I wrapped up that story that was giving me fits yesterday. It came in nearly 11,000 words longer than I expected. But hey, since I was flying by the seat of my pants with that one, it’s to be expected some things would change. When I write the longer books, I have to know more about the story than just the opening scene—which was all I had when I started The Marathon Menage.

Anyway, I’m going to visit the 5-year-old and hear straight from the horse’s mouth how her first week of school went. On the telephone, all she could talk about was her excitement over riding the big kid’s bus. I’m sure I’ll have better success directing the conversation toward more enlightening subjects when we’re together. Yeah.

To keep OUR conversation going, how about you tackle this simple little question. Inquiring minds want to know…

If you could know one fact about every person you meet, what particular fact would you want it to be? (Assume that the other person would not have to be aware that you know this fact about them.)

Okay—no boxers or briefs!! (That was the first thing that popped into my head.)

My untitled menage has earned a nickname—The Neverending Ménage.

I rarely write long, meaning if a book should come in at a certain word count, I’ll hit that number, come rain or shine. My latest Work-In-Progress was supposed to be around 20,000 words. If you look at the progress meter to the right, you’ll see I adjusted the planned count upward to 25,000 when I realized the story wasn’t finished. Now, I’m closing in on 28,000 words and I still don’t see the end. Sheesh!

At this point, I just want it to be over. Wish me luck with that today!

I’m running a critique weekend for Rose’s Colored Glasses Critique Group. The hard work was done yesterday, organizing the submisisons and getting them ready to go. We have 70 people on that loop now. On any given weekend we have 12-25 people participate. Critique groups aren’t for everyone. But I do think all writers benefit from criticism. I hope the participants see it as a good thing.

Today, my goal is to finish that stubborn story, get a nice long swim in, and then settle down to read a book. I’m on a Blaze binge at the moment. They’re short, fun—some better written than others— but I’m finding it really depends on the author. And I do know I’m hard to please.

I need to figure out something fun to do for my Friday blogs. I know some writers have “Flasher Fridays” where they write a very short piece, up to 1000 words, and post it on their blogs. I like that idea a lot. That’s not a huge commitment of time. It would provide me a chance to step away from my main project and “cleanse my palate”. Now I just need topics for really short pieces. Any suggestions?

Yesterday, I spent two hours in the pool playing pearl diver. The wind whipped up and the walnut tree twenty feet away dumped half its leaves onto the pool. Before I could turn on the pump, I had to scoop a thick layer of leaves from the steps. When there’s that much debris, it tends to move. I found a live salamander, a live frog and tons of crickets.

The pearl diving came in when I got the surface clean then had to take a small hand-held net and dive to the bottom because there were too many leaves for the robot to handle. I like to pretend I live on some South Sea island and have to dive for pearls at the bottom of the ocean. I’d suck at it in real life. I can’t hold my breath longer than 15 seconds when I’m exerting myself, and I’d have to tie huge boulders to my waist to get my fat ass down 50 feet—fat floats quite well, ya know.

I didn’t mind the time away from my desk. I received a “this isn’t quite right, but I’d be willing to look at revisions” answer on one of my proposals. First reaction was extreme disappointment. Naturally. Second was anger. Third was call a friend to see if she had time to look at the notes and the work and see if there’s hope. Since the friend writes for that publisher, her opinion was very helpful. Plus she reminded me that this particular line tends to put authors through a bit of hazing before acceptance.

So now I have my head in a more positive place. I didn’t get a flat no. I have the invitation to resubmit the same work or something else. I’ll work on revising and ship it back out—just not today. I need to work on something that will be more immediately successful. Egos are fragile things. And while I tend to think I’m tougher than the average person, I can still get huge dents in my armor.

I know you want to learn who won yesterday’s prize, but you’ll have to read to the bottom to find out!

The red-headed hellion called to tell me that the five-year-old is safely at school. There were tears in her voice. It’s the little one’s first day of kindergarden. She’d gotten up at the crack of dawn, had her clothes on and her backpack slung over her shoulder. Kel had to disappoint her by telling her she needed a bath first.

After the call, I walked outside with the Sheltie. He’d spent the night cowering next to my bed because of last night’s thunderstorm. As I was coming back into the house I saw a cluster of daddly-long-legs spiders above my doorway. Okay, so I know most people would grab a broom or the hose and brush them away, but I stood beneath to watch them. Most of them were clustered very tightly and looked like a big hairy armpit that was vibrating. You’ve seen the way they dance, right? Bouncing together. The ones not clumped together were lined up with one leg touching the next one. It kind of looked like group foreplay.

I know that was wierd, but I love to watch things. Don’t much like bugs, but I will pick up crickets trapped in my pool and set them on the ground. One day, the five-year-old was outside with me and got down on her hands and knees to get eye-level with a caterpillar. Her lips were moving, so I walked closer. She turned, scowling at me. “Why won’t it talk back?”

It took me a minute to answer. I was fighting laughter because we’d recently watched The Bee Movie. Once I had control, I told her she couldn’t hear it because its mouth was too small. I know, bad Nina.

My daughter still gripes about the little lies I told her when she was young. To get her to brush her teeth I told her there were little bugs in her mouth that would eat her teeth if she didn’t brush them away. When she was eleven and sitting in Health class at school, her teacher asked the class if anyone knew what caused tooth decay. Yeah, you can guess what happened. It was like a scene from The Water Boy. “My mamma said…”

Yesterday’s winner of a free download of Love Bites is (by random number generator)…Sonya!

If you post a comment today, you’ll be in the running
for a free download of this book!

Released in January 2004, Love Bites was the second in the My Immortal Knight series. The hero, Quentin Albermarle, quickly became a fan favorite and has appeared in many of the MIK sequels. This year, I’ll be adding to the MIK family of books. Be watching for Viper’s story next.

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

Gold Star Award from Just Erotic Romance: “…Congratulations to Ms. Devlin for creating a masterpiece. This story has all the elements that a Gold Star book has in it. The novel has intense suspense that was thrilling and delightful…”

From Sensual Romance: “… LOVE BITES is a delicious, emotional romp of a story, a tale that builds powerfully on the old, often-used love triangle and succeeds beautifully in creating something new and exciting.”

On the trail of a serial killer, vampire Quentin Albermarle is mistaken for the killer by a police special task force. Once the smoke clears, Quentin finds himself in a delicious position-atop one of the unit’s crack officers, Darcy Henry.

In need of Quentin’s access to the vampire sub-culture, the task force leadership invites Quentin to join the crime unit as a special advisor, much to the chagrin of the men in the unit, and especially, to Darcy.

A no-nonsense cop with no time for romance, Darcy suddenly finds herself embroiled in a steamy love triangle between her mortal partner, Joe, and the handsome vampire. Going from abstinence to wantonness, she is unable to resist the two men’s relentless seduction or her own sensual curiosity about a vampire’s special “kiss”.

When the real killer threatens the life of someone close to her, Darcy makes a choice that forever binds the three of them together.

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

“He’s coming in. Get ready,” Joe’s voice jerked Darcy Henry to wakefulness.

Berating herself for dozing off during a stakeout, she fumbled for the switch on her night vision goggles. Instantly, the landscape before her was awash in shades of luminescent green. She scanned the water’s edge. The crests of the ebbing tides rolled onto the beach, unbroken by any sign of “Bat-boy.” Had she already missed her opportunity?

“Where do you see him?” she whispered into the mike on her headset, glad the roar of the incoming surf masked their voices.

“Ten o’clock. Get cocked.”

She reached for her crossbow and drew back the linen cord with both hands and latched it in the spring clip. Then she slid a steel-tipped arrow onto the track. Sighting down the shaft of the arrow, she braced the bow in her left palm and dug her elbow into the sand. With the stock snug against her shoulder, her right forefinger slid around the trigger and she turned her sights back to the water’s edge—just in time to see a tall figure stride out of the surf.
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I’m at Sia McKye’s blog “Over Coffee” and would love for you to drop by and say hello! I’m talking about when inspiration strikes.

I’ll get back to the rock. Promise.

This past week I pounded out two chapters on the sexy, as yet unnamed, ménage and wrote a 13-page fairytale called The Obedient Wife, which I submitted for a call for submission. I’ll let you know how that goes. I spent two 14-hour days in front of the computer Thursday and Friday because I didn’t want to slide on either of my goals. And I’m feeling it today—I woke up with back and neck aches and my right hand feels like someone stomped on it. I know, cry me a river.

Friday night was my monthly FAR Live Chat. Thanks to everyone who came. And congrats to Amy and Cathie on their prize wins!

Yesterday, I attended the Diamond State Romance Authors monthly meeting in Little Rock. We’ve got a slate of officers for 2010, and I’m nominated again to be Program Chair. If anyone has ideas for a dynamic topic I can add to the schedule for next year’s meetings, I’d appreciate it, because the well done dried up.

Sis came down for the meeting and followed me home for the night. We spent an hour and a half in the pool where she regaled me with her favorite Jeff Dunham routines. Had to finally get out of the water because one more joke and I would have had to add more chlorine.

This next week, it’s more writing, and I really do need to do a little shopping for the trip I’m taking September 1st. I’ll be heading to Seattle to a retreat on a lake with six writer buddies. Squee! And the 5-year-old starts kindergarden. God, I hope the teacher doesn’t have to send home a note with her on the first day. She told her mother the day before yesterday that when Mom died she’d bring daisies to put on her headstone, but that Mom would have to stick her hand out of the dirt to grab them. Think she might be a “Mini-Me” in the making?

Back to that rock…

I went outside the meeting yesterday (yes, to have a cigarette!) and strolled past the vacant lot next to the library. This bright red rock lay on the flat dirt and gravel and I couldn’t resist hefting it back to the meeting. (Who does that?!) It’s big, my empty coffee cup is pretty large. I don’t know what I want to do with it, but it matches my bedspread.