While I’m away, I let my friends come out to play. Welcome Lexi from Romance Writer by Night… ~DD

I’ve got a confession to make.

I used to hate Valentine’s Day.

That’s a horrible thing for a romance writer to admit, but it’s true. This whole season, stretching from the day after Christmas until Valentine’s Day, is the season of romance, right? Well, it’s not so easy to stay festive when you’re single. I’ve got a birthday right before Valentine’s Day, too, just to add that extra kick. It was a triple whammy: no midnight kiss, another year older and then another dateless Valentine’s Day! Yay, me! How could I think of romance when the whole world was a huge reminder that I was single?

I’ve come to realize, though, that hating Valentine’s Day and singledom in general is no way to go through life, especially as a not-yet-married romance writer. If ever there was a time to make lemonade from the proverbial lemons, it’s right now. So I’ve turned my attitude around, and I’ve discovered that the lemonade has been good for my writing, too. Here’s how.

1. Window Shopping for Heroes

Checking guys out. It’s one of the biggest perks of the single life. Not that women in relationships can’t check guys out, of course they can. No harm in looking, right? Especially if they’re looking for heroes to star in their stories. Hey, they can’t all look like the SO or the DH.

But there’s a certain shameless freedom that we single ladies can bring to the table. Even if all we do is look, the knowledge that we could do more than that—flirt, swap numbers, fly to Vegas for a wild weekend culminating in an Elvis-themed wedding—makes the whole project more exciting. So when we check guys out, we can do it with a dual purpose. That guy across the room might have the perfect look for our next story, or he might turn out to be our real-life leading man. Wouldn’t that be an awesome “how we met” story?

2. Being Positively Wishful

It’s not easy to think romantic thoughts when your one of your eight bags of groceries has exploded in the parking lot, leaving you alone, in the rain, to put everything back together so you can get it up all those stairs to your home. That’s not easy at all. (Don’t ask how I know.) But it does pay off. Before I learned to love Valentine’s Day, I’d have lots of colorful words to share with the parking lot and my groceries and my nonexistent boyfriend about how wonderful it was to be lugging two weeks’ worth of food all the way from the car to the front door. Now I’ve seen the light.

Today, when I’m faced with one of those single-girl challenges like leaping across the rainy parking lot without dropping any of my single-serving frozen foods, I ask myself this question: How would I rather have this work out? Then I let my imagination run with the idea.

Maybe a hot stranger hops out of his car with an umbrella. Maybe I chase a wayward can of corn down the sidewalk until it rolls onto the patio of his studio apartment. Maybe, while I’m huddled beneath my raincoat on his patio, rearranging my groceries, I catch a glimpse of him through the sliding glass door. Maybe he’s a good-looking artist, the lean, intense type, adding the finishing touches to a painting … of an equally lean, intense male model … who sees me on the patio. Now that’s nice, isn’t it? Even though, in reality, I haven’t left my pile of spilled groceries in the parking lot, far from my front door, I’ve got a nice story idea in my head and a smile on my face. That won’t put my stuff back in the bag or stop the rain, but that hey-it-could-happen feeling does make the heavy lifting more bearable.

3. Making the War Stories into Your Stories

Into every woman’s single life wanders the occasional Evil Ex-Boyfriend.

Okay, maybe “evil” isn’t the right word. After all, none of my exes has plotted world domination, or built a weather machine designed to melt the polar ice cap, or re-animated the dead. At least not that I’m aware of. But Evil Ex-Boyfriend has a certain ring to it that Amoral, Self-Absorbed Creep doesn’t.

Thoughts of the Evil Ex have a way of resurfacing in a single girl’s mind at this time of year. Well, that’s fine. Now those thoughts have a place to go: the WIP (Work-In-Progress). I used my memories—the despair, the blame, the shock, all that great stuff—to add detail to my heroine’s breakup with her own Evil Ex. The more I thought about it, the more detail I could weave in, from the icy prickle of anger to the smug expression on Mr. Evil’s face. My heroine’s Evil Ex became someone who felt real without becoming a copy of my real exes, and getting those feelings onto the page made me feel better about surviving that pain.

I’m not a huge believer in the New Year’s Resolution; I’ve got some long-term commitment issues, which I’m sure are totally unrelated to my current single status. But I am determined to take advantage of the single life, both the perks and the unhappy memories, as Valentine’s Day approaches. Singledom’s been pretty good to me, all things considered, and now it’s making me a better writer, too.

What’s not to love about that?

First, thanks to everyone who posted or sent me an email about yesterday’s release, Unforgiven. I’m thrilled you like it so much, but I did tell you Cutter would be hot as hell!

Tomorrow through next Monday, I’ll be out of town again, so I invited some ladies to entertain you while I’m gone. No fans, feathers or shiny poles, just their very wicked imaginations! Here’s the lineup:

Thursday—Shayla Kersten
Friday—Michelle Polaris
Saturday—Lexi, from Romance Writer at Night
Sunday—Ann Cory
Monday—Ari Thatcher

Be sure to drop by and check out their wares! 😉

And where will I be? The ladies in RWA’s Omaha chapter invited my sister, Elle James, and I to run a plotting bootcamp over the weekend. So we will be on high octane all weekend long, trying to corral 17 active imaginations. It’ll be a blast, and thank the stars we don’t have last weekend’s weather to contend with on the drive!

Today, I should hear some news. If it happens, I’ll be sure to come back here and let you know what it is. I swear I don’t mean to be coy, but I can’t tell until it’s wrapped up in a pretty pink bow. And I just can’t keep the excitement to myself, so I have to hint!

Today’s my first appearance at the Samhellion blog. I’d love to see some familiar, friendly faces there! I’m talking about one of my favorite subjects—cowboys! When you’re over there, click on the title, “It’s all about the cowboy” and leave a comment! Samhellion Link

After Thursday, it ceased to be a productive week for me—blown mind and all. And no, I still can’t tell you.

But before that, I did complete that short free read for Samhain (it wasn’t as short as it should have been, because I couldn’t leave the story!). I did plot out in rough notes a novella I want to finish by the end of the month, but I might not make it if I can’t get my head back in the game soon. Same with the quickie—I only have a chapter to go on it. But if what I hope happens does this week, then I may throw in the towel and head straight to a bigger project.

Not that I haven’t been busy this week with other things. Mainly the plotting bootcamp. I’m having fun so far reading through the author’s exercises and comments. They’ve had it easy and remain blissfully cheerful, but wait until I have them work on conflict for their characters. Ha!

My newsletter isn’t ready to go yet, so I don’t know if you are all aware of the fact the next chapter for Bad Moon Rising is up!

If you haven’t checked it out, you must, because very, very soon I will be asking you to help me figure out what DiDi will be up to next!

But you are probably here because you want to know who won yesterday’s prize, right? The winner, chosen by a random number generator, is…Becky Ward! Congratulations, Becky, and be sure to send me an email with the email address where you want me to send your story!

But I can’t tell you what it is. However, that secret kept me up last night. You should have seen me, four in the morning, the poster child for anal-ity—redoing my spreadsheets and workplans. It’s something good. Something you will like. The hard part is getting back to the work I have to do until the other is official because, well, I’ve lost enthusiasm for anything else.

What I should work on today is finish a chapter of the medieval vampire novella I want to turn in this week. Maybe I will get online with some writing buddies and do a little sprinting. If you write and want to keep me on task, just IM me DelilahDevlin. I will need the company and the lashing whip.

Tomorrow, I’ll post another flashback for your reading enjoyment—something western to get you ready for Unforgiven, coming next Tuesday. There’s my plug. Now I’ll get to work. Y’all have a great day and I can’t wait to tell you! ~DD

If you’re looking for my “Saddled” winner, you’ll have to scroll to the bottom of this post. All posts made on Tuesday through this morning were included in the contest (48 entries total)! Thanks, everyone, for commenting!

I’m in Central Arkansas and we don’t get temperatures in the teens. In fact, the weather guy said it is the coldest it’s been in fourteen years. I guess I’ll be staying inside and running a portable heater next to my desk. It gets a little drafty in my office.

I’ve been very, very busy this past week. I finished Fun with Dick and Jayne and mailed it to my lovely EC editor. She told me it cracked her up, so yay me! I finished edits of Bad, Bad Girlfriend, and again, my EC editor sent me laughing smileys.

I wrote a short story for a Cleis anthology and shipped it. Cross your fingers they like it—or not. If it doesn’t sell, you’ll likely see it as a free read. Nothing ever goes to waste. I wrote a short story for Samhain’s Valentine free reads and shipped it yesterday. Again, a cute, hot contemporary. Today, I’m working on adding a chapter to a medieval vampire story I wrote a few years ago for a now-defunct publisher so that I can submit it either to EC or Samhain. Haven’t decided yet. And I’ll start looking hard at a proposal for a New York publisher that I slammed last month and that seems to be missing something. Have to get that one out the door.

All in all, a very good start to the new year.

Did I mention that I’ve started Chantix to help me give up the cigs once and for all? I’ve never been a heavy smoker—10 to 20 a day—but I can’t kick them on my own and I’ve tried everything. The first day on this pill, I felt sick to my stomach, but at least I wasn’t anxious about quitting because I’m allowed to keep smoking. Don’t know how my writing productivity will be affected by it. I remember reading somewhere that Stephen King’s productivity was cut in half when he quit. And I have to find another way to “dream” my stories. I like writing a few pages, then heading outside, lighting up, and letting that Nicotine open up the synapses to find the next scene. My most fun story twists were found on the back porch while I inhaled. Am I going to lose that? Scares me some. The weather should help me keep those trips to the porch to a minimum too!

Keep posted. I’ll be doing another couple of flashback contests in the next few days to celebrate the release of Unforgiven. And if you haven’t already read Unbridled, you might want to do it now, because the two are very closely tied.

So, back to that winner. By random number generator, the winner is…Sue Brandes! Congratulations! And be sure to email me to let me know what email address you want me to send that download to!

I’m going to be just plain mean. I have to play at Access Romance’s blog today and couldn’t think of anything wild or wonderful to talk about, so I’m going to bribe you into dropping by. Anyone who posts on Access Romance will get an entry in the contest for the download of SADDLED. So I won’t announce that winner until tomorrow. Cruel, cruel, I know. ~DD

Follow me here today: Access Romance blog