On the one hand, I want to put on my happy author face and say this week has been mostly blessings for me. My editor read STRIP SEARCH and asked me to clarify 2 things, which took me 2 hours. I sent the book back to her, and she said she was thrilled. It’s a book that was a joy and a challenge and a pain in my backside to write. And I loved every minute of it. This hero… I hope everyone who reads him will understand the road paved with anger and fear people must travel after a betrayal of monumental proportions–and love his recovery. I hope every woman who’s ever made choices that didn’t thrill her loved ones will appreciate this heroine’s guts and applaud her for staying true to herself. And of course, I hope you’ll all enjoy the sexy push-pull between these two tough, strong-willed people. I did.

But on the other hand, it’s hard to feel like celebrating in the wake of tragedy. New Orleans is a city I’ve been to several times. I always felt its slow, drawled charm…which seemed to mask a glittering danger. It lured you in with sexy promise, even as you knew it had a dark underside. I never knew why the city made me feel that way until I really looked at a map and realized that a storm of that magnitude was going to wreak utter devastation. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach on Sunday night as I watched the news with my family over dinner. Like most, though, I never imagined anything quite this bad. My heart, thoughts and donations go out to the people who have lost family members and friends, houses, pets and their livelihoods in New Orleans, as well as Mississippi and Alabama.

Like the days after 9/11, it’s hard to want to write in the middle of all this. But as other writers have pointed out, and I, too, realized, stories of hope and fantasy and love–the glue that holds our souls together–are important in trying times. So I’m going to do my part to spread those things. Nothing I write today will make it to a bookshelf in time to uplift anyone suffering in the next few weeks. But I will be thinking that, as people survive and begin to rebuild, I will be there, as will other writers. While I will do what I can through donation and prayer to help right now, I will continue to tell the stories of commitment and joy that last a lifetime so we can hopefully focus on a better tomorrow.