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!
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?
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.
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. 
Yesterday was a pretty good start to Fast Draft; today, not so much.
That Man had to be up at 4:15 yesterday to make a long drive to KS, so I got up too. I made 2K in the morning before work on the new story, which was exactly my goal. Considering I didn’t have any real plotting done yet and only a vague idea of what I wanted to happen, I was pleased.
Over lunch, I read project #1 (first draft finished Sunday) to make sure it didn’t suck, and to my relief, I think it’s a pretty good story. Needs more work, though — I’ve got a few plot things I want to amp up, tie together, etc.
While cooking dinner, I began plotting more on project #2. I wrote out note cards for the scenes I did this morning and roughed out the next few scenes as well. Like Dear Sir, I’m Yours had letters that tied the plot and character together, this story has a little element that I want to start each chapter off with. The heroine is an attorney and has a list of rules that she never breaks, else disaster results. She broke one right before the story opens, and now she’s dealing with the fallout and forced to call on someone who really messes up her careful ordered existence.
The hero, of course. 
Ideally, since this is a Christmas-themed novella, I’d be tickled to end up with 12 rules, and thus 12 chapters to handle those rules, but we’ll see. I wrote up a little backstory for each character, but I’m still missing the characters’ static traits. Since those have to be set early and shown repeatedly, I already know that’s going to be a revision item I need to allow time for. I have the theme and the metaphor for that theme, so that’s good. Just need those crucial static traits.
Of course, I went to bed very early last night to enable another Dark & Early session this morning, but the phone rang off the hook and then I couldn’t sleep. So I’m starting off seriously behind today. Somehow, somewhere, I need to find time to get 2K new words and brainstorm static traits!!
Any little Christmas, dating rules, or attorney jokes you want to share? Pithy little sayings that will be fun for the hero to use against my heroine. Stuff like “Love isn’t worth getting sued over,” or “People lie — the law never does.”
The winner of the $30 gift certificate is: PAULA!
Paula, please e-mail me (joely AT joelysueburkhart DOT com) and let me know where you’d like to get your books, Books On Board, Fictionwise, Drollerie Press, Samhain, etc. and if you’d like one book from my backlist, which one and the format.
Thank you to everyone who participated!
So this week, I’m going to attempt to write a novella. I say attempt because it’s not quite solid in my mind yet. It’s a bit mushy. Or maybe that’s simply my brain, because I wrote over 7K this weekend to finish project #1.
That Man has to be up very early tomorrow for his Evil Day Job, so I plan to get up and see what I can do. I didn’t finish nearly as much pre-work as I hoped. I don’t have the plot outlined. I don’t even have the backstory or character maps done. Sigh. But I can hardly keep my eyes open and it’s only 9 PM.
So it may be rocky to start. I’ve got to try, though. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The winner of the Patti O’Shea 3-pack: Sherri
The winner of the Victoria Dahl books: Cora
Please e-mail me (joely AT joelysueburkhart DOT com) with your snail mail addy and title/format of the book you’d like from my backlist.
Thank you to everyone who participated! The $30 gift certificate is still up for grabs until Sunday.
Happy release day to my friend, Jenna! Sweet Spot is available today from Ellora’s Cave. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet — it’ll be my reward once I get through July’s insane projects. A dentist vs. an erotic candy maker — talk about built-in conflict!
Alice Parker loves sweets and nothing gives her more pleasure than whipping up a sizzling batch of erotic candy. Especially for the bachelorette party her best friend is holding for her daughter. That is, until she meets Edward Larkin. Now all Alice can think about is how to get the hunky orthodontist into bed so she can slowly lick every luscious inch of him.
Edward doesn’t eat sweets and often warns his patients about overindulging. So the last thing he wants to hear is that Alice, the very sexy candy store owner, is providing a huge candy buffet for his niece’s wedding. A wedding he has come to town to stop. One way or another.
Alice is a tempting treat Edward just has to sample—and one taste might never be enough.
