Underground

It’s been a tough few weeks in the Montgomery household. Some personal struggles, a few unshakable headaches, and some edits/revisions that were more intense than I’d anticipated. What is it about edits that make you look at your work and say…man, this is such crap, why did the publisher take it in the first place?

From what I’ve gathered over the years, this is pretty common for us writer-types so I don’t let it keep me down for long.

I took a random poll on Facebook last week by asking how do you prefer your water: with ice, chilled, from the tap, bottled, room temperature, etc.

I was so surprised by the responses. Who knew that a minor disagreement between me and my husband over room temperature water would trigger such a great debate. I learned a lot about how my friends and fans loved their water and I realized…this isn’t something that would normally pop up in my character building. Why not? I mean…if you can’t stand the taste of city water or the way ice makes your teeth hurt, wouldn’t that be an interesting thing to know? And…if you have a vampire with a sensual connection through his fangs…what would cold do to him? Would it bring pleasure or pain? If cold created a highly sensitive response, would it increase his aggressive behavior? Trigger a response neither expected. See, this is what my head does all day. LOL!

Speaking of vampires…my latest EC book releases December 18th. Can you imagine becoming a vampire and realizing the change also triggered an extremely rare chocolate allergy? Could you live for eternity without another taste? I know I couldn’t.

The Vamp-Life sucks if you’re the only female vampire in the world allergic to chocolate. When a wizard with a penchant for kitchen magic comes to town, however, things can take a delicious and sinful turn. Chocolate goes well with…everything.

Rachel Karrin is at her wit’s end. The benefits to vampire life look pretty grim when her new powers come with limits on her favorite food. Chocolate. The rare allergy is unusual enough to gain the interest of the Kitchen Witch Society.

When the sexy, brooding Ryan Shepard shows up, there’s more than chocolate on the menu and his temptation is far more than she can take in her world of blood and sex.

A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

Until next time, keep writing! I’m going underground to finish these revisions and will be back for air come Monday. Muah!

Edits…

I’m finishing up edits on my latest Ellora’s Cave book, Deep Cravings. So exciting! I can’t wait til you guys read it. 🙂 The series covers released for the Red Velvet Christmas books. He’s a sexy red-headed elf. Renee George makes so many fun Christmas theme covers. I love her style.

I’m at 10,468 on NaNoWriMo. The novel is coming along as well as can be expected. I’ve hit a few snags, but I’ve tried to write this book five times now. It’s not unusual to suffer from some low self-confidence moments. 🙂  I make November’s NaNoWriMo the month of pushing myself beyond my limits and stepping out of my comfort zone. I don’t think I’ve reached the point where I can tackle contemporary romance, but who knows. 😀 If I can break through and win with this problem child, I’m all for it.

Anyway, coming soon from Changeling Press, Red Velvet: Hidden Confection.

A showdown between chefs like you’ve never seen before…

One Christmas Eve, Mia Devyne of Devyne Pastries went underground and closed up shop for good under scandalous rumors of bewitching red velvet holiday cakes designed to skyrocket your sex drive. Her disappearance sparked a worldwide search for her sensual seductions cookbook.

Four years later, a rival pastry chef has arrived on the scene with his own version of the cakes, and Mia can’t stay away. For a Christmas present to herself, she wants to try just one bite of the Better Than Sex cupcake, and then she’ll disappear back into the shadows. If she gets to kiss Liam again, well, that’s just an added bonus.

Liam Merriman has one goal… draw the sexy Mia out of hiding and back to the spotlight where she belongs. He knows why she disappeared all those years ago, and he plans on picking up where they left off. Naked. In his bed.

Updates a plenty

Welcome back to the crazy writing frenzy that is the end of 2013. I am steadily chipping away at my works in progress. Being ill knocked me out of the game for almost two weeks, there. Thanks for the emails and well wishes. I couldn’t seem to stay awake and focused for longer than an hour or two at a time. It was weird. Other than the exhaustion and a few crazy fever dreams, I was writing.

NaNoWriMo has kicked off. If you’re looking to add me as a buddy or see how I’m doing, click HERE for my profile on the site. I’m Auburnfaerie and the account was created three months before I submitted anything (and became a published author). Random factoid. I was in the Air Force at the time and on the Luna Forums at Harlequin.com (when they first started them). Someone asked what branch of the service I was in and I replied I’m AF. Another chimed in with a hello AF, I’m such and such. After that, I just built a name with those initials. 🙂 Since I was in the Luna forum (fantasy with romantic elements) I went with a fantasy-inspired name.

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#ROW80 update

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Goals this week:

1. Three short stories for That Magic Touch. Each story will be an experiment I’m doing where I’ll sell a small collection of shorts stories for 99 cents and give the readers a chance to pick what I work on next. – I have one story left to write in this one. 
   
2. Feral Hunger moves to the back burner until Shift the Night is done. – Got a chapter fleshed out. 
3. Dragons Never Lie I’m not sure what I want to do with this one this week. Everything I’m working on is pretty dark so I might need to lighten up a bit. – Never made it past Shift the Night’s goal. 
4. Deep Craving edits
5. Complete and submit Shift the Night
6. A Familiar Kiss needs to be at 16,670 next Sunday to stay on NaNoWriMo target.
7. Finish my first pulp fiction challenge this week.

Weekend Goals: 

1. The Captain’s Woman: Co-Written book I started years ago. My partner and I just picked it back up again and I’ve got a chapter to finish. – Finished a chapter on it. Will send it to my writing partner this weekend for her next round. 
2. Organize my new cramped office space. My research materials take up a lot of surface area. I didn’t realize how much until I had to pack it all into one tall bookshelf. Argh. – Started on this and it’s looking so much better

ROW80 Stuff: 

• Make sure I stop by and give you guys some serious love! It’s the start of the 4th Quarter and I’m so ready to truck along with you all. – Catching up for the past week!

Things that happened this week: 

• I’m working hard in the  Savvy Author’s Entangled NaNoWriMo Smackdown (Entangled is a publishing company. Click HERE to go to their site.). They are putting me to the test! No doubt!

NaNoWriMo: 

• On target with A Familiar Kiss. I’m making the minimums each day, but kiddo creative writing takes a lot of different turns I didn’t expect. They’re fun, definitely, but it’s hard to concentrate (and not get too into it that I’d get upset at being distracted). All late night writing for me during the weekends. Daytime writing while the kids are at school.

I’m part of a fantastic group called A Round of Words in 80 Days, and if you’d like to see how everyone else is doing, check out the list HERE.

Would you like to be a part of our writing challenge? Check out the rules HERE.

Keep Writing and I’ll see you later!