The day job has kept me incredibly busy lately. I’ve barely blogged and in truth, barely written anything over the last month. But (yay!) starting this week, my schedule has started to level out. So…it’s time for me to gather my thoughts and figure out what I’m working on - as well as get moving.

I’m still working on DEN OF INIQUITY 2:THE MONEY SHOT. This is book two of a four-part, four-author series. Del Roman is an alpha shifter who falls for the secretary of the bank he’s about to rob. (Remember my post about robbing banks ?) Sparks will fly.

I’ve just finished an extremely short freebie for my newsletter subscribers. THE CRAFT OF THE WISE: WORDSMITH is a little vignette which gives insight into my witch series. I’ve started writing the "official" book one for this series - so far, I’ve planned a total of four - but haven’t gotten very far (as previously explained). To read WORDSMITH, you’ll need to be a subscriber in time for my June newsletter which will probably come out later this week.

Next week, I’ll finish up another Wicked erotica story, THE BELLYDANCER AND THE DJINN. Hopefully, I’ll edit this story about a naughty genie (djinn) by the end of the month and submit it for publication consideration.

Speaking of edits, I’m on round one of CAREER OPPORTUNITIES. After I had the nerve to nudge my editor about its progress, now I’m holding up progress on moving it along. For SOLDIER , we started working on the cover by the time we had worked on round two of edits. I’m hoping that this experience will be the same because I’m dying to see what the cover will look like!!

Whew! After a dry spell in May, June is looking like a very busy month for me! Can’t hardly wait.

Thank you to all of the men and women of our United States armed services who put their lives on the line to keep us here at home safe. Words alone cannot express my gratitude.

You are my hero.

A little background for you: I used to read 5 to 7 books (including one audiobook) each week. The genre didn’t matter. If it was printed (or recorded!), I read it. Since becoming published, I spend my free time writing and rarely pick up a book. I’m one of those all or nothing types of people. Enh. Anyway, this past Thursday I got food poisoning. (Second time in my life with food poisoning. What are the freakin’ odds?) Saturday, when I was feeling well enough to keep my eyes open for more than ten minutes at a time, I picked up a thick book and began to read. And was hooked.

Why the hell had I stopped reading full-length books?

Looking around me, I realize that I have four novels in my house that I’ve never read. This from a person who used to read cookbooks (yeah, you read correctly) in her spare time because there was nothing else new available at hand. It used to be that having an unread book in my house was absolutely unheard of. Well, no more, I say! It shouldn’t take a sick episode (dear God, if I get food poisoning a third time I just don’t know what I’ll do with myself - and no, I had no influence in either case, mind you) to get me to start reading again.

So reader, catch me up. What great novel have I missed out on in the past six months? What book(s) do you recommend?

Congratulations to hotteddy2001 for being the winner of my May contest. Just by joining my newsletter before May 15th, she has won a $10 gift certificate to Cobblestone Press.

Just because this particular contest is over doesn’t mean there aren’t more prizes to be won. Sign up today and get ready for the next one…

Hugs!

Dee

Courtesy of The Erotic Woman here’s Tension:

Makes me tense.

Last week I got into a huge argument with the customer service people of the bank I’ve been with for sixteen years. SIXTEEN years. You would think that would get me a little courtesy. Nope. Nothing doing. So guess what? Besides shutting down that account, now I’m going to rob a bank.

Before you go siccing the FBI on me, I’m talking about in my next story! Although this incident with my bank is actually kind of coincidental (because I’d already started working with three other authors on the Den of Iniquity series (see my progress meters) - more on the series later). But, boy did they give me a great personal reason for a bank robbery. And so off to Google I went: How to rob a bank; Bank robberies; Bank plans; Bank blueprints; FBI archives; Spy equipment…

And then it struck me. If anyone is monitoring my internet activity, I’m dead meat.

So I decided I’d better publicly announce my intention to write a story (and not actually plan in real life) about a bank heist. If the internet had existed in J. Edgar Hoover’s time, writers would still be rotting in jail cells. So tell me, if I ran a history on your Google or Wikipedia activity, what kind of stuff would I find there? Any of it have the potential for jail time? lol.

Am I dating myself by using that phrase? Anyway, if you’ve tried to access my new (lovely, fantabulous, awesome, spenduperific) web site in the last few days, you may have noticed that it wasn’t working. Well, thanks to my technical support (so to speak), we’re back to cooking with Crisco. Ain’t it gorgeous?

And no, the lady at the top isn’t me. I just thought she was purty. And exotic. And a whole lot erotic. Hmm. That sounds familiar. Wonder where I heard it before?

Does this web site signify that I’m officially a writer now? Criminy. By now you would think something would! I vowed I wouldn’t spend a penny (see post on seven things. I’m damn cheap if you’ve forgotten.) on a web site until I’ve actually seen a return. Well, no. I haven’t seen a financial return (simply because the statement isn’t in yet. dum-dum-duummmmm!). What I have seen is an investment in the number of people who are interested in me and my ramblings and moreso, my stories. So, thanks dear reader for keeping up with me and my growing pains.

I look forward to experiencing many more with you.