I’m up to my eyelashes in holiday goodness. We’ve sort of had an early Christmas–my son was up from Florida for ten days and the house was jam-packed with his siblings and friends. I love to entertain, although I also love to be left alone in my writing room as I peck and ponder.

Sometimes the holiday season can be overwhelming–all the cooking and shopping and decorating and anxiety to get things “perfect.” Add a book release (Lords of Passion) in December and another (Mistress by Midnight) in January, and you might think I’m close to losing my marbles.

But I’m not, because I realized “perfect” is just another word in the dictionary. I’m old enough to know nothing in life is perfect, from the fingerprints marring the sheen on my stainless steel refrigerator to the problematic paragraph on the page.  I can wipe smudges off, but there will be more any minute. I might craft a really fabulous phrase that someone skips right over to get to “the good parts.” *g* Which is not to say I’m not getting out the Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner (a great product, btw) or trying hard to write the best book I can.

How crazy is the process of writing a book? If I’m lucky, I can finish one in about five months, sooner if real life doesn’t rear its sometimes-ugly head. It will take a reader as little as several hours or maybe a few days to read it. And they will expect perfection, which I will have tried to deliver…sometimes not entirely successfully, LOL. (For a chance to find out how close or far away from perfection I am for yourself, I’m giving away signed copies of both Lords of Passion and Mistress by Midnight today over at The Season blog.)

But here’s something that is practically perfect, and so simple that you can please the fussiest crowd. It can be jazzed up or just left as is. My family loves it, and the recipe is my gift to you to make your holidays easier…always a worthy goal. Happy New Year!

Idiot Chili-Cheese Dip: Mix one can of chili (I usually use Hormel’s with beans) and one pound of cheap American cheese (the evil stuff that is wrapped in plastic). Alternate layers in a microwave-safe bowl. Nuke about 9 minutes, or until cheese is oozy and stir-able. Serve with Cool Ranch Doritos and enjoy!

What’s your easiest go-to recipe? What’s the most perfect book you’ve ever read?

The holidays are nearly upon us. I have a dozen of people coming for turkey next week, and I found out the other day I’ve been drafted by my daughters to do Christmas dinner too. Whee! But we’re in a big new house (we have room for TWO trees) so this is the natural spot.

Apart from getting excited about extra family time in the upcoming weeks, I have room for TWO book releases too! Lords of Passion (an anthology with the legendary Virginia Henley and Kate Pearce) comes out on November 30, and then Mistress by Midnight, the second in my Courtesan Court Trilogy, arrives on December 28. So I’ll be busy cooking, shopping and doing a blog tour. Fortunately I can do promo at home–one hand can trim the tree while the other types.

There will be lots of opportunities to win both books. Please visit my News page for details. And I’m running a contest this month that has so far garnered me hilarious results. I have asked readers to name a hypothetical sequel to Lords of Passion. Now Lords of Passion is itself a kind of sequel to Lords of Desire, a previous Brava anthology. But I don’t think anyone at Brava ever published Lords of Laundry. Or Lords of Luxuriation. (Is that even a word?) And I’m certain Lords of Making Whoopee was never on anyone’s bestseller list. Do you want to take a crack at naming a book that will never see the light of day? Just fill in the blank in the comments for a Fun Friday: Lords of ________?

I’m absolutely thrilled that both my upcoming releases, the anthology Lords of Passion (December 2010) and Mistress by Midnight (January 2011) are being offered as featured alternate selections for the Rhapsody and Book of the Month book clubs in December. Midnight will be a Doubleday choice as well.

It seems like just yesterday I signed up for the Book of the Month Club and sent off a ridiculously small amount of money to get ‘free’ books—or at least books that cost mere pennies. As a high school student with limited babysitting income, I ordered expensive art books and classics, trying to get the most cultural bang for my buck on that trial offer. I was so excited when they came I was afraid to open them up.

I’d read anything when I was a kid, from the mildewy books my dad picked up at the Salvation Army to the comic books (too early for graphic novels, LOL) from the candy store around the corner. Nerd that I was, I always enrolled in the local library summer reading program and read all ten books in about a day and a half.

Though I was a voracious reader growing up, I never pictured myself as a writer. But I began a life-long love affair with words that still brings me comfort, whether I’m reading them or writing them.

Do you now or have you ever belonged to a book club? What would you order for your 99 cents? For a real free book, enter here for a chance to win an ARC of Lords of Passion!

I’m fully aware that summer lasts another month, but I’m still stuck on the September=school schedule. Actually, for the last few years, late August=school. For the first time in more years that I’ll own up to, I’m not going “back to school.” I left my high school library job last spring when I had some senior girls ask if they could bring in their copies of my Brava debut Mistress by Mistake for me to autograph. That made me a bit nervous—what if they read “the good parts” aloud in the lunchroom? I had enough years in the system to qualify for a monthly pittance, so I bowed out gracefully before my superintendent had to field calls from concerned parents about the crazy library lady.

My early retirement threw my writing schedule all out of whack. No longer did I have to get up at 4 AM to get a thousand words in before I left for work. I could eat lunch without plotting in my little notebook in the grubby teachers’ lounge. I could do copy edits in my bathing suit on my deck. I could have a life.

All this free time is taking some getting used to. I’d like to say it’s made me more productive, but I would be fibbing. *g* I think (relatively) better early in the morning, so I’m not sleeping in. I still catch the sun rise over the lake most mornings, even if I take my time getting dressed and getting my characters undressed.

What’s your morning routine?  What do you most look forward to when you ditch your day job? I’ll send beautiful coverflats of my upcoming books, the December anthology Lords of Passion and  January’s Mistress by Midnight to today’s commenters. Just e-mail me at maggie@maggierobinson.net with your mailing address, and check out the books page on my website for a sneak peak at my novella Not Quite a Courtesan!

This isn’t about the weather, although it’s been uncomfortably hot for weeks in Maine. But I’m excited to be going somewhere even hotter. I’ll be going to Orlando to attend my first Romance Writers of America convention ever in a little more than a week. I’ll be signing books, both as Maggie Robinson and my alter ego Margaret Rowe. (I hope they let us sit next to each other. *g*).

I’ve started to pack, and almost everything is black or white or both. Was I a penguin in my previous life? A well-tailored historical hero? A nun? (nah, probably not)

I’m also bringing some goodies–pencils with erasers so you can make all the mistakes you want a la Mistress by Mistake, magnets and bookmarks. I was also fortunate to be included in this cleverly-titled excerpt book with some wonderful (and Rita-nominated) authors. But no matter how much stuff I bring with me, the best has to be most of my family and my friend Claudia and her daughter.

What do you do to quell your nerves and help you relax in new situations? How do you handle heat? I can’t wait to meet other Brava authors and the many people I’ve gotten to know online. So if you see a perspiring middle-aged blonde in the corner wearing black and white, come by and say hello!

The big reveal! A few weeks ago my fabulous editor Megan Records (ask her anything!) sent me the new cover for my January 2011 release Mistress by Midnight. To say I am excited is an understatement. The rich and vibrant blue and the undeniable sexy position of Con and Laurette make me pretty happy.

You see, Laurette has a blue dress in the story–a spangled, sparkling dress she remakes from something she finds in her attic. No virginal white debutante dress for her. She has plans for that dress, and they include the seduction of her hero after her come-out ball.

My inspiration? I worked in a high school library, where every year there was much discussion of prom night. Part of Mistress by Midnight is set when Laurette is seventeen and Con is nineteen, when every desperate dream takes on too much significance. It was kind of liberating to slip back into my own teen years, only instead of  “making out” in the sand dunes at Jones Beach I have Con and Laurette getting busy in a ring of standing stones in Dorset.

Now before you get worried that I’m dipping into boring seventeen-year-old virgin territory, I must assure you that Laurette is twenty-nine through most of the story. I find as I grow older, I want to read about older heroes and heroines (although twenty-nine is still pretty darned young, LOL). I prefer people who’ve loved and lost, who’ve had their pride nicked and their hopes dashed. Their happy ending becomes all the more deserved. But I had the best of both worlds with the back story of Con’s and Laurette’s youthful innocence and their mature reunion.

What about your preference as to the age of your heroes and heroines? How young is too young and how old is too old?

My first Brava blog! I’m Maggie Robinson, a brand-new historical romance author whose book Mistress by Mistake debuts on April 27. That’s eleven days from today. Eleven days. For someone who works with words, I can’t quite describe my emotions, but let’s just say I’m excited. And nervous and twitchy. If I were one of my heroines, I’d be hiding behind the potted palms at the ball, dabbing my forehead with a lace-edged handkerchief and wishing deodorant had been invented.

Mistress by Mistake is the first of the Courtesan Court Trilogy, a Regency-era series about three unlikely mistresses and the men they master. Charlotte Fallon is a straight-laced spinster. Sir Michael Bayard is a straight-up rake. You know what happens next. If you’d like to find out more about the trilogy, please visit www.maggierobinson.net Check out the contest page for a chance to win one of three copies of Mistress by Mistake!

All the books take place on Jane Street, London’s fictional mistress row, the most exclusive enclave of exotic, erotic women. Why call it Jane Street? I’m going to confess something I’ve never told another soul. Jane Austen is rolling in her grave, but I wanted to pay my own tongue-in-cheek tribute to her. If it weren’t for Jane Austen, a lot of us would not have fallen in love with historical romance. If her books can be adapted to include zombie-fighting Ninjas, sea monsters and vampires, I’m sure she won’t mind having a quiet little street of expensive courtesans named after her.

Do you approve of messing with Jane’s classics? Do you have a favorite Austen book or movie? Does Colin Firth’s Darcy spoil you for any other historical hero? Will I come out from behind the palms and waltz?