Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Miss Abby Willis

Jesus I thought this day would never come!

Much like I was at her age, Abby proved to be exasperatingly difficult to deal with. One minute she was in my head, the next, who knows? Probably off stealing a car or flashing a fake ID in hopes of scoring some beer for the weekend.

Love the cheeky cover Stormy Night Publishing came up with!

In other news I have neglected this blog for over six months, partly because I've been lazy but also because I forgot how to get into it. I have too many passwords and email accounts to keep up with these days. With over six inches of snow on the ground (yes it does snow in Texas) I decided it was time to park butt in chair and do a little dusting around here. Thirteen passwords later, I'm in!

And now that I'm in, I realize I have nothing to say. How appropriate.

Josey spawns a series

As I watch Disciplining Little Josey hold on to the Top 100 Erotica ranking on Amazon, I am dryly amused at how far little Josey has come. The original manuscript was a mere 15,000 words, written on the spur of the moment and submitted to a new publisher to see if they would have any interest. When they came back and said they did like it, but requested I build it up a bit, it was like the dam between Josey's voice and my keyboard burst. I did a complete re-write, adding over 7000 words and a whole new chapter. 

In retrospect I probably could have added twice that, but it wasn't until I came to the final page that it occurred to me I'd just barely scratched the surface of the world of Mr. Green and the mysterious organization he works for. The addition of Abby Willis in my head (I'm becoming very United States of Tara these days) brought a much larger scope to the agency than I'd previously thought.

There's also the fact that while Josey was innocent and childlike and fairly simple, Abby ages into her teens, and like most teens is complicated. She's not only trying to discover what it means to be a little, but trying to discover who she is at the same time. That's hard enough for anyone, but when you're confronted with a drop dead gorgeous Greek guy that you'd do anything to please, it's nearly impossible.

Three chapters and over 15,000 words in, Abby's story is only a third, maybe a quarter written. Already the next girl has shown up, patiently waiting in the wings while I deal with Abby. For now she's faceless and nameless. I feel her in the back of my head, urging me to put off watching Kitchen Nightmare reruns for another day so that I can finish this book up and finally begin to tell her story.

For those who have said they wished Josey's story went on further, I'm sorry. I don't know where she is right now, but I do know she'll be back. Not in this book, or the next, or possibly the one after that, but I know Mr. Green's organization has a special event held every year, that she'll be there to fill us all in on what her life has been like, and that I'll be along to record everyone's stories along the way.

For those of you who responded so wonderfully to Josey, thank you. 

I resurface momentarily

I've been very AWOL lately.

A close family member and her husband had a motorcycle accident at the end of last month that broke a few bones on her and paralyzed him from the neck down. We are grateful that he survived; he was shattered pretty badly and had a lot of complications afterwards.

Buried my dog of 10 years.

And other assorted unpleasantness.

However, some good news arrived last night. My latest novella is out. We finally decided on Discplining Little Josey for the name, and I love the cover design that Stormy Night Publications got for it!

And now we're off for a Memorial Day family gathering to remember those who served, those who lived, and eat bar-b-q.