Psst! The name of the winner of my BAD contest can be found at the bottom of this message.

Well, the book is out. I hope I enticed you enough with snippets that you are eager to buy your own copy. When you read it, let me know how you liked it and whether you want more Red Stiletto stories.

Something nice happened the other day. I received a message from the Australian Romance Readers Association that Darkness Burning is a finalist for Favourite Erotic Romance for 2009! A very nice honor indeed. And you should see who is keeping me company in that category!

Favourite Erotic Romance
Bengal’s Heart / Lora Leigh
Bite My Fire / Mary Hughes
Caleb (The Shadow Wranglers) / Sarah McCarty
Claimed by the Wolf / Charlene Teglia
Darkness Burning / Delilah Devlin
Laid Bare / Lauren Dane
On These Silken Sheets / Sabrina Darby
Perfect Formation / KB Alan
Sweet Persuasion / Maya Banks
Taboo / Jess Michaels

This announcement is so timely because I just received the copyedits of Darkness Captured, DB’s sequel. That book will be out in September.

So, today that’s the first thing I’ll be working on. Then it’s right back to the big book for Berkley. I’ll be checking my email, so let me know when you get a chance to read Bad, Bad Girlfriend. I want to know if you laughed as hard as I did during that one particular scene…

There were 97 entries in the contest for the Amazon.com gift certificate. And many of you figured out how to enter as many as 6 times, increasing your odds. Smart. I won’t make you suffer and drag this out. The winner (by random number generator) is…Elise Crafton Antes! Elise—email me!

We’ll get to the picture in a bit. 😉

This week wasn’t a complete bust, but productivity was hampered by the fact I had so many critters and kids pulling at my attention.

I finished a chapter of the big book, began work in earnest on the next chapter installment of my free read, Bad Moon Rising, and I finished another chapter of the third Lone Star Lovers book. Not balls of fire, but progress nonetheless!

This coming week, I have to really knuckle down. (What does that mean? Knuckle down… Knuckles dragging the ground means you’re primitive. That will bug me now.) I want to finish 4 chapters of the big book, and I can if I shut everything out. But I also want to finish the few pages left of the free story. And I’d like to complete one more chapter of the Lone Star book, so that I have a chance of finishing the thing this month too.

So that’s my progress and my goals.

Back to that picture.

Remember those two dogs that mated this week? I took my camera outside with me early one morning. The dogs were standing butt-to-butt while the male was waiting for his eretion to wane to free himself. I snapped the pic, thinking it would be funny to post, but this is more interesting, don’t you think?

What is it? Two werewolves? Two hellhounds? Tell me what you see.

My first magazine story was published in the current edition of New Love Stories Magazine!

My story is a historical-paranormal romance. Could they have given me a less inspiring photograph to depict my little ghost story?

Ah well, it was maybe the first short story I ever wrote. It’s nice to be able to dust something off you thought would never see the light of day, submit it, and get a paycheck for it!

I’m home again. I arrived later than I should have last night because I got pulled over by a state trooper. He said, “Ma’am, don’t know if you realize it, but you were speeding.” I was tired enough I just shrugged and said, “Probably.”

I’m still tired, so guess what? I’m going back to bed.

Tonight around midnight, when the red-headed hellion arrives home from work, I’m packing up and heading home. I’m supposed to attend the monthly meeting of the Diamond State Romance Authors tomorrow morning, but that’s looking iffy because all I want is uninterrupted sleep—about 10 hours worth—before I pry my eyes open. Last night, I pulled down web sources for my daughter’s college assignment, and stayed up to help her work on it. She was too exhausted to get it done quickly on her own. Our heads didn’t hit our pillows until 2:30. The 6:30 alarm came ALARMINGLY fast. Couldn’t resist that. Sorry.

Dogs are walked, baby fed. Wonder if she will oblige me by going back to sleep so I can nap a little this morning. Do you know how you start to ache all over when you’re really, really tired? I should probably try to get a shower and wake up enough to write, but I’m not sure my brain’s gonna cooperate.

I should have the copyedits for Darkness Captured (my September Avon release) waiting for me when I arrive home. Can’t wait to see what changes the editor wants. Or if she wants huge revisions. My guess is not because she would have gotten them to me sooner if there were huge issues. I’ll be surprised if that’s the case though because DC is way out there. My heroine ends up in the Land of the Dead and has to be rescued. All kinds of strange things and creatures, and kinky sex happen. Oh wait, she should know by now that’s what happens in one of my “dark” books.

~DD

I don’t get those women who want to bear children after forty or, God forbid, fifty! Children are for the young. I’ve only had a small three-day dose, but I’m exhausted. Have you ever tried to tell a 1-year-old that the reason she cries is that she needs sleep? Or that dropping her toy over the side of the playpen out of reach isn’t a screaming offense? There’s no reasoning with her. And although the 5-year-old has some verbal skills, she still doesn’t get the concept of let’s sit so the dog doesn’t get overexcited and stops barking. Nope, she runs circles around the couch yelling at him to shut up. There’s a reason I had a house husband. I don’t have the maternal gene.

It also doesn’t help that there’s so much Irish running through their veins. Everything that happens, happens loudly.

Yesterday when the 1-year-old went down for a nap, I did manage to finish another chapter of the big book, but I didn’t make it back to any of the smaller projects. Maybe I’ll work up the nerve to put the shock collar around the neck of the barracuda with a tail (the dachsund) so he will stop barking and I can think. He’s old and grumpy and likes to check you with a bruising (not puncturing) bite. Or maybe I can just shoo him out the door and he can go play with the pit bull next door.

For stories, that is. I love it when readers tell me they’d like to see a story about a guy and girl who…

Yeah, and I’ve written a few custom stories like that. It’s fun and challenging to take input and then craft something special and unique. So, if you had a writer willing to take suggestions, what sort of story are you dying to read? Tell me, and you might see it in print.

So be creative. Or just have fun. Sometimes the most off-the-wall ideas make the most interesting stories because then the writer has to think a bit about how something like that might actually happen.

You would have laughed if you’d seen me this morning, standing on the back porch watching two dogs, butt-to-butt, getting it on. My life. The 5-year-old is off at school, and I’ll be writing my fingers to the bone while I have some quiet time (if the 1-year-old cooperates).

Yesterday was not a good day. One of the little Yorkies I loved tangled with a logging truck and lost. I watched it happen and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. She slipped out of the fence and ran for it. This morning I’m still down. Such a sweet little thing, but my only consolation was that she didn’t suffer.

I’m back at the red-headed hellion’s house for the next few days, and since she’s on dial-up, I limit my access to Internet. Her menagerie is a lot of work. The chickens are the easy part, if I can manage to dodge the rooster—he’s just plain evil.

I did get a short story out the door yesterday before I left. Cross your fingers it made the cut! Thanks to Brandy and Heather who read it to make sure it didn’t suck too badly. Today, I’ll keep my laptop on my lap (imagine that) and work while I keep the 1-year-old away from the light sockets.

Between this blog, the After Midnight blog and Facebook, there were 43 entries in yesterday’s contest! So without further ado (another of those phrases I don’t understand), the winner (by random number generator) is…Christiana Toups! Christiana, email me!!