Welcome Lin Holmes, a woman I admire for her strength of will, sweetness of nature, and creative output. I first met Lin when we were both newcomers at MuseItUp and she had just had Santa is a Lady published. Since that time, Lin has had many other publications through Muse, too numerous to mention. Her latest, She’s Gone, is the focus of her guest blog today. But first, let’s get to know the secret, inner Lin a little better with her answers to an interview!

1. What is your favorite book?
That’s easy. The Last Day by Glenn Kleier. I found Glenn’s book when I was fighting my second war against cancer. Glenn spun an amazing tale that holds up a mirror up to modern man, revealing what we would do if the Second Coming of Jesus happened today. Would modern man treat this miracle maker better?

2. Who is your favorite writer?
It would be self-defeating if I claimed anyone but Glenn Kleier after the glowing praise I gave him and his debut book in answer of the last question. However, I have other authors/writers I eagerly await. With Glenn, his writing gave me the courage to live despite cancer. That is a huge gift I will always thank him and his ability to weave a story for. I also love Kat Holmes, my very talented author daughter. She has created a world so rich in detail and history I fell in love with it. I am of course speaking of her Artica Lights series. Frozen, book one, is out and available from Muse It Up Publishing’s Hot side. It tells the story of a land of perpetual winter and it’s lonely queen Awni.

Kat just finished the manuscript for the second book in this series, Reflections Of Ice, and I got to read it while it was still a work in progress. The world I fell in love with in Frozen takes on richer depth becoming a tapestry of Artica, and the Lights that play such a pivotal role in all that takes place in the Artica Lights series.

3. If the answers in 1 and 2 are different, why?
I sort of already explained that, but allow me to elaborate. Since becoming a part of the Muse It Up Publishing Family, I am discovering a treasure trove of wonderful authors with powerful stories to tell. Heather, I read your first book, Murder Is A Family Business and loved it. I have the second, A Wedding To Die For, but haven’t had the time to read it yet. It is waiting for me, on my Kindle.

4. How old were you when you were first published?
I had a poem published in my college paper when I was 18, but 59 when Santa is a Lady, my first Christmas Miracles book came out on 12/1/10. Since then I’ve had Forever With You, The Pendulum Swings, Twilight Comes, In From The Cold, This Time Forever, Beyond Yesterday, Suc-U, Champagne Afternoon, and The Christmas War release from Muse It Up Publishing, with She’s Gone coming out in February 2012.

5. What writing style do you most abhor?
I don’t know. I’m one of those people that sits down at either my computer or with pad and pen and let my inner muse, I call Nudge, write. Is that a style? Or are you speaking about genre? If it’s genre, I steer clear of horror and anything that smacks of BSDM. I read for entertainment, mostly, so reading something guaranteed to give me nighmares is just something I avoid.

6. What is your favorite writing cliché?
Published authors are rich! Whenever I tell anyone I am a published author, they look beyond me for my Porche and disbelieve me when I tell them 99% of published authors have day jobs. Naturally, I have a secret dream of being independently grandiose in the images of say J.K. Rowlings, Norah Roberts, Stephen King, and the late Robert B. Parker, but I have a feeling if I ever achieve that level, I’ll be well into my third life after this one.

7. What is your favorite word?
Yes.

8. When and how do you type? (typewriter, Mac, in a café, for four hours each morning, etc?)
Since I am dyslexic, I LOOOOVVVEEE my computer and the spell checker attached to MS Word. All my TYPING is done on my computer, but I also will write on a notebook with pen. (I’m a bit old fashioned that way.)

9. What is your greatest fear when you first turn in a manuscript?I think like so many other authors, I fear I did not spend enough time polishing it, but I also know you can polish it and polish it and still worry you haven’t done enough. So that’s a Catch-22 situation I just live with every time I send off another baby, hoping it will emerge from it’s pre-natal nursery and emerge from the Publishing House ready to test its land legs.

10. In what era do you wish you’d been born?
I have affection for many eras, so have this eerie feeling I HAVE been born into them. Now if you’d like to know which is my favorite? Hmm! Darned if I know. Each had/has its allure.

11. What words or phrases do you most overuse?
You’d have to ask my editors that. I think my Content Editor would probably say I overuse the word “was”, and she’s probably right…but was was always a good word before. :>)

12. Which talent would you most like to have?
I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler, so I’d have to say being an artist. To be able to transfer what I see onto canvas and have others see it too…wow!

13. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
That’s easy. Being a mom. I am so blessed to have Kat Holmes, my very beautiful, talented daughter as my cheering crowd and best friend. I don’t know what I did to deserve her, but am beyond thankful for her.

14. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Right now I’m the only one other than Kat, who knows about him. He’ll debut in my first full length, as in over 375 page book, late Spring 2012 in a book I called Echoes From The Past. His name is Ahoishmahir, and he’ll travel forward and backward through three time eras during the course of the story. When we first meet him, we think he’s either a ghost, or a spirit sent to guide the heroine Dr. Kira Firebird on her quest. The first time we meet him in the flesh, so to speak, he’s a leader of the Anasazi people. In his other time, Lemuria…well, I don’t want to give too much away, but Aho, he’s my favorite.

15. How would you like to die?
With my eyes shut. Yep, in my sleep, please.

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I have a book coming out very soon She’s Gone from Muse It Up Publishing that is a mystery with a surprise ending.

A man comes home at the end of a busy workday to a house that shrieks with its emptiness. His wife is gone…kidnapped? The cat is gone? Who kidnaps a wife AND cat? Her side of the closet is empty. But they’d made powerful soul rejuvenating love just that morning. Clues…there are clues, but will he unravel them before it’s too late?

BLURB:
She’s gone!
The silence reaches out and rebounds inside his body. Where is she, was she kidnapped? What kidnapper takes her toothbrush, her clothes, and her cat, but leaves his half of the closet full? What does the puddle of melted ice mean, and the lone glass. All the other dishes from their shared breakfast are in the dishwasher; what does this lone glass mean? They had not fought, if anything they’d made passionate love before both needed to head off to their jobs that morning.

She’s gone!
EXCERPT ONE:
I should call the police. If we were robbed, and that could be the only answer for this, the thieving bastards had to have kidnapped her too. Along with her cat, Mr. Highbrow.
Struggling to his feet, he clutched onto the doorframe like it was a lifeline. He inched his way against the wall, grabbed the chair back to swing his shaking body around the dresser until he was finally able to press one hand against each side of the bathroom doorway. He peered inside, not sure what exactly he was looking for, but pretty certain he’d know it when he saw it.
On the far wall, beneath the shiny medicine cabinet, his toothbrush stood, a solitary sentinel, where just that morning, there’d been two. What kind of a thief steals a used toothbrush? Obviously one who was into strange ideas of dental hygiene.

She’s gone!
EXCERPT TWO:
After three rings, Tia’s secretary, Heather McCutcheon answered the phone.
Heather was a sweet kid, a bit scatterbrained and a little bit overtly talkative. “Oh Hi Mr. R. What a surprise. I didn’t expect to hear from either you or Mrs. R., this being your second honeymoon and all. How is Crystal Island? I bet it’s wonderful. I just sat and drooled when Mrs. R. told me all about it. So why are you calling? Did Mrs. R. forget something? You know, she really should leave the office behind and let the rest of us take care of things. What I wouldn’t give for time to go off somewhere exotic at this time of year and just loll around and have fun.”
Jonathan was beginning to think Rod Serling had returned from the Great Beyond, revamped The Twilight Zone, and he’d somehow walked into the middle of shooting. The Twilight Zone had depicted seemingly average Joe’s going about the business of living their lives confronting, all of a sudden confronting warped parallel-like worlds that often tipped them into the realms of mind-blowing insanity.
“Crystal Island?” he repeated dumbfoundedly.
“Yeah. It sounds like a piece of heaven.” She sighed letting him know that Heather was both enchanted and envious. “I asked Mrs. R. to bring me back a couple souvenir stalagmites…or are they stalactites? I can never remember which one grows up and which one grows down.”
Jonathan wanted to scream. He was going to get nothing more from Heather, but he did not want to alert her that her boss lied. Jonathan had never known Tia to lie.
Scrambling to find something safely innocuous to say, he finally spoke, anxious now to hang up the phone and track down travel agents. “Ah, Tia wanted me to make sure you’ve cleared her calendar for the entire time.” he said hoping his probe was subtle enough not to alert Heather to his own total ignorance of his wife’s actions, plans, and reasons for disappearing.
“Oh sure, tell her I even rescheduled Carlton Bradley’s conference. She’s got the whole month free. I’m forwarding any emergencies to our New York office, just like she said I was.” Heather’s voice beamed with pride.
“That’s great, Heather. I’ll make sure I tell her just as soon as she steps out of the shower.”
“You just tell her to have a good time and not to give the office one little thought.”

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Buy page for all of Lin’s Muse offerings: http://tinyurl.com/7j2ym9o