis was probably my favorite part. Here's a tiny sample (I don't want to spoil anything!) from their first meeting:

 ZA Maxfield and I are guest blogging over at Nose in the Book blog today, talking about out some of our favorite m/m characters. We did a manlove draft, picked our A-teams, and we're ready to rumble.

Stop on over and see who made our teams!

 How is it that the last four practice tests I took my score  DECREASED?

 I give up. I'm going to spend the rest of the day playing  with the kiddies, watching bad tv, eating pizza, and praying like hell my brain decides before 8:30 AM tommorow that it loves me again.

Most people who know me know how I feel about Cheney. *growls* That Dick.


And I do heart me some Keith Olbermann.

 I truly believe to achieve recognition for our genre within RWA we have to be a part of the official process and take part in the organization at a professional level. A few of us within the genre have created a google group to gage the interest in our community for support in establishing a GLBT RWA Chapter. Goals for this chapter include establishing a place to for authors of GLBT to network, learn more about what is happening in the romance industry concerning our genre, provide support and education for the authors, create a place for publishers and agents to reach the authors of this genre more easily, create workshops geared toward our writing needs, and possibly even organize writing contests at some point down the line.  These are only a few of things we can accomplish together.

If you write GLBT romance and are interested in creating and supporting a chapter that focuses on the GLBT romance genre please consider joining the group so that the degree of interest can be assessed.

 You do have to be a member of RWA to belong to a special interest RWA chapter but for now, we just want to see if there is sufficient interest to warrant the large effort of creating, maintaining and promoting the chapter. Whether you belong to RWA, are thinking of joining the RWA or just want to know more about the possibilities, please consider clicking on the link below and joining us for discussion. 

http://groups.google.com/group/rwa_rainbow_romance_chapter?hl=en

sincerely,
Laura Baumbach