Quick NaNoWriMo update: Yesterday, I hit 30,310 words. And I ironed out the issues with the start of the paranormal story I’m working on. No worries!

I’m very close to releasing the first installment of Bad Moon Rising. If you haven’t already done it, be sure to sign up for my newsletter. I’m loving the story so far, and I think you will too. Here’s a little about the story to whet your appetite! It’s short, but I can’t give too much away. You only meet the first hero in this scene, but you know it gets hotter pretty damn quick!

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Here’s what the story is about:

On a whim, romance author DiDi Devereaux decides to travel to remote Louisiana bayou country to take possession of a house she inherited from a reclusive relative. But before she reaches her destination, she drives her car into a ditch to avoid a large animal that leaps into her path. Rescue comes in the form of a sexy sheriff, whose gruff demeanor seems to hide a feral attraction. As DiDi settles into her new home she finds herself torn between her attraction to the sheriff and the raw, handsome bad boy whose offer to help her renovate her home is a little too convenient and tempting.

Nothing in Bayou Noir is what it seems. When strange things begin to happen, her natural curiosity leads her into danger…

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DiDi’s driving on a small donkey track of a road deep in the Louisiana bayou country late at night …

Things were looking bleak. She considered pulling to the side of the road at the first rest stop, if she ever found one, or at a widening of the road’s shoulder and sleeping in her car until the morning. Wouldn’t be the first time.

David D was giving her a headache, so she glanced down to eject the CD.

When she looked back up, something large and black darted into the road in front of her then stood there, caught in the headlights.

She slammed on her brakes, causing her car to swerve onto the soft shoulder. Her tires caught the edge of the road and sank, spinning the rear of the car around. Before she could compensate, her car left the road, crashing into the ditch, water splashing up the hood and drowning her windshield in water and long grass.
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Quick NaNoWriMo update: I’m at 27,645 words! I don’t like the start of one of my two new stories, so I may scrap it today and begin again.

In three weeks, I’ll be flying to the port and boarding a cruise ship. I’ve never been on a cruise, but I will have the best company imaginable to assure a good time. Sasha White’s my buddy, and just the sound of her laughter gets me in the mood to party!

I still have things to get done on my To Do list. On Friday, I’ll be at the doctor’s and asking about vaccinations. My passport arrived, so that’s another worry out of the way. My daughter gifted me with new purple luggage as an early Christmas gift—her contribution to my trip.

The most worrisome thing now for me is wardrobe. Did I mention I’ve been dieting? I thought I’d trim down a little, just enough to give me a boost of confidence. I’ve dropped two sizes in a month. So I’m waiting until closer to the date of my flight to shop for new clothes. I didn’t know how much I’d lost until the booksigning. Then I was flying to the back of my closet, looking for a pair of slacks that fit, and the “skinnier” ones I found were still loose! Nice problem to have? I guess. But I hate shopping, and good luck on finding capris this time of year!

A quick note! I’m blogging in two places today. Catch my blog about my Sunday meeting with the witch and the Odinist at After Midnight Fantasies!

If you were at the Barnes and Noble on Chenal in Little Rock last Saturday night, you probably wondered what all the commotion was about. I’ll just say, you can’t get four women who write smutty romance in the same space without all hell breaking loose. The pics look tame, but this was before we started trouble. Here are my booksigning playmates.

I shared a table with Shada Royce and Shayla Kersten because we all could sign copies of Sexy Little Numbers. Never, ever put me next to Shada again—the girl’s a bad, bad influence!

Here’s the lovely Anna J. Evans!

And the very sweet and demure Sandra Jones (bet she wondered what the heck she’d signed up for!).

We did have folks stop to buy books or chat. Here’s Katie and Chris from the Little Rock reading group I visited a few months back. Heather B stopped by too, but I forgot to snap a pic!

A couple of things had us cackling like hens. A man walked up to us and asked if we’d like to know what our work had done for him, then he pulls out his cell phone. I’m thinking, oh boy, he’s going to show us pictures of his man parts, and everyone’s eyes widened. When it was a pic of his baby, we all fell out.

Same guy came back after a little while and asked us how our husband’s liked what we did.

I popped up with, “Mine moved to Virginia.”
Shada said, “I’m divorcing mine.”
Shayla quipped, “Mine’s dead.”

Okay, guess you had to be there, but we laughed like hyenas.

I’m sending a big thank you to Lynda from the staff at B&N for setting this up. Yeah, that’s how I felt by the end of the night!

Quick NaNoWriMo update: No progress at all to report. But I had a great excuse!

(Don’t miss my pool story at the bottom!)

I’m at the midpoint of the annual NaNoWriMo challenge. The challenge is to hit 50,000 words by the end of the month. I’m on track at 25,880.

With that 25k words, I’ve finished a novella for Ellora’s Cave—Bad, Bad Girlfriend—which I love because I let me comedic muse loose for that story. One of the people who read one particular scene between the heroine and her girlfriend said it was like a Lucy and Ethel scene and kept her laughing. Since, the girls were getting themselves deep into trouble, that comparison fit!

I’ve also finished the first chapter of the free read that will be sent out with my next newsletter shortly. Thanks again to everyone who voted for the story elements they wanted to see. You made it a breeze to write!

I’ve also started on two new projects. I’m in the opening pages, and it’s hard to make huge progress when I’m still feeling my way through the characters and dreaming up the plot, but it will come.

One of my great excuses for not writing yesterday was a booksigning I went to in Little Rock. I’ll post pictures tomorrow and tell you all about it then. I had a wonderful time with my fellow DSRA authors.

The other great reason I didn’t make progress last night, and probably won’t today, is because I have contest entries to judge that have to go out the door! And tonight, I have critiques to wrap up for the Rose’s Colored Glasses critique loop. Okay, I’m a procrastinator, but there is a method to my madness. I didn’t want to pull away from the writing and waited until I had one day where I could devote my time to reading through everything. So today will be another loss.

And I have to fit it all around a trip I’m making to meet with a man who casts runes and a witch.

Non-writing related, but did I mention my venture into the pool? Recently, we had days and days of heavy rain which produced yellow algae in our pool, turning the water slime green. We’ve tried every chemical under the sun to clean it out. The other day, I had the pool brush out, scrubbing at the bottom to get the scum loose. I opened up the telescoping pole to reach the bottom of the deep end and the brush and six feet of pole dropped into the water.

Well, I couldn’t leave it there. But damn, the water’s cold! So I suited up in my wetsuit (picture sausage stuffed into a casing) and waddled out to the pool. I dove and dove, but could only dart down and up because it was so dang cold I was gasping. At last, I got my hands around that sucker and brought it up. I am sooooo glad the pool is a couple hundred yards off the road.

But I feel heroic. I love it when I rise to a physical challenge, even if it’s only swimming through green sludge in a cold-ass pool.

Remember that story you all had so much fun helping me plot?

You voted for:
Setting: Louisiana Bayou
Scenario: Innocent stranger enters a small, secretive town where shifters rule
Hero #1: Local sheriff in Louisiana parish who protects the secret of his pride’s existence
Hero #2: Bad boy shifter whose job it is to “distract” the human who enters their midst
Heroine: Reclusive author who inherits property from a distant relative and wrecks her car before getting to town

Well, chapter one is complete, and now my wonderful webmistress has a cover for the story sure to stir your imagination. Be watching your mail for the next couple of weeks for my newsletter, because that’s the only place you’ll be able to read it for a while! And read carefully, because you will get a chance to make a choice about what happens next!

If you aren’t a newsletter subscriber, here’s the link: Delilah’s Newsletter
Be sure to send the link along to your friends too!

For those of you in the Little Rock area tonight, I’ll be signing books at Barnes and Noble. Details are at the right!

Quick NaNoWriMo update: My fingers were on fire yesterday. I hit 24,301 words yesterday! AND I finished the draft of Bad, Bad Girlfriend, which my editor is reading now.

Did I mention that I also finished the first chapter of the story you all helped me plot? The story is called Bad Moon Rising and my webmistress is designing a cover for it now. My plan is to have a newsletter out to you in the next two weeks. I have to thank you again for choosing a writer as the heroine. I had a blast putting my own thoughts in her head. Sexy, spooky things are happenin’ in Bayou Noir.

Last note. Tonight is my monthly live chat at the Fallen Angels chat room. It starts at 9 PM ET. Everyone is welcome, readers and writers. And you know I always bring bribes!

Oh! I have to tell you about the dream I had last night. I was alone in the house and heard noises from downstairs, then footsteps coming up and treading down the hallway. I cracked my eyes open to take a peek—a killer held a steak knife and was leaning over me…

Well I woke up about 4 AM, heart racing, and went back to sleep with a solution. As soon as the dream started, I ran to the kitchen and hid all the knives before heading back upstairs. Then I heard noises of someone rumaging below, the footsteps coming up the steps and down the hall to me. When I opened my dream eyes to look at the killer, the bastard had a fork in his hand.

Quick NaNoWriMo update: I made zero progress yesterday. My trip to the hairdresser turned into an all day ordeal because Nick was triple-booked. Today, nothing but hoop!

Writers are pathetic little recluses who live wonderful adventures in their own minds. Occasionally, we surface to meet with other like-minded people or for trips to the roller-derby for inspiration for a new story. But for the most part, we are parked in front of the computer, toiling endlessly to create stories we hope someone wants to read. (Feel sorry for me yet?)

Once in a while we get a little pat of the back. A note from a reader dying for a certain character’s story to be told. Or a compliment from an editor out of the blue. This is the one I received from an editor a couple of days ago, and I’ve been walking on air ever since.

“A very artful invention, partly taking off on Beauty and the Beast—it’s beautifully written, has all the fairy tale elements, has very smutty sex, and both a clever twist ending and a deeper moral.”

I think this editor is a very good writer herself/himself for managing to put “very smutty sex” and “a deeper moral” into the same sentence! This was in response to a short story I submitted to Cleis Press for their Fairtale Lust anthology. The payday is only $50.00, but that compliment made all the toil worthwhile.

Simple, needy little creatures are we writers.

Here’s a snippet from the opening of my “artful invention” called The Obedient Wife…

Once there was a miller who had no sons to work his mill or assure him comfort in his old age. His wife had died long ago giving him only a puny baby girl, whose worth didn’t become apparent until she blossomed into a woman.

To keep safe his only treasure, the miller locked her away inside their cottage while he considered how best to reap the rewards of his good fortune…

Ha! You hardly thought I’d give you more. It’s a SHORT story.