New release and the flu

Some good news! My new book It Feels Like Dancing is now available on Smashwords and Amazon.

This release was despite having three weeks of illness running through my house. My kids all got the flu and my husband got bronchitis. I had a four day cold at the beginning of it all and another at the end to bookend the wave of illness.

In spite of all that, I managed to contact my editor and get It Feels Like Dancing edited, revised, and a final edit. Once that was done, I agonized over the cover. My ideas were all over the map but the images I found just didn't quite fit. I finally found something that I felt emphasized the focal point of the book, simple and elegant.

Other than my revisions I've been working on my sci-fi novel a bit. I have three unfinished erotica pieces I just haven't put the time into. I'd like to change that this week now that the kids are all back to school and I have 3 mornings a week to myself. The other two I go to school and work on my own homework.

Within the last month or so I also started another new hobby- fish keeping. I have two small tanks running and plan to start a third, much larger tank in a few months once I have a little more experience. I have been reading a lot online and watching a lot of YouTube videos on fish keeping in the past month or so. I learned about fishless cycling, substrates, and plants. So I did a fishless cycle, I used special substrates for each tank, and I am using live plants. My chemical testing is on point and I have one tank fully stocked as of this week. I'm waiting for a seller to contact me about some shrimp tomorrow for my other tank. If that falls through- I'm going to give e-Bay a try.

Slow progress is still progress - and a giveaway

Happy New Year! Here's to hoping for a happy, healthy, and productive year!

My erotica on request is still moving along at well over 10k words. I plan to work on it later this evening and see if I can't connect where the story is now to the ending. It will be a pretty interesting feat since I'm not 100% sure which ending to use. Heh. It will be nice to finish it. I think it might be able to be released near the end of February, or maybe early March.

On that front, I also revised another erotica piece I've been working on. A BDSM FF short, roughly 3100 words. I finished up what I wanted to change due to suggestions from beta readers and I have sent it off for content editing a little while ago. Hopefully I'm on track to release it by the end of the month, but it may be dipping into February.

I have been working on my sci-fi novel this week. I changed a large piece of the beginning and I am adding additional content today. That's what I'm working on in the first part of today. I just took a break to check social media and realized I haven't updated my blog in a while.

In my personal life, I am exceptionally excited about a new pet, well, pets, that I'm getting at the end of the month. We are getting new carpet in the office on Friday and once that's done I'm setting up a new fish tank. It will take 2-3 weeks to cycle but then I will have fish- in time for my birthday next month. I can hardly wait. I have my tank, my substrate, and my non-live decorations (I plan to have it live-planted). My water test kit is supposed to arrive today, too. I have the fish and shrimp I want all picked out- I'll just have to cycle the tank. Next weekend can't come fast enough. I guess I'll have to throw myself into my work to make the time seem to pass quickly!

As for the giveaway- I'm giving away 5 copies of Goddess Julia: Heels. You can enter to win via this link: https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/cd67c870b711a530  As of this posting there are still 3 copies that have not been awarded. Good luck!

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.