I’ll be gone all weekend at the Celebrate Romance conference. Hopefully I’ll come back with photos to share.

I’ll miss ya! :kiss:

I finally finished a chapter I’ve been screwing around with for over two weeks. I really can’t waste time like that. I can’t afford to. But it was just “off”. First of all, I had originally conceived the scene to be a love scene, and then found I couldn’t move forward. Later (about a week later :doh: ), I realized it wasn’t the right spot to be intimate. The characters weren’t ready. So I backtracked, let them put on the breaks, and then moved forward in the right direction.

I don’t follow the “every so many pages there needs to be humpings” rule. The Stranger I Married is nearly 200 pages into it before the characters first make love. This story, My Immortal, is now half-way into it and they’ve been together once. I’m perfectly happy with both stories. For these couples, it works. They’re still very erotic stories. For both of them, they require the physical intimacy to move past certain points, but they’re moving forward outside of the bedroom, too, which means sex at this point is gratuitious. And I canna do it.

Sucks that I’m still such a novice that it takes me over two weeks :doh: to figure out why I’m banging my head into the screen, but I’m learning every day. And the fire and joy of writing is still very much with me. I’m grateful that I can see the business end of this career without rose-colored glasses, but still think it’s the best damn job in the world. I love writing so much. I especially love figuring out what I’m doing wrong. That whole “Ah ha!” feeling just :dance:

I get a lot of questions about marketing and promo, so I figured we can talk about it on my message board. If you have any questions about what I’ve done and what I think worked and didn’t work, feel free to ask me here. I’m no expert, I’m just willing to talk about my experiences. I’m sure there’s a lot I can learn from you, too. I hope you participate, should be fun.

I had a half day today. You know, one of those days where everything you set out to do only gets half way done. I finished Shanna’s kindergarten paperwork, drove to the school, and found out they’re not talking registrations for another month yet. I drove to the post office to drop off packages that wouldn’t fit in my outgoing box and came home to find one sitting by my desk… you get the idea. *sigh*

Here’s to hoping I get a lot more done tomorrow. I’d love to have one of those days where you accomplish more than you’d planned.

…I need to actually BLOG. Sorry. Life’s been a bit hectic over here with guests, Jack’s illness (which got very scary for a time), and my own lingering Spring cold.

I’m working on MY IMMORTAL and galleys for ASK FOR IT. I had hoped to finish MI by the end of March, but got waylaid by a bunch of other things. I’m still waiting for my “groove” to kick in. Where the hell is it? Anyway, I’m a bit behind, but still can catch up if I stay focused. Now that Jack is on the mend, I can do it. I can, I can, I can.

I went through my site and message board yesterday, updating them. My last message board was easier to use, but now my message board software is widely used by places like RWAOnline and Romance Divas, so I hope more romance-minded surfers are familiar with it. And, it’s just one of those things that ran away from me.

Today, I’ll drop Shanna’s kindergarten registration off at the school, explain Jack’s long absence, and drop of some packages that need to be mailed. Then it’s work for me. :cafe:

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New Erotic Imprints May RT reviews:

Aphrodisia — 4 stars, 2 stars (For Renee Luke *go, Renee* and P.F. Kozak)
Spice — two 3 stars (for Suzanne Forster and Kayla Perrin)
Trade (may be Heat, maybe not) — 3 stars (for Emma Holly)

From Lori Foster’s message board:

“But before everyone emails me and asks about it, nope, I’m not writing for Hq again. I’m bound by contract to write single titles for Berkley and only Berkley.”

I’m not sure if we’ll be seeing more Brava novellas from Lori or not. However, there are a few more already scheduled this year, to tide fans over until we know for sure.

A sweet and very talented fan of BAD BOYS AHOY! created a fanlisting for it. I’m so touched by that. Just thinking about all the work she put into the design and the gift of her time makes me But in a totally great way, of course.

Thank you, Mailyn. You’re wonderful. I’m so grateful. :hug: