Spring Musings

Good Evening Lovelies,

It's the middle of April, and spring is officially in full swing. Admittedly I live in Miami so technically I experience a year long spring/summer, either way Happy Spring! I've been running around like crazy lately tiling soil, planting seeds, pruning bushes and what-not for my next book releases (hooray metaphors hyperbole...whatever!) This is what I get for trying to look smart. Anyway I've basically been busting my butt, making sure that I have at least three new releases for 2013.

The first book officially completed this year was Persuasion Skills, the second book in my Boardroom Acts series. This is a stand alone contemporary romance that shares the co-worker theme/trope from Negotiating Skills but with a whole new set of characters. I teetered back and forth for months trying to decide whether I was going to self-pub this book or submit it for publication, and finally decided to send it out for publication. Fingers crossed that it will be picked up because aside from the fact that I wrote it, I really do think that its a great story and has mile long legs to stand on. I'll let you know how it goes. According to experts/people out in the interwebs, I shouldn't talk about this. Mainly because it will look bad if the book doesn't get picked up. Thankfully not only do I think that's a load of bull, I also want to provide any insight into this process as I can for those of you embarking on your own journey into writing.

I finally figured out how to fix my How To Kill Your Immortal, dilemma and have decided  to release a few books set up in the HTKYI world, prior to releasing Dante and Jasmine's story. I've struggled with this for over a year. No matter how I looked at it, and no matter how much I love their characters, I just don't think Dante and Jasmine are ready for prime time. It's funny actually because a writer friend of mine told me I would have separation anxiety when it came to releasing my first book and she was sooooo right! Although Negotiating Skills was my first published book, HTKYI, was my first completed book. I hyperventilate every time I think about publishing it. It's crazy, I know. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but there it is. I'm absolutely terrified of putting my baby out there.  But, thankfully, I can't put it off forever. When I first came up for the idea for my current work in progress, Frosted Bites, it was intended to be a short three book PNR series, but somehow my characters found their way into Dante and Jasmine's world and wouldn't leave! Next thing I knew I had half a book completed with Dante and Jasmine doing cameos. Talk about my subconscious kicking my ass! The awesome thing is that it totally works and I'm crazy excited about it!. So sadly, my lovelies you will have to wait a little longer for HTKYI, but before you get it you'll have:

1.) Sweet Dreams (A Frosted Bites Prequel)

2.) Cupcakes at Midnight

3.) Death by Chocolate

4.) Whipped and Chained

Sweet Dreams is already completed and as soon as I have a free moment to edit the second draft it will be off to my editor. I'm also already two chapters into Cupcakes at Midnight. It was originally intended to be a short story, but after outlining it, I realized it will be another novella. *Sigh* One day I will master the short story. I swear it.

Okay those are the updates I have for now, hopefully in a week or so I'll have good news to share regarding Persuasion Skills. Either way I'll share with you my mental breakdown over query letters and the like soon.

Talk to you soon,
Laurel

Persuasion Skills, Smexy Work in Progress

Good Evening Lovelies,

As many of you probably already know I've been working on several works in progress that will hopefully be released this year. I've also finally made the decision to submit the second novella in the Boardroom Acts series, Persuasion Skills into trade publishers.  Eeek! The whole thing is more than a little nerve wracking!   

The Boardroom Act series is all in response to all of your great feedback on Negotiating Skills, I decided it wold be fun to write a series of contemporary novellas centered around lust, love and the work place. Each book will feature main characters that work together in some capacity. If you like Veronica and Victor from Negotiating Skills, then you're sure to love my H/h for Persuasion Skills, Pepper and Jaxon.

For the last few weeks I've been writing and re-writing the last chapter of Persuasion Skills, but tonight is the night! That sucker is being written and that's that! Lol. After my little procrastination session last night I actually got some good hours of writing in and I'm finally happy with where this final chapter is going. To be fair I think all the re-write had more to do with separation anxiety than anything else... But anyhoo,  in celebration of finally releasing my baby to my editor tomorrow morning I decided to give yo guys a quick taste of Persuasion Skills before my editor/savior/super hero/evil queen of grammar cleans it up :) Either way enjoy the sneak peak!

Talk to you soon,
Laurel

Persuasion Skills...

He felt the usual sense of peace seeing her always gave him, right before his skin tightened in a zing of awareness. Seeing her never failed to jump start his senses. Her features had changed very little since college but she’d grown her afro out to a long mass of curls that stretched past her shoulders. 

At that moment the mouth he’d secretly lusted after for years was set in a firm line and blaze of anger shone in her steady gaze yet that still didn’t prevent a smile from spreading across his face as the car drew near.

She wore a white snow cap with earflaps, her curls spilling around her shoulders and what looked like a white heavy winter coat. She looked like a ferocious bunny rabbit. 

If looks could kill, he thought chuckling softly.

He swung the axe one last time and planted the blade firmly in the chopping block before walking leisurely to the top of the drive and waited.

It wasn’t hard to keep the smile on his face as his gaze caught hers and held. He could practically feel the waves of rage rolling off of her as she pulled the car to an abrupt stop only inches from where he stood.

He merely winked at her and gave a cheerful wave. God he loved hunting rabbits.

She stared at him for a searing moment before climbing out of the tall vehicle and dragging out a medium sized piece of luggage. She snapped up its telescoping handle and marched the few steps it took to stand in front of him.

He let his gaze wonder over her frame, taking in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the tip grip she had on the luggage handle and the clenching and unclenching of her free hand. Yet the only thing that caused his smile to dim was the hurt he saw mingled with the outrage on her lovely face.

He let his gaze drift back to her clenching fist for a moment before looking at her face again. Looking into her eyes, he let loose a loud sigh as he widened his stance and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. This is going to hurt.

“Go ahead. Do it. You know you want to.” 

He let the taunt hang in the air waiting for her to speak, react, do anything. She stared at him for a few seconds before he saw her eyes swell with unshed tears. 

The sight caused a small ache in his chest. Nothing ever hurt as much than seeing Pepper cry. 

The thought barely registered in his mind before she pulled back her clenched fist and slammed it squarely on his jaw.

His head snapped to the side with a snap.

“Fuck!”

He let loose a few more choice expletives. Trust Pepper to have a killer right hook.

The stars in his eyes cleared just in time for him to watch her turn and stomp toward the porch steps and up to the front door of the cabin.

“Feel better now,” he yelled out the words to her retreating back.

He answering response was a decisively unladylike hand gesture over her shoulder before entering the cabin and slamming the door behind her.

He rubbed his jaw for a few seconds before turning and walking to the car door. Peering inside, he saw the keys still dangling from the ignition.

Reaching inside he pocketed the keys before popping the hood of the SUV open.

“Well let the games begin,” he muttered to himself as he walked to the front of the car and reached under the hood.

He barely winced in pain as a smile spread across his face and he reached into the belly of the car and yanked out a bundle of wires.

Persuasion Skills #amwriting

Hello Lovelies, 

It's been a while since I dropped you all a note on my works in progress, so I just wanted to give you all a quick update. Here goes...

1.) I'm finishing up the final touches to Persuasion Skills (formally titled High Stakes). This book is next in the Boardroom Acts series that began with Negotiating Skills. Persuasion Skills is a stand alone contemporary erotic/sensual romance using one of my favorite tropes, friends-to-lovers. For those of you who enjoyed the tension and banter between Veronica and Victor in Negotiating Skills, you're sure to love the romance between Pepper and Jaxon. She's a savvy and successful business woman and he's a mischief making computer engineer. Trap these two together in a romantic cabin and smexy hilarity smoking hot encounters ensues. 

I'm still debating on whether I'm going to self pub this book as well, or submit it to a publisher. I keep teetering back and forth on it but, you'll know one way or the other :).

2.) Frosted Bites is a trio of paranormal contemporary short stories that will definitely be released April 15th via Amazon, BnB and All romance. These short stories just kind of happened out of the blue. I was sitting in yet another round of Miami traffic one day when the idea came to me. Each story focuses on one of three siblings in the Graves family. I had a lot of fun with these characters and I hope you will too!

UPDATE: Did I say definitely? I meant definitely, maybe, if my muse got her sh%! together...

3.) WIP#3:Title Unknown-I still haven't settled on the title for my third work in progress. However, this one for sure will be an industry submission. It is another paranormal contemporary that I plan on making a series. The heroine is a little quirky and was a little inspired by Samantha from Bewitched, Martha Stewart and Tank Girl. Yes you read that right :) I don't really have a timeline for this one yet, but I'm definitely hoping to have it ready for submission by August of this year. I know that seems like a long way out, but the storyline requires a lot of research and fact checking so yeah...

So for now that's it! I do have several other WIPs that are still in the outline stages and I'll let you know more once I decide to add them to my queue. 2013 is going to be a busy year!

Talk to you soon,
Laurel