Where did May go?

I don't think I worked on my writing for the entire month of May. It's been so hectic just trying to keep up with life. Between the doctor's appointments and arguing with the school over my kids new diagnosis, I just lost all track of my time. She was recently diagnosed as autistic on top of her earlier communication delays. It's been tough and now I look harder at people who make judgments about parents not being able to control their kids.

There is no simple answer or fix it to this.

Autism is a very wide and strange thing. The kids do things that are odd, and tantrum and they annoy people around them. Most people will not understand. Especially when they don't have a special needs kid.

I am not going to apologize for my kid. I love her to pieces but it is what it is and I can't fix it or cure it and it makes me unbelievably sad I can't really help her. We only want the best for our kids and to help them succeed but I can't help this. I can only do so much, like get her speech therapy and professional help, let the schools know, and the rest is up to her.

I worked all month long at the Renaissance Festival which is fun but it is also time consuming when I had very little time already. Then we had some problems come up with my real estate business, which I won't bore you with.

The long and short answer is you aren't getting a whole lot of new books from me until maybe Fall because my writing time was cut to nothing.

I'm working on the edits for Cowboys Don't Sing right now. This is a 90,000 word book which is one of my longer works at this point. It is a sexy menage in a small town called Sunnybrook, Texas. This book will release at the end of June or the beginning of July. It was a great book and the characters really came to life for me. I hope you enjoy it.

I've been sharing some quotes and small excerpts from it over the last week on Facebook and I think it's going to be hot. It's got some characters from previous books in the Riding Western Style series and it was really fun being able to revisit them.

I will post again soon to introduce you to the starplayers of the book. For now, just enjoy this delicious cowboy who helped to inspire my writing.

Unresolutions and me

It's always nice to know my blog gets just enough traffic to lure in the spambots. lol

I had 10 comments waiting for me to look at them this morning and they were all about cheap mail order drugs and *coughs penis enlarging.

Yes, I could probably make false promises and tell you I am going to blog more often, but in reality it takes time from writing and I will probably be just as bad this year as I have been last year. This year I am going to try and make resolutions I can keep.

Yes, I am going to make unresolutions. Unresolutions are awesome. There are no promises to keep or break. You actually keep your promise by not doing something.

So, in honor of this momentous occasion, here is my list. This year I am not going to try to lose weight and spend hours on a machine until I leave aching and unable to walk. I am not going to starve myself until the mere sight of food brings out primal urges to hoard food and return to a caveman like state.

I do plan on leading an active life and enjoying the outdoors more with my kids and my dogs and not getting hung on the computer or the internet everyday. But this isn't changing my life much from what I have had in the past.

I am not going to push myself to write a story that stalls out. If the story is boring to me, than it is also very likely boring to my readers, and I plan to push it until we travel off the road map together and experience something unexpected. This year writer's block cannot exist for me.

I plan to keep my mouth frown free, and greet each day with a smile. Which is not much different than what I have always done. I smile a lot.

This year, I won't be reading reviews of the books I write.  I need to spend my time where my priorities lay and that means spending time on areas where I want my life to go. Reviews are like looking to the past and unless I can learn from it, it's not the place I need to spend my time.  

Our happiness is dependent on our own state of mind. If we are content with what we have, and where we are in life, it is easier to be happy. Everyday my focus will be on family, writing, or my faith.

It's funny, but I like using unresolution. It means my life won't change very much, but I like my life. I hope you all have a fabulous 2013!

I should be writing but Christmas is coming

The countdown to Christmas starts now! I really should be writing, I should be trying to get in every word I can before the kids get off for their Winter Break.

This month is always bad for my writing, there is so much I have to multitask as a mom, and a wife, and a writer. The school is running fundraisers (no surprise there) and there are parties to go to and I need to have hostess gifts ready and gifts for everyone from the teachers at school to family. There is a long list of things to do. I need to bake. I need to craft. I need to shop. I need to wrap. I need to decorate and then when the dust has settled I need a drink.

Then there is that thing I always need to. I need to write if I want to be a writer.

It doesn't matter how busy I am or who is in the emergency room (it was my husband last night) I need to make time to write. Not just because I have a story bubbling up inside of me but because this is my constant in my life.

Writing is the only way I can achieve my goals. It is the only way the series I have started are going to get done, and then there is that other motivation, the one that helps me pay my bills. Writing is how I make money and so I need to write constantly if I want to pay my bills. So there is a constant drive inside of me to keep the words coming.

Every day I need to write a few pages and make progress.

My list is long and my muse is constantly at my back whispering sweet nothings into my ear. I don't want any more ideas. I need to write down the ones I have.

For December I hope to get moving on the Riding Western Style series. Really, I wrote a series within a series and I didn't realize that until I got through book 2. Cowboys Don't Dance was a contemporary western m/f  themed romance. and the next book takes place in the same town but the characters are paranormal and very special and unique and the main characters are also gay.

There are in the same town and they know each other, but the humans really have no clue about the other side and what is going on in the shapeshifter world or with the Indians they live close by. So as I am discovering more about this series, I realized I really don't know as much as I thought I did.  I should have probably separated the two series but I didn't realize what I had going on until I developed more as a writer.

The names may change to protect the innocent but I have two more books I want to write in the contemporary cowboy line: Cowboy's Don't Sing and Cowboys Don't Play and 2-4 more books in the paranormal side of the series.

I am not sure if I should write the books in order or do one every other book, but I want to finish out this series and begin writing these stories this December.  Yep, you asked for it and it's coming. More sexy cowboys for your reading pleasure. lol

The Riding Western Style series is available on Siren Bookstrand here:

Book 1:  Cowboys Don't Dance
Book 2:  Heart of a Cowboy

Just submitted Blood Slave

So that makes me feel like I accomplished someting. I saw a call for submissions to a Torquere anthology that wanted f/f vampire stories. I don't usually write that sexual orientation, but figured I'd give it a try and made up a 13 page story about a captive 'straight' slave to a lesbian vampire.

It will be something to look forward to and see if they are interested. It's funny that I have such strong self-doubt but I don't expect them to pick it up. I think self doubt is my worst enemy. It will stop you from writing and from ever succeeding.

Everywhere and nowhere

**Sigh

I keep thinking that I need to blog toay. I need to update all those social sites I belong to and then I think I need to get some writing done. What are you paricipating on? I belong to too many to count. I was on myspace from the beginning and now it's even more cool to twitter or to use facebook, but even though I have the profiles set up I just don't have time to maintain it all and then I spend far too much time trying to decide what is blogworthy in my life.

What does everyone want to read? Would you find it asfunny as I did to see the mundane everyday events in my life? The miracle of my husband helping to clean, but discovering the hard way why I do something differently? M bunny rabbit got loose the other day but who would want to hear about my family chasing it down?

Some of this sharing is about hetting name recognition and keeping our names in the readers memory. I find it kind if fun to go offtopic of writing, but my mind keeps going back to what I should be doing focysing on my career and working on the writing world.

I need to set goals and need to stay focused. Edits are here for Timeswept and due by the end of the month. I want to write something different and unexpected and something new. So my wants are different than my needs but neither will get done if I just think about it or spend my time on social sites. So I am about to retreat into the writing cave for a while. To get some actual work done.

Oh yeah, some good news I need to share is that Sex and the Single Shoe will be released from Ravenous Romance on March 20th! Yay!

30Days of Sweat

30 Days of Sweat

1000 words a day everyday for the month of January.


Well it’s time for me to get back on track and write regularly. My baby is here, and I have no more excuses, but plenty of deadlines piling up in my near future. To make this work as a career, you have to do two things. Write regularly, and promote what you write. If you are missing one or both parts of the formula, your sales are going to suffer, and you will never get better. Craft is perfected by practice..

There are always reasons to put it off, family should come first. Then you have to prioritize. Money second or third depending—but if you’re writing to get rich—Ahem—you may be in the wrong field. This year we had a lot of setbacks personally, my husband went blind in his right eye, and had multiple complications like glaucoma and extremely painful migraines. I had gotten pregnant as well, and now have a newborn to care for. We had to replace the drainage pipes under the bathroom floor. I didn’t write much of anything. Most of my published books had been written the year before. My time, energy, and pocketbook has been drained, but I will always come back to my first love of writing despite the barriers.

I need to set some achievable goals to get my writing all done. So, for the month of January, I plan to make it a month where I write everyday. 1000 words a day will be enough to finish a novella—and more than enough to get my two major projects done.

Paris Bites rewrite ending lost on computer--20,000 words
Untitled (my first m/m story)—10,000 words

Some people are already doing great, writing 10 pages or more everyday. Others, may be lucky to write that in a month. You may set your goal higher or shorter. This is my goal, because I feel it’s the right amount and that my family won’t suffer for 4-5 pages a day. Fellow authors, please feel free to join me if you can. Tell me what you are working on and post how much you were able to write today. Being accountable to someone will help motivate you (and me).

I plan to post all the updates to my yahoo loop. So join me here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/missylyons/

Hugs,
Missy
Unleash your passion
http://missylyons.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/missy_lyons


Just released!
French Kiss—A passion in Paris protects Sarafina from a dangerous murderer.
Available at Phaze Books

One Touch, One Glance—a sweet anthology that will leave you feeling warm and fuzzy on the inside after you read it.
Available at Freya’s Bower

Writing advice from editor

http://lisabea.blogspot.com/

The giveaway is over, but it is still worth stopping in to read. This is Angela from Samhain Publishing giving advice on what to do after you finish writing your story.

Just popping up for air!

Ijust wanted to drop a quick note to say howdy to you all. Also to let you know what's happening in my part of the world.

We are all still eagerly awaiting the new addtion to our family. It's been frustrating and the baby is due within the week, but she doesn't seem to be giving any signs that she wants to get here. This may be my first caesarean if she gets much bigger. I am also beginning to wonder if people are getting disappointed when I still show up. YOu can see the unspoken message in their eyes, "The baby isn't here, yet?" lol.

On the wriitng front, my story Wounded Hearts was accepted into the One Touch, One Glance Anthology and is scheduled to go to publication this Fall. Faith is a wonderful editor and is working hard on the stories now. I have to finish some minor clean up work on mine and the edits should be rolling in October. I figure I will get the email that edits are due when I am in labor. LOL.

I have high hopes to start several more writing projects when I can sit for longer periods at the computer, as well. I have been hearing the voice of a woman who has ran from her western roots, and moved to Vegas. After years, her family has finally managed to find her and bring her home, courtesy of a bounty hunter. You would expect her life to get less exciting at this point, but that is when thigns really heat up with some small town secrets that are threatening to destroy the fragile relationships of her family.

For my family, I want to try to put a few books that were written by family into the computer. My great grandmother had written a book of poetry and died at 103. It doesn't seem like much, but these powems were written over her entire lifetime and talk about World War II, and what it was like to lose her family, her son, and her father. I am thinking it needs a foreward or an itnroduction to help explain the meaning of all the poems. So, I plan on sharing some of the stories that mesmerized us grandkids that she shared with us.

For myself, I also hope to continue to write a new series of financial articles on helping people to get out of debt and budget. I have started another book called cutting up the credit cards. It should be available on the Kindle by the end of the month if I keep my act in gear. lol.

Not that I have the energy, but I have also decided to take on another project. A neighbor has an overflowing aapple tree. So I plan to do some canning this year. Maybe make some apple sauce or apple butter. Either way, I will make sure she has a jar or two to say thanks for giving us the apples. They are small and don't look as pretty as the ones from the store, but they taste fantastic!

Missy
www.missylyons.com