Ah, the glamorous life

Everybody knows how romance writers live: daily bubble baths with champagne on a tray, boxes of miraculously calorie-free chocolates, and gorgeous guys in tuxedoes awaiting our emergence (speaking of gorgeous, has anyone seen that incredible hunk on New Amsterdam? But I digress…)

Let me tell you what it’s really like.

On a recent day, after spending the morning working on a book, I set out for the dreaded California ritual of getting the car tuned and then having it smog-checked. Since I drive a car that predates 1995 – a 1993 Honda, to be exact -- it has to undergo extra testing, at extra cost. This, even though I work at home and drive a grand total of four thousand miles per year.

Okay, that part made me grumpy. But then I returned to find a box of books from Harlequin. It contained my May release, The Family Next Door, the first of my Harmony Circle trilogy. What’s especially fun is that, since the heroine’s a teacher, I’d dedicated it to my younger son’s biology teacher, who went out of her way to encourage him and write him college recommendations.

So I composed a note, packaged the book and got it ready to mail, along with copies for half a dozen Web sites that regularly review my books.

No sooner had I finished when a thud! on the front porch announced the arrival of my weekly teaching packet from the Long Ridge Writers Group (www.longridgewritersgroup.com), where I teach a distance-learning course. Half a dozen students had completed their writing assignments, so of course I wanted to start reading and commenting on those.

But first I figured I’d better check my e-mail. There I found an invitation to write an article for a new Web site that Romance Writers of America is posting for its published authors network. That’s quite an honor, and I was happy to agree. Ideas began running through my head…

Wait! Another e-mail! A friend reminded me that I’d volunteered to speak to a writing class she teaches. So of course I wanted to respond, picking a date and letting her know what topic I’d be covering.

Time to fix a cup of coffee and get back to work. Except … we ran out of milk, and I can’t drink coffee without it. We were also low on my favorite caramel-flavored frozen yogurt. Got to have that calcium, right? So I made a little trip to the supermarket.

It was close to five, which meant I had to prepare a casserole for dinner. Just throw a few items into the baking dish … You guessed it. An hour later, I was still downstairs, fixing the salad.

Never did get around to the bubble bath. But after dinner, my husband -- still handsome after nearly thirty years together -- rubbed my back while we watched a taped episode of New Amsterdam.

What more could a romance writer ask for?