Memo: Behind the curve

Hi everyone,

I know it's a bit late for resolutions.

I'm a bit behind the curve, but this year I'm going to try to use the Monday Memos to tell you about whatever is going on that week. That's the theory.

So, chats, releases, blogs, everything else, should be listed here the Mondy before it happens... or the Monday after it happens if my organisation fails me.

It's a nice easy Monday to break me into the idea. No releases or any big news to share with you about books. I don't have to be too organised today, lol.

But, I do have some exciting news about a new blog. I'm the resident rookie on the Writers Evolution blog. Everyone is introducing themselves this week as the blog gets up and running. My day is Tuesday, so I'll be there tomorrow.

There's another blog I may be writing on once a week starting next month, more about that when I have more details on it.

And from there, on to the next thing that's putting me slightly behind the curve at the moment...

I don't know if other writers have the same problem, but I'm suffering from something of a backlog of stories. Since I'm having my own personal new years admin thing over a week later than the rest of the world, I've been looking at what I did last year and what I want to do this year. That's what I'll be wondering about on my blog this Wednesday. Tune in then for more on that.

This month I'm also planning to set up facebook/myspace/yahoo group/anywhere else I'm supposed to be accounts. Maybe I'll try to set up one a week. We shall see.

Okay, that's it.

*Goes off to try and catch up with that damn curve she's always behind*

Friday Forward

(Sorry that this one ended up getting posted in two halves, my computer had a funny five minutes last night and I could only get half of it done.)

Hi everyone,

I don't have kids, but I'll admit that I laugh as much as anyone at some of the things they do. Here are a few that came through to me in a forward, so I thought I would share.

1. A nursery school pupil told his teacher he'd found a cat, but itwas dead.
'How do you know that the cat was dead?' she asked her pupil.
'Because I pissed in its ear and it didn't move,' answered the child innocently.
'You did WHAT?' the teacher exclaimed in surprise.
'You know,' explained the boy, 'I leaned over and went 'Pssst' and it didn't move'

2. A small boy is sent to bed by his father.
Five minutes later.....'Da-ad....'
'What?'
'I'm thirsty. Can you bring a drink of water?'
'No, You had your chance. Lights out.'
Five minutes later: 'Da-aaaad.....'
'WHAT?'
'I'm THIRSTY. Can I have a drink of water??'
' I told you NO! If you ask again, I'll have to smack you!!'
Five minutes later......'Daaaa-aaaad.....'
'WHAT!'
'When you come in to smack me, can you bring a drink of water?'

3. An exasperated mother, whose son was always getting into mischief,finally asked him 'How do you expect to get into Heaven?'
The boy thought it over and said, 'Well, I'll run in and out and inand out and keep slamming the door until St. Peter says, 'For Heaven'ssake, Dylan, come in or stay out!''

4. One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm a mother wastucking her son into bed. She was about to turn off the light when heasked with a tremor in his voice, 'Mummy, will you sleep with me tonight?'
The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. 'I can't dear,' she said. 'I have to sleep in Daddy's room.'
A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice: 'The big sissy.'

5. It was that time, during the Sunday morning service, for thechildren's sermon. All the children were invited to come forward. One little girl was wearing a particularly pretty dress and, as she satdown, the minister leaned over and said, 'That is a very pretty dress. Is it your Easter Dress?'
The little girl replied, directly into the minister's clip-onmicrophone, 'Yes, and my Mum says it's a bitch to iron..'

6. When I was six months pregnant with my third child, my three year old came into the room when I was just getting ready to get into theshower. She said, 'Mummy, you are getting fat!' I replied, 'Yes, honey, remember Mummy has a baby growing in hertummy.''I know,' she replied, but what's growing in your bum?'

7. A little boy was doing his math homework.He said to himself, 'Two plus five, that son of a bitch is seven. Three plus six, that son of a bitch is nine.....'

His mother heard what he was saying and gasped, 'What are you doing?'

The little boy answered, 'I'm doing my math homework, Mum.'

'And this is how your teacher taught you to do it?' the mother asked

'Yes,' he answered.

Infuriated, the mother asked the teacher the next day, 'What are youteaching my son in math?'

The teacher replied, 'Right now, we are learning addition.'

The mother asked, 'And are you teaching them to say two plus two, thatson of a bitch is four?'

After the teacher stopped laughing, she answered, 'What I taught themwas, two plus two, THE SUM OF WHICH, is four.'

8. One day the first grade teacher was reading the story of ChickenLittle to her class. She came to the part of the story where ChickenLittle tried to warn the farmer. She read, '.... and so Chicken Littlewent up to the farmer and said, 'The sky is falling, the sky isfalling!'The teacher paused then asked the class, 'And what do you think thatfarmer said?'

One little girl raised her hand and said, 'I think he said:'Holy Shit! A talking chicken!''

The teacher was unable to teach for the next 10 minutes.

9. A certain little girl, when asked her name, would reply, I'm Mr.Sugarbrown's daughter. Her mother told her this was wrong, she must say, 'I'm Jane Sugarbrown.'

The Vicar spoke to her in Sunday School, and said, 'Aren't you Mr.Sugarbrown's daughter?' She replied, 'I thought I was, but mother says I'm not..'

10. A little girl asked her mother, 'Can I go outside and play with the boys?'Her mother replied, 'No, you can't play with the boys, they're too rough.'

The little girl thought about it for a few moments and asked, 'If I can find a smooth one, can I play with him?' (a potential erotic romance writer of the future, no doubt about it, lol)

...

Other news:

I just sent off my first lust bite length story. I'll let you know what happens with that.

That means, as of about five minutes ago, I don't have an editing project. I'm going to have a day or two off editing, and then I'll start on either another lust bite or an anthology submission.

Writing: I'm writing my second lust bite at the moment. It's going reasonably well at the moment, I might have to tweak the point of view at some point but otherwise, it's coming together nicely.

And that's it.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Wondering about... Templates, niceness and editing

Okay, I finally got on to my main computer for a few hours, the one with all the admin for my author website and what not on it. (I've been using my lap top and cwtching up in warmer rooms a lot lately.)

Therefore, I finally have got my three coloum thing worked out on here. If I've done it right, there will be pretty pictures down the left hand side of this blog. (Thanks Tina for the link!) It was the first time I've messed about with Html, so I'm quite pleased that it worked - even if all I did was copy and paste bits of code, lol.

My website has also had a brush up - I'm using a completly new template for that and I think it looks better than the last one I used, so that's good.

It wasn't done with a template, but I've also *touch wood* got the problem with AOL's server and my router worked out, so I am properly on line. I don't think anything got lost in the shuffle, but if you've sent me an e-mail recently and I haven't answered it, if you could give me a nudge to make sure I got it, that would be great.

I'm also involved in a new blog that will get properly up and running next week. It's called Writer's Evolution. Starting next Tuesday I'll be posting there as the resident rookie writer.

Okay, that's my wondering about templates done.

Another thing I've been wondering about is niceness. I know that all the advice is that every story has to have tension and conflict and everything else to make it exciting to read. But at the moment I'm wondering if there is room for something that's just a nice story.

Sometimes I want to be kept on the edge of my seat wondering what will happen to the characters, if and how they will get their happy ending and everything else. But sometimes I want to read, and to write, something that's just a nice story.

Boy meets girl, or boy meets boy. They have fun. They have lots of very nice sex. There's a bit of tension, angst or reality, but nothing that's going to keep anyone awake nights. The minor tension is resolved. They live happily ever after. I don't know if there is room on the market for a story like that.

For better or worse I may well be working on one at the moment...

That brings me on to the last thing I'm wondering about this Wednesday - Editing.

I use track changes on word as I work on each draft. That means whatever I change turns red. The progress from first draft to second draft generally sees a lot of red being applied to the page - some times there hardly a hint of black left, lol. Then each draft goes less red until I'm on draft X and down to correcting the formatting so I have the right type of dash in the right place.

I finished the first draft of one story on Monday. I started editing it yesterday. It's not going red. There are changes, but far fewer than I've ever had before, and that's got me a bit spooked. I have a few theories.

1. I wrote a first draft that's closer to a final draft than I've ever written before - meaning all this trying to improve my writing stuff is actually showing up in visible results all of a sudden.

2. I'm tired and just not seeing and correcting all the problems I usually pick up - meaning I'm dramatically increasing the risk of submitting a sub standard story.

3. Um... not sure there is a three.

Either the first draft was better than I expected, or the edited draft is turning out worse than expected. Those are the only options.

The bugger of it is, I don't know which.

Okay, I'm going to go back and have a go at it again to see if I can get myself any closer to an answer.

Take care everyone, have a good Wednesday.

...

Other news:

I started a new story yesterday - another lust bite length one. Only done 1000 so far, so I'll have to wait until I've done more of it before I can tell you about it.

Memo: Last day of Christmas

Memo: Christmas isn't over for another few hours!


Hi everyone,


Since it's the last day of Advent today, it is officially the last day to read holiday stories in the holiday season.


That means you still have time to read The Gift. Of course, I have no objection to anyone reading it in the middle of summer if that rocks your boat. Keeping the Spirit of Christmas all through the year is an admirable thing to do - even Dickins knew that, lol.


But if you like to read Christmas stories at Christmas time. You can do that here. (Click on the pic)



Just to warn you, my next release is out February 9th - Secret Service as part of the My Secret Valentines Collection, so I'll be babbling about that for the next month or so.


I also have news about Night of the Sense - the BDSM anthology that Whispers is going to be included in. It's live on the TEB coming soon page. If you go here you can read a bit about all the other stories that are included in the anthology. (Click on the pic)



What else am I supposed to tell you today?


I finished writing the first in an unofficial series of Lust bite length stories I'm working on. I'm hoping to edit that up to sub in the middle of the month.


Either today or tomorrow, I'll start writing the next in the series. I'm looking forward to that.


And I think that's it for today.


Have a good last day of Christmas everyone.

Five things... I'd like to get done in January

As part of my whole, not planning to far in advance, I'm posting January goals rather than new years resolutions.

Here they are, if you're interested...

1. Write and edit a lust bite length story for Total-e-bound. I'd like to get that written by the end of this week and submitted around the middle of the month all going well. 10-15k.

2. Edit an anthology submission I've already written and get that sent off by the end of the month. It stands at 15k at the moment, I can go up to 20 if I need to.

3. Write two more lust bite length stories and set them aside to be edited at a later date. The first drafts should be 10k each.

4. Write two anthology subs to be edited later in the year. One first draft needs to be 10k, the other needs to be 15k.

5. Spend at least a little bit of time doing things that aren't writing. More about that next week.

Okay everyone, hope you had a great new years and you're raring to go for 2009.

Other news:

Not much, lol.

I'm editing my round robin submission. That will hopefully be gone by the end of the week.

I've written a bit of the first lust bite story I'm writing. Hope to finish the first draft of that by the end of the weekend too.