Weekly Check-In

Despite this being the last few days of the Savvy Boot Camp, it was a lazy week.  I read Kiss of Snow instead of sleeping, and slept instead of writing, and as soon as the clock rolled over to June 1st all responsibility to write like the wind was gone.  We still don’t know the results for who won the boot camp, but it was a close race to the end.  June is the month that I want to do revisions rather than writing, but I’m still writing.  I got off to a good start, but I’ll talk about that below.

I haven’t been talking about A Round of Words at all, and for that I fail.  I haven’t forgotten that I’m working on that challenge, but I haven’t been as mindful of updating my progress on it.  I solved that yesterday.

Blogging.

Judging by the twitter conversations and the comments left on Suzan’s blog and here I would say that the Let’s Talk About Sex series is off to a good start.  We discussed underwear and what that says about your characters.  Suzan took the girly side and I discussed all things buff and hunky.  This week we’re talking about heat levels and language particular to the romance genre.  While a lot of people already know this stuff, not everyone does and it’s good to talk about it.  We’re also having a blast while we’re at it, so that’s all that really matters.

Revising.

I started revisions on Rescue Me – again.  These were pretty light, going over what one of my critique partners suggested.  A lot of it was grammar, and of that commas.  I have comma issues.  I conquer the apostrophe and now the comma and I are at odds!

I’m really happy with Rescue Me.  I have it up over at Book Country for review if anyone is a member there and feels like giving me some feedback.  I plan to submit it next month after I take my submission package class and hammer out the submission details.  I’m less confident about those, but that’s the reson behind taking the classes!

This weekend I broke open Decoy.  I’m almost halfway through it and hoping to be done with this first pass in a few days.  It’s kind of ugly at this point and there’s a lot of red, but I’m hoping that in the end it will pay off and it will rock.  I’m crossing my fingers that I finish this draft Tuesday or Wednesday and then the super picky stuff starts.

Plotting.

Um, I’m kind of stalled out on plotting.  I’m worried that letting an idea stew this much is a bad idea.  I get bored of the shiny and move on to something else.  I still like the idea and I want to write it but it’s not a driving desire of want any more.  I’m afraid that this is bad.  Very bad.

I replotted my superhero story I was supposed to write during Boot Camp.  It’s a whole new idea and more naughty than the original, but again I waited too long to write it.  So I’m going to write the naughty one and just go for it.  If it flops in the draft process it flops and I’ll move on.

I plan on doing more reading this month to get myself in a place to write certain things.  We’ll see how this goes!!!

Writing.

Yeah, so since it’s June I’ve slacked on writing….

Project: Booty-Call Bust
Genre: romance
Type: novella
Progress: I had an idea for this while watching Deadliest Warrior, of all things.  The story is actually at a very interesting part, so it shouldn’t be hard to jump back in and hopefully hammer it out soon.  My problem is that I’ve been distracted by being lazy.  And revising.  I’m going to attempt to write 1-2K a day on this a day this week in tandem to doing revisions.  It’s not a lot, I know, but I want to keep the ball rolling and finish this sucker.

What I read.

• Kiss of Snow by Nalini Singh

#ToBeReMo Kick Off!

I forgot to mention this, but today kicks off another edition of #ToBeReMo organized by my friend Suzan.  For the official sign up blog go here.  Unlike December, I’m going for Moderate, reading 4-6 books.  My brain is too fried from the Savvy Boot Camp to do too much this month.

I need to read young adult books and research material so I won’t be that interesting.  However, Mira Grant’s Deadline and Ilona Andrews Magic Slays are on their way to my apartment right now so there will be some awesome reads in store.

So what are you reading?

#ToBeReMo: The Finale’

To refresh, #ToBeReMo is a month long event focusing on eliminating your To Be Read pile. Very handy for those of us who collect books like some people breathe. My goal is to read something between 15 and 20 books this month. Last week I read four books and this week I wanted to read more. This is also the only week of the month with new releases I’m jazzed about.

As this is the last week of #ToBeReMo, here’s what I’ve managed to read:

• Ariel - Steven R. Boyett
• Bonds of Justice – Nalini Singh
• Play of Passion- Nalini Singh
• A Spy in the House – Y. S. Lee

And here’s what I’ve read during the whole month:

• Eternal Hunter – Cynthia Eden
• Mob Rules – Cameron Haley
• Like Clockwork – Bonnie Dee
• Harvest Moon (short stories)
• Bluebeard’s Machine – Mari Fee
• Magic Bites – Ilona Andrews
• Flavia’s Flying Corset – Sahara Kelly
• Stranger – Zoe Archer
• You Dropped A Blonde On Me – Dakota Cassidy
• Must Love Lycans - Michele Bardsley
• Covet - J.R. Ward
• Mine to Possess - Nalini Singh
• An Enchanted Season (Psy-Changling novella) – Nalini Singh
• Hostage to Pleasure – Nalini Singh
• Slave to Sensation – Nalini Singh
• Pleasure Me – Monica Burns
• Ariel - Steven R. Boyett
• Bonds of Justice – Nalini Singh
• Play of Passion- Nalini Singh
• A Spy in the House – Y. S. Lee

That’s 24 books! My goal, as per the challenge level, was to read between 15 & 20 books during the month. I clearly overshot that goal! Granted, there are a few on the list that were rereads, as well as a few anthology collections; both of those seem to take me less time to read than a normal book.

This was a really fun challenge! It brought the number of books I’ve read up to 173, which is a huge number of books to have read this year. Next year, maybe I’ll read 200!

#ToBeReMo: Week Four Check In!

To refresh, #ToBeReMo is a month long event focusing on eliminating your To Be Read pile. Very handy for those of us who collect books like some people breathe. My goal is to read something between 15 and 20 books this month. Last week I read four books and this week I wanted to read more. This is also the only week of the month with new releases I’m jazzed about.

So, here’s what I’ve read:

• Visions of Heat – Nalini Singh
• The Magical Christmas Cat – Nalini Singh
• Caressed by Ice – Nalini Singh
• Blaze of Memory – Nalini Singh

Okay, so I didn’t read any of the stuff I meant to read, and instead I did mostly rereads of the Nalini Singh Psy-Changeling series I’m currently addicted to.

This coming week I’m focusing on books to read for January Book Addicts stuff. My list of titles I need to read is:

• Ariel - Steven R. Boyett
• The Bookman – Lavie Tidhar
• The Agency – Y.S. Lee

There’s one more I want to review for January that I haven’t bought yet – because technically it’s not out yet; Flip This Zombie by Jesse Petersen.

If I get through those books, I’ll probably read the last to Psy-Changeling books to get that out of my system and then work on the other books I had earmarked to get through during #ToBeReMo.

Okay, that’s it!

#ToBeReMo Week Three Check In!

To refresh, #ToBeReMo is a month long event focusing on eliminating your To Be Read pile. Very handy for those of us who collect books like some people breathe. My goal is to read something between 15 and 20 books this month. Last week I read four books and this week I wanted to read more. This is also the only week of the month with new releases I’m jazzed about.

So, here’s what I’ve read:

• Must Love Lycans - Michele Bardsley
• Covet - J.R. Ward
• Mine to Possess - Nalini Singh
• An Enchanted Season (Psy-Changling novella) – Nalini Singh
• Hostage to Pleasure – Nalini Singh
• Slave to Sensation – Nalini Singh
• Pleasure Me – Monica Burns

I really broke from what I intended to read. The Psy-Changling series written by Nalini Singh is fantastic. I decided to reread the first book on a whim, and I might reread the two I read this week sometime in the near future as well.

The super exciting bits about this week were getting to read two unreleased books. I have an arc of Must Love Lycans, out late fall 2011. The book made me cry. I can think of only one other book this year that seriously brought tears to my eyes, but there was this part in Must Love Lycans that just did me in. I mean, I trusted Michele that there would be a Happily Ever After and all, but when IT HAPPENED, I just couldn’t believe it. The second arc I got to read was Monica Burns Pleasure Me. Dear Lord! There is so much I want to say about this book and how awesome it is. It made me think of this book I read in college called No More Bullies where the man writing his account of his younger days suffered a lot of the same ridicule the hero of the novel experiences. It was a powerful story on the hero’s side about overcoming. The heroine was awesome too! There’s far too much credit given to a woman’s expiration date and the heroine proves that beauty knows no expiration date. Very awesome week of reading!

For this Christmas week, I want to read:

• The Stupidest Angel – Chris Moore
• Pegasus - Robin McKinley
• Inked
• Lost Hero – Rick Roidan
• Demon Angel – Meljean Brooks

I’ll probably end up reading another Nalini Singh book, just because they’re awesome, but I’m going to try to stretch out reading those to savor them and read books I already own instead!

#ToBeReMo Week Two Check In!

To refresh, #ToBeReMo is a month long event focusing on eliminating your To Be Read pile. Very handy for those of us who collect books like some people breathe. My goal is to read something between 15 and 20 books this month. Last week I read four books and this week I wanted to read more. This is also the only week of the month with new releases I’m jazzed about.

So, here’s what I’ve read:

• Bluebeard’s Machine – Mari Fee
• Magic Bites – Ilona Andrews
• Flavia’s Flying Corset – Sahara Kelly
• Stranger – Zoe Archer
• You Dropped A Blonde On Me – Dakota Cassidy

I meant to read the arc of Must Love Lycans, but You Dropped A Blonde On Me was just released and I had to read it! I’ve started MLL, but not by much since I’m also in revision crazy this weekend.

And biting off an even bigger piece of the pie, here’s what I’d like to read for next week:

• Pegasus – Robin McKinley
• The Stupidest Angel – Chris Moore
• Demon Angel – Meljean Brooks
• Kismet - Monica Burns
• Must Love Lycans - Michele Bardsley

#ToBeReMo Week One Check In!

To refresh, #ToBeReMo is a month long event focusing on eliminating your To Be Read pile. Very handy for those of us who collect books like some people breathe.

Because I opted to be super crazy and I also have a lot of books I want to get through, I’m on the “Sleep Much?” plan. I’m going to read between 15-20 books this month.

So what have I been reading this week?

Here’s the list!

• Eternal Hunter by Cynthia Eden
• Mob Rules by Cameron Haley
• Like Clockwork by Bonnie Dee
• Harvest Moon (short stories)

I kinda would like to have read more, but with The Birthday Weekend of Awesome happening that’s three days of not reading anything. I plan on reading a lot more this coming week.

I’d like to read:

• Stranger by Zoe Archer
• Bluebeard’s Machine – Mari Fee
• Flavia’s Flying Corset – Sahara Kelly
• Must Love Lycans – Michele Bardsley
• Magic Bites – Ilona Andrews

So here’s to another week of great reading!

#ToBeReMo

It’s amazing how twitter is automatically connecting people these days. A few days ago my friend Suz mentioned via twitter that December should be To Be Read Month, especially for all of us who have spent all of November writing and ignoring our perpetually growing TBR piles. because if you’re like me, that pile hasn’t stopped growing just because I’ve been focused on reading!

So, since I’m all about doing things to the max, and I have a shiney new eReader to read on, I’m going for the highest level of challenge for #ToBeReMo – level “Sleep Much?” To find all the details go see the post on Suz’s website.

So what am I going to be reading?

Well, off the top of my head I know I want to read:

• Cynthia Eden – Eternal Flame (downloaded to my ereader, will read it tomorrow!)
• Cameron Haley – Mob Rules (
• Harvest Moon
• Mara Purnhagen – Pat Midnight
• Bonnie Dee – Like Clockwork
• Mari Fee – Bluebeard’s Machine
• Sahara Kelly – Flavia’s Flying Corset
• Zoe Archer – Stranger
• Robin McKinley – Pegasus
• Chris Moore – The Stupidest Angel
• Meljean Brooks – Demon Angel
• J.R. Ward – Covet
• Inked
• Ilona Andrews – Magic Bites
• Monica Burns – Kismet
• Michele Bardsley – Must Love Lycans & Wizards of Nevermore
• Dakota Cassidy – Accidentally Catty & You Dropped A Blonde

Okay, that’s what’s on my mind to read. We’ll see what I get through, lol!! A few of these are arcs for review, so after I indulge in Cynthia Eden I’ll be focusing really hard on those books and then picking my way through everything else.

Woohoo! December’s gonna be lots of fun.