Kicking off A Round of Words

Today is the day.

ROW80 is beginning and it’s been so long since I’ve done this dust has gathered in my hair and I doubt anyone remembers me. That’s okay, I was a different writer then.

I’m the kind of person who sets pretty lofty goals, but because of the large amount of conferencing I’m doing in October, this has to be reined in a little.

In October I will be attending a reader-writer conference, Ellora’s Cave Romanticon, as well as a conference for my day job, which I won’t mention because I draw the line there. This limits what i can do during October, but I knew that when I made these commitments what it would be like.

I like goals. I like to do them in everything, not just writing. For me, they’re something you can aim for. Something you can work toward. When I write, this helps me meet deadlines, gauge which projects need to be completed over others, and so on. In work, it helps me keep track of priorities, things that are time sensitive and needs to be moved up the cue to complete faster. In my non-writer life, goals help me figure out which domestic chores need to be wrapped up first, financial plans to aim for and just plain getting stuff done. There’s something about scratching through a goal that gives me a thrill. Does that make me a pencil thrill junkie? Maybe?

Anyways, goals for writing the rest of the year all push existing series further along. I don’t know if I have a book coming out in the next few months besides the print release of Under His Skin, but I’m stacking them up for next year already.

The short of the writing list is:

• Get So Inked #2 out the door and to my Critique Partners.
• Hammer out So Inked #2 per my Critique Partners feedback.
• Submit So Inked #2 to my editor.
• Write a short story #1 for an anthology.
• Edit the short story #1.
• Send the short story out to my Critique Partners for feedback.
• Write my 2nd science-fiction romance.
• Begin writing So Inked #3.
• Revise short story #2.
• Submit short story #2.

Of these, the first one is going to be the easiest and first to get scratched off the list. I’m doing final passes through the book now. For those who are unfamiliar with my work, So Inked refers to the tattoo shop introduced in my summer novel,Under His Skin. When I submitted it to my Ellora’s Cave editor one of the first things she asked me was, "Is this a series?" I’d kicked the idea around in my head and decided that yes, I really wanted to tell the other stories. Altogether I’m planning on five novels there. [see the series page]

I have some plan to write a short story for an anthology call out from a new-to-me publisher. I respect their staff and I really would like to write the idea. In short it’s an erotic romance with strong BDSM elements. I would again write a female Dominant and male submissive, but I would be writing a new area of kink I haven’t messed with before. There are plans in the works to go observe some demonstrations to see if it’s something I can write.

The science fiction romance book will be a follow up to my 2013 release from Lyrical Press, Kiss for a Cure. There’s not a lot to say about this as of yet except it follows in the same vein as the first, featuring sharks and space and aliens and adventure. On Twitter I’ve called it my Sharks in Space series. Again, not a lot to say because things are still not official or nailed down and I don’t want to misspeak. As far as the book I will be writing, I hope to do a full 80K novel, written mostly in November during NaNoWriMo.

I want to start writing the third installment in the So Inked series. I would expect this book to wrap up somewhere between 80K and 90K, though if it rivals So Inked #2 in length I would not be surprised. Because I leap frog projects, I will write the science fiction book, write the So Inked #3 book and circle back to edit the science fiction.This is the process that works best for my writing, it’s not for everyone!

Lastly on my list, I added this one last night, but I want to wrap up another short story I wrote last week for an anthology call that landed in my inbox middle of last week. It’s been surprisingly fun. Won’t hear back on this one until sometime around January, which is kind of a bummer, but if I made it, would be a nice addition to my bookshelf.

I’m editing to add this after visiting a bunch of the ROW80 blogs, I didn’t realize a lot of people were rolling their other goals into ROW80. I think Wednesday I’m going to visit my health goals, and Sunday I’ll visit some misc goals. By next Wednesday I’ll be able to do a recap and wave as I lift off for Ohio. So, stay tuned! There’s more coming!