If you took the “Write 50 Books a Year” workshop, which I teach for free every August, this will be really familiar! I do something like this at the start of every workshop for a very good reason! Putting your dreams down on paper sets an internal switch in your brain called the RAS (Reticular Activating System—the part of the brain that controls awareness/arousal). The way this works is you write down your goals, and then you read them aloud. You don’t even have to believe they’re going to happen, but your brain hears the words and resets its expectations. Magic happens.

You’ve probably heard that children will live down to their parent’s lowest expectations—that’s based on what they’ve heard their parents say about them. Sad to say, if they’d heard encouragement, their brain would have been “trained” to achieve greater things.

Define Your Goals

1) The Big Bang

This is the time to dream big. Imagine what you want to have accomplished after five years of dedicated effort. Write your back cover biography!

Here’s mine:

Delilah Devlin, author of oodles of erotic romances featuring hot gratuitous sex, spends her winters in southern France with her Argentinean polo player, and spends her summers in Alaska with her not-so-Gentle-Ben backwoodsman. A regular on the New York Times Bestseller List and the Howard Stern show, she is writing an adaptation of her My Immortal Knights series for a new Playgirl channel series with celebrated screenwriter Elle James.

Okay, so I had a bit of fun with mine. Got yours done? Now print it and tape it to the wall above your computer. Read it aloud to yourself. Try to make this your daily mantra as you sit down to write. Don’t underestimate the power of “setting” your brain’s internal switch to achieve your big dream.

2) Imagine what you have to accomplish to reach that Big Bang goal—then pare it down to your wish list of what you want to accomplish over the next year. For me, it’s writing the best books I can, having a terrific time doing it (because positive energy generates positive results!!), and doing a lot of it. But when I list incremental goals, it looks something like this:

#1 Write 2 single title books this year
#2 Prepare 4 new proposals this year
#3 Write 3 category/novella length novels for Ellora’s Cave
#4 Write 3 category/novella length novels for Samhain
#5 Write 4 short stories for Cleis collections

Don’t freak when you see this list. I always start with stars in my eyes and have to ratchet down my expectations once reality (and the real planning) begins. But this is what I wish I could accomplish over the next year.

So, it’s your turn to write your bio and your To Do list!

Oh yeah—I now have the little black dragon with the long tail. So it’s two dragons down! ~DD

I wrapped up the last pages of Beloved Captor yesterday. 390 pages and a hair shy of 85,000 words. I have friends reading through it right now to see if they can pick out any problems I refused to see. Most of the way through it, I enjoyed the story, but toward the end I began to think it sucked. The end is where I always have serious self doubt. Did I keep true to the characters? Was there enough plot? Too much plot? Was the sex hot or icky? I let my mom read the book and her wrinkled nose through the middle of the book knocked my confidence. She’s not a big fan of erotica. She did like the big battle at the end. My friends love erotica so hopefully they will embrace my racy Vikings.

So what’s next? When I wrapped up the book yesterday, I started doing some Internet surfing, looking for a word, which led to a little known historical tidbit, which grew into a concept for a modern paranormal tale. Guess I’ll begin SOW next week. Just have to wrap up my little western first and get it out the door. Need uncomplicated cowboys after all that thinking about cold, cold planets and monsters in the sea.

I know I’ve been neglectful. But I’m back. I won’t start the next big book until May, so while I’m puttering I’ll be online. And very, very soon the pool will warm up enough that I can stand it and maybe I can shed the pounds I gained when I quit smoking.

Sigh. Life is good. Tomorrow, I’m taking the red-headed-hellion and her hubby to a concert—Lady Antebellum and Tim McGraw. I’m not a Country fan, but they are, so I thought it would be nice to do something with them. Then I have to figure out where they are showng How to Train Your Dragon so I can arrange to treat the 5-year-old. Any excuse to drown in dragons again. I’m even making excuses to hit McDonalds now and then to collect those Kids’ Meal toys. I have the little green dragon, sitting on his haunches, but I want them all! If any of you have one and want to save me the inches on my hips, I’ll pay the postage…

🙄

Today’s the day. If I keep my head down, ignore my email and my laundry, I should finish the big book. As soon as I’m done, I’ll take a look at the entries in the title contest—so if you haven’t entered, you still have time! In the meantime, please give a warm welcome to my friend, Tracy Wolff! ~DD

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“The ‘edgy and erotic’ author of Tie Me Down and Full Exposure offers another steamy novel of sex, lies, and sultry games.” Shannon McKenna, New York Times bestselling author of Tasting Fear

Burned once too often, true crime writer Lacey Richards has sworn off love. Instead, she explores her deepest desires through her anonymous- and very provocative-blog. Anonymous, that is, until her dark and ultrasexy neighbor discovers her dirty secret.

Stockbrocker-turned-carpenter Byron Hawthorne gave up life in the fast lane, hoping to start over in a new city. When he learns his alluring neighbor is the one writing the sizzling blog that keeps him up all night, he can’t resist offering to fulfill her fantasies in the flesh. But Byron isn’t the only man provoked by Lacey’s writing. Now Lacey doesn’t know who she can trust-and who she can dare to tease.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lacey shivered, despite the heat, her body trembling under her neighbor’s intense scrutiny. Part of her wanted to look away, wanted to pick up her water glass and head indoors. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Could barely breathe as her entire body lit up from the inside.

What was it about this man, with his black eyes and roguish grin that turned her on so much? That held her transfixed on her balcony when she should be doing anything but this? She knew better—had known better since Curtis had used and abused her—and yet she here she was, unable to look away. Worse, she was enjoying every second of watching him watch her. Was reveling in the arousal arcing through her body.

In the distance, lightning flashed. Once, twice, followed quickly by the sharp crack of rumbling thunder. The air around her grew heavier, wetter—as did her body at this sudden advent of the storm. The wind picked up, whipped through her loose hair and down her bare arms. Lifted her skirt and flirted with the soft, damp skin of her upper thighs.

And she let it.

Then watched, fascinated, as—across the courtyard– her neighbor’s eyes narrowed dangerously. She nearly grinned as he focused on her open thighs—and, she hoped, the small scrap of pink lace that was the only thing separating her from his view.

Desire escalated to need and she felt her breath catch. Sweat bloomed on her skin, ran in rivulets between her breasts and down her back and still she didn’t go inside. Didn’t cover herself. Didn’t so much as move.

She couldn’t.

Watching him watch her was the most erotic experience she’d ever had.
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Welcome my BFF, Sasha White. Remember my cruise buddy? Well, she has an awesome little threesome you’re gonna want to try out! ~DD

I’m Sasha White, and I’m a recovering procrastinator.

It’s been a long while since I’ve had a fresh eBook out there to heat y’all up, but the time has finally come—and a lot of it is due in part to my BFF Delilah. You see, I burnt myself out with writing too much, too fast, so I took some time off. However, my time off kept getting longer and longer. Partly because I’m a procrastinator, and partly because I’d really lost my desire to write and be part of the writing community. But our very own sweet Delilah also has some Kick-Ass in her, and she kept at me…in a mostly sweet and persistent way to get my ass back in gear. As Delilah has said, sometimes it’s good to just let the imagination go and write for the pure fun of it. ONE WEEKEND is just that story for me. It got me back in gear, and reminded my of how much writing hot sexy stories with real characters can be. It’s an uncomplicated, super hot and sexy menage story. It’s also a short story, but hey, that means it’s also low cost *grin*. I expect I’ll be visiting these characters again and again in more short stories as I fell in love with them…and I hope you do too. So thank you, Delilah, for being such a good friend and kicking my ass when I needed it.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

To get you interested, here’s an excerpt:

The second I entered the apartment my clothes started coming off. I kicked off my heels, dropped my skirt and peeled off my starched white blouse as I walked to the kitchen. I’d worked hard to become a CPA and I loved the work, but the uptight clothes required in our office were not what I would call comfortable. Opening the fridge I just stood there…a soft moan of pleasure slipping from between my lips as cool air finally hit bare skin.

“Ange?” Rick’s voice floated in from the balcony.

My pulse kicked up a notch, and I smiled softly. Just the sound of his voice was enough to make my heart turn over. Rick Craig was my perfect match, my other half. “In the kitchen,” I called back.

“Bring a couple more beers when you come out here, will you?”

“Sure, baby.”

Eager to shake off the tension of the day I grabbed a bottle of white wine and a couple of beers from the fridge. Bottle opener and wineglass in one hand, beers in the other, I headed out to the balcony with full hands.

Three steps from the sliding doors I realized that Rick wasn’t alone outside, and hesitated. It was easy to identify the other voice as Mark Hoffman, Rick’s best friend. I glanced down at the sheer bra and panties barely covering my parts, and a deliciously naughty heat surged through me. It wasn’t like Mark had never seen me in a bikini or something.

“Here you go,” I said as I swept aside the curtain and stepped out onto the balcony. Stopping short I glanced from Rick to Mark, all wide-eyed innocence. “Oh! Hi, Mark.”
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I’m off to Little Rock for a doctor’s appointment. I plan to whine a lot about my neck and back. Whatcha wanna bet she says I need to spend less time at the computer? Huh.

Since I won’t be around, I thought I’d leave a question for you to think about. Answer with your gut. My gut went straight to the gutter with this one…

If you could invent a pair of glasses that would allow you to see abstract things (for instance, the motives behind someone’s actions), what would you want to see most of all?

I’d want to see other people’s dirty thoughts. Wouldn’t that be endlessly entertaining?

Quick Sunday Report Card for me to own up to what I accomplished this week:
* Finished more revisions of the big book, and added chapter 20
* Finished chapter 3 of Lone Star Lovers-3
* Finished the third installment of my free read

This coming week, I will finish the rough draft of the big book. I’ll wrap up LSL-3, revise and ship it! And I’ll turn my attention back to SOW, a paranormal novella I set aside when I got the current contract.

Now to the contest…
I have a series, just two books in it so far, called The Shadowlands. But EC doesn’t think my series name is sexy enough. So any of you who have read the stories, or have just read the blurbs for an idea of what they are about, I’d appreciate suggestions for a new series title. In addition, I need a title for a print book to include both of the currently existing stories. If I use your suggestion, or if it sparks an idea in me for a title, I’ll name you in the acknowledgements and give you a signed copy when it publishes (or if you can’t wait that long, I’ll let you choose something already in print).

Since two titles are needed there will be two possible winners here!

The third installment of Cat Tails: Bad Moon Rising is ready to read!

This is the story that you are helping me plot, chapter by chapter. And what a fine job you’ve been doing. I’m enjoying incorporating your suggestions. Be sure to catch up on the story, because we have work to do!

That’s right, it’s time for you to start thinking about what you want to see happen next. Give me your suggestions. Think about the questions you want answered about the cats and about that full moon that’s coming. Think about that old house she’s inherited. What’s special about the house or her lands? And what about those two sexy guys? You tell me.

Once I have your suggestions, I’ll conduct another poll so that you can all vote on what happens next.

DiDi woke with a start, the sound of the shower reminding her she needed to pee. But that wasn’t her only problem. She lay naked and dirty on top of her coverlet. A shiny handcuff affixed her right hand to one of the wooden spokes of the headboard of the bed in her motel room. Which narrowed down the possibilities of who was responsible for her predicament to precisely one man…