Countdown!

The 3-Day Novel Contest is almost upon us.

Last year was the first year I participated and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my creative life. I’m wise enough to know that this year will be different – but I still want to try. Get the house clean, the kitchen stocked, and get ready to hunker down and write for 72 hours and produce a novel.

But before I can do that… I need to finish the final draft of the new short story – pleasure, pain, torment, women in leather, and a very bad man. And get a first draft of the rewrite of The Turquoise Box – which has taken on a life of its own and is making me worried.

Oh, and research… must get research for the 3-Day Novel story…. Sigh!

11 day 9 hours 50 minutes and counting…

Licks!

Back up!

Thanks to my wonderful editor at Ravenous Romance – I am back up and Hunting for Possibilities is once again available on the site.

After the hack it took nearly three days to get the site up, and another week to stabilize it (although there are still some bumps). I’ve never been one for S&M – I admit I like my bondage lite – but I would love to get the folks responsible for this little act of vandalism into the dungeon of my mind and see just how creative I could get.

Oh, well… I’ll have to leave that as one of my fantasies since the to-do list is simply too long.

Currently still working on the story about a Djinn, a girl, and a box (sounds like the beginning of a bad joke) but just think about the possibilities of a lover made of smokeless fire.

Hmmm…

Or rather ummm…

Licks!

Still on a Reading kick…

I think research is a writer’s best procrastination tool.
At least I can’t think of anything more fun than curling up with some of my new favorite authors.

I will, however, have to expand my mythological/paranormal research beyond the realm of the internet since I just saw one of my “borrowed” characters – a demon named Raum – in someone else’s book.

Sigh, it is such a small wiki-world.

Research is a girl’s best friend, right after her vibrator, and her imagination.

I’ve been reading and reading, and I’m fascinated by the growing trend of Urban Fantasy books that are tied to a specific geography. Storm Born and Thorn Queen take place in Arizona, The Graywalker Series by Kat Richardson and the  Succubus Blues series by Richelle Mead take place in Seattle, Vicki Pettersson’s Sign of the Zodiac are in the city of sin Las Vegas and Devon Monk’s Allie Beckstrom stories take place in another version of my home town… Portland, Oregon.

I’ve started all the series but I haven’t caught up with all of them yet – and some are much better structured than the others (Mead’s Storm Born/Thorn Queen and Richardson’s Poltergeist are among the best plotted that I’ve read so far). What I love about them all is their use of place and the richness of their descriptions.

Oh, and the fact that there isn’t a whiny woman among them. Damaged yes, but survivors.

You gotta love that!

I should probably get back to the actual writing part of the program today. It is so tempting to curl up with the cat and a book…

Oh, and Erastes has inspired me to get my library on Goodreads… so you can find my bookshelves there but it is a work in progress.

And, since we are catching up, Ravenous Romance is back on line, however I don’t appear to exist yet but I’m hoping they will have the website back to 100% soon.

If you didn’t hear… they were maliciously hacked over the weekend. Haven’t yet heard why they were targeted but the attack was bad enough to take them down for three days. So, good thoughts out to all of them… and what I wouldn’t give for a little magic to punish the perpetrators… or maybe a nice kick though a doorway into to Hell.

Licks!

Oh, my lovelies!!!

It began as a tale of woe…

On Wednesday the 28th of July I received a quarterly statement for my story Hunting for Possibilities that I sold to Ravenous Romance back in March.

I didn’t know it had been published.

…and I’d sold a whopping 2 copies.

You can imagine my frustration and embarassment… the email had gone astray and I had no idea my poor paranormal erotic piece was sitting out there all alone.

I’ve been in sales and marketing too long to think that “if you build it they will come”.

So, I immediately posted the existence of the story on various blogs and social media tools, then wrote up a to-do list for marketing my story, and by Sunday evening – with the help of all of my friends and readers – was the #1 seller in the Fantastica category and #6 overall.

Thank you!

Thank you all!!!

But this is just the beginning. If you believe in me and love the stories I tell help keep the momentum going… nothing is as powerful as word of mouth.

I’ll have more information on publications, events, and flash fiction as they happen.

Licks!