Hos.

It looks better with an apostrophe, but fuck me if that isn’t incorrect grammar.

My litany starts like this: I need to write three Christmas short stories, but I hate all the Christmas crap that goes up as soon as Halloween hits. You’re wondering how does the one affect the other. In a word, inspiration. I wasn’t feeling the Christmas spirit this past weekend and the stories suffered.

I decided I needed to make the covers in order to start things gelling in my head better. I have the plots. I know how the stories go, but I didn’t have the words yet. Weird but true. I tried playing Christmas music while I was working on the covers but Rhapsody wouldn’t cooperate with me. I have this strange, niggling feeling that I must have somehow programmed the client years ago never to play Christmas music before Thanksgiving. It would be like me to do that. If the client had that function. Which it doesn’t.  Still, it did refuse to play the Christmas tune which pissed me off and amused me at the same time.

I figured since it was 3 am maybe I’d better just go to bed. I’d pissed away the whole weekend and now, faced with a Monday vacation day off before I get swamped at work for the rest of the month, I needed to show some progress. With that in mind, and knowing how I dream shit for my books all the time, I turned on the TV to the Sounds of the Season channel.  Oh, yeah. Happy Ho Ho to the nth degree. I had nightmares of course and nothing at all related to Christmas.

So that’s Ho number one. Ho number two actually happened before Ho number one but I felt the effects all weekend. It happened late Saturday night when the finalists for the EPIC awards came out and Hot Water didn’t make it to the finals. I was disappointed in a weird sorta way. An eye rolling sorta way. I saw a few people make the finals whose books I’d read. Whose books I’d thought were… ahem… not so tightly as others I’d read in the genre. (Note how I did not use the word crap in the previous sentence.) I noticed how someone connected to the awards made the finals with a book I’d thought was lame-o.

Yeah,  you can say it’s sour grapes, but it’s not really. I just know how the human brain works. No matter how impartial people want to stay… they still have biases. Hello! New name here! No one effing knows me! Stick me and my funny, hot little dragon falls for vampire novella of 23K words next to some 60K epoch written by someone everyone has known for years and guess what? I am ass out. Which wasn’t exactly unexpected on my part.  One of the main reasons newbs don’t tend to win awards is in part because judges don’t know who they are. It’s human nature to be drawn to the familiar. This part of the whole thing was just an eye roll moment for me. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t put a bit of a damper on my mood all weekend.

For my last Ho, I give you my return to sucking down Tylenols. Fuck my hip hurts. And I worry like hell eating those little white caplets so I take one of a two pill dosage and limp along all day until near bedtime when I take one more. Pain is a motherfucker though. Not at all conducive to creativity.  Now, I’m sitting with my coffee, having sucked down the one Tylenol arthritis strength pill I’m allowing myself, waiting for the spams in my lower back and hip to stop, and complaining to you. I should really be feeling better, shouldn’t I? Maybe in a half an hour after the second cup of Starbuck’s Breakfast Blend has made it’s way to my bladder…

And now for the visual portion of my Ho, Ho, Hos this fine Monday. I will start with a lovely Marcus, move to a redhead with a great ass, and then give you some rippling muscles. Yes, Marcus and the two Christmas covers I made. Heh. Enjoy!

I feel better after my ho-ey bitch session. I can always count on all of you to let me get my rant on. Oh! And I have an update on the Bar. I finally moved it this weekend and moved Winterheart Design and it’s gallery. Well, I moved domains not hosting so I actually ended up not moving the forum off the server which is just as well cause I couldn’t make it work. LOL Now that the sites are all fixed and I’m done with my bitchfest, maybe I can get some work done for my publisher. If the Christmas music cooperates…

Have a great Monday!

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Happy Veteran’s Day. I’m off to work. Lots of flags flying and honoring of the dead. It will be a gorgeous day.

With RTL Dave2 makes his literary debut, following in the footsteps of Karl (Karl with a K), Gooster (Corey Green), Marty (the Fairy Godfather), and Vahid who is the star of RTL. In this book, Dave2 is David Forrester, a powerful Magia (wizard) who runs a BDSM club called Far From Heaven. Dave is the best friend of the heroine, so he spends the length of the book wanting to kick Vahid’s ass. Unfortunately for Dave, Vahid is the one who gets to have all the sex in the book. In a gazebo, against the wall, in a bed, on the floor, in a shower, in a hay field (in shifted form), and in a BDSM dungeon.

Note for Jennifer Leeland: I think the wall sex scene in this one is hotter than the one in Hot Water.

Not as much humor in this book as there has been in previous books. Oh there’s a touch or two and there is my trademark of a running gag of some kind. In Hot Water, it was Eden’s pretty pink pussy. In Fire Season, it was Garret being a bean counter. In RTL, it’s the fact that Emily loves meat – steak mostly.

Now that I’m done with the novel (it’s longer than Fire Season) it’s time to move on to Christmas. I’ve got three holiday short stories to crank out, one of which will be FREE. I love that word.

On the personal front, I’ve been battling my damn arthritis and I think I’m starting to have hip issues. It sucks majorly. I’ve been able to manage my pain pretty well without having to suck down a lot of meds which are bad for my liver and stomach. Lately though, I’ve been eating Tylenol for dinner. Never a good thing.  Gonna have to put my thinking cap on and figure out how to better manage the pain. I don’t like sucking down meds.

For those of you who know Motley (aka Nikki), I’m not sure if I mentioned it but she and Tyler (her boyfriend of three years and her first real love) have broken up.  It wasn’t a bad breakup in the sense that they hate each other and all that shit, but it was a horrible breakup nonetheless. Distance did them in. He lives in Bakersfield now and we live in Orange County and the distance thing just doesn’t work. I think they were both heartbroken, but they just aren’t in the same place in their lives either.

Motley’s kind of lost these days and all she really does is draw on her tablet and play WoW. I figure she’ll come out of her tailspin eventually. We all did when we lost our first love. It’s hard to watch from the Mom-sidelines though, especially when I catch her crying.

As for me, things are… okay. Not great. Not bad. But okay. Bearable. Liveable.  Communication would make things better I think, but there’s a small percentage of me that says it wouldn’t, that it would blow everything the hell up, and that keeps me from pushing the issue. The little devil’s advocate inside me pokes me with his pitchfork and says, “But wouldn’t you rather KNOW?” while my brain tells him, “Fuck off. Half a loaf is better than none asshole.” So that’s where I am. Loverly, ain’t it?

So now I’m down to needing a very pretty Marcus this Monday. I picked four winners at the Breeder’s Cup this weekend (Goldikova, Conduit, Dancing with Silks, and Zenyatta) so between that and finishing Ride the Lighting, I feel like a bit of a celebration.

Isn’t that purdy? *sigh* Almost has a John Stamos look to him. Cept that Marcus has more muscle. HEH. Alrighty, I’m off to work. You all have yourselves a great Monday! MUAH!

No, I’m not done yet, but I’ve done a self-edit on Parts One and Two and fixed some continuity issues that were plaguing the story. One hundred and ten pages are as cleaned up as I’m going to get them for now. Now, I’m on the last bit.  Part Three is a wrap up. Get through all their issues and give them the HEA. Then a quick epilogue which will have a bit of my trademark humor (this book has very little humor) and it will be off to my editor. YAY!

I must say, Vahid has been a difficult character to work with. Stubborn. Secretive. Loyal. All of which serve to cause him problems with his mate. And all of which almost lose him his mate. You do get to see the tender side of this tough character though. When his mate tries to commit suicide, his reactions make you want to cry. When he tries to make up for three years of mistakes with her, you want to cry. He’s a character with very deep emotions and his intensity will hopefully draw readers to him.

Well, it’s Monday and I do have a Marcus and for my birthday I had… the Motherlode! WOOT! Damn. The M’s sure do have it. Marcus… Motherlode… Mmmmm chocolate. Rott bought birthday dinner from Claim Jumper including the Motherlode. Not the whole cake. Gawd. We’d be dead now if he had. One slice was enough for us to eat on all weekend long. I feel like I’ve been OD’d on chocolate cause I had some with Extreme Moose Tracks ice cream. Gah. That’s waaaay too much chocolate. It sure makes for a nice birthday cake though. One slice feeds all.

Here’s today’s Marcus. I needed something right up there with the Motherlode. Something to OD on…

Mmmm, yeah. That works for me. What a gorgeous Monday Marcus. The M’s truly do have it today. Have a simply fantastic M-Monday!

So one of the roomies came home from work and discovered it was my birthday. (She was a truck driver, not that it matters to the story, just thought I’d toss that in.) She decided we would go trick-or-treating to celebrate. She took one of the other roomies sheets (They didn’t get along) and cut out eyeholes. Dropped one sheet on me, the other on herself. Voila! Costumes!

Okay, so picture this… one 6 foot tall, female ghost in a floral patterned sheet that only reached to her knees. You could totally see her jeans and work boots. The other ghost in a pale blue sheet, short and kinda pregnant, sheet dragging the ground a bit. (I had to hold it up or I woulda tripped.) Both of us holding plain plastic grocery bags, knocking on doors, ringing doorbells all up and down the block in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood.

OMG. Did they laugh their asses off at us. They called to their other family members to come and see the grande ghosts. They took our effing picture! They were more than generous with their candy. Carla and I had about 5 pounds of the best candy ever… each! Full size candy bars even! Gawd it was awesome for all it was so embarrassing.  I almost wish I had a photo of it now. ALMOST.

I want to thank everyone for writing on my wall at Facebook, for the emails and twats and IMs, for the posts (luv ya Mojo!), snail mail cards, ecards, presents in the mail, and every other kind of Happy Birthday I’ve received. Usually, my birthday passes in a haze of work, but this year (the year before the big Five Oh) seems to be different. I even got some royalties last night! Woot! (Thanks, Marci!)

I still don’t feel like tweaking on the blog to put up the Halloween theme. I am still on a deadline and I left Vahid about to have sex and Dave worried off his ass while watching hot submissive chicks in skimpy outfits get spanked.  Before I leave though, I will put up one Halloween picture. Many thanks to Dave for actually giving the Throbbing Vampire Cock a face. Every Halloween should have a little TVC. It’s just the best costume ever to be a dick that sucks you!

Go forth and get goodies everyone! I command you to have a Happy Halloweenie! It is MY BIRTHDAY WISH that you do! MUAH!