Ringing in the New Year with a Bang

This is not a festive day for me only because I'm unusually grumpy with my work in progress. Maybe I can chase away the blues with some wine. Staring at it and working word by word doesn't seem to be working very well. Anyway, I will take the loathing elsewhere.

Amazon

My books are now available for Amazon Kindle pre-order!

The Drag

Every now and then, and by that I mean every time I have a good spurt of writing, I get into the drag. The drag happens the next morning after I've set my goals, reached them head on, and then kept going for the day until all my bad self esteem is shattered and I can do everything.

Then I wake up the next morning. I drag myself out of bed. I drag myself to the computer. I tell myself there is no possible way I can do this again. My word counts will not be is good, my work in progress is evil and out to get me. Then I procrastinate like my life depends on it. But I let myself drag, because the hardest thing in the world for me is to be happy with something I've written. If I gave myself license to be elated all of yesterday, I should reward myself with dire grumpiness and angst today. Then start at square one and try to achieve it all over again, one lousy swear word at a time.

I may create the drag, but once I have it, I know it's only a symptom of doing something right.

In VA in over two feet of snow

Posting this from the blackberry. I'm currently at a friend of a friends parents house because we're snowed inside it. It's awkward because I've met them maybe twice and now I'm practically living here. Thinking about the snow I did bring my laptop so I still have my work, but I can only get little chunks done because it's just weird here. The snow is pretty but getting home tommorow night with no four wheel drive on our truck is going to be exciting. We have two eight lb bags of sand over the wheel wells and hopefully that will be enough. I like not dying and I've got a book to release in febuauary.

Free Goodies Here

I was very productive today and as a result everyone gets goodies in the form of lots of good articles! Yay! Not only did I get six pages on my manuscript today and I revised my five year plan. So, here are the articles:

• Ten Writing Mistakes Writers Don't See 
• Some Insight Into A 5 Year Plan (though I like to make mine just about my writing goals and what I'm willing to do to accomplish them such as Publicity, more e-books, a newsletter, etc.)
• Romance Cliche's To Avoid 
• Insight Into Free Advertising 
• Dealing with Rejection 

Some of these aren't the most perky topics around but they are all pertinent and important to remaining a good writer at any stage in the game.

Slow Day

Nothing to really report here today. I had great inspiration at 4 am which I wrote down in bed by the light of my Blackberry. I wrote several pages on the rewrite, helped someone with a beta read or full read of their manuscripts, and researched my butt off. I'm off to do more of that now. I've got to find a good agent.

Deleting

I'm still in a writer mode where every scene I delete still hurts. It still calls to be revised until I can use it further, but then I spend hours revising it when a new scene would do just as well and not take so much time. It's a tricky business deleting out of the blue. I've even instigated a file for all my deletions so I still have the mis-matched pieces, but then I got lazy. Now it's just delete, delete, delete. I remind myself not the breath while doing it because then it hurts more, haha.

Anyway, here is my very short five year plan for now, because writing any more than this just seems silly when I don't know if I'll hit deadlines. But I know I need more concrete deadlines in here such: such and such date Publish an e-book with this line. Rather than just my works in progress. But if I never get any work done I won't have anything to sell, right? So here it is:

1.    2010
February 1st: Finish WIP
February 3rd: Finish Synopsis
February 6th: Finish Query
February 9th: Query 3 Agents
February 10th-May 10th: Finish Lesbian Assassin WIP
May 11th-June 30th: Edit WIP
July 1st-3rd: Synopsis
July 5th: Query (3 Books)
July 7th: Query Cleis    
July 8th: Query Agents
July 10th-Oct 10th: Imp WIP
Oct 12th: Synopsis
Oct 14th: Query Agents/Presses
Oct 16th: Write Siren novella

I'm only submitting to three agents right off because I've heard once you submit to them once with your work, it's bad form to submit more of your work later if they reject you on the first work. So I don't want to kill all my options when I get rejections. Pessimism will get you everywhere. I'll be figuring out a less hassle free way of doing 5 year plans and explaining it on here as soon as I can find the information and make it digestible.

Yay! Thanks P&E

Thanks to Preditors and Editors I've won the Author's Site of Excellence for November! Yay!!!

Five Year Plan

Today I'm crafting out my five year plan. Where I'd like to be in five years, the stories I have to go to get there, etc. It should be an adventure. To say I'm nervous is an under statement, how do you plan for paperback publication? It's hard work. I'm going for magic on this one. Magic and lots of perseverance. I'll post my plan once I have it.

Self Promotion, Networking, and Making Friends

I have thrown myself into the world of networking because I need more people to talk to when this profession gets very lonely. Also, networking and self promotion are a huge plus. My books are coming out in about three months and I wast supportive people to be there to read them.

So along with conquering twitter and becoming somewhat of I've addict overnight. I've also made friends over at Romance Divas forum. Now I have three social networking habits instead of just one which was Blogger. I will never get anymore work done. But, I kid, I made lots of progress on the story today where a magical plot key gave me magical powers to fix the gunk that was in my way. I was excited. Hopefully this will bring out more emotional hero/heroines. Still on my third draft.

Next on my promotion/make friends list, because the people at Romance Diva's knock my socks off, will be to get my website up, make some flyers for local sex toy shops for my erotica, and finish this damn manuscript by February so I can shop it out to agents.

Writing Romances

I picked up a few helpful books at the library today, very exciting. Here is what I picked up:

• Writing Romances
• The Romance Writer's Handbook 

And hopefully, later I can find my copy of Complete Idiots Guide to Writing Erotic Romance. I need to combine all my research into a happy little go-to booklet of shiny happiness. I want this so bad I can taste it. Like ink and chewed up paper pulp, because that's what you would get if you tasted a published book, or at least that's what I imagine it would taste like. I've never tasted one.

I think one of the most helpful and grounding things I've learned through this whole process is that no matter what's going on outside of the hero/heroine craziness, they can always come together in any emotional way to defeat it. That applies for my erotica as well. My writing is more emotionally driven rather than plot because it's more friendly to the human brain than a chain link of sex acts because so and so had the hots for so and so. Of course, there is a time and place for that too.

I have given in

I am on twitter here. It's certainly an interesting meduim for someone so wordy as me. I'm still trying to find people on there. I'm not a big fan of the find option, it doesn't work too well.

It's snowing here

There is no way I can possibly describe how much I hate snow. Today of all days there is snow and rain. Which means the day I've been looking forward too all week is kaput. No library for me full of happy research books. No fixed Blackberry because it just randomly stopped working and I haven't been able to use it for more than a week. All of those errands are snow in the wind. Because our car can't drive through snow well. And I can't drive. I am going to go sulk forever. I might get overdo library fines.

Damn you snow.

Erotic Nibble 3: Auction

Auction

    Babs sold herself for three dollars at the Yale date auction. Everyone hissed as she pulled layers of blond hair behind her ears. Too low a bid for such a catch. She bounded off the stage, a swish of plaid pleats.

    Her curious smile sparkled from a mauve mouth that offered her new date a kiss on the cheek. The fingers of her right hand played along his cock through his dinner slacks.

    The slicked back, suit man covered a laugh with his paw-like hand. A bear of a man.

    She would wrestle with him later in the backseat of the cab. Skirt up, driving hard hips, slick cunt, onto his dick. He would bellow out fifties era swear words as he used her like the working girl she had sold herself as, packaging and all.

    Babs was everyone's little princess. Dirk, her boyfriend claimed her virginity two months ago on a boat in the lake. He was going to take her out on the town for the auction when he won. Instead, she was moaning around her chemistry professor's cock as the potholes pushed it ever further down the back of her throat.

    She tasted pre-cum like his detergent. He smelled unfamiliar, sweet like her pussies perfume. Aged like bound leather and tobacco. She had one goal. Share her self worth and give herself to someone less worthy. That was the point of this whole thing right?

Write for Yourself

Sometimes this can be the hardest thing to do for me. Mainly because I want my books to sell as much as I want to write them true to my own style. But if you write them and then it doesn't get out there, just because I wrote it doesn't really make it enough for me. I'm looking at what I'm writing right now, what has become my life, and I can see clearly the differences between my book and those out there. But, at the same time I can also name and point out very strong author influences. Because I can see the influences and see the makings of my book as a journey familiar to most readers does that mean it's unoriginal?

That's what I'm working with right now. What defines original, what will set me apart from the pack, but what will also make me happy and bring me the best book. All books stem from one plot or another, there is no plot that is original anymore, or that's the diatribe I subscribe too. Yet, peoples variations on these topics still sell like hotcakes. How do I know when I've had that divine experience where my story is different enough to make me happy, but universal enough to draw everyone into a big, cuddly reading pile?

I suppose the point of writing for yourself is to renege on these questions. To just shut up and keep writing and not stress. But what can I say? I think out of the box.

Just got my publishing dates

Now, this may change again, but I'll update these dates if they do so no one misses any of my books. Here's the line-up at Excessica coming February:

• Checkout: February 8th 2010 (My husband's birthday)
• Sextool: March 1st 2010
• College Trouble: March 8th 2010
• Repossession: March 29th 2010
• Keeper: May 17th 2010

So that's how it's looking in the upcoming months. I'll also be writing new material and submitting it to several other e-book formats. I'll let you know how that progresses.

Taking a Sick Day

I have trouble taking sick days. I've been sick since around Sunday and I haven't done anything about it but drink water and increase my work hours because I'm at a book breakthrough. Yeah, that's not good for my body. So now I'm in fever land and resenting that I have to take a day off when all I want to do is work on pivotal stuff. I'm forcing myself to take a sick day. Well, husband is actually forcing me to take a sick day. But why oh why did it have to be a revelation day? Why couldn't it be a boring editing day? My pile of stuff to do is out the window and now I have to sleep.

Ripping, Tearing, and 25 Days of Christmas

Today I've basically got to start from square one with my book. I'm unhappy with the ending and in order to change it I have to get scene diagnostics on all of the chapters leading up towards the end. I'm thinking I'll have to delete a heck of a lot of pages which I've never done before in my career.

Although, today is one of my favorite days of the year. The start of 25 Days of Christmas on the ABC Family Channel. Corny, wonderful Christmas movies, hot tea and cider, and some nice winding down time every night until Christmas when hopefully I'll get enough money to enter the RWA. This is a nice up side for writing my book into itty, bitty pieces.