At 3 a.m....

She did it again, the little swine!!!!

Good stuff!!!

Well, I hope everybody's dashed over to Phaze to buy my lovely mini novella ebook EYES OF DESIRE! It's cheap as chips... why not indulge yourself?

Have passed a bit of a milestone with GOTHIC HEAT today... my word counter indicates I've passed the 50% mark! Now this is only 50% if my total is 70K... but I have a feeling that I may go over that total, and nudge up towards the 75% upper limit. But at least, hopefully, I can feel that I'm coasting down the other side of the slope now...

In other news, I may have sold another title to Total-E-Bound! It's a book I sold many, many years ago, and which I loved... but which never really got the exposure and distribution it deserved. This was way back in the days before I was on the internet, and when I knew even less about promo and whatnot than I did now... so probably only about three people bought this book!

Anyway, the title is WILD IN THE COUNTRY... and as it's name suggests, it's a naughty bucolic frolic, with lots of sexy perviness in a lush, rural setting. Here, unsurprisingly, is the faux cover...



PS.
Forgot to mention this... I've just received a super review of GOTHIC BLUE by the fabulous and obviously very wise and discerning Lucy Felthouse! So delighted that you enjoyed it, Lucy old mate!
--
Telly: Sharpe
Choc/Yummy: various
Mood: good
Writing: 1.5K Gothic Heat
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: so so


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

Look what's out today guys!

Love at first sight?

When Megan takes a summer holiday at a country cottage in order to recover from an eye operation, she doesn't expect to encounter a strong, protective stranger in her garden. Even though she can't see him properly, she can still tell that Guy is powerful, charismatic and sexy. Instinctively and instantly attracted to him, can she trust her new friend to bestow some sweet hands-on sensual healing?

This story was a quick, steamy little read, and I enjoyed it! Megan's voice is quirky and realistic-I enjoyed being inside her head, experiencing her confusion and increasingly lustful desires. ~ Rhonda Stapleton, Romance Divas Reviews

Read an excerpt

Click here to buy from Phaze.com now!!!

Yes, it's my first ever release from a new publisher for me, PHAZE!!! Eyes of Desire is a very short, sweet micro novella-ette. A swift little hit of sauce and romance... perfect for reading in a coffee break... so why not indulge yourself, eh?



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

it's all a bit mad...

The last 24 hours have been pretty mad... mostly last night and the small hours of the morning...

Jolly night out with himself, fish and chips and a spot of lager etc. All very pleasant and very normal... However, come lights out, for some reason, by brain sort of half turned on and started sifting through plot bits and ideas for Gothic Heat. Needless to say because even though I was awake, I was also half asleep... so nothing really made sense, and I was getting quite upset with myself and worried about the book. Needless to say, in the light of day, I can see my fears were wildly exaggerated, but, that's not the end of it... Just as I was beginning to drift into actual sleep, rather than half sleep, there's a big commotion... Himself clattering about in the hall and the smallest room... Guess what, ridiculous Mulder had brought in a mouse, and released it into the wild of the house...



Himself had cornered it in the loo, and was floofing about, muttering about finding boxes to catch it with etc etc... Now, in my vast experience in this area, boxes are no good for this. Mice can wriggle very easily from boxes. So I donned my trusty gardening gloves and faced off with said mouse in the smallest room. Nowhere to run to, rodent! Your ass is mine! Mind you, it was a faster little bugger than usual, so it took a lot of attempts, but eventually, I managed to snag him or her by the tail and carry him/her outside, wriggling wildly, and then release him/her under the fence, beyond the immediate reach of felines.



So far so good...

Neither himself nor I could sleep, so we made a cuppa and himself was reading and I was just dozing. Guess what, brain starts clicking again... but not about Gothic Heat this time... no, in an unprecedented miracle, a few story ideas started popping into my head... so I kept sitting up to scribble them down on a notepad. Now then, this doesn't happen to me as a rule... I've said often enough how hard it is for me to come up with ideas, but in this instance, stuff kept coming to me! Of course, a lot of it's pretty silly, and probably unuseable... but there are a few germs of something that might come to something... even if it's just a short or a novella.

So, didn't get much sleep, so spent until around 3pm just loafing about, watching MotoGP with himself and chilling. But then, when I eventually switch on the computer, I find goodies!

First, the fabulous Michelle Buonfiglio of Romance B[u]y the Book, a passionate advocate of romance, erotic romance and erotica has posted a totally unexpected feature blog post about me! She's been reading my books and I'm over the moon to say she's been really enjoying them... :)

Then, I open another email, and it's from the lovely editor at Total-E-Bound, and she loves another book I sent to her and would love to publish it!

So, it looks like I should leave the laptop off for the morning a bit more often... who knows what delights may be in my in box when I finally turn it on!

Finally... some folk have been having trouble seeing my Flash cover thingie in the post preceding this one. I took a look at it, and twigged that although it looks okay in Firefox, which I use, it wasn't displaying correctly in Internet Explorer... I've tweaked it now, and I wonder if you gentle readers could take a look at the 'bits and bobs' post below, and let me know if you can see two covers fading in and out of each other? It's for Love on the Dark Side/Watching The Detective.... You should be seeing darling Vincenzo and some other guy...


--
Telly: Moto GP
Choc/Yummy: Ainsley Harriott's Choc Heaven Bars
Mood: very good
Writing: nothing just ideas
Reading: web stuff
RSI/FMS: bit sore and tired


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

bits and bobs...

Still lacking in focus and feeling a tad tired... I have a zillion jobs to do, and not a lot of enthusiasm for some of them. At the same time, I'm finding myself drawn, as usual, to pastimes that don't contribute, a lot, to my writing... there're sort of peripherally connected, but basically they're time wasting... One of which is cover futzing... both making new faux ones, and now, experimenting with Flash effects. I can't afford to purchase the full Flash program, but have indulged myself in a sort of Flash Lite, called Swish... Here's my first effort... it's a bit slipshod, but not too bad, seeing as it's a download and there's no actual manual...



Having said all that though, I have managed about 500 words today of Gothic Heat... I haven't moved the plot forward exactly, but I did add in a few bits that hopefully make it a tad more cohesive. Hopefully...


--
Telly: old movies
Choc/Yummy: delicious pressie
Mood: vague
Writing: Gothic Heat
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: very achey and tired


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

covers.... some new ones... real ones...

Here's the new 'official' cover for the Lust Bites vampire paranormal erotic romance collection! Not bad, is it? I'm so pleased to see this cover because a previous mockup I'd seen of it was just utterly dreadful... really... it was gruesome, with the most hideous t**t of a constipated looking bloke on it, who appeared to have been drenched in chip oil...


Obviously the cover above isn't as divine as my beautifully mournful 'faux' cover for Buddies Don't Bite... but it'll certainly 'do' in the absence of actually getting the divine Vincenzo to pose for my covers.


The second new cover is a new one for a reprinted novel of mine, Hotbed, which is due out in October, I think...



Again, I'm very pleased with this, both in terms of image and colour combos, and feel it's an improvement over the original cover... although that was rather nice, actually, too...


There's only one slight thing that bothers me a bit about this beautiful new cover. You might not be able to see it, but at the bottom it says 'an erotic romance'... and oh dear, oh dear... this book isn't an erotic romance! It's a work of erotic fiction for women, written several years ago, when romance wasn't really such a strong feature of Black Lace novels... I've mostly written romance toned erotica, and there is a central relationship in Hotbed, and the implication of a rather off beat HEA at the end, but it's not a romance per se.

But, if you like erotic romance... please do give it a try, just for the sex!

--
Telly: NCIS
Choc/Yummy: delicious choccy gift from a friend
Mood: cheerful
Writing: none today
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: tired and achey


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

now I know...

why I was tired on Tuesday, and out of sorts. I was building up to the migraine that hit me yesterday afternoon, goddamnit! I think it's stress, I suppose, and probably linked to the viral thing that's still festering in my system from a couple of weeks ago. There seem to be quite a lot of 'things' happening at once in my life at the moment, and at the best of times, I'm no multi tasker... so right now, I'm constantly teetering on the edge of capsize mode.

But the good news is that before the migraine struck, I managed a princely 2K words of Gothic Heat! My best total for quite a while. It was pretty much moving on the story stuff, although at a v. slow rate, I must admit. GH seems to be like that... it's shag, shag, shag, shag... big chunk of shag free story type stuff... then possiblity of a shag again... then probably much more shag free story stuff. It's a bit unbalanced... but then again, so is it's author! LOL

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

Yay for Doctor Nathaniel!

Remember the 5K story that had to be pumped up to 7K? Well, the good news today is that the publisher - new British erotic romance imprint TOTAL-E-BOUND - have accepted darling Doctor Nathaniel's story... OBJECT OF DESIRE!

I'm really excited about this, as not only do I love this story, but Total-E-Bound are an exciting new publisher... and British! They launch on 2nd July, with a bunch of tasty looking titles... I'm not sure yet if OOD will be amongst those, but I think they're keen to get some Brits onto the roster as fast as possible, so there's a likelihood you may see my story available then. If not, it wont be long to wait...

And there's another cool thing about this sale... My great writing buddy Saskia Walker has just had a story accepted by TEB too! I predict a celebratory lunch when our deadlines permit... :)

--
Telly: documentary about Homicide Life on the Street
Choc/Yummy: chocolate cup cakes
Mood: very good
Writing: some Gothic Heat
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: bit sore


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

I've been drivin' in my Porsche

No, not the sleek beast above... but the sleek beast below... My LaCie External Hard Drive - which is actually designed by the same folk who do the Porsche supercars!

I bought this little beauty a few weeks ago... mainly because I've heard some sad stories recently about friends losing data and more importantly WIPs when hard drives have crashed and they haven't backed up... Today, himself was out, so I could spread out over the dining table and hook up my lappie and my LaCie and get stuck in... Bit of a hiccup at first, the naughty thing seemed to go into some kind of loop thing, and freeze... 5% took 40 minutes! But second attempt went smoothly and didn't take long at all!

I always save whatever I'm working on to a USB flash drive, and also externally to Omnidrive, but I don't think you can ever have too many backups where technology is concerned. :)

In other news, I've been working on Gothic Heat, and have done a handy 1.3K, which is reassuring. Need to keep up this pace for the rest of the month, in order to meet my target of 40K by the end of June. It's gonna be close, because I've got behind schedule, so I'm going to have to really focus and not get too involved with 'other stuff' for the next couple of weeks.

I've also been working on that short I mentioned... the one that needed extending... and with the sage advice of my crit partner, I've managed to bump it up to 7K, which is the wordcount required by the editor. Need to get it lobbed off to my agent tomorrow, and hopefully soon I'll get a response - and a positive one - from the editor... Watch this space for news of this!

ps. it's called Object of Desire... take a million guesses as to who inpired the 'object'.

--
Telly: Nile
Choc/Yummy: Bendincks Milk
Mood: good
Writing: Gothic Heat
Reading: draft of a buddy's novella... very good stuff
RSI/FMS: bit sore


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

Buddies news!

Buddies Don't Bite is now listed at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

You'll find it in an anthology called Lust Bites, with two other vamp novellas by Mathilde Madden and Kristina Lloyd.

water, water, everywhere

Here in the monsoon region of West Yorkshire, even the ducks are sheltering. Okay, the ducks above aren't actually from WY, but you know what I mean. It has been pouring down for two or three days now, just bucketing it down hour after hour. Himself says the service pit in our garage is now a rather small indoor swimming pool...

The perpetual rain [as Withnail would say] has kept me indoors, which isn't unusual for me, but I did manage to venture out for a short while today, to go to the Post Office and finally send off some parcels of books to various folk. Some very patient prizewinners have been waiting far too long for draw prizes from me, but now I can safely say that everything that should have been sent has now been sent.

Although I'm feeling reasonably okay about Gothic Heat at the moment, I haven't been working on it today. Instead, I've been grappling with a short that an editor has expressed interest in, but would like to be a bit longer. It was 5K but needed to be 7K... Yikes, you might be saying! But actually, it wasn't too difficult... my crit partner shrewdly pinpointed a couple of areas where additional sensuality could fairly smoothly be inserted, and I managed to do the same during the course of the afternoon. Now the thing is an almighty shagathon, with tons and tons of rumpety pumpety with a certain hunky Doctor Nathaniel Gowen!

--
Telly: NCIS
Choc/Yummy: carrot cake minis
Mood: okay
Writing: editing a not quite titled short
Reading: a draft for a writing friend
RSI/FMS: bit sore


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

I'm so tired...

I'm just knackered at the moment. I think it's the old post virals, compounded by freaking hormonal crap, and just generally seeming to have too much 'stuff' to deal with at the moment. I'm trying to stay calm and not let it get to me, but sometimes I just want to lay my head down a lot of the time, and have a kip!

But on the positive tip, I'm getting back into Gothic Heat! For the last two or three days, I've managed to do a K per day! Truly a miracle... And my Romance Diva pal Gwen will be pleased to know that there's been the beginnings of some naughty, evil Isidora Katori action... My wicked sorceress is back from her sojourn in hell or wherever she's been, and she's about to start wreaking a bit of havoc again... basically, because she's mislaid her body along the way, and she's borrowing Paula's! Her dastardly plan is to pinch it forever, and I'm waiting to see whether Rafe can resist her dark, sexual wiles... or succumb to them and get sucked into her power games. He's sort of a good guy, but he's got some heavy issues to deal with so he doesn't always do the right thing straight away...

Can't you tell that I'm beginning to enjoy it a whole lot more!

--
Telly: Springwatch
Choc/Yummy: scone/carrot cake slice
Mood: better
Writing: Gothic Heat 1K
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: rather sore and tired


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