UPDATE: The winner is…Steph!
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I bought this little brainstorming tool years ago at some writers’ conference. “Story Cubes” is a brainstorming game. You roll the dice and whatever pictures appear face-up are the ones you use to riff off a story.

Now, I’d like you to tell me a story based on what you see on the cubes. Do any of these symbols tell you anything? You can pick some of the images or use all of them. Comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

Have fun with this! Don’t overthink! Here’s the roll… 

UPDATE: The winner is…Margaret Rucci!
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My office is in the basement. No windows, no natural light. I keep a “grow” light on one corner of my desk for my two favorite plants—my African violet and my Christmas cactus. In another space, I have a huge curling spider plant on the floor with another light hovering overhead. Come Spring, when the last of the freezes occur, he’ll go back outside to my covered porch.

Those are the only plants I have. We live in the country and maintain bushes and flowering bushes outside. When I was younger and living in an apartment, my place looked like a greenhouse. I kept Ficus trees, bromeliads, ivy, ferns, potted roses… Not that I had a particularly green thumb, but I did hover over and worry about my plants and tried to keep the cat from peeing in the Ficus tree.

Houseplants are not only a lovely splash of green in your environment, but they also filter toxins from the air. If you’re afraid you’ll kill your plants, get something extremely easy to keep alive like a lucky bamboo plant. All you have to do is give it water and very rarely a little bit of fertilizer.

So, today’s word search contains some of my favorite houseplants. For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me about your favorite plants!

This is just a reminder that next Monday is the deadline to submit your stories. However…if you are working on a story and need a few extra days, please contact me to let me know it’s coming! I’ll be starting to read the stories I have, so there’s plenty of time still. If you have any questions at all—email me!

SECRET IDENTITIES:  A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY
Editor: Delilah Devlin
Deadline: January 15, 2024

SECRET IDENTITIES is open to all authors.

Editor/Author Delilah Devlin is looking for stories for a romantic erotica anthology tentatively entitled SECRET IDENTITIES:  A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY.

Why write a short story for this collection? Well, it’s certainly not about making a lot of money, so why do it at all? I’ve said this before, many times, but here are my thoughts…

Writing a short story for a call for submissions is a chance to flex your writing muscle! It can be a chance to experiment with a genre you’ve never written. If you’ve never written a story in first person but don’t want to begin by writing an entire novel using it, start short! For myself, I’ve written stories in new genres or with fresh themes that ended up being so much fun to write they’ve spawned entire series.

You have a deadline! I don’t know about you, but I have trouble keeping my butt in the chair without one!

It’s a promotional opportunity! If selected, you’ll be joined by 12-15 other authors for the launch, sharing your audiences and, hopefully, picking up new readers along the way. Having your story in the collection is another chance to be “seen.”

And remember, you retain the rights to your story, so you can republish it for individual sale or give it away to attract subscribers to your newsletter. You might even decide there’s more story to tell and expand your short story into a novel.

Here’s what I’m looking for…

SECRET IDENTITIES: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY will include stories that satisfy the reader who craves stories about mysterious, enigmatic men. Perhaps, they’re the new next-door neighbor with a mysterious past that finds him just as he’s meeting a woman he doesn’t want to leave. Maybe he’s an alien from a far-away galaxy looking for his fated mate. Could he be a spy setting up surveillance on another suspected spy? An assassin scouting his target who discovers his handlers lied about the reasons for targeting a particular individual he’s intrigued by? Is he a werewolf living in the human world? Yes! So many ways to go.

SECRET IDENTITIES will seek stories with varied settings here on earth—present, past, or future—or on another planet or moon in this solar system or in a galaxy far, far, away.  Heroes and heroines might be more than human—supernatural creatures or even aliens and cyborgs.

I’m open to any subgenre of erotic romance you want to write. I’ll accept contemporary, historical, science fiction, or paranormal stories, and I won’t be picky about whether the stories are hetero, LGBT, ménage… Basically, you, the author, can go anywhere your imagination takes you so long as 1) the story is a romance, and 2) you have a bad boy somewhere on the pages!

The anthology will be sold at a low price—my intent is exposure for you and your writing. The more readers reached, the better! You will retain the rights to your story so that, at a later date, you can republish your stories individually.

I’m seeking hot and inventive stories from authors with unique voices, and above all, I’m looking to be seduced by tales filled with vivid imagery and passion.

Published authors with an established world may use that setting for their original short story.

This is erotic romance, so don’t hold back on the heat. Stories can be vanilla or filled with kink but don’t miss describing the romantic connection between strong-willed individuals learning to trust and love one another. A deep sensuality should linger in every word. Keep in mind that there must be a romantic element with a happy-for-now or happy-ever-after ending. Strong plots, engaging characters, and unique twists are the ultimate goal. Please, no reprints. I want original stories.

How to submit: Prepare your 2,500 to 5,500 words story in a double-spaced, Arial, 12-point, black font, Word document (.doc or .docx) OR rich text format (.rtf), with pages numbered. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch and double space (regular double spacing; do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). U.S. grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) is required.

In your document at the top left of the first page, include your legal name (and pseudonym, if applicable), mailing address, email address, and a 50-words or less biography, written in the third person, and send to bbbsecretidentities@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. Authors may submit up to 2 stories. I will try to respond no later than March 15, 2024, with decisions. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: The winner is…Annie!
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Sometime in late spring/early summer, I’m going to write a book that will be the start of a new series. All I know about it is that it will be centered around a ranch and have elements of suspense or mystery. Maybe the books will be related with brothers or former soldiers coming together. The brothers might have second jobs (deputy sheriff, firefighter, pilot…). There will be suspense and danger, but that’s really all I have floating around in my head. I’ll try to give it some thought before I start writing (not my usual M.O.).

Help me out by letting me know where you’d like this series set. Enter your choices (you have two) in the poll then share any ideas you have for me in the comments for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card. They don’t have to be good. They can be entirely silly—I’d love that. Have fun!

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Sunday Report Card

The last time I did a Sunday Report Card was back in 2013. I posted weekly updates about my work schedule and progress to keep me motivated to WORK. I’m going to try it again because, with all the planning I do, I am finding it really, really hard to stick to the plan. And I know it’s because I have front-loaded too much work, meaning I have too many items listed to accomplish, but I want to have a better first quarter than I had last year, where I didn’t publish a single book in January and February because I just didn’t feel like it.

So, this is my tough love for myself. I’m going to put it out there and, hopefully, shame myself into picking up the pace.

This snippet of my January calendar is very colorful—and jam-packed. I don’t expect you to understand what you’re seeing, although you might guess. The main thread throughout it is in purple and lists the chapters I am committing to write this week for my next book, Malcolm. Big in red in the center is “Move Malcolm release date in KDP!” That’s because I’m behind my original schedule to complete it (the one big motivator for this change!), so I have one opportunity to move my release date with KDP, and I have to do it this week. Depending on how well I keep to my schedule this week will determine how far back I push that date. So, you see my problem. Lots to accomplish. Too little time. And projects pulling me in several directions.

Ask me anything you like about my calendar. Maybe you can help me get in the right mindset with an attagirl or two…? Or a, “Delilah—WRITE THAT BOOK! You can’t push Malcolm back too far because I have it on pre-order, and you’re destroying my January TBR list!”

Anyway, I’m going to try the weekly report card for a while and see if it shames me back into alignment. I’ll keep it brief, because I still plan to do my End of Month report and don’t want to bore you too much! 🙂

Open Contests

1. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: Undersea Fantasy (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. December into January (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Happy National Science Fiction Day! (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
4. A look back at books from 2023…then a pie in the sky plan for 2024 (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
5. Cameron Allie: My Mistletoe Master (FREE Reads-Contest-Excerpt!) — 2 FREE books to download, and a contest to win a print book!
6. Word Search: Coffee Stream of Consciousness because… (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
7. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: Ice Crystals on Glass — Win an Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner is…Jennifer Beyer!
*~*~*

Winter has finally arrived in Central Arkansas. Our winters are generally mild compared to the rest of the country, but we do get cold weather. Last night was 23 degrees, so we dripped faucets and ran the pool pump to keep the pipes from freezing up. From here through mid-March-ish, we’ll be checking the weather nightly to take precautions, like making sure we have gas to run the generator when ice takes down a power line. When Spring comes, it’ll arrive quickly, and we’ll have a bit of Spring before full-on Summer arrives. If we can get the pool cleaned quickly, we could be (temperatures permitting) getting into the pool by the end of April. God, I hope so. I live for summers, which are muggy and intolerably hot, but I LOVE swimming and hanging in the pool with the kids. Yes, I talk a lot about the pool because I am obsessed. Water baby, here. I’m a Cancer, so yeah, I love any excuse to don a swimsuit. Right now, I’m dreaming about floating in the river, renting a pontoon for a lake party, and slicing up watermelon and cantaloupe to eat beside the pool… On and on. My daughter loves “sweater weather” but I love flip-flops, shorts, and pool time.

However, the winter does have its moments. We had snow falling yesterday, which didn’t stick because it turned to rain mid-morning. Still, I snapped some pictures because it was pretty. But I wasn’t sad when it melted. My dd was. She loves nothing better than when we get a couple of feet of snow, and my SIL ties an innertube to the tractor to pull the kids across the snow. They love building igloos (again, aided by the tractor to push up the snow high enough) and snowmen. Yes, we’re redneck as hell with our winter activities, but you use what you’ve got when you live in the South and want to enjoy the weather while you can. 🙂

In the meantime, I have a puzzle with ice crystals stuck to a windowpane. Solve the puzzle and tell me what you and your family like to do in the cold weather for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card! 

UPDATE: The winner is…Debra Guyette!
*~*~*

I had “Word Search” on my blog list for today, and with the app open couldn’t think of a topic. So, I took a sip of the coffee I’d poured from my French press…

I LOVE coffee, so it’s easy for me to let my mind drift through all the types of brews, appliances, etc. I did a “stream of consciousness” thing, where I let my mind riff through coffee-related things, and I made my list of words very quickly.

I thought of my grandma and grandpa’s stove-top percolator that I swear made the best coffee on earth. They added evaporated milk and swirl of sugar to make it palatable to six-year-old me. I own a French press (for when I have the patience to wait), an espresso machine (for when I have the patience to clean up after I use it), and a Keurig machine near my desk. Yes, I’m serious about coffee. I have to drink 2-3 cups a day to keep me alert and my mind spinning tales. Of course, at my age, I have to stop drinking it just after noon or I don’t sleep.

Most of the time, I drink my coffee black. But there are occasions when I love an iced, chocolatey coffee. Or a cappuccino or latte. That’s for when I want to sit at the table and chat. It’s a ritual thing, I think.

Anyway, there’s a contest here. I want you to do a “stream of consciousness” list of coffee or tea related things for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card! Have fun!