Friday 31 October 2008

Friday's Five Things That... I've done for Nanowrimo

Happy Halloween Everyone!
Pumpkin


Tomorrow it will be November and it will be the fifth November I spend doing Nanowrimo.
For anyone who's not familiar with it, Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It challenges you to write a 50,000 word novel during November. The idea is, it forces you to write quickly, switch off your internal editor and get a first draft down on paper.
Here's how it's gone for me so far.

Skeleton1. On The Eighth Day - 2004. This was a high fantasy novel. I wrote the 50,000 during November, but the story was nowhere near finished. In fact, looking back, I'm not even sure the story really got started! At the end of November I set it aside to work on at a later date. I intended to finish it one day (I still do) but it hasn't happened yet.

Werewolf2. The Red Flag - 2005. Another attempt at high fantasy. Only, in this one something interesting happened. Two of the main characters came to life. Degnal and Mafori - a former sergant in the kings army turned guide across the inhospitable regions of the country and Mafori a former potcher who was caught and branded a slave for her crimes. He buys her in a slave auction because he the only way to cross certain borders is to make an offering to the inhabitants of certain countries. This one went the same way as the last. I wrote the 50,000 in November and then set it aside. It will be finished one day, and you can garantee that Dengal and Mafori will live happily ever after in whatever ending I finally manage to write.

Costume3. Alpha - 2006. This was the first Nanowrimo story I finished. It took my until January 2007, but I did finish it. I did 80,000 in the November. The finally story was 212,500 words. It was the first male/male story I wrote, the first erotic romance story I wrote and the first real BDSM story I wrote.
All in all a huge turning point for me. I haven't really looked back since. I haven't started editing this story yet, but it (in a much shortened form) is going to be part of a series I'm hoping to write in the reasonably near future.

Vampire4. Falling Angel - 2007. After spending the previous twelve months writing male/male. This was my first real go at writing a novel length male/female erotic romance story. I wrote 100,000 words in November and finished the story with 112,500 in the December. This is another of the storys in my to be edited pile. Hopefully I will get to it at some point in the near future.

Trick O’Treater5. A Model Submissive - 2008. This year I'm going for another male/male story. It's BDSM (like pretty much everything I write). I'm aiming for a 50,000 word finished story during November - if I manage it, it will be the first time I've actaully finished by November novel in November.
My screen name for the Nanowrimo website is Pheonix Jones. You can see how I'm getting on here.

See you then.

One bit of other news before I go...

I finished Between Tooth and Paw tonight - just in time to start my Nano Novel tomorrow :D

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Wondering about... deadlines

Very short post because it's almost midnight and I'm knackered.

I've always liked deadlines. If I just say I want to do something at some point it won't get done. If, on the other hand, I say I'm going to do it by the end of the month, I've got a much better chance.

The Stroke of Twelve went off today - my personal deadline for when I wanted to send one of the possible anthology stories off. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for it.

That also means I've started editing Secret Service ready for my next deadline - November 5th.

I'm also hoping to finish Between Tooth and Paw by the end of the month.

Deadlines are wonderful things when they work.

When they don't work they're a bit of a bugger, but over all I'm strongly in favour of them.

What does everyone else think?

Deadlines: love them or hate them?

Monday 27 October 2008

Monday Memo: I'm hitting the hotspot today

Hi everyone :)

I'm not going to say much here today because it's my day on Hitting the hotspot - Total-e-bound's authors blog. You can read my post here. It's called The Kinky Code and it's all about acronyms and abbreviations relating to kink.

My first story has also popped up on TEB's coming soon page. It's called The Gift and you can see the blurb here. Really excited about that.

What else?

Between Tooth and Paw - the paranormal menage I'm drafting at the moment - is coming along well. (Even though I managed to someone lose a whole days worth of writing by pressing the wrong button!)

The editing on The Stroke of Twelve is also progressing. Hoping to send that off to my editor around the middle of the week.

And that's it.

Happy Monday everyone.

Friday 24 October 2008

Friday's Five things that... I love about writing

I had trouble narrowing it down to five, but here's the ones that made the list.

1. The blank screen. Anything could happen. And in my stories it just might, lol. But I love that feeling when you are first starting a story and there are no impossibilities. You can create a whole new world just by pressing a few keys.

2. Being someone else for a while. I like who I am. I like my life. But I can't deny that I like living other peoples lives to. I like to get inside the head of someone I'll never be and see the world through their eyes. And when I've been them for long enough, there is always another character, another life to explore.

It's linked closely to the last one, so it didn't make it's own point. Each new character can change your mind about everything. From things as simple as one character likeing to be called sir, to another one thinking that sort of honerific is a silly affectation. I get to have all the different opinions depending on who I'm writing. I never have to actually make my mind up about the things I haven't decided on for certain.

3. That moment. The one where it all clicks into place. It doesn't mean the story is going to work out. It's often followed by a lot of moments when you think you're writing complete rubbish. But that one moment - when everything is clear, the words are flowing and your typing so fast, you can't think fast enough to keep up - you only know the words when you see them appear on the screen in front of you. Those moment are pure gold.

4. Re-writing the bad bits. Do certain things about the world really annoy you? Do you wish people had the sense to set prejudices aside and just accept individuals for who they are? When you write you can do that - create a world where no one gives a damn about colour or gender or sexual preferences.

On the other end of the scale, you can also write happy endings for the characters who really need them. If a character has been hurt in the past, you can write a way for them to heal. I know that the real world isn't like that, but my world, the one I like my characters to live it, it always gives the good guys a happy ending.

5. Finishing a story. And more often than not, finding out how it ends - I often don't know until I type the last word. Once I finish a story it's out of my head and I can leave it to rest for a while before I go back to edit it. And that makes more room in my head for new stories.

...

Okay, writers out there, what are your favourite things about writing?

...

Other news:

Finished the first draft of The Stroke of Twelve on Wednesday.
Started the first draft of Between Tooth and Paw the same day.
And yesterday I started editing Secret Service.

Busy, busy, busy.

Off to do my writing for the day now.

Have a good weekend people.

Wednesday 22 October 2008

Wondering about... free stories

I've got an idea. It goes something like this...

I'd ask people to send me prompts which could act as starting points for short stories. It could be anything from a photo, to a phrase, or a kink, or a location or anything else.

Everyone who sends a prompt in is then entered into a random draw to win a copy of whatever story I've got coming out that month. (Imagine for a moment that I have something released and on sale at this point, lol.)

Then, every Friday I would pick one prompt from all those sent in and post a story based on it - either on my blog or my website. (Haven't decided which yet.)

It could be called Free Friction Friday, or something like that.

So, what do you think?

Good idea? Bad idea? Doesn't make the slightest amount of sense?

I'm not sure which of the above catagories it fits into either, but it's an idea that's been playing around in the back of my mind for quite a while now, so I might give it a go soon.

...

Other news -

I'm on track to finish the first draft of The Stroke of Twelve (Possible Anthology submission) by the end of the day.

I'm not doing any editing at the moment, because all my energy is going into the writing, but I'll be back editing tomorrow - working on Secret Service (Another possible Anthology submission)

And that's it :)

Monday 20 October 2008

Memo: My coherant Plan

Monday Memo: There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.

I shouldn't have told you I have the whole plan for this year worked out last week. It was an accurate statement at the time of print. That lasted about five minutes after I sent off the blog post.

My publication schedule changed a bit last week. Which means the titles I've had accepted for 2009 will come out more slowly. That means I actually have a bit more time before I need to send the next one in my own series off. That is why I've set The Morning After and All Grown Up aside for a little while.

I'm now throwing myself head first into anthology submissions for the next few weeks.

I started one last Thursday and finished the first draft yesterday. It's called Secret Service. It was a lot of fun to write. Even though the main characters insisted on switching their names around half way through the story. Sheridan wanted to be called Alistair and Alistair wanted to be called Sheridan. In the end I had to let them have their way, just to shut them up. It's a male/male BDSM novella.

I'm starting the next one today. It's called The Stroke of Twelve. It's another male/male BDSM. The characters don't have names yet.

What else do I have to tell you?

Okay, I'm sure this isn't going to be even vaguely exciting news for anyone else, but if you look here you will notice that the coming soon section now runs up to December 1st. My first release, The Gift, is due out on December 8th. That means either next week, or the week after if I'm the third title for that particular Monday, I'll have something listed in the coming soon section.

You have no idea how much that makes me grin :)

Off to get some work done now.

Happy monday everyone :)

Saturday 18 October 2008

Imperial Topaz

Hi everyone,

Imperial Topaz is a m/f BDSM novella. It's also the second in the Collared series. It's due to be released September 28th 2009.

Blurb:

Lucy doesn't have first date sex. That's why Shane is the perfect companion for her first venture onto the BDSM scene. He's a truly objectionable man, who she would never have sex with. Shane's a safe bet. But, if she went to a kinky club with someone like Garrett, all bets would be off. He's the dominant man of all her fantasies. Lucy knows she’d have to be stupid to go to somewhere like the Labyrinth with him. With Garrett anything could happen.

Garrett's watched Lucy for weeks, waiting for the perfect opportunity to show the natural submissive just how much fun submission can be. He knows Shane - and he knows how he treats women. When he overhears her accept a date from Shane, Garrett has no choice but to step in.

There is only one man Lucy’s going to the Labyrinth with and it's not Shane.

Friday 17 October 2008

Five things that... have changed in the last day or so

Okay, since I have a migrane and staring at the computer screen is not a lot of fun at the moment, I'm being lazy about today's five things.

For administration reasons, some of my publication dates have had to be changed. Conveniently for todays list, five of them have changed.

1. Turquoise & Leather – has moved from the 16th of February to the 16th of March

2. You First – has moved from 16th of March to the 26th of April.

3. Silent Night – has moved from 21st of April to the 1st of June.

4. Time To Do – has moved from 25th of May to the 20th of July.

5. Imperial Topaz – has moved from 22nd of June to the 28th of September.

The changes will be reflected on my website as soon as I'm actually able to focus on the screen properly :)

Other news...

A few opportunities have come up and they have quite short deadlines, so I've set aside what I was going to work on for the rest of this month to concentrate on them. I'll tell you more about them on Monday.

Take care everyone and have a nice weekend,

Nos Da.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Wondering about... series

Series...

I seem to have rather a lot of them in my head, and the numbers keeps growing. The number of books I have planned for each series and the number of different series.

A few are more collections rather than true series - Collared and Perfect Timing both fit into this catagory. They are all stand alone stories that are linked by a theme. Other series on my list follow a cast of characters and their ever expanding circle of friends through several books.

Now, Perfect Timing is the nice organised series I have on the go. It's 12 stories. Three have been accepted, another eight have been written and are either being edited or waiting to be editing. And I'm writing the last one right now.

Collared is more free style. I'm hoping to write four stories a year for that series, but I'm purposely keeping myself flexible. The only rules I've given myself are that I want to alternate m/m and f/m stories and keep each one down to novella length if at all possible.

I'm going finish The Morning After, write two more Collared stories, two anthology submissions, and my Nanowrimo stand alone novel during the rest of this year. My time table is set. I have time to get everything I need to finish this year finished this year.

So, what all this planning and plotting boils down to is... I get to pick a new series to start in the new year. I realise that's still close to three months away, but speaking as someone who has been incredibly strict with themself and not given into the temptation to work on any of the shiney new projects in their head for months, and months, and months, this is still a very, very exciting fact.

I have 17 series on my list to choose from on Januray 1st.

But only if I finish everything I need to do over the next few months.

*Goes off to catch up on everythig that should be done by 15th October*

Wonderful the things that give you motivation at the oddest moments, isn't it?

Monday 13 October 2008

Monday Memo: Happy Birthday

Memo:.....



Special birthday wishes and lots and lots of love going out to my mother today, on her special day :)

I've actually not got a lot else to report. I've had a very lazy weekend, followed by an almost equally lazy Monday.

I just really haven't got going.

Part of it is that I'm chwps with cold - we all are not the moment.

But, most of it is just... well, not having a lot of get up and go.

You see, I had this theory. I'd send Imperial Topaz off early so I'd have more time to work on All Grown Up. It needs to be extended from a novella into a novel, which means added about 10,000 words. I'm also planning two sub plots, which I'm hoping to weave into the main story. And I have a few new scenes planned.

Since I want to do all that by the end of the month having an extra week at it would have been a very good thing - that's logical, right?

I sent Imperial Topaz off on the 8th. Almost a week ago. All Grown Up is pretty much the same as I left it when I finished the last re-write of it a few months back.

Well, I will cut myself a bit of slack because I did the edits for the various stories that came back from my editor. That took me until Friday.

I also did the whole website re-jigging thing. That was most of yesterday's writing time gone.

But I don't really feel like I've got anything really done. I haven't got my teeth into anything.

I've done a bit of editing on All Grown Up. The first draft of The Morning After is progressing nicely, but not exactly at break neck speed.

I think that's it really. I'm just ticking over.

So, what am I going to do about that?

If I stop writing at 11pm, I have about two and a half hours working time left for today.

I'm going to attack The Morning After and add as many words as is possible to it.

Right. *Goes off to do that*

But not before one last.....


Sunday 12 October 2008

Whispers Blurb

Whispers is a m/f vampire BDSM novella. It will be included in Total-e-bound's Night of the Senses BDSM anthology. It's due to be released 23rd February 2009. There'll be more info and extracts closer to the release date, in the meantime, here's the blurb:

As soon as Zachariah feeds from Charlotte’s blood, he begins to hear her thoughts whispering into his mind. A rare blood bond forms between them and Zachariah is thrilled. He’s sure the bond and his new insights into Charlotte’s mind will solve all their problems.

Charlotte was ready for her master’s bite to hurt – she was looking forward it. She thought she was ready for anything else too, but she wasn’t ready to let her master into her mind. The bond isn’t the solution to anything. The bond is the problem.

Zachariah has to solve a whole new set of problems if he’s going to prove he’s the master Charlotte’s always wanted, and Charlotte has to learn to do something she’s never done before – trust a master with her mind.

Links

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all having a good weekend.

The closing date for the Night of the Senses BDSM anthology has passed and I'm in it. Whispers will fill the extra sensory slot in the anthology, due out with Total-e-bound on February 23rd 2009, possibly in print as well as e-book format. I'll post a blurb up for it in a seperate post.

I also wanted to mention that you can read Liana's response to my blog post about feminism and submission here. It looks at dominant and submissive personality traits from a different perspective, from the pov of a sci-fi rather than an erotic romance writer.

And I've been fiddling around with my website which you can find here. The blurbs etc are all updated and the whole style of it has changed - really for no other reason than because I have a short attention span and we getting bored with the purple swirly ball I had in the top corner. I also think this one is a bit easier to read from, without the dark background. If you see any major flaws, please do point them out.

That's it.

For once I've managed a reasonably short post :)

Friday 10 October 2008

Five things that... keep turning up in my stories

There are certain things that seem to get stuck in my for no good reason.

Since I've been editing a few different stories over the last week or so, and also reading over a few of the old drafts I want to edit soon, I've noticed a few things that just keep croping up again and again.

Here are the five things that... keep turning up in my stories.

1. Coffee. I don't drink the stuff. Never tried it, never intend to. I don't even like the smell. So it bemuses me why half the characters I write about are addicted to the stuff.

2. Hamilton Street. It's now turned up in a grand total of six completly unrelated stories. Where does the hero live? Hamilton Street. Where is the restaurant the couple are going to have dinner? Hamilton Street. To my knowledge, I've never been to a Hamilton Street in my life. I've been going around cutting it from different stories and replacing it with different street, roads and lane. I think I've only got one reference to it left and that's in You First. Everyone else has just had to find somewhere else to live.

3. Tony. Never the hero, always the side kick. Does the hero have a friend who needs to turn up, say a few lines and disappear again? Do I need to name a bar man? Is there any sort of male minor character anywhere in the story? You can bet the first name I gave him was Tony. Well, I've been killing all of these repeat offenders off too. There is only one Tony now and I've given him a book all to himself. It's called Fast Track and it's part of a series I'm hoping to write next year.

4. Advertising companies. Does anyone in any of my books have to have a non-specific office job? They'll be working in an Advertising company. Now, I've never worked in one. I've never had some heart felt need to do so. I'm happy for my characters to do other things with their lives, but an astonishing number of them demand to work in Advertising.

5. Foods I don't like. I'm a really fussy eater. I don't eat pasta, rice, cheese, cream, curry, pizza, and a million other different foods. But somehow, put my characters in a restaurant and they'll start ordering things I'd never eat in a million years. It's nice to know I'm not projecting my tastes onto them, but really, I wish for once they would just have something I could eat myself.

So, what about everyone else? Do you find your characters do things like that to you too?

.....

Other news:

Silent Night edits went back to my editor yesterday.
Time To Do edits went back to her today.
I also started working on my own edits for All Grown Up ready to submit it at the end of the month. Lots more to do on that.
And The Morning After is starting to turn from a story idea into an actual story.

All is quite right with my little bit of the world at the moment.

Oh, and the cut off date for TEB's BDSM Anthology called Night of the senses was today, so there should be news about that soon :)

And that's it for now.

Take care, all

Nos Da.

Wednesday 8 October 2008

Wondering about... Brynn Paulin's post

The post that got me wondering is here.

Now, since I've read the post I've thought about it quite a bit.

My first reaction was - what's feminism got to do with anything?

And, after a great deal of thought, that's pretty much what I still think.

As a writer who has a lot of stories featureing dominant men and submissive women, I've come across the idea quite a few times before, and this post reminds me what confuses me about the idea a feminist can't be a submissive.

You see, I don't write about characters, male or female, who do what they do because they want to go back to traditional gender roles.

The women who offer a man their submission during the course of one of my stories don't do so because they are women, they do so because they are submissive. Just as in my m/m stories - one character usually ends up playing the submissive to the other man's dominant. I like writing about kinky people - dominance and submission is usually involved.

Sometimes the submission is purely sexual. One person enjoys wear handcuffs - another person enjoys handcuffing their lover - a good time was had by all. Outside the bedroom (althought perhaps I should say outside their sex life because my characters have never liked to limit themselves to specific locations when the urge strikes them) outside that they are as equal as any two people could be.

At other times the submission becomes a lifestyle choice and last 24/7. But again, it's about sex and psychology, it's not about women should be one way or men should be another.

I write female characters who were constructed to do a great many different things. Some have careers outside the home, some don't - just the same as the male characters. Some like to completly give up control, some just like a side order of power play with their orgasms. It's all about what works for an individual characters, not what I think should or does work for all women. I don't find my female characters are not inclind towards certain things because they are female.

I don't think of myself as a feminist, but I do think of myself who thinks gender is largely irrelevant. I like to look at each person as an individual and consider them that way.

I seem to have strayed quite a way from Brynn's original topic, which was all about Alphas after all.

So, are the men in my books Alpha males?

Some are. Sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's one of the problems the characters in the book have to solve.

Some aren't alphas, they are just the men who are a perfect match to their lover. Because being perfect for someone isn't always about the same thing. Some of the men are strong, capable providers. Other characters are better served by having the strength of mind not to care who earns more.

Most of the dominant men are protective and possessive of their lover - but there again so are many of the submissive men and women in my books.

*shrugs*

I suppose for me it can all be explained by the labels I write at the top of a spreadsheet. I don't write male or female, I write dominant or submissive - their gender doesn't really mean a lot to me.

Maybe I'm weird.

Anyway, I'm thining myself around in circles, so I'll leave it there and go on to other news.

No, wait a second. I forgot the classic example. The door. Who should open it?

Well, for me, that's simple - whoever gets to the door first opens it for the other person. Gender aside - it's just good manners not to let the door slam in someone else's face :)

.....

Other news.

Today I had several things on my to do list:

Send Whispers edits back to my editor - Done.
Send You First back to my editor - Done.
Submit Imperial Topaz to my editor - Done.
Attend rather pointless meeting - Done.

All in all a very productive day :)

Although, that said, I haven't actually done any real writing yet - better go and do that now.

Sleep well everyone.

Nos Da.

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Time To Do blurb

This is the third book in the Perfect Timing series. It's a novel length m/m BDSM erotic romance.

Here's the Blurb:

Rigby and Brennan have been best friends forever. Growing up and going away to university didn’t alter that. Brennan coming out of the closet to his straight best friend didn’t change anything either.

But when Brennan finds an old to do list mixed in with his friend’s possessions, and sees have sex with a man written right there at the top, it alters everything. When Brennan realises the man he’s in love with isn’t as straight as he’d always thought he was, their friendship changes beyond all recognition.

When the friends decide it’s time to start ticking off all the items on Rigby’s gay to do list, they soon realise nothing will ever be the same - for either of them.


It's due out on the 25th May 2009, so it will be quite a while yet. But it's my first novel length (For TEB that means over 30,000 words) acceptance so I'm really excited anyway :)

Monday 6 October 2008

Monday Memo: persistance pays off

Note to self: By perseverance the snail reached the ark.

After having a bit of a struggle getting several plots in a row to behave themselves and turn into something like a readable story, I've started to somehow expect every project I tackle to be something of a swine until I beat it over the head with the keyboard for a long time.

The Morning After was a last minute addition to the Perfect Timing line up. I'll be completly honest, when I started writing the first sentence, I had no idea what the second sentence would be. I had a vague idea that I thought might somehow turn into a novella, but to be honest I wasn't optimistic.

After a couple of thousand words, I thought it was going to be the same as the last few, but I kept typing anyway. Because that's what you have to do sometimes, right? You type through the bad bits and keep repeating to yourself over and over again that whatever problems you can see in your first draft aren't anything that can't be fixed during the re-writes.

I'm now 5,500 words into it *touches wood*. The Morning After is actually shaping up quite nicely. The characters are coming together. A plot has taken shape. It's actually enough material between the characters for it to reach a novel length. And, well... yeah. It's actually going quite well.

On the editing side of things, I've re-jigged my plans a little and I've decided to tackle Imperial Topaz before All Grown Up. There's less that needs doing to Topaz and I think *fingers crossed* that it can go off by the end of the week.

Take care alll.

Friday 3 October 2008

Friday's Five things that... I've started books with

By the Hour is dead.

I usually start writing a story and write it straight through to the end no matter what. Even if I know I'm going to have to come back and re-write 90% of it at a later date, something that can be called a first draft gets written before I move onto another project. It takes a lot for me to say there is no way to make a story work. In fact it's only happened twice since I started writing seriously.

By the Hour is the third time. I've tried to start it 7 times, and I finally worked out what the problem is. The characters can't have sex. They are perfectly nice characters, but there is no way people in their situation can get it together (let alone get kinky) without being transformed into characters I don't like. I don't want to write about characters I dislike that much, so I'm not going to.

Now, that story is gone and I've been looking through my files for a story to take it's place at the end of the Perfect Timing line up. I've found one and I started it yesterday. I love it. It's called The Morning After. It's sooooo nice to start something from scratch after spending so long doing re-writes.

My other writing project this month is another completly new story (Yay!). It's going to be the third book in the Collared series, but I still haven't picked which story idea I'm going to write yet.
All this means, I've been looking through my file of first lines quite a bit while I was trying to pick the right story idea to fit into each series.

(Yes, I really do have a file dedicated to first lines...)

Many of the lines don't have a story to go with them yet. They're just hanging around, waiting for me to decide what happens next.

For some reason I also note down the first lines of stories I've already written. I thought I would share the first lines of the stories I've had accepted with TEB so far with you.

Five things that... I've started books with.

1. Flickering firelight lent an enchanting glow to Nicky's body.
2. The twirling spotlight hit the table dancer for one perfect moment.
- Turquoise and Leather

3. Luke Anderson was not going to come first.
- You First

4. "Don't waste your time."
- Silent Night

5. Brennan Talbot was not going to stare at his best friend's arse.
- Time To Do (I'll come back and put a link in when I've got something to link it to.

....

And that's it for today.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

Wondering... what the new month will bring

I have a to do list for October. This won't surprise anyone who knows me. I have a To do list for pretty much every.

I even have a story that revolves around a To do list. It's called Time To Do and it's just been accepted by Total-e-bound. It's the third book in the Perfect Timing Series and due to come out on the 25th May 2009. It's a m/m BDSM story revolving around two university students who've been friends for ever, but who's releationship is about to change beyond all recognition. I'll have the blurb for you in due course.

My to do list doesn't contain quite the number of interesting items as the one in the book, but here's my writing to do list for the month anyway:

Write 1,000 words a day, 50,000 over the month - This is pretty much the same as every other month.

Editing Aims:

Do whatever edits my editor sends to me - Not sure if I've got any coming through or not, but I'll put it on the list just in case.

Re-write, edit, polish, write a synopsis for and submit All Grown Up – Book 4 in Time series to TEB - I think I'm going to add about 10,000 words, making it novel length.

Re-write, edit, polish, write a synopsis for and submit Imperial Topaz – Book 2 in Collared series to TEB - I'm adding 3-5,000 words to this one to make it novella length.

Writing Aims:

Write By the Hour – Perfect Timing book 12 - It's going to be 30,000 words. Anyone who was around last month might remember this was on my two do list for September too.

Write a short story - Collared book 3 or Anthology Sub. Either would be about 15,000 words.

Other Aims:

Try to get some of the Collared stories into some sort of order. At the moment, I've got lots of story ideas all in a messy heap - I really need to work out what order I'm going to tackle them on. A few are trying to stage a rebellion and form themselves into an entirely different series, so I'm not sure what to do about them yet.

And that's it.

Happy October, everyone.