Psst! I’ll announce yesterday’s winner tomorrow, so you still have time to enter! If you post a comment to this blog entry, you have a second chance to win!

I’m baaaaack! I’m tired, have a headache, and am late starting my day! Yesterday’s mad dash to Dallas and back was a lot more fun than it should have been.

Daughter and the little one came by at noon yesterday, and since we had an hour to kill, we decided to do some shopping. I have a favorite shop, Maurice’s, that always has clothes I like and that fit. I led the shopping spree. I have new tops and a pair of capri pants, and a pretty yellow, cheap vinyl purse. Daughter has outfits and the little one has cheap, blingy jewelry. I didn’t try on anything, which guaranteed I’d have a better time. There’s something about those closed, airless, poorly lighted dressing rooms that always annoys me. I have the receipt. I figure if I try something on later and hate it, I’ll just take it back.

Anyway, we headed to Dallas with the little one asking that genetically guaranteed question, “Are we almost there?”, every half hour. We didn’t turn on the radio even once because we talked and laughed the whole way.

Little girl saw one of those semi-trucks loaded with vehicles destined for a dealership parking lot and said, “Look, Nina, their parking lot moves!”

Daughter and I decided that we’d rather lose a pinky finger than eat of bowl of scorpions. I’d rather eat a roach than a scorpion—yeah, we ask really important questions like that for fun. Funny, I’d rather eat a scorpion than one of those six-inch long monster centipedes. They’re hairy. At which point, the red-headed hellion laughed. “But you’ll eat menudo? Tripe feels hairy, mom!”

Anyway, the little one is gone for the summer. We’re sad, but she is going to enjoy spending time with daddy. I always look for silver linings.

This past week I didn’t write a single word. End of report. The family reunion didn’t wrap up until Wednesday, and then I needed to recuperate from too many people. This week, I have big, hairy plans with dozens of little legs. But first, I need to hit the pool to clear my head.

P.S. I pulled the cover because it’s not quite finalized. My bad!

The winner of yesterday’s contest will be announced tomorrow. So be sure to post for a second time to win today!

This week, I finished a short story for a Cleis collection and shipped it to the editor. I won’t hear until August whether my story makes the cut. The payout is a very small one, but not the reason I wrote it. Short stories offer a challenge. Telling a story in just a few words hones a writer’s skills.

I also wrote a proposal, just a short treatment, of a concept I have for my own compilation. If it’s accepted it will be a fun project and something different for me to try.

This week, I also began a new novella for Ellora’s Cave. I have a chapter done, and the rest should go really fast. It’s a shapeshifter story—something furry and very sexy.

I was pleased with my accomplishments this week. Family has descended for the reunion this weekend, so I paused for a couple of days. My sister-in-law took a walk around the farm today and came back saying a stray dog was inside the pasture fence. I’m such a softie. I went to take a look and couldn’t resist. I’ve named him Fenris (after Fenrisulfr, the monstrous wolf from Norse mythology). He’s solid black and looks to be part border collie and part German shepherd. He seems very sweet, and very happy that someone wants him. He’s also emaciated.

My daughter bathed him to kill fleas and ticks, which he had aplenty. He stoicly suffered through it, even though he shivered the whole time. Afterward, we let him into the yard where he ate and curled up under our patio table. Looks like he’ll be happy to stay and join our family. We gave him a puppy shot (we think he’s about 2 years old based on his teeth), and tomorrow he will be handed to my son-in-law who will get him dewormed, neutered and then keep him for a couple of weeks of obedience training. I’ll try to remember to take pictures tomorrow.

Oh, and I picked up my new painting, Blueberry Blast, yesterday! 😎

Yesterday, I should have made a mad dash to Dallas and back, but the 5-year-old’s dad asked to put off the exchange a couple of weeks. Yay! I’ll get to share the pool with her before she heads off for her summer away!

This week, I finally wrapped up the neverending novella and sent it to my beta readers to see what they thought. It’s not my usual fare, and it has me a little nervous, but it is what it is. I thought the story was one long tease between a secretary and her boss, but it ended up this BDSM thing with his partners involved. Hey, it’s where my imagination went. I’m not going to apologize!

Then I started on something a little more fun and much shorter. (Gawd, I really hope so!) It’s due June 1st, so I really have to get on it. Before I headed out to a friend’s birthday party yesterday, I hit 1100 words on the story. Since I only need 2500, I think I won’t have a problem meeting the deadline, except that the timeframe of the story requires a little research.

This week, I get to start a shiny new month, full of new opportunities for success as well as some enormous hurdles to conquer. More about that when I wrap up the month on the 31st!

Yesterday’s winner, by random number generator is…Mitzi H.!

Mitzi, email me with your snail mail address!

We’ll get to the SRC in a moment.

I have a little bit of a headache this morning. Mead always does that to me. Don’t know why I drink it, except that drinking wine with an Asatru priest (he follows Norse pagan beliefs) and an eclectic witch seemed the thing to do and it was truly delicious!

I went to Hot Springs yesterday with the red-headed hellion to visit the pair I met a few months ago and talked about on this blog. Bill gave me a rune reading and Red had the fairy cards read. We stayed for a few hours chatting with their friends. Lovely night.

Here’s Bill. I coaxed him into his robes.

These are the girls who were there. The red-headed hellion is the one in orange. She has her hair pulled back in a bun. Lisa, the witch, is to her right.

Had to snap this. It’s a fairy door the couple made to encourage fairies to enter their home. I’m so getting one for my office.

On the way home from their house, my daughter and I stopped at Wally World for a few things, and I passed a whole display of How to Train Your Dragon toys. This one roared at me to take him home. Really. All I did was tap him on the butt.

One little random note here. I opened the latest RT Bookreviews Magazine and found a review for Fairy Tale Lust, which will release July 1st.
4 1/2 stars from Gail: “This original collection puts a deliciously sexy twist on familiar fairy tales. Many talented writers provide a wide range of stories, including m/f, f/f, classic and contemporary.”

Okay, back to the business part of the blog.
I have nearly completed a rewrite of the last 5 chapters of the novella I had so many problems with last week. I’ve never done such an extensive revision before. I know, I’m spoiled. But I do feel better about it. There’s humor in there and more of their growing relationship. Thank goodness I found the heart.

It’s 5 AM and I’m bleary-eyed at the moment. I brought the 5-year-old home for an overnight. She decided that sleep was a waste of good Nina-time so we’re curled up on the couch watching Shark Tale. Will Smith at this hour is damned annoying.

Not a stellar week. All right, so I did finish a rough draft of a short novella, but it was a really ugly first draft and that stopped me in my tracks. I put it aside and played with family for a couple of days. I’m hoping tomorrow morning I’ll be able to start afresh and finish the thing.

With my sister, Elle James, I taught a class for my Diamond State Romance Authors group on World Building. While I was talking, I got the itch to write another paranormal. Have to give it a little more thought. I think I want to go back to another medieval vampire book or maybe do a succubus. Blood-sucking or soul-sucking—either way it looks like I want to write about someome doing some sucking.

This next week, I have to wrap up that short novella. It’s half of a duet that Sasha White and I intend to publish on Kindle all by our little selves. Sasha just started her story, so she’ll probably be done days before I finish revising my horribly flawed little lump of coal into a glittering diamond.

Sis reminded me yesterday that we are on the hook to teach another Plotting Bootcamp online May 31 through June 26. I completely forgot about it. Now I have to get into the mindset, review our material, and start to talk about it so that folks know they can jump in and begin planning their summer project.

I had a very productive week until I hit Thursday, about which I’ve talked enough, right? Up to that point, I slammed through the first four and a half chapters of a very sexy novella. I reviewed half the galley for Darkness Captured. I contacted a publisher I love and asked for advice on how to submit an anthology project to them. And I have completed research and dreamed up the premise for a short story project.

This next week, I have to complete reviewing and editing the galley for Darkness Captured and I plan to complete the sexy novella—hopefully by Tuesday. I’ll start writing the short story and draft the description for my anthology proposal. A little ambitious, but I want to make up lost ground. Also, next Saturday, I have to teach a class to my RWA chapter, which reminds me I actually have to come up with content to teach. Oy!

I found out today that a story I wrote a while back for an anthology, Warlord’s Destiny, will be reissued on its own June 14, 2010. If you haven’t read it yet, June will be a good time to pick it up. It’s one of my favorite stories—a futuristic with a medeival flavor to it—another of those wonderfully manly men… Okay, now I’m wanting to go back and read that opening scene again when the hero strides into the heroine’s hall. Mmm-mm.

Since I already talked about what I accomplished writing-wise in my April Wrap-up, I’ll talk about some other things.

Last year, I looked at my collection of writing books and realized I had wasted a lot of money because I hadn’t cracked the spine on some of them. I decided what I needed was company to work through one. I chose Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, formed a yahoo group, and invited my writer friends at Rose’s Colored Glasses. Every week there was a reading assignment and the questions at the end of the chapter. We wrapped up the book in March. Sure some folks dropped by the wayside, but some of us kept reading. Maybe I could have finished the book a heck of a lot faster, but I the point is I actually did finish it!

So, I opened a new challenge in April. I formed a yahoo group, sent out invitations and we’ve begun working through Robert Ray’s and Bret Norris’s The Weekend Novelist. The book describes a methodical way to write a novel one weekend at a time. I have a project set aside for that effort. A novel I’ve been too intimidated to write. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Our online critique group is still going strong. And I love to hear when someone who ran a project through it sells. That happened this week. Would love to mention her name and the book, but maybe she wants to keep her resources a secret.

This next week might not be so super-productive. I have a pre-op appointment on Monday in Little Rock, which messes with the rhythm of my writing day. Have to be able to roll out of bed and start, but I will be up super early to make that appointment. Then on Thursday, I’m having a lump removed. Nothing wierd or dangerous, just something that’s causing my shoulder to hurt. So Monday and Thursday are pretty much hosed. I’ll be looking for sprinting company to keep my butt in the chair all the other days.

This week will also see the release of the print anthology Captive Souls, which includes my story Stone’s Embrace. So be looking for it!