I'm writing again

slowly. but I am actually progressing this story over the middle hump. I started this book the first week of December and I'm at 40 thousand words almost three months later. In three months I should have at least finished this one and be sitting at this spot in a second book. That's what writer's block and putting other people first does for me. I'm not talking about my family. They are always first. I'm talking about....well never mind. Anyway, the cowboy book or Let It Go is going to have an ending. I know where we're going all the way now. The curse of the pantster. I don't plot. I'm strictly a sit and write what the characters tell me. Or as I say most often, I'm just the bitch who takes dictation. Yes there are little voices in my head. I'm completely sane when the little voices play with me. It's when they're silent that I go off my rocker. I start having to think about real things, like bills, and politics, and who the hell ate up the doritos? I just wanted a few doritos. Wait that was me, this time.

So yes I'm writing. I'm about to head this thing down the road to the end. So if you know me and my stories you know this is where heaven starts to go to hell. Poor Creed. He was such a sweet soul too.

Anyway, I'm hoping to finish this in a week. HOPING. more like begging the muse PLEASE lets get this one done so we can move on to Cold2.

I'm getting ready to take a couple of major steps as a self publisher. A friend and I are working together to get a small self publishing co-op going. Putting together a network. Securing ISBNs. Finding good cover artists. Editors. You know that sort of thing. I'll know more toward the end of next month. For me personally this will make all the difference. I'm prolific. When my head is on straight. I can write a short story in two weeks. So why not put out a short story a month? A long story once a quarter. Give one or two to publishers along the way. Will you get sick of me if I publish that much a year? Will I get sick of me?

So, okay, that's what's going on with me. I think I'm on the right track. I should have done two things in college. I should have gone to business school, and I should have become a psychologist. Instead I'm just going to arm chair both.

So happy Tuesday. Hope yours is sunny and nice. Wish mine was. Rain. More rain. The sun hasn't shown it's face in two weeks. Blah. Come on March.

Mercy

I'm recommending a book yes I am.

Every now and then I will get all mushy and smushy about a book I just read. It doesn't happen often. Because, well, I'm picky as hell. If a book don't float my boat I won't even mention it. Not my place and completely, in my opinion, wrong for an author to critique her peers. But I'm old school, what do I know.

Okay so the book is the one over on Amazon that is currently keeping 51 from the top spots. Not that that bothers me, that 51 is even in the league with this book is just ridiculous to me. Okay, so what I thought about Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander.

First, I have no idea who Dani Alexander is. I've never met her, never had email or private chat or any type of contact with her. In short she is a complete virtual stranger to me.

Second, this appears to be her first self published book. And I'm going to ofter a bit of a suggestion. I'm as subtle as a pulled fire alarm at a high school prom.

This book is excellent. It's a very long M/M novel. It has very little sex so don't go expecting hot and bothered like I write. But it's so satisfying. It's also only $2.99. Run don't walk because here's that advice to the author.

RAISE YOUR PRICE DANI now. Do it now. This book is so good I would have paid more.

Now the nit picky. There are a few formatting issues nothing worth the review someone posted on Amazon. Very few editing problems. Some typos there at the end. Again I've read NY published books from big name authors with more typos than this book has. A word completely missing with the space left for it. A few extra words. Not worth the two star someone gave. Now my nit picky. Unless I missed something somewhere witness protection is the purview of the US Marshals not the FBI but I suspended belief without knowing why the author wanted or needed the FBI to handle the WP case. Other than that.

GO BUY THIS BOOK NOW BEFORE THE AUTHOR FIGURES OUT SHE HAS A GREAT BOOK AND RAISES THE PRICE. Because it is a seriously great book at a seriously great price. And the only reason I didn't finish it in one sitting was because it was too damned long and I have a sick kid dragging me away from it.

So here is the link. Whip out the credit card and pay the $2.99. It's so worth it.  Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander


Okay? Okay!

Oh and don't forget that I'm still giving away books to five different winners just for commenting on my blog between the pool boy post and Sunday evening. I'll pick from everyone who doesn't say otherwise.

And now for the beach boys or pool boys and anything with a wet man in it. Tomorrow I'm going to do a hot man Friday late in the evening since this is the only time I'm remembering to post.

TA

Mercy

Writers are nuts-well most of us are anyway

I just wanted to get that out there. It makes me feel better about my precarious mental situation to generalize myself. I'm a writer and I'm nuts therefore all writer's must be nuts right? But Mercy you're not nuts. You're...honestly, let's just stick with the facts at hand. I live a great deal of my time inside my own noggin. I'm a classic introvert. I don't do well in social situations. I like my little bitty office corner. I can and have gone days without stepping outside my house. I love to look up strange stuff on the internet. And the librarians see me coming with something akin to terror in their eyes. They don't understand that the Dewey Decimal System doesn't make sense when there is no section entitled Crazy Author Research aisle. When I need to know about guns or poisons or bathing practices of the eighteen hundreds I need to know now. I am surprised I'm not on some list somewhere as a person of interest. When you walk out of the library with travel guide books and popular recipes for undetectable poison it's sure to arouse someones suspicions I would imagine. Though I never did write that book. I just settled on physical and mental torture not involving poison or heavy artillery.

Another tell tale sign that writer's are nuts. We gravitate to other writers for support. It's cray-cray feeding the cray-cray. Ever get a couple of loons...er..writer's together in a restaurant and they don't start plotting a heinous murder or terrorist situation...okay you haven't done that, ah...okay, people get sort of wild eyed and stare at you funny. Erotic writer's think nothing of passing around porn on smart phones at Waffle House. We giggle like a bunch of teenagers caught drinking in the parking lot. I am not kidding you. It's feeding time at the zoo when certain writer people get together.

We're also incredibly sensitive. Creative people usually are. Some of us hide it behind bravado and big words. Others tend to pull in on ourselves to try and sort through the damage. Some of us also tend to forget that we are just frail little creatures in a sea of frail little creatures and we can inflict damage without meaning too. Failure scares us. We take it personally. By the same token success terrifies the shit out of us.

And that ladies and gentlemen is where this crazy ass writer is right now. In a terrified paralytic state. Torn between running to the mall and shouting my book is in the number one slot at Amazon for five days in a row, and curling into a little ball and never emerging.

Two weeks of not blogging wasn't nearly enough. Two months of not writing is taking a toll. Freak out of extreme proportions is imminent and I don't have a damned soul to talk about it with. Why? Why? Why? Why this book? Why that book before it? What makes this one so special? I wrote it more than a year ago and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Just a crazy idea that I could write something like this. Went through hell with this book for nearly a year. Sold it to a publisher who didn't do one thing with it. For six months. No sales. No interest. Nothing. I didn't change much at all. Cleaned up what I'd done wrong the first time and added an epilogue. Yes that's what it's like to go through a hurricane. Yes I have a Katrina baby. She'll be six in June.

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I just write to tell a story. And now I can't write and the stories have stopped. And I have no one to talk to about this. Not one person understands what is going on in my brain. One side is ecstatic the other side has found a dark little spot and crawled into it. Unfortunately, that's the side of my brain that comes up with the stories.

And that is more than I ever intended to write. I know it freaks people out when I reveal too much. Sorry. I have been very up front about my mental state from the beginning. It shouldn't be a shock to the system now. But okay, shutting up now.

No hot men today. We'll get back to that tomorrow. I haven't gone trolling for fresh meat in awhile. I think I might be tired of looking at naked men....nah, I'm just kidding.

Have a great after V-Day Wednesday, chocoholics, what can I say, the hair of the dog that bit ya, or potato chips, I can't help and now I want potato chips. Dammit.

Mercy

Peeking in Sunday

Why do I feel the need to put the day of the week in my posts? Usually there is nothing specific about the posts themselves except the day I post it. Besides hot man Friday I don't really stick with any themes. And that's not to belittle the hot men the other four days a week. Especially the wet ones, on that rare Wet Wednesday.

So, how is everyone this morning? I can say that after a trying week I'm actually in a good place this morning. I don't currently own a car, okay I do, it's in the shop. The repairs are more than the car is worth. My 13 year old mini van died a painful death on Tuesday. The transmission I swear said "hell no, I ain't going no where else." Kerplunk. Unfortunately, it decided to give up the ghost in the turn lane on what this area calls 'deadly 98' five lanes of truckers flying into the city. The husband was with me thankfully, the little kid was not. He got out and asked the truck behind us to give us a push. I will say that I've manned the wheel more times than I want to admit so it wasn't a shock to be lightly rear ended and pushed off a hi-way. Poor van, we sent it to the crusher. It was a loyal and faithful van that served us well for a long long time. I felt as if I were sending one of my kids off to the electric chair.

Other events of the week were more painful. Let's just say I haven't written much since I finished the short story Need You Now in early December. I put other projects ahead of writing. Including the rewrite and release of 51. Too much time spent stewing in a goo of my own making. So right now I have to prioritize what is important to me for this year. I won't be doing any more editing for anyone. It takes too much time and the cost is too high. I'm working with a few local friends to start a self publishing group. People who have bent over backwards for me this past year that I wish to repay. I owe so many people for helping me this past year. I've never in my life taken help from anyone. Especially when I felt like I was doing all the taking and none of the giving. Now is the time to pay up. I've met some wonderful real life and on line people. People who've enriched my life and helped with my career. And yes I'm comfortable calling it a career now. Six months ago writing was still mostly a hobby. I've upset people over the year. I'm blunt, I'm honest, and I have no filter. Once people figure that much out they usually run screaming. Can't say that I blame them.

Anyway, I'm leading up to something I don't want to have to announce but time and other things have dictated this decision.

There is absolutely no way possible for me to have Cold Shadow of Doubt ready to go before May. Yes I said May. I haven't even begun the first rewrite. This book is still in very rough first draft form unlike Cold and 51 which really only needed minor rewrites and thorough editing. I'm talking I haven't even started researching anything on this book. I still have to go through and flesh out those areas where I was stuck and just wrote to further the story. The end is still the original get me to the finish line because I can't sell this book and I have to move on to something else which was Behind Iron Lace at the time. Plus it's much longer than Cold. Lots of work that I can't possibly do in three weeks. I need an editor. I need cover art. I need so much done. It hasn't even been to beta readers. I know I'm disappointing a lot of people. I'm sorry. I don't want to release this book until it's in it's best possible form and writing is about layering. Going through and taking out what doesn't work and putting in what does. I bet you I rewrote the first chapter to Cold seven times before I submitted it to the original publishing company. I rewrote it twice before I self published it. Yes, I'm a perfectionist. Sue me.

So, you're asking why not April? Yes I can have it finished in April. But I'm not rushing for an April release for two reasons. First, I want to finish writing the cowboy book I started in November. I should have finished it weeks ago. I want to finish it and get it off to Silver by the end of this month. I'm sitting at about the halfway point. And secondly, Beyond Complicated is scheduled to release on April 14th. Need You Now is scheduled for June 6th. I'd like to sandwich Cold 2 in between them. Maybe the second week of May.

I'm sorry for disappointing everyone. I took on more than I could handle over the last two months. I lost sight of what I need to do. I'm on track now. Love you, all of you.

Peace,

Mercy


Ps. And tomorrow guest star week continues with the lovely Sara York. Followed by Paige Tyler, Sue Brown who I think is doing some Torchwood fan fic, Patricia Logan, a personal friend of mine Fran Fisher, Laura Harner, Dawn Roberto, and Don McNair on the 13th. Don, I think is working on a post about 'coming out' as a male romance writer after years of using a female pen name. I think it's a timely discussion and incredibly relevant after events of last year. And then Suzzana C. Ryan on the 20th. Suzzana is debuting her very first novel that week. In between we're getting back to all the hot man and crazy writer drama you can stand. I call it SNAFU. Situation Normal All Fucked Up.



Oh and because it's been a few days, how about some pretties.

Remember this picture? I found it a few months ago and fell in love with it. The hand prints on the mirror fascinated me. Yes I'm one of those disgusting people who sees more than the naked man in the middle. I love detail. Detail makes this art and not porn. The hand prints. I was damned curious about the hand prints.
Well, mystery solved. Look what I found recently.

Isn't this gorgeous? The detail, the once grand room fallen to neglect. The antique furniture. The mirror image of former decadence. And the hand on the mirror. Love this. I wish I knew who the photographer was. If anyone knows let me know so I can credit properly and go find more from this talented person.

MJ