The end of the year, erotica by request, and deliberation of a theme.

Here it is, the end of the year. Before I was ready it was already Hanukkah and we have Christmas barreling down like a freight train with New Years hot on its trail. We are awash with holiday plans and in the middle of it all there was some minor illness in the house. That put a damper on some of my writing.

It's a request piece that is turning out to be longer than I had intended. I'm struggling with trying to keep it under ten thousand words. I'm nearly seven thousand in and I don't think I've hit the halfway point. It's just gotten a little bit away from me and all I can do is follow its lead. There was an initial two week deadline but I've already hit that and obviously it was not met. Hopefully the quality of the piece will soften any hard feelings about the initial expected time frame. :::grin:::

I have a finished work ready to be edited. At least, I think it is. I've felt that it's supposed to be a one night snapshot of a couple in a long term relationship. Some of the feedback I've gotten has indicated that further backstory and character interaction build-up is desired. So I'm sitting on it for a little bit. I'd like to revisit it when this request piece is finished. My goal is to see if I can get it edited within a couple weeks and then release it some time next month. Whether I have some revisions in there is still up in the air. 

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Writer's block and fantasy requests.

After three new releases I'm back to revisions and editing. It's a cycle.

I have changed some things in my life and I was plagued with a brief period of writer's block. Hopefully I've put that behind me as I was able to work today at a fairly good pace.

I chose not to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. There is just too much going on that prevents me from being able to say I can definitely dedicate at least three hours to writing every single day. Which is fine. I have two big and three small projects I'm currently working on and that is sufficient for now.

I've decided I'm willing to take on writing requests. The recipient will be given a copy of the work for free of course. It's a tentative step that I'm not sure I'll continue with but we'll see how much response I get before I nix the idea. I am not sure how popular the idea will be but I'm willing to put the call out there.

Editing and cover work

I'll be releasing three books within the next couple of weeks- so watch Facebook or Twitter to see when they go live. Amazon takes longer than Smashwords so they won't appear on Goodreads until a few days after that.

My editor returned the first round of edits exactly a week after the projected date, and I worked on revising for about a week before I sent them back. The final edits were returned to me yesterday. I'm now focusing on formatting and cover art.

For the past two days I have been working more on cover art. I have one cover that I finished several weeks ago, one that is tentatively finished as of last night, and I'm working on the third. The last cover I'm working on is the most difficult, but I wanted it to be my second release in this batch. I worry that I will not be satisfied with the final product due to the images available for use. My imagination is bigger than my available resources, it seems. That is one of the reasons I love writing- there is no similar limitation.

School has started again so it has been a hectic few weeks getting used to our schedules once again. This year I have four hours of free time every morning to focus on my writing goals. I haven't settled into a writing routine yet, but I'm working on it.

Vacation, kittens, and Editing

Well it's been a busy couple of weeks. We went on vacation to the mountains with my in-laws. The house was nice and the view of the mountains was breathtaking. We had a great time hanging out together and doing kitschy shopping. We also hiked up a mountain to see some beautiful waterfalls and went tubing down the Chatahoochie river. We had lovely homemade meals and some good talks while the kids played make believe all around the house (we didn't bring toys). The kids got to spend a lot of time with grandpa and I think we all had a pretty good time.

When we returned we went to the shelter to look at kittens. We ended up with two instead of one- a boy and a girl. They are amazingly sweet but the boy is sick. The vet said it's common coming out of the shelter but it's very disconcerting. He got worse over the weekend and now he's on medication and high-calorie nutrient gel. If I can get him to keep everything down tonight he'll be fine in a few days. If I can't, he goes to the vet again tomorrow, possibly for IV.

The kink-friendly editor finally contacted me, saying that she was swamped due to the holiday. She took my work with half the fee up front, and said it would be ready in two weeks. It will be three weeks on Wednesday- which is when I will e-mail her if she does not get back to me before then. What can I say, I'm a trusting soul. I hope the quality of her work is better than her response time. I wanted to release my stories this month, but obviously that can't happen until August. Hopefully early August.

With my vacation and pet excitement I haven't been writing. I plan to carve out a few hours this week. I have to work on the sequels to Summer Beach Vacation and one of the pieces out for editing.

Candle Lover has a lot of downloads, so I'm hoping people are enjoying my work. Considerably fewer have downloaded Summer Beach Vacation. Obviously free is a hot price-point. Heh. My Facebook page has a few new followers. I'm trying to keep up with scheduled posts, choosing articles that are interesting and titillating for my followers.

I read three more books, well, sort of. I downloaded the audio book versions of Clan of the Cave Bear and Valley of Horses, which I read a long time ago but felt a revisit was in order. I'm about two thirds of the way through Valley of Horses. I also read the second book in The Hollows series, The Good, The Bad, and the Undead. It's quite enjoyable, a fun series.

Revisions and melancholy, plus a recommended read.

I have been working on revisions on several pieces for the last week. I spent some time on my sci-fi novel while waiting for feedback from beta readers on my erotica work. I'm waiting for two or three more people to return their critiques before I get them ready for editing. I've already done quite a bit of revision work on one piece and I have three more in the works. I suspect I'll be releasing two later this month. I seem to have more trouble getting replies than I do finding people offering to read my work.

I've been trying to read more indie authors and self-published authors for reviewing on Goodreads. I would prefer not to give negative reviews. I had been adding books to my currently-reading shelf as soon as I download them and then reading them, expecting to review them after. I think that if I want to avoid one and two-star reviews I will have to start the book first and decide if I will review it before adding it to my currently reading.

Recommended read: I have only given one five-star review so far. Feast on Me, a short erotica story by Terri George. From my review: This story blurs the border between sex and love, with a little heartache mixed in.

I did some beta reading, which was interesting. One story I'm very much looking forward to reading in final form. It was posted as dark erotica but I think it more encompasses dark fantasy with several erotic scenes. It has a well-developed story line with mystery and paranormal elements. Quite good.

I started on one that was a one-for-one trade critique. I was clear in my posting what my story entailed (BDSM erotica) and was under the impression that the person who took me up on my offer was clear on that. I was about one quarter of the way into his book when he e-mailed me. He was very put out by what was going on in mine and requested that we not continue our mutual critiques. I agreed, somewhat amused by the exchange.

The kink-friendly editor never got back with me, so I am calling that contact a wash. I thought for sure with the specifics of welcoming erotica and being BDSM friendly that I would get a return e-mail. Alas, that was not the case. I'll keep working with finding piece editors for now. I will take recommendations if anyone has kink/BDSM-friendly editors who work with new/self-published authors.

Our cat is still missing. I have sent e-mails to local shelters and animal rescues while I pore over photos on the county website daily and we're hoping for a miracle. I just contacted several cat rescues in the area and one called me to recommend the next county over just in case- so I've spent my afternoon doing that. We're expanding the radius of our posters tomorrow, I'm going to take some to local shops. I'm still convinced someone took off with her and I hope they have a change of heart because it's breaking mine. I've been despondent all week.

Reviews, beta readers, and my lost kitty.

I got my first review! It's a 5-star review on Smashwords. This is very exciting and makes me very happy that someone enjoyed reading what I wrote.

So far this last week I have been focusing on finding beta readers for my next few releases. Erotica is a tricky genre and it seems to be more difficult to find people willing to critique than for other types of fiction. Please feel free to contact me via Goodreads if you are interested in beta reading. I have some feedback on one, the one I planned to release next, so I'll probably go with that one as my next release. I will start revisions on it this weekend.

I have been reading a few indie books by self-published authors over the last couple of weeks. I have added my reviews via Goodreads if you want to check those out.

My female cat is missing. We got her a little over 3 years ago, my father found her as a stray in his shop in an industrial area. He brought her home but she didn't get along with their dog- so my mother gave her to me. She is very soft and extremely friendly and I fear someone made off with her when they saw her outside. We hung up fliers, put ads online and notified the animal shelter and local vet clinics. She has unusual features so hopefully we'll find her. We had another stray we took in 8 years ago go missing about 3 months ago and we never found him. He's an orange tabby so hard to locate- we never found him. I've had cats my whole life and losing 2 like that so close together is the worst luck. The whole family is upset and I'm just heartsick. I suppose we should have had them microchipped but we didn't, and now we're at the mercy of fate.

Critique, revisions, fantasy, and the BDSM club.

The last couple of days I have stepped back from working on writing erotica. I have been sending out my next release for critique and have gotten some feedback to work with on a revision. I'm still waiting for one other person to return their comments and then I will combine what I have and focus fire on that.

I have not heard back from the BDSM-friendly editor yet, but her response time in the comments on her page worked out to be about a week and a half. So I will give that some time.

I have still been writing, however. I've been working on my fantasy novel. I probably shouldn't talk about that particular work here as it will be released separately from my erotica, but I'm feeling really good about it and it's moving along nicely. I've only been working on it for eight years, so maybe this year will be the year I finish it...

I have been working on it most of today and yesterday, and I've taken a break to write this blog post. Once I'm done here, I will read some of the book I'm reading to review on Goodreads before I tackle another piece of my fantasy novel.

During some of my research on writers resources, I came across the group for the BDSM club my husband and I go to. I realized that we have not been there in over a year and I was a little sad. We've had so much going on with work and home life. I think that for the benefit of my writing and for a little fun after what has so far been a very difficult year, personally, we should schedule time to go within the next month. I'll see if I can work that out.

I published my second book!

I released my second book, Candle Lover, on Smashwords yesterday. It is my shortest story, coming in at about 1800 words so I made it available for free. It is pending on Amazon, and will be $.99 there until they price match once it's accepted. There are almost 60 downloads on Smashwords so far, which I'm happy about.

I am busy this week working on polishing some of my upcoming stories. I have two sequels that I'm working on- one for Summer Beach Vacation and one for another story tentatively titled Julia and David which has yet to be released. My biggest time eater has been editing, so that will likely spread my releases out somewhat.

I have reached out to a BDSM-friendly specific editor for my next few items I am working on releasing. I have not heard back yet but I think that is the right direction considering the subject matter of these particular pieces.

I have created a cover for one of my to-be-edited pieces that I feel particularly proud of. It didn't take a lot of photo-shopping but what I did do looks really good. I like all of the covers I have done so far, considering I am somewhat new at it. I plan to continue to do my own covers for the foreseeable future.

I have joined some groups on Goodreads that are for authors to network and share advice on self publishing. I have not actively participated in any of them yet because I am still trying to learn the etiquette of the groups. I have already learned a lot so if nothing else that is progress.

I don't have much on my author page on Goodreads because my full bookshelf is under my "normal" Goodreads. I can transfer a few books over but I am mostly trying to keep it for books going forward. In order to make sure I am fully engaged in community, I have started to review books that I am reading. I am trying to target indie and self-published authors specifically, when before I would have just searched genre and been met with the majority as mainstream publishing results and been fine with a star-rating with no feedback. I understand that feedback helps readers find what they are looking for, even if the book is not for me personally. I am being mindful of that when I give reviews.

I am still waiting on some editing feedback for a story I'm planning to submit to Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 4. I want to make sure that my submission is not rejected for minor errors and has a real chance for consideration.  

I published my first book!

I published my first book on Smashwords and Amazon last week. It's my vanilla lust story, set in Daytona beach. It's short and hot and hopefully will make readers as happy as it made me writing it. I'm already two thirds of the way through part 2, which I hope at least a few people will be looking forward to.

Self publishing was a big step for me, creatively. It gave my motivation a boost and I've been very productive with my writing this week. Not just writing, but creating covers for my writing as well. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback yet, but getting myself out there is satisfying.

I wasn't sure when I should start adding some of the other work I have been sitting on, but I've decided to release my short story, "Candle Lover", later this week. I plan to make it free on Smashwords due to its length. It's a stand-alone piece I couldn't work into a longer story, so hopefully it will give readers a little taste of what I can do. I believe this particular piece of erotica falls under "paranormal".

Here is a preview of the cover: