Vixenwriter

We’re going to be chatting over at The Romance Studio tomorrow, October 21 at 6 pm pacific/9 eastern! Please come on over and say hello. I’ll be giving away an ARC of my upcoming release, Tri Mates and I’m sure Shelley and TJ will do drawings too.

So I worked my booty off yesterday, finishing up edits on two different projects and now I have two fewer things on my to do list, thank goodness.

Tonight is Battlestar Galactica domestic date night with me and the dude. My husband is the coolest, bestest man ever. Last night he baked chocolate chip cookies and brought me a warm one as I was working. I said that I was trying not to eat them (I’ve gained two pounds in the last month and I want them off as the holidays approach because I LURVE me some turkey and mashed potatoes). He said, “you’re on your period, you can have a chocolate chip cookie.” And while that may be more than you wanted to know about me, I think that’s the sweetest thing he could have said. And I totally ate that cookie, too.

Before I get down to serious snuggling, TV watching and popcorn eating with my man, I’m going to get back to work on Threat of Darkness which I hope to have finished by the end of the month. And then on to Chased as it’s due in two months.

Anyone have exciting plans for the weekend? I’m registering for RT this weekend, yay!

You know those moments when your kid’s teacher looks at you and you just know it’s not a “your son did great in math today!” faces? Yeah. Twice this week with both boys. I’ve had enough “special teacher moments” thank you very much. The oldest is handling it better than the 5 year old.

Why didn’t I remember that 5 is another one of those annoying developmental stages with the mouth. Oh the mouth! And so okay, I’m freely admitting both my husband and I are, um, blunt, if I’d ever popped off to my parents the way my five year old has done in the last two months they’d have kicked my ass. He’s like an alien. One minute he’s all snuggly and telling me he loves me more than pizza and the next he’s got something punching out of his chest, hissing and spitting and telling me I’m the meanest mom in the world. And in those moments, I understand why Ripley pushed it out the airlock. In space, no one can hear your backtalk mister!

Anyway, gameboys are on a week long time out and I’m firmly cemented in my “meanest mom ever” position by threatening Halloween if behavior does not firm up. Which would suck because I couldn’t eat all their candy while they’re at school. I love mini snickers bars. I’m so mean!

They even pushed me into “I’ll give you something to cry about!” mode yesterday. I’m turning into my mother. (Hi mom! XOXO)

But I finished my edits for Taking Chase and now I’ll do the last little edits/polishes to my partial of Enclave and get back to Threat of Darkness and then I need to finish Chased because it’s due in two months. Eeek!

BTW, Chased will come out in March and Making Chase in June - Yay!

I’ve always loved to read romantic suspense. Linda Howard and Elizabeth Lowell are two of my favorites in the genre. Giving Chase was my first contemporary romantic suspense novel but I’ve had romantic suspense elements in some of my paranormals too.

I love to write it as much as I love to read it. It’s a challenge, to make the mystery elements believable and to flow at the right pace and to also keep the romance front and center as everything unfolds around that. Still, it gives me wonderful opportunities to write strong heroines, which I love to do.

I just finished reading Nora Roberts’, Angels Fall and I really enjoyed it. I wish she’d write more! The heroine was refreshingly messed up, absolutely neurotic and crazy and yet you love her anyway. She’s strong even as she’s scared and Nora writes her in such a vivid, three dimensional way. The hero is an arrogant ass, but he’s still likeable. A writer, uh, yeah, we can be grumpy sometimes, or uh, all the time with brief moments of non grumpy. I liked him and I liked his transition.

I quite liked the town and the mystery had me guessing, I’d thought it was one of three people but it was another one of them. I don’t want to be more specific about it and give spoilers. Anyway, it was a really good read and the sex was quite steamy.

Now I need to deal with my monsterous children and my kitchen floor. (and you wonder why I’m grumpy!)

Tonight at 6 pm pacific/9 eastern, the Maverick Authors are going to be chatting over at our website. Come on by and say hello. I’l be giving away an ARC of Cascadia Wolves: Tri Mates and I’m sure Anya and Megan will be giving something away too.

I started edits on Taking Chase last night. I’d been reticent to start so I could keep working on Threat of Darkness, which I’d really slid back into after my lightbulb moment. But once I started working, I fell right into it, which is always a good sign. Generally when I finish a manuscript I try not to think about it until I get my edits back. Sometimes I might think about a way to flesh something out but usually when I open it to edit, it’s like a reintroduction to these characters again - which I think helps to keep it all fresh. Last night as I worked I fell in love with the characters again.

After I finished up for the night, I started Nora Roberts’, Angels Fall. It grabbed me right away. She’s very good at writing three dimensional heroines. I like this one a lot. Of course she’s got a wounded past she’s running from, which shares some similarity with Cassie in TC, but for different reasons. She’s taken a similar premise to LH’s Cover of Night and taken it from a more romance perspective - and I liked CON a lot too. It’s good to see how they handle the storylines - IMO, so far it’s the strongest Nora book (other than her In Death books), I’ve read in a few years.

I had a little crisis of faith last week about writing but I’m past it now. I got past a major block because I’d been approaching it all wrong, the edits are going well - I can do this. It’s not so much that anything major has changed, but at the same time, it just passed and i’m still moving forward.

And on a glamorous note, I dealt with the Mountain ‘O Laundry for hours yesterday. Five people put out a lot of laundry! I ironed and folded and hung up and ironed some more. I also folded up the outgrown baby clothes and the clothes that my dude and I now swim in (my old clothes are up to eight sizes too big). I can’t believe how much stuff we have. It’s now my goal to get rid of 50% of it. I have some organizing projects in mind, which will thrill my husband (in case you can’t tell, i’m being sarcastic). I want to move our bed (king size, so big project and he’ll have to do the lion’s share, LOL) and then I want to put up shelving in our room and the kids’ rooms too. Oh and hooks near the front door for all the crap (jackets, backpacks, etc).

Tomorrow, the Mavs will be chatting at our website at 6 pm pacific/9 eastern. Come on over and say hello!

It’s quiet and the blue skies and warm days of last week have given to the typical Seattle fall and it’s foggy, cold and gray. So fueled by coffee, I’ve spent the last part of the day dealing with laundry. Ugh. Ironing, folding and other glamorous things. The dude took the boys out on a walk in the rain to get all that energy out. Sheesh, they’re like big dogs in a tiny space.

I’m at 14K words on Threat of Darkness. Just finished the first big sex scene between the three, now they go to confront part one of the big bad.

But I have to stop writing on it for a few days while I finish edits on Taking Chase. I hate to have to stop right now as I’m flowing so well but if I don’t, Angie will hunt me down and kick my ass. So on to edits, LOL.

I got a new review of Vengeance Due from RRT Erotic - I’m really pleased with it! Isabelle says in part:

With VENGEANCE DUE, Lauren Dane has written an emotional, compelling tale of a troubled soul who finally finds a safe harbor but is afraid to take it after a lifetime of loss. At its heart this is a story about two people who grow into maturity as they open up to the possibility of love. For Simone, it’s a realization that not everything can be perfect; and for Kael, it’s a time to finally find some healing and hope for the future. Hot, sultry and magical, VENGEANCE DUE is as memorable as the city it’s set in.

I also saw that Shelley Munro’s, Peeping Tom got a great review from RRT Erotic too! WTG, Shel. Oh and TJ, nice review in JERR for Spirit of the Pryde - really complimentary of your writing skill! I’ve been so pleased to see just how well the entire Autumn Animalia series has been received.

What’s everyone up to today? I think we may carve pumpkins later today and dinner sounds in dire need of soup or something casserolish.

So there’s this book. Sigh. Every time I picked it up I’d either be blocked or on my way to a block. I actually started over about 20K words in and wrote a totally different heroine. Which worked to a point, part of what I was hung up on was that who she was was a major plot point but there were too many other plot points and she had ISSUES.

So the new heroine worked better and I tweaked some stuff but I got stuck again.

I realized the other night though that the stumbling block wasn’t the heroine so much, or rather not just the heroine, but the main plot point, which wasn’t, I don’t know, punchy enough, meaty enough, something like that.

So as I was sitting in bed, staring at the sky as deepened into night, it came to me. I wasn’t thinking right about the plot point. I had something as “the big bad” that wasn’t really, which is why I was hung up. And quite honestly, my fix came from my new heroine and I’ve written six thousand words in two days on it. Oh and it sort of turned into a menage, well not sort of, it is. I didn’t actually plan that part, I kept resisting that but it kept coming up and I gave in and a way to make it work came to me and Woot!

Threat of Darkness is a book that’s been with me since I finished A Touch of Fae at the end of 2004 but I didn’t have the time or the ideas until this year and it’s been rattling around, bugging and frustrating me ever since. But Jayce wanted his book and Aine wanted to be in it and Mei isn’t who I thought she would be originally but she’s someone I really love for Jayce and Card and I’m really excited about this! BTW, Card is, oh, he’s so yummy that I had to keep him in as Mei’s other man.

Sometimes the ideas just come to me and the process is straightforward and I just move through it in chunk after chunk and I finish and love it. Other times it’s like this. It’s all work but sometimes it’s easier - but it’s all gratifying once the lightbulb goes on.

And let me tell you, that’s doubly true this week. Sheesh.

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good today. Gorgeous weather, a planned trip to the pumpkin patch for my kiddos later today, the dude is off today and the air is crisp.

Of course, my slavedriver of an editor sent me edits for Taking Chase - can you believe she wants me to edit the thing? Sheesh *eg* doesn’t she know my words are perfect (unlike my math)? Just kidding, Angie. Contrary to suggestion of a certain person I won’t dump her for fresh meat ’cause she rocks (and she’s kinda scary too). So I have work to do this weekend on edits.

I got my author copies of Tri Mates yesterday. I lurve that cover so much! So, I’m doing a random drawing at my messageboard tomorrow at noon my time for an advance peek. If you’re not a member yet and you’d like a chance to read it early, get on over there!

Okay so I’m done dealing with insanity for at least 24 hours so let’s talk about a few fluffy things that show you all just how shallow I can be, LOL!

I watched Laguna Hills last night. Now I know my tiny, immoral, romance author brain isn’t capable of reading anything with big words like in Plato and stuff - so after I finished writing for the night I settled in to watch my greatest guilty pleasure - Laguna Beach. Oh so deliciously shallow, it’s the best way to let go of stress.

But it always makes me think about how messed up high school was because girls are so damned mean and boys are always listening to their friends who are dogs. And the mean girls are never people who are worthy of being on such high horses - they’re not prettier than anyone else, they always have bad manners and are unpleasant - oh and they’re dumb. I am pleased to note that twenty years later they totally spent way too much time in the sun and their skin looks like leather and their marriage to the football star totally broke up because of her drinking and his cheating. Okay so that was mean of me, see what high school does to people?

So why do I watch? Hell if I know. But I do. Anyway, the mean girl clique was at a barbecue and when their ex friend who they dumped after she got very sick came to the party (her new sort of boyfriend’s party) they all got up and left. And one of them made the same snotty comment about the shunned girl she always does and I’m left wondering how it is a slutty boozehound and her pack of dogs can even take such a position. But that’s me and I don’t like mean girls who are fake. I do like mean girls who are up front like Kristen from season 1 and 2 although now that she’s got her 15 minutes she appears to have gone fake, sad.

Anyway, break ups happened, dates, odd commentary and the continual butchering of the english language by teenagers along with the ubiquitous use of “random” as slang. Oh those kids!

Another show I love is Project Runway. Last night was part one of the two part season finale. I have the sinking feeling Jeffrey is going to win. The way the episode ended gave us all the feeling Jeffrey the turtle turd got kicked off for cheating but I think that was smoke and mirrors. Which is too bad because I hate him.

Essentially, I love my guilty pleasures. I have enough pressure and mental stress and so I look at the occasional episode of Laguna and Project Runway as a nice sort of stress relief without having to resort to pharmaceuticals.

What are your guilty pleasures? Oh! Let me add another - So I Married An Axe Murderer - I LOVE that movie.