Rest

It’s another check-in day. We’ve been unpacking boxes, rearranging furniture, and all the crazy that comes with moving. My nighttime writing sessions have been a no-go since I’m usually too exhausted to stay awake. I finally had that day or two of rest I’ve needed since this adventure began back in January. Three days in a row of sleep for 12 hours at a time (which may or may not be due to having MY BED back -and/or- bone weary exhaustion). Yep, I think I’m finally rested. Last night was a seven hour sleep fest so I’m definitely back on track.

So what did I accomplish this week?

• Got the kids all their shots and back in school (YES!)
• Won a contest for a $25 Amazon gift card. OMG how awesome! Thank you Evanne!
• Unpacked most of my bedroom. I now have a desk and place to write YAY!
• Worked through a plotting issue with A Familiar Kiss
• Submitted Destitute and Undead to Entangled Publishing (the pitch win)
• Became a Coffee Time Romance author (so cool!)
• Thief‘s outline was completed.
• Entered another pitch. Will find out next week if it’s selected by an editor for an online live pitch session
• No Dragon, No Problem is at 6323 of 20k (started it on 3 Feb, I need to get in gear!).
• Created my author page on Amazon.com
• Joined up with the Platform Building Campaign
• Updated my website, the books section on this one, and my work in progress page
• Only produced 3k words this week (thank you #1k1hr on twitter!). Not good, but I’m giving myself a break and calling it a planning/spring cleaning week

You know, I think that’s enough for any writing week. No wonder I was so tired.

So what’s on the agenda for next week?

• Complete A Familiar Kiss and get it to my editor by the end of V Day
• Complete No Dragon, No Problem
• Complete Chapter One of Feral Hunger/Primal Intent (the title gods are debating on this one)
• Complete Chapter Two of Enraptured

What are the goals for the rest of the month?

• Complete one chapter ea on two novels per week
• Submit Chloe’s Kiss to the submission call
• Finish and submit Thief and A Clockwork Conspiracy (this one’s tentative)

Guess I’d better get on the ball. I’ll be running several #1k1hr throughout the day, every day, from my twitter account. You’re welcome to follow along. I use Tweetdeck so I can create a #1k1hr column. This shows me any time another group is running.

Goals for the week:

A Familiar Kiss Rewrites

No Dragon, No Problem

Enraptured Chapter Two

Feral Hunger/Primal Intent Chapter One

That’s it for me!

Keep Writing!

Dawn

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Another day older…

So yesterday was my birthday. YAY! I ate at one of my favorite restaurants and got an apartment! Woohooo!!!! No more living out of our bags. Soon-ish anyway. Can’t get in there until next week, but we’ll be good.

On the writing front:

• Plotted 2nd Hunger book (due to new publishing schedule, it got pushed up from March).
• Started my Beauty and the Beast (Thief)
• Entered an online pitch
• Sketched out a Kitchen Witch story (Back by popular demand)

Found out that my first novel will be out February 3rd! Awesome. Ebook first. Print a year or so later. Love it!

Checking out Sunday’s goals:

• Found a house! WOOHOO!
• 5 hours of writing per day: Nope. I’ll be honest, stress over the house searching thing made Tuesday almost useless.
• Finish up my final outprocessing for January tomorrow…more to follow in February
• Cook dinner four times this week…tonight starts my cooking schedule.

Due to tons of questions, I posted my Work Day Schedule HERE. So far, I’ve hit those goals every day but Tuesday.

I spent Monday and Tuesday nights at Writerschat for Changeling Press and Ellora’s Cave. So much fun! Didn’t promo a single thing, just hung out with some pretty awesome authors. Had a great time.

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Sunday update

It’s check-in day for a Round of Words in 80 days.

How did I do this week?

• Became a full-time writer on 16 January
• Edits completed for Primal Hunger, my first novel (and EC book!)
• Sweet Simone completed (short story aimed at Cleis Press’s Bondange Anthology)
• Moved to Texas from Alaska this week (Took four days)
• Lived (and still living…) in a hotel room with three kids and a husband (without a vehicle until 9 Feb)
• Said goodbye to the military (and many great friends I’d made in the service)
• Re-evaluated my January goals
• Read three books from some of my favorite authors

You know…I thought I’d done pretty crappy this week. When I look at all I’ve accomplished, I’m not so disappointed. I suppose this is a prime example of why accountability is so important to a writer.

Today will be non-fiction focused as I have deadlines to complete. I’ll also be creating my 2012 writing challenge spreadsheet. I know I’m behind, but I had a LOT going on. At least I’m doing it in January instead of September like I did last year.

January’s new goals:

• 5 hours writing per day
• Complete all final outprocessing requirements for the military (insurance, dental, etc)
• Find a house
• Cook dinner four times a week (I have to write it down or I’ll get sucked into writing…SuperChef will be cooking the other three nights).

January’s Writing Goals

• Medical Mystery partial (still untitled)
• Thief started (Modern day Beauty and the Beast novella)
• Marked (tattoo story for EC’s theme)
• Texas History novella fleshed out (Sexy mayhem in the pioneer town of Austin, Texas)

Pushed out to February (the month where my brother enters the Marines, and I am officially retired from the USAF)

• A Familiar Kiss (need to print out the ms to work on it)
• Fox Hunt (short menage in the wilds of Alaska)
• Nexus (Sexy cyber novella)

Pushed out to March and Beyond

• Enraptured (hot and wild fantasy adventure romance)
• Feral Hunger (Book 2 in the Sheon Wars trilogy)

I think that’s about it, don’t you?

Oh, did I mention that my birthday is on the 24th of this month? What a start to 2012.

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Starting a New Project

There’s something about a new story that thrills and terrifies this writer. So many ideas flow through my head. A Familiar Kiss is sitting on my harddrive screaming at me to finish it, but I am dying to write a tattoo story for EC’s theme request.

There’s also a very fun project for Changeling that I want to get done. A fairy tale book (YAY!). I spent most of today in edit-brain (creativity stomped into a tiny box while my internal editor goes crazy. A common result for me after intense editing sessions. My oldest son calls it my “mushy brain” stage.).

I’m sitting in a hotel room with three kids, one food blog chef husband, and minimal supplies (did I mention no car until Feb 9th?). Editing (and rewriting a great deal of the product) is killing me on this tiny screen. I’ve got my laptop, but no printer (yet…hurry up and get here!!!) so A Familiar Kiss is going to have to wait until I can print it out.

So now it’s between the fairy tale story and the tattoo one. How do I pick? Well, I pick based on fairness. EC just got a book so it’s time to turn one in to Changeling. This isn’t a play to either publishing company (I LOVE both publishers and my awesome editors), but a shout out to my loyal readers.

Some of you are loyal to one company or the other. If it wasn’t for you guys, I wouldn’t be living my dream in the middle of beautiful San Antonio. I owe it to you all to make sure I’m giving you the best I can every time. Times are hard, so the last thing I want is to have anyone waste money on a product I phoned in.

A Familiar Kiss was originally intended for Changeling, and if I don’t tighten up the manuscript and cut the chaff, I won’t make it under CP’s wordcount limit (three characters have already faced the chopping block, and I shudder to think what else will have to go). Sometimes it really is easier to start from scratch than to rewrite a book. The fairy tale story will take AFK’s place as my next delivery.

So here’s my choice…my new work in progress is Thief, a modern Beauty and the Beast tale of lust and love.

If you’ve read this far you deserve a lollipop, and a long break from my rambling. Go forth and read something wicked.

Here are a few in my queue:

Note: All links are to the publisher websites. They are not affiliate links, and these books are ones I’ve either read (and want to read again) or will soon be reading. This isn’t a ploy to get you to buy books. I’m simply showing you what I’m going to be reading this weekend.

Magnetism by Kim Knox (the entire series is fascinating! a matchmaking planet )

Ty the Sexy Dragon by Lexxie Couper (I got to beta read this one. OMG hawt! This weekend I’ll get to read the finished version. So cool!)

Leashed by Jet Mykles (I LOVE the leashed series)

I autobuy anything by Laurann Dohner (So far everything she’s written has rocked me!)

3 and 6

Some days life feels like a train, moving along at max speed, tracks clear, and the sun is shining. Other times it’s blocked rails, blizzards, and miserable conditions. We spend so much time focused on our destination, that we never take time to enjoy how we get there.

I’m so desperate to get all my paperwork done that I haven’t taken a breath in about the past three days. The engine’s chugging along at max speed, and I’ve avoided most derailings with a little ingenuity (duct tape) and gentle persuasion (baseball bat).

It’s also three days until I leave Alaska. And six days until I’m a full time writer.

Enraptured

AFK

Time Flies, 2011 in Review

I’ve heard it said that a mother’s work is never done. This month has flown by! Here we are, three days from the new year. How did it happen so quickly? I’m currently working on Enraptured, a co-written series with the incredibly talented Lacey Savage. It’s coming along nicely. A Familiar Kiss is near completion. My goal is to have it and Nexus to my editors before the New Year. Primal Hunger’s cover is still phenomenal and I’m so thrilled to see my name on an Ellora’s Cave cover. Just amazing.

January brings me to Alaska with my family after a 15 month deployment. It’s hard knocks for a while, and injuries make recovery difficult. There are some pretty bad moments for a while, but I channel all that fury and uncertainty into the series that would become the Rift Wars. My injuries put me into a medical evaluation system. Lots of red tape and paperwork to sort through.

February and March are touch and go, health wise. So many medical appointments and briefings. I learn to adapt to a new lifestyle, and find alternative sports options. My sons and I realize we are really great at archery. I learn to ski, and Rift Wars becomes an obsession. I’m now writing several hours a day. Oh how I had missed writing…

April rolls around and I get back into the writing game. Send out a few submissions, receive amazing feedback (but no bites), and realize that my writing had changed significantly since my return from overseas. My work was darker and less apologetic. I receive some amazing fanmail that keeps me going.

By May and June the family helps me realize there is no going back. My life had altered, and we had to figure out what was going to happen next. I need a new career. After talking it over with SuperChef (husband), we  come to the conclusion that it is now or never. Time to get moving again on the writing train.

In July, I contact Lacey Savage about a crazy book series idea. We iron out the details and decide to go for it later in the year. So I set my sites on a publishing company I’d wanted to be a part of from the beginning: Ellora’s Cave. First novel submission is a feedback rejection, and I immediately begin working on the next submission.

By August,  Primal Hunger is submitted to an editor at Ellora’s Cave and a full is requested in less than a week. Insert OMG and Squee fest. My second novel submission ever, and it’s showing promise. Now to get it all polished up and pretty. My annual Holiday short submission is away to Changeling Press and approved. I love the winter contest they have every year.

September: The Other Klaus is written, polished, and submitted. I start working on Feral Intent, a sequel to Primal Hunger. The Other Klaus is accepted. WOOHOO!

October/November blend together in excitement and incredible change. Primal Hunger is accepted (and title is changed from Primal Heat to Primal Hunger). Contract information is completed, and I get to announce to the world that I’m an Ellora’s Cave author!  SuperChef celebrates record-breaking traffic on his recipe blog. He’s getting some serious acclaim from several incredible cookery sites. I get notice of a pending retirement. My career as an Airman is almost over. With that comes an emotional rollercoaster of epic proportions. Fourteen years. <Poof!> The family and I agree to settle down south where the weather is less intense. We settle on San Antonio, Texas.With two days to spare, I complete NaNoWriMo for the second time, ever. I get together with Lacey Savage and we work out all the details of our trilogy. We decide to start working on them the second week or so of December. Not a bad month…

The insanity doesn’t stop! I begin work on Enraptured. December 10th, The Other Klaus releases. I forgot how much I loved release day. December is tense while I transition from the military (OMG the paperwork…I forgot how much I’d had to sign to come IN. Getting out is just as crazy!). We’re still in the process of packing up a house for the move, house hunting, etc. The first three weeks in January will be just as intense, as we’ll be moving a household from Alaska to Texas. Family meltdowns and worries collide in some pretty potent mixes. Some of the best parts of the month: Christmas… just incredible! I also got to have a wonderful writing session with the fabulous Leila Brown! The Other Klaus came out! And I was just naughty enough to get a little extra in my stocking this year.

Throughout the year, I celebrated a ton of wonderful releases by my great critique partners, Kim Knox and Lexxie Couper. Don’t believe me? Check out Kim’s Smokin’ Hot Planetary Bodies series, or Lexxie Couper’s Sizzlin’ Ty the Sexy Dragon novella.

So what’s in store for 2012?

January will be busy. Enraptured will be finished, edits for Primal Hunger are expected, we’ll be moving to Texas (yikes!), and looking for a house. Internet will be sketchy, but that’s why the book gods created Barnes and Noble. My oldest son and I are getting our hair dyed something ridiculous, and I’m getting my fingernails done in funky tips as a retirement gift to myself.

In February I have two books releasing from Changeling Press. Will give you more information as soon as it becomes available. I officially retire as a Technical Sergeant of the United States Air Force at the end of the month. The kids get back into school. The new life officially begins. Despite the change in income and such, I expect it to be much like the old life…only more writing. And no more asking permission to go on a road trip. Or filling out paperwork if I want to go to Oklahoma. Or sending other men and women to war in my place b/c my body can’t do it anymore. Hmm. So far, I see far more positives than negatives. Enraptured should be polished up and submitted. By then, we’ll be working on the final book in the trilogy.

I have five books planned through May. Primal Hunger is slotted to release some time early 2012.

May your 2012 be prosperous, awe-inspiring, and non world-ending.

See you in 2012!

Keep Writing,
Dawn

Cover Love

Will you get a load of this? Primal Hunger has a rawr cover.

What do you think? Delicious, huh? No date for release yet, but I’d expect an early 2012 launch.

In the meantime, I’m working on two novellas: A Familiar Kiss and Nexus. Both are making me growl with frustration atm. I keep getting distracted with the looming move. 34 more days until I say goodbye to the EDJ/Alaska and hello to Texas/full-time writer.

I would say that I’m going to miss all the traveling, but to tell you the truth…I just want to spend some time with my family and do the mom thing. I’ve missed so many things. Globe-trotting is fun, but the cost just isn’t worth it to me any more. Muah! Enough of this seriousness!

The Other Klaus comes out this week! I’ll post the release on Friday!

Keep Writing!

Dawn

The Last Day in November

Coming December 10th!

It’s the last day of NaNoWriMo. Have you finished your novel, yet? I finished a few days ago, but still seem to be in a writing pressure-cooker. At some point in the past two weeks, I lost power to my laptop, so my daily wordcount updates aren’t accurate. I updated with the most recent word counts and it looks like I’ve written a novel in two days. LOL.

Tomorrow is December 1st. Many holidays flock around this time of year. My family follows Christmas traditions, so I’ll be chatting about that. For many, it is the nightmare of Christmas shopping and buying frenzies. For others, it’s filled with simple holidays and warm wishes. Still others will be struggling to just make ends meet.

Take some time from your busy holiday season and give a little love to someone less fortunate than you. Grab an angel tree tag, or bake cookies for your local orphanage. My kids and I will be cooking dinner for a soldier and his family who are spending their Christmas at the Fisher house. The house was opened two months early for these guys, so things are still a bit bare.

Meanwhile, I’ll be sending cookies to my deployed military service friends. So many of them are out and about this year. It’s always hard being away from family, especially over the holidays.

Throughout the month of December, the Montgomery brood will be preparing for the last big move. We’ll finally settle down in Texas, near the San Antonio area. Our move day is around mid-January. Crazy, huh? That should be enough, right??

You’d think…but I have a fantastic release on the 10th of December. The Other Klaus releases from Changeling Press as one of the Red HOT Winter stories. Buying a copy of my book puts your name in for the chance to win free ebooks for a year! There are so many great prizes, so check it out!

I have two books to polish and email to editors by the end of this week, and then I get to start a Super Secret Project, code name: Enraptured! I’ve already started character sketches and collages. It’s going to be sooo fun.

Keep Writing!

Lynn Viehl has a great inspirational post on the last day

Linda from the Written Picture shows how a $20 discount kept her going through the tough times (She also has some GREAT pointers on how to put writing in front of other things).

NaNoWriMo has a list of all sponsors who helped out. Discounts apply even if you DIDN’T make your 50K words (if you have won, the sponsors will release the goods on 5 December).

December 1st marks National Novel Finishing Month.

March 1st starts National Novel Editing Month or EdMo

XoXo

Dawn

I beat NaNo

I spent the last week or so slamming out words after words. Two novellas, a short story, and a polished piece for an HQ submission. I need some sleep, but can’t work it up. I just want to get another piece knocked out before the end of next week. I wrote 10k in an all night writing fest.

What about you? How are you doing on NaNoWriMo? Struggling? Lynn Viehl has a fantastic article today on pushing through to the end.

I received a ton of stuff from EC to go through. Lots of paperwork.

The first couple of weeks in December will be editing focused. For now, it’s back to the cave.

Keep Writing!

Dawn

Sexy Saturday

Here’s a tidbit from my current WIP,

A Familiar Kiss.

She hit the door with barely a glance at the massive bouncer standing in the shadowed entry. Rain had picked up and the pressing humidity broke to cool night air. She made it to the other side of the road when her warnings went off. Her senses expanded to do a quick search. Enemy.

The sharp stench of sulfur choked her. They’d found her! Bile lodged in her throat. She spun around, and a shot of power knocked her off her feet, skidding her across the sidewalk, to the grass. She didn’t hurt, which probably meant it was pretty bad.

Fresh earth and mud pressed against her burning cheek. The distinct taste of blood pooled in her mouth, and her senses couldn’t seem to come together.