Progress on Dark Realm-4

Slow, but steady progress on the Avon book, but I’m not worried about my unimpressive word count. I’ve reached that saggy old middle of the book. When I write the long ones, it can take a little time past that exciting opening to figure out what comes next. I have a hazy picture, but I guess this time I may want to actually jot down some plot points so I don’t meander. I have a lot of characters in this fourth book, several from the previous stories, and new interesting ones I’ve just introduced. Still have to figure out who they are and what they want.

Progress on Snow Bound

While I’m ruminating like a cow on a cud (okay, maybe not the best analogy, but I’m dieting so that’s where my head is), I’m building a new story. Something simple and sexy—two cowboys and a heroine in need of rescue—maybe for Ellora’s Cave. We’ll see. I’m tentatively calling it “Snow Bound” but I want a sexier title. Maybe you could offer me some suggestions?

Progress for Dark Realm-4

I’ll admit I was a slacker last week. Only 27 pages total progress. The previous week’s 80-something pages left me feeling pretty smug. The muse swatted me like a fly for being so arrogant. I lost the story for a while, couldn’t dream what came next, didn’t like the loosey-goosey pages I had, and really had to work hard to get them into shape. I’m still not there, but hey, it’s a rough draft. So long as the story is working, I can move forward.

Tomorrow will be a real test. My hero has to enter hell. Haven’t figured out quite what it looks like. Maybe it will come to me as I go. In the meantime, I have a bunch of books gathered on my TBR stack and it’s way too hard a decision which one I should read first. Maybe I’ll watch the movie I TIVO’d, “The Good Witch,” with Catherine Bell from JAG. It looks light and with just enough of a paranormal flavor to keep my interest. ~DD

My work schedule for the rest of the month is about to explode. I spent all day yesterday cleaning house, organizing my research and my office, just to get ready for the next big push. A couple of things will have me pretty busy.

First, I decided to mix things up with my writing this month to keep me from getting bored. I’m going to try to work on three things at the same time, dividing up my days into morning, afternoon and evening shifts.

First priority is the next Dark Realm book, as yet untitled. And just to keep me honest about my productivity, here’s my first progress wordmeter:

As you can see, I have a ways to go!

Afternoons, I’ll be working on something more fun, and something I plan to be done with by the end of the month—the next in my Shadowlands series for EC, Lockdown. It should go fast because I’ve been itching to use some of the stories and insights my daughter gave me while working as a corrections officer inside a prison. Not sure how I’m going to slip the sex in there in a non-icky way, but you know I’ll figure it out—got to have me some spankin’s!!

This is where I’m at with Lockdown:

My evening shift work is going to be spent finishing up some new proposals, short spurt kind of stuff. Things not as urgent as the hard deadline DR book, or nearly as much fun as the EC book, but work that needs to get done all the same. So it gets relegated to evenings when I can blow it off if I’m already tired for the day. But before I get to the proposals, I will spend a few days finishing up the next installment of Knight Dreams.

So, that’s what’s happening with me writing-wise. So far as promotion goes, I have two contests running through the end of the month. The first one you’ve already seen. It’s the Allure Author’s 30 Days of Giveaways. Then starting on Monday, I will be counting down the days until the release of my next cowboy book, Down in Texas. There will be many prizes, lots of sexy excerpts—be sure to check in every day so you don’t miss a chance at something cool!

What do you think? Is that enough to keep me busy and out of trouble for the rest of the month? Did I mention I miss swimming in the pool so much that I ordered a thermal wetsuit?! Yeah, the family thinks I’ve finally lost it with that one.

…which means soon I won’t be able to gut out a swim in the cooling waters of my pool. There goes my tan and the new muscle I spent a summer discovering.

It also means I have to start a new book. The fourth in the Dark Realm series. I have the first four or five chapters firmly in my mind, but not a clue what’s going to happen for the rest even though I did write a synopsis and run it by my editor. As always, she says there’s too much plot because she worries there won’t be enough sex or the story will be too complicated and with too many characters. The cast is firmly in my mind, so it’s hard for me to see it from a new reader’s point of view. She’s probably right, so that’s why I have to re-dream the rest of the book.

There’s also the release of my next book, Down in Texas, and the accompanying promotion I have to do, including a fifteen day countdown that will be lots of fun. But I have to dream up all the selling points of my novel and use them to tease you—so it’s work just the same.

And I still have to finish unpacking from the Lora Leigh convention and get my pictures uploaded. I’ll try to get to that today, but right now I have a 4-year-old underfoot who wants me to sit with her and watch Forbidden Kingdom, so we’ll see how far along I get.

It’s nice having another few days to relax before I have to start the next marathon.

🙄

Thought I’d start out with a bang and the cover of a collection of shorts Harlequin Spice will release next March! Don’t you love it?! That month is shaping up to be another crazy busy one for me. Darkness Burning (the third Dark Realm story from Avon), Texas Men (my next single-author anthology from Kensington) and now Size Matters, will all be out in the same month.

For those of you who talk with me online, you know I’ve been suffering Internet outages since the end of April that left me with intermittant Internet or email capability. Hopefully, yesterday’s repairs did the trick. I’m here for now, anyway!!

As soon as I opened my email yesterday, I found a message from my editor at Kensington asking if I’d like to be in the next multi-author “Cowboy” book (see The Cowboy and Only with a Cowboy to see what I’m talking about). Of course, I couldn’t resist the challenge. So you’ll hear me cursing cowboys for the next three months straight as I finish up Texas Men then plunge right into the cowboy book. Ack! (I act scared, but I actually do better under pressure, so take all my grousing with a grain of salt.)

Lastly, I have an agent. A great one. Don’t want to talk about it too much for fear of attracting negative mojo, but I’m quietly jazzed about the whole thing!

It’s been such a busy month for me. When I look back at my calendar, I’m amazed I accomplished so much.

I finished another story for Ellora’s Cave. I’m still wrapping up edits for the third Dark Realm story. On Monday, I slammed out a short story to submit to a foreign anthology—finished 25 pages and it wasn’t total crap! I attended a Bachelor’s Auction and gained tons of research on that event that will help me with my next project. I tromped through a graveyard with my Arkansas writer friends and came up with some wicked ideas to fill another tale. Oh, and I wrote another chapter to satisfy my MIK fans (or drive them nuttier, depending on how much you love Quentin!).

Thanks to everyone who participated in the blog contest. I do have a winner. Many of your comments on the blog made me smile. And thanks especially to the volunteer readers who helped me shape the short story into something entertaining on Monday. I really needed the support to keep slamming those pages.

Once in a while, I need a challenge like that to blow out the cobwebs and to see something FINISHED. Most projects take a long time of thinking and dreaming, then weeks of writing. That one day marathon left me feeling flushed and victorious!

Back to the contest. First, here are the answers to the questions:

1) What’s the title of my latest release? Royal Bondage (at least on Sunday, it was!)
2) What’s the title of the book I’m giving away in my newsletter “for readers”, one chapter at a time? Knight Dreams
3) In Sin’s Gift, what police substation does the hero’s brother work in? The East Substation
4) In Seduced by Darkness, what waterway jumped it’s banks, flooding a cemetary and freeing a monster? Bayou St. John

The winner of the blog contest will get a tote with a stash of Romantic Times goodies (a couple of books included)! And she is…Stephanie[dragonstar1974@aol.com]! Steph, be sure to send me your snail mail address privately so I can get your package to you! Congratulations!!