Don't Blink

Don't turn your back.

Don't look away.

And don't blink.

And if you already get that reference, you rock my socks.

Gonna get back to that in a second.  One quickie thing before I get to the rambling meat of this blog; I submitted Chapter 4 of From Terra yesterday.  Should be interesting seeing what people think about my transition into a piece that I haven't worked on in eight years.  Chapters for that are going to come out slower because my main focus is on finishing Taken by the Wolf (hoping to get another chapter of that submitted by the end of this week) so that I can then turn my focus to finishing my old stuff.

Okay.  So, why, you might ask, am I referencing Doctor Who?  (Although if you follow my Twitter you already know I'm obsessed).  Well, I was thinking about how I'm kind of a walking advertisement for some things and maybe I should share some of those things on my blog.  People who like my writing might like some of the same things I like right?

Strangely, one of the biggest things I'm a walking advertisement for is my cell phone company.  I've had Verizon for years and I don't know that I will ever go back.  I hated AT&T and Sprint for one simple reason: access.  I can't tell you how many times one of my friends will be like "I don't have service!" and I'll look at my phone and be like "I do.  I told you to get Verizon.  Dumbass."  and they wail "I'm still locked into my contract for another six months!"

But what else?

Doctor Who.  Obviously.  It's silly, it's corny, it's deadly serious, and it's fantasTIC!  If you're even mildly interested, don't try to start at the very beginning (the 1960's first Doctor), go onto Netflix and find the 2005 Doctor Who.  Start there.  The first episode will make you raise your eyebrows and wonder why I'd recommend such a thing because it's quite silly and the CGI is teeeeerrible (it gets better as the seasons go on because they get more money for the budget).  But keep going. The episodes get better.  And by the time you finish the episode with the incredibly creepy kid in a gas mask asking "Are you my mummy?" and you're not into it, then you can stop.

Corset Story - http://www.corset-story.com/?gclid=CNPfmo687LwCFQFnOgod9igA7g
If you like corsets but you don't really want to spend a lot of money on one, it's really hard to beat Corset Story for a decently made, incredibly priced corset.  Personally, I tend to get mine from local vendors because I like to be more unique, but I've got at least one from Corset Story and you really can't beat them for price and quality, especially the steel-boned ones.

Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness.  At your local supermarket.  In with the other refridgerated fruit drinks.  It's green and I'm pretty sure it's the only thing that's kept me from getting sick the past few months.  I've started drinking a glass daily.

Ballroom dancing.  Seriously.  It's awesome and fun.  You should try it.  And, if you're part of a couple, it will give you something entirely new to argue about.  Seriously.  The arguments are epic.  And then you get back to the class and appeal to the instructor and discover you were both wrong.  Although when I'm right I am soooooooooo right.

Lexi Blake and Cherise Sinclair.  If you like my writing, you will like both of those authors.  Nearly 100% guarantee.  Cuz that's who I'm trying to be when I grow up LOL.  They are the first authors I recommend to readers who contact me asking who they should read while waiting for my next book to come out.  They are also the first authors I recommend to friends and family who have read 50 Shades of Grey and ask me for a recommendation.  Also those who don't ask me for a recommendation but think that 50 Shades was good, and I rant at them for 5 minutes about unresearched writing, terrible writing, etc. and end up demanding that they check out Cherise Sinclair or Lexi Blake.  Although, if you do check out Cherise Sinclair's Masters of the Shadowlands series, the first book of that series is not that great imo, the rest of the series is unbelievably stellar.

So yeah.  Those are some of the things that I like and often recommend to people.  And when I say recommend, I really mean demand / mock for not / insist upon.  LOL.  All of my close friends are becoming Doctor Who converts.  All of them.  Although, admittedly, we all started out as nerds anyway.

Taken by the Wolf Ch. 15

Got another chapter of Taken by the Wolf out over the weekend!

Unfortunately, I'm only about a third of the way through writing the 16th chapter.  Things are definitely slowing down for me right now because work has become so incredibly crazy, plus my friends are all missing me and wanting to spend time with me, plus hubby is also missing me and wanting to spend more time with me, oh and my family, and I'm a bridesmaid in a wedding in April and we're finally planning the shower which is going to be in just a few weeks and... yeah.  I'm exhausted.  This weekend did not rejuvenate me the way I needed it to.  Although it was a very fun weekend. I needed way more downtime than I got.

Got a weird amount of "directing" feedback yesterday.  Strangely, most of it seemed to have to do with Marriage Training.  Mostly people having their own ideas of what they think BDSM should or could be, what they think 'dark' romances are, and whether or not they think any of my main characters have respect for women.  Whatever.  Personally, I think Gabriel had plenty of respect and love for Vivian.  And I'm not particularly bothered by the fact that some people don't see it.  It often seems to me like there's a lot of people who think there's only one way to show respect or love or whatever, instead of recognizing that it comes in many forms. 

That's fine.  But I hope that when they write to me, especially at times when I'm this stressed-out and tired, I really don't give a shit.  Normally I give at least a little shit.  Like, a tiny little rabbit pellet type shit.  Yesterday... nope.

Part of why I got into writing for Lit was because, at the time, I wasn't finding enough new stories that were just what I wanted.  There were a lot of rough stories, but the vast majority of them were "insert cock here, pump a lot, and then she was cumming" and I wanted more than having to supply all the details with my imagination.  Hence, I wrote Office Play and started putting everything I wanted to read into it and then followed it with Poker Loser.  Because I started writing the stuff that I want to read. 

Like, it's one thing to give constructive criticism like "I didn't feel like Gabriel had enough love for Vivian, because of this and this" and another to be like "I challenge you to write a story where the hero shows respect for the heroine." Um... dude... I have a VAST library on Lit for you to check out.  And I think that quite a few fit that bill.  Venus School being the first one to pop into mind.  Sarah's Private Dick is another.  Although, personally, I think that Gabriel shows plenty of respect for Vivian.  He's rather in awe of her, in fact.  But I can see how some people, skimming it, and with their own very narrow ideas of what 'respect' might encompass, could miss that.  But there are plenty of series and standalone stories that I've written that probably would fit in that narrow window.  Which just makes me want to *headdesk* when I get feedback like that.  Unless someone's read EVERY single one of my stories, challenging me to write something that I've "never" written before isn't something that makes sense.  Since that person can't actually know whether or not I've written it.

Anyway.  That's my Monday Morning rant.  And Taken by the Wolf is out.  It's accidentally in the Non-Human category. I've already submitted the change to the Non-Con category, but it looks like Lit still takes some time to do things like that.  Also, there's a good chance that a large number of my older stories are going to disappear sometime soon.  I submitted a request to take down a bunch of the old stories that I wrote for Survivorphile and, when I look at them now, I kind of cringe to think that I wrote that.  Just not great quality.  Also a few stories that started series that I realized I am NEVER going to finish.  Like Amy's Transformation and Seducing the Queen.  So if you see a large chunk of stuff disappear, don't worry... it was by my request.

Focus

So, if you read my blog on a regular basis, you already know I have some trouble with certain aspects of my life - balance being one of them, time management being another.  Not saying 'no' is another one, since that's why I end up being exhausted and overwhelmed and having such trouble with time management.  But who wants to tell their friends that no, they can't go hang out?  This time of year it's kind of necessary for my mental health, because I need 'me' time or I get mean, but it's still hard.

Focus is another one of those things that I struggle with.  Especially when it comes to writing.  I have so many ideas going round in my head that it's hard for me to work on just one project at once.  I might be able to focus on one story for half an hour, forty five minutes, but at some point I just lose all my concentration on it but I'm still in the mood to write.  So I switch to a different story.  However, even in this area, I need to work on my balance because I've discovered that having four stories going on simultaneously is too much for me.  Three was pretty much the perfect number.

And then, of course, I have to figure out where my main focus is.  Honestly, right now it's on Taken by the Wolf.  Normally it's on whatever actual novel I'm working on, to get it out on Amazon, but not this time.  Partly because Taming the Tease is already ahead of schedule since I got Punishing His Ward out early, and partly because I need to finish Taken by the Wolf so that I only have one Literotica story to concentrate on and then I can focus on Taming the Tease as well as finally give some attention to Claiming His Wife! I haven't even started Claiming His Wife yet because my focus is already torn in three different directions - Taming the Tease, Taken by the Wolf, and From Terra.

Last night I submitted Chapter 15 of Taken by the Wolf, so we're about halfway through the series.  Things are moving pretty quickly.  I'll be honest, I don't think Chapter 15 is quite as exciting as 14 was, but there are some good developments in it.  Bella's about to get more interesting at this point; Alex has always been the one focused on escape.  Personally, I've always thought Bella was the smarter one, because the Wolf is pretty well set up and adapting seems like the better survival tactic.  But I get where Alex is coming from too.  Anyway, I digress; I've always had something in mind for Bella, a different thing for her to focus on, and that's going to come out in this chapter.  What I'm really looking forward to is Chapter 16 though; introducing a new character, learning more about life on Earth, and also stretching my own wings with writing something new.  I did a little bit with Alex and Nurse Roche, but Chapter 16 is going to be much more.

I'm on Chapter 8 of Taming the Tease, about 60 pages in Word.  For me that means we're probably somewhere between 1/4 - 1/3 of the way finished with the book.  Rick and Maria are expanding on the outline that I wrote for them, becoming a lot more in depth and interesting than the characters I'd originally sketched out for myself, so that's exciting =)  Especially since Maria's absolutely not like any character I've written for Stronghold before.  She's a complete newbie to the scene, doesn't even know what BDSM stands for, and her reactions to everything are cracking me up.  Rick's not helping either, I've discovered that he's a fan of surprises.  Jerk lol.  It's a LOT of fun though.  Right now I'm in the middle of her first time at Stronghold, plus meeting Rick's friends.

And, since I've updated you on everything else, I'm about halfway through the next chapter of From Terra.  Chryssa's about to meet her Trainer.  I do seem to love these training sequences don't I?  But it's going to be a lot rougher on her than Mrs. Banks ever was on Vivian.  *sigh* I miss my Marriage Training characters... looking forward to this summer when I'll be working on their book!

Taken by the Wolf Ch. 14

So over the weekend Chapter 14 of Taken by the Wolf came out =) Bella loses her anal virginity!!!

Was curious to see what people thought of how I got it done... having so much fun with this story it's kind of ridiculous.  I love getting to go darker.  And also getting to try and surprise people.  And working my way through things that I've always wanted to write.  Plus, parts of this story have taken on a life of their own.

I kind of giggle whenever people talk about how much they don't like Bella or they don't connect with her, and I sometimes wonder if I subconsciously did that on purpose.  Cuz she reminds me of Twilight's Bella sometimes, and I wonder if I'm trying to redeem that character.  I like my Bella, personally.  Which is important.  I like Alex too, but I do think he's a bit of an idiot sometimes...  I think in their situation I'd probably react more like her... so maybe that's why I like her.

But the funny thing is, I see myself more as the Wolf.  I'm the one manipulating the situation.  The one fucking with my characters' heads.  Messing with their psyche.  Staying a step ahead of them and doing the unexpected.  Honestly, I think if I was ever to become an evil overlord, I'd probably be a lot like the Wolf.  And I'm okay with that.  Cuz I know I'm not evil... but just saying, if I was and I had that kind of power... he's who I'd be.

Anyway.  About halfway through the From Terra chapter... it's kind of hard to get back into a story that I haven't worked on in years so that's going a little slower but I'm getting there!!! 

So yeah.  Hope everyone had a good weekend.  Enjoy the new chapter!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have a confession to make.  I actually love Valentine's Day and it has nothing to do with being in a relationship.  I didn't have a boyfriend or even a guy I was dating until my junior year of high school, so for me, Valentine's Day was always about either showing my friends how much I loved them or hanging out and watching rom-coms and thinking hopefully about the future.  I've never understood the people who get down on themselves because they don't have someone on Valentine's Day because... it's just a day.  Kind of a stupid day, since REALLY the best relationships are the ones where the relationship is celebrated and shown attention and love throughout the entire year.  Reserving one day for over the top "romantic" gestures so that the rest of the year the relationship could be taken for granted, to me, always seemed pretty anti-romantic.  

But I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk a bit about relationships and stuff on the blog because I realized something recently... I get a lot of comments accusing me of being a man (because of the roughness of some of my stories) or gay (because of the anal), but no one on the Loving Wives category ever accuses me of being an unfaithful wife or a slut or anything like that.  I wonder if it's because they all think that I'm a man or because of something else.

The truth of the matter is, I've thought about men other than the one I'm in a relationship with.  I've been in two relationships in my entire life, both lasting over 6 years (and I'm hoping the current one is going to last for the rest of my life) and of course I have the "is the grass greener on the other side?" thoughts.  Sometimes I talk with some of my friends who seem to be under the impression that if their boyfriend was really "the one," then they wouldn't have those thoughts.

And that's what the commercial celebration of Valentine's day through movies and romance novels and fictional characters and plot lines have done to us.  I scoff whenever I read a book or watch a movie where a woman insists that there's only ONE man in the entire world for her, that once she meets him she never feels that way about any other man, and she can't possibly ever get over him.  Harlequins where the woman never sleeps with another man (esp while the man is out sleeping with multiple women) during the ten year period that they're apart make me gag.  I also scoff now whenever I hear that old "you never get over your first love" thing, because trust me... I'm over him.  Every so often we hang out, because we have several long-time friends still in common (which happens when you're together for over six years), and while I remember how passionately in love with him I used to be, how desperately I wanted to get back together with him for the first year and a half after we broke up (even after I met and started dating hubby), I don't feel that way now.  So I know, first hand, that it IS possible to get over your first love.  

Trust me, it's not a case of me not having really been in love with him.  I wouldn't have put up with half the amount of shit I did if I hadn't been.  I still care about him.  I like knowing that good things are happening in his life.  But I have absolutely no interest in him.  I'm not even physically attracted to him anymore.

Anyway.  The grass is greener.  Back to that.  

Something that I try to show in my books is that relationships are about choices.  We, men and woman, can find someone other than our current partner attractive.  We can even fantasize about them.  And that's normal.  It's okay.  It doesn't mean that we're going to cheat or that things with our current partner aren't meant to be.  It's just human nature to wonder 'what if.'  Hell, after I got married, the number of fantasies I've had about other men has increased exponentially. 

But it's never going to happen.  Because I don't want it to.  Because I love my husband.  And because, whenever I start wondering if the grass is greener, I remember all the reasons why I married him in the first place.  I'm kind of high maintenance.  Not in a money way.  But I need a lot of physical affection.  I'm extremely social and, while I'm independent, I do prefer it if my partner comes with me to at least the majority of the things I go to - a lot of which involve dressing up in outfits that make us look ridiculous.  I also am a complete nerd, bibliophile, marathon the same tv shows over and over again (I can't tell you how many times I've re-watched Doctor Who at this point), and want to play the same games over and over again.  And he puts up with all that, quite enthusiastically. Oh, and the ballroom dancing.  And a million other things.

I know that there's not a lot of men out there that would be able to put up with all that, much less enjoy it.  And excel at it.  Plus, he's pretty fantastic about not taking me for granted since he also came from a long-term relationship where he was taken for granted a lot of the time. 

I think that a lot of the time, when people get into trouble in their relationships, it's because they have unrealistic expectations, a lack of communication and possibly an honesty problem.  Our partners aren't mind readers.  They aren't always going to be perfect.  And loving someone doesn't mean that you'll never be attracted to or fantasize about someone else.  The problems come when you choose to start flirting or to hide things from your partner.  I have no problem with hubby going through my phone or email and he has no problem doing the same.  Sometimes I hear people saying "That's such a violation of privacy!" and I wonder what they have to hide.  Sometimes I hear people bitching about how they didn't get an immediate text back or how their boyfriend didn't plan something amazing for their anniversary or for Valentine's day - while ignoring the fact that he's constantly showering them with attention throughout the year, and I think about how ungrateful they are for taking all that other stuff for granted and not appreciating it.  I hear people bitching about how the marriage proposal wasn't everything they thought it should be - not that they clued their partner in to what they wanted - or how the ring wasn't big enough and I pretty much never talk to them again because I have no interest in being friends with someone who cares more about the size of the ring or whether or not they thought enough attention was showered on them during a proposal than they do about the relationship they're in and the fact that someone loves them enough to want to spend the rest of their life with them.  

Valentine's Day tends to make people think that there are certain romantic gestures that, if they aren't done, means you aren't loved.  And that's B.S.  Hubby and I still do something together on Vday... this year I kinda wanted to go see Robocop, but we're going dancing instead.  But mostly, we just remember what we appreciate about each other throughout the rest of the year and enjoy having a date night together.  Sometimes he gets me flowers.  Sometimes he doesn't.  I usually get him a card with some kind of dirty joke on it.  And sometimes I get some fancy lingerie and sometimes I don't.  But I can't remember a single time we've ever had a 'bad' Valentine's day and I think it's because neither of us expects any of those things and so we aren't 'devastated' if it doesn't happen.

Not that I think there's anything wrong with going all out and celebrating Valentine's day with all the tropes, it can be a lot of fun.  But I will never understand the people that there is something wrong with their relationship if they don't get a major celebration on February 14, especially if their relationships is good for the rest of the year.

New Release: Consequences Part II

YAY!

So I actually finished this novella last month but since Punishing His Ward had just come out, I figured I'd wait till closer to Valentine's Day to release the third book under my Dark Angel penname, Consequences Part II.

Because of Amazon's ridiculous oversight over independent authors and what we put in our book descriptions, I had to change the descriptions for both Part I and Part II and so they're not very informative, but you can always check out the samples if you're curious for more.  It's based off of the Consequences series that I wrote for Literotica, but Part II goes even further away from the Lit story than Part I did.  There's more expanded scenes, some additional scenes and an entirely new ending =)

I had a lot of fun with it.  Not sure what I'm going to work on next for Dark Angel... mostly because I'm not going to be able to start working on anything for at least a couple of months.  I'm already way overloaded with what I'm doing writing Taming the Tease and my stuff for Literotica.

Speaking of Literotica - Chapter 13 of Taken by the Wolf is also now out, for those of you following along =)  Kinda wondering what people will think since I kind of set it up to go one way and then took it in a different direction... I have to say, I'm REALLY looking forward to Chapter 14 which will have MMF again as well as a bit of a surprise that I've been looking forward to since I began writing this series!

From Fantasy to Reality

One of the questions I hear the most is a variant on whether or not my stories are based on reality.  I feel like sometimes that's because people want to know something about me, but sometimes I get the feeling it's because they've been fantasizing about the stuff that I write about and they're wondering what the reality might be like.

Well... sometimes reality bites.  LOL.

I do a fair amount of experimentation with hubby, but one of the first things I learned is that the transition from fantasy to reality is best done slowly.  Baby steps.  Lots and lots of little baby steps.  Because while sometime might seem great in your head, if you plunge right in you can get burned (sometimes literally, although fire-play has never appealed to me... my Ben-Gay experiment was enough to convince me not to rush ahead just because one thing feels good 5 seconds in).

The next thing I learned was that, sometimes I love the fantasy and hate the reality, no matter how slowly I take it.  I'm not surprised that many women who try out spanking and kind of horrified the first time they actually try it out in real life - it freaking hurts.  And if your partner doesn't know what they're doing and take the time to warm up your skin, it can hurt even more.  And not in that erotic "good" way that I write about.  Although I do get wet from being spanked, I've discovered that it's more about what's going on in my head than how it actually feels - although I do like the pain a little bit.

A hardcore masochist, I am not. 

I love to read / write about it though.  I have an utter fascination with it when it comes to stories, but show me a video with real people or try it on me and I freak out.  So not sexy.  I can't watch BDSM porn most of the time because when I see the extreme stuff I'm like AAAAAAHHH.  But then give me a few weeks and I'm writing about it and it's all sexy in my head.  Brutal nipple clamps, fisting, caning... oh yeah, I'm all about it as long as I'm just writing.  But if I see a porn picture of it or something I'm sitting in front of my computer cradling my breasts thinking ow ow ow and completely turned off. 

Another example... I think it's pretty clear that I love writing in the non-con category.  I have no real explanation for this, because I don't even like rape-play.  A lot of women enjoy role playing it, but I'm not one of them.  I completely freak out if it gets even close to that.  I love being tied up or held down, but only if we're not role-playing anything... try to role play that and suddenly the ropes are claustrophobic and I'm panicking and trying to kick free.  And it's not sexy.

So my major advice for anyone who wants to try to turn their fantasies into reality... take it slow.  If I'd gone for a hardcore spanking the first time I'd tried it out, I probably never would have attempted it again... but now I can take more than I could when I first started trying it and enjoy myself.  Don't worry if you don't actually like the reality, that's perfectly normal. It's still possible to seriously enjoy the fantasy =D  And sometimes I go back and try things that I didn't like the first time round, just to see if my tastes have change.

I have to admit... I've used the Ben-Gay again since my first experiment.  Sometimes I just want to feel the burn.  But I still have yet to try out figging. 

The End of Annie

The last chapter of Annie Rides the Sybian is now up on Literotica =)  Again, thank you LoAnnie for the story idea!  I had such a good time writing this story.  Ended up leaving the end somewhat open ended so that I can go back to her if I ever feel like it and I'll already have some ideas to work off of ;)  I just couldn't quite let the character go completely!

Speaking of which, this month I'll now be working on finishing From Terra.  For the first time I went back and checked out what I'd actually written previously... I'd kind of been thinking that I'd made it just a short series of fucking vignettes and that it wouldn't be too hard to just write a couple more, but when I re-read it I was like oh shit... I actually set this up as a real story.  Fortunately, I pretty quickly figured out exactly where I wanted it to go.  It's going to have a total of 14 chapters and then I'll be moving on to finishing Tomboy Tease.

My writing pace has DEFINITELY slowed down though, because of the amount that I'm working at the day job. *sigh*  Still, I am getting writing done.  I'm very close to finishing the next chapter of Taken by the Wolf, which I don't think is going to go in quite the direction that everyone's assuming.  I really do like fucking with people's heads... I sometimes wonder if I'm relating just a liiiiiittle bit too much to the Wolf. LOL.  And I've been getting a good amount of writing done for Taming the Tease, which I am seriously enjoying.  Maria is a very different female character from the others so far, which is fun for me to do something different =)

And I've submitted Consequences Part II to Amazon, but, just like with Part I, they're giving me trouble with it.  Something in the description that they don't like and so far I haven't been able to figure out what.  They aren't very specific when they send the rejection emails, it just says "Description."  Well thanks... I haven't got a clue what they're taking issue with so I'm just trying changing / deleting possible things and hoping that I get it right.  Submitted it for attempt #3 last night.  Hopefully I'll be able to tell you that it's out soon - and yes, it will be getting a freebie day.

So yeah. Hope everyone's having a good week so far!