Progress on Texas Men

Well, not quite coasting, but I have 94 pages to go, have the first three chapters firmly in my head, and I can commit to writing 9 pages a day minumum for the next 10 with a day for revision at the end—so easy, right?

I just have to keep organized. I finished up the second novella and took a look around my place and got a little creeped out. Dishes stacked on coffee tables, unopened mail, stacks of books that need to be put back in their proper place. So today, I’m committing to the following:

1) TM-3: Add 15 pages (hit 16 pages with the help of friends and a couple of sessions of timed writing!)
2) TM-3: Complete ch 1
3) Wash rugs
4) Strip bed and wash sheets
5) Complete 1 DSRA crit
6) Clean office
7) Clean bedroom
8) Clean bathroom
9) Complete 1 DSRA crit
10) Dust rooms
11) Sweep/vacuum downstairs
12) Mop floors
13) Complete 1 DSRA crit
14) Reorganize To Do stack
15) Clean pool

The last time I posted my To Do list here, I kept to task, so maybe I need to do this for the next 10 days, huh? Maybe not. But at least you can keep me accountable throughout the day if you don’t see everything getting crossed off the list!
🙄

I did have some very good news day before yesterday I’d love to share. DOWN IN TEXAS has sold to the bookclubs (Doubleday, Rhapsody, and Book of the Month Club)!!!

Progress on Texas Men

Another round of “Write 50 Books a Year” is getting underway at Rose’s Colored Glasses. If you’re a writer and haven’t checked it out yet, it’s something we do every year. If you’ve attended before, it’s a chance to retool your plan. If you’ve never given it a try, you may be surprised how much you learn—and not just from your savvy intructors (Elle James and myself!). I learn something new every time from the people who attend. So if you want to learn to be a more productive writer, get your butt over there and sign up! Did I mention that it’s free?!

I promised pictures from the mini-retreat I attended with friends in North Little Rock last week. Please enjoy, but remember we spent the day outside under a pagoda beside a pool. We never fully dried out between dips in the pool and writing at the little table. Wish I could figure out how to touch up photos (really how to shave fat off!), but y’all know me by now and everything hangs out.

Where the muse hung out all day long!

Shada Royce and Cynthia D’Alba, my sister writers!

Well, I couldn’t very well show their picture and not mine, but why didn’t I hide behind my laptop like Cyndi?!

I grew up an Air Force brat, moved around a lot, and other than my siblings, I didn’t develop any close friends. Sure, I found people to hang with, but if I moved, I forgot them.

Funny thing happened when I became a writer. Suddenly, I was among people just like me. People struggling to conquer the craft, conquer the publishing industry, and desperately searching for someone to share the exciting things going on inside their own heads.

I banded first with my sister, Myla Jackson, whom I didn’t really have that much in common with until we both started writing. We banded with Layla Chase who was seeking critique partners, and we all improved as writers together, which forged an even stronger bond between us. We banded with a group of ladies inside the San Antonio Romance Authors and formed Roses Colored Glasses, because we hoped to build an even bigger community of friends.

Along the way, I’ve added Kimberly Kaye Terry and the Allure Authors group as friends, and we’ve helped each other, produced anthologies together, and become sounding boards for story ideas, whine sessions, career strategy advice.

You can’t have too many friends. So, this weekend I’m hanging with two women from the Diamond State Romance Authors group. We’re having a writing weekend, and hopefully, I’ll pick up two more friends to add to my ever-expanding circle (if the pictures I share here don’t get me killed!).

Hot Blooded is in the can!

The draft is done. I’ll give it one more read-through before I ship, but if you’d like to see what I’ve been up to, here’s where we first see the hero and heroine together. Now, back to Texas Men.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hot Blooded

Sunlight broke through the clouds by mid-afternoon. Although the rain had stopped an hour before, chaos still reigned in the park. All the low water crossings were impassible. Climbers and hikers all along the trails had been stranded. When the Canyon Volunteer Fire Department called the ranch, Adam Youngblood bit back a curse.

The last place he wanted to be today was anywhere near the park and one particular little park ranger. But he headed straight for the headquarters building near the entrance of the park where the rangers had organized search parties to rescue stranded campers and hikers.

Mavis Benson who manned the information desk sidled close to him with a clipboard in her hands. “Adam,” she said hesitantly.

“What do you need, Mavis?”

“We have a situation.”

He glanced at the organized chaos around him and nodded his head. “We certainly do.”

She pulled at his shirtsleeve and tilted her clipboard toward him. “Cass–Fortress Cliff–0800,” was scribbled in purple ink. “She hasn’t checked back in.”

Adam didn’t want to care. In fact, he hated the way his belly knotted at that piece of news. “Have you sent anyone to check it out?”

“They’re still assigning teams to sections of the park. Thought you might like to take this one yourself,” she whispered, her eyebrows rising.

Adam grimaced, tempted to tell her flat out she had the wrong man for the job. She didn’t know his interest in Cass McIntyre had been obliterated the night before.

However, he didn’t want to tarnish the trust and respect shining in Mavis’s eyes whenever he entered the building. Mavis was a lifelong resident of the nearby town of Canyon and attended the same church his mother had.

Adam blew out a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll take a look around the cliff.” Read the rest of this entry »

Kensington’s Aphrodisia authors have launched a new website. Go take a look and hit the blog because that’s where I’m playing today!

Progress for Hot Blooded

Posts may get sparse for the next few weeks while I slam through the next two projects. I’m writing them rough and pushing through rather than revising as I go which is my usual M.O. I keep second-guessing myself, and that’s slowing me down. I’m finding that for now, slamming is making the dialogue a lot more real–snappy, funny. The characters I’m working with aren’t that easy to nail. They both have trust issues and only come together when they are ready to explode with lust. Which is okay. Not sure where the story’s going, but I’m trusting my muse to lead me on this one. You’d think a Native American cowboy and a park ranger would write their own story, but they are making me work.

Have to get together a short synopsis for my next Alluring Tales entry. The other ladies in the group have ideas for what they want to do, and since I’m the one cracking the whip to get them motivated to complete the submission, I guess I better get my own butt in gear.

I don’t have any trips planned for the next month and a half, so I should be able to keep my head down and write. Let’s hope it all goes well. Oh, and I’d love to carve out some time to finish up the next installment of Knight Dreams for my newsletter, but I have to shove it down the list of priorities. Sorry! 🙁

In the meantime, I’ll be swimming, writing, swimming some more, writing some more, and then maybe cleaning up the house, because it really needs it–but again, that’s pretty far down the list of priorities. Guess the dust bunnies will have time to play.

In the meantime if you’d like a peak at what’s coming up, check out Sasha White’s blog this week. She’ll be using samples from my next vampire and cowboy novels in her online workshop on voice.

Paranormal romance is a supernatural force to be reckoned with. Packed with a menagerie of werewolves, shape-shifters, and assorted demons, its undisputed king is none other than our favorite centuries-old bloodsucker—the vampire. Let the biggest and brightest names in the paranormal romance business show you the bewildering array of complex vampire codes of conduct, dark ritual, and dating practices, as they chat up the locals and engage in the most erotic encounters you will sink your teeth into this side of un-Death.

And maybe someone can confirm the title of my story!! :confused: I think I’d called it “Viper’s Bite,” but someone mentioned “Vampire’s Bite,” so I’m burning to know since I don’t have my own copy yet.