Jaci Burton’s Muse

It’s spring. Allergies are kicking my butt.

With warmer weather comes….people outside. With people outside comes all 5 of my dogs engaging in nonstop barking. I need a bb gun or something to shoot them in the butt because they’re all on my last freakin nerve. (Just kidding. I don’t shoot my dogs. Animal rights folks can calm down. I love all my furry creatures and would never lay a hand on them but they do piss me the hell off when they bark).

Exercising makes me want to pass out. Of course it would be easier if I hadn’t gained twenty pounds that I now have to take off. Ugh.

Almost finished polishing up The Perfect Play, then it’s off to my beta readers, and then I’ll start The Perfect Game. Progress!

Why is it when the weather finally starts getting warm here in Oklahoma that 40 mph winds have to come with it? I just can’t get a break around here. But hey, at least it’s warm and I’m not going to complain about that after the hellish winter we had.

TV talk forthcoming. There be spoilers here. You have been warned. Look away if you don’t want to know:

On The Amazing Race I was afraid the cowboys were going to be toast. For awhile there they looked really smart, but they’ve made some dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks moves, so we’ll see how they do next week. I thought Carol and Brandy were going to be eliminated. The bickering between the two of them amuses me almost as much as Brent and Caite.

Who the hell is voting for Kate Gosselin on Dancing With The Stars? She’s terrible. My husband dances better than she does, and he’ll be the first to admit he can’t dance. Jeebus. I get that Buzz Aldrin is going to get the old guy sympathy vote for a few weeks, even though it pained me to watch him dance. But Kate Gosselin? Puh-leeze! It was like watching a baby robot stumble its first few steps. And she’s a shrew. I thought Shannon was cute, her love for her dad was adorable, and I’m sad she got the boot. Even more sad that I have to watch Kate another week. Ugh. I’m just going to assume it was sympathy voting for Tony who has to put up with her.

Why did we need to bring back two players on The Biggest Loser? Aren’t we supposed to be eliminating players? And now Melissa’s back and I was so happy when she left. She annoys me. I love Stephanie and I was sad to see her go, really sad when they accused her of game play. Though I hear she and Sam have a romance going. I love Sam! I could definitely see him with Stephanie. How sweet is that?

That’s all I have for now.

Biker Dude and I had a nice weekend. We’re pretty low key people. Saturday we went to one of the local casinos we hadn’t been to since they remodeled. We wanted to try their new buffet, and of course, gamble a little. And by a little we really mean…a little. We’re not big gamblers. We tend to like our money so we enjoy holding on to it. We’re pretty smart about our money. We don’t gamble the mortgage and we also know casinos are in the business of making money, so we always go into a casino with the amount of money we intend to lose. Hey, we’re not suckers. We don’t go there intending to win. If we win, great. But we figure we’re probably going to lose.

Anyway, we played for a couple hours and left with the money we came with. We called it a win. Though we never did get into the buffet. Too crowded. All the old people seem to crawl out of the woodwork when it’s buffet time. Why is that?

We did a little shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond. I’ve been looking for a new hamper for our remodeled master bathroom. BB&B had no hampers I like. Hampers are just…odd these days. Odd shapes and sizes and colors and not what I want. I need to keep looking. Did buy some new bath towels for the guest bathroom which we’re also redoing. Washed said towels when we got home and let me tell you the lint explosion in my lint catcher was beyond description. It was like a wooly mammoth had found refuge in the lint catcher. That’s what I get for buying discount towels. Dayum.

Saturday night we watched a couple movies–Kung Fu Panda and Monsters vs Aliens. No, there were no children in attendance and yes we like kid movies. Cute movies but our favorites are still Madagascar and Ice Age. Oh and Biker Dude loves Shrek. Yes, we’re really 7 year olds.

Sunday my afternoon nap was thwarted by the rain out and subsequent cancellation of the NASCAR race. How can I nap without NASCAR? Dammit. (It’s something about the droning engine noise and all those left hand turns). Therefore I was forced to do laundry.

And how was your weekend?

Behold the yummy goodness that is Pax and AJ’s cover!!!!

RIDING THE NIGHT releases September 7th from Berkley Heat. I cannot wait for this book to be released!

Blurb:

AJ and Pax work together as undercover operatives for a government agency of bad-boy bikers known as the Wild Riders. And though they play as hard as they work, both men are looking for the one woman who can tame them…

On vacation, AJ and Pax run into AJ’s high school sweetheart, Teresa. While they’re catching up at Teresa’s bar, a fight erupts between two biker gangs, leaving one man dead and Teresa’s brother wrongly accused of murder. With no proof and Teresa as the only eye witness, the trio points their Harleys toward the annual bike rally in South Dakota in hot pursuit of the real killer…

Her life in jeopardy, AJ and Pax become Teresa’s fierce protectors. But a past trauma keeps Teresa guarded, unable to trust them–until AJ and Pax uncover her secret and vow to do anything to help her heal. And in their arms she discovers a sensual desire that knows no boundaries, a passion strong enough to overcome her tragic past and awaken a force that brings both men to their knees.

Danger may temporarily bind the three together, but it’s their shared passion that will lead them to the ride of their lives: love.

~~~
Here’s the link to all the blurb and excerpt and preorder goodness. Because really, after you see this cover, you know you want it, don’t you?

So tell me what you think of the cover!

Finished The Perfect Play yesterday! Woo hoo!!!! End of book dance time!

Today I take the day off from the book and work on something else. I need at least a day’s break to distance myself from the story. Ideally a week would be great, but I don’t have the luxury of that much time because I need to start The Perfect Game (story #2) by April 1st, so I’ll give myself today to work on something else, then dive into editing The Perfect Play tomorrow. Then I can get it out to beta readers (heh. I have no beta readers…but I will. Soon as I find them) as soon as I’m done editing it.

But today I bet to play with some research on my suspense book a bit, which is just pure joy for me. I’ll start writing that one after I write The Perfect Game.

And no, I don’t get days off. Just in case you were wondering. But I love my job.

First, Happy Birthday to #1 son, who turns 31 today! (Yeah, I was 7 when I had him. I’m very progressive that way).

Second, the sun is out, the snow is melting and it’s supposed to hit the 60’s today and the 70’s tomorrow. Thank you Mother Nature, for screwing with my weekend with that epic snowstorm. You finished now? I’d really like to start on my vegetable garden.

We signed up for the premium channels again just so I could watch The Pacific, a new series about World War II on HBO. Great new series by the way. But since we hadn’t had the premium channels in awhile I’ve been catching up with movies in the like (we got a good package deal so we got all the premium channels–bonus!). And Spartacus, on Starz, which is rather drool worthy with lots of yummy naked men. Hey, I’m only human. How am I supposed to resist all those naked guys, or as Biker Dude calls it–chick porn. Heh.

Watched Twilight the other night. That was interesting. Very teen angsty. And sparkly.

My Best Friends Girl was funny. So was Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I should tell you that I’m also very easily amused.

Anyway, on to writing. Working on trying to finish up The Perfect Game. You can see the blurb here. My goal is to finish the book by the end of this month, then write the followup book next month. Busy schedule this year so a lot of self flogging involved in maintaining a strict writing schedule. I try to set specific daily writing goals in order to finish a book. Deadlines are good for me, otherwise I flail around like a fish out of water, which isn’t pretty. A lot of gasping for air and looking ridiculous. Goals are better. I can breathe when I have goals.

Still waiting on the cover for Riding The NIght (AJ and Pax’s book). Doesn’t it just figure that Pax and AJ would make us wait? Will pop it on here as soon as it makes its appearance!

And that’s about as random as I’m getting today. Unless something else pops into my head, which is likely to happen.

Edited To Add: See? Something else to add. Head on over to awesome author Beth Kery’s Blog and let her know what your favorite erotic romance of 2009 was. There are prizes being given away!

Hope your week is sunny and snow free!

Thursday it was 75 degrees. Warm and sunny and beautiful outside. I took a picture of our magnolia tree starting to bloom. Pretty isn’t it?

This is today. It’s been snowing since yesterday and it’s still freaking snowing. Said magnolia is off to the back right of the picture.

Not having fun here in Oklahoma.

Just wanted to let you all know that Nauti and Wild’s release date has changed. It will now release on August 3rd, so mark your calendars.

Sometimes that happens in publishing for reasons I can’t explain, but it’s only a month later. But you know, not only does it contain one of my Wild Riders books, the totally awesomely talented Lora Leigh has one of her incredibly rockin’ Nauti stories in this book, so it’ll be worth the wait, right?

And if you click here I now have an excerpt up of Riding The Edge, my Wild Rider’s story that will appear in Nauti and Wild. Wheeeee!

I never know whether to torture you early with blurbs for books that won’t be out for almost a year, or whether to wait awhile. This is the book I’m writing at the moment for Berkley Heat, and having tons of fun with these characters. I’m torturing them, they’re torturing me, so I figured I’d torture you, too.

Football pro Mick Riley is an all-star, both on the field and in the bedroom. But a sexy, determinedly single mom just might be the one to throw him off his game…

For years Mick has been taking full advantage of the life available to a pro athlete: fame, fortune, and a different girl in every city. But when he meets and beds confident, beautiful event planner Tara Lincoln, he wants much more than the typical one-night stand. Too bad Tara’s not interested in getting to know football’s most notorious playboy any better.

As the single mother of a teenage son, the last thing Tara needs is the jet-set lifestyle of Mick Riley; even though their steamy and passionate one-night stand was unforgettable. Tara’s life is complicated enough without being thrust into the spotlight as Mick’s latest girl du jour. Tara played the game of love once and lost big, and she doesn’t intend to put herself out there again, especially with a heartbreaker like Mick.

But when Mick sets his mind to win, nothing will stop him. And he has the perfect play in mind.

~~~~~~~

This is the first book in my new sports series. Tell me what you think.

Thanks so much for all your comments about where you’re spending your time. Your responses were interesting. I see a lot of you are still reading blogs, many just aren’t commenting due to time constraints, alot of you are on Facebook, some are on Twitter, and many of you are just way too busy these days (I can so relate!).

For those of you who asked, no I’m definitely not closing this blog. I’ll be here boring you with nonsense as often as I possibly can. And thanks for hanging out with me!

Now onto the prize. I used random.org to select a winner and it is:

Beth C (comment #15)

Beth, you’ve won a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate. Congrats!

And thanks again to everyone for your comments!

I’m curious where everyone spends their time these days.

I don’t know if you read or not but we’re shutting down the Writeminded Blog. The five of us are just so bogged down with work projects, plus having to juggle our personal blogs, not to mention trying to be everywhere like Twitter and Facebook and still get our daily word count in that something had to go, and unfortunately that was the Writeminded Blog. But we still have the Writeminded Readers Group and would love to see you there.

But that got me to thinking that blog traffic seems to have slowed down, people are even blogging less, and I wonder if it’s because social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook have picked up, or are people still reading blogs but not commenting? I know I still read blogs, but I do it via an RSS Feed, and only occasionally comment?

So my question is, where are you playing these days? Are you still reading blogs, but in an RSS feed like Google Reader or somewhere else? Or are you spending more time on Facebook or Twitter? Or are you just too damn busy to do anything? Heh.

Pop a comment down below and let me know. I might even give away a prize. Like a book…or something else. So hop on out of that RSS feed and let me know where you are. Curious minds wanna know.