I have great excuses. Run down on Thursday. A day spent at the hospital waiting on tests for a loved one on Friday. And now the monthly curse. TMI? Well, tough. This is my life and my blog. I’ll tell it like it is. I was probably so hideously grumpy on Saturday because it was making its arrival known.

Progress on Stone’s Embrace

So I made good progress on this one last week. Can I do it again? Guess it depends on what happens with Dad’s appointments. I do have a little wiggle room for the turn-in date, but I want to finish by the end of the month.

Progress on untitled short contemporary novella

I didn’t mean to start another project when I have so many in the works, but I opened a new document one day after I finished up my pages on STONE and started writing this thing. So far it’s a string of sex scenes in need of a theme and a plot. I’ve sent it to my most trusted friends for help dreaming up a story to go along with the sex. Really have to have a story, darn it.

This week will be a challenge just keeping focused with all the craziness happening around me. Last night I dreamed I was trapped in a house on stilts, deep in a bayou. A terrible storm rattled the roof and water seeped under the front door while I sat on the couch and prayed for it to end. It wasn’t until I saw a scaly back swimming through the murky water that I realized alligators and snakes had come through a window. I climbed higher and higher, arriving at last in the attic. The pitch dark seemed to amplify the sounds of the rain, the slithering snakes, the hissing roar of the gators…

Okay, so the dream must be a metaphor for my life, but the demented writer in me hopes I have more nightmares.

Progress on Stone’s Embrace

I’m deep into chapter two now of Stone’s Embrace. Still haven’t figured out what happens after the sex, but I’m sure it will come…um, after my hero and heroine pry themselves apart.

This will be a busy week. I want to get through chapter four of this WIP. I have an older manuscript for a romantic comedy my sister and I co-wrote a million years ago that needs a lot of sprucing up. So, I’ll be giving it a read and making notes of what needs to be stripped, what can stay. I’m suspecting that pretty much everything except the basic plot has to be reworked. We’ve both learned a lot since we wrote the thing.

Next Saturday is the Diamond State Romance Author’s meeting in Little Rock, and as VP of Programs I have some administrative tasks to take care of.

Lastly, I will be teaching a worldBuilding class for Roses Colored Glasses at the end of the month and need to refurbish the course content.

So, all in all a packed week. Do y’all have big plans?

Last week was actually pretty productive—up until Friday. I caught up on a lot of promo activities and started a brand new proposal.

Today, however, I’m feeling kinda lazy and need to figure out how to kick my ass into high gear. I had the 4-year-old the last two days, and spent a lot of time playing with her, which meant I made minimal progress on my proposal. BUT the time away from the story gave me some perspective, and I realized I’d made a major newbie mistake when I set up the conflicts. All the hero and heroine’s issues could be resolved if someone locked them in a room together and told them to talk it all out. Misunderstandings can’t serve as strong hinge for an entire plot.

So, who did I call? My sister, Elle James, the queen of plotting. We threw some ideas around, some really involved, which I nixed because I’d have to start all over again (I’ve done that twice already) and, at last, one solution that was simpler and gave my heroine a very strong reason to keep lying to the hero. I’m happier.

This week, I have to finish the proposal (synopsis and three chapters), ship it to my agent, and then get ready to go to Oklahoma. Sis and I are conducting a plotting bootcamp for a group of ladies, and we will be gone Thursday through Sunday.

Progress on Dark Realm-4

As you can see, I’m closing in on the finish line for this book. After I turn it in, I have some smaller projects to work on, but I really have to get in gear to put together the next big project. I’ll have my head down next week revising, revising and plan to ship this sucker out on Thursday.

Today, I’m taking a break until late afternoon to play on Ellora’s Cave’s chat loop. Join me there if you can. I’ll be sharing excerpts of my latest (Jane’s Wild Weekend) and am not above offering bribes (prizes) to get you to come keep me company! ~DD

Ha! You have to read to the bottom to get the information about the contest!

Progress on Dark Realm-4

Well, after taking a little time off to take care of family biz (did I mention the newest member of the Devlin clan?), I’m back at work on the fourth Dark Realm book. Thanks to everyone who’s kept me company in timed writing sessions, and for those of you who’ve been nagging. I really needed a kick in the ass to get going.

I thought I was stuck in the story and dreaded coming back to it, but something amazing happened when I sat down and put my hands on the keys. I didn’t think, didn’t wonder what was going to happen next, just wrote what I “saw”—and it’s not crap! In fact, it’s pretty darn sexy—raw, actually. I likey.

Another plotting bootcamp kicked off this past Monday, and I have a very active, very enthusiastic group of campers! Every day I have to think about story, think about theme and characters—someone else’s, I know—but it seems to help me figure out what’s working in my own WIP. So I’m really glad to be knee-deep in the class.

I should have started yesterday, according to my plan anyway, on plotting a new western contemporary story—something to send to my agent. But I don’t want to force it. I tried that about three weeks ago and had to deep-six the first chapter because it thoroughly reeked. Learned my lesson. Cowboys don’t like to be hurried along. They stride at their own pace.

So, another frenzied week awaits! Don’t miss tomorrow’s sexy Man-day pic. And about that contest: I updated my contest page. Go check it out!

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