I'm over at Sweet'n'Sexy Divas today talking about my recent experience at the RWA conference last month and how it is shifting my goals. Stop by to find out exactly what changes I've decided to make, in order to reach these new goals and force myself further out onto the ledge.

http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-vote-against-isolationism.html

Its official. My novella Ménage on the Rocks has been contracted by Totally Bound Publishing. It will be published as part of the Three's a Charm anthology. Here are the release dates.

​Three’s a Charm anthology:
Preorder: 16th May
Early Download: 30th May
General Release: 27th June
 
Ménage on the Rocks:
Preorder: 25th July
Early Download: 8th August
General Release: 5th September

​I'm so ecstatic. As many of you know the last few years have been tough for me writing. Its fantastic to feel like I'm moving forward and to be accepted into this anthology is even more exciting. I hope this is just the first of many announcements here of releases to come. Wish me well!

I'm over at sweet'n'sexy divas talking about my newest productivity tool...rewarding myself. For the last month I've been getting back on the writing band wagon, and I've been doing pretty well thanks to my new reward myself plan. Drop by the blog to find out more.

​​http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2017/03/reward-yourself.html

I'm over at Sweet'n'Sexy Divas today talking about my goal for this year. To put myself first. To be selfish, and ask for what I want. Maybe for the first time in my life.

​Stop on by and read how I plan to make this my most selfish year yet. And why I've decided to put myself first. Let me know your new years resolutions, so we can cheer each other on in our goals this year.

​http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-year-of-me.html

I'm over at Sweet'n'Sexy Divas today talking about a new revelation I've had. The ability to move towards your goals in small tiny steps.

​I know this may not seem like a revelation to some people, but for me this is a huge change. I tend to come up with huge goals, sweeping goals, and often these large goals then seem impossible and I can psych myself out of getting very far just do to the shear size of the goal. The idea of going slowly, taking only small bites sizes at a time, is a huge change for me. And I think a really good one for the future.

​If you're anything like me, and tend to want to go big or go home, this might be a great blog for you to read. I certainly hope you'll stop by.

​http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2016/05/making-changes-little-bit-at-time.html

I'm over at Sweet'N'Sexy Divas today talking about my new years resolution, and how my plans are different this year than they have been previously. Stop by to find out just exactly how I plan to make 2016 my most blissful so far.

http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-resolution-for-bliss.html

Today is my day to blog over on Sweet'n'Sexy Divas and I'm talking about what I have accomplished this year. Stop by and let me know what you accomplished this year, so we can congratulate each other.

http://sweetnsexydivas.blogspot.com/2016/01/a-resolution-for-bliss.html

I managed, on November 29th, to complete 50k and win Nanowrimo for another year. Whoo hoo! Even through my plan this year was to try and finish as many stories as possible, almost all the words I wrote went towards the same story, the one I started last month, and its still not done. Finishing the story will be the first priority my December close out plan. 

I'm sure you can notice that I didn't post much this year through the month of November. Most years I like to keep you guys updated on my progress. Sometimes even give you a little excerpt or tease.

But this year I couldn't do that for a copy of reasons. One - I can't post at work like I did other years (stupid increased security), which limited when I can post. But in all truth, that is mostly an excuse. The real truth - and reason two I couldn't post - is that I just barely got the goal done by the skin of my teeth.

Yes I finished a day a head of time, but I was only able to do that by putting in a lot of extra time (the time I could have been blogging), and getting in over ten thousand words in the last four days alone.

For the last six months or more I've been having trouble writing, having trouble focusing the way I used to. If nothing else, I think this nano gave me so great new tips to get more focused, including getting out of the house  and going places (like a starbucks or barnes and noble), breaking up goals into smaller sections, and finding away to put my writing/and myself first.

I'm really hoping to bring all these new lessons and new enthusiasm into December and the new year, and get a few stories done. Starting with my nanowrimo project.

Its late October, which normally for me means Nanowrimo prep. This is the time when I would be finishing up stuff (revising, writing blog posts, cleaning, etc…) and taking a break from writing, to be refresh and ready to go on November 1st.

But so far this year, everything hasn’t been working the way it normally does. So why would I expect Nanowrimo to be any different.

As some of you might have noticed, this year hasn’t been great for me writing wise. I’ve been working through some personal things, including getting a new job, still adjusting to a new place and welcoming a new member into my extended family (a little baby nephew), which has all put a crimp into my writing time and focus.

On top of that I have been having some writing issues too. Mostly, that I’ve been starting series. I have three series now in the works, that have one or two books finished, but I am waiting to submit until the whole series is finished for a couple of reasons (including consistency, publicity, and giving my readers what the want—limited wait time between books), which really slows down my out put, but will cause a big bang next year when they are finally complete and ready for publication.

But regardless of all this I had still planned to participate in Nanowrimo. Its one of my favorite activities all year long, and regardless of everything else going on, I still wanted to part take. I was planning on spending October the way I normally do, revising, focusing on my new stand alone ménage, and then hit November with a bang. This year I’m also staying home for the holidays, which would free up a lot of distraction and time.

Then on October 1st I got into a car accident. I was fine, besides a few bumps and bruises, but my car was not. Emotionally, the accident hit me hard (pun intended) and distracted me even further from my goal of revising my ménage. Not only did I have to deal with the insurance company and finding transportation, I also spent over a week looking for a new car. Not to mention the mental headspace these all took up.

On top of that, the accident spurred in me a need to write about it, to make sense of it and deal with my emotions around the crash in the only way I know how—through a story. So I immediately started writing my heart out on a new book, featuring a heroine that gets in an awful car crash and the man who saves her. So I’ve broken one of my cardinal rules for Nanowrimo. I never write in October, to give my mind time to relax and store up ideas so when the first comes I want to write so bad I stay up for hours just to get the words down. That combined with my need to get some works finished and off to my editor soon, I’m not sure Nanowrimo is the right idea for me this year. I’m certainly not setting myself up for an easy month the way I normally do.

But instead of abandoning the idea of Nanowrimo all together, I’ve decided to amend Nanowrimo this year to suit my own needs.

The point of Nanowrimo is to encourage people who never thought they could write a book to just give it try. To show them that they can write 50k in a month. I’ve definitely proven that. I’ve won Nano for the four times and published eighteen books. As a published author, I need to focus more on finishing books, and getting them to publication, instead of just getting words down on a page. But I still love the spirit and encouragement of Nanowrimo, so this year I’m going to do it my own way. While I will still try to hit the 50k word goal of Nanowrimo, my focus this year will be on finishing works already started. That means no new book for me this year. I currently have over twenty books on my started list, ranging for a thousand words to thirty thousand. I need to get some of these babies completed and out of the house. For my own focus if nothing else.

The rules are simple. I can work on anything that is already started. Even if I just have a few words on the page. If I have a document holding some combination of words, that counts. But that’s the only things I can work on. No exceptions.

With so many ideas in the works, it shouldn’t be hard to find another 50k to fit in. Though I will admit it is harder for me to add words to something already created than to start something new. Especially because a few of these works are a little old and will take some time to dust off the characters and get writing. But that’s the challenge of it.

My focus will not only be to hit the word count goal, but also to complete as many works as possible during this month (giving me even more fodder for my December close out plan). My first focus will be the accident story I’m currently working on, and after that completing one of my series.

While I’m still working through some personal issues, especially the change in job that is supposed to be officially completed this month (Great Timing!) I refuse to let that tamper my Nanowrimo fun. I’m going to make this November productive and enjoyable if it kills me—though I certainly hope it doesn’t.

With only six more days to go, I'm already starting to get a little antsy to get started. While only time will tell how successful this month is, I'm determined to make November my most productive this year either way. I can’t wait to start telling you all how many great stories I’ve finished and you can expect to see on your digital shelves very soon. Wish me luck!

This March I accidentally challenged myself to do something I’ve never done before. To write, revise and polish to submitting in less than one month. To be accurate, in eighteen days.

Why you might ask, would I want to complete this feat. Well, it certainly wasn’t intentional (see the heading ;D). As I’ve mentioned in several previous blogs, I’m really good at getting ideas for submission calls very close to the due date. Well that happened again. I got in idea for an anthology request that was due on March 1st. To complicate the issue further, I promised Owned Forever, the sequel to my Christmas release, Owned for Christmas, to my editor by 1/31. Which gave me only a month to get this new story written and submitted. The shortest timeframe I’ve even had to work in before. But I decided, if I want to be a fulltime writer, I probably have to work in this kind of time frame every month, so I ned dot learn how to do it.

Well, as you might have guessed, my revisions for Owned Forever took longer than I anticipated. I ended up rewriting two whole scenes, delaying when I could start this new story by ten days. But I was determined to try. So I vanished into my writing cave to make this happen.

The good news: I did it (or at least I will). It’s February 27th and I have every confidence I can finish this work in the next two days. I’m through writing and the first revision (which is always the hardest for me). I just have to finish the second revision and one more read through and it will be ready to submit.

The bad news: It’s about 6k larger than the submission call asks for, and on rereading the request I don’t think it really fits what they are asking for.

Not that either of those bits of news are really lemons, but I’m going to make lemonade with them anyway. I’ve decided I’m going to double, or triple, this challenge by turning this story into a series. And I plan to write one book each month for the next few months.

Many of you may know I’m not great at writing series. I love starting them, but then a shiny idea distracts me and it takes me months to get back to it. It took me three years to write all five books of the Naughty Holiday list series, and there was almost a year between the two published Snowedin Fantasy stories (and believe me I have plenty more to write). I haven’t even finished the next book in the Fairytales bound series.

In order to prevent another series full of lag time I’m going to dedicate the next three months to writing this whole series, or at least making a good dent towards it. I’m going to write one book a month, giving each the deadline of the 1st. I know myself well enough that if I try to write them all at once, I won’t end up finishing any of them. Not to mention, revising three works at once (or even one right after another) might send me over the edge.

This weekend I’m going to focus on coming up with outlines for the first three or four books, to make sure they all make sense together, and we’ll see where we go from there.

I’ll keep you guys in the loop as to how I’m doing on this challenge. I really believe if I want to work towards writing fulltime I need to work on producing more better works for all of you out there, and this is a great first step.

I hope you’ll follow me on this journey, and get ready to spend a few nights with the Hot Tamales.