This is what....

Staying up for over twenty four hours and attending two web chats in the middle of the freaking night does to you!!!

ps. decided to reduce the size of this image in order to stop frightening visitors as much!

Stuff going on!

Lots going on TODAY! Madelynne Ellis and I are holding a Mocha Monday Chat tonight at the Romance Galleria with some fun and frisky chat and spot prizes for participating visitors! The chat starts at 9pm EST, and lasts for a couple of hours, but as the Galleria is actually an exciting 'virtual world' it's a bit different to a normal chatroom. You get to walk and 'talk' in the Galleria, using cute personal avatars... It's fun!!! To take part you'll need to download the Galleria software, and it'll take a little while... but it's a piece of cake to install and is perfectly safe and secure. I'm always cautious about downloading new software, but I've certainly had no problems whatsoever with this! :)

However, the Galleria isn't the only place I'll be chatting today...



Today is also the grand opening day of TOTAL-E-BOUND - the exciting new British epublisher that I'm delighted to say has accepted a couple of titles from me already! TEB has a lot of tempting books in the pipeline [apart from mine... LOL] including two fabulous novellas from my great writing buddy, Saskia Walker...

To celebrate launch day TEB are chatting on tonight too and I hope to be in attendance there too, for part of the time! Here are the details...

THE GRAND TOTAL-E-BOUND OPENING PARTY
at Coffee Time Romance
6 to 11pm EST
Join the fun, read the excerpts, and chat with your favourite authors.
www.coffeetimeromance.com/Chat.html

eyeliner skills and other stuff

Courtesy of the marvellous Eliza, here's a slightly more understated makeup treatment for the Divine Vincenzo! There's a poll over at Lustbites about men and eyeliner, and as dear Vin is on the list, I would imagine there are folks thinking 'Well, I've never seen him wearing full slap in Law and Order Criminat Intent!'... The piccie above is of him playing Cholo, the terpsichorially gifted knife assassin in the movie Naked Tango. The film is pretty rubbish, but Vin is glorious... Can I mention fedoras, sideburns, spats... and of course those smudged and sultry 'smoky eyes'?

All this mucking about with pix of Vin in makeup is, sadly, about the most creative thing I've done today. I woke up in the early hours brooding and fretting over Gothic Heat. Again! The way it works is that I usually feel okay about it when I'm writing it, but when I'm not writing it, I realise how much, at this stage, is totally wrong with it. There are plot elements that I should be expressing, but am completely forgetting to define... It's sort of slow, and a bit muddled, and probably doesn't seem very much like a paranormal erotic romance... it's more like a rather angsty three way relationship tangle type book... I need to think timescale, paranormal plot elements, key characters that need to appear sooner rather than later, central relationship, hero motivations... I've got bits of stuff about all those in, but they really need to be more concrete and far more consistent.

I'll get there, eventually, and hopefully on deadline... but really, this must be the toughest book I've ever written!
--
Telly: British Superbikes
Choc/Yummy: various choc
Mood: troubled
Writing: about 100 words Gothic Heat
Reading: nothing much
RSI/FMS: bit sore


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

Many Happy Returns, Baby!

Geez, it must have been one helluva party!!!!

testing

So, can you see it?

Ack, I've been tagged!

Chrissy dunnit, the minx!

A. Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves.
B. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. my life is so boring there are no interesting facts about me any more
2. I'm sure I did this same me-me only a few months ago
3. some of my facts/habits will be the same ones as last time
4. I work in my bedroom because my 'office' is no longer inhabitable
5. I have three cats, Kuffer, Alice and Mulder
6. Mulder is actually a girl
7. I eat two bananas a day because they are the easiest fruit to prepare
8. I drink eight cups of tea per day

See, I told you it was boring! I'm not tagging anybody, because I don't want them to curse me... but if you feel like doing this me-me, go ahead! :)


--
Telly: CSI
Choc/Yummy: Guylian Sea Shell bar
Mood: okay
Writing: about 600 words Gothic Heat
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: slightly sore


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

Holy Moly!

ENTERTAINING MR STONE is available as an audio download from Amazon.com/Audible!

Here's the link!

There's a sample available, and it's quite nicely read. The reader sounds as if she's really getting into it... ;)

Sadly they weren't able to engage Signor D'Onofrio to do the voice of Clever Bobby Stone, but I suspect his fee might be more than the publishers were prepared to shell out... A girl can dream though...


ps. it's UNABRIDGED... so you presumably get all the rude stuff in full audio glory!!!! Wonder if there are sound effects??? LOL

--
Telly: Two and a Half Men
Choc/Yummy: not yet
Mood: good
Writing: not yet
Reading: Gothic Blue
RSI/FMS: not too bad


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

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?



--------------


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!