First, thanks to everyone who kept me plugging away yesterday. I finished 16 pages, and today I can take it a little easier (I’m aiming for 10).

I announced the winner of the drawing at Romance Junkies yesterday, but thought I’d better repeat it in case the reader didn’t see the posting. Valerie, send me an email so I can mail you a copy of your prize!!

After hearing the news about Down in Texas selling to the bookclubs, my publicist and I decided to pour some more money into promotion to make sure word gets out. She’s having bookmarks and postcards made up. The design work is done, and as soon as my wonderful webmistress puts the pictures up on the website, I’ll tell you where to go look. If you’d like a few to have for your own, I’d be happy to mail them!

Lastly, I posted the whole first chapter of Down in Texas on the website. Hope it whets your appetite for more!

Progress on Texas Men

Well, not quite coasting, but I have 94 pages to go, have the first three chapters firmly in my head, and I can commit to writing 9 pages a day minumum for the next 10 with a day for revision at the end—so easy, right?

I just have to keep organized. I finished up the second novella and took a look around my place and got a little creeped out. Dishes stacked on coffee tables, unopened mail, stacks of books that need to be put back in their proper place. So today, I’m committing to the following:

1) TM-3: Add 15 pages (hit 16 pages with the help of friends and a couple of sessions of timed writing!)
2) TM-3: Complete ch 1
3) Wash rugs
4) Strip bed and wash sheets
5) Complete 1 DSRA crit
6) Clean office
7) Clean bedroom
8) Clean bathroom
9) Complete 1 DSRA crit
10) Dust rooms
11) Sweep/vacuum downstairs
12) Mop floors
13) Complete 1 DSRA crit
14) Reorganize To Do stack
15) Clean pool

The last time I posted my To Do list here, I kept to task, so maybe I need to do this for the next 10 days, huh? Maybe not. But at least you can keep me accountable throughout the day if you don’t see everything getting crossed off the list!
🙄

I did have some very good news day before yesterday I’d love to share. DOWN IN TEXAS has sold to the bookclubs (Doubleday, Rhapsody, and Book of the Month Club)!!!

Three erotic stories about women who discover that time might not heal all wounds, but mind-blowing sex can help….

Includes Shiloh Walker’s Good Girls Don’t, Beverly Havlir’s Irresistible, and my very own Ride a Cowboy!

“…Ride a Cowboy will touch your heart as these two people discover that love can strike in unexpected places and keep you gripped in its power forever.”

I’m blogging at Romance Junkies today about ways to get my writing groove back. And in celebration of my latest release, A Hot Man is the Best Revenge, I’m giving away a signed copy to one lucky person who posts there today!

Progress on Texas Men

Another round of “Write 50 Books a Year” is getting underway at Rose’s Colored Glasses. If you’re a writer and haven’t checked it out yet, it’s something we do every year. If you’ve attended before, it’s a chance to retool your plan. If you’ve never given it a try, you may be surprised how much you learn—and not just from your savvy intructors (Elle James and myself!). I learn something new every time from the people who attend. So if you want to learn to be a more productive writer, get your butt over there and sign up! Did I mention that it’s free?!

I promised pictures from the mini-retreat I attended with friends in North Little Rock last week. Please enjoy, but remember we spent the day outside under a pagoda beside a pool. We never fully dried out between dips in the pool and writing at the little table. Wish I could figure out how to touch up photos (really how to shave fat off!), but y’all know me by now and everything hangs out.

Where the muse hung out all day long!

Shada Royce and Cynthia D’Alba, my sister writers!

Well, I couldn’t very well show their picture and not mine, but why didn’t I hide behind my laptop like Cyndi?!

I grew up an Air Force brat, moved around a lot, and other than my siblings, I didn’t develop any close friends. Sure, I found people to hang with, but if I moved, I forgot them.

Funny thing happened when I became a writer. Suddenly, I was among people just like me. People struggling to conquer the craft, conquer the publishing industry, and desperately searching for someone to share the exciting things going on inside their own heads.

I banded first with my sister, Myla Jackson, whom I didn’t really have that much in common with until we both started writing. We banded with Layla Chase who was seeking critique partners, and we all improved as writers together, which forged an even stronger bond between us. We banded with a group of ladies inside the San Antonio Romance Authors and formed Roses Colored Glasses, because we hoped to build an even bigger community of friends.

Along the way, I’ve added Kimberly Kaye Terry and the Allure Authors group as friends, and we’ve helped each other, produced anthologies together, and become sounding boards for story ideas, whine sessions, career strategy advice.

You can’t have too many friends. So, this weekend I’m hanging with two women from the Diamond State Romance Authors group. We’re having a writing weekend, and hopefully, I’ll pick up two more friends to add to my ever-expanding circle (if the pictures I share here don’t get me killed!).

Reviewer Jennell at RRTErotic had this to say about Sin’s Gift, the beginning of my new series for Ellora’s Cave:

“…A turbulent relationship and sexy, spooky thrills await readers in SIN’S GIFT. Sin is a woman who feels her call to duty strongly and takes the bumps in her life head-on. She will submit to Jake only in the bedroom, and the tension between them is a sizzling battle of wills. But, Jake has a couple of surprises in store for Sin, as do some other members of San Antonio’s finest. This is a well written and engrossing tale with complex characters who have hidden depths. Enter into other realms with the highly recommended SIN’S GIFT.“