This posting is like three Sundays of reports because I’ve been gone so long.

What I accomplished while I was away:
* I completed True Heart, a western novella.
* I brainstormed a new project with a new writing partner.
* I completed copyedits for Four Sworn, which BTW, releases on September 7th!

Good news since the last report?
* I sold my anthology concept for Girls Who Bite to Cleis Press!
* A Long Howl Goodnight was accepted for publication by Ellora’s Cave!
* The Red Stilletos anthology released!
* I published Textile Free on Smashwords!

I’ve only got a little over a week left in the month and have to ramp up. This next week, I want to be four chapters into the next Lone Star Lovers book and be through chapter four of the Viking book (that book’s deadline is creeping up on me!). I also hope to finish chapter four of the next Cat Tails installement.

Be looking this week for pics from my trip to Canada and Kent, WA!

And one little note on the side, Un, Deux, Trois, Menage! is on Amazon now, but needs reviews! So if you’ve read it, please make sure you leave a comment!

Just a couple quick announcements, then on to my weekly truth-telling…

Today, I’m going to work on getting together a set of questions and a list of prizes I will give away this week for a SCAVENGER HUNT to celebrate the unveiling of my new web design. So be sure to stop by every day, see what’s happening and post those comments!

Also in the planning stages is a blog tour to spread the word about the release of Darkness Captured in September. It’s not too early to plan, and I need your suggestions. What websites do you think I should approach to see whether they might host me for a day? You all have your favorites, I’d love to start a list so I can try to get on their calendars.

In addition, I’ll be preparing a contest widget that I’d love for any of you out there interested in putting it on your site. Of course, there will be bribes… 🙂

So on to the truth-telling…

This week:

* I wrapped up a story that was supposed to be a Quickie for Ellora’s Cave, but ended up being a novella. I was a little irritated with myself for not following the plan, but you won’t mind, right? The tentative title is A Long Howl Goodnight, and the story is related to the MIK series because it involves wolves from the Dark Mountain clan (last seen in MIK-6).

* I began work on my next Western for Samhain. Can’t tell you what it’s about yet, but I like the opening. My heroine is a writer, and strangely, every time I have a writer-heroine (the only other time was DiDi in Bad Moon Rising), I manage to portray her very close to my own personality.

* I continued teaching and providing detailed feedback for the FFnP Logline, Premise, Query and Synopsis class.

* And the big excitement was the finalization of my new web page design! Woohoo!

Next week, I hope to wrap up a short story for a Call for Submissions. I want to get through chapter 3 of the new Western. I want to finish the last bit of planning for the second Viking book, and I’ll be running that scavenger hunt! Lastly, I’ll wrap up the FFnP class.

Thanks for suffering through that last bit. 😉

I’m actually writing this posting late Saturday night. It’s about 11 o’clock and I’m just getting home from my day on Lake Ouachita. Had a blast and I’m completely drained. I have some funny anecdotes to pass along, but I’m just too tired to do it now.

In the morning, I’ll be heading into Little Rock to the tattoo expo. My daughter and I are crossing off one of our bucket list To Do’s—getting tattoos together. Nothing big or ambitious. She’s going for an Irish Claddagh on the inside of her wrist. I want a “bracelet”. I’ll be sure to take pictures.

Let me give you a real quick recap of my week, and then I’m off to bed. Oh, just writing that makes me feel a little anxious. So I know I’m about wiped out.

I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to, but I still accomplished quite a lot.

* I completed a short story and shipped it to the editor of that collection. I’m not completely happy with the story and won’t be heartbroken if it doesn’t make the cut. I didn’t have time to let it age a bit so that I could take a second look and figure out what was missing. And I really do think something was missing. But that’s okay too. I like taking breaks from the big stuff to write something short and fast. Just to cleanse the palate.

* I finished through chapter four of a short novella for Ellora’s Cave. I really wanted to wrap it up in 12,000 words, but I’m over 13,000 now, and think I might have to add quite a bit more to get to the end of the story. Sometimes, characters don’t cooperate! You won’t mind, I’m sure. It’s a werewolf story and related to the My Immortal Knight stories through the Dark Mountain werewolves in MIK-6.

* I finished the revisions for the first Viking book, Ravished by a Viking, and sent the manuscript back to my editor.

* I received Pleasing Sir back from the editor I hired to catch all my errors and logic problems, made a final pass through it and shipped it to the guy who’s doing the formatting for Kindle. He’ll have it back to me early August.

* I wrote the synopsis for a new novella for Samhain. Another cowboy story. My editor gave it the green light.

* I quick-plotted another short story and started work on the opening scene.

* And lastly, I’ve been critiquing query letters all week for the FFnP class my sister and I are teaching.

So, yeah, I didn’t get to everything this week, but I haven’t exactly been a slacker.

This week, I have to finish the werewolf story, get deeper into the short story, and get back to the second Viking story. Come Monday, it’s time to get serious about making major pages!

Tomorrow, I’ll have pics and tall tales to share!

I’m muzzy-headed this morning. Returned from Dallas close to 2 AM. The 6-year-old is with her mom and ecstatic to be back. Although, I’m sure she’s not as happy as we are to have her. It’s nearly a nine-hour round trip for us, and we made it a little longer because we stopped for dinner and a trip through Walmart to get her a toy to play with on the way home.

Anyway, let me recount the happenings this week.

* I reached negotiation stage on a proposal for a collection of short stories (more about that once the ink is dry on the contract!)
* I’m nearly through chapter two of the second Viking story
* I’m three pages away from being done with the short story
* I’ve revised 200 pages of the first Viking story
* I completed another chapter of the Quickie for Ellora’s Cave
* And I brainstormed an idea for a novella for Samhain

This week, I’ll:
* Finish through chapter four of the second Viking book
* Wrap up the short story and ship it out
* Finish the last polish of Pleasing Sir and ship it the guy who will format it for Smashwords and Kindle
* Write the synopsis and the opening scene for the novella for Samhain
* Finish the last two chapters and ship the Quickie off to Ellora’s Cave

And that’s enough, don’t you think?

Today, I have to prepare for a birthday party and clean the pool so the whole family can jump in! The sun’s out at last.

First, I have to tell you about this dream I had last night. I dreamed I was a superhero. I still haven’t figured out what my superpower was, but I got a call on the bat phone to hightail it to a sleepy little Texas border town to take out The Black Widow. My sidekick went with me. He was tall, balding and had a pot belly. Yeah, we made quite a team, but for some reason that was part of our power. Everyone underestimated us.

The Black Widow and I were old archrivals and we recognized each other immediately when our glances met across a smoky cantina. (There was a little homoerotic tinge to this whole dream.) She looked like Natalie Whatshername from Sugarland. A tall, blonde, natural beauty, with whom I’m sure I would have wanted to be friends if she didn’t have a nasty habit of romancing a victim in a bar then sucking off his head. Not a sexual euphemism.

Anyway, we got into a huge battle where we threw tables and chairs at each other from across the room, then took the battle out into the street and demolished half the buildings there. Neither of us won an advantage, and when we got tired of beating on each other, we headed back to the cantina for a beer, my trusty sidekick complaining about his aching back all the while. When she rose to leave, she handed me her lighter and said, “Keep it. I’m quittin’ anyway.”

I smiled and thanked her, but as soon as she was out the door, I gingerly held up the lighter, walked out the back of the cantina, tossed it into the garbage bin and ducked to avoid the explosion. End of dream.

My report is very anticlimactic. And it looks very different from what I had planned last week, but unexpected things crept up all week. Not that I can talk about all of it just yet.

* I wrote class material for FFnP’s Logline, Premise, Query and Synopsis class which starts tomorrow.
* I spoke with my Berkley editor about edits she wants on the first Viking book, then received the file and started work on that.
* I received word that Four Sworn was accepted and is tentatively scheduled for release by Samhain in September.
* I wrote a synopsis for a Merry Kinkmas short story for Ellora’s Cave and shipped it to my editor, after conducting some rather thorough fetish research.
* I received some exciting news about a project for an epublisher, but can’t mention it yet.
* And I quick-plotted a short story for Cleis.

This week:
* I will plow through edits of Viking-1.
* I will complete planning for Viking-2 and start writing the sucker!
* I will begin work on my Cleis short story.
* And lastly, I hope to begin work on my next western for Samhain.

Have a Happy 4th! I’ll think about you while I’m here on the lake!

The winners of my latest contest are listed at the bottom of this post!

The big news of the week was the surprise release of Veiled Alliance. Here’s hoping you all ordered your copies along with the copies of Un, Deux, Trois, Menage! last week! Hey, a girl can hope! Anyway, I spent the latter part of the week trying to get the word out about my new print book.

I was hampered this week by the temporary demise of my satellite. The three days I was without Internet could have been great, uninterrupted writing time, but I had things in the air that needed to be communicated, so I parked for a day at my daughter’s to pre-post blogs and do some back and forth on another project.

Yesterday, I spent the whole day in Little Rock, shopping with my daughter and attending the pharaoh’s exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center (I’ll talk about that tomorrow).

I only managed to finish one chapter of one book for the whole week. Very, very sad indeed. I’m almost afraid to set down my goals again in case some other catastrophe besets me, but here goes anyway.

This is what I hope to achieve this week:
* Finish EC Quickie
* Begin work on Dream Lover short story
* Work on characters and plot for Viking story
* Write lesson on queries for FFnP class
* Place order for promo items for Lora Leigh’s Readers Appreciation Weekend

That is, after I plow through 1,002 emails that accumulated in my inbox while my Internet was out. I’m house-sitting for a friend on Lake Hamilton for the holiday weekend. I’m hoping the change of place will help me keep my nose to the grindstone.

So, back to the winners of my “While Delilah’s Away” contest. Thanks to everyone who commented on my blog and facebook. All your entries counted. The winners of the $25.00 gift certificates, by random number generator, are…Christine Rivero and Beth C! Ladies, be sure to email me so that I know where to send the eGift certificates! Congratulations!

This has been a crazy busy year, and it’s only half over. Following is a list of upcoming releases with dates where I have them. Mark your calendars.

6/18/10 – UN, DEUX, TROIS, MÉNAGE! anthology (Ellora’s Cave)
07/01/10 – THE OBEDIENT WIFE, Fairy Tale Lust anthology (Cleis Press)
07/??/10 – PLEASING SIR (Me!)
08/01/10 – THE WEEKEND, Lesbian Lust anthology (Cleis Press)
Summer?/10 – VEILED ALLIANCE anthology (Ellora’s Cave)
09/??/10 – FOUR SWORN (Samhain)
09/21/10 – DARKNESS CAPTURED (Avon Red)
11/1/10 – COWBOY FEVER anthology (Samhain)
11/01/10 – THE MORNING RIDE, Passion: Erotic Romance for Women (Cleis Press)
01/??/11 – RAVISHED BY A VIKING (Berkley Heat)
Spring?/2011 – HOT OUT HERE, The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance anthology (Running Press)

Since there’s still time to finish novellas for Ellora’s Cave and Samhain, I might be adding a few more.

So, on to the report!

1) This week I had two new releases, both from Ellora’s Cave. The first was the reissue on Monday of Warlord’s Destiny as a single novella rather than as a part of an anthology. Nice! The second was a surprise release of the print book, Un, Deux, Trois, Menage! on Friday. I hope everyone got their copies!

2) Not a whole lot of writing this week, although I did manage to add to the quickie I’m writing for Ellora’s Cave. It’s a shapeshifter story, BTW.

3) I finally hit on the idea I want to work on for Cleis’s Dream Lover anthology. It’s quasi-plotted, or at least I know who the hero and heroine are and that’s enough for me to start writing.

4) The Plotting Bootcamp is rolling along. Authors are applying themselves to their homework. Sis and I are reviewing it and making suggestions for improvements to help them pummel their WIPs into shape.

5) The really big news of the week was that my Berkley editor approved the synopsis for the second Viking story. So now I can start working on the thing. Since I spoke with her, I’ve been studiously avoiding the book, and working on anything but, telling myself that I have to clear my desk before I dive in, but that’s not true. I never need a clear desk, or even a clear mind, to start something new. I’m just dreading the 85,000 words. LOL

6) Lastly, and this is happy news, the first Viking book has been moved up on the calendar. Ravished by a Viking will be published in January 2010!

What do I plan to accomplish this week?
* Finish EC Quickie
* Write Dream Lover short story
* Work on characters and plot for Viking story
* Plot the next chapter of Bad Moon Rising (no, I didn’t forget all about it!)
* Place order for promo items for Lora Leigh’s Readers Appreciation Weekend