Where does the time go? As I had predicted, Career Opportunities was finished right on time with 5,312 words. Not once is the female MC described. Makes for an interesting story. As soon as I finished that one, I immediately began Dark Forest Nights for the Wicked line as well. This story is well, um, dark and has to do with anonymous sex. I plan on submitting both stories next week.

Speaking of the Wicked line, CP posted a new word -at least for me. They do not want to see a lot of things. One among them was "felching". You'll have to google that one for yourselves; it's not for the faint of heart, mind you! The post brought up a fabulously funny discussion about the types of things people find erotic in literature. To each their own is all I can say.

Four thousand words of sex is a lot of effin' sex. I mean, have you tried writing it? If you're keeping up with my WIP, you see that Career Opportunities, my latest Wicked attempt, is moving along rather quickly. CP has said that they expect about 80% sex and 20% plot for this line. Well, with my target of 5000 words...you do the math. I'm taking a break from working on it to do this post and currently have 3,622 words. I expect to be done this evening; at the latest, tomorrow. I didn't expect it to take as long as it has to finish. Once I'm done with this, I'll go back to Trial of the Guardian.

BTW, no news yet on The Voice. Hopefully within the next two weeks.

Is it just me or is time moving painfully slow this year?

So many stories, so little time. I've come up with another idea for a Wicked submission. This one involves getting trapped in the elevator. Oh, the possibilities. Fortunately, the deadline for these stories isn't until the 14th of February. Since I'm not working this weekend, I'll once again try to crank out the rest of A Beautiful Death and now this one - which once again, lacks a name.

Trial of the Guardian is moving along swimmingly. One of the {ahem} scenes required some online research. Writing about the results of that research actually makes me want to try it out. A little, at least. Mr. Carney gave me a strange look when I told him though. haha!

And btw, I posted an excerpt from Soldier on my website. I'm also contemplating posting excerpts from Morgan Sierra stories on the site too. To get to them, you'll need to agree that you're older than 21. Don't go looking for them yet. I'm still tossing around the idea.

Draft excerpt from Trial of the Guardian...
****
“Will you trust me?”

Rachel swallowed hard. Long before he asked, she had trusted him implicitly. The fact that he wanted her to verbally say so now should have been a warning. It was certainly sending off alarms in her mind. He was watching her with concern on his face but also there was something that told her he would never hurt her physically or emotionally. She could trust him. So slowly, reluctantly she nodded.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Hero let her see him reaching for the candle at the bedside. The wax was beginning to pool at the center and as he jostled its length, some of the wax ran down the sides. He brought the candle closer to Rachel now and her breath quickened in anticipation.

“Close your eyes, Rachel and don’t open them for any reason. Trust in me.”

Fighting back tears that were threatening to form under her closed lids, Rachel turned her head to the side and let out a long, shaky breath. This blind surrender to him was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

“Trust me,” he repeated.

Her breath was caught in her throat. All she could manage was another nod. Survival instinct was fighting for control, wanting her to pry open her eyes and demand to know what he had in mind. Her pleasure instinct was calmly curious. And that was enough for now.

Wow. I've managed to kill my jump drive. I mean, I knew that was possible, but dang. Killed it? Oh well. DH is chastising me for not taking better care of my stuff, but all I can say is thank goodness for BACK UPs!

Anyhoo. Saw a forum thread on NaNo entitled You know you're writing romance when.... Well, one that is near and dear to my heart is "you know you're writing romance when there are 56 chapters in your novel and your mom thinks there are 53." If you don't get it, you're obviously not writing a romance. At least, not a sensual one!

Were you wondering about A Beautiful Death? It's my contribution to the Wicked call for submissions by Cobblestone that is a few posts below. It was my plan to crank it out between today and tomorrow, but Trial of the Guardian has taken off (in my mind at least) and I've spent the day working on it.

Speaking of...I've decided to drop the "i" in Hiero and just make him plain ol' Hero. When I researched the name Hiero, I discovered it's Greek; for some reason, in my mind this now makes the pronunciation "hy-ro". As you know, I want "hee-ro". Now I just have to spend a little time thinking about whether or not this makes my MC a little too over-glamorized. I don't think so, but let me know what you think.

And good news! The Voice as printed by Lulu showed up today. It's gorgeous!! With certainty I know that every NaNo that I do in the future will result in a hard-bound copy.

I'll tell you what - 2008 is starting out to be a fantastic year.

Flight of the Guardian is now Trial of the Guardian.

After talking about it with a fellow writer last night, I really focused on how character-driven my stories have been. It's true that when I start a story, the only thing I know is who my characters are. Then, I slowly start having them do something and that something leads to another something and so on and so forth....I have no idea what the plot of the story is going to be other than to know that there will be a happily ever after at the very end. (At least, so far!)

Oh. Did I mention that I submitted The Voice to a publisher? A friend is reading it and she thinks it's good - and I trust her opinion. The hard copy that I ordered from LuLu will be arriving any day and I'm excited to see it!

Wicked Line
Length: 5 to 10k
Contest : January 2 – 19, 2008

Be wicked for us. We're looking for short story erotica with a very high level of sexual content within five to ten thousand words. HEA or romantic content not required. First and third person accepted (male or female POV).

First place winner will receive a standard contract, first publication slot for the Wicked Line and $100.

Other entries will be considered for publication.

Contest open to all authors currently unpublished with Cobblestone Press, LLC.

We are interested in the following genres: contemporary, historical, paranormal, BDSM, multicultural, science fiction, and fantasy.

Absolutely no fan fiction, forced seduction, rape, purple prose, pedophilia, incest, bodily functions, snuff, bestiality, and necrophilia.

Submissions should be sent to: submissions@cobblestone-press.com.

Formatting
1. Use either Times New Roman or Courier New, 12pt. font
2. All paragraphs should be indented .5 (without tabs-preferred) Double Spaced
3. One inch margins
4. Attach the manuscript as an RTF file (no other format will be opened)Include a cover letter in the body of your email, please put WICKED CONTEST in the subject line
5. On the first page of your manuscript include in the upper left corner the following: Title of Manuscript, Word Count- Calculated by your word processor program, Genre (or Line), Full Name, Pen Name (if applicable), Mailing Address, Phone Number, and Email Address

*** Regular Submissions for this line will open February 14, 2008 ***

Yes - we've all seen the very cheesy cover art out there. Check out this person's site. Some of these are hilarious!

http://www.worldoflongmire.com/features/romance_novels/index.htm

I have so much to learn...

Yesterday, Cobblestone announced it's list of new authors to the rest of the community and (yay!) I was there along with my story's title and genre. All this time I was under the assumption that I was writing paranormal. Well, paranormal-ish. Kind of. Truthfully, I really didn't know what to call it. They did. It's classified under urban fantasy. I actually had to go look up the other titles listed this way and you know what? They're right. Soldier is Urban Fantasy. I will be listed there with stories about dragons, angels and faeries. Cool, huh?

There's nothing like being sick to make you want to do absolutely nothing. Add freezing weather to that and well, darn it, sweatpants and a comforter are about the only things that'll be getting any of my attention!

I suppose I'm really just trying to explain away why Flight of the Guardian is coming along so slowly. I skimmed an article someone wrote about "writer's block" and thought about that phenomenon. Is there really such a thing? NaNo proved to me that when pushed to the wall, I can crank out pages upon pages of stuff. (Not necessarily good stuff, but stuff nonetheless.) Why is it then that every time I start a new story, it's like pulling teeth? I know what I want to happen, but is it ever so painstakingly slow to get there.

C'est la vie.