…I knew there was something I was forgetting!

I put the entrants names in a hat and picked randomly…

The winner is: Abby! Please email me so I can send your free copy of TALK DIRTY TO ME! Congrats!

The baby and I got up around 9. It was greatness. I needed the sleep and even though I really don’t like sleeping so late, it was necessary. I feel recharged and surprisingly well-rested. Now I’m baking cinnamon rolls and the entire place smells like them. Yum!

We watched the movie Zathura last night. It was cute and definitely a kid movie. Sweetie Boy loved it. He reenacted the movie after it was over. Then when he was in the bathtub, he thought it’d be really funny to show me his butt. :plain:

Since I’ve been kind of stuck on Nice Girls Do lately, I sat down last night and started writing something different. Something very new and totally unrelated to my contemporary series. This is the first line that came to me:

The explosion rocked the small house, rattling the rafters overhead.

And suddenly the story took off. I wrote seven pages. Mainly just freewriting nonsense and nothing really all that great. But it was great to get it out, sort of allowing the muse to stretch her legs and do something different. The story that came out was another Skye and Dane story. I missed him. And sometimes I really miss writing the adventure story.

Which got me thinking (always a bad thing). Maybe I could do another adventure story with fun characters. I have no idea what it’d be or who would be my players. But just writing the adventure is so much fun. It’s something to keep in the back of my mind for sure.

Not much planned today. We’re going to take it easy. Post office and then we’re going to Brother’s house for dinner. Then home and tomorrow I have a 2 pm appointment. More on that later.

Happy Saturday!

Not that I’m overly surprised it’s still hot…but…it’s still bloody hot. :dead:

I hate the summer. I’m ready for fall! And here in Texas, if you blink, you might miss it. Same goes for spring.

Anyway… last night proved to be too busy to get any writing done. And since I was overcome once again with exhaustion (emotional and physical), there was no writing done. I tried, though. I pulled it up and looked at the WIP and I think I’m stuck. Either that or I’ve lost my writing mojo. The muse has left the building.

It seems to happen like that when I work hard and heavy on a piece. It’s like I need a few days off to recharge and get back on track. Like maybe I’ve expended all my creative energy in one burst. Maybe that’s where I am right now. I need to let the muse rest for a couple of days before getting back to it. Crap I have less than 9,000 words to write. I need to get to it. Time’s up. Where are you, Muse?

I woke up this morning starving and with a raging headache. That’s a sign that today is going to be one of those stellar days. I must get coffee to start it all off before I go any further in this day. So right now, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Happy Friday!

:coffee:

I’m blogging over at ShoeIQ! Check it out.  

Today it’s going to be 107. :dead: Kinda makes you want to fall on a sword.

This heat has been so awful lately. When you walk outside, you just want to burst into flame. It’s like the pit of hell has opened and breathed all over the freaking place here. I’m not kidding. It’s bloody hot. So hot you can literally fry an egg on the sidewalk or bake cookies on your dashboard.

I think the heat is part of my problem. I despise summer. I have since I was a kid. This is the season I hibernate indoors and try never to go outside. It’s hard, though, when you have a kiddo who wants to go and do stuff. So why do I live in Texas if the summers are so relentness? Well, I was born here. I plan on dying here. And I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Anyway… yesterday afternoon, exhaustion hit me hard and heavy. I had a terribly headache (again) and by the time I got home, I just wanted to lay on the couch. Which is exactly what I did. I just lay there and watched mindless TV. I had every intention of writing last night, but I had a hard time getting motivated to even cook dinner. And who wants to turn the oven on when it’s 104 outside?

I did eventually make my way to the computer. I wrote up my newsletter and sent it out last night, so if you’re a subscriber, be looking for it in your mailbox. I called a girlfriend and we talked for a good 45 minutes. She cheered me up since I was feeling al ittle low. I finally made it to be by 11ish.

And now my problem is not restless sleep - but getting to sleep. I can’t seem to get to sleep even though I’m totally exhausted. I lay there and stare at the ceiling for what seems like hours (in reality it’s probably only 20-30 minutes, but still…).

I’m going to blame the heat for my sleep problems, my headaches, and my fatigue. Because I get like this every summer. Tired, hot, annoyed, hot, agitated, hot, headaches, hot… sorry… I got lost for a second there.

All right I’m off to work. Have a great Thursday everyone!

And don’t forget Picture It Monday!

Well my Sweetie Boy had a good first day of school and of course they sent home a mound of paperwork to fill out. He’s already made a new friend! I love that.

I finally decided what to do with my royalty check and it’s nothing fun. I paid off a bill with half and put the other half in savings. I know - it’s not a pair of shoes or a fun outfit. I did the responsible, adult thing with it. How depressing, huh? But at least I’m not saddled with that bill. Two down, two to go. And then I can work on the really big one. :hissyfit:

It’s okay. Actually, I’m working toward paying off all the credit cards and getting them gone. Because I really really want to buy a house. So that’s my big secret. It’s better to pay something off than to buy something I don’t need. Gaw, that sounds so grown-up. When did that happen? When did I suddenly become an adult?

Anyway, I have two small balances I’m going to tackle next and then a very large one. I may be where I am for another three to six months. I don’t know. I just have to see how I manage by the end of the year. Christmas is gonna kill me…

Not much progress on NGD last night. I had to run about a thousand errands last night with the baby. I did purchase him some birthday presents last weekend and one of them was a small Spiderman couch his size that folded out into a bed. Anyway, I didn’t have room for it in my closet to hide it until his birthday (the 30th) and so I’m in the bathroom and I hear,”Wow, Mom, this is a cool couch!” and I’m confusd. “What?” I say. “This couch is so cool, Mom!”

I come out of the bathroom and he’s found it (I had it sitting on it’s end behind the chair) and he’s sitting on it, patting it. Gosh, it was cute. So I told him happy birthday early and he laid on that thing the entire time he was here.

Anyway, don’t forgot about Picture It Monday! I have a couple of entries already.

I’m sure there was something else important I needed to blog about but the brain is failing me right now and it’s time for me to hit the door. Happy Hump Day!

*sniff* My baby starts kindergarten today. :cry: 

Hey don’t forget about Picture It Monday! Gimme yer best flash fiction (200-500 word story) and post in the comment section of that entry. Winner gets a free copy of TALK DIRTY TO ME! So if you haven’t purchased it yet, now’s your chance to get it gratis.

I’ve also answered Paperback Writer’s challenge for the freebie download of a new story. You can now get Eorwulf available here FOR FREE. Just click the link at the right, download the PDF file, and enjoy! (Or, heck, just click the link I just provided you to get it for free. WOO!)

And another thing… before I get going. I’m blogging over at ShoeIQ these days. It’s everything you ever wanted to know about shoes! So be sure to check it out. My entry is currently up and I’ll be posting twice a week.

I think my cat hates the new Tidy Cat litter. Hey it’s not my fault they changed it to make it more scoopable and clumbable (are those words?). Anyway, he sort of made a grumble at me this evening when I got home. He’s picky enough about his litter box - he insists I scoop every single day. Go figure!

Good progress this weekend on Nice Girls Do. I’ve busted the 30,000 mark! WOOHOO! I am aiming to finish the book this week, even though my goal was this past weekend. I just got wrapped up in doing some computer maintenance so I didn’t get to write as much as I wanted. Which is okay, really. I’m this close to finishing. I’m headed toward the Black Moment and then the Climax and then the Resolution so I should be able to knock it out this week.

I’ve also started the third and final installment of the Coffee House Chronicles: Take Me I’m Yours. It’s off to a good start.

And now here’s what I really wanted to talk about today. Recently, I was asked an interesting question about my writing. Since I do write romance, and that includes steamy love scenes, someone said “Do you write about what you want or about what you like?”

Um. Wow. What a question. Here’s how I explained it. I said it’s not about me at all. It’s about the characters. THEY tell me where to take their story and how to write it and how  hot their sex is. They dictate it to me, almost as though they were channeling through me. Which sounds totally weird and like I might need to be checked into a mental hospital. But it’s true. And then someone said, “But don’t you write just a little bit about yourself?”

Of course not! Never! Okay, maybe just a little. Yes, it’s true I bring my life experiences to my characters. There isn’t a writer alive that doesn’t. We have to have these life experiences to make our writing rich and our characters real. It’s how we breathe life into our stories. How we make the people in our stories seem as though you’ve known them all your life. It really has nothing to do with the sex (although, I have to admit, it’s been a while for me so I’m not exactly sure if I remember how it all works…was that TMI??) :hehe:

Writing romance has become like breathing to me. I want to see them fall in love and get their HEA (happily ever after) and that doesn’t necessarily include marriage and a baby carriage (K-I-S-S-I-N-G…okay…sorry). I want to see how hot their sex can be when they finally get together. I want it to be explosive and romantic and so spine-tingling that the reader needs a fan to cool off. And I’m not talking about a person standing up and cheering.

Okay this is getting silly. I want to hear from all you romance writers. Whether you’re just starting out or multi-published. Or even if romance isn’t your primary genre. When you write a scene in a book, how much of your life experience do you bring to the pen (or the keyboard, whichever the case may be)?

New contest! Today I will post a picture and you readers will write me a piece of flash fiction. Winner receives a copy of my book TALK DIRTY TO ME from Samhain Publishing. Now, don’t fret - you have all week to do this! Deadline is 5:00 pm CST Friday. Post your submission in the comment section of this entry. From the entries, I’ll choose the winner with the best flash fiction and announce on Saturday. Okay? Okay! Let’s go. Here’s your picture:

Feel free to add characters to this scene (even though there aren’t any pictured).

…and a bottle of rum…

Just sitting here listening to my brand new Pirates CD. I still have not seen the movie. :plain:

Anyway, the music for Dead Man’s Chest is different from the first one, but still very good. I find I can’t get the tune out of my head.

Ran to the grocery store early this morning, got back and cleaned. And now I’m off to write to my brand new cool soundtrack. (Doncha just love soundtracks for writing? I mean, I find they really inspire me…)

Oh PS Tomorrow I’m going to start a new thing - Picture It Monday. Get your creative thinking caps on folks. This will be a contest where I’ll post a picture and you write a me some flash fiction. Winner gets a copy of my book - TALK DIRTY TO ME. :thumbsup:

I had every intention of getting up early this morning, but my plans were foiled.

I stayed up until midnight last night. No, not writing. Reading. I finished Confessions of a Shopaholic and it was great. I loved it! Now I’m on to Shopaholic Takes Manhattan. I can’t wait to read this book.

So I finally went to sleep - a restless sleep mind you (yes again) - and woke up at 6:00 am on the dot. :yelling: I managed to get back to sleep and woke up again to the smell of coffee (I did remember to set the coffee pot last night). But even that couldn’t rouse me from my bed. I fell back to sleep and woke up at 9:00 am! Okay, clearly I needed the sleep, right? I’m still tired, though.

OH, and yesterday I got my first royalty check from Samhain Publishing. When I saw the check in the mailbox, I was happy that I had the money but I never expected it to be very large. So I was really in no hurry to get it open. I got in the apartment and did all my normal things and finally ripped open the envelope…

…and nearly fainted. The statement showed I sold 192 books in July. 192 books, folks. I was flabbergasted. I had NO idea! And the check was no paltry sum either. I sat down hard at the dining room table, holding the statement in one hand and the check in the other, glancing between the two trying to decide if I really was seeing what I was seeing.

Wow.

My hands started to shake and then suddenly I realized - I worked hard for that money and I made it all on my own. And it’s mine. And I don’t have to share with ANYONE.

I nearly wept.

So I had every intention of getting to the bank this morning, but I never made it because I got up so late and did some much-needed computer maintenance. I fixed a printer driver error I had been getting, uninstalled software I didn’t need nor use, and then defraged the hard drive. Now I need to burn some CDs and get rid of information I don’t need and back up the information I have so I don’t lose anything. And as I was doing this, my phone rang and it was an old friend I used to work with. We yakked for about an hour. I hadn’t talked to him in ages and it was great to catch up.

By the time I hung up with him and finishd the computer maintenance, it was 10:30. I went to the post office and swung through Office Depot to drop off a used toner cartridge and get my free ream of paper. Then it was on to DSW Shoe Warehouse becuase I had decided I would put half the money into my money market account and the other half I was going to buy shoes.

I walked up and down those aisles forever looking at all the shoes. Tried on a few pair I liked, but nothing was jumping out at me. Nothing was calling my name. I had two pair in my hands and put them both back. Can you believe it?

I went over to the mall instead and checked out Nordstrom’s. But I got the same feeling there. Nothing jumping out at me and no warm fuzzies on any of the shoes. So I figured I’d head over to Dillard’s because they have a great shoe department too and…same thing. I ended up buying a birthday present for my son at the toy store.

Ah well. I figure I’ll hang onto the money for a bit. Put it in the bank and let it sit. Because when I buy that pair of shoes with that money, they are going to be shoes that make me gasp for air, have heart palpitations, and literally know I can’t live without them. Silly, huh? I really want a pair of Manolo’s but I don’t have enough for that yet, so I’m waiting. Perhaps I’ll sit on the cash, earn some more and THEN get that pair.

Oh I don’t know. And this is how it is when I get unexpected money that isn’t already allocated. I can’t make up my mind. But you know, that’s okay. And now I’m going to go write. Because I’m darn close to finishing Nice Girls Do. And that’s just another sale right around the corner.

(And don’t forget you can still get Talk Dirty To Me!)

My good friend, Devon, just bought some Magic Shoes so I’m living vicariously through her. I’m on a No-Spending-Allowed hiatus right now. She got a pair of Nine West that, if I’m right on which pair they are, are totally adorable. I can see why people were running out of stores to compliment them. Yes, Virginia, there really are magic shoes.

Yesterday was a long busy day at the office. Even though I sat at my desk most of the day, I was still wiped out when I got home. Mentally, I mean. When you have to think hard all day, it makes you tired.

The terrorist attack that was foiled yesterday freaked me out. I hadn’t heard anything about it until I got an email from my friend who was worried about her husband that was flying. Sheesh. I really need to keep more in touch with the world, don’t I? I never watch the news. I’m usually in bed or working when the 10 pm news comes on and I always miss the 6 pm news. Anyway, very scary. I can’t imagine what would have happened if there were planes blowing up mid-air.

Oh, and congrats to Ms. Sandy J! She correctly identified the quote in yesterday’s blog entry. And guess what? She won a copy of my book, TALK DIRTY TO ME. See? I didn’t announce that it was a contest, did I? So you NEVER know when a seemingly innocent question will turn into a contest for a freebie.

Also, my friend Lara actually gave me a great suggestion for my hero’s tattoo. And no, it’s not the HP thing. LOL We discussed it via email today and I totally love what she came up with. Guess you’ll have to buy the book to find out!

Speaking of the book… I haven’t written a darn word this week. :yelling: However, I hope to get it finished or darn near this weekend. Heck, I only have 15,000 more words to write to get this puppy finished. Think I can do it? I’ll need to buckle down and get ‘er done.

I have dinner plans on Saturday night with my neighbor from across the breezeway. She and I struck up a friendship one evening in the stifling heat. She invited me in for a cocktail and made us White Russians. Anyway, tomorrow, we’re going for some Mexican grub and I can’t wait! I’ve been craving it all darn week.

And… I got paid today! Which isn’t all that fantastic since it’s just an exchange program. I’m exchanging the money for all the bills I have to pay.

That’s it for me. I’m off to work. Happy Friday, ya’ll!

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