Shelley Munro Blog

Today my special guests are collaborative writers, Laura Baumbach and Josh Lanyon. They’re are also among my favorite authors, and I asked them to talk about writing partnerships since the idea of working on a joint project fascinates me. Read on to hear about their writing adventures. Their book Mexican Heat is due out in September from MLR Press.
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We;ve spent the last couple of days in Oregon and tonight are just over the border in Walla Walla, Washington. I’m posting a few photos today. The first is of Devil’s Tower, which is in South Dakota. We had our first snake sighting here. It slithered across the path in front of us.

Mr. Munro and I missed checking out the Million Dollar Cowboy bar last time we visited Jackson Hole. This time we made sure we visited. Here’s a photo of me sitting at the bar.

We both really enjoyed our visit to the Oregon Trail Center near Baker City. The displays were excellent and very interesting. Despite the passing of the years it is still possible to see the ruts made by the wagon trains. I don’t envy the people their long trip from Independence, Missouri to Oregon. It wasn’t an easy one.

They also had a man talking about birds of prey while we were there and he had two different owls plus a hawk with him. His talk was fascinating and it was great seeing these birds at close range. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos. For some reason they had masses of mosquitoes at the Oregon Trail center. They were the size of small birds and very active. I hate mosquitoes! Here’s a photo of one of the wagons in the outside display.

I’m a member of the RWA Kiss of Death chapter and while I was at conference I attended the AGM. Allison Brennan was the guest speaker and everyone who attended received copies of Allison’s books. I picked up the first one - Speak No Evil and started reading it last night. Allison’s serial killer isn’t a nice person and I worried about nightmares.

I was quite relieved to dream about Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh instead. I have NO idea why I dreamed about them but let’s just say they had a very amusing State visit to Munro House. (Who said dreams need to make sense!)

I had to get up during the night to go to the restrooms and since we stayed in a cabin last night it was a bit of a hike to get to them. It was dark in the restrooms. I turned on the light. Suddenly I thought about Allison’s book. I didn’t think there was anyone in there with me but I checked every cubicle and pulled back shower curtains to make sure before I went about my business.

I finished Speak No Evil today. I love the way Allison made her characters so real and intertwined the suspense plot with the romance. I definitely recommend her books. I’ll be starting See No Evil tonight. Luckily we’re in a lodge and I won’t need to check behind so many doors and curtains should I decide to wander in the middle of the night!

We had a really early start this morning and were seranaded by wolves. I really wanted to see wolves but hearing them was as close as I came. Mr. Munro wanted to see a bull moose. We were actually disappointed by the number of animals we saw in Yellowstone National Park, although the park is very large and any sensible animal would stay well away from the roads and all tourists. The scenery is beautiful. I really like the mountain meadows with the meandering streams and beautiful wild flowers.

The Grand Tetons are very pretty. Once again, we didn’t see many animals but by this stage it was midday. Here’s a shot of the Grand Tetons.

We were very excited to come across heaps of cars and people since we knew it meant an animal sighting. I thought it would be a bison again. Mr. Munro said he wanted to see a @#%&* moose and we were going to see what they were looking at! Mr. Munro turned out to be right and we were able to get really close to a bull moose. He stood in the middle of a stream grazing, ignoring all the people. And I have to add here that some people really need to act a little more sensibly. These are wild animals. Here’s the photo of the @#%& moose.

Today’s blog entry comes courtesy of Mr. Munro:

Last night, Tuesday, we went to the rodeo. Great fun. Very professional. It only lasted 2 hours but there was bareback, saddle, bull riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, roping and there were kids chasing calves that had ribbons on their tails. There were also clowns. The cowboys and girls travel anywhere up to 48 hours to compete at the Cody Nite Rodeo.

We drove into Yellowstone from Cody where we passed a large meadow full of fire trucks, tents, porta loos, and firemen to fight the forest fire on the border of the park. We later found out that they are going to let it burn out naturally, unless it posses a risk to the Park or buildings. It was exactly 20 years ago to the day that a huge forest fire decimated Yellowstone, over one million acres of forest destroyed. The re growth is very slow. Luckily the wind was kind and it hasn’t affected our stay in Yellowstone.

We’ve seen bison, lots of bison [no threat of extinction there] to the extent that they roam across the road holding up traffic. They are not tame, each year a number of stupid tourists get the ultimate close up and are gored in the process. We saw a fox, coyote, badger, bald eagles/osprey, trout, bambies and tourists. We did see a grizzly bear that was sleeping off its meal of bison. That carcass was about 20 metres from the bear which was hidden by long grass. Every now and then it would stick its head up and did get up and wander around for a few seconds before laying down again. There must have been about 40 cars parked along the verge of the road trying to take photos. Waste of time as the bear was more than 100 metres from the road. The Park rangers were trying to keep the traffic moving but sightings are rare so everyone wanted to see. They have their own policing within the National Park service and watch out if you exceed the speed limit. Besides, if you travel too fast you’ll miss the scenery and wildlife.

My guest today is the wonderful Nina Pierce who writes for Liquid Silver Books. She’s talking about a subject that strikes fear into all our hearts - rejection.

You’ve done it. Finished your first novel and sent it off to the editor or agent of your dreams. And now you wait. Since this one will be such a best seller you don’t want to waste precious time and you get started on your next novel. The words are just flying onto the page when the letter or email arrives. “Sorry, but this isn’t for us …”
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Welcome back to Vampiropolis!

Selena Illyria here. Yup, we’re going back to Vamp City. J. This time I’m telling Lida’s story. Lida, you met in A Fling in Vampiropolis, out now at Changeling Press. I adore her character. It’s always fun going back to Vampiropolis and finding a new aspect of the city to explore. In Discovering Passion we get to visit the Vampiropolis Museum and the Sensual District, also we learn a little bit more about the founding of the city.
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This is Beauty, the mammoth. The mammoth place was fascinating. This particular one is called Beauty because it is almost perfect. There’s a tiny tip missing off one tusk but the skull is otherwise intact with few cracks.

This is a photo of a Bighorn Sheep. We came across three perched on a rock on the side of the road. They were males and argued over the choice bits of tree leaves with loud clashes of horns.

This unknown critter caused great consternation when it tried to stick its head inside the car to investigate me at closer quarters. I moved very quickly to close the window! Hubby couldn’t stop laughing and took this photo.

No photos today since I’m tired and can’t summon the energy to download my camera to my laptop. Last night we stayed at Grand Lake - actually outside Grand Lake - at a campground called Elk Creek in some darling little cabins. Mr. Munro has been very clever with our accommodation and we’ve stayed in a real mix. I was sitting our our terrace having a beer and watched a mouse run across the steps. Mice don’t scare me (unless they choose to run over my feet) so I continued sipping my beer and casually mentioned it to hubby. When he investigated, he found more mice. A family of the wee things. Later that night I kept hearing noises and at one stage shot upright in bed and woke Mr. Munro. It was raining and the patter on the roof had woken me. The mice hadn’t decided to come inisde out of the cold, so I went back to sleep.

Today we drove through the Rocky Mountain National Park. I purchased a book on mountain lions and questioned the ranger for some time. Ranger Michelle was lovely and my story idea is fermenting nicely after all the info she gave me. We saw some moose and stopped to take photos. We also stopped to take photos of some elk. Their antlers were HUGE. I don’t know how they manage to hold their heads up. When we traveled farther into the park, it started sleeting - freezing when you’re wearing shorts! I yanked more clothes out of the suitcase and layered. It worked all right and a hot cider at the information center at the top of the mountain completed the thaw. We enjoyed all our wildlife sightings. Next on the list is bison and beers. We have a list and we’re ticking it off.

Tomorrow we’re driving into South Dekota. Deadwood - here I come!

Oh, I forgot to say that we had a fun time in Cripple Creek and for the first time in history Mr. Munro and I won some money at one of the casinos. Me - the last of the big spenders who puts $1 at a time in the machines, played poker and won. I’m still in shock.

I really like Colorado. It’s green and pretty, although I bet I wouldn’t enjoy it quite as much during the middle of winter. We stayed at Snowmass last night, which is quite close to Aspen. We spent an hour or so in Aspen window shopping at the expensive designer stores. Aspen reminds me a lot of Queenstown in New Zealand with the same Alpine flavor.

We drove through Independence Pass. The scenery is beautiful. We stopped at the top of the pass and here’s one of the photos.

We also visited Florissant National Park and wandered around looking at petriefied tree stumps, old cottages and root cellars and also a few fossils. The root cellar was nice and cool but a bit stinky. Tonight we’re staying in an old goldmining town called Cripple Creek. These days the saloons and brothels are casinos and shops, but the town has kept its old look. I can hear the toot of the old train from our room and it sounds like the old TV show Petticoat Junction.

We’re off to dinner now. I can hear a margarita calling my name.