Helen's Hardt's blog interview winner!

I'm late with this, but Helen chose her winner from her blog contest last week, and it's Ashley! She's already received her PDF copy of Passion in Paris. ;)

It's now June. Shocked? Yeah, me too. I'm way behind on everything as usual, but I'm determined to get outside a little this summer. You know, to see the sun and smell the flowers. Foreign concept. ;)

In other news...I'm almost 25K into Damned, my UF. I'm having a great time writing this, and it's going pretty fast, since I only started 3 weeks ago. Gabe and Shea are doing unexpected things, which probably isn't THAT unexpected since I've yet to whip out my handy dandy characterization and plotting worksheets. But that will happen soon.

Next up are my edits for Type Dirty To Me, my erotic short, so I can get that out the door. Then I will officially have 2 projects on submission. Wow, it's almost like I'm a real writer!

Finding Balance...

Not me, mind you, because I have NO balance at the moment. In the last 48 hours, I've written close to 10K words. In that time, I also worked a day and a half at the day job.

But the good news is I finished the first draft of my short! And tonight, I started my UF, Damned. FINALLY!

But I'm exhausted. Unconsciousness sounds like heaven to me now, but when I get this jazzed to write, I can't sleep. Insomnia has become the norm for me too often lately, and I need to do something about that. Getting some exercise and reaching for water and fruit over coffee and candy would help big-time, I think. Learning that writing is a marathon not a sprint couldn't hurt, either. ;)

What about you? What do you do to restore your balance?

Oh, and please check back in next Monday, May 18th when my marvelous CP, Tara Leigh Coons, is in the hot seat. I'll be asking her about fan fiction, critiquing, and her upcoming paranormal series...and she just may have a prize to give away, too! Maybe. ;)

Moving Forward...

slow but sure. Saturday, I finally sent out VT to Brenda Chin at Blaze. I've had it finished for a couple weeks, but fear of that condition I call suck-itis had set in. All that was left was the final quickie read through to ensure it made sense, but I choked. Not because I can't leave Vincent and Kiki behind. With all the revisions this story has been through, I said goodbye the minute I typed "The End." But because I was afraid the one mistake I'd missed, the one plot thread I'd left dangling would be why it didn't sell. And I would have failed.

I'm a perfectionist. Not the best tendency to have as a writer, but at least it usually means my work is fairly polished. VT was in good shape, I think, when I sent it on its way. I did my job to the best of my ability at the time. Was my best good enough? Time will tell, but I've finally joined the ranks of submitting writers. And it feels pretty good.

In the meantime, I've moved on.

To what? My erotic short, Talk Dirty To Me. It's a cougar story, and it just so happens that one of my CPs is also writing a cougar story right now. And that both of our heroines are lawyers named Holly. No, we did not plan this. LOL Just a funny little bit of serendipity at work.

I'm halfway through my short, and I'm having fun with it. So much fun that I can't wait to submit it. I'm still not sure where it's going to go, but it's nice to be working with new characters for a change. My goal is to be done by the 30th, and I think it's totally doable.

A few more days left to reach those April goals...let's make them count! Are you close to reaching yours? I'd love to hear.

And I'm done!

The 28 pgs. I wrote today - a new personal record - finished VT off, and me too, just about. LOL But I typed The End, and I'm only about 1,300 words over my target word count, so I'm in good shape. Those extra words will disappear fast, because I always lose a couple thousand when I revise. In a couple days, I'll set about cleaning the ms up for the last time.

Until then, I'm happy dancing! WOOOHOOO!

And to celebrate... a lil Henri. ;)

The Lure Of The Shiny New Project...

Or in my case, three. ;) Only two that are really eating at me right now - Damned, my UF and Type Dirty To Me, the recently resurrected erotic short I'm determined to finish - but still, all these voices in my head are keeping me up at night! I've worked on no less than three projects this week, which is a lot for me. So for right now, I'm trying to silence the chatter so I can get VT out the door.

In other news...tomorrow's Friday the 13th, and I know what I'll be doing. Reading! Christina Phillips has a great new erotic release from The Wild Rose Press, Touch Of The Demon. She's doing a blog tour all over cyberspace, so I'll be partying with her in spirit. To get you warmed up, here's her book trailer.

I don't think I'd mind her demon, Rafe, touching ME anytime! ;) Happy release day, Christina!

Would You Write For Free?

It's the age old question. If you were told, with all certainty, that you would never be offered any monetary compensation for your writing, would you continue to do it? Why or why not?

For me, that's an easy question. Yes, I'd keep writing. I can't NOT do it. I haven't been paid yet, but I've been writing since I was a kid. Literally. My first stories were Bible stories in 2nd grade. (Yes, I went to Catholic school.) What a journey I've taken, writing-wise, since then! ;)

This week's goal: To finish VT and all its accompaniments (query & synopsis.) Since I've been promising to complete this goal for a while now, I need to get on it. I also owe my two wonderful CPs critiques.

Today I attended my local romance writers' meeting, which provided lots of food for thought. Writing workshops always get my wheels cranking. Almost as soon as the speaker starts talking, I start scribbling.

Off to accomplish some goals...