Not much going on for me at the moment besides work, work, and more work. *g* My life is boring and I have nothing more to share. I had lunch with my mom and we went to the bookstore where she bought The Blonde Geisha by Jina Bacarr. I told her to pick it up, because I think she’ll like it. I ordered some new books, though I don’t have the time to read any of them. I just can’t help it. There are so many books I want to read!

I received good news about ASK FOR IT today, though, which was very nice!

“Ask For It is an exciting read, filled with the erotically intense passion and deeply developed characters fans of Sylvia Day are rapidly coming to expect. The love scenes will leave readers breathless, while the tautly written mystery makes the pages fly past. From cover to cover, Sylvia Day has written the most exciting historical of the decade.

“Read Ask For It now! And keep it around – you’re going to want to read it again, and again, and again.” – Karen, Romance Divas

Wow! Thank you, Karen. I’m thrilled.

I also received a lovely email from an Australian bookseller who wanted to let me know that AFI is selling “extremely well” in her store. Always wonderful to hear.

I wish I had something universally interesting to share (instead of just stuff that interests me), but I’m a hermit at the moment until I meet these early September deadlines.

I’m thinking of you all, though. ((hugs))

Wow, it’s really been a long time since I’ve been over here to blog. So long in fact that I’d forgotten my password and had to fiddle a few minutes before I could post. I’m so glad to be here. Can you believe it’s been close to 10 months since my last guest posting over here at Sylvia’s house? I just vanished, poof, and despite my best intentions didn’t make it back. Until now.

Sylvia, thank you darling, for having me.

As you all know, I’m going to try to keep you all busy and entertained to fill in gaps while Sylvia whacks through some of her many deadlines. Since I mean to talk about schedules, I’ll just mention that Sylvia’s publishing schedule for the next year is crazy in a wonderful sort of way–and her drive wow’s me on a regular basis.

I’m hoping her drive is rubbing off on me.

I’m making a shift in my life and it’s all about schedules. A couple of weeks ago, my four kiddies went back to school for the 06/07 school year. #1 started high school. #4 started 1st grade. Four kids, three schools, three bell schedules, and the first time in damned near 15 years that I’ve got longer than a two hour span of time during the day to write. I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out the best way for me to set my schedule. The best way to use full advantage of the 5.5 hour stretch of non-kid time.:lol:

Of course, it’s got to be dedicated to writing. I’ve got contracted work that’s yet to be written, but I’m still trying to make my brain and body follow the schedule. Over the last few years I’ve written late at night, after 1-4 have been put to bed. Sometimes my doc files don’t even get open until 10:30 pm and beyond. That can’t happen any more.

9:00 am to 2:30 pm. Those are my writing hours. Now I’ve got to make my creative mind accept and embrace them. While I was at RWA’s National conference in Atlanta, GA last month, I attended a workshop about creating new habbits and schedules for ourselves. During the workshop, Kim Louise talked about 21 days–three weeks–to retrain our brains. To reshape our habbits. To change a bad habbit, or in my case, redo my writing schedule, I’ve got to do the same thing every day at the same time for 21 days.

If I’m going to write from 9:00-2:30 then that means at 9:00 I need to put my butt in chair, have files open, phones set aside, and distractions destroyed. I’m in the middle of this new schedule now.

And to be completely honest, it’s been a struggle for me. Nora’s interview in the latest issue of the Romance Writer’s Report said it best and is inspirational to me. The message: This is a job. Treat it as such. This is my goal. But I’m not there yet.

Tell me, what sorts of schedules have you all made for yourselves? For writing? For life? What sorts of tricks and advice can you offer to create better habbits? To keep the brain wrapped around the schedule rather than drifting? I can use all the help I can get.:roll:

As you can imagine with 8 releases next year, I’m crazy busy.

It’s Thursday, and so far this week I’ve received:

• two new covers
• two sets of galleys
• two sets of edits
• multiple sets of editor emails
• multiple sets of editor phone calls

Plus! I have a novella to write by Oct. and two new single titles to write before February.

So, as scarce as I’ve been lately (and as boring ), I can’t see that getting better anytime soon. My pal Renee Luke will be stopping in occassionally guest blogging.

But good news! Both of my most recent mss went over well with my editors. *happy dancing* (When your due dates at two separate houses are only days apart, as is the case with my Bravas and Avons, you end up hearing from both at the same time.)

“I’m thrilled with the fantastic job you did. You’ve created a story that is both steamy sexy and suspenseful, with characters we care about. And I love this alternate world you’ve built.” – Erika Tsang on PLEASURES OF THE NIGHT (the first in my Avon series)

Yay!!

*whew* It’s super scary to write for a new editor, especially when it’s a new genre. I’ve never written anything contemp/paranormal until this series.

Kate Duffy calls me on the phone vs. writing like Erika, so I can’t remember what all she said about PASSION FOR THE GAME, but she was happy, said she loved it and praised my writing (which always means a lot to me.) Then she had questions about secondary character stories, which she immediately cut off with, “Wait! Don’t tell me! No spoilers!” (She offered some fabu suggestions, though, for future stories that I’m sure I’ll use. *g*)

My kids had Back-to-School night tonight. Jack has a cool drawing hanging on the wall at school that says, “My mom writes books” with a cute rendering of me working at my desk — keyboard, mouse, and all.

Now must think up some novella ideas…

I’m over at Romance: By the Blog today!

Avon FanLit kicked off today! There is a blog, message board, voting, prizes!

I’ll be there blogging and such with the other Avon authors. I hope you stop by and check it out! It’s super great if you’re an aspiring author, or aspiring to be an Avon author because your work will be seen by everyone.

Galley proofs for THE STRANGER I MARRIED arrived today. I’ll be going over them shortly and then the book will be officially done on my end. Somewhere, bound ARCs are being created. I can’t believe the book will hit shelves in 4 months. Then it gets really crazy with one release after another every month for almost the entire year. *g* I’m excited!

I received the digital copy of my White Hot Holidays print cover today. I’m glad my holiday Quickie WISH LIST went to print. I like that story.

I’ve been having trouble with the DARK KISSES galleys so I don’t know if the release will be delayed or not. EC does PDF galleys, which I can’t edit or mark-up. The last set of galleys were supposed to be the final set (the book is scheduled to hit the printers in Sept.) but somehow, every instance of the word “pleasure” was reduced to “p”. So the phrase, “She writhed in pleasure” read “She writhed in p” Hmmm… Anyway, now I’m waiting for a corrected copy and since it’s getting late in the month, I’d be surprised if it still made it to print in Sept. If it does, though, it will be my third EC print release this year.

My mom is here. Her Jeep needs a tune-up and my hubby is a Master Tech for DaimlerChrysler, so he’s going to take it into work tomorrow. Mom and I plan on getting pedicures in the morning while the kids are in school. It’ll be the first time in a long, long while that we’ve hung out just her and I. Should be fun. I’m looking forward to it!

Often after I finish a full-length novel, I’ll be in the mood to write a short or two. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it’s fun to just get to the point, and write an entire story in a day or two.

Anyway, that’s what I did this weekend, a little play writing. (See? I write for fun still, as well as work. *g*)

I also took my kids out to eat today. Hubby wasn’t hungry, so just me and the monsters went. Would you believe I ordered a dark chocolate and strawberry shake, and neither of them wanted any of it? I was like, “Huh? What do you mean you don’t want some? It’s chocolate and ice cream and strawberries?” Nope. They didn’t want any. What they did want, and what they liked very much was pepper jack cheese sticks. (They were quite yummy. )

I’m so not looking forward to the buzzing alarm clock in the morning. *shudder* I think alarm clocks are the worst things ever. Seriously. If your body is not ready to wake up, it’s not ready. Why do you want to force it?

Evil. Alarms are evil.

I also updated Renee Luke’s site this weekend (yes, I have many talents. Not. *g*). She’s got a fabulous new cover for her next NAL title. Check it out!

This week’s spots around the web are:

Tomorrow — Allure Authors Blog (first-ever posted excerpt of my March Avon Red novella “A Familiar Kind of Magic”. Have you seen the cover? Gorgeous!)

Thursday — I’ll be over at Romance: By The Blog. Michelle is a great advocate of the romance genre (and she’s given me some pretty great reviews! *g*). She’s also fabulous in person, too. (I wish I were that thin. Seriously. *sigh*)

And man… All weekend I kept thinking about fabulous group blogs. I’m a member of a bunch of blogs, but I envy those authors who don’t have personal blogs, just one great group one. Probably because I’m finding myself struggling more and more with blogging in general. I used to find that “talking” out loud helped me get my thoughts together, but now I know there’s no hope for that. They’re permanently scattered. It would be nice to be part of a collective brain, since mine appears to be missing large pieces.