Taking Stock...

So, here we are mid-full moon, and I'm wondering, is it just my house that goes totally berserk...or is this something that happens across the board? And no worries, I'm not talking berserk in a crazy everyone is in fighting mood way....but rather, everyone is freaking about about their career paths and what the 2009 journey holds...

Middle daughter is here...fretting about her career "future prospects" (even though she has a good job) and wanting desperately to move to Alaska...

Youngest daughter is dropping/ adding classes at the last possible moment because she has decided that she doesn't want to be an EMT on her greater journey to be a nurse and doesn't want to be a nurse...but does want to stay in a science/medical field...sports medicine or pharmacology...

And...before anyone panics...I am not changing career paths...just stressed, wishing I could type faster...think faster...create faster...

I have two current WIP's moved forward as most important...the WIP "Edge" which is the sequel to "Voyeur" and the WIP "Blind Date" which is being targeted for an anthology. So I feel like I am on target to meet my 2009 writing goals...

I did get Good News Tonight! I was notified that I have a short story going into an anthology published by Ravenous Romance...more to come soon...

And hubby's plane took off (delayed an hour to de-ice) and landed safely...whew. Very happy he is all tucked in his hotel room.

Delayed...

I feel like I'm running a day behind on everything...
Yesterday was the full moon, I remembered the day before yesterday...and tonight...but missed it yesterday...

This morning a friend text and asked how the holiday shopping was coming along...holiday shopping? My brain paused...and then I had that "oh shit" moment of panic...

I know you've noticed...I've missed blogging every other day or so...
It seems I'm always playing "catch-up"

Like I said, I feel like I'm running behind...
Delayed...

I've been writing, revising...
Is that really an excuse?
Can I blame it all on the writing process? Yes, I think I must...

So, I apologize, but I can't promise that my regular scheduled blogging will get any more...regular...the WIP seems to be taking every single free brain moment...

I wonder if I can put an I.O.U. under the "Yule Tree"?
I don't think Beautiful Girl will be as understanding...

Blogging today at SExPressions...

Today my main blog is at SExPressions...but I didn't want you to be left hanging with nothing here...so I am also posting an excerpt that portrays the newest character added to the Chronicles of Surrender series: Daniel, Thomas's twin brother, also an undercover agent, and seriously more twisted and evil that Lord Fyre ever thought about being. The Question is, can he be saved?

There are even more questions and answers, and another excerpt, at SExPressions...so click over after you read Daniel's excerpt:

(excerpt starts here)

In the hallway, Henri waits with two guards. I am handcuffed before I realize what is happening.

“Am I not going back to The States, then?” I try to keep a grip on my voice to not allow the panic in my chest to show.

“In due time, Thomas,” Henri answers before nodding at the guards. Their signal to take me to wherever they plan to take me, which to my surprise is a Physician’s Conference Room two floors higher.

I’d considered breaking free while in the elevator, actually my best bet of an escape, but my curiosity got the best of me. When I am forced into the room and find myself with a conference table being all that stands between me and my brother, I wish I had escaped when I’d had the chance. I fight the guards, seeing red, wanting to inflict the same pain on Nikkos that he inflicted on Eva.

The guards hold tight, though conference chairs end up turned on their sides and I end up a little black and blue for my efforts.

“I’m going to kill you!” I promise him.

“Boys, boys,” Nikkos says in our native tongue. “Would you cut off your own right arm just so your brother would feel the pain for a lifetime?” he challenges me in a strong firm voice, a voice from a time long ago. He recites the chastisement our uncle used so many times as we were growing up, each of us always trying to cause the other great harm. “You are each other’s blood forever; no one will ever love you or know you as well as your other.”

That is what Uncle called us…Other. He was mine and I was his other. The times when we rolled around as children in the tall grasses behind our house seems so far away, so remote, but there is still truth in our uncle’s words. Though that truth brings both gladness and pain.

I shrug off two of the guards, facing him squarely. “Would you have killed her?”

“I had no idea she was the one you loved. I promise you that.” He walks around the table, coming closer to me. “You know as well as I do that I could not have blown almost a decade’s work by this agency to save one operative.” He pauses when he gets near enough to put one hand on each of my shoulders. “But if I had known that she was yours, I would have made sure she lived. I’m sorry.”

It is then that I notice his eyes reflect the truth of every word. He also thinks she is dead.

“Cobra didn’t kill her. She lives,” I tell him and am surprised when he grabs me, squeezing me hard, saying, “Thank God, then.” He pulls back from me, searching my eyes, “But still your heart breaks?”

“Whether we have a future together or not remains uncertain.”

“You have many who love you,” he states.

I smile, answering, “I was always more loved than you.” I don’t doubt that several of the people in the room, if not all, can make out most of what we are saying to each other, but still, it seems important that we use Greek.

“I have lovers,” he quarrels.

“But I have love.”

“Enough love to heal you of the pain she causes you?”

I don’t answer, I shrug, the lump of uncertainty forming in my throat too painful, her almost death still too recent, her prognosis too unsure.
Henri makes tsking noises as he personally frees my hands. I am shocked into silence; my brother so transformed from the last time I saw him. My mirror image now barely even shares a resemblance.

When I last saw him, we both sported ponytails and goatees. He no longer sports a beard, having trimmed it down to a small patch of thick fur just beneath his lower lip. Each of his cheek dimples sport a pointed silver stud piercing, making his face even more intriguing, and he wears not one set of small silver hoops in his earlobes, but four. He also pierced his tongue, my quick glimpse reveals a wide metal spider. My mind falls into the gutter, curious as to what other piercings his body hides.

“I’ve changed a bit.” Smiling, laughing, he turns in a circle, giving me the whole show, since I have obviously been struck dumb by his new appearance. His head is shaved with a Japanese-inspired tattoo beginning on the back of his skull extending down the back of his neck before disappearing under the edge of his shirt. Through the sheer fabric, I can tell his entire back and a large section of his chest have been inked, as have his arms down to his wrists.

“That’s an understatement, brother.” Free of the handcuffs, I hug my brother tight. He is much thinner than the last time I saw him. The hug reveals that the six years have taken their toll on his body. His ribs and pelvic bones protrude prominently, and because of the thinness, his muscles seem longer and leaner, a fact not easily missed by his choice of clothing, a black microfiber long-sleeved T-shirt that clings to his solid pecs and six-pack abs. The changes make Nikkos look ten to fifteen years younger than me. Yes, he could easily pass for twenty-eight; however, a second glance reveals his age deeply ingrained in his eyes, the windows to his soul revealing he has paid a very high price.

(excerpt ends here)
Want more Chronicles of Surrender? Buy books I-III here.

Don't Give Up! I'm Not...

I received a rejection letter today for one of my novels I'm currently peddling mainstream...it's actually a first rejection letter so I'm sure I have lots more to face until I find the right publisher...

I used to think (a decade ago) that a rejection letter meant that my writing wasn't good enough...then I realized that my writing was good enough that it just wasn't right for the audience at the time...

Which makes me wonder...who decides what the audience wants?
A too easy answer would be that answer is sales driven, which would explain the glut of vampire slowly turning to urban fantasy popularity...

Sigh...
Someday...

I read once that Stephen King's first horror novel was rejected 100 times before it was actually accepted. I'm not even near that number, so I'm not giving up...and if you are a writer...keep writing...

I'm hoping that I can get the revisions done to Pornstar soon...entirely too much family drama has been keeping me away from this important deadline (as well as others) but it is time for me to get this one done. So that is going to be my primary focus this week...

Wish me luck that post-revision I'll have a happy editor:)

Gratitude:
1. Jazzi makes me smile
2. Petey makes me laugh
3. The damn cats make me curse**
**It's a well rounded day at least

Pornstar Revisions...

I may have mentioned that I am revising Pornstar but I didn't realize how much that would mean to me...because Pornstar started out as a F/F romance...and then on the advice of an editor who I am no longer working with to get the ms into a certain publisher's guidelines (even though they advertise LGBT but really don't mean L just GBT and F/F can only happen as part of a menage but preferably all menages should be MMF...call me frustrated?)

Anyway, to make the long story short, I added a MF romance to make the FF acceptable... that didn't happen ...because bottom line, I couldn't live with myself and the publisher wasn't willing to accept any FF if the M wasn't involved (Can he watch? Ewww...)... so I sent queries off to another editor who I absolutely adore and the revisions she asked for weren't unreasonable (and as usual were right on target)

The problem lies in when I first tore into it...expecting an easy fix...but then I started seeing all the places I'd changed the story, softened the story to try to make it "acceptable" for publisher one...

Sigh...this was not going to be a quick fix...because I want to tell the story that needs to be told.

I jumped ship on Pornstar and started edits on Voyeur...
Now that edits are complete on Voyeur and I am sitting waiting it's release (Oct 28) I am again ready to face Pornstar...and I'm taking my time...letting it percolate as I chop all the subtle sentences that were meant to "soften" the work and make it romance reader friendly...

And I think with the rewrite it is still going to be romantic...I think it is going to be hellatiously romantic...but it is also going to be FF hot... I'm not backing down on what this story needs to say and be. This is a grown-up story with grown-up angst and grown-up need. This story is going to be a little messy and I can't wait to get into the real meat of it.

Pornstar excites me.
Publisher number one wouldn't be able to handle the "real" girl on girl sexiness of Pornstar...
I hope publisher number two can.

And if not, I've got my big girl panties on and I'm going to find a publisher willing to take a chance on a real FF romance because this story deserves to be written...and read.

Emotion, Exhaustion, Life Drama...

I'm writing...actually revising PORNSTAR for an editor in the hopes the publishing house she edits for will accept it...even though it's a FF lovestory. I've been sitting on it...I needed to infuse it with a heavy dose of angst...

And for that I needed to get emotional...
read (miserable)...

I'm emotional, exhausted, and my life has more drama at the moment than a B-class soap opera...oh, yeah, and I'm horny (and alone)...but it all adds up to I'm writing again (huge ripping words revision...cut 6k this afternoon) OUCH. I'm so excited that the keys are clicking that I may stay up all night writing...even though I'm bleary eyed and running on caffeine, 4 hours sleep, adrenaline and beer...

I'm happy.
I love being a writer...

Kinky Secrets...

I have often wondered how other people manage raising children and having a kinky life. Should it be a hundred percent secret and if so, for how long? Because from my POV, kids are smart, and even if you think you're keeping your dirty little secrets in the closet (or basement) are you really?

Case in point, I'm an erotica writer and even though I spent years writing after the children were in bed, password protecting, and other insanely creative ways to protect my children from the truth, about a decade ago, when my oldest daughter was sixteen she not only found one of my manuscripts (printed and hidden) but "borrowed it." When I discovered it missing, to say that I tore the house upside down looking for it is an understatement. It was gone... It turned up a day later, back in it's original hiding place but much worse for wear and I had a sneaking suspicion that the seventeen year old was involved. I waited for her classes to be over (she was in college at the time) and then I waited for her shift to be over (Sous Chef) going nuts on the inside waiting. When she did finally get home and I asked about it, she was very honest...
"I love it that you're a writer and your book is awesome!" (I wasn't sure whether to feel better because of the affirmation, or queasy that I had inadvertently exposed my daughter to BDSM) "Besides, I needed something for the all-night read-a-thon." (oh, no.) "But it's okay. It was smashing! Everyone loved it! It was passed by chapter around the coffee shop! We even did the best parts as aloud readings!" (oh dear god! I was trying to imagine the scene of her very artistic, Goth college mates, reading my erotica over cappuccino with live acoustic guitar in the background (which if I hadn't been so upset and after having a decade to reflect now seems like a pretty cool way to share my work) ...at this point I had to ask, "Please tell me there were no minors in the room" to which she assured me that she was the only "child" present and she didn't count right, because she was my kid? ... (I'm still having nightmares.)

At this point, we had to have the serious talk, that she was to never do anything like this again ... and ... she wasn't to breathe a word to her sister. Her answer, "Uh Mom, she's the one who showed it to me. She hacked your password, but I didn't tell you that." (My fifteen year old hacked my password? I think I started hyperventilating at that point.)

The next day's conversation with my middle daughter went something like this, "You read something this week that you wasn't supposed to."
"I know, but it will never happen again...trust me...that stuff is so disgusting...I'm probably scarred for life!" (It was okay because she was being over-dramatic in a sarcastic way but I also believed perhaps naively she would never snoop again.)

All I can say, is I survived the trauma of being forced out of the erotica-writer closet... but I still had a third daughter to go ... and she was only eight at the time... and too young to be exposed to the truth. What was I going to do? Because I would need nerve pills to face this situation again.

Somewhere along the line I decided honesty was the better policy ... you just can't fool kids ... so I stopped trying so hard to keep the fact that I was an erotica writer a secret and when the youngest girl was ten or so and asked innocently, "What do you write all day?" I answered with as close to the truth as I thought she needed at that age, "sexy romance novels." With her nose scrunched she passed judgment immediately, "You are too old to be thinking about sex...and writing about it...gross!" (hmmm...I was thirty-six at the time.)

Since that conversation our household has become a lot more open about what I write about, they know that some of my characters are gay, bi-sexual, transgendered...and play naughty games with floggers...and as a result, coming out of the closet as a little kinky myself has made talking to my daughters about all aspects of sexuality a lot easier.

So despite my fears ... I managed to not only raise well-adjusted kids--they've grown into amazingly awesome adults.

Do you have any raising kids stories to share? If so, I'd love to hear about it!