I know I’ve been a total and complete slacker about blogging lately–and that’s on all my blogging venues, not just this one.  I will say, as usual, that I will try to be better, and I will!  And hopefully this time I can stick to that

As you probably gathered from the title of the post, Triangle of Seduction has been mailed off to my editor and I’m excited to get working on the next book–an urban fantasy as Tina.  Not that I haven’t enjoyed my forays as Cassie, and I’m sure there will be many more, but Tina is jonesing to get back to writing as well!

I do have three books coming out in August, so it’s not like I have nothing to show for all my recent hard work, but whew!  Vision of Seduction, written as Cassie Ryan comes out on July 29th from Kensington Aphrodisia.  Take It Off and Vortex Blues, both written as Tina come out from Sapphire Blue Publishing on August 15th.  So there’s plenty out there for everyone to read while I work on the next one
And on that note, I’m off to find some lunch!  Hope everyone is having a great day!

Tina/Cassie

I’m not sure where the heck this week went, but it definitely went somewhere.

I’ve gotten lots done, but I didn’t expect the week to be nearly gone by this point with a holiday tomorrow!

Oh well, as the saying goes–gotta put my big girl panties on and deal with it. 

I finally got my newsletter sent out the day before yesterday.  I’ve been working on that thing on and off for a few weeks and just couldn’t get it finished for some reason, so I’m glad it was well-received.  Especially the contest announcements–people always love those!  If you aren’t on my mailing list or didn’t receive the newsletter (I did have some mailbox full notices as well as some email doesn’t exist messages), then drop me an email and I can forward it directly to you this month.

Anyway, today I’m off to write.  I’m finishing polishing up Triangle of Seduction, sort of the last go through before it’s off to Audrey and I HAVE to fix the end.  I’m just not happy with it yet and it’s been nagging at me.  So off to do that and then I need to come home and start getting things ready for my trip to New York next week to visit with my agent and go by Kensington for my tour

What’s everyone else doing today.  Anything fun?

Cassie/Tina

Today is Tuesday, which means I have some type of writing group tonight–in this case, Desert Rose RWA.  They meet across town near ASU and a group of us carpool out there together.

There’s just something about spending some time with other writers that recharges your writing batteries and keeps you going.

I’m sooo close to being done with Triangle of Seduction!  I’m reworking the Triangle ceremony and the Big Black Moment and then I have some overall smoothing to do along with a few critiques from my wonderful crit group–the Butterscotch Martini Girls, to take into account.  I’m hoping to have it mailed off and done before I go to New York in a few weeks.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to meet with my editor, Audrey LaFehr, while I’m there.  But for good reason–she’ll be in Italy on her honeymoon!   So, how great is that?  I hope she brings back some great pictures!  But I do have a meeting set up with my agent, Paige Wheeler, so that’s a very good thing.

Well, before I head off to Desert Rose tonight, I have several hours of writing ahead, some critiques I owe to my group and some various and sundry other errands, so I’d better get to it!

Cassie/Tina

Wow, I can’t believe how bad I’ve been about blogging lately!  ACK!

I could say I’ll try to be better, but I ALWAYS try to be better about it.  So, I’ll just keep taking it day by day.

What the heck have I been doing all this time?

• Writing my fingers off to try to finish Triangle of Seduction.
• Ceremony of Seduction is going into a second printing (Woo Hoo!)
• Spoke in Denver at the Heart of Romance Chapter on “Living the Life of a Writer:  Is It All Really Glamor & Bon Bons”
• My hard drive totally died.  I was down for five days and was writing on an Alpha Smart while my very wonderful hubby worked hard to recover my data.  Got about 95% of it back and only lost about 8K of Triangle of Seduction – Whew!
• Had a girl’s weekend mixed with some business in Vegas.  Thunder Down Under guys were amazing, as usual, and Jubilee – terrific costumes!  Slots were only so/so, but the trip itself was great
• Wrote my talk on plotting for this weekend’s trip to the Sister’s in Crime in Sierra Vista, AZ.
• I’m sure there’s more, but that’s about all that’s trickling to the top of my brain!

Anyway, this afternoon I’m headed to Afternoon Tea.  Yup, you read that right.  Cheyenne McCray, Isabella Clayton, Jordan Summers and I are stepping out in style for some afternoon tea!  Finger sandwiches, tea, and all that goes with it.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Tina/Cassie

I’ve been working on Triangle of Seduction and trying to finish this puppy up and send it off to my editor because the next book I want to write is already niggling at my brain.

When I started ToS, I had all the motivations of the characters worked out in my head as well as some general things I wanted to happen over the course of the story.  After all, this is the last book in the trilogy and certain things have to be tied up, and of course, I need some hot scenes and some fun twists and turns!

No problem, right?

Wrong.

This heroine is giving me fits!

I seem to always struggle when writing a volatile heroine.  Not kick ass heroines – those come pretty easily to me.  But volatile ones who throw things, have explosive tempers and react–well, NOT how I normally react to things.   In fact, when I was writing Fire Maiden, I had a similar issue.  I can definitely step inside a heroine like that–I’ve known several people with that hair trigger volatility who throw things and blow up and rage at the world–but it isn’t a very comfortable skin for me to wear.

Funny isn’t it, that it’s more comfortable for me to write a psychic serial killer or a killer vamp than a volatile heroine?  (I’m sure psychoanalysts everywhere are rubbing their hands together with glee…lol)

But what would life be without challenges?

So, I’m going to take the advice I gave another writer just a week ago and put my big girl panties on and get comfortable inside this heroine’s head.

If you can’t get comfortable inside your character and BECOME your character, you just can’t write them believably.  Which gives me a hell of a lot of respect for Stephen King and Dean Koontz and all those guys who write those really creepy characters.  It makes my skin crawl to WATCH (see my previous blog on 1408) or READ those types of characters–ick, think about whoever came up with Hannibal Lechter!  I suppose it really does help you work out some violent tendencies on paper that you would most likely never live out in real life, but there are some characters that you come back out of feeling very unclean and icky.  Which in a strange way is good–because they will be a great villain, and readers will identify with that ick factor.

Anyway, back to ToS.  The motivation I set out for my stubborn character at the beginning just isn’t flying, so I’m going to have to step back and do some rethinking about how to motivate her.  Hmmm.  That means rewriting several scenes, possibly entire chapters I’ve already done, but it can’t be helped.  I’ve banged my head against this wall for long enough.

So, my writing goal for today is to rethink this woman and start sketching out some changes I need to make to her before I delve back in.

Has anyone else ever struggled with this problem?

Cassie/Tina