I pre-posted Friday and Saturday’s blogs, figuring I’d be too busy to bother for once. And I was right. The conference in Shreveport, Louisiana, hosted by the NOLA chapter, ended last night. I’ll have pictures to share tomorrow, but I have my weekly status report to give you first. Yeah, sorry. You have to suffer through it, but keep in mind that I do this to keep things real.

The sad reality is I’m close to completing just one chapter of the big book for the entire week. I worked on nothing but the big book, so I can’t claim progress on anything else. I have excuses—good ones—but excuses won’t get the book written.

This next week doesn’t bode well either. Daughter’s hubby is going out of town, so guess who gets to come babysit babies, dogs and chickens? I have to convince the one-year-old that her playpen is a happy place and the dogs that one trip to the back yard really is enough. Good luck, me. But that doesn’t happen until Thursday, so I better write like my hair’s on fire through Wednesday.

I want to wrap up three chapters this week. Hold me to it. ~DD

It’s the last day of the month, so it’s time to reflect on all the progress I made.

I wrote chapters 7 through 15 of the big book, adding 158 pages. I began writing my third Lonestar Lovers story and a short story.

Love in Bloom and Fun with Dick and Jayne were published. First Knight sold.

This past week, I slacked off on my word count. But since I am still ahead of schedule on the big book, I’m not all that worried. Besides, it was time I took a breather and revisited everything I’d written to polish it a bit. I was loosing site of the plot in all that yummy sex. With the help of Sasha White, I did find a plot for my short story and started writing it. It’s due for submission on the 15th of March.

For March, I have to finish writing and editing the big book. I want to ship it before March 30th. I will finish Lonestar Lovers-3. I’ll finish and submit 3 short stories. And for fun, I’ll attend the NOLA chapter’s conference in Shreveport, Louisiana next weekend!

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

Quick brag. I earned 5 dragons from Veiled Secrets Reviews for Knight of my Dreams. Here’s a snippet of what the reviewer had to say:

“…Quentin’s grief and attempts to save Darcy just pulled at my heart for him. The passion he and Darcy share gave him the ability to sexually satisfy the vampire witch whom he never wanted to see again. That sex was so hot I could see why she wanted to trap him again. This is a very impassioned story filled with the deep longing, powerful sex and overwhelming desire that you feel in your soul for that special person who is the other half of you…”

Nice, huh?

Okay, second quick brag. This one is 4 1/2 cherries from Whipped Cream Reviews for Unforgiven.

“…Delilah Devlin’s scorching and unforgettable story UNBRIDLED, has been followed up by the equally hot and mesmerizing UNFORGIVEN…As with any Devlin tale, the sex is so hot it should come with a burn notice. But more importantly, you get pages packed with so much emotion it chokes you. That’s the beauty of her work, and the reason I have her on my TBR author list…”

I’ve been rewarding myself for book progress with nightly NCIS marathons. I didn’t discover the show until a couple of months ago. Yeah, it’s been on for years, but I TIVO everything, so never ran across it. The show’s not brilliant. The acting’s solid, I guess. I’ve never been a Mark Harmon fan, but I like the rest of the ensemble and he works well with them. But now that I’m hooked, I’m rabid about catching up on all the previous seasons. The problem I have is that USA is showing them all out of sequence. Do you know how confusing that can be? I get that Kate was killed, but haven’t seen that episode yet. I like Zevah a lot, but after last night’s episode I can’t figure out how she came back after being sent back to Israel. It’s frustrating. Kind of like watching Memento and piecing the bits of backstory together with crazy glue. Finally, last night I saw what happened to Director Shepard. Wah!

But back to my progress report.

This week wore me out. I finished chapters 12 through 14, and have added 44 pages to the big book. I’ll be editing today, so I have no doubts that I will hit my 50 page a week goal. Plus, I started work on the next Lone Star Lovers story. I completed chapter one, although it’s really, really ugly at the moment.

Small things. I got the first round edits of First Knight back, and really it was just little stuff. Yay, me. And of course, Fun With Dick and Jayne released, so I’m super excited to see how everyone likes it. Remember, if you ordered it off the Ellora’s Cave website, please leave an honest review afterward! That’s one of the best ways you can support your favorite authors—by letting someone else know if you enjoyed a story.

This coming week, I’ll pound out another 50 pages of the big book. I’m switching gears to write a short story for a Cleis call for submissions. Don’t have a clue about what yet. And that’s enough, right? Until next week…

I’m sleepy this morning. The five-year-old came for an overnight and shared my king-sized bed. How can it be that I only had a foot width of mattress to sleep on?

All I can say is it’s a good thing I made great progress this week. Whatever I do today will be gravy. I wrote 53 pages on the big book (and passed the halfway mark!) and have sketched out ideas for three short projects. I started work yesterday on a quickie-length story. Thanks go out to the ladies who attended my Friday night chat. As always, they had ideas for what they wanted to see next, and that set the spark to my brain.

This week will be another 50 page push. I want to have the pages done by Saturday because I will be heading to Little Rock for an RWA chapter meeting.

My sister and I received word that a workshop proposal we submitted for the RWA National conference in Nashville was accepted. We will be presenting “Seriously…a series?“.

That’s all the news/progress to report. Remember that tomorrow I’ll start a short countdown to the release of Fun With Dick and Jayne. ~DD

When Amanda meets her old high-school crush, he doesn’t remember her. A bouquet of flowers and a lost towel spark an affair neither one will forget.

Today’s the day my free short story (okay, not so short since I couldn’t wind it up for 5000 words) debuts at Samhain’s blog. It’s sweet and sexy, and has one glaring typo in it. Please excuse it, but that’s what happens when I edit myself! Click the cover and you’ll be right there. Be sure to leave me a comment too so I know who enjoyed it!

As for my weekly Sunday Report Card, this last week flashed by in frenzy of writing. I’m not sure how good it was, but it was plentiful. I wrote chapters 6-9 of my Berkley book. I may be deleting one scene that I had way too much fun writing. I giggled through the whole thing—a sure sign it’s probably too funny to leave in a Viking story.

The only other noteworthy accomplishment was the sale of First Knight, a medieval set in the My Immortal Knight world. My editor sent me the news on Thursday, and I signed and mailed the contract on Friday.

I also discovered on Friday that the book I sold to EC in early January will be coming out February 17th—so stay tuned for a countdown contest. Fun With Dick and Jayne is superfun, über-sexy and has a threesome. I’ll share more later! Have a great week!

Just a note. I’ll be playing host later today at the Ellora’s Cave chat loop, along with Shayla Kersten. Join us if you can. We’ll run from 4-8 PM CST!

Since we rarely get snow here, I traipsed outside yesterday with my camera. Here’s a view of the pond in the backyard. It’s cold outside, but pretty enough I don’t care. Besides, I have no intentions of spending anymore time out there than it takes to turn on the pool pump! I’ll take my Vitamin D in a pill, thank you very much!

Today’s Sunday, but it’s also the last day of the month. And what a month January was!

* On the 1st, I finished revising and shipped Fun With Dick and Jayne to Ellora’s Cave, which has been accepted, edited and is waiting for a cover and a release date now.
* On the 6th, I wrapped up a short story for Samhain’s Valentine freebies. Love in Bloom is set to release on February 7th, and here’s the cover!

When Amanda meets her old high-school crush, he doesn’t remember her. A bouquet of flowers and a lost towel spark an affair neither one will forget.

* On the 7th, I got “The Call” from my agent, telling me that a futuristic proprosal we’d sent to Berkley sold! I wallowed in the moment for a week before I got serious about clearing off my desk so I could get to work.
* I finished doubling the word count on a novella for Ellora’s Cave and shipped First Knight on the 25th.
* I finished a short story for the Mammoth Book of Hot Romance and shipped it on the 27th. Cross your fingers it makes the cut!
* I shipped Textile Free, an erotic short story, to Xcite.
* Lastly, I’m going to hit page 100 on the Berkley book today.

So, a very productive first month of the year!

February will be every bit as busy. It’s crunch time for the Berkley book. I want to hit page 300 by the end of the month. I have a proposal for Blaze that needs some work. I have to change the setting, which changes quite a few elements of the story. I want to write a short story for Cleis’s Passionate: Romantic Erotica collection. I’d like to get halfway through the next story in the Lone Star Lovers series, and I have chapter three of Bad Moon Rising to write! So if you don’t see progress in my colored bars to the right, nag me. I have to work hard this month.

Here’s one last picture from my back yard that I’ll share. This huge, 200-year-old oak in my back yard is gorgeous in the warm months, but a little creepy without its leaves. Y’all have a great week!

Not the most productive week ever. I did manage to write the last three chapters of what was supposed to be a quickie for EC, but is now nearly a novella. I still have 1000 words to add during final revision. I started a short story, but I’m not feeling it, so I need to proceed with caution on that one. I don’t want to get too far along, then decide to scrap it. I’ve done some thinking about my big book and made some notes for a couple of scenes, but I stayed away from it last week. This week is when I hunker down and begin the long haul to the end.

So this week, I will finish the quickie-novella. I have to do first round edits on Fun With Dick and Jayne for my editor—she wanted me to work on the transtion leading into the last scene of the book. The Plotting Bootcamp winds down, so my online life will uncomplicate. But most of all, I want 50 pages of the big book under my belt before I enter February. So if you see me slacking off, kick my ass!

This week on the blog, I want to come back with blurbs for Bad Moon Rising for you to vote on what happens in the next chapter. I’ll do a flashback excerpt and give someone a chance to win the book. And I really should pull an excerpt from something you haven’t seen yet to give you a sneak peek. Any preferences?

And just a quick note. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a short story for Samhain’s Valentine free reads series. My story, Love in Bloom, will be available for download on February 7th! Yeah, I know it’s a corny title, but it suits the story—you’ll see!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! ~DD