Taking this playlist idea from a fellow author and friend, Natalie Wright of Emily's House fame, I thought it would be fun to share the soundtrack to my upcoming release. I never actually pondered the tuneage in my noodle, cohesively, as a soundtrack per se; yet, as music is integral to my daily life as well as to my writing, I absolutely had songs that not only played in my head as a running score, but are indeed referenced in the pages of The Darlings of Orange County. For those of you whom will be reading it (Thank you! Releasing next week!!), you'll note specifically in Chapter 54, wherein our heroine Veronica Darling does a guest spot on Imus in the Morning, she has ready her Five Fave songs: a standard requirement for all Don Imus interviewees. She also reveals she used to have a fave Gwen Stefani song, It's My Life ... until she learned on a show that it was also a fave of Alan Colmes and it was instantly tainted.

When Nirvana Turns: Smells Like Old Applebee's

The end of the World has been heralded and bandied about for months now, mostly amongst hyper-religious fundamentals, the superstitious and the odd (I do mean odd.) guest on late-night radio's Coast-to-Coast with George Noory: May 21st, they say. I figure if it does happen, I'm truly fine with it because in my mind, it already happened at an undisclosed Applebee's somewhere in Southern California. It happened before I knew what hit me; the good thing is I was very, very okay with it and pleased with where I was ... spiritually, if not gastronomically.