The rain. I just love rain.

Working off a critique. I just love critiques and I got two of them back today for two different stories.

Pizza. Yummy.

On a completely different note, I have a confession to make. My story, A Taste of Sin, makes me blush. Really. I’m okay reading it, but knowing other people are reading it freaks me out. I’m wondering if this is a sign that I shouldn’t be writing crude and coarse romantica. I love the story and the protagonists, but if it sells will I walk around with a perpetual blush? None of my other stories are like it, most especially in the language department.

I was going through a crit of the story and every time I got to a hot scene and realized that someone else had read it, my face went up in flames. And good grief!!! When it got posted to Tawny Taylor’s site, I wigged. Yikes!! Is that silly? Or normal? Or a sign?

I have nothing truly pressing on my plate. It’s a nice feeling. The edit I’m working on now isn’t needed anywhere. There is one I sent a partial out for, but the way things work in New York, it’ll be months before I hear anything.

It’s nice to have the pressure off. I’m going to read tomorrow and watch a little tv during the day and clean a little, although after hubby’s mass cleaning on Saturday, there’s not much to do. No, that’s not true. The upstairs needs a lot of work.

I am considering writing a couple of short stories, just to actually be able to write something from scratch.

I’ll blog more tomorrow afternoon. I’m tired now…

Well, I’ve decided to send out the ms that you all urged me to last week. This simultaneous submission stuff just sucks. I’m growing old here. The story is growing old here. The editor who requested the full is growing old too. So off it goes. Send your best wishes with it and some much needed luck my way. I appreciate it.

Good news. I finished one of my edits over the weekend. Is it perfect? No. It hasn’t been critiqued, but it’s up for a full edit as part of the Tawny Taylor contest, so I won’t torture my cps unless it becomes absolutely necessary!!

That and the mailing of the ms tomorrow will take two tasks off of my To Do list. Yay

Today I spent most of the day on MSN Messenger. Does this mean I wasn’t productive? Well, if you take into account the thought I had this morning of finishing my run-through of my vampire novella, then no, it wasn’t productive. On the other hand, I added the links to the top of the blog, a feat that could not have been accomplished without the guidance of Cece and I brainstormed some career planning with Sasha.

Now, Sasha and Cece both have plans for their careers. I, on the other hand, don’t feel that I do.
What the heck am I doing?
I blogged about that just a couple of days ago. Ya know…I think it would be cool to have a chart up or maybe a calendar with a set list of goals and a map of actions to get from here to where I want to be.
Right now, here’s the extent of my plan:

• Write. A lot.
• Mail out work.
• Wait.

Not much of a plan, eh?

On a personal note, I woke up this morning to find the entire downstairs cleaned. We’re talking kitchen floor mopped, carpets vacuumed, counters cleaned, back porch hosed off, front yard fertilized and covered in new mulch. *whew* I’m exhausted just thinking about all that work. So *hugs* and high praise to my hubby, who dreams of big things for me and my writing. What a doll!

To my surprise, the two cp’s who looked at my synopsis today liked the darn thing! A couple of suggestions, but overall they thought it was good as written and even made them want to read the story. And isn’t that the point of a synopsis?

*Whew* I’m so relieved!! Really.

Of course, I have several more stories that can use decent synopses, but now I think I have a pretty good idea of how to write one worth reading.

I’m back to editing, working on two ms edits simultaneously, one historical and one futuristic paranormal. Talking to Cece today, I figured out that I will most likely be doing edits until January. That pretty much blows, since I have a couple of mss started that I would dearly love to work on.

Jordan and I were discussing the pitfalls of writing in separate genres early in your career. So far, I can’t seem to get into the mood of a contemporary. I just don’t find much sexy or exciting about present day. Now go a few hundred years back or forward and I’m thrilled. But I worry about attracting a reader with one work, having them come to my site and read another excerpt and go, “Whoa! Not what I expected.” Fine if that’s in a good way. But what if it’s not?

My contest finalist entries are a great example.

• The Brava finalist, Stolen Pleasures, is a historical romantica.
• The Golden Opportunity finalist, Almost Too Much, is a traditional historical.
• The Tawny Taylor contest finalist, A Taste of Sin, is a futuristc paranormal romantica.

If one finalist story attracts someone to my site, they might be surprised at the other types of stories they find here. Most especially I’m thinking of traditional readers who stumble across my romantica works. I think I’ll need to separate the different types of stories on my site. What do you think?

I am almost done with the dreaded synopsis. The bare bones are all there. Now I just have to make it a little more enjoyable to read. It starts out strong and then the end feels rushed because I approached my self-imposed limit of four pages. Four extremely packed pages. Working with my cp’s, I’ll clean it up and make it flow better.

I’m going to let myself watch tv tonight. I haven’t in a while, in fact, I don’t even know if there’s anything worth watching on Thursday nights. Is it still “Must See TV”?

I miss Sex and the City. That was my favorite show when it was on. I like Charmed, Alias, ER, Boston Legal, and the Law and Orders too. Oh wait!!! ER is on tonight, lucky me. I’m going to watch it.

I’ve also started Alison Kent’s The Bane Affair. It’s been on my Currently Reading sidebar list since I won it on Alison’s site, but I was deep into edits at the time and just a few pages into it, I realized I wanted to give it my undivided attention. I haven’t done that with any books for a long time.

I’m ready to really read a book. The last few months I’ve only squeezed in a few pages a day because I’ve been burning in edit hell. I still have a few more months of edit hell in front of me, so I might as well come up for a breather. I’m beginning to think the best part of selling a story is being done with it. No more edits, no more rereads or rewrites. Done.

I’m actually okay with the synopsis I wrote. It’s not great, but it’s the best one I’ve ever written. Baby steps…

I’m surprised by how many of us in our little blog circle wrote about snarky women and poisonous listservs. I haven’t gotten into that scene yet and from what I’ve read today, I don’t believe I will. I’m insecure enough as it is on my own. I don’t need any help.

And I agree with Stephanie, I think our blog circle is fab!! A great source of support and advice for me. What a wealth of talent I stumbled into and not a day goes by that I am not hugely appreciative to know you all! *hugs*