So…. I wrapped up another story this past week—just in the nick of time. It releases next week! The puzzle is related (hint-hint!). I had already set up a pre-order for the story but had to change the description slightly, as well as the price (it’s cheaper!), because it turned out to be more of a novelette than a novella. I don’t think you’ll mind. For this writer, I begin a story, thinking it’s going to go a certain way, and then stuff happens. Crazy stuff I didn’t see until the characters encounter something surprising (right along with me!), and the story takes off in another direction. This story will require a sequel. But you’ll have to read it, and then you’ll get an idea of why. Hate being a tease, but hey, that’s my job, right? 🙂

In the meantime, I have to move onto other projects, like a certain SEAL stepbrother and a wedding…another bounty hunter adventure… I’m editing three stories for other authors—all due by the end of this month! I’ll be revising an old story I based very loosely on a Russian fairytale and releasing that this month—so be watching for it!

Play the puzzle—then I have a question for you.
Answer in the comments, and you might win a $5 Amazon gift card!

The Question…

Which of my series would you like to see continued?
Check this page for a reminder of what’s already there!
(Shame on me, I haven’t updated that page to show the Montana Bounty Hunters!)

A Reminder!

Don’t miss out on FREE STORIES! Again, here’s the deal…

Throughout December, leading up to Christmas on the Delilah’s Collections website, I and some of the wonderful authors who’ve appeared in my collections will be giving away our stories! My suggestion, if you’re interested in collecting them, is to subscribe to the Collections blog. Look for the sign-up in the right column on that website. It says “Subscribe To Blog Via Email”—easy, right? That way you won’t miss a single offering. And beware! These free stories will only be available for a short time, so jump on them!

So, vacations are great and all, but knuckling under once you’re back is hard. But it has to happen. I have too many irons in the fire. Don’t you love that phrase? Too many irons in the fire. Be right back—have to know where that comes from…

I found this explanation on Answers: “…the origin of ‘irons in the fire’ relates to the battlefield surgeon, from at least medieval times, who kept a fire going with a number of different cauterising irons in it at all times. The irons were used to cauterise wounds and stop people bleeding to death. A surgeon with many irons in the fire was prepared to treat any size or shape of wound.”

Huh. I have to admit, I thought the explanation would have something to do with cowboys and brandings. 🙂 But back to my irons…

December looks insane. I have to finish editing Soldier Boy and get it loaded for its 12/5 release.

I have to finish writing Wolf Moon Rising, which releases 12/12—yeah, I’m really cutting that one close.

I owe you all the last installment of Sara & Hunter’s story—the wedding! Have no idea how that’s going to go.

I have to re-edit and re-publish Artic Dragon for release toward the end of the month.

Oh! I have the last 4 chapters of the next Delta Heat story to write.

And I have to write a short sequel to Reaper and Carly’s story for their Kindle World appearance in January. Sound like there’s enough on my plate yet? (Wait, on my plate… Nope, not going to look that one up right now…)

Then, how about the two books I have to edit for two other writers and the FREE Write 50 Books a Year workshop I have to lead?

So, yeah. December’s nutty. And all that Christmas stuff? All my gifts are bought. I’m letting my daughter wrap them all!

(These two stories are already up for pre-order!)

The Question

My question to you…

Does your December look just as nutty as mine?

UPDATE: The winner is Peggy!

* * * * *

I think I’ve mentioned this before… I love writing short stories. I began my career as an author writing novels. Then browsing some calls for submissions, I ran across calls for short stories. I wrote one. Then another. And then another. I quickly discovered I loved writing them. They gave me a chance to reach THE END very quickly, which was hugely satisfying. They gave the chance to try out different genres to see whether I enjoyed writing them. Plus, they gave me stress relief.

Very soon, I compiled quite a backlist of shorties, and I was tempted to try my hand at editing my own anthologies. I put together several projects for Cleis Press, but when the company sold, I decided to release my own personally-curated books. I find it highly enjoyable developing the theme and seeking authors to write stories.

These anthologies were never meant to be money-makers. Instead, I wanted a way to help authors, and me, expand our reader base by sharing our readers and encouraging them all to pick up every one of these books, so I offer them for a very low price to recoup expenses then offer them for free. There’s little risk that way. If you love only one story in 15, it’s still worth the asking price, but I’m betting you’ll discover authors you want to follow.

So, below is what I have so far of my self-pubbed anthologies. You can check out my full list at my Collections website. Coming in January (I hope), will be the next volume, Pirates: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology.

*****

Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance

Just $0.99!

Vikings. Fierce warriors who terrified all in their path as they raided and marauded, enslaved and murdered during Europe’s Dark Ages.

But these rough men from a rugged land were also sailors, explorers, craftsmen, and highly sought after mercenaries.

Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance will transport you to the realm of fantasy where such fearsome and loyal men are relentless potent lovers. Whether the lady of the keep demands a few stolen hours of pleasure with a captured Viking warrior or the handsome Northman is the one seducing his captive, you will find plenty of lusty adventures in settings as far-flung as Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Byzantium, Moorish Spain and the New World.

Let your fantasies run wild to a time when men wearing bearskin shirts and shining iron helms could capture a fierce maiden’s heart!

Amazon | Nook | Kobo | IBooks | GooglePlay | Print

Rogues: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology

FREE!

Rogues! Even the word conjures a special sort of hero—a playful bad boy with a heart of gold—at least when it comes to his lady love. This volume is filled with the Jack Sparrows of old—pirates sailing the high seas, Regency-era highway men, modern-day jewel thieves, like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief—men doing bad things, bending or breaking the law, but in a very sexy way. With thirteen stories sure to satisfy the reader who craves that ultimate bad boy, prepare to have your heart stolen!

Amazon | Nook | Kobo | Print

Blue Collar: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology

Just $.099!

When it comes to love…Blue Collar is better!

It’s time to set aside those sexy billionaires and enjoy stories about the everyday, even sexier bad boys you meet in real life. They may have dirty hands and wear tool belts and jeans instead of Rolex watches, but they’re earthy alpha males unafraid to get down and dirty when face to face with a woman in need–whatever her need may be!

Just a few of the titillating stories inside…

In “Elevation” by Megan Mitcham, an always-in-control policewoman trapped in an elevator shaft gets a sexy rescue from the handsome repairman. A lonely woman drives a thousand miles to meet an oil field roughneck ready for a long night of laying pipe in Mia Hopkins’ “We Drill Deep While Others Sleep”. Jennifer Kacey shows the lengths to which an enterprising gal will go to get the owner of an oil change shop to check her fluids in “The Boss”. And those are just a few of the sexy stories inside this collection about the everyday hero next door.

These are men who’ve built their powerful muscles from hard work rather than inside any gym, and they sure know how to use their hard-earned skills to pleasure a woman…

Amazon | Amazon UK | Nook | Kobo | IBooks | GooglePlay | Print

*****

Contest

For a chance to win your choice of one of my self-published backlist stories or one of these anthologies, answer me this:

1. Are you looking forward to an anthology filled with pirate stories (historical, sci-fi, steampunk, etc.)?
2. What other kinds of bad-boy themed anthologies would you like to read?

Seize the day. Put no trust in tomorrow. ~ Horace

Did you know there was a second part to the phrase Carpe diem? The whole phrase is:  Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Try fitting that on a coffee cup!

I do love Carpe diem. It’s something you have to say with a raised fist. Every schoolteacher entering a classroom, every commuter entering the train, every mother entering the kitchen to start breakfast—shake that fist! Carpe diem! Say it like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!”

Okay, so maybe you guessed it. I need a little motivation today, and I’m going a little overboard. Shouldn’t be though. I actually got a great night’s sleep. I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I shuffled to my office, cleared a spot on my desk for my phone (Lordy, you should see the stack of shit sitting in the center. Before too long I will have to raise my desk chair to see over it!), and brought my computer to life with a righteous right click.

And that quickly, I saw today’s To Do and sighed. I have a lot of words to write. A shit-ton. I’m cussing a lot today, aren’t I? You can say carpe diem without saying quam minimum credula postero, but you can’t say yippee-ki-yay without saying motherfucker. And frankly, I need to cuss to “gird my loins” before I settle down to the task at hand.

Are you with me? Want to raise that fist and shake it? Got any words of inspiration? I don’t mind if you cuss. 🙂

A little over a year ago I had one of my short stories published with a series called Candy Hearts and released by the Wild Rose Press. Each story in the series revolved around Valentines Day, and each had to contain reference to the heart-shaped sugar candies with the goofy sayings on them like: Love U Forever; Be Mine; Take Me, I’m Yours. You get the picture. My story was titled For Keeps and it was a lot of fun to write.

When it came time to promote the story, the other Candy Hearts authors were willing to visit my blog but they only wanted to give me what they called a Media Kit. If I wanted to visit their blogs to promote For Keeps, I had to supply a Media Kit. Known among my friends and family as the Woman Who Needs to Get Out More, I had no clue what to do and was ready to hang it up.

So I asked and one of the authors very kindly showed me how to create a Media Kit. Step by step, cut and paste, be imaginative, she said. And whaddya know, it worked. Within one year I was teaching others how to create a Media Kit for each of their books. I call that Paying It Forward.

Now we come to Twitter, Tweeting and other similar social communication which do not involve dialing a phone. Up until six months ago I had no clue what Twitter or Tweeting meant, beyond a classroom of giggling eight year-olds who recently discovered Justin Timberlake or that man-child Bieber person. Okay, I’ll admit to hearing about tweeting when I tuned into Mike & Mike on ESPN every morning. These two guys tweet their . . . posteriors off several times a day. And it works—for them. Not me, I swore. I’d swallow my tongue before I did this “at hash tag whatever”. Like that’ll work.

Then I was invited to join a group of six authors to create stories for a box-set anthology set in a casino-resort near Niagara Falls in Western New York. One of the rules was each participating author was expected to tweet often, like daily. Okay okay, I grumbled. I’ll do this if I have to. If it kills me. I researched, I practiced, I learned. Now I’m helping others tweet. Wahoo. Let me tell you, I can re-tweet anyone’s butt off.

Facebook? Learned that one, sort of, after much trial and error. Then passed it on.

Pinterest? That, I learned, is soooo much fun, just like friends had been telling me for years. I now have Pinterest boards for each of my books, and I’m scheduled to present an on-line course in the value of creating Pinterest boards—not just for authors but for anyone interested.

By far, the best Paying It Forward concept I now employ is making seat belt cushions for patients who undergo chest surgery [mastectomies, pacemaker insertions, PICC line insertions for chemotherapy]. What began as a simple survival technique to stop the whining from the back seat, “this strap hurts my neck, Nana. Can’t I take it off?” evolved into helping others infinitely less fortunate than I.

Paying It Forward. It works for me.

Hey, you never know.

*~*~*~*

I love to hear from readers.

You can find me at:

KatHenryDoran@yahoo.com

my blogs:  www.WildWomenAuthorsx2.blogspot.com
www.ApronsWithAttitude2.blgspot.com
Pinterest:  www.Pinterest.com/KatHenryDoran
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WildWomenAuthors

Thanks for inviting me to stop by, Delilah. I appreciate it very much!

Kat

Hey, I’m Viv. Thanks, Delilah, for letting me come in here and couch-surf in your pretty online space. I write sexy sci-fi romance and just recently started working on a new book and thought, hey, this nascent end of the book-writing process might be interesting to some people. Maybe? Hopefully. 🙂

The Dreaded Blank Doc of Oh No You Can’t

A Love Story

It’s just a straight line, blinking in a backlit sea of white. It doesn’t speak, doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even present a memeable visual. Yet it mocks me.

“Hello, cursor at the head of a brand new book,” I say brightly.

Blink.

“Hey, now, that wasn’t necessary. We’re pals. I mean, aren’t we? After last year, we ought to be.”

We wrote two full-length books* together in 2016, this computer and I, and we revised another.** I stroked these keys, teased magic from them, warmed them with the friction of creation and the ballsy lack of a cooling fan.

Aaaand…blink.

“What sort of answer is that? Can we at least talk this out? I kind of thought we had something, you know, special.”

White is not a pretty color. An artist pal insists that in an additive situation like a computer screen, white is the presence of all colors. When it disguises itself as a story, trust me, white is the absence of all hope.

“Okay, fine, yeah, I might’ve ghosted or mumble-mumble-didn’twriteformonths-mumble. My bad. But! I never stopped thinking about you. Swear. Check out this notebook full of research nibblets and theme notes and character descriptions and story beats. I effing dreamed about you.” Whew. Just managed to hold back the expletive there.

If you’d asked before today, I would have sworn a blinking cursor could not look patently disbelieving or just a little bit pissed.

And yet.

It gives the minutest of pauses before the next blink. Sarcastic little turd.

“Look, I’m okay with a reboot on this relationship. How about… I dunno, a hundred words today? They don’t even have to be good words. Just a start. What say?”

I don’t wait for an answer, just type***.

Nina struggled to give each a proper space in memory, but all the thousands of worlds blurred together. On one, a red-dust surface and giants who exhaled fire. On another, twelve-legged mothers beneath a canopy of blue leaves, stringing cradles for their newborns and slinging poison to the hunters who came for them in the longest night. A moon of blood-veined ice and people who sang to stars, hoping for rescue and receiving annihilation.

Blindly, apologetically, with a backbeat of I-missed-you and a promise of it-will-get-better. Just hang in there with me.

Failures. Every world she’d visited had been a failure, and she’d watched trillions suffer punishment for their sins.

Cradles, falling. Giants, weeping. Hunters in the dark.

The blinks come faster now, as if the document pants, strung taut and ready for the next word. I long to make it breathless, unable to stand even a moment disconnected from my hot little fingers, and suddenly I’m swimming in hope.

This is what it’s like to start a new book. This is how it feels. At least, for me.

And I love it so hard.

* One of those books is Perfect Gravity, available November 7, 2017 and pre-orderable now.
** Wanted and Wired, a sexy cyberpunk action story with lots of kissing (actually available).
*** Complete typing vomit, first-draft nonsense not even read by my critique partners. (Hi, you guys. This will be coming at you soon. Promise.)

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