what people don't want to know about writing for a living

top five, maybe? I love tip lists, and we had this talk in a chat the other night

what are the top five things, in my experience, that folks don't want to know about what it takes to do writing as a day job?

5- that it's not glamorous - nope. No Misery-like when I finish a book I go to a spa in the Rockies and smoke and drink. Just "yay, next book, please"

4- you have to make changes. Oftentimes lots of changes. no one is Mozart, doing first drafts that are perfect. Sometimes it makes us cry. But we do it.

3 - sometime stories don't work. sometimes they get rejected, or you just don't finish them or whatever. Not every idea even gets a start

2 - a lot of really famous authors have more than one pseudonym. no one wants to think a writer can write more than 2 or 3 books a year, so people diversify. Or some folks have different names for different genres. One of my favorite authors is Barbara Mertz, Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels...

1- word count. to make a living an author has to put out a lot of words. Every day. It's a job. Really. Luckily for me, it's the best job in the world.

What I've learned from 12 days of yoga

hey y'all!

I've been doing a 40 day yoga challenge at my local studio

You do 30 classes in 40 days and get entered to win a free class pass.

It's more about starting a habit than getting a class pass, though, and I did class 12 this am. It was an intense but gentle class working on hips and shoulders, and my ribs are sore.

Who ever thinks about the muscles between their ribs?

Anyway, I'm thinking of writing a m/m/f where the girl is a yoga instructor...

been writing like mad

and it seems like I'm not getting anywhere, y'all

I swear, I'm trying ;)

hugs

J

over at the Torquere blog

today

woo!

http://glbtromance.blogspot.com/

stop by and see me

like molasses in winter

my writing, that is. It's been as slow as molasses in winter

when I was a kid, I couldn't imagine why someone would make a food with mole asses. It just seemed like a bad idea.

I pitched a story to an editor at Ellora's Cave, and she invited me to submit a full synopsis. I did that yesterday. Now I nervously bite my nails until she gets back to me. O.O

Been doing a lot of yoga lately, trying to get through whatever blockage I have emotionally in my system. It's not writer's block; I have plenty of ideas. It's work block. I haven't been productive at all, save the pantry reorganization with BA...

How do you get yourself back on track?

whoa busy

working on the finishing touches/edits of a new m/m novelette for Torquere called Loose Snow. Going back to my Colorado roots, this one is about forest rangers AJ and Jack, who don't quite know how to handle relationships and all, and it takes a wall of moving snow to make them realize what they could have...

Also working on finishing up my next release at Changeling Press! It's a m/m/f called Outfoxed, and it's about a wolf, a coyote and a fox shifter who go on a blind date. Woo

Got a few other projects in the works, which I don't want to Jinx, but I promise I'll chat about them soon!

Popping the Cork: A new Short

Hey y'all

Have I mentioned my newest Sip from Torquere?

If I have, I apologize for it, but here I am again!

It's called Popping the Cork, and it's my favorite kind of short, a how did they meet kind of thing. I love to know how couples meet. It's something I almost always ask married and partnered folks I meet. I love it when someone says they met on a blind date or on the subway or in this case, at a wedding.

You can find it here!

Working hard

have 3 deadlines coming up at the first of January. O.O

How does this happen? Yikes.

one menage and 2 m/m - all yummy :D

Taking up my own challenge

I challenged folks on my Twitter to post something positive on a blog or a social media site this week.

This is one of the biggest positives in my life:

This is my basset girl, Sadie. She keeps my feet warm at night, makes sure I am always blessed with drool and dog hair, and keeps me in line when I don't feed her treats. She insists on a walk at 3pm every day, and if I'm out of town, they tell me she goes to my desk chair and barks like I'll magically appear if she just wishes hard enough

She reminds me that we all need to wag more and bite less

post Thanksgiving whoa

Hey y'll

as always, the holidays are messing with my schedule

New book out at Changeling! Cirque Caprice 4: Ringmaster, came out last week

this one is m/m, About Jon, a security professional at Caprice, and Amadeo, the new ringmaster

it has intrigue, hotness and sexy control issues

Check it out!

no idea what I meant to write about

hey y'all

I had it on my to do list to do a blog yesterday

So, yeah, that went so well

I fell walking the dogs yesterday. Boom. Luckily, Sadie, who I walk while BA walks Sonny, did not run when I dropped her leash. She went right to her other mom.

Scraped up my hands, knees and pride and twisted my ankle. Not too bad, all in all, but it sure put a kibosh on my writing blogs!

Life is finally slowing down

Hey y'all!

I know I've been sporadic. I apologize. Without getting too personal, life has been a little crazy, with a new grand-nephew in the family, a slew of deadlines, and a house that needed to be fall-cleaned.

Okay, we're still cleaning and donating bags and bags to the Goodwill. BA and I are a little pack-ratty. We collect weird cooking implements, for example. Garlic presses? We have 3, one of which rolls. Bizarre egg white beaters? No less than 4. One is a crank kind with its own bowl. One is a tiny one that also does chocolate milk.

Then there's the stuff. Teapots. Turtles (BA) crocodiles (me) basset hounds (both)... Cowboy art (we were out of space so we made a pact to only buy originals. (We still need a sliding gallery wall.) Ravens. weird gothic dolls. Yeah. We're packed to the gills.

Anyhoo, I should be back on a regular schedule now for a bit. I missed y'all

Looking forward to art time

BA and I went to the studio today and cleaned and put everything away. we're ready to start making Christmas art. I want to make ornaments and advent calendars and cthulhu santas!

Babies and cowboys and trick or treat oh my!

Got back from the Professional Bullriding Finals just in time for Halloween. I thought sure I had some cowboy pictures on this machine, but it looks like they're all on the desktop, not the laptop.

So instead I share our Halloween decorations:

I also give you the boy basset dressed as a bull with a cowboy on his back

So I guess there are cowboys!

Last but certainly not least, our niece gave birth to our great-nephew this morning at about 4:45am. 6lbs 3ounces, and everyone is healthy. Hooray!

Home from Vegas

man, the cowboy watching with BA Tortuga was awesome-- home for 3 months

hooray

Fright Night

Watching Fright Night. The old one, not the new one. I have to admit, Colin Farrell is way hotter than Chris Sarandon. It's hard to beat Roddy McDowall, though. It really is. I'm sure David Tennant is great, but man...

I love Halloween movie season!

Halloween is coming!

Bring out your undead, y'all! It's October and Halloween is coming up.

Spooky movies? check

ridiculous werewolf hat? check

Candy? homemade paleo-- check

I love the fall, which admittedly comes late in Texas. Still, we had a norther come in day before yesterday and it's cool and breezy. BA Tortuga and I are putting up Halloween decorations together. Gravestones and spiderwebs and witches, oh my! We cleaned up the yard yesterday, getting weeds pulled, pulling out the potted plants that didn't make it through the hot, drought-ridden summer. We cleaned off the 5 foot tall metal chicken, y'all. It rocks once more.

We're dressing him up as a wolf this year.

I love Halloween goodies, too, but this year I'm eating paleo, so I have to make my own

Here's a recipe to love:

1 cup unsweetened chocolate chips
1 tsp honey
1 tablespoon butter or coconut oil
2 tablespoons coffee or espresso, brewed
1/2 pecan halves

line small cookie sheet with parchment. Melt together choc chips, honey, butter and espresso. Drop 5-6 pecan halves on sheet in a small circle and top with dollop of chocolate (about 2 tbs) depending on the size candy you desire, Press down with spoon to enrobe nuts in chocolate.

Chill until chocolate firms

yum

More on halloween all week!

XXOO

Julia

Back from GayRomLit

Hey, y'all!

Back from GayRomLit, and what a fun con that was! How neat to go to a con where everyone reads what we write, you know?

We had a ball in NOLA, which was easier to eat gluten free than it was three years ago, and was full of sights and sounds and a new gelato shop called La Divina. Oh, y'all. Goat's milk and sesame gelato...

Even if we couldn't gorge on beignets, we managed to have a blast. The Torquere Press publisher spotlight on Friday morning went really well, with the books flying off the table. We took donations for books rather than selling, and we raised $720.00 for the It Gets Better project. Thanks to all the readers for your extreme generosity.

The booksigning on Friday also went great. BA Tortuga and I walked from the hotel to the riverboat, and met some amazing readers, like Kelli and Yvonne, while seeing old friends like Elisa Rolle and Jen from Goodreads. Waves at y'all. It was so good to see you. We'd sold out of books at the spotlight, so I signed a lot of those, as well as postcards, Kindle covers, and one really neat electronic reader that had a place on the ebook file to sign.

Friday night after the booksigning we had a TQ author get-together, where I got to meet EM Lynley, Eden Winters, PD Singer, Stormy Glenn, Angela Benedetti, Lydia Nyx, TC Blue, and our old friends Kiernan Kelly and her husband, who goes by Kiernan's publicist. It was the biggest gathering of TQ authors since RT back in Orlando, and it was a hoot, especially after TC Blue started buying shots. Lydia's friend Isisfrog was a hilarious addition to the group. A few of the ladies peeled off to go to other events, but the rest of us hit Bourboun Street afterward and hunted supper. That was a hoot!

Saturday we hit the cemetery tour with ZA Maxfield and a bunch of readers, and we learned all about NOLA funerary styles. Neat! Then it was lunch with the reader, Chris, who had asked for a gluten free author. BA and I took her to Muriel's on the square, and let me tell you, y'all, GF shrimp creole is a treat.

We shopped and visited and went to bed early Sat, as we had to leave at 3:30 am to get on our 5:30 flight home. Sorry to anyone we missed saying goodbye to, as we were just pooped!

Thanks so much to Carol, Lynn, JP, Ethan and Amanda for the amazing con. They did a great job organizing, and y'all should think about attending next year!

XXOO

Julia

Gay Rom Lit

Hey y'all!

Been busy gearing up for GayRomLit, a conference this weekend in New Orleans. This is the first con devoted exclusively to GLBT romance, and it's very exciting and reader oriented. If you'll be there, stop by the riverboat book signing to see me and BA Tortuga signing Cereus!

Also, if you know of any good Gluten Free places in Nola, give me a shout out. Pre-gluten intolerance, NOLA was one of my favorite places on earth. Now? It's almost impossible to eat in. Cajun and creole food are roux heavy, and everything there is battered and fried. Makes partying hearty with the beignet and pretzel parties at the con a little tough...

Hope to see y'all there!

XXOO

J

Romance Trading Cards!

My lovely BA is totally into the Romance Trading Cards. So she made me some!

OMG so neat

I have ones so far for Jed and Eli from the Thatcher's series, Jumping, Landing and Taking.


Here's an example-- front

and back--

How awesome is that?

Want a set? Email me your snail mail at juliatalbot at gmail.com