Little Ramblings

First off, I was up waaaay too late writing last night and I'm a little muzzy this morning. Today I woke up with a little ADD vibe going on since I couldn't seem to latch on to a single thought and hold onto it for awhile. Some days are like that so if you'll pardon me, I'm going to blog about several different things.

Spring- Normally I get my best ideas when I sit out in my backyard. That doesn't happen much in the winter months. We don't have extremelly cold temps in Texas during wintertime but it is NOT pretty here in January. No fluffy white stuff to look at. Seems it's just a bunch of skeletal, leafless trees and dry crackly leaves laying willy nilly on the ground. Dusty here too because we've had no rain in West Texas for longer than I can recall. So yesterday I found myself longing for spring. Kinda figure we're all in the same boat on that one. So I headed out to run some errands yesterday and stumbled across this beautiful nail polish. It was a soft, soft pink. Impulsively, I picked it up thinking it reminded me of spring. Now my fingernails are the color of Easter Eggs. Doesn't quite work with the winter wardrobe but I keep looking at them and smiling. So that works for me!

Tweaking & Writing- Since turning Lover's Moon (book one of a new shifter series) in to my Ellora's Cave editor, I've been a bundle of nerves. That never, ever ends for me. Since I don't like feeling jittery (despite my addiction to coffee...lol) I started a new book. Didn't quite know what I was going to tackle next so I headed into my docs looking for "starts". Most writers have them. They are the beginnings of stories that are eventually abandoned like orphans on our computers when another idea tugs more strongly. Oddly enough, I found three book beginnings that were soooo similar that I couldn't help noticing. All Texas-set, small town stories with a touch of humor. So I have culled these three stories out of the mix, made some adjustments and will make them a series about three Texas brothers who re-connect with a woman from the past. As of now, I'm halfway through Return to Delight (as in Delight, Texas). All it took was a little tweaking here, a little name-changing there and voila! I've been flying on this novella but yesterday was weird. The current scene just wasn't flowing as I wanted. I'd written three or four pages when I decided maybe I needed to just re-write the whole damn thing in the heroine's point of view, rather than in the heros. I tweaked, I adjusted, I played with it. In the end, I stepped away, read it again later and kept everything as I'd originally written it. What was really fun though was realizing that all that tweaking helped make things better.

What did I learn? Step back. Give things an hour or so before doing something major. I spent most of the day thinking "I SUCK" but the feeling passed and I ended up writing until late in the night. I love my life!



Promotion- We talk about promotion a lot here. I tend to be really cautious about stepping into something new. I like to schedule chats (always with other authors) and I employ a promotion company to chat up my newest releases. I blog here and at my Regina blog on a regular basis. I attend conventions, have contests, network with other writers and chat with readers. Those are all good things. I've been wanting to do a newsletter for awhile now figuring it is another fun way to connect with readers and keep folks informed about upcoming stuff. Finally, I'm doing it. Natalie Dae, Tess MacKall, and I joined forceds and we have a brand new newsletter that will make an appearance around the first of the month. We'll offer contests and tell you what we're up to. Signing up for the Risque is easy. Just click the banner!