Friday's Guest Blog!

There's another guest blog up today on Night Owl Romance.

This one is called, So you want to be an alien? Should be fun.

Come on over for your chance to win a copy of Virgin!

Guest Blog!

I've got a character interview with Dax, Ava, and Waroun posted today on Fresh Fiction!

There should be another book giveaway along with it, so come on over and post a comment for your chance to win a copy of Virgin!

Speaking of fresh, these guys could qualify for the fresh catch of the day.

Enjoy your Thursday!

PS. I'm pretty sure this is the guy from yesterday's post. Remember him?

Monday Moons!

This past week has been interesting, to say the least. I found out that Virgin is on sale at Walmart and Sharing is on the bestseller list at Siren!

I have an interview today on Debbie's Book Bag, and another on Borders True Romance Blog.

Hop on over and post a comment for your chance to win a copy of Virgin!

Me, I'll just stay here and stare at the buns.

Might even give them a little pat now and then...

Thursday Thoughts

If you're looking for thoughts today, you'll have to come over and visit me on Love Romance Passion!

Then again, he does look like he's thinking about something...

Whopping Weasel Wednesday!

I'm guest blogging today on Sia McKye's Over Coffee.

Grab a hunk and come on over for your chance to win a free copy of Virgin!

And speaking of freebies, Outcast is available for a free download on Kindle and Nook this week!

Launch Party!

The stack on my desk is getting taller, and the books are getting thicker!

Today is the Launch Party for Virgin on Casablanca Authors!

Come on over for a chance to win a signed copy of Virgin!

Today is also the release day for The Sextet Anthologies, Volume 1: Sharing. Look for it on Siren/Bookstrand!



























I'm currently in Cincinnati for the Lori Foster Author/Reader Get Together. I got here at about four, and after realizing that nothing much is happening until 4 PM on Friday, I went to dinner by myself. The restaurant was practically empty, but then three ladies came in and were seated right next to my table. I heard them talking about driving down from Canada, and I was thinking, "I wonder if one of them is Mary G?" I had it in my head that Mary was a blonde. Well, she isn't. I had checked her Facebook picture before I left home and I guess it was because she wasn't wearing glasses in that picture, either that or my frazzled brain said: "No glasses=Blonde." Anyway, she recognized me when I turned to surreptitiously see if one of those ladies who actually was a blonde was Mary. She was with two other writers, Anara Bella and Leah Braemel who both write for Samhain. So I moved over to their table and we had a nice dinner together.





















The biggest laugh of the evening went to Willy, of course, whom I just happened to have in my purse!





















By about 9PM, we realized that the staff was wanting to set the table up for breakfast, so the party broke up. While I was on my way back to my room, a message came through on my phone from Marie Force. I called her back and she came down to visit for a little while. Now I'm trying to decide whether to call it a day or work on the interview questions our publicist just sent me for one of Virgin's guest blogs. Either way, I NEED MORE TEA!!!!

Thursday Thoughts

Just in case you were wondering what the cover model for Virgin actually looks like, I did a bit of searching on Dreamstime a while back and found him. Here's the original photo.

I sorta wish they'd put longer hair on him, but he's pretty nice without it. Too bad he doesn't look anything like Benji, who was the one I had in my head when I was writing the book.

Still, there are some similarities, and since on my covers you can only see them from the tip of their noses down, most of these hot bods look very much the same.

Sad, but true.



Virgin's blog tour begins today on Literary Escapism. Come on over and post a comment for your chance to win a copy of your very own!

Virgin's Release Day!

I wasn't sure it would ever get here, but the day has finally come! A lot of you have already read it, so you know what it's about, but for those lurkers who haven't, here's the blurb:

HE'S NEVER MET ANYONE WHO MADE HIM PURR...
Starship pilot Dax never encountered a woman he wanted badly enough. Until he met Ava Karon...

AND HE'LL NEVER GIVE HIS BODY WITHOUT GIVING HIS HEART...

Dax is happy to take Ava back to her home planet, until he finds out she's returning to an old boyfriend...

As their journey together turns into a quest neither expected, Ava would give herself to Dax in a heartbeat. Except he doesn't know the first thing about seducing a woman...

I think it highly appropriate that June 1st should fall on a Wednesday this year. So here's a nice whopper to enjoy while you're reading the new book. He even looks like he might be a virgin.



























Nah, probably not.

Thursday Thoughts

Ever feel like you've bitten off more than you can chew? That's the way I feel right now. Trying to get stuff organized to go on vacation tonight (ARRRGGGHHH!!!!!), and then Virgin will be released on June 1st, I'll be heading to Cincinnati for the Lori Foster Get Together on June 2nd, and Double Desire (The Sextet Anthologies, volume 1: Sharing) will be released on June 3rd.

Oh, yes, and did I mention that I received the editorial notes for Stud yesterday? My editor wants the completed manuscript with tracked changes by June 20th. Fortunately she doesn't want a lot of changes, but figuring out how to do what she's asked will probably keep me awake for a few nights.

By the time the RWA national conference rolls around, I'll have been on a whirlwind blog tour to promote Virgin. And then I THINK, things will settle down.

Just wish RWA hadn't been the end of June instead of the end of July the way it normally is. I think they're remodeling the hotel or something, which is why it got bumped up a month. Anyway, it starts on Sam's birthday and ends on Mikey's birthday. Fortunately, they're not little anymore and probably won't care if we celebrate on a different day, just as long as they get chocolate cake.

Speaking of which, do you think this fellow would move his hand if you were to tempt him with a piece of cake? Let's try it!

Monday Moons!

As you may have noticed from the comments on yesterday's post, the Sextet's first anthology release has been postponed until June 3rd, which is, interestingly enough, the date of Virgin's Launch Party on the Casablanca Authors blog.

But do I dare advertise the release of the Sharing on the same venue as Virgin?

I probably shouldn't, but the temptation to use what momentum Virgin has to boost the launch of the Sextet is strong, particularly when the way they coincide is sort of, well... opportune. However, to be on the safe side, maybe I'll just post it here and on my website. Nothing quite like an ethical dilemma to keep you awake nights, is there?

Moving right along. . . A while back, I began an interesting writing exercise. I'm taking a manuscript written in first person from the female point of view and converting it to third person. I'm a few chapters into it, and now that the hero has been introduced, I'm converting a scene to third person from his point of view. It involves retaining the dialog, but turning the female thoughts into actions or things that are visible to the hero, and adding the hero's thoughts and motivations to his actions.

If it sounds difficult, that's because it is, especially when you're doing it in the middle of the night while your patients are snoozing, you're trying to keep an eye on the heart monitors and answer the phone, the people around you are discussing completely unrelated topics, a thunderstorm is causing intermittent power outages, and you'd really rather be at home asleep in your own bed--or going bareback riding with today's hunk.

But such is the life of a part-time writer with a full-time job. . .

Thursday Thoughts

Stud is all set to go to my editor tomorrow, thanks to the input from my beta readers, my agent, and my critique partner, Sandy James. All in all, there were five pairs of eyes on it aside from my own, and everyone had different questions and spotted different errors. Of course, the various editors at Sourcebooks will have still more issues.

I've already received the first review of Virgin from a well-known blog site, and the reviewer gave it a 5/5 Top Pick rating. I'm not supposed to say which site, since it hasn't gone live yet, but needless to say, I'm very pleased!

The tentative release date for Sharing, the first of the Sextet erotic anthologies, is May 13th. It'll be interesting to see if that Friday the 13th date brings us good luck or bad. I received my edits for my contribution to that volume (Double Desire) on Tuesday, but they were relatively minor, and I was able to get it finished that evening. I'm still not sure who to dedicate it to, but I have a couple of weeks to figure that out. I'll post the cover for the anthology as soon as I get it.

I'd like to thank all of you Yah Yahs for sticking with me through this long period between books. Ten months is a long time to try to maintain enthusiasm between releases, and for that reason, I wish the Sextet stories had come out a little sooner.

Still, the publishing business being what it is, it has always been the case that readers can read books faster than authors can write them, and WAY faster than a publisher can get them on the shelves. Siren, being an e-publisher, can do it much faster than print, so there will at least be a string of anthologies along with Virgin to keep you ladies happy between now and February 2012 when Stud will be released.

So, while I write Loner, I hope you ladies will hang in there and keep reading! Who knows? You might even find a hunk to read along with you!

Monday Moons!

Nothing like a nice pair of furry buns to start the week off right--and a fitting end to February! We've certainly needed some fur on our buns this year. Been too frickin' cold to suit me. Now it's just squishy and muddy on my way to the barn.

I'm not complaining, though. February was better than usual. Got the contract for the Siren deal a few days ago, had a great time in Gatlinburg, and had loads of fun critiquing with my fellow members of the Sextet.

Speaking of the Sextet, I've started on the Occupational Hazards story, but I'll have to say, coming up with different (and plausible) reasons for three men to want the same woman is tougher than I thought it would be. I mean, who knew there were so many trios of bisexual men out there looking for a girl to make it a foursome?

I'm sending off the final edits of Virgin tomorrow. Apparently the ARCs have been printed--my editor sent me a PDF of the cover--but so far, I haven't received my copies yet, nor have I heard from Cindy L, who was the winner of the contest on Casablanca Authors. Your chances of winning by default are increasing exponentially, Suzy!





















This is what the ARC cover looks like. Extra points if you can spot the typo!

Thursday Thoughts

It's interesting the things you'll find when you go back through a manuscript for the first time. I wrote Stud a chapter at a time, sending it to my buddy Sandy James for critique, and then starting the next one, rarely going back to read the earlier chapters. This was a little different than the way I'd written before, writing it straight through, going back to edit as I went. Having gotten Sandy's input along the way, I felt like the editing was pretty much complete, but I was wrong. Spreading it out over several months like that had made us both forget some of the details. I found three discrepancies that needed fixing, one of them requiring a rewrite of two places in the book. Granted, they were minor, but these are the things you'd rather fix yourself, as opposed to having someone point them out to you later on.

This will also mark the first time I've used a beta reader. I did send Virgin to my agent, and she suggested some changes, which I made before sending it off to my editor, but the edits, if you will recall, were fairly extensive. I hope I've learned enough from that experience to enable me to write a better book to begin with, but Stud is still 100,665 words long. If the folks at Sourcebooks are wanting to save paper, I'm in big trouble!

The Sextet is getting together this Saturday to do a group critique of Entanglements, our second set of short stories which all have a bondage theme. It'll be interesting to see the different ways each of us handle the topic. We're having a pitch-in lunch (as usual, I've been asked to bring the potato casserole) and along with the work, we're sure to have a ton of fun.

If this blog has a theme, it would be: How did I ever write without a critique partner/group before???? The answer to that is, Not nearly as well. Thanks to Sandy and the Sextet, my writing has improved tremendously, and I thank them very much!

Whopping Weasel Wednesday!

When you start breathing again, come on over to Casablanca Authors. I've got a post up, and we're having lots of giveaways this month. Today I'm giving away an advance copy of Virgin. Not sure when I'll get them, but hopefully it'll be soon.

Meanwhile, enjoy your Wednesday!

Thursday Thoughts

Well, the Sextet and I all have our reservations and plane tickets for the RWA conference New York this summer, and we're all very excited that former INRWA prez Sandy James is presenting a workshop called, "Are You Insane?" Should be a ton of fun, and Judith Bastin and I will be her minions once again; Judith introducing her and me handling the raffle tickets for free books.
I've pretty much decided against going to RT this year. Not only is it expensive and a long way from home (it's in Los Angeles), but I've got a limited amount of vacation time from the hospital with which I must be frugal. Still, with Virgin coming out in June, I'll at least have a brand new book for the Sourcebooks booksigning at RWA.
Funny thing about the RWA signings. We're giving the books away, so the long lines don't necessarily mean you've written a runaway bestseller. The RT signing is much more humbling. People have to pay for them there, and it takes a big name author to get much of a line at all. Still, when I sell a book at the Literacy signing which is sort of the kickoff event of RWA and the books are NOT free, I know that someone wanted a book of mine enough to not only pay for it, but to stand in one helluva long line for the cashier.

The Sextet will have released two anthologies by the time RWA rolls around in late June, which will be another cause for excitement. I'll be writing like crazy trying to keep up with those stories and the Cat Star books, but it's a good kind of crazy. Most of the time.

Hmm... The first Sextet anthology May 20th, our family vacation, Virgin June 1st, RWA later that month... *sigh* Just a few more reasons to look forward to spring. ;-)

Don't know about you, but I'm also looking forward to this guy losing those pants.

How d'you like that one, Amy?

Thursday Thoughts

The copyedited manuscript of Virgin is due back today. It's very difficult to try to read through something that I know has been altered when I can't tell who did it or why, but once I finally got a version that had the edits tracked and was able to correct and change it as I saw fit, I was much happier.

Unfortunately, in the course of the editing process, several discrepancies were created by the edits, and there were two other discrepancies that no one else spotted until I read through it myself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that authors have the best knowledge of their stories, and when someone else takes it upon themselves to start messing with the content, mistakes will be made. It took me until Fugitive to convince my editors that the entire CSC series takes place within our own Milky Way galaxy and to get them to stop adding the word "intergalactic" in wherever they saw fit. In the Star Trek series and subsequent movies, the Enterprise never left our galaxy, and I hold firm in my belief that mankind will never venture that far into space. Reaching the next solar system will be difficult enough, which is why I set my series 1000 years in the future, and even that may not be enough time.

Speaking of time, when I entered Stud in my local RWA chapter's "members only" contest, one of the judges wondered what year the book was set in. Now, I realize that I've never used exact dates in any of my books, the reason being that our own planet cannot expect the entire galaxy to base its calendar on the birth of Christ. In Star Trek, they used stardates, but I've never been sure exactly what they were based on. However, having no point of reference other than our own, I came up with this timeline.

2964 Cat (hero of Slave) born
2972 Tarq (hero of Stud) born
2982 Dax (hero of Virgin) born
2984 Zetith destroyed
3004 Slave
3005 Warrior
3006 Rogue
3007 Outcast
3008 Fugitive
3009 Hero
3015 Virgin
3017 Stud

It's not terribly important, but may be an interesting bit of trivia for you CSC readers. I set the destruction of Zetith in 2984 as a sort of tribute to George Orwell's 1984, and went from there.

Okay, after all of that, I need a nice, hairy hunk.

Blue Monday Moons

Sharon, our own Professor Penis, has been on a road trip and collected a whole batch of hunks for us to enjoy! Here's the first one!

In other news, turns out that the Cat Master had some issues with the Virgin manuscript. It's probably best not to go into too much detail, but let's just say I'm not happy. My publisher assures me that it won't go to print until I am happy, but between having to work Tuesday through Thursday (yes, I'm working Thanksgiving!) and baking a turkey on Friday, trying to get to the local landscaping store for a Christmas tree with Mikey before he goes back to school, and looking at yet another version of Virgin, I'm definitely going to be scarce for a while. I have, however, the utmost faith in the Yah-Yahs to do their yah-yahing without me.

With that in mind, to start off the week, since we all seem to like them furry on the front, here's a guy with furry buns! Not quite enough on his head to suit me, but we can't have everything, can we?

What are your thoughts?

Thursday Thoughts.

I received the copyedited version of Virgin a couple of days ago, and it looks pretty clean, thanks to my dear critique partner, Sandy James. But even so, I'll be busy reading through the manuscript, giving it a tweak or two over the next couple of weeks. They want it back by 12/2, which is plenty of time, but if I'm a bit scarce, you know where I am!

I should have been at the lake today with the hospital gang, but thanks to multiple surgeries and injuries among my coworkers and their families, I'm working this weekend, instead. I wasn't sure I wanted to pack up and leave home again so soon after the retreat, anyway, but it does beat having to go to work!

They still haven't told me when they want the Stud manuscript, but I'm sure they'll spring a 12/31 deadline on me any day now. . . .

So, with all that in mind, I'll quit yakking and search the depths of my hunk files to leave you with this:



























You can thank Donna for that one!

Whopping Weasel Wednesday!

I see from my Google alerts that Virgin is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

LOL! Guess this means Sourcebooks has accepted the manuscript. Maybe I'll get a check in time to do a little Christmas shopping. You never know about these things. . .


Now for a few comments about today's weasel.

If you squeeze it. It will come.

Help! I can't breathe!


Okay gang. That'll do for a start. Take it away!

Monday Moons!

Today is the deadline for the revisions to Virgin. I could probably keep tweaking it forever, but as my CP, Sandy James said: "Cheryl, it's time to step away from the keyboard."

I suppose deadlines are good for that, but there's something about getting the nerve to actually hit "send" that's very difficult to do. Sooner or later, however, it has to be done.

Now I can get back to the next book and start writing another short story.

*sigh* Until the next round of revisions. . . .