July 8, 2010

We're having a heat wave. A tropical heat wave. And I hate it! When I am hot I can't do anything. Can't eat, sleep, can't even THINK. And grouchy? I'm a veritable ogre during weather like this when I am sweating constantly, and getting thigh burn from trudging the City streets going home on hot subway cars.

Yuck, yuck, yuck.

AND it isn't like I don't have a ton on my plate! I got my website up and running in June (Happy Birthday to ME!), along with a coordinated blog and Yahoo Group newsletter. I volunteered to write an article for my NYC RWA chapter newsletter (deadline July 15) on an erotic romance topic (don't you know I chose my fave, menage?!). THEN I succumbed to pleas for judges for RWA chapter contests and signed up for two. I got my entries just in time to further screw with my schedule.

On March 31 I submitted my very first query. To the Ace/Roc imprints of Penguin for my urban fantasy (first in a series), BETWEEN A ROCK & A BAD PLACE. 5 months to wait for the response, so I went merrily on my way, starting to work on my erotic romance project (having decided spicey is definitely "me").

Then I'm invited to submit a noir short story for a new Southern Noir crime anthology being compiled & edited by a friend. Color me tickled pink cause it came about on my birthday. What a gift!

But more was to come. The next day, while chatting with a gent at my place of business, a delightful guy I've known for almost 20 years, we got to talking about my writing and lo and behold, he's got a HUGE contact at the pinnacle of one of the NYC big "6" publishers and he says, "Give me your book and I'll get it to him!"

So HOLY COW, I'm totally psyched. I go back to my MS to pore over it and make sure every i is dotted, every T crossed, and that every subway my heroine takes actually goes where I'm sending her (mortifyingly embarrassing: THEY DIDN'T!).

So now, on top of my monthly newsletter, new erotic project, a newsletter article, and judging 2 contests, plus counting down til the end of the Ace/Roc period (August 31 will be the 5 months)I've got to get this sucker in pristine condition and pray to the literary gods for good fortune (and a 3 book deal and a movie option).

And it is TOO DARNED HOT!

Sob!

June 24, 2009

Am I my own worst enemy? Probably. But I've made a vow to myself to step out of the circle of frustration, anger, futility, impotence, and into the light of unfettered creativity.

For all those people, things, stuff I cannot change - either habits, a situation, problems or issues - I will just admit defeat and move on. No more gnashing of my teeth (when I wake up middle of the night with a tension headache, that is exactly what I've been doing) and trying to push people, pull people, mold situations to my liking. Nope. No more. A pure and utter waste of time because if my assistance and help and expertise and support is not helping, then there's no reason to continue expending myself when I could, instead, be working hard on my own things.

If I suffer from a fear of success - or failure - that is where I should focus my energies and my positive efforts. To push past that and realize that pinnacle of submission to a publisher. Even if it is a short story or novella, rather than a novel (and short erotic and romance fiction sites abound, so there are plenty of folks out there to explore a relationship with, vis a vis, writing.

I'm working hard toward that goal - I was very excited yesterday, although I backslid by end of day (what is it about my day job that just sucks the very creative and energetic marrow from my bones?) but I did, as I promised myself, keep my distance from those situations that most entangle me in thei insidious webs!

But a new day has dawned. True, it is still grey, rain threatens, and worst of all the temps are rising so humidity will be the order of the day (yuck and double yuck), but I'm prepared with a light and sleeveless dress and lots of my favorite refreshing item - Jean Nate.

Does that take you back, or what?

June 19, 2009 - Grey and cool and filled with promise

OK, so like WOW, let me just rave on about some recent flash fiction I read on my Yahoo Loop, Let Me Get You Hot and Bothered. I put out FFFF - freaky Friday flash fiction (because we are all freaky erotica and erotic romance authors there). The prompts can be wild, wicked, wanton (oops, that's another blog of mine!) or poetic, dark or dangerous. Yesterday's was a DP, double prompt (tee hee) provided by 2 of my members and folks have been outdoing themselves, ME INCLUDED! There must have been something in the water, or perhaps it is simply that my creative juices have been flowing like mad, lately - so much so that I might need some literary depends. I've been filled with ideas for my current erotic novella WIP (the one that is definitely going out for submission by the end of this month - I have promised myself and I will not fail me - I've done that far too much lately). Between that and reading some other folks' work, well, I seem to be a veritable fiction Vesuvius at the moment.

Despite the grey weather that has been, it seems, unending (there may have been a sunny day somewhere - maybe back in the Pleistocene.), I have not felt the usual depressed morose feeling that I tend to get. Instead it is almost as if my absorption with my writing has insulated me from feeling it. I look up from the page - or the screen - and find myself surprised at where I am, in my mundane world, because I've been that drawn into my fictional worlds.

One of the prompts was the title of my favorite Tennessee Williams play, Talk To Me Like The Rain and Let Me Listen. I'd mentioned it in passing during a discussion on the art of writing dialogue - to use plays as a sort of education on the value of dialogue and how to use it to move plots forward and expose characters.

When my gal Jae said use it as a prompt, I did and it unleased (for me and, apparently for her) a whole new erotic and sensual sense of writing that was different by far from my nitty, gritty and sometimes witty erotic bits and pieces.

As a result I am sitting with only ten minutes to go before I have to hit the old salt mine trail and toil away again for another 8 to 10 hour day. But I am basically just excited to get going, so that I can take advantage of those bits of time here and there - on trains and buses - and get more writing done. Inspiration is a wonderful thing, ain't it? Not only that the community of WRITERS is a wonderful thing. For anyone who is tempted to secret themselves away in a world, hiding their words and suspecting other writers of possible attempts at word theft, you are doing yourselves a grave disservice. Because for every person tempted to steal from you, are a huge crowd who want nothing more than to cheer you on and praise your efforts and keep you on the path to creative fulfillment and professional productivity. So, guys and gals, let it all hang out - figuratively speaking.