Jaci Burton’s Muse

There’s nothing more exciting than sharing the BIG news of a friend’s first sale! Shannon sold her first book to Ellora’s Cave! I’m probably as excited as she is, reliving the day I received the email from Ellora’s Cave that they were accepting Paradise Awakening. That seems like eons ago (in reality, almost 2 years), and yet still feels like yesterday. I can still picture that moment the email came through with the contract and “Welcome” information. I stared at it, certain it had to be some mistake. They didn’t want MY book, did they? But sure enough, all the information had my name on it!

I ran outside where Charlie was working on the truck, told him, and we held hands and jumped up and down like a couple kids. The rest of the day was a blur. I probably did laundry, cooked dinner and all the other routine things, while in the back of my mind lingered those two words I had seemingly waited a lifetime to attribute to myself….published author.

Does it completely change your life? Not really. I still write the same way I did before I sold, I still love it as much as I did then, and I still have the same insecurities. I still do laundry and cook dinner (my family refuses to recognize me for the diva I am *g*), but for those few moments in time, I was Cinderella. And I’ll never forget it.

I hope Shannon is experiencing that same sense of wonder today. It’s a day you’ll never forget.

I will lift up my glass in toast to you today, my friend. For you truly deserve this, and it’s only the beginning of wonderful things about to happen to you.

Okay, I admit it.I’m a serial writer.

Series. You know, when those pesky secondary characters in a book end up HAVING to have their own story? And then the secondary characters in that book need to have their story written too, and so on and so on.

I like big family stories. That’s why I write the Storms and Devlins. Brothers, sisters, all on the road to finding their one true love. Plus it gives me some continuity in my books and a guarantee that there are plenty of stories to write.

Not that I have trouble coming up with the ideas. What I have trouble with is starting so many series it gets to be overwhelming and I wonder if I’ll EVER finish them. And then while I’m busy trying to write the next book in one of the many series I have, more ideas pop into my head! As if it wasn’t overly crowded in there already!

Though series slutdom does have its advantages, it also has its drawbacks. Eventually you may HAVE to write a book you don’t want to write, because your readers want more in that series. So while that hot and sexy vamp is incessantly tapping you on the shoulder to start his story, you have to banish him to the idea cave until you get at least one series finished.

Jaci….back to writing a book that ISN’T a series. shhhhh, don’t tell anyone

No, not the ‘whack me with a flogger’ kind of discpline, though that might help ;-)

I’m talking about discipline to write, to finish a book without wanting to stop mid-stream and work on a totally different book.

I used to have my schedule known months in advance, which meant I had deadlines. Deadlines to turn in finished work with enough time for it to be edited and proofed before its scheduled release.

Because of changes, I no longer have that, and it’s making me crazy. I have to be one of the most undisciplined people I know. And without those firm deadlines, I’m floundering, working on 3 different books at the same time and not finishing any of them.

Ack! I’ve tried the self-discpline and internal deadlines thing. Nope, nuh uh. My mind wasn’t born yesterday, it’s not falling for self-imposed deadlines. It wants real, concrete publisher deadlines. Man can I whip out a book when I’m under deadline pressure. Without it, who knows when I’ll finish the next one.

Sigh.

Off to flog myself, and not in a fun way *g*

Jaci

Write a bio, they say. A fun one and a professional one.

Oh sure. Nothing I like better than talking about myself. Oh wait, isn’t that what I do here? Well, yes and no. I talk about other things here, and it’s NOT all about me. Do you know how HARD it is to talk about yourself?

It’s some kind of perverse torture my publisher has come up with to torment me.

Okay, so maybe the fun one WAS fun to write. Here it is:

In April of 2003 Ellora’s Cave foolishly offered me a contract for my first erotic romance and I haven’t shut up since. My writing is an addiction for which there is no cure, a disease in which strange characters live in my mind, all clamoring for their own story. I try to let them out one by one, as mixing snarling werewolves with a bondage and discipline master can be very dangerous territory. Then again, unusual plotlines offer relief from the demons plaguing me.

In my world, well-endowed, naked cabana boys do the vacuuming and dishes, little faeries flit about dusting the furniture and doing laundry, Wolfgang Puck fixes my dinner and I spend every night engaged in wild sexual abandon with a hunky alpha. Okay, the hunky alpha part is my real life husband and he keeps my fantasy life enriched with extensive ‘research’. But Wolfgang won’t answer my calls, the faeries are on strike and my readers keep running off with the cabana boys.

I won’t bother posting the professional one. Would hate for all of you to end up head down in your keyboards, waking with QWERTY marks plastered to your cheek *g*

Yes, we do like to bitch and moan on blogs, don’t we? But today I actually had a good day (Not counting having to get up at 5:30 to go to work).

I got the cover to my upcoming Ellora’s Cave release, and as soon as I slap this photo software around a bit I’m sure I”ll figure out how to upload it. DREAM ON was more than the book of my heart. Writing it came from my soul. Yeah, I know that sounds like writer BS, but I sobbed writing this book. I guess it just ‘got’ to me.

I also found out that my RWA workshop proposal was accepted! Fellow Ellora’s Cave authors Cricket Star and Mardi Ballou will be presenting a workshop on Erotic Romance at the RWA Convention in Reno, NV in July! I’m so excited. I’m also so wanting to throw up! But still more exited than nauseous ;-)

Kismet: Frost and Fire - Now available in print

Blake grabbed two wine glasses and reached for a bottle of white from one of the refrigerators.
Moon peered inside and held back the appreciative whistle at his stock. “You must entertain a lot.”
“Never, actually.”
Never? “Then you’ve got to be a lush. You have a ton of wine in there.”
“Actually, I have a vineyard,” he explained

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH! Okay, stop right there! My hero does NOT have a vineyard.

“Yeah, I do.”

You do not.

“You wanna argue this point all night? I’m trying to get my woman into bed.”

You’re not getting into anyone’s bed until I get to the bottom of this. (hurriedly flipping through copious pages of messy notes.) Nope. Nowhere in my plotline does it say ‘hero has a vineyard’

“Then you left it out of the plotline.”

It’s MY plotline! I created you, I outlined you, I know every damn thing about you. How come I didn’t know you had a vineyard?

“You never asked.”

Sigh.

Any writer who says she’s in control of her characters is lying.

Jaci…off to figure out what to do with the damn vineyard.

First, eat toast in bed the night before, which invariably leaves crumbs all over the sheets. Microscopic, constantly moveable crumbs that you simply CANNOT remove from the sheets.

Second, have a raging sinus headache forcing you to go to bed with an icepack on your head. Yes, certain to drum up fantasies of wild, wicked sex in your man’s mind….NOT.

Third, as sexy husband approaches you, shift around in bed and whimper…oh no…not in the throes of passion, but because you have toast crumbs stuck to your butt!

Ah yes, that paints a picture of a sweeping, erotic moment, doesn’t it? ;-)

Jaci

…all my troubles seemed so farrrrr awayyyyyy…

Can you tell I think in terms of lyrics? *snicker*

So yesterday morning I’m having my coffee and staring at my PC, wondering how my day will go, when I hear a soft knock at the door around 8:30 a.m. I go to the door to find a Fedex package. Opened it up to find 8…count ‘em….8 books to read for the RITA. Now that’s cool. I like books. I love reading. Until I find out I have to read said 8 books in about 5 weeks time.

Ack!

Now back in the day when all I did was read, that would have been a no brainer. Of course I could read that many books. Still can…as long as I don’t plan to go to work, or write, or eat, or do much of anything else for the next 5 weeks.

How does everyone else do it? I’m in panic mode, thinking I’m going to have to take up speed reading to get through all these.

Oh, and my local RWA group is having their published author contest too, so I’ll be getting another 5 books to read shortly.

Bwahahahahaha….think I”ll just take lots of long, hot baths the next month or so. I’ll be pruney, but I’ll get the books read that way.

Jaci

Ever have one of those days where you look up and it’s suddenly 9:30 p.m. and you have no freakin idea what you did all day?

Nothing constructive, that’s for sure.

I know I was up by 7:30 this morning. I remember coffee, then getting on the internet. Oh, I did get my nails done. I remember that part. Then I went to dinner with Charlie and to the mall. (Okay, I MIGHT remember shopping, but only because of that great sale at Banana Republic *g*).

But now it’s 9:30 and I haven’t done a damn thing. The laundry I put in the washer at 10 this morning is still in there. There are dishes in the sink. The chapter of my book I was working on is still at the same paragraph it was on last night.

Clearly some kind of time warp.

And why don’t the laundry faeries ever come to my house? But that’s a topic for another day

Jaci….off to find her missing day