In August I decided I needed to get back into shape. My clothes were a little too tight, and I was huffing and puffing on my way up the stairs. As many of you know, it’s not easy to find time to exercise when you run a house, write books, and have a toddler who wants your attention every waking moment. I tried going to the YMCA and working out, but Baby Galen would nap too long or I would need to run errands or…there was always something.

And then I saw a boot camp class advertised in the YMCA booklet. It was three days a week from 5-6 a.m. Nothing is going to get in the way at 5 a.m., and Ultimate Sportsfan is home with Baby Galen. So I invited a friend to join me and signed up. To my shock, my friend agreed to do it too, which meant I actually had to show up. I couldn’t exactly invite someone else to be tortured in the wee hours of the morning and then sleep in.

So I’ve been going to boot camp for a month, and I am getting in better shape. I’m still sore and still huffing and puffing, but I’m doing it. And I’ll probably sign up for the next session too.

I feel like I’ve learned a few things from fitness boot camp I can pass on to you.

1. Pace yourself. Learn to slow down or say no when you’ve already got a lot on your plate. There’s usually 20 push ups still to come!

2. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. I am not embarrassed to admit I’m one of the last people when we do relays or sprints or pretty much anything. I’m not fast, but I am persistent. I can run three miles. I just can’t do it fast. And you know what? That’s okay. This is my workout, and it matters what I’m getting out of it. So don’t compare yourself to others (especially those bouncy college girls). Just do your best.

3. Just do it. September was probably the worst month for me to decide to wake up at 4:30 a.m. three times a week. I had a book due October 1st, a book out September 1st, book signings, a blog tour, and Baby Galen’s birthday to plan. But I knew if I didn’t do it then, I might never do it. So I went for it. Yes, September was inordinately hard, but October feels like a piece of…healthy celery stick compared to September. So don’t hold back. If you want something, make it happen.

Have you ever done a fitness boot camp or something else that was a real challenge for you? One person who comments will win a copy of my contemporary Reality TV Bites (written as Shane Bolks). The main character in the book has some real challenges to overcome.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess we had a little flub today, and I wasn’t supposed to be blogging. But today’s blog is my responsibility, and I needed to get something up fast! So I grabbed this fun blog that originally appeared on September 23 at Love Romance Passion. If you’ve already seen it, sorry for the repeat.

In my new historical romance, Lord and Lady Spy, both the hero and heroine have secret identities. He’s secret agent Wolf, and she’s secret agent Saint. The fun thing is that while Sophia and Adrian have been married five years, neither knows of the other’s secret. And how the sparks fly when the truth is revealed!

I love stories with secret identities. This isn’t my first secret-identity book and probably won’t be my last. Why are secret identities so sexy?

1. When you have a secret identity your secret self can do things your public self never would. As Lady Smythe, Sophia would never tell her husband what she wanted from him in bed. But as Agent Saint, she’s more than happy to give a few orders.

2. Secret identities mean lots of midnight rendezvous and clandestine meetings. Sometimes these dark, furtive meetings can lead to more than simply spy business.

3. Secret identities mean dressing the part. A dowdy lady of Society can dress as a sexy siren when she’s playing her role as spy.

4. Secret identities mean secret scars. How much fun to compare battle wounds, especially when they’re in interesting places!

5. Secret identities mean you have an excuse for slipping away from a boring ball or house party. On business—or pleasure!

6. When you have a secret identity you have the chance to meet your spouse all over again for the first time. Who wouldn’t want to experience that initial spark of attraction again?

7. A secret identity as a spy means Sophia and Adrian have to come up with lots of explanations for prolonged absences when they’re working on a mission. But they also get to travel the world.

8. Secret identities mean secret talents. Sophia has skills with a dagger, and Adrian’s a crack shot with a pistol.

9. Secret identities mean you don’t get much share of the applause for your accomplishments. On the other hand, your accomplishments often bring you into contact with the most powerful men and women of the day. Why, yes, prime minister, I would like to come to dinner!

10. And, finally, secret identities are sexy because it’s a secret we the reader know and the characters don’t know. At first. I love to guess how the hero or heroine will realize the secret and how he or she will react. I think this scene in Lord and Lady Spy is pretty sexy and exciting.

Do you like secret identity stories? What makes them sexy? Our JQ friend Mia Marlowe is offering a copy of her latest, Improper Gentlemen, to one random commenter!

This is a picture I took of Baby Galen about 6 months ago. She’s crying because I wouldn’t give her the camera to slobber over and drop. I took the picture and framed it because I wanted some reality along with all the cute, smiling photos.

And here’s one of those, too.

You moms and dads know that sometimes you have to say no to your tot and not give in to their demands. You know it’s actually bad to always give in because then the child doesn’t learn limits, boundaries, rules, and to deal with disappointments, challenges, and setbacks. So hopefully since being denied the camera didn’t kill Baby G, it will make her stronger one day.

I think I mentioned in a previous blog that I had a lot of trouble writing Lord and Lady Spy, which is on sale tomorrow, by the way. I just couldn’t get the conflict to work. I put it away and came back to it later. When I came back to it, I was dealing with a very personal crisis. I’d lost a baby when I was eleven weeks pregnant.

The miscarriage was completely unexpected. Ultimate Sportsfan and I were just about to tell everyone we knew our good news. We’d already told our parents, and we were just waiting for the one last formality of the doctor’s visit.

I remember every moment of that awful appointment beginning when the nurse could not find the baby’s heartbeat. At first no one was really concerned. Eleven weeks is kind of early to hear the heartbeat, and we’d seen the heartbeat at seven weeks. But I had a little nervousness, especially when the doctor asked me to come into the ultrasound room.

Still I was kind of happy because I looked forward to seeing my baby again on the ultrasound screen. I waited and watched the black screen and heard the doctor make a distressed sound. She said, “I don’t see a heartbeat.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I’m going to have another doctor look and get a second opinion,” she said and stepped out. I looked at Ultimate Sportsfan, and he put his head in his hands. That’s when I knew.

Losing that baby was the worst time of my life, and like all of you, I’ve had some rough times. I have never cried so much, never felt so hopeless or depressed, never asked why and shook my fist at God as much as I did in the aftermath of that miscarriage.

To say I was devastated is a gross understatement.

Fortunately, I have a really supportive husband and friends who were there for me. I healed, very slowly, but I healed. And one thing that helped me to heal was writing about miscarriage.

As I said, I came back to Lord and Lady Spy after some time away. I came back after my miscarriage, and when I read over what I’d written, I realized Sophia’s inner conflict was that she’d had a miscarriage, actually three miscarriages. She doesn’t want to go through that pain again and has, consequently, excluded Adrian from her bed. Even as they begin to repair their fractured marriage, she keeps him at a distance.

Sophia is not me. Her thoughts are not my thoughts, and her pain is not my pain, but I hope that some of her thoughts and feelings can speak to the pain every woman who has lost a child knows.

Now I don’t want to mislead you. Lord and Lady Spy is not a serious, contemplative novel about pregnancy loss. It’s a fun book with lots of adventure, but it does have its serious moments and characters dealing with very real problems.

I dedicated the book to mothers—especially those who know the pain of loss. This blog is dedicated to you too. And all of you, hug your little ones a little tighter, but however long they cry and scream, don’t give them the camera.

Tomorrow is September. You do not know how long I’ve been waiting for it to be September! I’ve been waiting years for it to be September, even though I didn’t know it.

I started writing a book I called Lord and Lady Smythe in 2007. I worked on it, put it away, worked on it some more, wrote other books, tried to get it published, put it away again, and then in 2010 I dragged it out one last time.

I had always been in love with the concept for the book. What if Mr. and Mrs. Smith (like the movie with Brad and Angelina) lived in the Regency? Two married spies who don’t know the other’s secret identity who have to work together? I loved the premise, but I couldn’t make it work.

Until 2010. I finally figured out what was keeping these characters apart, what was driving them, what made them interesting enough to fuel a book.

And now four years later, Lord and Lady Spy, which has been with me for so long will finally be available to all of you. See why I’m so excited for September?

I want you to be excited about September and Lord and Lady Spy too. I’m giving away five copies of an excerpt book featuring an excerpt from Lord and Lady Spy. It also features excerpts from authors you love like Zoe Archer, Katharine Ashe, Monica Burns, Robyn DeHart (yes, one of our own!), Lila DiPasqua, Elizabeth Essex, Alexandra Hawkins, Sophie Jordan, Vanessa Kelly, Kris Kennedy, Mia Marlowe, Ashley March, Elisabeth Naughton, Miranda Neville, Heather Snow, and Emma Wildes.

Want a chance to win? Just tell me what you look for in a book excerpt.

Oh, and if you get a chance, check out my blog tour. There are tons, seriously so many, opportunities to win a copy of Lord and Lady Spy, and it all begins Friday.

And don’t forget tomorrow begins our Guess the Jaunty contest. Check back daily and comment on blogs by our Mystery Jaunty!

10. You came here expecting to read something, right? Don’t give up now!

9. You like Top 10 lists (or you don’t but you want to see where this one is going. It is going somewhere fun!).

8. You want to win a free book or books—lots of books (then keep reading!).

7. You like videos (then keep reading!).

6. You like being the first to know stuff.

5. You want to know something about that awesome book featured above or about my little parenthetical notation!

4. You saw the following You Tube link when you skimmed the post and are only just now going back to read the text. If you’re reading in order (thank you!), please click below to see the trailer for my September release, Lord and Lady Spy. There are NO spoilers in the trailer.

3. You want more reasons? I know, I know. I did promise you ten.

2. If you sign up for my mailing list you will be automatically entered to win one of three (3) signed copies (signed to you personally) of Lord and Lady Spy. I’ll choose three newsletter subscribers on September 6 and email them that they’ve won.

1. You like Julia Quinn. Okay, that came out of nowhere right? But not really. Let’s just be honest. We Jaunties are trying to entertain you here, but we also want you to buy our books. I want you to buy my book (see above), but I also want you to LIKE me on Facebook. Why? Because then I can convince you I’m so fun and my books are so cool and you’ll so want to buy them. And if I have a lot of LIKES maybe my publisher will do an ad or something for me on Facebook, and I’ll sell more books!

So when I get 2000 LIKES on my Facebook page I’m going to put up a contest tab and choose one person who enters to win the entire set of Julia Quinn novels signed by Julia Quinn. Yes, that’s 21 books, people. All signed by Julia Quinn.

So LIKE me and get your friends to like me and watch the trailer and join my mailing list and, oh yeah, buy my book.

See, I could have just said all that up front, but isn’t a Top 10 list more fun?

Melanie Adkins in the winner of the 4 historical romances mentioned in my blog yesterday. Melanie, email me at shana@shanagalen.com with your address.

Winston Churchill, that great statesman, once said, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

Sometimes I feel a little like Churchill, for I write history too. Most readers of historical romance understand that we authors write a romanticized version of history. It’s not that we want to be anachronistic—we avoid that at all costs—it’s more that the lack of flushing toilets and people’s infrequent bathing habits and women not shaving under their arms just isn’t romantic.

So we kind of gloss over those blips in favor of a more romanticized historical world. I am perfectly okay with this because I get the big stuff right. I don’t have women wearing hoop skirts in 1815 or men wearing trousers to Almack’s in 1802. I may not focus on the fact that my hero is wearing pumps at the ball (dear reader, one can only hope they were sexier than they sound), but I certainly won’t have him dancing in Hessians.

Some historical writers are quite obsessed with history. They know everything about a particular era or about fashion or some other topic. I love these writers. I do. I love to read their blogs and learn everything I can because even though I love the time periods I write about (and even a few I don’t write about) I am not obsessed with them.

Research is a necessity for me, not a joy. I’d rather focus on the characters and the story and get them doing something exciting. Who cares if the streets were paved or cobblestone? Okay, I know, you readers care. And that’s why I do my research.

Do you like to read historical romance? Why? What makes it enjoyable? The historical details? The setting? Something else?

This blog is for you historical romance lovers because I’ll randomly choose one person who comments to win a set of 4 historical romances from some of my favorite authors—The Heir by Grace Burrowes, Provocative in Pearls by Madeline Hunter, The Secret Affair by Mary Balogh, and a signed copy of How to Seduce a Scoundrel by Vicky Dreiling.

I love my job as a writer. Really, I love it. I’m so lucky to have this gift with words and the ability to turn them into stories. But I don’t love the publishing industry. I don’t love how slow it is.

I know before I was published I had no concept of how long it took for a proposal to become a book. Let me give you a typical scenario.

I finish the last book in a contract and turn it into my editor. Hopefully, I’ve been thinking about an idea for a new book or series while I was working on that last book. So I start writing a proposal for that new book. Let’s say, for simplicity’s sake, it’s a stand-alone book like Lord and Lady Spy. I write the first 50 or so pages and a synopsis of the entire book and send it to my agents.

My agents have a bunch of other authors, so they probably don’t get a chance to look at the proposal for two weeks, at least. Then they get back to me and ask for revisions. Usually, they want small changes, but sometimes the revisions can be more substantial.

I make those changes and then send the proposal in again. I wait another couple of weeks. Then, if my agents are satisfied, they write up a pitch. This may take another week or so because it needs to be good. Finally, they call my editor, verbally pitch the idea, then send the written pitch and my proposal via email.

Then we wait for the editor to read it. Now, she has a ton of authors, too. She’s writing cover copy, approving cover designs, working on titles, editing books (including the one I turned in recently), so again, this takes some time. It might take a month or more.

If I’m lucky, the editor likes the proposal and the negotiating with my agents begins on the contractual terms. I start writing the book, if I haven’t already out of sheer boredom waiting for everyone to read the proposal!

So, if I’m lucky, it might take 2 months to go from proposal to contract (well, the handshake part of the contract). Usually, it’s a lot closer to 4 months and often even longer. And remember, this is before the book is even written!

Readers, does this surprise you? Did you have any idea how slowly the pre-publishing process is?

Comment below and one random reader will win!

Next month most of the Jaunties are attending the Romance Writers of America’s National Conference in New York City. It’s a lot of work and a lot of fun, and a time to catch up with old friends and make new ones. We Jaunties always meet up for dinner, drinks, and conversation. We chat about this blog, of course, and our books, but we also talk about our lives and families.

But the conference isn’t all luncheons and limo rides—though there is some of that! There are workshops and meetings with agents, editors, publicists, readers…the list goes on and on. I plan to arrive a day early so I can enjoy the city a little. It’s been 7 or 8 years since I was last in New York.

I already have tickets to see Wicked, but I don’t have any other plans as yet. Any must-sees in New York? Anything you would definitely see if you were going?

Okay, so I have a confession. I have never been a member of a book club. I’ve spoken to book clubs before. The members claimed to have read my book—and I think some of them actually did—but I’ve never had the desire to belong to a club for reading and discussing books.

Maybe that’s because I’m essentially not a joiner. I only joined clubs and organizations in school when my counselor scared me into it by claiming I wouldn’t get into college otherwise. Or maybe I’ve never been in a book club because I was an English teacher for so long and it was my job to dissect books. Or maybe it’s because I’m a writer, and I know a lot of other writers, and we discuss books all the time.

Whatever the reason, it’s a moot point now. A friend of mine asked me to join her book club because we never see each other. She’s a busy mom, and I’m a busy mom, and we live on opposite sides of the city. But if I join her book club, we’ll at least get to see each other once a month.

So I said okay. I mean, I could use some adult interaction once a month. My first meeting is Monday. I went out and bought the book and have read some of it, but it’s kind of depressing.

This brings me to my other reason for not joining a book club—the books they read are often very depressing and very literary.

I don’t have anything against literature. I taught English for years, remember? I’ve read the classics. I read some contemporary literary fiction too. I even read non-fiction, on occasion. I don’t even have anything against depressing books. Some of my favorite books (Gone with the Wind, A Tale of Two Cities, P.S. I Love You) are also those that have made me cry. But I can’t read a depressing book every month!

So what I need is recommendations for book clubby books that aren’t depressing. Maybe when we’re choosing books for the future, I can suggest something that doesn’t make me want to eat a tub of ice cream and sit in a dark room.

I’ll randomly pick one person who comments to receive signed copies of BORN AT MIDNIGHT by C.C. Hunter and VAMPIRE MINE by Kerrelyn Sparks.