I made a hint a month ago that Valentine Next Door wouldn't be my last foray into holiday stories (I don't know that I'll ever be completely done having some holiday fun). The reason I made that remark was because of this story, that I was revising at that moment.

Today I submitted Owned for Christmas to my publisher.That's right, I was inspired by Christmas again.

Earlier this year I found a submission request for Christmas themed stories. I read it, because it was on the list and why not, but I wasn't going to write another Christmas story again (famous last words, I know). But for whatever reason these characters immediately formed in my mind, and my heart instantly broke for Kate. Trapped between two brothers. Wanting both of them but afraid to jeopardize her relationship with one to reach for the other. She just wouldn't let me go. And neither would Grant (which is fine with me, as long as he keeps the whip away from me).

Here's a rough blurb of the story.

Kate Baker thought she was nervous to meet her boyfriend Daniel Farrell’s family over the holidays before. That is until she walked into the kitchen to find Grant, her former Dom, standing at the counter.

A year ago Grant left her with only a note, shattering her heart and breaking her trust with the whole BDSM scene. Daniel helped her mend her broken heart, and she won’t give him up. Even if she has to bury the submissive part of herself to do it.

Grant Farrell left the woman he loved to come home and tend the
family ranch after his father died. It almost tore his heart out but he had no
other choice. That is, until Kate walked into his family home, on his brother’s
arm.

Kate awakens his every dark and dominate trait. Now more than ever, he’s determined to keep her in his life, even if he has to share her to do it. But half measures won’t be enough anymore. He either needs to own her completely, or give her up to Daniel for good. 

Can he convince Kate to forgive him for the pain he caused and trust him again? Or will he lose her to his brother forever for his past mistakes?

While this story is still Christmas themed, its very different than Naughty List. I think it shows how I've grown and changed as a writer these last four years. And I hope my editor and readers love these characters as much as I do. Only time will tell. My fingers are crossed.

I know it’s late but I wanted to let you all know how my December close out plan ended. Unfortunately I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked. Due to a few factors, including family commitments, a funk and the flu. You know, the three Fs. J

I did manager to fix up and submit a short story, Jack the Bodice Ripper. I spent some of my December time, that I had set aside of new works, editing that story and working with the publisher to get it ready for release in less than a month. A feat impossible with most publishers, which is one of the reasons I love Romance Divine. I announced the release a few weeks ago on this blog, though it was in the middle of my flu ridden haze, so I wasn’t capable of much more. It was definitely time well spent, though it cut into my other plans.

I also revised Valentine Next Door and submitted it to Totally Bound. They accepted it this week. I don’t know yet when it will be released, I’ll let you all know as soon as I have more information, but I’m happy dancing all over the place about this one. I can’t wait to see how people react to Miranda and Jeremy. I know I love them, and I hope other people will too.

I’ve also been working hard to finish Second Chance at a Cheerleader. I’ve added another 5,000 words, putting me well above my original goal for the story. And I still have another 10,000 words or so to finish the book. And the last bit is usually the hardest for me to write. I’m hoping to finish the first draft this month. I have so many great Snowedin Stories I want to tell, but I need to complete this one to move on to the others. Not to mention any of the other stories I running around in my head.

As for New Year resolutions. Unlike some previous years, I’m not going to set any goals for myself as far as numbers. I have way too much going on this year and I don’t know yet what I’ll be capable of handling. But I do want to focus on writing as well as I can and finishing as many works as possible in my limited time. I need to get as many of the characters running through my head down on paper as I can. Not to mention bring more reading material for all you fantastic readers.

Other than that, I just want to keep moving forward. I have a lot to accomplish in 2014 personally, and I want to get better at just taking everything one moment at a time, one task at a time, and one red hot romance at a time.

I just officially validated my novel, and I am a nanowrimo winner. My total word count as of right now is 50343, and I still have a whole day left. I intend to continue and try to get as many as possible for the month of November, but its nice to officially hit my number and know that I have won.

This month has been very productive, even though I didn't write one novel like you're supposed to for nanowrimo. Not only did I get more than 50k of new words, I started and finished one entire story (still untitled, and below titled as Army Menage). Before I was done with the story, I had an idea of two or maybe three other stories that would go with this one in a series. Unlike some of my other series, this one (which I've labeled Protective Patriots) all the stories intersect in a few key spots, so I intend to write them all at the same time, so I can get all the details right, and hopefully they will all be publish around the same time too.

I also managed to write another 12,000 words on a current story Second Chance at a Cheerleader (bringing the total word count over 40k, which is a long work for me). There's still more writing to do on that story, but 12k is good progress for one month, and also this month I figured out some other scenes that need to go into that work to finish the character arc for Lanie, which definitely inches me closer to that finish line.

I'm going to continue to write all I can for the next day, but I also need to start thinking about what I want to spend December on for my December close out plan. Unlike some years, I don't have as many partial projects hanging around, but I definitely want to get something headed to the publishers to start the year off right.

Current Nanowrimo Word Count: 50,343

Second Chance at a Cheerleader - 12,334
Army Menage 1 -25,836 (Completed)
Army Menage 2 - 1,341
Army Menage 3 - 3,729
Home for the Holidays - 7,103

I had an awesome day of writing on Sunday. I finally gave into the shiny new idea that’s been playing with me for some time. It’s a, so far, unnamed ménage of two army rangers, home on leave, and the woman they’ve loved and protected for years. It will probably be short, I’m thinking 20k or maybe 30k, but like all my ideas it’s slowly growing into another series. I have a few other ideas of some hot army rangers, but they may just be their own stories and not a series. I’ll have to write this one and see how it goes.

I stuck to my rules on Sunday, and wrote my first 1800 or so words on an older work in progress, and then moved on to the shiny new idea. Between the two I was able to get 3568 words for the day. And I managed to get in an hour of kickboxing once I meet my goal.

Day four wasn’t as good. Monday’s are hard for me any week, but banging out almost four thousand words the night before didn’t help. I was tired, sore from my work out, and I’d already agreed to spend the day in the field for work, a.k.a. spending the day not at my computer with the opportunity to get a few words down between meetings. 

But I still managed to write 1121 words. Not my full word count goal for the day, but not bad. I did however, have to abandon my rules to get them. A lot of these words are on my new work. But since I wasn’t sure if I could even get a hundred words with how tired I felt, I think getting more than a thousand is worth a little rule breaking.

That’s my favorite part about Nanowrimo, how it pushes you to do more than you think you can. It pushes you to make time, focus and encourages you to put your writing before everything else. I couldn’t do it every month, but I’m happy to do it for one a year.

Total Nanowrimo Word Count:

Second Chance at a Cheerleader – 6364
Army Ménage - 2261

This year, since November 1st fell on a Friday, I wanted to take the day off. To start off Nano strong and get ahead of the word count instead of spending the whole month struggling to catch up. The last two jobs I had (and I believe the only jobs I’ve had since my first year participating in Nano) didn’t afford that. I had certain things I had to do on the first of the month, even if that first fell on a Saturday, and I couldn’t afford to take the day off. But my current job, didn’t have these limitations, so I was all excited to take this day off.

Well, best laid plans didn’t work out. Unfortunately by heat broke last week and I had to take the day off to deal with that, leaving me with not enough vacation to take all the time I wanted. That combined with my boss not being in, I had to cover for her, so it just wasn’t possible. I’m still earning my reputation at this job, so I can’t afford to be as frivolous with my time off as I used to. But maybe next year.

I did stay up until Midnight to start, like I do every year, and managed to get in 441 words before 1am (I had to go to bed then, not only was I too tired to be useful, but I had to get up at 5:30, so I needed to get some sleep). I then managed to write another almost 1400 words at work, bringing my total for day one to 1812 words. Not too bad. I meet the first day goal and exceeded by some. Now I just have to maintain, all though it would be nice to do even better. 

My goal for this Nano is just to get as many words down on the page as possible, towards as many projects as possible. I have so many ideas floating around in my head, waiting to be written but I have a lot of trouble getting the time to write them down. This is my time to push through that block and make some real progress. I want to make this competition work for me, and get as much done as I can. I’ll keep a running tally of what’s going on for each project I work on, so you all can see how much I’m working on the projects you’re looking forward to seeing.

Current Nanowrimo word count:
Second Chance at a Cheerleader (Snowedin Fantasy 2) - 1812

Just before racing off to a trip for the EDJ I finished up and submitted Working for Him. I'm really proud of it, I think its a great story and I love the characters. I definitely hope to find it a home, whether its with this anthology or somewhere else. I'm even thinking Richard and Serena might be making another appoearance with my muse, but I definitely have more brainstorming to do before I can say for sure.

Here's the last paragraph. Hope you like it.

He grabbed her hands in one large fist, pulling them above her head and holding them immovable. His grip was hard enough to give her bruises the next day, yet another set of marks she’d cherish. His other hand wrapped around her neck, holding her firmly where the collar slid across her throat. Yet no panic played across her mind, no worry he might hurt her. Just blissful bone-deep possession and total trust. 

He leaned down, taking her mouth with his own, as he slid into her with one quick push. Pounded deep, he forged their bodies together. And the dam inside her broke, the pleasure spilling out in a tidal wave. She held onto him tight, his own body convulsing against hers as he followed her over. Coming with her, as they always should.

I’ve been quiet for a little while. There just been a lot going on lately, and I haven’t been able to make my way over here.

A part of my silence has just been exhaustion. I put out three releases in the last five months, one of which had the most extensive edits I’ve ever done, and one with the quickest edits I’ve ever done. Between the edits, releases and promotion, I have been just plum tuckered out. I needed some time to rest and recuperate. To get my creative juices going again.

Which is another reason why I’ve been quiet, I’ve been busily writing away. I’m hoping to get a new BDSM book in this month, which is tentatively titled Working for Him. And I’m working towards getting Dirty Work and the next Snowedin Fantasy book, Second Chance at a Cheerleader, in within the next few months. All of these works are either completed or close to completed their first draft. Which means lots of revision time in the near future, far from my favorite writing time. 

But the biggest reason I’ve been so quiet is that I’ve had a major change happen in my non-writing life. I got a new day job that I’m so excited about. For the last year or so my day job has been extremely volatile. I haven’t mentioned much about it to anyone in my writing life, wanting my writing space to stay my safe haven, but over a year ago my boss came to me and told me they didn’t have any space for me. That I was going to be let go in three months. It was devastating to me. This was my first real job, and I’d been there—at this point—almost four years, and they were letting me go just like that.

Well, it didn’t prove to be just like that. My end date was extended by three months, and then another three months, and then another three months. I was given the official end date of the end of the year 2012, and I’d come to accept that, after a very long emotional roller coaster of self-doubt and why mes. But then, again I was extended, this time by six months. It was starting to feel like I was on a very shaky ride that I wasn’t getting off unless I took the steps to do it myself.

Then miracle of miracles, after over a year of looking and just after my five year anniversary with my current job, I found a new day job. A great new opportunity that has growth potential and more opportunities for me than my previous day job. 

While my end goal is to write fulltime, right now I just don’t have the sales to support myself. But this new job will give me the ability and opportunities to take care of my bills, without some of the headaches of my previous job, like long hours and travel. I really think this is a great step for me. And it will free up a ton of time that I’ve spent for the last fifteen months looking for a new job, and the emotional energy this upheaval has caused. Hopefully I can put all that energy and time back into my writing, and push myself that one step closer to writing fulltime.

 But as a result the last few weeks have been a little chaotic, training someone on my old job and getting ready for my new one. And the next few weeks will probably be a little chaotic too. Getting used to the new job, and into a new routine, I’m really shaky at that. I haven’t had to start over in five years, and I can’t even remember what it’s like to not know the dos and don’ts of the office.  So you’ll have to bear with me a little bit, while I work through this change and figure out how to manage everything. But I think, in the end, it’s going to be a great change for me and my writing. My old day job certainly inspired a few of my stories, a few I haven’t even gotten around to writing yet, and hopefully my new job will offer just as much creative fodder.

But until then, here are the first few paragraphs of my BDSM short novella, Working for Him. Hope it keeps your appetite whet for a few more weeks until I have more juicy news for you.

***This snippet is a first draft and subject to change and revisions***          

Larry continued, filling in the awkward gap. “I was just telling Ms. Carter, since we’re in Vegas, she had to at least play a few slots. She should have a little bit of fun.”
 
Mr. Barrett shifted his gaze to her, and heart picked up speed. There was something about this man, something about the power or the determination in his eyes that always called to a very deep part of her, a part she kept hidden from the rest of the world. The submissive part of her.
 
Pinned beneath his laser stare, unable to hide any of herself from him, Serena shifted uncomfortably. Her stomach fluttered and she pressed her thighs together in the hopes of keeping the throb between her legs at bay. The hum that had her panties wet and the impulse to press her face into his chest and breathe in his deep male smell sounding like a great idea, even in front of the entire company.
 
“What do you think Ms. Carter? Are you inclined to play the slots?”
 
She looked up at him, blinking through her lashes. “No, Mr. Barrett.  That’s not the kind of play I enjoy.” 
 
His eyes darkened just a bit at the breathy quality of her voice, exactly the reaction she’d been aiming for. His hand slid along the bar next to her, until his fingers bumped against hers. Just the briefest touch, but it still set her heart bounding and pussy dripping. She knew all too well what amazing things he could do with those big hands. How rough and how gentle he could be, all at the same time.
 
His fingers moved back, leaving behind a plastic key card. His room key. She reached out, quickly enveloping the flat plastic beneath her shaking fingers. Her entire body heated as she touched the key. It had been
another long year, a year of waiting, of dreaming, and now it was finally here. 

She’d once again be in his bed, beneath those firm hands.
 
She cast her eyes up to meet his. His dark gaze was focused on her, pinning her beneath his stare. She gripped the bar for support, her ears buzzing and her stomach knotting. But there was no where she’d rather be. She could drown in those dark eyes, be taken over, conquered by him, and never complain for a second. 
 
The corner of his mouth turned up, a motion so small anyone not focused on him would never have seen it. He knew what hold he had over her. And
he liked it.

I’m back at the Evil Day Job again, and that means my December Close Out plan is over. Just like every year I don’t feel like I did nearly enough, this break slipped by even faster than last years. But I did complete the major items on my wish list. I finished the first draft of Dirty Work and revised, and with only a few hours left in the year, I submitted Reunion Makes Three.  I’ll keep you in the loop when it gets picked up and when it will be out.

Not a bad amount of work for two weeks, but I always feel like I could do more. I always wish I could write more, faster, better. I don’t know that I’ll ever get over that. If I do it will probably be the end of my writing career :)

When I look back on 2012 I feel the same way. I feel like I could have done more, but I’m proud of what I did do. I had six releases this year, if you count my self-publish work and free read (which followed essentially the same process as any other work I’ve released). And I have two more under contract, Wandering Off the Path which goes on preorder next week (January 7th to be exact), and Jack the Bodice Ripper that should be releasing soon.

Also this year I’ve done a lot to learn about my writing. I took a dip into self-publishing. I attended The Romance Convention and learned a lot about the industry, some great tips on writing and meet some awesome people. I plan to use everything I've gathered from these experiences in the year ahead to improve my writing and be more effective with my time.

Unfortunately I didn’t make my reading goal this year, which makes me a little sad (I hate not meeting any goal, even if it’s one I’ve set myself). But according to my goodreads statistics I did real more pages than I did last year. When I look over some of the books I’ve read this year, it makes sense. I did read a lot more novels than novellas, especially from my fellow Siren sisters. So maybe it all evens out in the end. But with all I had going on this year something had to give, and apparently it was reading.

And not completing Nanowrimo, while understandable, still bothers me a little. Its rare for me not to complete that goal, though I have yet to sell an Nanowrimo work (though Wandering was a Maynowrimo project).

All in All 2012 was a pretty good year for my writing, despite the craziness and distraction of my everyday life, and I think I’m set up for an even better 2013.

It’s been a crazy few days with the holidays, and I’m finally getting back to my close out plan. I had intended to be back to writing right after Christmas, but my brother’s fiancée asked me to be a bridesmaid in their wedding and we spent the day after Christmas shopping for bridesmaid dresses. What a place to people watch! It was a hoot. I might have to spend more time there just to get some good story ideas :D

The good news is before Christmas I finished up the first draft of Dirty Work. It definitely needs some revising, but I have a good start. It will definitely be towards the top of my list to complete in the beginning of 2013.

I’ve started making progress on my revisions of Reunion Makes Three. It’s not nearly as much work as I thought it was going to be. When I pulled up the document it was 1500 words closer to my goal than I thought I was. I’ve added almost one thousand since then, and I’m only a third of the way through. I should have no problem adding the words needed to submit this work.

I’m not sure if I will be able to get to some of my other goals, like the graphics I wanted to create and the work I wanted to do on my end of the world ménage. But If I think a submitted work and a completed first draft is still a pretty good accomplishment for two weeks.

I've been working like crazy for the last couple of weeks on a few projects I hope you'll be excited about. Its going to be a crazy end of October, Nano might feel like a vacation after all this, but I'm really excited to share these works with you all.

First of all, Foolish Desire finished up its final round of edits. It should be available for preorder sometime next week, and officially released on November 1st. I've updated all the pages, so if you'd like a sneak peak  excerpt (not even up on Siren's page yet) stroll on over there and take a
look.

Also, I've been working on a fun little free read for you guys, entitled Birthday List. I had this idea for a while, since I first wrote Naughty List, and I finally got around to writing it. The story is of Eric's turn to get some naughty fun. In this short tale, Eric gives Callie a list of his birthday wishes, that she's happy to gift, though he has a much bigger surprise in store for her. The story revolves solely Callie and Eric, but I hope it will get everyone excited about all the books in the series, and gives a glimpse as to what will be the main focus of Giselle's story (**hint hint**). I'm currently waiting for some cover art and edits to publish it, but hope to have those up and going soon.

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite, literally-- 

*excerpt subject to editing*

"Babe, you didn't have to do anything special for my birthday--" 

The words died on his lips as he turned the corner. His breath froze in his
lungs. Callie lay across the table, completely naked, besides the array of foods she’d spread across her body. 

Her hands were bound together with red licorice. Though he doubted the candy could keep her contained, with one good bite she’d be free, but the
sight still made him moan and his gut clenched. His little red hellion loved to
be tied up, bound and withering beneath him. That he was the only one to rope her so, only made him crazier. Clenched between her tied hands, she held a dark bottle of beer. 

Onion rings encircled her breasts, her nipples a slightly darker shade than usual. The waft of barbeque sauce filled the room, though he couldn’t tell where the scent was coming from. Pretzels marched down her body, starting between her breasts, across her stomach, to the junction of her legs. He groaned as his eyes travelled down her nakedness. Resting between her legs, right across her pussy, lay a decorated birthday cake, complete with candles. Though, they were unlit. 

"Happy Birthday, honey." She whispered in a deep breathy voice that
would give Marilyn Monroe a run for her money. 

And lastly, I'm diving into my first ever self published work this month. Its a short story, entitled What Happens in the Booth. Its a fun little sexy tale which I'm really having fun with. I hope to have it out soon, and I'll keep you guys in the loop with my progress, but I plan to move fast. The story is somewhat seasonal (that's the only hint I'll give you) and I want to make sure to get it up in time.

So as you can see I've been very busy, hopefully bringing you a lot of great stories for your enjoyment. I'll be keeping you all updated as these project unfold.