Just a note. I’ll be playing host later today at the Ellora’s Cave chat loop, along with Shayla Kersten. Join us if you can. We’ll run from 4-8 PM CST!

Since we rarely get snow here, I traipsed outside yesterday with my camera. Here’s a view of the pond in the backyard. It’s cold outside, but pretty enough I don’t care. Besides, I have no intentions of spending anymore time out there than it takes to turn on the pool pump! I’ll take my Vitamin D in a pill, thank you very much!

Today’s Sunday, but it’s also the last day of the month. And what a month January was!

* On the 1st, I finished revising and shipped Fun With Dick and Jayne to Ellora’s Cave, which has been accepted, edited and is waiting for a cover and a release date now.
* On the 6th, I wrapped up a short story for Samhain’s Valentine freebies. Love in Bloom is set to release on February 7th, and here’s the cover!

When Amanda meets her old high-school crush, he doesn’t remember her. A bouquet of flowers and a lost towel spark an affair neither one will forget.

* On the 7th, I got “The Call” from my agent, telling me that a futuristic proprosal we’d sent to Berkley sold! I wallowed in the moment for a week before I got serious about clearing off my desk so I could get to work.
* I finished doubling the word count on a novella for Ellora’s Cave and shipped First Knight on the 25th.
* I finished a short story for the Mammoth Book of Hot Romance and shipped it on the 27th. Cross your fingers it makes the cut!
* I shipped Textile Free, an erotic short story, to Xcite.
* Lastly, I’m going to hit page 100 on the Berkley book today.

So, a very productive first month of the year!

February will be every bit as busy. It’s crunch time for the Berkley book. I want to hit page 300 by the end of the month. I have a proposal for Blaze that needs some work. I have to change the setting, which changes quite a few elements of the story. I want to write a short story for Cleis’s Passionate: Romantic Erotica collection. I’d like to get halfway through the next story in the Lone Star Lovers series, and I have chapter three of Bad Moon Rising to write! So if you don’t see progress in my colored bars to the right, nag me. I have to work hard this month.

Here’s one last picture from my back yard that I’ll share. This huge, 200-year-old oak in my back yard is gorgeous in the warm months, but a little creepy without its leaves. Y’all have a great week!

Be sure to cast your vote in the Cat Tails poll below to qualify for the Amazon.com gift certificate! The contest ends tomorrow!

In the meantime, you can catch me at Access Romance, talking about what I do to find the fun in writing. And I talk about you guys and the story. I’d love to see you there. Access Romance Link

Yesterday’s winner will be named at the end of this posting. ~DD

This popped up in my inbox this morning. Don’t you just love Google Alerts?

From Night Owl Reviews, 5 out of 5 stars: “… This is one hot book. This is my first m/f/m, m/f/m/f, f/f, and m/m all in one book! And whoa nelly, this was a smoking hot story….”

Ahhh, feels good. Yesterday, I added a scene to Fun with Dick and Jayne during edits. I added 700 words to First Knight and shipped it to my EC editor. Cross your fingers she likes my little medieval vampire story. Then I worked on editing what I have so far of Beloved Captor. I hope today that I get some serious pages under my belt.

I thought you might like to see what Samhain is working on for the cover of my print release in October. The book will include Saddled, Unbridled and Unforgiven. What do you think?

Okay, I’ll stop teasing. The winner of yesterday’s contest (by random number generator) is…Rasha! Be sure to stop by tomorrow. My guest will be Ellora’s Cave author, Nina Pierce. Y’all have a terrific day!

Not the most productive week ever. I did manage to write the last three chapters of what was supposed to be a quickie for EC, but is now nearly a novella. I still have 1000 words to add during final revision. I started a short story, but I’m not feeling it, so I need to proceed with caution on that one. I don’t want to get too far along, then decide to scrap it. I’ve done some thinking about my big book and made some notes for a couple of scenes, but I stayed away from it last week. This week is when I hunker down and begin the long haul to the end.

So this week, I will finish the quickie-novella. I have to do first round edits on Fun With Dick and Jayne for my editor—she wanted me to work on the transtion leading into the last scene of the book. The Plotting Bootcamp winds down, so my online life will uncomplicate. But most of all, I want 50 pages of the big book under my belt before I enter February. So if you see me slacking off, kick my ass!

This week on the blog, I want to come back with blurbs for Bad Moon Rising for you to vote on what happens in the next chapter. I’ll do a flashback excerpt and give someone a chance to win the book. And I really should pull an excerpt from something you haven’t seen yet to give you a sneak peek. Any preferences?

And just a quick note. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a short story for Samhain’s Valentine free reads series. My story, Love in Bloom, will be available for download on February 7th! Yeah, I know it’s a corny title, but it suits the story—you’ll see!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! ~DD

I have the five-year-old underfoot today. Why do I keep thinking she’s six? She corrected me. I’ll be busy until I unload her later this afternoon, so here’s a question…

If you could experience a sailing adventure/cruise on any river, lake, or ocean in the world, what body of water would you choose for the trip?

I think I’d like to float the Yangtze River. It stretches from Tibet through China and I’ve been dying to see that side of the world. Don’t be shy with your answer. You could choose a rowboat on your grandpa’s pond.
😉

For any writers out there, I’m blogging at Novelists, Inc. today and talking about one of my favorite productivity games, Timed Writing. If you’ve got time, I’d love for you to stop by. Here’s the link: NINC Blog

Yesterday, I finished the rough draft of what was supposed to be a quickie for Ellora’s Cave. Now, I’m only 1000 words away from a novella, so I have to go back through with thoughts of expansion. Shouldn’t be hard. I usually just add to the sex.

Still haven’t heard from Teresa, my “Quick Contest” winner.

Can you say, going, going, gone? 😥

And thanks for the help brainstorming yesterday. You are a wicked, kinky group of ladies. I’ll think about your suggestions and craft them into short blurbs for you to vote on. In the meantime, yesterday’s winner (by random number generator) is…Aimee!

My horoscope today. No kidding. “You’re a space explorer, setting out into the unknown. Make contact with Houston.”

Anyway, I’m back! Still tired and my butt’s tingly from sitting for hours in a car, but I kind of like tingly, so not so bad. And I have pictures! They’re not as fun as the cruise pics, but you know I have to share. Thanks so much to the ladies who took over my blog while I was gone. Looks like you all had fun! We’ll do that again!

Have to start with this picture. My sis, Elle James, forgot she was wearing her reading glasses and we bumped heads while she held the camera above us. She thinks I deleted this one.

Sis and I left Arkansas on Friday, and headed up north to snow country. A writer’s group in Omaha invited us up to conduct a weekend-long plotting bootcamp. We do them a couple of times a year. They’re exhausting, but also a lot of fun. I like hanging with other authors and helping them put together a plot for a book. Brainstorming is fun so long as the book’s not mine!

The group was a nice mix of newbie-writers and multi-published authors. I won’t mention names to protect their privacy, but I was pleased and a little intimidated going in. That lasted about five seconds once everyone started talking about their stories.

I shot this out the car window as we drove. I don’t see snow that often, so it’s cool to me. That drive, BTW, was 12 hours! I broke it into two legs. 4 to my sister’s, then we drove 8 together. Like I said. Tingly butt.

The Omaha group set everything up in a hotel. Here we are arriving. Had to include this pic because that’s sis’s butt. She’s gonna want to kill me, but she’d have a long drive to do it now.

I don’t have a lot of fun photos because the weekend was cram-packed with work. I took a couple of shots while everyone worked on their lists of story conflicts. This was a rare quiet moment.

The bootcamp class is dynamic, and usually looks more like this. Wish you could see her schnauzer slippers. We kept to sweats and slippers for comfort.

The whole reason I love to do the bootcamps is a chance to hang with my sis and do something we both love.