Dear Sir, I’m Yours is up for Best Book of the Week at the Long and Short of It! Vote here.
Year: 2009
Another Dear Sir, I’m Yours Review!
I’ve met so many awesome people on Twitter. Through Pearl, I’ve connected with several terrific readers associated with Realms on Our Bookshelves. Pearl gave a wonderful, thorough review of Dear Sir, I’m Yours:
The way Joely Sue Burkhart build up the story and characters with their struggles, angst and insecurities did not take away from the intensity or hotness of the love scenes. They were spine tingling and arousing. For me it was erotic romance as it is suppose to be: classy, erotic and emotionally intense.
With DEAR SIR, I’M YOURS, a story of love, sexual discovery and most importantly trust, Joely Sue Burkhart has put herself on my reading map and I am ready for the next story that comes out of her pen (or keyboard).
Read her entire review here. Thank you so much, Pearl! I don’t know that Mason will get his own book — right now, I’m concentrating on Conn’s older brother, Victor, but who knows!
More Dear Sir, I’m Yours Reviews
First, the good, from the Long and Short of It, 4.5 Cherries:
Dear Sir, I’m Yours is a revisit to the sweetness of first love, carnal discovery, and a delicious taste of erotic dom games as Con[n] teaches Rae how to trust enough to let herself fall in love (with him of course).
This is a great story to curl up and enjoy. I will recommend Dear Sir, I’m Yours, to my friends and am looking forward to reading the next book that Ms. Burkhart writes.
Read the entire review here. Thank you, Zinnia!
Now, the bad and ugly rolled up into one from Joan/SarahF at Dear Author. I wasn’t going to post a link to it, but everybody’s probably already read it anyway.
I had a lot of professors in college. Some of them lectured: e.g. at the board, back to the classroom, writing on the board and never interacting with their students. They didn’t care whether the students sank or swam. On the other hand, I also had some wonderful professors who managed to lecture–and TEACH at the same time. So my use of teach was deliberate to help show what kind of professor Conn really is.
And hey, he only quotes Shakespeare once through the whole book, and Shelley, Byron, and Blake dozens of times. Hell, even I can quote Shakespeare and I was only an English minor. I was only a math grad student, but even though my speciality was Applied Math, I could and did teach Trig, Calc I, Calc II, and Calc III. I should have also been able to solve a differential equation, or my professors would have kicked me out of Geek Hall. So I think it’s safe to say that Conn could probably quote a little Shakespeare.
Anyway, here’s the best part of the review:
“…you made a blowjob incredibly hot. Conn’s “ultimate act of domination,” “his trigger,” is having Rae give him a blowjob, and when she finally does it, it is, indeed, incredibly hot. In fact, the sex is pretty amazing the whole time.”
Thank you, Joah/SarahF, and I’m sorry the book didn’t work better for you.
Bad Blogger
I know, I’ve not been updating very faithfully here. There’s just not a lot to say. I’m editing/revising a short-ish story (just over 17K) and hope to get it turned in this weekend. Yeah, my opening sucks. Doesn’t it always? Still putzing with it. I’ll post a small excerpt later this weekend once I get everything worked out.
My main laptop is in the shop, so I’m chained to the Mac desktop, when I can fight the monsters off with a big stick.
I’m in full promo mode for The Rose of Shanhasson. I may even have an EVENT! We’re working on nailing down the date now. I need to create a new bookmark template this month and order at least 5K to participate in the RT mailing. Yeah, I never thought I’d order 5K of anything except words.
My Beloved Sister came up yesterday so I took the afternoon off from the Evil Day Job. We watched Hellboy 2 (fun movie), talked writing, as usual, but mostly tinkered around with her domain she purchased a few months ago. I might work on websites for the EDJ but I don’t mess with the actual server level stuff much. She taxed me to my limits! We finally called on Deena for assistance, and it turns out she didn’t have the right hosting package to run WordPress on her domain anyway.
And she brought me PB cookies! Yum. Think I’ll have one for breakfast.
Monsters Strike Again
The laptop is in the shop.
Okay, I can’t know for sure that the monsters are to blame, but since they’re the ones who’ve been using the laptop the most to play Webkinz, I’m pretty sure they contributed–significantly–to the problem. Once again, I’m having prong issues. Not as bad as Toshiba #1–when the prong broke off completely, and yes, that was totally all me–but there’s something goofy with the connection and it won’t recognize that it’s plugged in unless I jiggle the cord and hold the beast exactly in the right position.
I’ve seen Middle Monster trip on the cord a few times, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
So I’m working on George the Mac and the monsters are computerless. Since they’ve done enough chores to earn a new Webkinz (they’re supposed to arrive today), I suppose I ought to unpack their old boat-anchor desktop after work tonight. It’s as slow as Princess Monster getting out of bed in the morning, but it’ll be better than nothing.
And yes, all writing WIPs (work in progress) were backed up and nothing will be lost. (I e-mail my work to myself daily, so I have it in two different external sites.)
The monsters, on the other hand, might die if they can’t play Webkinz!
Dear Sir, I’m Yours Review
From Fallen Angel Reviews, 5 Angels:
…this book is a testament to the writing skill of its author. Joely Sue Burkhart takes us deep into the psyches of two people whose relationship is defined by elements of submission and dominance. Fans of character-driven BDSM books will find plenty to like about Ms. Burkhart’s novel.
Read the entire review here. Thank you, Jazlyn!
Bloody 13
I grew up by a highway we called “Bloody 13” because of the many accidents. My Mom worried about us kids driving back and forth on the highway all the time, and for good reason. Highway 13 is the main road from Kansas City south to Springfield and Branson. Back in the good old days, it was single lane most of the way — although now it’s a nice four lane.
One time in high school I was taking a friend home after school in my trusty blue (heap of junk) Firebird that I’d proudly bought myself. I was sitting in my lane on Highway 13 waiting to make a left-hand turn through traffic. Finally I saw a break — a semi truck was at the top of the hill, but I had plenty of time. I gunned my car.
It died.
Yes, in the middle of Bloody 13 with a semi-truck barrelling down the road at me, my car died. With my friend screaming, I slammed the gear back into park, started the car, and frantically got off the road, then we collapsed on each other in tears, relieved that we’d escaped. Definitely the worst driving experience of my teen years, although the time a semi-truck ran me off in the grass the first time I drove in Kansas City traffic is a close second.
I realized that this month has been my Bloody 13 as far as writing, too. Usually my trusty old writing car goes and goes. It doesn’t need much maintenance. The paint job might be kind of crappy, but as long as it gets me there, I don’t care much. However, I sat down to write a novella this month, and my writing car died in the middle of Bloody 13. I gave it gas, and it croaked. There wasn’t anything there.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t blocked. I had the idea, the characters, and the plot. I just couldn’t gun the engine to get the words. The poor old car just choked and spluttered. The more I floored it, the harder it choked, until it simply died with the semi-truck deadline zooming down at me. I could write, and did, but each word was like pulling teeth. The magic was gone. My normal “spark” just wasn’t there.
Luckily this project was not under contract — else I would have killed myself to finish it on time. Since it wasn’t contracted, I had to make a tough decision. I had to actually give my old writing car a break and a tune up. I had to give myself a break.
Looking back, I can identify numerous reasons for malfunction. I had a huge project at the Evil Day Job that was stressing me out. The monsters are out of school so our schedule is completely out of whack. I always feel a significant slow down in the summer months. For whatever reason, July and August are historically low production months for me. I knew that, but thought a challenge would help me beat those dog days.
Plus, we just moved! Every single time I go to cook something in the kitchen, I still have to go searching through the cabinets to find what I’m looking for. We only got the car in the garage this past weekend, and none of my books are unpacked yet.
I’m feeling a bit better. I’m doing more creative work to refill the well. This weekend, I’ll sit down with my calendars and decide what I want to work on in August.
Have you ever had your writing car die in the middle of Bloody 13? If so, what’d you do to get that engine started again?
Cross-Stitch Monsters
Since I’ve been struggling to focus on the writing front, I thought a creative break might help. We worked on organizing/unpacking more things out of the garage (so we could finally get the van inside!) and I found two huge containers of cross-stitch supplies. Suddenly I found myself very much interested in working on something. This is huge — I haven’t started a NEW project since we moved from MN about nine years ago (although I did finish several WIPs).
The monsters saw me dragging out all these intriguing materials, threads, beads, and twenty+ years of patterns, and all the sudden they all wanted lessons. It’s been hilarious, frustrating, and sweet watching them learn to varying degrees.
Princess Monster doesn’t have the patience to sit and read a pattern. She’d much rather create her own. She can work pretty much independently. Littlest Monster wants to try making varying stitches all over her material. I didn’t try to get her to stay in the holes or follow any sort of pattern–she just had fun picking colors.
Middle Monster shocked me. She picked out a pretty complicated pattern for a seven-year-old beginner (Gloria & Pat’s Endangered Young’uns–she’s making the cougars). She sat with me all evening making tiny little squares and learning how to follow the pattern. She stopped only because she said was starting to get a headache (and Mom needs to go to bed). She can’t read a pattern all by herself yet, but it won’t be long in coming.
I’ll post a picture of PM’s own designed piece once she finishes it. For now, here’s Middle Monster proudly showing off her work, and then a picture of my short wip. My pattern is a freebie from Ink Circles (my new favorite designer) stitched on black Aida with DMC 115 varigated red.
Fast Draft Fail
So fast draft hasn’t been so fast.
Usually a personal and difficult challenge does the trick for me, but this time, I just can’t get my motivation in gear. It’s like I’m stuck in neutral. I have a lot on my plate at the Evil Day Job, and still can’t park in the garage because of the stuff I haven’t unpacked. All my brain cells are depleted by the time I get my Word file open. Dark & Early has been a bust — I’m just zonked in the morning.
On the bright side, I have my “twelve rules” figured out for the most part. I need one more “big bang” rule that ties everything together, and a few more characterization details that I hope will come out in fleshing the draft. Even if I can finish a first draft by July 31st, I’m not going to get it edited and polished. I’ll just see what I can do. Worst case, I may have a nice story to give away on the website this Christmas. 