Why, Charlie, why?

Boo hoo! Your curls! Why? Why? Why?

Lusting with Sven

SEVENTY DAYS OF SWEAT starts today! Click on Sven to visit the gym for last minute sign up!

Short, sweet but super hawt excerpt from IN TOO DEEP at Lust Bites today!

Click here to see what Gwendolynne does to take Daniel's mind off his troubles... ;)

Hawtness ahoy!

Eh up, there's a naughty-hawt excerpt from IN TOO DEEP at Romance B[u]y the Blog today!

Click to visit the naughtiness!

Even this guy thinks it's a cracker!

Visit me at Lust Bites today!

To read an incredibly rude and naughty excerpt from IN TOO DEEP. :)

Hot exploits in the library archives, and much abuse of dilapidated furniture! Hee hee!

Click here to enjoy the fun...

This guy has a lot to answer for...

IN TOO DEEP - out today in the UK!

It's all in the mind...

Librarian Gwendolynne Price starts finding indecent proposals and sexy stories in her suggestion box every morning. Shocked that they seem to be tailored specifically to her own deepest sexual fantasies, she begins a tantalising relationship with a man she's never met.

At the same time, she's fast getting involved with a man she has met. Superstar historian Professor Daniel Brewster is on sabbatical, researching in the library. The glamorous academic sets women's hearts thudding all over the country, but Gwendolynne is the one he quickly shows an interest in...

Pretty soon however, a relationship of erotic letters and toe-curlingly sensual emails collides with kinky games played in the all too real flesh.

Can Gwendolynne decipher the identity of her mysterious correspondent Nemesis, and will he still be as exciting when unmasked? Can she survive the pain of loving then losing Daniel when his research is over and leaves and moves on?

Or is she tangled in too deep with both men?

Read an excerpt here

Available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

And here's the faux cover...

The little splodges, by the way, are extremely remote galaxies from a Hubble Deep Field image. 'In Too Deep'... all clever stuff, eh? LOL

Please accept this eye candy...

Am feeling a bit lack lustre in the blogging department at the moment, so please accept this sultry pic of Professor Hottie McHotstuff in lieu of a post. His book comes out tomorrow...

Finally... some decent progress...

Finally, some decent daily word counts for the Seventy Day Challenge! The last couple of days have been much more productive, with a very handy 1.8K on Thursday and a useful 1.5K on Friday. I was beginning to think that I was flunking the current challenge completely, but it seems I might be starting to do a bit better at last.

My current WIP is a bit of an experiment, the first in a trio of three long short stories/short novellas about people who meet up again, after several years, at a school reunion. The one I'm working on now is a bit rough and ready, a bit scrappy at the moment, to be honest. But it's words in a file that can be edited, so maybe I can make something worthwhile out of it in the editing. It's the story of Caitlyn, who fancied both Drew and Steve in sixth form college, and ten years later, gets the chance to pick up where she would have liked to have left off... with both of them!!!!

Okay, let's get perspiring!

The fabulous Seventy Days of Sweat writing challenge starts again today! Bazillions of people have already signed up, but it's not to late to get on board and join the merry throng of writers all trying to achieve a wordcount per day of 1000 words or thereabouts. I'm one of the sponsors of this fun event, so hope to be attempting to offer encouragement as best I can to my fellow sweaters. As ever, I'm not sure what kind of example I am to others, but I always feel that if I'm not that great a role model, at least I'm showing the way you shouldn't do things, so others learn not to **** up the way I often do! LOL!

I'm actually starting off the challenge in editing mode, as it's now time to return to IN TOO DEEP the story of Gwendolynne, my buxom librarian and the ever so naughty Professor Hottie McHotstuff... It's about time I started posting some excerpts of this farrago of utter nonsense, so check back soonish and there might be a link to a frisky taster...

In the meantime here are some words of wisdom from the Prof...

And Mr Blue is fondling his UZI as we speak....

ps. Don't forget to visit the blogs of the other sponsors, who are HelenKay Dimon, Jaci Burton, Diana Peterfreund, Lauren Dane, Shiloh Walker and Larissa Ione.

Sven's back... and so are my guys!

The new Seventy Days of Sweat Challenge starts on 1st March... so that's seventy days of writing 1K per day, hopefully, or doing the equivalent in editing and polishing. Most Sweaters will be under the stern thumb of Sven...


While I, of course, will be subject to my own coaches, Mr Blue and Professor Hottie, each with their own idiosyncratic approaches to making me write... :)









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Telly: Numb3rs, Strictly Ballroom
Choc/Yummy: fruit... yawn...
Mood: busy
Writing: editing Thief
Reading: nothing today
RSI/FMS: sore


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

I'm foofing about again....

I'm foofing around again. Wasting time. Fretting over issues and annoyances instead of thinking positive and getting on with IN TOO DEEP and finishing Professor Hottie's story. I'm so close to the end, within 5K of it... and yet somehow, I can't bring myself to round things off. It's because I'm brooding over stuff, sinking into powerlessness again... and it's very tough to shake this off when it gets a hold on me.

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Telly: nothing
Choc/Yummy: carrot cake
Mood: powerless
Writing: none
Reading: Sanctuary - Eden Bradley
RSI/FMS: so so


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

Gratuitous Professor Hottie pic and end of year ennui

Isn't he gorgeous? I'm trying to focus on him, looking so hawt, as a way to connect better with IN TOO DEEP. I have to say, the Christmas break has really messed up my concentration, and I'm feeling slightly panicked about the months and the year ahead. There's so much to do, and some of it, I just don't want to do but I have to. Grrr... And 'cos it's there, it sort of distracts me from my focus in writing...

Everyone seems to be making lists and plans. Lists of achievements in 07 and plans for 08. I have achieved some stuff in 07, that I'm very pleased about, but I'm not one for looking back, because I always have the spectre of 'you're only as good as your *next* book' hanging over me like a looming black shadow. And that's very scary when, at the moment, I've no idea what that next book might be... and I get awfully depressed when I go to boards and blogs and folk are talking about the multi book deals they have for 08, and the fabulous book ideas that they're just dying to write.

At the moment, I feel as if I've lost some of the joy I once had in writing. And I don't think I'm going to write at my very best until I reacquire it again.

Any tips, writers out there? How do you maintain the magic and the joie de vivre in your writing when it's a job you do, of necessity, to earn your living?


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Telly: Numb3rs
Choc/Yummy: Celebration minis
Mood: despondent
Writing: nothing yet
Reading: The Ipcress File
RSI/FMS: achy


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

Back in the saddle...

... writing IN TOO DEEP again aka Professor Hottie McHotstuff's story.

I looked at my records and it's nearly a month since I worked on this book, and that's quite a gap. I wanted to keep moving forward, but I knew I had to go back and 'learn' the book again. A tough choice, but I compromised. I completed the sex fantasy scene I was working on when I left the book, then scooted back to the beginning and began reading/editing again. At first the text seemed a bit wooden, but after a little while, it started to come alive a bit more, and I was getting a better feel for it. And for Gwendolynne, my librarian heroine; Nemesis, my secretive and pervy anti-hero, and Professor Daniel Brewster, my hero. I think it could be all right, if I weed out some of the terribly clunky language, and just get real with it.

Am facing a challenge, as usual, but overall, I'm really, really glad to be back with this story...

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Telly: Numb3rs S1
Choc/Yummy: cherry Madeira cake
Mood: good
Writing: 1K In Too Deep
Reading: Lord of Scoundrels
RSI/FMS: extremely achey and tired


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

a very strange pattern...

This has happened a few times in the last week... I spend the entire day fuzzed and befuddled by 'stuff' and I don't have the energy or the inspiration to write. Then, come evening time, panic, and the combined disapproval of Kuffer, Professor Hottie, Mr Blue and Sven, all bears down on me and I feel compelled to at least try and write a bit. I usually just scrape to the 1K mark with some very inferior prose, but that's about it.

I'm getting the words down therefore, but I still worry that what I've got is a pile of irredeemable horse plop that's gone entirely in the wrong direction...

--
Telly: nothing yet
Choc/Yummy: mini battenburg
Mood: low
Writing: nothing yet
Reading: Along for the Ride, Michelle Pillow
RSI/FMS: sore, esp. wrists


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

bribes v. threats

The Prof is trying a different tactic with me, as opposed to the threats I endure from Mr Blue and Kuffer! Will it work? We'll see...

Yesterday was tough going. As usual, I got sidetracked by something, as I mostly do and didn't do any writing during the actual day time... I spent most of my time trying to find out about standard book sizes, as it now looks like my Black Lace novels will be published in a trade paperback size from next April onwards. Gothic Heat will be the first one in this new format, so watch this space for the slightly revised cover. Quite similar to the first version, only my name is freaking enormous!

Any road up, tortured by guilt I was driven to start writing in the evening, and actually managed a fairly presentable 1.1K. As usual the value of said words remains debatable, but at least it's something to edit. I do often wonder if I should try and get more action into my writing [no, not that kind of action...]. A lot of writers have their characters racing around fighting villains or supernatural beings or going to places and generally being energetic, whereas most of my writing seems to feature just two people sitting in a smallish room playing games of psychological and erotic oneupmanship with each other... and as often as not, it's not even actual shagging! I suppose this is because I'm sadly depleted in the plotting gene...

So, what's your preference... Loads of fights and actions scenes and derring do? Or enigmatic smiles and staring each other out while the inner arousal level climbs to critical mass?

--
Telly: not yet
Choc/Yummy: not yet
Mood: okay
Writing: not yet
Reading: Along for the Ride - Michelle Pillow
RSI/FMS: bit sore, tired


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

scraping by...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Professor H, I should be trying to do a tad more than my basic 1K... but it's been a struggle these last few days, to be honest. It's 11.13pm now, and I've just scraped by my goal wordcount. And I'm not sure that the actual words themselves are any good... the text feels a bit dead at the moment.

Thing is, I'm allowing myself to get stressed about things that I really shouldn't get stressed about. Stuff that's just not worth it... meaningless in the grander scale of things. But anyone who visits here regularly will know how I am... I fret over things that I ought to laugh off because they're stupid.

Any road up, crap words or no crap words, I've now officially done a third of In Too Deep! So even if it is total horse plop, there'll be time when the first draft's done to fix it.

And that's a comfort...

--
Telly: Moto GP, Top Gear
Choc/Yummy: Lindor
Mood: fed up with various stuff
Writing: 1K In Too Deep
Reading: nothing much today
RSI/FMS: very sore generally, plus wrists


Don't forget Portia's Promos - new stuff being added all the time!

Thought for the day...

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If you love you some Portia click here and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE every day until 31st October!