Thanks guys

From an early age I was always drawing. If there was a pencil or crayon or bleeding thumb available, rest assured I'd put it to use sketching. The majority of my work consisted of horses in various poses, though I'd draw any animal if the fancy struck. As I got older I began entering my best pieces into local art competitions, mostly 4-H and state fair ones. Why I don't know, because I was always extremely protective of my art. I wasn't drawing for ribbons and I certainly wasn't doing it to hear criticism. Perhaps I wanted to hear serious approval; the best I ever got from mom was "cute" and that always set my teeth on edge. After all, I wasn't drawing fluffy fucking bunnies with rainbows and unicorns.

Over the years I wound up with boxloads of ribbons, lots of seconds and thirds, but never that damn blue. The blues and best of shows always went to full color pieces. Mine were always charcoal and chalk, or pencil. For some reason color eluded me, and back then (or at least where I was entering) the divisions weren't broken up that far. They simply lumped it all in by age group. So, I did what any arrogant, yet slightly insecure artist would do when faced with the realization that their best will never be good enough for others.

I quit competing.

Oh I didn't quit drawing. I just quit showing it to others. And eventually I learned how to handle color. Case in point. :)

My writing goes along the same lines. I do it because I have to, not for the ribbons. My best may never be good enough for others, but sometimes it's good enough for a handful. If it weren't for you precious few, the ones who leave lovely reviews and who buy my books, I'd quit competing once again. So thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate you.

Confessions of an Unfit Blogger

Having a blog wasn't my idea.

Upon learning I'd had some books published, a friend of mine demanded I get a blog up and running at once. Never mind I have the attention span of a diabetic hummingbird, she insisted I needed a blog so I could keep people updated on my every move. Because you know, maybe some day my travels will extend further than the well worn path between my desk and the refrigerator. And gosh darn it, people will want to know!

Or so she claimed. I rarely check my stats but I'm fairly certain the number of people I've helped overcome insomnia barely requires the usual number of fingers and toes to keep track of.

I read other people's blogs and am quite impressed. Blog hops! Guest authors! Excerpts from their books! Free short stories! Competitions! Just looking at all the work they put into their blogs makes me swoon for the comfort of the couch and a glass of Disaronno on ice. I'd blame that on my corset being too tight... but I generally write in the buff so there goes that excuse.

I didn't start writing books so I could spend hours pimping them on social media. That isn't the adult way to look at it I know, but tweeting endlessly about my literary hack jobs just ain't for me. I write stories because if I don't, they'll conspire to pack one side of my skull with tannerite and blow themselves a hole to freedom. Sometimes the sheer number of stories and characters clamoring in my head for release keeps me from writing a single word, because the cacophony drowns out the single voice I'm looking for.

So I'll apologize in advance if my blog sends you straight to sleepytime. I have nothing else to blather about beyond my dogs, our occasional road trips, or some character that's in my head refusing to shut up. If I post at all, it's to share my personal bits with you, and though that's rarely entertaining at least it's real.

Begin Again

Next book to come out is a novella, part one of a series of three, that deals with age play. New for me, but had fun writing it. I'm working with a new publisher as well and am eager to see how the cover turns out. Hopefully it will be available early next month. The tentative title is "Mr. Green's Girls", subtitled "Josey Tate" for the main character, but my editor may have a better idea for it.

I took a few days off from writing, partly to let the screaming in my wrists die down to a low whimper, but also to clear my head. I'm going from age play Daddy babygirl back to Dark Angel and need time to switch gears. Dark Angel is about to get reworked as well, going from first person to third in order to allow Joshua's POV to come into play, as well as a few of the other characters that insist they be more prominent in the story. It would be easier to leave it as is, and have it finished by the end of the month, but my gut tells me it will be a superior story if I make the change.

Of course this means I have to go back to the beginning and essentially rewrite the first four chapters that I'd written, re-written, edited, and wrapped up. A painful sacrifice to be sure, but I know I'll be glad I did it in the end.

STFU!

I don't write well with distractions. I don't know if I'm ADD or just unfocused, but when people keep popping up asking me idiotic questions, or banging pots and pans around, or mindlessly blathering at the dogs, I CANT. FUCKING. WORK!

I have a book that a publisher wants. It needs some changes... actually I've gutted it since they said they were interested. You would think that I'm lucky in that I no longer do the 9 to 5 thing. I'm home all day, I got plenty of time to write, right? 

FUCKING WRONG!

You may not know this but if you are home all day, you are obviously doing nothing important. Never mind the ad you've got to get to your boss in 2 hours, or the report that has to be turned in within thirty minutes. You're doing _nothing_ as far as everyone else is concerned, because you're not in some stuffy office somewhere choking in a tie or Spanx. Everyone wants to stop by and bs the time away. The kid wants to yammer endlessly about how fat so and so's hips are getting and how such and such was mean at lunch. Fifty texts come in, one every five minutes, to entertain you with whatever image your husband just saw on Chive.

When the exchange student finally goes back to Czech (6 weeks, 2 days, 9 hours, 28 minutes) I am moving my office into her bedroom, and I am not allowing the phone in there, and I am disconnecting the fucking doorbell. I will hang a sign on the door that says STFU ALL WHO COME NEAR.

And the rabble will still allow me to get nothing done.

Domestic Discipline and Peeps

The Hickory Switch is now available through Blushing Books! This Christian domestic discipline romance is a departure from my usual work, and follows Doris de Vris from The Evolution of Emma Adler after she leaves home and marries a preacher who introduces her to the hickory switch.

The old man has been ill lately, as old dogs are wont to do. Blind, nearly deaf, and now with some horrible stomach illness no doubt resulting from gobbling up something foul that he sniffed up in the yard, he does little more than lie in bed groaning or rushing to the back door (or refrigerator or washer and dryer depending on which direction he gets himself going) and begging to go outside lest he embarrass himself horribly on the kitchen floor. The first night of his misery, our exchange student suggested I put him outside because he was gross. It was 32F with snow on the horizon. Needless to say I pointed out I'd had him ten years, and her seven months, and if anyone was going to be sleeping in the yard it would not be my sick and blind and arthritic buddy.

The house is blissfully silent at the moment, thanks to her being on a senior class trip and him being over his projectile defecation. This is good news in more ways than one, although I fear I have discovered the source of Old Man's misery.

We had an early Easter egg hunt for some kids and I succumbed to the cheery yellow sugar coated marshmallow bunnies more than once. Now I'm the one groaning in the corner and begging to go out.

Damn you sugary marshmallowy bastards!

It isn't because it sells

The other day a friend of mine said something that rather pissed me off. She said she very much liked my writing, but wished I wouldn't insist on putting "so much sex in it."

"But I write erotica," I pointed out.

"Exactly, and I get it you know, I mean it's like they say, sex sells and you're just writing what sells."

Um, no I'm not. I don't write a story and then try to cram as much sex in as possible because I think it will help it sell. I write a story and my characters cram in as much sex as they can convince me to include. (and in the world of erotica my characters are friggin prudes if you ask me) If it were up to me I'd be writing stuff like the Walking Dead and Mad Max, but these characters that get into my head are horny little bastards and they aren't shy about it. They want to screw, a lot, and they want you to hear all about it.

Where the hell did YOU come from?

A funny thing happened on the way to Dawn's novel. I got sidetracked by Emma Adler's nemesis, Doris de Vris. Out of nowhere, a new book emerged. I'm already a quarter of the way done with it and clearly see every chapter laid out before me. Did not see that coming at ALL.

Wanna know what else I didn't see coming? It falls under the genre of Christian Inspirational/Domestic Discipline. You know, the kind of books where the women are all spanked like children by all the men in their lives as a means of discipline only, no sex or BDSM or none of that sticky, icky business whatsoever.

Part of me is just peachy fucking keen about this development, because I hated Doris de Vris. I went to church as a kid with stuck up spoiled bitches like her, and the idea of her getting hooked to a paddlin' man suits me just fine. The story is good too, plenty of tension and drama and both Doris and her spankin Sparky grow a lot by the end of the love story, and it IS a love story, from me, who has spent the last few days fretting that I don't have any romance in me. It's just, well it's so .... unexpected.

The other bizzaro part is that I'm atheist. I grew up in a very religious home, but I haven't been a believer since I was oh, ten or twelve. If you'd told me two days ago I'd ever, in my lifetime, write a Christian Inspirational romance I'd have laughed until my Diet Dr Pepper snotted out my nose.

I kinda feel like a sell out for writing it, but it wasn't by conscious choice that it's happening. The story gurgled up from some back corner of my brain, all finished and ready to go and wrapped up in a pretty yellow bow... I can't resist yellow bows... and it demanded to be written.

So, I'm writing it, and screaming carpal tunnel be damned. I expect it to be all down by Friday evening. Maybe then I can get back to Dawn, the orgasmic vampire slayer.

Dawn's Dilemma

The question of the day is, can I write a romance? It's not my bag of tricks you see, not that it would be any leap of logic to come to that conclusion if you've ever read any of my scribblings. My girls are love 'em and kick 'em to the curb sorts. Chloe may have loved Chuck but when he failed to stand up for her, she was out the door and fucking up his car before you could say wet shifter. Emma Adler is about her evolution from downtrodden, cringing doormat to the sort of girl who will kick your ass and steal your boyfriend.

And Dawn? Dawn is the ultimate black widow, the one the wannabes bow before and offer up gifts in hopes of getting to hang with her on Friday night. She fucks vampires to death for pete's sake, and I know it sounds horribly comic bookish to write it like that but Dawn is a weapon designed to kill the undead and there's nothing comical about her deployment. If anything, it's a bit gross. She isn't Buffy who kicked their asses while delivering witty quips just before plunging a wooden stake into their hearts. Dawn's power is triggered by a lust for revenge, and rather than fight her enemies she draws them helplessly to her like moths to a trailer park bug zapper. 

Vampires are not sparkly, benevolent beings who help angst riddled teens cope with high school. Fucking hell. They are the evil undead, think David from Lost Boys and Angelus from Buffy, or Ann Rice's Lestat, or Camilla and Goth of the Nosferatu clan. Ugly, giddily vicious, and unrepentant, delighting in the torment and torture of their victims. Sorta like Dawn is, actually.

The story before me is that a horrified Dawn finds she has fallen for one, which is problematic in two ways. One, she despises vampires for the destruction of everything she has ever loved, and two because sex between them would be the end of the twisted romance. 

It's a GOOD story, and I love Dawn as a character. I just hope I can do it justice. Doing my research this week on medieval Bulgaria circa 1300 to better understand where Dawn was born, and reborn; the migration of the Romani out of India and into Europe during the High Middle Ages; and getting to know Dixon Kane, the young vampire who turns Dawn's world upside down.

All Hail Twitter Babylon

"You don't understand Twitter"

Said a friend to me the other day after reviewing my tweets. According to her Twitter is for networking and promotion, not for boring people silly with accounts of my weekend or the fact that I consider my satin cheetah print with pink trim pajamas to be suitable every day wear around my house. a fact yet to be tweeted about, but still she worries

"Look here, see how this one does it? She constantly puts out snippets of her book, along with links to her blog."

"BORING" I protest, and she rolls her eyes at my mulish behavior.

"Seriously what do you hope to accomplish by telling people the dog is asleep on your chest? You write sex. You need to be sexy. Dog hair in your bra? Not sexy."

I know what she means, I do, but seriously, yawnfest. I freaking hate reading tweet after tweet of self promotion, thanks for shopping here, and endless snippets of titillating and sexy phrases that, without the accompaniment of photos or more details, are more awkward than panty wetting. I suppose this is why some hire a PR person to handle their tweets and blogs; otherwise the feed would disintegrate into endless Ashton Kutcheresque babble that reveal us all to be ignorant fucks when limited to 140 characters or less.

Except I *like* Babylon, the he said she said tit for tats and spats that make up the vast majority of tweets. I like knowing that Marci's dog came home from the vet without complications and Ray's ex girlfriend is a "stank ass skank ass ho" and that G Busta be pimpin@9th and wondering where his hos at, and I like knowing that the people I follow are real people, not some shill in an office somewhere pimping for a paying customer.

Small wonder I'm not in sales.

Would you like fries with that?

An old college professor once told me to strap on the blinkers and run my own race, not worry about how others run their own. While I have found a stiff margarita to be an outstanding substitution for racing blinkers, as well as much easier on my hair, I still suffer regular bouts of "who the fuck am I kidding?".

Every so often, and really it's more every than often, I read someone else's work and am left feeling as if I should bone up on the latest techniques for properly preparing french fries and cheeseburgers and leave the writing to those with real talent. I don't know why this happens, it's not as if my scribblings are so wretched that the reader is driven to drink, hoping to erase the chapters from his memory. Or hey, maybe they are! In that case I will be proud to have contributed a valuable resource for anyone who needs a reason to get completely blotto.

I write because I love to, even have to, because I can sit down in front of the Dell at the crack of noon and get up for my first 48 ounce iced chai tea latte two pink stuffs easy on the ice of the day and discover it's already 5 in the afternoon. The time flies almost as fast as my fingers. Sometimes it seems I have an unruly hoard in my head demanding to have their stories told, and I can't write fast enough.

Today was not one of those days though. Today was "research day", thanks to Miss Emma Adler whose tale of lust, betrayal, and revenge demands I understand the fashion trends, hairstyles, slang, and daily life of a teenager living in the dustbowl during the Great Depression.

For the record, I think Marian Marsh is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I would gladly sacrifice a hundred Kardashians, Honey Boo Boos, and Snookies if I thought the gods would see fit to return old school glamour to Hollywood.