Blog

I’m having mucho fun on the break. I’ve been on a total reading binge. I blazed through Sharon Sala’s backlist. I love her. LOVE her. I read all my Harlequin Presents and then went and bought the August ones as ebooks :lol2:

I’ve even gotten some fun writing stuff done, such as a proposal for a so-fun-it’s-evil story. :weee:

The fun news? I just contracted the first book in a new series. :cheer: What’s so fun about this series is that for the first time, I’ll be blending Sharon and Maya into a marriage of the two pen names. So far I’ve kept the two voices separate. But this series is going to be so fun to write because I’m letting both voices out of the cage. It’ll be published under Maya Banks and the first book will release in Feb 2007.

It’s going to be soooooo much fun :rockthefuckon:

Ok so I know I went on and on about taking a break after finishing my book. Uhm that hasn’t happened yet. Too many little things to take care of that I let pile up while I was finishing the BOOK. But it’s done YAY! oopps sorry I had to put that in there again. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a wee bit relieved to be finished.

The cool news? And yes, I’m getting off track. I tend to do that. A lot. I have two readers who I trust very much when it comes to providing feedback. And bless their hearts, they always get the rough, not polished yet version of my stories and still they read them. Well, I sent them the BOOK with dread in my heart because see, I’ve hated the last THREE books I’ve written. As in hated every aspect of them while writing. And as soon as I finished them and edited etc, I put them away and did not open them again. When I got edits for the first book I hated, I was surprised that they were light, but then as I read, something amazing happened. I didn’t hate the book. In fact, it was pretty good. :fainting: And then I picked up book 2 to read weeks and weeks after finishing, and uhm gee, that one didn’t suck either. I really, really liked it.

So here I am at book three that I hated every word of when writing it. I sent it off to my readers and they wrote back that they loved it. One even said she liked it BETTER than For Her Pleasure, which uhm kind of blew me away because A. she really liked FHP and B. I’ve always thought FHP was my best written Maya book. So now I’m afraid to go back and read it and I won’t. Not this soon. I won’t pick it up again until I get edits because then sufficient time will have passed that I can look at it with clear eyes. But I’m hoping, really hoping, that it’s going to be good. Because my readers have really really given me a teeny tiny bit of hope to cling to :lol2:

So anyway, back to the little things that pile up. I kinda er uhm forgot that I had galleys in my in box, so I did those yesterday. And then I have this really short story that I promised to have written and turned in by uhm next week. :oops: And then I got edits for Beyond the Night yesterday so uhm I’ve been working today. No break in sight. Good news is edits are done and turned in and I’ve written half of the short story. So MAYBE by say Thursday? I’ll get started on that break. I have books leftover from vacation to read and I can’t wait to get to them.

But squee again! My readers loved the BOOK. :banana:

donedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedonedone :cheer::elephant::weee:

After a year of back to back to back…deadlines, I am done. Not to say I don’t have more work to do, but ya know what? I don’t have to have it done anytime soon :lol2: I totally get a break now, and I am sooooo going to love it.

:rockthefuckon:

In case you missed it over at Writeminded, here is the cover for Sweet Surrender, formerly known as Dark Desires or Berkley book #2

I like it, because as with the second version of FOR HER PLEASURE and ultimately the final cover, it’s different and I can’t point to a dozen other covers out there that look the same. And I really like the title. I suggested it late, so I wasn’t sure if it would be used, but it was PERFECT for the story, and admittedly I’m a freak about the title saying something about the story.

I’ve included a blurb below. This is very unofficial so don’t hold it against me when it’s changed :purplelaugh:

Sweet Surrender March 2008 Berkley HEAT

Sometimes the first step in taking control is surrendering.

Under Faith Malone’s deceptively soft exterior lies a woman who knows exactly what she wants. A strong man who’ll take without asking—because she’s willing to give him everything…

Dallas cop Gray Montgomery is on a mission: find the guy who killed his partner—and bring him to justice. So far, he’s found a link between the killer and Faith—and if Gray has to get close to her to catch the killer, so be it.

Faith is sweet and feminine, everything Gray wants and desires in a woman, but he suspects she’s playing games. No way she would allow a man to call the shots in their relationship. Or would she?

Faith sees in Gray the strong, dominant man she needs, but he seems determined to keep her at a distance. So she takes matters into her own hands to prove to him it’s no game she’s playing. She’s willing to surrender to the right man. Gray would like to be that man. But catching his partner’s killer has to be his first priority. Until Faith is threatened and Gray realizes he will do anything to protect her.

It’s midnight, I’m stoned and my page count is not where it should be. :oops: The good news is that I got SOMETHING done. I was going to wait to take the drugs until after I’d finished writing, but my ears were hurting so damn bad that I couldn’t concentrate anyway, so I took the medicine and wrote until I was no longer coherent. I’ve now reached that point. :passedout:

Though I’m probably too pissed to go to sleep now. The fucking Astros just blew a FIVE run lead in the 7th inning. :cursesign:

I plan to sleep obscenely late in the morning then get up and try and slog through all the post vacation clutter in my house, not to mention the mound of laundry that has taken a life of its own, and then settle down to write some more. I left off in an exciting spot so I’ll be itching to get back to it. And no, it wasn’t a sex scene. I know better than to leave off at a sex scene. If I did that, I’d never go back to it.

I spent the entire day at the doctor’s office with my daughter. Me for my ears and her for some weirdass rash with fever that ended up being some viral something or another that nothing can be done for. Me on the other hand, the doc was astonished that after two weeks and two different antibiotics that my ears still looked so bad. *sigh* They shoved some stick into my left ear so it would suck up all the infection and drain it. FUN. Not. My right ear hurts so bad that I can’t even chew. The doc then told me that if I didnt get well quick, I’d have to go to the ENT. I cringe at the thought of what might happen there. I don’t like having my ears messed with. :sweating:

And my poor daughter was miserable. She just wanted to go home and crawl in bed and snuggle mommy. Hours later and one girly nap later, we’re both up and around but we’re moving slooooow. But daddy is taking good care of his girls :cheer:

So now I only have roughly 5.5 hours to complete my goal for today. I only have until midnight. After haranging my writer’s group into doing an AITC week with me, here I am the lone slacker. :cursesign: Narcotics and bed are a more desirable option at the moment…

Vacation is over *deep sigh* Even though I was sick with an ear infection from hell the entire vacation (still am) it still beat being at home.

Lots happened over vacation, some enlightening, some not. I had planned to use vacation to mull over some decisions I’d been holding off on, and after getting blown off, some of them were a lot easier to make. Sometimes no answer is an answer in itself ya know? :idontknow:

So it’s back to work for me now, and I’m not sweating the small stuff or shit I can’t change. Amazing how vacation can mellow you :lol2:

I need a “who gives a fuck” sign to go along with my :rockthefuckon: smilie. Or maybe just a “Fuck em” sign. Or maybe just “Fuck Off” I could see me getting carried away here…..

I spent the weekend throwing myself down a water slide into a pool with the kidlets. Hubby and I then threw ourselves in tandem down the water slide while the kidlets shrieked with laughter. I then threw myself down the water slide with a kidlet attached. I get home yesterday afternoon and go shopping for vacation stuff and by evening, my ass was DRAGGING. So why did I stay up until 3:30 am? Hell if I know. But that wouldn’t have been so bad if the city water guy hadn’t rang my doorbell at 8 friggin AM this morning. I may have scared him. I dont even remember our conversation. Something about our meter was leaking and he fixed it. As long as my house isn’t floating away, at that point I didn’t care.

We moved up our vacation plans just a bit. We were supposed to leave this Saturday for a week but hubby and I really desperately need this vacation and we decided what the hell, let’s leave earlier, go up further north to the Norfolk river and do some trout fishing for a few days before our regularly scheduled vacation begins. :lol2:

So we’re leaving Wednesday instead of Saturday. That’s in uhm two days. Im frantically doing laundry and packing shit, but oh man I cannot wait. The downside is that Im not going to get half the books I ordered before I leave :crying: I suppose the upside is, I have a book to finish writing anyway. I did get one eharlequin order and a third of my Amazon order, so I’m not completely without reading material.

So anyhoo, I’m outta here for the next two weeks. I’ll be off fishing and hanging out on my porch overlooking the river. :fishing:

Got my first eharlequin order in today. 13 Presents! :elephant: :rockthefuckon:

Which is good because we sorta bumped up our vacation departure date to next Wednesday instead of Saturday which means I probably won’t get my Amazon books in time for vacation :crying:

But YAY! I’ve got Presents to read :hug:

Just a quick note. We’re turning our blog over to guest bloggers the week of July 8. For details go here and if you’re interested, drop me an email!