If you love audio books or snippets, the BDSM group on GoodReads has a sultry audio snippet of The Billionaire Submissive available by the sexy-voiced Sirly Eric!
Then stop by the interview with La Crimson Femme for a chance to win three e-copies any format.
It’s been a long couple of weeks but we survived!
The closing came down to the wire thanks to rain and a few minor issues with the final inspection (our town requires two trees in the yard and the builder had only planted one. No joke!). We packed up the other house and landed here with the movers before we could get into the house. Nothing worse than paying guys by the hour and watching them sit in their truck, unable to do anything.
But finally we got permission to unload into the garage, and then the inspector finished up and we started hauling into the house. I was hoping to have the POD delivered early and have most of that done first, but that didn’t happen either. We left for the closing and the POD still hadn’t showed up yet. Bad news, because That Man is physically unable to do that much hard labor to unload it ourselves and our movers were gone.
We signed paperwork enough to kill a few thousand trees and returned home to find that Papa and the girls had unloaded the entire POD into the garage. I was dumbfounded!!
We returned to work on Tuesday, which was hard because I still didn’t have the house put together yet My office is a shambles but I knew where my work equipment was enough to work. I still have a ton of work to do in there and I need to rearrange a few things. I have a cheap bookcase I’ll probably have to relocate. I just don’t seem to have room. This office is bigger than my other, but I have a window to work around and that changes the configuration just enough that I’m not sure where to put things yet.
With the three-day weekend, That Man put together Middle’s basketball goal (that was a seven hour job) and then organized the garage enough to get the van in. I still have a ton to unpack out there, but most of it is stuff we don’t really need but also couldn’t part with.
Today, I finally finished the kitchen. It was quite the challenge. I have more cabinet and counter space here than the other house, but I lost a HUGE pantry. (I had two at the other house.) I do have a pantry here but losing that big walk-in pantry really hurt. I love to cook and eat whole foods, so I have a ton of stuff. Five gallon buckets of wheat. Masa. Oats. Buckwheat groats. The list goes on and on. I finally moved in a smaller pantry cabinet we bought years ago (I’d planned to leave it in the garage) and that helped.
We also have a large walk-in closet in the master, so I plan to shift a few things in there that I don’t use very often. My crockpot is in the coat closet on the shelf for now. I’ll figure it out eventually.
I spent a lot of time thinking about how I use things, what goes together when I make bread or bake or cook dinner. Hopefully things are organized enough that I won’t lose my mind when I start cooking dinner.
For That Man’s birthday we also replaced his rusted out grill, so now we can start shifting some of the cooking outside this summer.
Tomorrow: steak on the grill!
Writing update: I haven’t accomplished much with the move, but I did do something stupid. Raise your hand if you’re surprised? As you know, I love a good challenge. I saw the Historical Heroes Writing Contest and Jeannie Lin’s post encouraging POC characters, and yeah. I wrote something completely out of left field for me. I don’t typically write straight historical (I much prefer fantasy or steampunk where I can tweak history to suit my needs) but Dante Silent Crow walked in and took over. He’s half black, half Apache, and his heroine is in serious need of his protection as a gunman. I had fun with it. We’ll see how it goes and if nothing happens with the contest, maybe I’ll write it for fun.
Okay, that’s a really long post but I think I’ve updated on the most important things. Do help an author out and maybe post a review of The Billionaire Submissive if you can? I’d appreciate it!
The Billionaire Submissive kicks off my brand new contemporary BDSM series, Billionaires in Bondage. To celebrate, I’m giving away a $50 gift certificate to any online bookstore(s) (multiple okay). To enter, just comment on this blog post as many times as you want. If you post a review online anywhere, please share the link in comments!
This giveaway will stay open until Sunday, June 22. That will give several days to enter – but also let me pick a winner before the last frantic week before we move!
It’s finally time to kick Lilly and Donovan out into the world and share their story! Read Chapter One and sign up for my newsletter to read Chapter Two. As reviews come in, I’ll be sure to post some snippets. If you have one to share, please send me the link!
I’ll post a giveaway in a separate post later today!
Thank you to everyone who picks up a copy! I hope you enjoy it!
Less than two weeks until the big move date! Cue panic!
Today, we loaded everything I’ve packed so far into the POD, along with the kids’ loveseat that will go in the basement. I’m going to have to go through another pile of stuff I thought was organized but the kids dumped more stuff on top of it. From now on out, each box will get taken out directly instead of lingering inside. It’s too easy to get buried, moved, etc.
I also helped Littlest clean her room today and oh dear Lord it was a nightmare. Every time she “cleaned” her room by herself, she just shoved stuff under her bed or worse, in her closet. So we dragged out tub after tub, filled with everything from crayons to dirty clothes to trash to stuffed animals and everything in between.
The worst, though: doll hair.
Evidently Littlest is a budding hair stylist and has worked on every Barbie and doll she has. Unfortunately, she never threw the hair away – she just hid it in her closet. It was actually quite creepy! (At least she didn’t take doll heads!)
We went through every drawer, every item of clothing, every toy. I have a stack of stuff to donate and several more bags of trash as a result. And her room is packed! She just has the stuff on her bed remaining.
Only two more kids to go….
*dies*
There’s a post or two going around via Twitter where some female authors are saying they write MM because they don’t like to write bitchy heroines. Or they wrote a “difficult” heroine and it didn’t go over well so they changed genres to write only men. It’s okay to have a man curse, but not a woman.
Uhhhh….. (Nobody tell Lilly in The Billionaire Submissive that she’s not allowed to curse!)
That leaves me scratching my head going “HUH?”
Ignore the fact that I’ve read many “bitchy” or “difficult” heroines that I enjoyed a great deal. Or heroines who are “sluts” – I love Lex in the Beyond series, and I hear the authors get a ton of hate mail about her. I don’t LIKE doormat heroines, passive aggressive heroines, or whiny TSTL heroines. Yeah, there are some out there. But there are also tough, kickass heroines that are fabulous. If you don’t like it, don’t read it! But don’t tell me that ALL heroines have to be one kind of thing or people won’t read it!
I don’t write just one thing. I don’t write just contemporary. Or just BDSM. Or just SFF. Why? Because I write PEOPLE. They tell me what kind of story it’s going to be. Oh, I have to set some boundaries as much as possible. If I’m writing contemporary, then I know I won’t have any magic going on…other than in the bedroom. *winks* But in general, I’ve learned NEVER to say that I won’t write XYZ.
Because as soon as I say that…I’ll have a character show up who breaks that rule.
I can’t/won’t say I won’t write MM. (see Cole and Arthur in Her Grace’s Stable.)
I can’t/won’t say I won’t write something without BDSM. (see The Bloodgate Guardian.)
I can’t/won’t say I won’t write POC/non-white characters (unavailable Storms as She Walks or Golden or another project I’m working on). Or FF. Not that I have a story with FF right now… but I won’t say never. One of my dearest friends came out as a lesbian in the past year. Someday I’d love to write a story with her in mind.
Because I write PEOPLE. Whatever that means. The good and the bad, the black and the white and the 50 shades of gray in between. Ugh, okay, maybe not 50 shades. *snort* I guess that means I may not always be able to define my brand, but I have to write the best Story I can the way it unfolds in my mind and heart.
That’s all I can do.
I wrapped up the synopsis, polished nearly 40 pages, and sent Billionaire #2 off to my editor. Yay! I’m hoping to finish it by the end of August, assuming she likes it. The synopsis ended up being quite detailed – much longer than I really care to write (nearly 6K). But as I worked on it, new ideas and layers came to me, so I recorded them. I didn’t want to lose them. I think it came out pretty well. We’ll see.
I’m still drinking green smoothies. My Dad brought me some fresh beet greens to try and I admit they were pretty tasty. Nice and mild. I have a spring mix that is so bitter I can hardly drink it even with a cup of mango and a whole banana in it. (Once I eat the whole tub I won’t use it for smoothies again.) Spinach is really my favorite, but I can do kale too. It’s important to switch greens up to keep from having too many alkaloids build up in my system.
The two youngest monsters are away to church camp the rest of the week. It was a scramble to get them ready (they only decided to go for sure on Sunday). Princess is going to summer school and is already hitting extra band practice. Middle has two basketball camps later this month and they’re planning two trips in June to head to my Dad’s farm (just 3 days each thanks to other activities).
Plus we’re moving by the end of the month one way or the other.
So it’s looking to be a crazy busy summer!
(Her Grace’s Stable Giveaway still open!)
After two years on Weight Watchers, I’ve reached the point where I simply can’t stand the thought of counting another meal. The thought of doing this the rest of my life is depressing. I’ve been off the wagon more than on for most of the year as a result and definitely going the wrong direction.
So I’m switching my thoughts and reframing my goals. I’m concentrating on what to eat, not what I can’t eat. I CAN eat lots of super foods. The more super foods I eat, the better I’ll feel and the less room I’ll have to worry about chips and pizza. I’m not yet back to the place where I can cut most of the junk food out again, but I am working towards limiting it and filling up on the good stuff.
Since I got back from RT, I’ve been concentrating on whole super foods like avocados, cherries, mushrooms, and yes, I even tried sardines. Not my favorite – the little fish bodies give me the heebee jeebies. But I can smash them up with a fork and ALMOST eat them like tuna. I prefer white albacore, which makes it harder to convince myself they are just like tuna, but I’ve not thrown up yet and they’re not horrible. Not my favorite by a long shot, but I’m holding out hope that I can eventually look forward to them. Coughs. We’ll see.
I’ve even started making simple green smoothies each morning. No yogurt, dairy, etc. but just greens, frozen fruit, maybe a banana, and water. I drink a huge one off and on throughout the morning, and then when I’m done, if I’m hungry, I have some scrambled eggs in olive oil. So far so good. I actually like green smoothies more than I expected. (I’ve been putting spinach in my workout smoothies a long time, but mixed with yogurt, protein powder, milk, etc.) The only one that turned out gross was one with kale and cherries. It was a lovely mud color. However it tasted fine – just not aesthetically pleasing.
Starting today, I’m also doing a 30-day ab challenge on Twitter and a 30-day push-up challenge. More small steps to hopefully get me back to some kind of regular exercise. I don’t want to tackle anything too mind-consuming this month since we’ll be moving by the end of June. Hopefully. Assuming they finish the house on time. Or we’ll be homeless! No stress a all. *dies*
Her Grace’s Stable is now available in print on Amazon and following soon other places (official release date is June 3rd). To celebrate, I’m giving away a signed copy, along with a custom make-up-size bag filled with RT swag. I’ll mail these goodies anywhere on the planet. Enter via Rafflecopter below!
I’ve gotten lazy… or lucky… with the last few books. When they were ready, they just dumped out of my head without me having to do a lot of plotting. It was all in my head and I just took dictation. At times I couldn’t type fast enough (and I’ve been clocked at over 120 wpm in my heyday). Remember how fast The Billionaire Submissive roared out of me? 70K in like 40 days and I didn’t have to revise a ton (unlike my original Fast Draft ms which I still haven’t ever done anything with).
However, the downside to this is that sometimes the book had to marinate in my head a long time. Either I was working on it subconsciously (Mama C) for years or I managed to just miraculously tap into the Great Ether of Story (Billionaire). I can’t count on that happening every time and I don’t want to let Billionaire #2 marinate. I want it done, signed sealed and delivered as quickly as possible.
I know how to plot. I just haven’t done it in a while.
So I opened up Scrivener tonight and went through all my various plotting templates I’d started and never really used. I have a Snyder’s Beats template, a Hero’s Journey template, the old original “Block” the Witch first taught me. Some of each technique is here or there or not really useful. And the MOST useful thing that I used to use all the time but haven’t in awhile: The Emotional Toolbox. It’s nowhere in my templates.
Today, I started a Master Plotting template. I’m going to have a folder for each bit of plotting technique I’ve learned that makes sense for me. That way I can copy, paste, delete, move whatever makes sense for each story. Then I also went through the Character Map questions today to refresh my memory and created a cool little graphic/worksheet that will jog my memory.
Before I lumber off to bed tonight, I’m going to take a first stab at running Jackson Montgomery Warring through the Character Map to figure out what’s going on in his head. (If you’re wondering who I’ve cast in this role, take a peek.)
At least I already know the first song in the playlist: Willie Nelson’s Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.
And yeah, Jackson is the Angel who crashed and burned.
