Taboos and Perversions

Greetings again...

And yes, I have another hot man up there to begin my post. Don't I always? Yeah well, I did it to not only catch your attention but illustrate how I feel right now. All wet... sweaty... even though that ain't sweat on this hottie... *winks*

Anyways, I feel pressured to produce. Why? I haven't subbed ANYTHING until the last couple of days. I've been busy learning, reading books on writing, taking classes and doing the freebie stories for BL's The Wretched. I did manage to finish Jayden for Rawiya which I'm rather excited about but until I subbed ML3 and UTG the new version by BL, I hadn't sent anything into publishers since like, oh I dunno, the first of the year?

Well, not counting the sub I just did for the charity anthology anyway. Seems like I'm running in place as far as my writing is concerned. I'm keeping up with word count, reading, learning but right now, I have no new releases to come out for the year.

So very different from last year when I think I had like 15 books come out with pubs as well as self pub. The royalties started rolling in and I even ended the year with a couple of best selling books on Amazon. This year it's been all about the Wretched, keeping up the monthly bit with Corey and company while I try fitting Michael and Rawiya around BL's rigorous schedule. The number of downloads say we should continue to do the freebies since they all have at least 2-300 downloads at Smashwords where I hardly make any money. Someone's paying attention there and so, I continue to churn out the Wretched Tales.

But even with those stories, I still feel like I've hit a wall. With the debacle at NBP, the pub that went down the tubes as well as troubles with another over moneys and statements, it makes me weary to sub anywhere. Sure I still want to see in work to publishers but I'd rather deal with those that have a good track record. No more small presses for me. I need to go bigger and ask my peers more questions. Although this is my plan, I'm also feeling a sense of self-doubt. Am I good enough to be with some of the bigger pubs? Can I produce a story that people will pick up when I sub to say Dreamspinner or LooseID? That theory was tested when I tried doing the subcall for MLR and because I didn;t feel the story was ready I nixed subbing to them.

Despite this, I still want to sub Jayden before the end of this year. It will most likely be my last sub of the year. On the Run won't be ready for subbing until January most likely and other that I Love it Rough, The Wretched Tales, and a possible Xmas Tale, I don't see myself with many new stories for this year.

It may seem like i'm panicking a little and well that's because I am. I recall when I first started how I was so prolific. I subbed short stories to pubs and they were accepted in anthologies. Then my first couple of stories came out for Michael, then BL, then Rawiya with NNP. Wow, I was on a roll but this year its the exact opposite. I sincerely hope that changes. I blame it on stress, the day job for one, takes a lot of my time and well, I have a family so a lot of my brain power goes there.

I wonder how people are able to juggle all of it. Working FT, writing, family, etc. I guess I'm just not that strong. At least not yet but I hope to be stronger as I continue to strive to be the best author I can be!

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Progress

Sent Something Like Jayden to the betas
Subbed UTG by BL and ML3, editing UTG2
Writing Ryland and Ryder's third book and about to do I Love it Rough
Thinking about a possible print or full volume for the Wretched
Halloween short for the Wretched and or Nathan/Bryant
Christmas story... not sure what characters

Wow, I haven't been writing in this journal since January! *sighs* I've been in FB land, on the blogs for the three muses, releasing books almost every month and haven't been here to update on progress. I will TRY to be better, I promise.

I also been busy collecting new muses. See this man up here? His name is Pedro Perestello. OMG is he hot! Those eyes, that hair, that bod. GOOD LORD.

Anyway, that's not what the update is about. Wanting to try catching up for anyone that just might be paying attention to me. I just looked at the last entry back in January where i recall talking about my novel, I Like Em Pretty. Well, it's been edited, released, and in about a month and a half on the market, it's done well. Not like bestseller or anything but hey, any book sale is a good one, isn't it? i do love this series and will be even happier when people catch on to what me and the muses are trying to accomplish.

By the way, this book became a full scale series called N'awlins Exotica. It's set in New Orleans, tapping into the taboos of Det Frankie Choteau, his lover Kajika Fortier as well as others in the very vibrant city known as the Big Easy.

If you'd like to learn more, visit the FB page.

Now, besides that, I was also able to do a story for a reader as requested. This became part of the series, a twincest story called Mon Frere, My True Love. It was a best seller on All Romance and did well on Amazon too. That surprised the heck out of me since I wasn't expecting many people to want to read that kind of story. Now, I'm working on book 2 of the Ryland Twins books with a story called, Mon Amour, Forever More as well as I Love It Rough, the sequel to I Like EM Pretty.

What else? BL's been busy with the Wretched. Queer Fables is coming out next month and her metal tales are on book 3 called Deep Dark Secret. Rawiya released One Shot as part of the Reluctant Groupie series and we're about to start a novel together next month called Love in the Slow Lane.

During this time period, there is more plot bunnies that have jumped into my brain. Plenty of them including a plan for a 4th muse later on in the year. Yes I said four but she'll only be doing het and it will be temporary.

The idea, I have is to do only het for women in their 40's. She'll have a best friend who's a gay man who tried to be straight for her years back. It's interracial and she'll have the same amount of snark if not more than BL. I'm looking to launch her later in the year under her own imprint. Look for more from me on this as the months roll along.

So what's next? Besides what I've already mention, other stories are in queue. More learning, some promoing, and re-doing of my website. I try making myself pretty accessible to readers, interacting on FB mostly, a little Twitter, as well as the blogs. It does take time away from writing but how else will people know about your books.

How am I doing on goals? I'm on point with the 500k but as far as subs, I might not make it. 5 seems more doable even though I have plenty of time left in the year. However, the subs also take weeks to be looked at by pubs, they also take time to be beta'd properly, so 10 is too high. 5 I think I'll make.

More than that, I just want to continue to improve on what I'm doing, reading, taking classes, learning from peers so I can become a more successful storyteller. I really do enjoy writing and can't imagine doing anything else at this stage in my life right now.

:D

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May is edit month. Editing Closely Guarded, Wild Horses revise, The Wretched 3 and Guardian Angel, my only story under Sharita Lira

Like I said, I'll try to be here more often

Thanks for listening!

Well hello again! This is my end of the year blog. 

Anyways... What's that? Wait you say? It's not the end of the year? 

Well, it is for me, sort of...

I'm ending the year now as I prepare to do my last new book for 2012, Michael Mandrake's I Like Em Pretty A New Orleans Noir

Check out my post for my goals of 2012 here about what I accomplished last yr.

I'm very happy to say, I pretty much stuck with my plan and finished stories, did editing, and tried to improve my craft.

In 2012 I had 9 releases, 5 more to come, 3 of which are self pubbed. To date, I've written almost 390K and I finished Nano 3 days ago officially. I'm truly stoked at what I've accomplished this year and looking to do even better. 

I can say I've learned a lot more about the business and the tech side of writing too. I took 4 classes, 2 about plotting and worked closely with a fellow author who is my beta and editor. 

I really didn't sub this year but once and it was rejected but I know what I didn't do and I'm looking forward to putting the book out on my own. 

Now, I'm not intimidated with self publishing. Michael's book has done well in these first 4 weeks, mostly on All Romance. Nah, were not making money like EL James but hey, we're pulling in some royalties. 

As always, I'm optimistic. Having more than one beta helps as well. Nothing wring wrong with an extra pair of eyes to find errors in a story. Going into this coming year, I look forward to completing a few stories as well as revising others to be subbed or self published. Here's a list with some changes going forward into 2013 and 2014. 

Michael Mandrake

Vertigo 2 (revise)

Under the Gun (2, 3, 4)

African Sun book 5

Through the Eyes of Darkness 

Closely Guarded Edits

Untitled Twin Vamp Shifter 

Rawiya

Trois in Treble (revise)

African Sun book 4

Smooth Like Latte sequel

Masquerade (revise)

Lessons in Ink (Revise)

Something About Jayden

That Thing

Sugar Daddy Sequel

BLMorticia

Losing Inhibitions 2

Candyman edit and sequel

You Don't Ask Sequel (Rolled last 3 books into 1)

The Wretched Series

Taming Wild Horses

*** I also have a couple of series the muses will be doing together

Triple Play baseball Antho

College m/m series

Safe Antho

Admittedly, self pubbing has given me confidence to put out a stories on my own, which means it has a good chance of coming out in 2012. I'm also looking to do free reads more often which is the only thing I didn't keep up with.  I did do a few throughout when I signed up for prompts but I'd like to do a long one to be downloaded and shared on the blog. 

So, it's going to be very busy. I get tired just looking at it. Still I'm thankful for all the success and hope that you'll try following along with my progress. 

Thanks for listening and I'll try getting here more often.