At the moment of this writing (does that sound pretentious or what?), I’m working on my laptop while at our mountain cabin. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out how to transfer the blog to my desktop and keep in pending or whatever its called until Saturday, my usual day to post here. I confess: every time I have to tackle a new technology trick, I get nervous. I acknowledge the challenge but don’t trust my ability to follow the directions. Does that make any kind of sense? Earlier this week I hammered together a new web site that looks as if it was done by a moderately bright eight-year-old and yet am inordinately proud of myself because it actually uploaded and is on the Internet.

So why am I mentioning this? Because there’s more to me than Vonna Harper, erotica writer. My mind goes off into all kinds of directions I have scant control over and that’s a challenge I absolutely adore. Case in point: if you have nothing better to do, check out www.VellaMunn.net for an example of those other directions. I was in the right place at the right time when a brave woman decided to launch Calderwood Publishing.

When she mentioned that she was looking for completed manuscripts, I dusted off an old romantic adventure I’d years ago thought Harlequin would buy. Wrong. I never lost faith in the story, it was just up against a lot of competition. It’s also about as far from erotic as a romance can be and not what readers expect from Vonna Harper.

But Summer Flames is going to see the light of day before the end of Sept when Calderwood launches. That’s a kick, to be in on the ground floor of a new venture. I’m not the one taking risks, I’m simply exploring whether what I believe is a decent story will find an audience.

Summer Flames has huge chunks of the real me in it, the country hick who would be happy if she never again stepped foot inside a city, who loves mountains and evergreens, who would risk her life protecting the wilderness. Both of my characters share the same commitment to trees and wildlife which gives them something vital in common. But my hero (who owns a chunk of private forest land) has legitimate reasons for not trusting the heroine’s family and therein lies the conflict. Well, one of the conflicts. There’s also the matter of timber thieves willing to kill to defend their illegal activities. And finally there’s the hint the title provides. Part of the flames connection comes from the budding relationship but not all. It’s late summer, the forest is dry. ‘Nough said.

I’d love it if once Calderwood is live, folks would take a gander around the site and let me know what they think. It’s all about a small business trying to make it, a dream coming true.

Vonna Harper