Watch this one to the end….

Today Naughty and Spice is honored to be the next stop on the Spanked World Tour!

WoooooooooHoooooooooo!  :hitit:

Spanked is the latest and greatest short erotica anthology edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (who’s also edited such delightful anthologies as Dirty Girls, Yes, Sir, and He’s on Top *ggg*. And Spanked is chock full of red-cheeked goodness (mmmmmmm paddles!).

In honor of all things Spank-a-Liscious, I’m opening the floor for some spankable Q and A (not to be confused with T & A *ggg*)

1. When’s the last time you participated in an good, old-fashioned spanking?

2. Spanker or Spankee?

3. How does being spanked make you feel?  :evillaugh:

4. Where does spanking rank on your list of sexual fantasies?

5. Ooooo and do you have any great spanking stories for us?!

Hoping Rachel will stop by so we can pick her brains about

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*Sorry for the delay, I had the post all done and the servers went down and I had to regroup and recreate!!

Today I’m going to talk about a little-known secret. Are you ready for it? Here it is:

Writing is work!

You may be chuckling right now, the same way you do when you hear models claim that stretching sexily on rocks on exotic beaches with their freakishly perfect bodies is hard work because they had to get up at 5 am. (Sorry, models.) But I’m being quite serious. Read on and see what I mean.

Contrary to popular belief, writers don’t have all the free time in the world. So, I’m sorry, I can’t help you move/baby-sit your kid/etc. because I have to write. I know I don’t drive to an office every day but just because I’m at home when I write does not mean I’m actually laying around in my pajamas eating bonbons. (Well, most the time. Sometimes I actually do do that.) Believe it or not, books don’t write themselves. And here’s another secret: romance novels are real books. They take time. Hours and hours, months and months. Romance novels are not easier to write than any other genre of book. Don’t believe me? Well, obviously you have not seen the pile of revisions sitting on my desk. My point? While authors have flexible schedules, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have any more free time than someone with a “real” job. And many of us have “real” jobs as well, or we have kids to raise and try to write in our “spare” time. And a lot of people I know balance jobs, kids and writing. (I bow to them, truly.) So when we choose to stay home on the weekends to work on a project instead of going to a barbecue it means we’re working very hard on our second career. Because writing is a job!

Also. It’s not cheap to be a writer. Believe it or not, we have overhead and lots of it. When I bought my new Mac Air I had a lot of comments such as, “Must be nice! Hardy har har.” Well, you know what? It is nice! It’s also the tool to my livelihood. Soon after I sold my first books to New York I decided it was time for a new laptop. (My other laptop died a slow death due to a fatal invasion of toast crumbs.) It was strange to walk into the Apple store and know I was buying something that was going to be the conduit between my head and a book that would be mass marketed in bookstores. I started looking at computers in a whole new light. And that’s not the only expense. I put a lot of money into writing organization membership dues, promoting myself, going to conference, my website, reader conventions, contests and giveaways…the list goes on. Writing is really like starting a business. You start out with nothing, then you put every penny back into your career until you—hopefully—start seeing a profit. So yes. Writing definitely has overhead. Much more than people think.

Here’s another secret. An author probably spends half of her productive computer time actually writing. Notice I said productive computer time—if procrastination was an Olympic event I would have a gold medal. Several of them, actually. Anyway, in this day and age an author needs to have an internet presence. What does that mean? It means being on myspace, romance review websites, facebook, reader chats, forums, blogging, even youtube. In fact it’s hard to know where to draw the line on internet promo because you could easily spend the majority of your time doing these things. I actually know authors who get so caught up in internet promo their writing suffers.

My final point. Conferences and conventions are not vacations. Of course it’s fun to see other authors, many of whom we know well due to the wonders of the internet. In fact, I love going to conference. But it’s still work, not to mention expensive. You never know who you’re going to meet, so you have to be “on” all the time. It’s the one time of year an author gets to talk face-to-face with the top names in the industry. Sure, sometimes we manage to get out of the hotel and sing karaoke with drag queens, but all in all, conferences are work. I always come back feeling exhausted and useless. Not at all the same as when I come home from Mexico.

So thank you for listening to my lesson on why writing is actually a job. Fortunately all my own friends and family totally get this so I’m lucky. Still, once in awhile I meet someone and must enlighten them to the realities of pursuing a career in writing. Now, I suppose I should put an end to this particular type of internet promo and get to work on my revisions. ☺ Meanwhile, discuss amongst yourselves.

So I’m driving home from my daughter’s school. It was open house night and I went sans kids, sans husband. As I often do while driving alone, I turned up the music and zoned out.

Wondered exactly how I made it home in one piece but that’s a whole other post. Ahem.

Anyway, so I was listening to Delilah (all the other stations were playing crap or commercials). Delilah plays some pretty sappy stuff. Every time I listen to her, I always think about this guy I worked with a looong time ago. A real macho acting, womanizing, crazy man who yes, I can admit, I had a crush on. He listened to Delilah all the time. I found that odd - it didn’t fit with his personality.

Oooh, I’m rambling.

Okay let’s stay on topic. I’ve been working extra hard these past few days on a project that really, I shouldn’t be working on. I have other things I need to do. And yes I’m doing them but man, I am obsessed with these characters and the words just pour out. I’ve been listening pretty heavily to music while writing this book and I don’t always do that. But for this one, I have a playlist and everything.

So a Celine Dion song comes on the Delilah show (OMG she looks like a lion in that photo above. What a freak!). Taking Chances. Celine drives me bonkers. Seriously I think she’s a little crazy, she’s freakishly skinny and her husband gives me the creeps. But, and I’m having a hard time admitting this, the damn song’s lyrics really fit my current book. Right down to the point that Celine sings about jumping off the edge and my heroine had the thought that she was jumping off the edge and into the unknown with the hero. I **just** wrote that line and then I hear the song. Weird man.

Yeah. Inspiration from Celine Dion. Who knew? Not me.

I’d end this with the video but someone on YouTube disabled the embedding of it by request. What the hell? So go check it out here if you’re so inclined. It’s a lame video. The screeching of Celine may turn you off but the lyrics are perfect when I think about my book.

Ever been weirdly inspired by someone? Do tell.

Like next week. The decks are nearly cleared. I CANT WAIT!
In the mean time I um have a new release today (and a book due TODAY). Since I have no time to promo, teh lovely, Sims playing, Emma Petersen has set up a contest for me. Some lucky peeps will win a copy of MAKE U SWEAT, so go enter now. You know you want to!

It arrived! My first NY advance check has arrived. And after dreaming of everything I could do with it…go back to Disneyland, pay off part of my bills, buy a fabulous purse…well, the possibilities were endless. But pay off bills was my first instinct, until something else took the lead. I need a new computer. Badly.

My current laptop? Let’s see, not even three years old and…the ‘u’ key is missing, the CD drive is broke, the monitor springs are giving out and it flops backward and forward if its not at the perfect angle, the AC adapter keeled out (again!) and I had to buy a generic one that falls out all the time. Oh, and I’ve never been able to copy and paste pictures into an email. There’s more, but that’s all I’m typing. So yes, I need a new computer. Though I always wince at buying one.

So now that I’ve made the decision to buy a new laptop, I’m pondering what to buy. And so now into a debate that is in no way unique, I want your feedback. Your opinion. What is better. A PC or a Mac.

I’ve been a PC person for years, and have never felt the need to switch–let alone pay the extra dough Mac wants. But I’m hedging. Why? Two words that bring to mind the devil’s incarnate: Microsoft Vista. I’ve heard nothing but awful things, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to deal. My fear of Mac is it’s also new and scary–but in reality it’s supposed to be easier and less virus prone. I have a few PC’s I’m curious about–but, God, I’ll never touch another Compaq.

So….convince me. What do you prefer? A Mac or PC? And is Vista really as bad as I’ve heard?

I blame Emma Petersen for this one…