Author: Maya

Few random snippets. I’m giving away a signed copy of Seducing Simon over at Writeminded today to celebrate the print release. I’m also over at Romance Junkies for the next two days for staff pick days. I’ll be giving away lots of cool prizes and chatting with the readers. It should be fun, so hop over if you get the chance.

My daughter was sick over the weekend. The amazing thing about when kids get sick, is that they can come down with one set of symptoms, get well, then they make YOU sick with a whole different set of symptoms. Daughter had fever and upset stomach. I get headache and sore throat. :huh:

So since I’ll be busy with Romance Junkies staff pick days, I’m gonna go shop for an ebook or two and curl up in my comfy chair to chat and read a good book. I’m taking a sick day. :passedout:

Today was supposed to be another drive to Houston, but my baby is home with a fever and it was raining to beat hell this morning when I got up, so I rescheduled Houston for another day.

We’re at home enjoying sweet baby snuggles, watching it rain and watching Disney. Really, it doesn’t get much better than that :hug:

I’m blogging over at the Berkley Babes today, and I’m giving away a signed copy of Seducing Simon. Come on over and visit and enter for your chance to win :cheer:

I SO don’t wanna go :crying: I hate driving through Houston. I hate wasting an entire day driving there and back for a doctors appointment. I’d much rather be working. And I was an idiot. I should have scheduled my appointment for NEXTweek. Then I could go to Borders and fondle my book. Which means I’ll have to make another trip soon…

Hope everyone has a good day! I’m off for a session in defensive driving. :cursesign:

Yep, that’s me. In the throes of a nuclear meltdown. Sigh…I hate it when this happens. You’ll note there is no surprise on my part. Meltdowns occur fairly regularly in my world. I exist in a vicious cycle of feel good then meltdown lol. My latest crisis, well, it would take too long to explain and I’ve already spent the last time whining and commiserating with Amy. With any luck, I’ll have some sort of epiphany and get past my latest roadblock. :hanging:

If you want to know how bad it is, well, yesterday I spent all day at the deer camp putting up treestands with a bunch of beer drinking good ole boys. :drunk: Then went to another good ole boy fest where there was grilled ribeyes and more beer. Then this morning I got up and spent the entire day cleaning my house. Top to bottom. I cleaned shit I haven’t cleaned in over a year. I’ve worked myself into a boneless glob of fatigue in an effort to NOT think about my latest project. At this point Im so desperate for ways of procrastinating and delaying the inevitable that I’m willing to tackle just about anything. :puke:

Maybe tomorrow I’ll go weed all my dead flowers. :enguard:

I got a peek at my cover for Understood, my December 19th release. I was really pleased. Once again, Anne Cain delivered what I wanted. :banana: I can’t wait to see what she comes up with for my January releases. I have two, one historical and one contemporary. Hopefully I’ll be able to post the December cover pretty quickly.

I’m hating where I currently am on my proposal. I’m full of doubts. :help: Everything I come up with doesn’t feel good enough. After coasting through a few months of high spirits and healthy confidence level, I guess it’s time for a plummet into the abyss again. :dunno: At least I got a lot of work done before the downturn.

I envy writers who can sit down and get it done no matter what. My creativity is too tied to my moods. If I’m in the right frame of mind, I can create magic. But if Im flailing, my writing goes straight down the toilet. The thing is, I used to could sit down and write crap. Believe me, I did it often enough. I could blissfully put words to computer and be content to go back and make it pretty and shiny later. While I still write pretty fast, I’m not near as quick as I used to be. I labor more over each word, every sentence and paragraph. It DOES cut down more on the editing I have to do, but it can be frustrating when I’m stopping too often to correct something mid thought. So while my first drafts are much tighter and require fewer corrections, they come much slower than they used to.

And that’s where I am at my current proposal. Instead of just writing crap, getting it out of my head and onto paper, Im mulling, obsessing, peeling each word painfully from my brain. I’m scrapping ideas before they ever make it to document which means Im spending a lot of time looking at white space.

How was everyone’s weekend? The weather here was gorgeous. Instead of the usual 100 degrees it was more like 90. :cheer:

We took a spur of the moment trip to my sister’s in Louisiana. It turned out to be a family gathering as my brother drove in and we met up at my dad’s. It was fun but exhausting. My little niece (she’s five weeks old and soooooo cute!) was just a little doll. Really, there is nothing sweeter than a newborn.

So me, being the sweet, NICE sister I am, offered to take a feeding shift in the middle of the night so my sister could get a good night’s sleep for once. My husband good naturedly took the 11pm feeding and then I got up at 2am when she woke up again. Wide awake. Bright eyed and bushy tailed awake. She wasn’t going back to sleep. No way huh uh.

So she ate, pooped, ate some more then pooped again. Spit up, I changed her, then she spit up again. Then she cooed and gooed at me while we had an indepth girly conversation as it wore on from 3am to 4am. Is it any wonder God makes newborns so darn cute? If he didn’t, the population would drop by 50 percent lol.

At 4am, I crawled back into bed with hubby who turns over and says, “You want another one?” We both died laughing and gave quick thanks that our youngest is six and quite self sufficient these days. :kissing:

My oldest son cracks me up. He’s entered middle school this year (Can you believe my BABY is in middle school?) :crying: Anyway, he’s been thrilled with going to a more grown up campus, and he digs that the teachers treat them like “young adults.” And to give him credit, he has grown up SO much in the last year. :help:

But at other times, he’s so delightfully cute and innocent, my husband and I enjoy a good chuckle every now and again.

I had the “talk” with him fairly early. For a run down of how THAT got instigated, you can click here for a chuckle. So he’s been smug about knowing “mature,” adult things that his younger siblings don’t know, and he loves to tell them that when they’re “older” they’ll understand. His code word for sex is now “you know what.” :purplelaugh:

So tonight, we were out driving, on a treat run (why do all our deep conversations happen in the car?) and I was telling my husband that if I was smart, I would have scheduled my doctor’s appointment in Houston AFTER my book comes out in late September so I could go into Borders in Houston and fondle it. (We don’t have a Borders where I live) So then my son pipes in and asks if this is my “Seducing Simon” book. I nod and he says with smug superiority, “I know what Seducing means.”

Hubby and I exchange amused looks. Hubby then says, “well, your mama writes smut books.” (said jokingly, don’t lynch him) and my son nods and said, “yeah, she writes YOU KNOW WHAT books.” :hysterical:

My younger two children promptly put their hands over their ears, and my daughter turns to me and says, “Can we PLEASE change the subject?”

Today I’m over at the Berkley authors’ blog, bitching, well discussing my morning routine. (Is supreme disorganization considered a routine?) So I won’t torture you with it over here.

I’ve been mulling a lot of different plots lately. It drives me crazy, but then it reassures me all at the same time. (I never said I was sane) Because, as a writer, my biggest fear is running out of stories to tell. What if one day I just can’t think of another good one? It’s terrifying, I tell ya.

So even though my sanity is at risk, I embrace thinking about five different plots at one time, because I know, at least, there are five more stories to tell. I take notes, use downtime to ponder, go to bed at night thinking about characters, inciting events, conflict etc. Then I get up and make more notes.

I went through a period, when I was really struggling with all facets of my career. I’d just fired an agent. Had an editor who loved my story leave the publishing business. And for months I simply could not create. Could not think of a story I was burning to tell. The proverbial well had gone dry. I remember thinking, is this it? Is it over before it all begins? I don’t really care to revisit those days. Ever. I’m much happier when I can’t wait to sit down and write because I have characters whispering in my ear. Tell my story. Tell my story. No, tell MY story, damn it.

And who said writers were crazy? (They were right)

I finished up a writing project last week and decided to take a week off since I’ve basically been writing the entire summer nonstop. But I also had a surgery scheduled for this past Thursday, so the vacation wasn’t so glamorous. :sweating:

The surgery was a simple one, if any surgery can be labeled such. I mean a lot of people have it as outpatient surgery, go home same day and back to work the next. I only have one thing to say. What the fuck?? OMG. I feel like a freaking freight train hit me. And I’m three days post op. Moving hurts. I hurt. Thank goodness for drugs. :weee:

And the best part? Hubby leaves tomorrow morning for a three day business trip which leaves me here with the three kiddos solo. :huh: Oh yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I really can’t complain because hubby has been freaking awesome this whole weekend. He and the kids cleaned house and cooked all the meals so I got to rest the entire time. I just wish he wasn’t leaving tomorrow. :crying:

I’m going to start on my proposal for book two of my Berkley contract this week. Im excited and terrified all at the same time. I love the ideas I have. I just hope I’m successful in transferring them to paper. :writersblock:

Anyone else have big plans for the week?