www.ReneeLuke.com

Today is release day for Dipped in Chocolate. I nearly forgot. I woke up to my normal routine of getting kids ready for school, then shooo’ing them out of the house. There was a moment to reflect when I reminded Sylvia that today was release day for me. But then I started writing toward my next two deadlines and the day completely got away from me.

But it’s release day, and it feels strange. I have another book available. Another book on my shelf. Three years ago this was nothing but a dream. Two years ago my first release was still a year away, and yet now, I’ve got more than one and am so busy with deadlines I’m not even stopping for a breather to celebrate this small success in my career.

I have a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge, thanks to the Colts Superbowl win on Sunday. But having a glass tonight would just make me sleepy–and I don’t have the time. Sadly. Because really, nothing sounds better than a chilled fluted glass of bubbly mixed with the sexy sweetness of Dipped in Chocolate.

So I found another way to celebrate release day today. Or maybe by now it’s yesterday, actually. (Um…I’m wondering where Feb 6th disappeared to?) I’ve decided to share a little of each story with you.

Tonight I’ll focus on the first story of the anthology, Gimme Some Sugar.

Here’s the back cover blurb: In Gimme Some Sugar…Jackson never realized how much he loved his best friend Alexis—until her wedding day was on the horizon. Now all he has to do is convince her that their harmless kissing games over the years weren’t so harmless after all. In fact, they may end up breaking his heart

“Gimme Some Sugar” is the story of Jackson and Alexis. They’re childhood friends, but when Alexis ends up engaged and the wedding is being planned, both start examining their feelings. Alexis knows in her heart that she’s always loved Jackson, but moves forward with her engagement because of family obligations. Jackson keeps his feelings to himself because he believes if Alexis wanted him, she’d have said so by now.

I’m going to share an excerpt next, but let me give you a little set up. Alexis and her fiancee were supposed to have dance lessons for their first dance, only Bryan bailed on her early so she called Jackson to be his stand in. In the following scene, they’ve been left alone after class to do a little extra practicing. **This is from my files, so any typos are mine and won’t appear in the book. Please forgive.

Have fun, and enjoy “Gimme Some Sugar”.

“Dance with me?” She moved around him, keeping one hand lightly on his body, caressing him as she danced for him. She stood behind him, reached up and touched his shoulder blade, outlined the contour of his spine, skimmed over his firm ass. “Dance with me, Jackson.”

She hugged him close, brushing the tips of her nipples against his muscular back. Her arms went around him, her face pressed into his t-shirt. It held the subtle saltiness of sweat.
Rolling her hips, she laughed when he moved with her, joining the beat of the pounding bass. She flicked a nail across the button of his jeans, in a manner that caused him to groan.

“You going to dance with me?” He was already moving with her, but Alexis didn’t wait for a reply. She closed her fingers around his hard cock, the length swathed in denim. Blood pulsed against her palm as she stroked him up, slowly. Down.

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:

:choco::choco::choco::choco::choco:

One month until the release of my first book!!! :yay: To celebrate, Hershey’s and I are giving away KISSES for a YEAR!

Head over to my site and sign up to win 5lbs of Kisses delivered once each month for a year. Drawing held on Valentine’s Day.

Another first, I’ve posted over at the Romancing The Blog site. Check it out. I’m a little nervous about popping my RTB cherry. Will it hurt?

In other news, I’m headed for some serious stress. Four kids and I haven’t started shopping yet. The deeper it gets into December the more worried I get. I’m starting this weekend after another soccer tournament. Maybe between games. My kids sports are killing. Even gunna do a little tonight on the internet. Sigh….

My YA is finally cruising along again. I’ve pretty much dumped a hundred pages and am now rewriting them. :cheer: I’ll have to my agent by Christmas! (fingers crossed) Hopefully it can be out on the house market right after the New Year. Hmmm, what else? Oh, remember the short story I hussled to get done in two days in order to meet the EC Cavemen deadline? Well, still no news on that front though some announcements have been made. I’ve decided I really like the story, so if it doesn’t get chosen, I guess I’ll send that off to my agent, too, and let her find it a home.

Though not that time of month, I’ve been grouchy and cranky lately. Someone tell me something to cheer me up.
Please :pray:

Whaaaat-uuuuup?

As you all know, Syl and I are great pals. I’ve been blogging here on the 1st and 15th (or close to) since April–and love it. Thank you for the opportunity Syl. What you may not know about the two of us is how we met and became friends. We’re in the same state, but a few hundred miles apart. We don’t belong to the same chapter. How did we meet? :think: What prompted our friendship affair? :love:

Um…I did

Here’s how it went down. I got the offer on Chocolate Kisses in August 2004, but after accepting I heard very little for the next couple of months and felt very lost and alone in the big-bad world of being published. Still on the PRO loop, I saw Sylvia’s first sale announcement go out over the loop. And, I decided she was just about the same spot on this road as I was. Maybe we could share our joy :cheer: and worry and bad-tummy anxiety :puke: as we waited for our first contracts to arrive. Mostly, I wanted–desperately–for a friend :hug:who’d hold my hand with and would never get too tired of my excitement! :yay:

So, I emailed her. Out of the blue. I didn’t post often on PRO, so I wasn’t sure she’d even know my name when I contacted her, but I took the chance. Here’s my first email to her:

From: RENEE LUKE [mailto:renee_luke@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 11:44 PM
To: sylvia@sylviaday.com
Subject: Congrats on your sale (Can you believe we’re not far off a year already?)

Hiya Sylvia,

I wanted to give you a personal congrats on your win and now sale. How very exciting. I’m on PRO but rarely post there; waiting for my PAN to be approved. I also sold recently, to NAL. It’s also erotica, though I like to call it romantica, as there are always happy endings.

While Chocolate Kisses is a contemp, I love historicals and started writing there. NAL is considering a couple of them now.

I live in Northern CA, just outside of Sacramento and am a mom of four ranging in ages from just about 13–awk, a teen–to 4. I’m in edits, cuts, rewrites, and deadlines, too and so thought it may be fun and enlightening to chat with you a bit. Share battle scars.

I have my CP who is awesome and I love her, but I thought it’d be cool to meet you since we’re just about the same stage and doing this whole ‘published’ thing for the first time.

LOL! I’m not a crazy stalker lady if that’s what you’re thinking. I understand everyone is pressed for time. Good luck to you in your future ventures.

Renee Luke
(It’s a little corny. Reading it now I’m surprised she responded to me. I sound a bit wallflowerish begging for a friend. I’m not. I’m fun :scratch: I think. Someone hand me a :beer: I’ve got to think about this.)

Below you’ll find Sylvia’s response to me. Yes, she responded to my silly email. She really is a sweetheart!

From: “Sylvia Day”
To: “‘RENEE LUKE’”
Subject: RE: Congrats on your sale
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 00:04:21 -0800 (it didn’t even take her a full 24 hours. I betcha she was getting a shitload of emails, too. Yes, she really is amazing)

Hi Renee!!
Congratulations to you too! A sale to NAL, that’s wonderful! I admire your ability to write contemps. I’ve tried, but I can’t seem to pull it off. I wrote one, a short story. It just sold to Black Lace and will be published in their Wicked Words series in May. But it’s only 5000 words. I don’t know that I could write a longer one. I do write futuristics and paranormals though.

I’m glad you wrote me. It’s kind of a tough stage to be in, this whole in-between published and not. LOL My published friends are like, “Yeah, it’s fun.” but they’re over it. And my non-published friends try to be happy for me, but it’s hard when they’re trying so hard to “get there”. So it will be nice to talk with you.

I don’t know if you went to my site and saw my bio, but I’m in California, by San Diego. I have a hubby and two kids–one is 5 and the other is 3.

I’d love to chat with you about any and everything.

I look forward to talking with you! Especially going through the whole “get your name out there stage”. LOL

Take care of you.
Sylvia

Do we both sound a little stunned and confused? Blissfully happy, but not sure what happens next? Wanna read more about the start of our friendship? Check it out here, on my blog.

…Halloween :puke: Okay, guess that tells you how I’m feeling this morning. Not that it wasn’t a great night. It was. But, one filled with way too much :choco: eating.

But last night was oddly different for my family. For the first time, my four monsters split up, each doing their own thing. My oldest (she’s 13) was an :angel: complete with glittery wings. Connected by cellphone (um, er, yeah, she’s got one of those. I, however, do not.) she went off with her friends to trick-or-treat. Daddy said we’d know if she wasn’t trick-or-treating by how many hours she spent out and how much candy she collected compared to what we got. Um, she didn’t get as much :choco: as my boys did and she was out twice as long. Know what that tells me…she was walking too damned slow and doing way too much giggling with her friends. That’s okay, I guess. She’s a good kid. And, we know she did the right thing. Um, okay, we spied on her a couple times throughout the night. Is that wrong? :scratch:

My second daughter went with her friends and her friends mom. They wanted to go in a certain neighborhood, but with #1 monster out with friends, I didn’t want to stray to far from our own. My #2 was the most silly costume of all time. Have you ever seen those big inflatable Santas? The ones made from nylon and fill with an air pump? Okay, so get this. #2 was a horse-back cowgirl. Around her waist was an inflatable horse, complete with mini cowgirl legs. My daughter’s legs were the horse’s back legs. It was crazy silly. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: And, it won her 1st place in several different costume contest this year. :yay:

There’s only one thing #3 could be. A football player. His costume consisted of his football uniform. Um, that was easy. Strangly, he didn’t care much about collecting :choco:. He had one goal. One purpose. Find his teammates. Um, I was so not into that since my foot issues, but luckily we didn’t have to go far before we ran into a giggling group of :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: the girls from the squad that cheers for my son’s team. The boys weren’t far ahead. Then, with his crew around him #3 was in football heaven. :angel: Filled with all that eight year old boy energy, they were pumped and ready to go! And my poor foot was dying. But my hubby saved me. He walked home (my hero since he has his own foot issues, like less than a year ago a major surgery fusing his ankle) and picked up his truck. Then he drove it around slowly so I could watch our boys and sit on the tailgate. Sigh….so much better for my throbbing tootsie-footsie.

That leaves #4. He’s five. In kindergarten. And oh-so-funny. He wanted to be something scary. And, he wanted to be Hulk Hogan from WWE. The boy could not decide, so we had two complete outfits. He decided to wear the Hulk one to school for his Halloween party :yay: and the scary death-blood-kill-scary one to trick-or-treat. About twenty minutes into the walk, he decided he liked the reaction he got scaring the pants off littler kids. So, he’s 5.5 years old, but the boy is big. My man is 6′8″ so you know my boys are gunna be big. so, in his scary-mean-blood-kill-death costume, he’d sneak up behind innocent :baby: while they were at the door getting their :choco: on, and he’d scary the pants off ‘em. He thought this was :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: So did his dad. I felt sorry for all the other moms who spent the next little while making their kids feel better. Okay, no I don’t. That’s what Halloween is about.

So, at about 9:00pm I gathered up my girls and picked up Taco Bell since I’d fed them dinner but never ate. Came home and mixed that with WAY too much :choco::choco::choco::choco::choco::choco: and so this morning :puke: My tummy hurts.

Oh, I by the way, ended up wearing my son’s discarded Hulk Hogan atire. So, if I can’t DO The Rock, I figured I’d dress so at least I can be his tag partner. Oh, Rock, baby, I’ll be back to bed in just a sec.

So, did the rest of you who celebrate Halloween have a cool time, too? Create good memories? Looking forward to more holidays? Jeesh, they’re comin’ at us so quickly.

Guest Post by Renee Luke

It’s here! It’s here! The cover and back cover blurb for my new book!

It’s super hot. So sexy infact, that I was a little concerned it looked like a men’s mag cover. Please, tell me what you think. Is this the perfect ‘romance’ novel to market to men?

And, the back cover copy–

Looking for temptation, for fantasy, for sensual adventures beyond your wildest dreams? You’ve come to the right place, baby. The Night Kitty…the club for every desire. It’s always open, and the business here is endless pleasure…

DO I KNOW YOU?
Successful literary agent Jamal James is tired of by-the-numbers booty calls. He wants something he’s never had before, something that goes deep like the no-holds-barred fantasies spun by his star erotica writer, Kat Mason. The sistah’s sexy stories, published in every men’s magazine, have made him rich…and whetted his appetite for more. Someday, he hopes to meet the mystery woman–his perfect chocolate fantasy–in person and act out every one of her sizzling tales in the flesh. For now, he’ll have to content himself with some time at the Night Kitty…

Kat can’t believe she’s in this club dressed to the nines in body-hugging lingerie. She may be the hottest writer on the planet, but deep down, she’s as shy and straight-laced as they come. Yeah, and she’s also out of material. It’s time for her to do some research–hands-on research–in a place where no one knows her, where she can be anybody indulging in a night of complete carnal pleasure. And she’s just set her sights on Jamal, the one man to take her there…

Smokin? Sizzlin’?

Summer is over. September is over. But out here in Northern California, it’s still hot. It’s autumn now. Come on, dudes. Does it still need to be 90+ degrees during the daytime? Hot at night, too?

I am so ready for crock-pot weather. Snuggle-into-blankies weather. :choco: Chocolate-chip-cookie-backing weather.

But since it’s still so hot, I think I’ll go swimming. Naked. With HIM.

Yum

Now that I’m feeling a little more satisfied after my swim, I’ll tell you about a few other goings on…Finished MAKING HIM WANT IT and mailed it to my editor. That feels good. Oh, and last-minute(ish) I was clued in on the EC Cavemen’s call for submissions…with 72 hours till the door slammed shut on me. Happy to report I decided to enter and spent the last couple of nights writing a story. You’ll have to wait on a title, though since it’s kinda like entering a contest. So exciting. :yay: Not sure how I’ll do considering all the kick-ass submissions I’m sure they recieved. Either way, I’m stoked I did it.

In other news…I fired my old agent and hired a new one. Da-Bomb, Pamela Harty of The Knight Agency. :cheer: I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to know her name is mentioned on the same page as my swim partner. (you won’t tell her, right:shhh:)You know, you should never swim alone. And it’s been hot sum…autumn nights.

So put your fantasy caps on…ready? If it were super hot right now where you are, what would YOU do to stay cool?