Release Date News--Driven

Driven, the second book in my YA series The Warrior, is releasing May 13th!!

Decadent Publishing Puts Out Call For Military Romance

It can be so hard to know which publishers are looking for which kinds of stories. So, I thought I would let everyone know that I heard this morning that Decadent Publishing, one of my publishers, has put out an open call for military romances for a new series they are going to start putting out.

Here are the details:

Military Romance Series-To Be Named

short or novella length
Active military in peace time or war time
Any time period (present day, War of 1812, Spanish/American, WW1, Greek/Spartan, Napoleonic, etc.)
One or both of the H/H must be in the military service, any branch, including Coast Guard.
CAN BE FOREIGN military (Aussie, Brit, etc.)
Should feature a strong alpha male character
No sci-fi/fantasy for this particular series (but we always welcome them outside of it)
should have HFN or HEA
Can have menage, BDSM, etc. as long as it fits within our guidelines
Send submissions, indicating 'Military Romance Series' in the email, to submissions@decadentpublishing.com

AHHHH

So, last night out of nowhere all of our plumbing--the toilets, tubs, and sinks--started randomly overflowing with black, stinky, disgusting water. It turns out there was some kind of blockage between us and the street that caused the problem. Inside the house, the backup caused several vents (I thought they were pipes but it turns out they were vents) leaked and will have to be replaced. Into the late hours--my husband, his massage therapist who had the bad luck to be here when it happened (Needless to say last night's massage did not make his back feel better), the emergency plumbers, the Inspector for the water company, and myself worked hard to try to stop and then clean up the mess.

It is, according to the water company, our problem that the blockage existed and not there's. Fine. But, I'm going to have to change several plumbing things we have in the house. I have to call the plumber and get this taken care of.

What else am I doing today? Well, the tree people are coming (made the appointment last week) to take down two dead branches threatening my roof and to fertilize two trees on the side of our property that are potentially in trouble because of the house construction going on the property next door to us.

Also, the cable company is coming. For the fifth time. Because, guess what?, the fact that I spent a lot of money yesterday having the electricians change all of the cable wiring in the house to take all copper out that the Cable company insisted would fix the problem DIDN'T WORK. Its officially been two weeks since my husband and I could watch network (ABC, NBC, FOX, and CBS) in our house. Also, the phone and internet--both from the cable company--go in and out.

In addition to all of this, I have to serve lunch at my 3 year old's school today. Remind me next year when I fill out the paperwork for their schools to write 'no' when they ask if I'm available to help. The way the school is set up, if a parent is not there to help the teachers don't get to eat lunch. So, its not like I can just cancel.

I'm tired. I'm cranky. I'm at a place in my Work In Progress where I just want to write and write. AHHHHHHHHH.

Sorry for the rant. I need a hug. And a nap. And a large drink.

I am being Featured...

Hey everyone,

My series "The Westervelt Wolves" is being featured this week at the Guilty Indulgence Blog. They are talking about one of the books a day. Come and visit here.

Rebecca Royce

Central Casting Called

So, I thought I was going to a new dentist and guess what? He's the brother-in-law of my old dentist. I couldn't stop laughing. It was like I had gotten stuck in some kind of Central Casting Joke.

I realize this is a random story. But it reminded me of my favorite kinds of books: Series. Everyone is related to everyone else. If you meet a character, it is likely he is going to know someone else somehow. And I have to tell you...I love it.

Paranormal lends itself to series better than anything else, I think. Because why shouldn't the two hundred year old vampire know the one hundred year old Werewolf from fifty years ago in Romania?

Do you have a favorite series and if so what is it? Do you find the Central Casting office brings the characters back to be related to each other over and over?

Letting My Characters Show Me The Way

I have been writing the sequel to my book Eye Contact for some time now. Its not unexpected that it would take some time for me to write this one. Eye Contact is a long book, over 90,000 words, and Embraced is shaping up to long as well.

But, recently, I stumbled with it. I reached a place and I thought, hmmm, I have no idea where to go from here. A lot of you writers out there are what they refer to as 'plotters,' meaning that you work out all of your plot kinks before you ever write word one on the page. I am not. I am what is referred to as a 'pantser' meaning I write by the seat of my pants. LOL. When I stumbled this time, I actually considered sitting down and making an outline for this book.

But I stopped myself.

Why?

Because after all of this time, my muse and I are quite familiar with each other. The second I have worked out all of the plot twists and turns of a book, my muse moves on to other things. If I work out the plot before I have written it, I almost never write the book. It's just not that interesting to my creative side anymore.

So what did I do? Well, I decided to start writing the next chapter just to see what would happen. I pushed through and the most unexpected thing happened: the plot altered a great deal from what I had expected and the book changed into something so different than it had been and so much better.

My characters told me what was supposed to happen in their story.

Now it is like I can't write fast enough. My hands are moving a mile a minute and my head wont shut down. I am thrilled.

Happy Monday everyone. I wish you a wonderful week of writing and reading!

Six Sentence Sunday

Hey everyone,

Thanks so much for coming by. This is from my work-in-progress tentatively called Embraced. It is the second book in my Conditioned series. WARNING--Hot scene.

His finger pressed deeper into her underpants and she gasped. No one ever touched her there, not even herself. There was no privacy in Crescent. They slept on beds that were about ten inches from each other. It didn’t lend itself to a lot of self-exploration.

“I’m going to take your panties off now.”