Just Another Day

I'm working on More Than Enough, which is my second college story (not sure if it's part of the college daze series or not) and the companion piece to the already completed and scheduled, More Than Anything (coming October 30).  It's going pretty well and I'd say I'm about half done with it. It's got to be done by the end of this month.

Lo and behold, my entries for a contest arrived this past weekend. I am a judge. I have to have five books read by September 07, 2011. Um, yeah. This might be comptelely reasonable save for the above paragraph mentioning the work in progress. Note to Shawn: do not volunteer to judge contests.

Also, I am going away for a few days a couple of times this month. Little summer trips. During which my laptop will be staying behind.

So yeah, no pressure or anything.

The good news is this is the last story I must have done this year. I will be working on adding a little bit to a free story I will be putting out on ARe in time for the holidays, but that should be fairly easy as the bulk of the story is written.

I'm fairly certain I know what I will be working on for the end of the year, but I am fickle and change my mind frequently so it could change. I won't mention it now for fear it will.

News

I finished Becoming His and it will be released in June (see coming soon on the side there...coming soonish).

Also I am having Chris at Stumbling Over Chaos give away Accidentally His. The contest doesn't start until later this week, but I'll post the link when it does.

This Post Is For Drew

I forgot who I borrowed the princes picture from but since I adore Disney and two guys it seemed appropriate.

My dear sweet Drew who is very special to me prompted this post. He told me he missed my posting, so I created this one for him. 

Let's see. I got my edits for Accidentally His my story coming in March and I have to say I liked it better than I thought I did. It amused me quite a bit. It's a fun, lightherted story starring Kirk and Elijah. Eventually I will get around to writing a story for two of the other characters from it, Toby and Logan. 

I've gotten basically what amounts to four chapters done on Galaxy's Heart so definitely making progress. But...er...I have this urge to work on my Regency I wanted to write like two years ago with the butler and the third son of a duke or earl I was calling, Undeniable. I know, gasp. I'm sure this is because I have absolutely no time to write on anything so it sneaks up on me. My brain needs to be put in its place!   

Monday Updates - the first for 2011

Update: Chris and Luciatea have correctly answered the too easy questions and are the winners of the upcoming release of Pulling Apart on Jaunary 09, 2011. Congrats!

Hope everyone had a great holiday season. Hard to believe we've started 2011.

I've been busily working on Accidentally His. I've given myself a due date of January 15th, and I intend to meet this date. If it kills me. Or something.

I'm really itching to get working on Sutter's Bay #3, Galaxy's Heart. I've been doing some light stuff lately and Accidentally His is no exception and that's fine. But I'm wanting to get back to the angst a bit and that story will fulfill that for me. And I so want to do it before I get too heavily involved in the stories I must have done later this year.

Okay, a few newsie things.

Beginning in 2011, I am going to be doing a mostly monthly newsletter. It will probably come out around releasing books, so don't expect to get bombarded with meaningless stuff. That's not my intention. If I don't have a release for whatever month, I may not even send a newsletter for that month. Anyway, the fabulous Ava March is helping me with this since I am fairly clueless about tech stuff. She has added a sign-up form for the newsletter on the blog and on my website: authorshawnlane.com so either will work to sign up. Try it!

Two, it's time for the Pulling Apart contest.

Now, honestly, I think you need to have read Pulling Away in order to read Pulling Apart. But that's up to you. Rather than doing a comment contest, I'm going to do it this way:

I'm giving away two copies. In order to win one, you must be the first person to leave your answer here on the blog to one of two questions. Please do not answer both questions. Just one of the two. If you are correct, you win one copy. I hope that makes sense.

Here are the two questions (first to answer one question wins)

1) What is the name of the West Hollywood Bar that Noah goes to with Kevin?
2) Is Noah a top or bottom? *grins*

All right. That's it for now.

Monday Updates

My Monday updates is a little later than usual because I don't have much to update.

I'm back to the EDJ after five blissful days off.

I'm still waiting anxiously for my cover for Pulling Apart. All the other covers around that time have been completed so I am stalking my inbox hoping to see it arrive. lol.

As far as writing is concerned, I'm working on free stories for December right now. Once I have those out of the way I'll likely work on either Accidentally His or Galaxy's Heart (Sutter's bay 3). When those are out of the way I suspect I will finally turn my attention to my cop partner story as it's nagging me the most these days, but probably won't get a chance until well into 2011 to sink my teeth in there.

Yesterday, my fabulous critique partner, Ava March, had her first release from Amber Allure. As I believe I have mentioned on the blog over time, Ava and I have been working together for several years, back since our days in a critique group through an online writing chapter. Ava is the only one who gets to see my stories ahead of time and I am the only one who gets to see hers ahead of time. It works for both of us quite well.

So, I can say without a doubt, Beyond Reckless, is a great short story. Do yourself a favor if you haven't done it already, hop on over to Amber Allure's site and get Beyond Reckless for $1.95!

Have a good week.  

Monday Updates

All right, I'm back.

This is a short work week for those of us in the United States who don't work retail. For those of you who do you have my sympathy for Black Friday. This is an especially short week for me since I also took Wednesday off. Hooray!

Now that I have buckled down and turned my attention 100% to The Impersonator I got a lot done on it this past week. This book has a deadline of December 01 and I wasn't sure I could make it but I think I just might now. This was a real deadline, although the date is flexibleish, but I'd prefer to get it in as close to on time as possible.

If I can get it done, that means basically having the month of December to chill. That puts a giant grin on my face. Now, does that mean I won't do any writing? Nah, of course not. I have the free story EH asked about, plus I just can't go weeks and weeks without writing. But it does take a huge amount of pressure off not having to get anything done if I don't want to and December is crazy busy this year for me, so this is my fondest wish. Wish me luck!

Speaking of December, those of you paying attention will recall I do have a final release for 2010 in December and that is The Naughty Ones from Silver Publishing as part of their 25 Days of Christmas releases. My particular Elvish tale comes on on December 12, 2010, but you may want to check out the other offerings as well. Some of the daily releases are M/F, but I know for a fact that my dear friend, Andi Anderson, also has an M/M book coming in this series called, His Christmas Wish. I don't know Andi's release date though I do believe it is later in the month than mine. Unlike some of Andi's other offerings, I haven't read any of His Christmas Wish and have no clue what it is about, but if Andi wrote it I am sure it will be a lovely, sweet Christmas story.

I'll likely do one of my world famous contests (LOL) for The Naughty Ones so stay tuned for the details there.

This is Thanksgiving week for the US, so Wedneday look for a Thankful Musings. And as my beautiful Shayne would say, Have a Fabulous Week!

Monday Updates - Week Off

I'm tired. I think I've been fighting a cold for the last few days and today I'm tired. I'm writing, always writing, but I think I'm going to take this week off from blogging. The only exception being if I get a cover for Pulling Apart I'll post that but otherwise, I'll catch you next week.

Have a good one
  

Monday Updates

Thanks to anyone who bought Manfred's Curse this weekend. As you know AQ gives a new release discount and that means it's only $1.95 now! I hope you enjoy it and I am thinking of a possible sequel next year.

In other news, the current WIP is coming along a bit better than it was a few days ago. It is my fervant wish to have it finished this week and therefore have news as to it's release very shortly after.

Next release is The Naughty Ones on December 12th from Silver Publishing.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Monday Updates

Hope everyone had a nice Halloween. Mine was blissfully quiet. It's now November!

I went over my galley this past weekend for Manfred's Curse so it's now good to go to the final process before it's release this weekend. Manfred's Curse is my final Amber Allure release for 2010. Never fear, I shall have plenty coming up in 2011. I hope those who read it will find it fun and lighthearted as I intended it to be when I wrote it.

I also did the first round of edits for my Christmas release from Silver Publishing, The Naughty Ones. It had been a few months since I read it so while going over the edits I remembered how much I liked my Christmas Elves story. I mentioned the story to a friend recently who thought writing a sexual romance story about Christmas Elves was some how sacreligious. LOL.

I am now back to tackling the secret story. I hope to have news on that soon. Have a good week everyone. 

Monday Updates

Still away...so catch you when I return. You will know. So yes that means no Musings this week.

An Interview With Myself

What are your final releases of 2010?
Manfred's Curse from Amber Quill Press and The Naughty Ones from Silver Publishing.

What is your first release for 2011?
I don't have anything scheduled right now. That does not mean, however, that I won't be releasing books in 2011. It just means nothing is currently scheduled. Once some works have been finished I should have better ideas of what the release dates for 2011 will be.

Do you listen to music when writing?
Sometimes, but often I have the television on in the background or I write at work at lunch.

What songs do you find the most inspirational?
Most of the songs I use are haunting songs. I rarely listen to up songs when writing so I don't find them inspirational. Three of the songs I find most haunting are How It Ends by Devotchka, Foolish Games by Jewel, and Exile by Enya.

Though I haven't used How It Ends for direct inspiration yet, I have used Foolish Game. This is the song I had in mind when I created Kyle from Beyond the Norm and the song often played while I was writing it.
For Exile, early in my writing I was writing a medieval Irish warrior story and in the book the hero's best friend gets killed in the epic battle, it's quite tragic, because the best friend was a major character throughout and he dies, so while he is dying and my hero is dealing with it, Exile plays in my head and in my house, and trust me...it was heartbreaking.

Do you have any sequels planned for 2011?
I haven't entirely given up on The Other Side's sequel nor Sorcerer's Lover 3, but they are both low priority for me at the moment. I am considering a direct sequel to Manfred's Curse but that will depend on time issues and how well the initial story was received. Anything else I have planned could be series related but not other direct sequels are planned at this time.

You once mentioned co-writing a historical with Ava March. Whatever happened with that?
It's on hold for now because both of us have been extremely busy. It doesn't mean it won't ever happen, we have the barebones planned out for it, but at the moment, we're both working on other obligations.

Monday Updates

Hope everyone has a good week.

I didn't get much writing done over the weekend but I intend to get some done this next week. I'm leaving for vacation soon so I want to get what I can get done now. I should finish the chapter I am working on currently for sure. Hopefully get a good jump on the next one too.

Monday Updates

Hmmm...nothing really to say. The Beach House is out and already made it to the pirate sites, and I'm not so happy about that, but fairly used to it I guess. Anyway, I hope those who bought it and read it enjoy it.

Working on The Impersonator still. Am well ahead of the deadline at this point so pleased with my progress there.

It's not as hot here as it was a week ago at least. Still warmer than I would like but it doesn't really cool down here until December or so.

Anyway, I'll check in later in the week and hope everyone has a good week.

Monday Updates

Don't forget to enter The Beach House contest before the end of September 30th. I will announce the winner on Friday October 01.

Just working on The Impersonator. It's Africa Hot here right now. Supposed to be 108 where I work on Monday. Yeah. Sucks.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Monday Updates

The problem with not having a release in August is I have no news to report, really. I'm working still on Accidentally His and The Naughty Ones. That's all I am doing so there really isn't any news.

Oh, here's sort of something. A few months ago I posted an excerpt of an unfinished m/m ghost story I was considering finishing some day. Originally it was named Restless but that title has to change due to it being too similar to one already at Amber Quill. Anyway, I signed up to do a paranormal PAX around that time never thinking we'd get enough stories to actually make it (5 is needed), alas one of my fellow Allure authors decided to sign up recently and that makes 5 so I guess the damn PAX is a go. Grrrr. That means early next year I will be writing that ghost story. Oh, hell.

Before I ever get to that though I must finish the two mentioned above as well as The Impersonator due in December.

Here I Am

Yep, I'm back and had a lovely time. I'm ready to get back to writing full time.

Besides the two stories I'm currently working on I managed to volunteer for another story. This one is themed to involve a Masquerade Ball. I have a few months before it's due and it's my intention to have the other stories I'm working on done soon. I'd like to get them done by the end of this month, if I can make it.

So that's it for now. I'll update as I get more news.

Monday Updates

I've finished the first chapter of my new work in progress, Accidentally His. The guys, Kirk and Elijah, meet when the commuter bus they both take to work crashes in a rain storm. Should be a slightly lighter book than Pieces and my next two releases are (Twice in a Lifetime and The Beach House).

I'm also toying (pun intended) with the idea of working on a Christmas story titled, The Naughty Ones. It will involve two naughty Christmas Elves (think adult full sized elves ala Lord of the Rings elves rather than Hermie from Rudolph).

Those are my updates for now.