Vixenwriter

Jiggity Jigg…. Got home late Friday night after many days of driving. Or well, after many days of my husband driving and I sat, handed food and drinks to the kids, made them stop arguing and even did some reading here and there. The constant chaos of three kids is insane but I’m so used to it at this point, it’s crazier when there’s silence. The husband driving is one of those marital things - he always wants to drive, I couldn’t care less so I give in on it. I save the battles for stuff I care about. Anyway, I’m so glad to be home and not in a car.

This is us at the California Adventure park - we rode the Roaring Rapids ride twice and were totally soaked. Still, it was so hot it worked out nicely and we dried quickly. I can’t believe everyone is marginally looking toward the camera at once, no one is crying, hurting anyone else or doing anything non cameraworthy.

I am sick to death of eating in restaurants and living out of suitcases. How can three little people make such a huge pile of laundry? Good lord, I did laundry all day yesterday and then I got started on edits for To Do List, which were quite breezy and Angie made me laugh several times with her comments. I should finish those up today and get them gone so I can get back to finishing up dirty/bad/wrong for pitch later this month.

Monday, 70 Days of Sweat begins again, more on that in a moment…

Don’t forget to check the contest page of my website, I’ve got some good stuff going on right now!

This is potty training central. Sigh. Time number three. This one a girl so I don’t have to constantly redirect penises, which is nice and far less messy. (Again, I know, so glamorous!!). I find myself giving praise for bodily functions, which is, um odd outside of sex, LOL, and no, I don’t give my dude stickers or clap for him, even when he’s got his A game working. She likes to bring her barbie in with her and put her on the back of her seat. Whatever. As long as she doesn’t fall in, I’m game with whatever will get her out of pull ups because after what seems like an eternity of changing diapers (and my oldest will be 10 in November so yeah, a looooong time, each time I get one trained I ended up having another)

I’m in that “in between books” stage. I’m trying to settle in and work on something. I just figured out the opening to dirty/bad/wrong last night and this morning. My husband always listens to me so patiently when I pelt him with my ideas, LOL. And he’s a great sounding board and helps me plot too. I’m also revising something so that’s a task which uses a different writerly brain muscle.

Chased is out in print today! Wheee! I don’t see it listed at My Bookstore and More yet though, grr. It is however, now shipping from barnes and noble!

Even more good news? To Do List will be in a print combo with Jaci Burton’s Unwrapped in September of next year. How freaking thrilled am I? More details as they’re worked out.

Yes, it’s that day of the week again and there are new excerpts at my messageboard for Reading Between the Lines (my October release from Samhain) and something from Vengeance Due as well!

I’m over halfway done with To Do List and I’m really loving the story and I’ll definitely have it done by deadline (whew!)

Lots of truly fabulous stuff - SO - I’m doing TWO contests (and I’ll even tell you about a third one!)

First of all, I’m going to give you all a week and choose TWO winners  - one will win an ARC of Michelle Pillow’s really excellent ALONG FOR THE RIDE, her October release from Cheek and the second book in her Matthews sisters series (you all need to also read Bit By The Bug, the first book - it’s fab!)

The other winner will receive a copy of any of my available titles in whatever format they’re available in (including my paperbacks!)

All you need to do enter  OVER AT THE DYNAMIC TRIO BLOG!  Click the link and get the details!!! I’ll draw the winners next Tuesday the 18th of September!!

Another contest? Don’t mind if I do! Megan Hart is running a contest and the winner gets all sorts of goodies including a 100 dollar GC to Amazon! Go to her website to check the details!!

Hey, what a great Tuesday! Y’all enjoy your day!

So I got my edits for Reading Between the Lines last night and I have to laugh every time I get edits from Angie because she always starts out with an ego stroke and then gets to the stuff she wants me to address. And at first read it always seems way more monumental than it actually is when I go and look at the text notes. But anyway, I got a good start on them and I’ll push through and finish up before I leave for vacation so I have nothing hanging over my head. I’m too big a control freak to just leave stuff undone and it’ll drive me crazy if I don’t finish.

I also managed to completely outline Always - a contemporary, category sensual romance. I don’t usually outline but the more I aim stuff at NY and the more I sell on partial, the more I use outlines and synopses because it’s necessary. It’s especially necessary with category because you’ve only got a certain wordcount to tell a story and you don’t want to overtell some aspects and rob the important stuff.

I don’t do chapter by chapter synopses. I’m just not that detailed becuase I still prefer to let the story flow where it needs to but these days when I get interrupted mid process with other things like edits or galleys, I find I need at least a bare bones outline to get back into the swing of the story.

I’m still pantsing it a lot, but I will admit to finding at least a rough outline very helpful in keeping on schedule and on track.

Nearly finished with my paper edits on Reading Between the Lines. It’s always hard to know what a story really is until you let it lie for a week or so and then pick it up again. Thank god it makes sense and flows and all that stuff, LOL. I love this couple, Haley and Conall are a lot of fun and Haley really transforms in some ways from start to finish, she’s got to deal with a lot of stuff so her journey was a challenge to write in an authentic way. I think I did it though!

Threat of Darkness releases on Wednesday from Ellora’s Cave. For everyone who’s written me in the last two years asking when I planned to do a story for Jayce macTavish, who we meet in A Touch of Fae - here you go. This is Jayce’s story along with Mei and Card’s as well. Yes, a menage. I did not plan for this book to be a menage. In fact, I re-wrote it from scratch twice but Card wouldn’t let go of Mei! And once I just threw my hands up and said, “Fine! Just do what you want.” and mumbled about them all being so ungrateful, the story really sped along for me. I suppose there’s a lesson in there about just writing the story that wants to be written. And in truth, I absolutely love this book and it turned out better than I’d even imagined.

To celebrate, A List Mom Day!

Please Join: Lauren Dane, Taige Crenshaw, Robin Rotham and Christine d’Abo as we host the Reader Chat for the sweet spot in the middle of the day on July 24th. Between 8 am pacific/11 eastern and noon pacific/ 3 eastern we’ll have excerpts and prizes from:

With more coming by the day! Mark your calendars and get ready to party with us!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ellorascavechat/

There’s a contest at The Bradford Bunch and The Dynamic Trio - you may want to check that out. And check in tomorrow for a contest here as well!!

70 Days wise - With my faboo numbers, I’m ahead of the numbers and I’m mainly editing right now. I’ll get some word count when I start to input all my edits and I’ll update then. I’ll be back to writing again by mid week.

OH and a tip - when your nearly 3 year old comes up to you and says, “here momma!” look at what she’s giving you before you take it. Just trust me on that…

I’m beginning to get back into the swing of my life. I’m nearly done with edits on Fire and Rain so I hope to get those finished up tonight and back to my editor at EC tomorrow and then back to finish up my revisions on Battlefront and get that to my agent.

Megan and I brainstormed an awesome idea for an anthology while at RT and we’ve been IMing back and forth on it today. This won’t be straight romance but more along the lines of erotica - both the stories will have a romantic type resolution but the focus will be on the individual women rather than a couple. I’ll always continue to write romance, it’s my big love, but there are other stories inside me to be told as well so I’m rather excited about this one.

I also found out today that my summer quickie from last year, Sudden Desire will be in a print anthology, “Sexy Summer Fun” in June. There’s a lovely full page ad for it in June’s RT magazine and our volume has Mr. Romance, Jason Santiago on the cover - wheee! Here’s a picture of the cover…

Apparently the Autumn Animalia stories will be out in September as well!

Speaking of covers, I saw my cover for Making Chase today and it’s fabulous! I guess all that nagging at Scott Carpenter at RT worked, LOL! As soon as I get the go ahead, I’ll post it.

If you’re curious and want to see more RT stuff, Megan Hart made a fabulous little trailer with the pictures and some video and it’s up at her blog. Check it out!

That’s it for today!

Sorta. It’s been a week. Busy, some really good, some really bad - all over the map so I’m glad to be easing out of it.

Anyway, I normally do Booktalk today but I haven’t read anything new this week. I’ve done edits and written and gone to bed. That’s it. Still, I’m really into Making Chase now! I’m so happy about this book. I’ve been sort of dragging my feet and working around it but once I started on it earnestly, Tate just grabbed me. Tate and her family are really the heart of this book. Matt is just realizing how much he likes her, not that he likes her likes her just yet but that’ll be soon enough.

BTW, Taking Chase won the CAPA for Best Romantic Suspense! I was thrilled enough to have been nominated in three categories but to have won? Wow. There were some fabulous books and authors nominated this year so I’m touched, honored and humbled that I won. Thank you to all the reviewers who nominated and voted for me and thank you to everyone who has congratulated me as well, that’s been such a lovely part of my week.

And as a nice little bonus, Taking Chase is out in paper on Tuesday the 20th! Wooot!

Let’s see what else? OH! My Harlequin contracts finally arrived. OMG! SQUEEE! It’s real! It’s real and like a lot of pages and it has a force majeur clause. This always makes me laugh because I have leftover oddness from my law school days. I laughed when I saw it in my mortgage too (although I was also sort of giddy then as well)

More freaking snow! I tell you, I am DONE with snow. I want my mild Northwest winter back please. And I want my children back in school.

I’m halfway done with my synopsis for The Others. I hate writing synopsis but as I was just discussing with Anya that writing them helps me see the book like a machine. Helps me focus in on what’s truly important and how to work those elements and forget about the little stuff. It also helps me get focused on the story pacing. These are things I don’t see with such ease when I’m pantsing it. But when I’m pantsing, I’m more open and the story can sneak up on me. I like that.

There are plusses to both approaches I think and as I go on, I learn more and can use more tools to write better books, which certainly doesn’t hurt!

Anyway, I want to be done with this synopsis so I can clear the partial out of my computer and get it to my agent. I know Chased edits will be hitting soon and Threat of Darkness edits are due tomorrow and FLE will be coming for Ascension too. All sorts of stuff! I need to get to Wolf Unbound as well and also write a proposal for the next Spice anthology and do my edits on Stripped and write Making Chase all very soon.

I hope to see you at the chat tonight!

So I’m revising right now. I did one revision for my agent, who is pitching it on Tuesday so fingers crossed. And I’m nearly done with a revision of a book for EC, the follow up to Ascension. I had one title when I wrote it early in 06. But nine hundred people have that title so I just knew I’d have to change it so I did. But then I saw Keri Arthur’s book (on my TBR pile now) has a very similar title and another ebook with the exact same title, sigh so I have to change it again. I hate changing titles but I have to do it like 50% of the time so I’ve just accepted it, LOL.

One cool thing about revision is that you can see how far your writing has come. Some days when I feel like I’m still as clueless as I was when I first started out, I’ll crack open a first draft of something just to remind myself that I have learned a lot. Not that I don’t have a lot left to learn still, god knows I do, but it’s nice to see that I am learning and getting better at execution and storytelling.

The dude and I were drinking champagne last night and settling in to watch a movie - SNAKES ON A PLANE! The movie is hilarious. It’s not supposed to be a comedy but it is. Anyway, we got interrupted like a dozen times including when the UPS guy came by at 8:30 to drop off my copy of Surviving Demon Island that I was just complaining hadn’t come yet. But my two year old woke up and was not going back to sleep so I cracked open the amazon package and started reading SDI and didn’t put it down until I was done sometime way after midnight. I blame Jaci Burton for my bad case of bleary eyetis today. SID is such a great book! I’ve always loved Jaci’s books, she’s one of my favorite authors but she’s totally outdone herself with SDI. If you haven’t read it yet, you really should. Now of course, I’m salivating for the next one.

Oh and a quick thank you - I got my sales numbers for November and I’m just so stunned that you all responded so well to Tri Mates and Thrice United - thank you all for supporting me and reading my books. I’d be nowhere without you all.

I’m off to go get new curtains for my daughter’s room. Enjoy your Saturday!

2006 has been an amazing year for me. Probably the best year of my entire life. 2005 was hard, lots of high highs and very low lows but 2006 I think was the year I finally hit my stride and met a lot of goals I had for myself.

January - I spent a lot of time recovering from the end of 2005, LOL. I got a new website design from the most incredible Frauke and Croco Designs. I sent out Giving Chase to Samhain, got a cover for Sleight of Hand.

February - Sleight of Hand released from Whispers - my first release of 2006 and my first novella! I hit the first major block in writing Threat of Darkness (way back then) and I worked on Tri Mates.

March - went to Las Vegas with Megan and Anya and had such a great time. Celebrated Megan’s book deal with Spice, Anya landed an agent and shortly thereafter I did too. It’s been a very good year for the Mavericks! Got the idea for GWAB.

April - Cascadia Wolves: Enforcer released from EC. Tri Mates is contracted. I sent in Thrice United to my editor as well. Got some pretty covers as well.

May - Offered contracts on Thrice Bound and Reluctant. Got edits on multiple books. Finished Sword and Crown

June - Giving Chase releases! Sudden Desire releases - both are new arenas for me - romantic suspense and a contemporary quickie - both did very well but Giving Chase did so well it renewed my confidence. Anya Bast sold two books to Berkley - Witch Fire comes out in June of 07! Taking Chase was contracted.

July - my hard drive died and I lost pictures of my children. Oh that sucked! I wrote and wrote and wrote.

August - Vengeance Due released. I took my first solo vacation with my husband in over a decade - to Las Vegas. Got the idea for Stripped. Dealt with the death of our hard drive, took a family vacation. My four year old turned 5, my 1 year old turned 2. My agent hooked me up with Jodi Lynn Copeland and Anya Bast to pitch a Vegas themed anthology and I start writing Stripped.

September - Reluctant releases. I get deep into writing and editing. My agent pitches the What Happens in Vegas anthology and Goddess With a Blade.

October - Threat of Darkness and I continue to be at odds. I pick it up and put it down several times. Finally, at month’s end, I figure out the problem and finish up in relative ease and get it to my editor. Did edits for Sword and Crown and Taking Chase.

November - Tri Mates releases and I find out Thrice United will also release. On the same day Taking Chase releases. November was a very, very busy month. I SOLD STRIPPED TO HARLEQUIN SPICE! I sold Ascension and Threat of Darkness to EC and I got started on Chased. All told, I wrote right about 90K words in the month of November between original wip, edits, etc. November was a month that was incredibly productive and also gave me so much to be thankful for. It fueled me and got me back on track.

December - Finished Chased, finished a revision of Enclave - crits, more revision, off to editor and agent. Nearly done with partial of The Others, started revision of the next book after Ascension that is currently without a title. Wonderful holidays with my friends and family. Three CAPA nominations.

All in all, I’ve got a whole hell of a lot to be thankful and grateful for. Yes, I have worked damned hard, but without my family, without my readers and my friends, without my editors and my agent who all believe in me and support me - I don’t know where I’d be, but not here, looking back at a year of wonderful moments and successes.

As a way to say thank you, I’m going to do a contest. All you need to do is comment on the blog. Between now and January 3 - I’ll take the commenters and toss em into the randomizer and pick three winners who’ll win one of their choice of my available titles - including paper. Good luck!