#WriteTip - Set Realistic Goals by @ErzabetBishop, spotlighting her #Shifter #Romance BURNING FOR YOU

Erzabet Bishop is perhaps one of the most prolific romance authors I know. As such, her writing tip on production is one I will definitely take to heart. After this informational break, don't forget to check out Burning For You, her new shifter paranormal romance from ARe.

Set Realistic Goals

by Erzabet Bishop

Many of us writers have day jobs or other tasks that keep us away from the worlds we want to create. That said, it is possible to write a novella in two weeks. You just do the math and divide it out day by day around those things that thwart us. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. That's why you have to keep realistic goals that work around your schedule, not against it.

It can be a bit harder when you are pressed for a deadline you weren't ready for. (raises hand) Sometimes current projects avalanche when you aren't looking (yup) and it's easy to get in full panic mode. (flooding, medical procedures, microwaves that die, work, pet vomit, laundry, stuff...)

Just remember-like they said in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- grab that towel and what...can we hear it? Right. Don't panic! You will do this. Bit by bit. 500 words at a time? You bet. Writing that email to yourself with half a chapter on lunch? Sure. Talking into your phone when no one is looking for a bit of dictation? Hell yes. What you do today is more than yesterday and you are closer than you think. Use your spare time and resources and get that novella/novel done. 

I won't lie. I'm in panic mode right now staring down the short edge of a novel due yesterday and twenty thousand words to go. But I'm going to pick up that keyboard and start whomping on a word count that can actually work. Life happens. Reasonable publishers will work with you as long as you let them know what's going on. That is my realistic goal for today. Right after my second cup of coffee...

Happy writing! 

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Burning for You

By Erzabet Bishop

Where there’s smoke, there’s dragon fire.

Ordinary girl. Extraordinary fate.

Violet Winters is having a less than perfect day. Her parents are meddling with her love life (again), her wintery magic is kaput and her vivid dreams are coming far too close to reality. When she falls through the ice after seeing her fiancé all close and snuggly with a fellow polar bear, all bets are off. Is she better off dead or will she get another chance at life when a Grimare angel rescues her from her chosen fate?

Fire meets ice and passions ignite.

Dante is a dragon on a mission: fight the string of strange fires springing up around Westmore and find a mate. When his Captain decides to have the men pose for social media shots to garner attention for the station, Dante finds himself in the middle of a steady stream of women after his special strategically placed “fire hose.”

At Hot Whips Café to haggle with the owner for counter space for their new firemen calendar, he meets a woman who sets his inner scales on fire. Can he save her from the machinations of the Fates or will she die a second time by the very threat Dante fights against?

A dragon’s panty melting kiss may just be the wow this curvy girl needs.

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Excerpt

“Come on, Dante, show us a little leg.” The smirking photographer circled in front of him and it was all Dante could do to control the dragon scraping beneath his skin to avoid reaching out and shoving the camera up his ass.

Pictures for social media. The Captain had officially lost his fucking mind. The catcalls and male laughter from the rest of the guys made him lose his footing and the fire hose he’d been using as a prop to conceal his nakedness began to slip.

“Jesus. Fix that hose. This isn’t internet porn, you know.” The Captain groused, scowling.

Dante scrambled to catch the hose and cover himself and balanced against the newly washed and waxed fire engine, trying to pretend he was anywhere else but standing like a prize bull at an auction.

“If you’ll hold still, please. The others have already contributed their shots. You’re the last one.” The cameraman huffed, turning the lens. He lowered the camera and glared at Dante. “You could smile maybe?”

Shit. He was distracted by the wacked out dream he’d had the night before. A woman he’d never met swam in front of him, dying. Her long black hair fanned out in the cold, dark water and he’d panicked. He’d told her to live.

“Fine.” Dante growled, a wisp of smoke curling out from behind his lips. He felt the change sliding beneath his skin, the dragon agitated by his distress.

“God, Dante. Come on.” Carter laughed. “You aren’t afraid of a little flashing light, are you?” The rest of the crew laughed, sharing in the good natured ribbing.

“Bastard.”

He just wanted it to be over. His beast wanted to fly and hunt and if he didn’t get out of here soon, he was going to lose his mind. Most of the men here were either dating or married. He wasn’t and the urge to mate had made his already bad temper even worse.

The Captain had lured him and the others in with the promise of a social media boost to help the department. He figured a couple of pictures for Instagram like that vet that had so many followers it was insane. Model pretty with a gaggle of women trailing behind him like no tomorrow. The guy had even been on national television recently. Cap was dreaming, but he also knew the man would do anything to save their department from going strictly volunteer.

So many in the country had gone that route and the bear shifter was fighting it tooth and claw. Dante supported that. He’d moved from his home in the mountains to come here after his buddy Carter had told him about the job. Happy and with a large family of cat and dragon shifter young, his friend would do anything to ensure things stayed status quo. So would he, and apparently that included standing naked in front of a freshly polished firetruck.

Thank God his mother couldn’t see him or he’d never hear the end of it. She’d been writing him emails nonstop asking if he’d met any promising women. Jesus. He’d never seen a woman more eager to fuss over grandchildren. But he hadn’t and the prospects didn’t look very favorable. Not that he hadn’t dated. He had. But no female he’d met even sparked his interest past the typical curves and tight jeans and it wasn’t enough. Not anymore.

He wanted a mate. Someone to come home to and warm his bed and his heart. Most of the women he’d come across only wanted one thing—to bang a fireman and brag to their friends.

“Well, that’s about as good as I’m going to get if you’re going to scowl like that.” The photographer capped his lens and sighed, stalking off toward the Captain. “You can get dressed now.”

“Jerk.” Dante swiped the robe he’d worn from the floor and shrugged into it.

“Man, you really need to learn to crack a smile, buddy.” Carter grinned as he and a few of the others approached now that the photographer had gone.

“Thank you, guys. Dante.” The Captain came forward giving Dante a narrow eyed look, then nodded toward the remainder of the group. “We should see the finished product in a day or so.”

Wait. Product?

About Erzabet Bishop

Erzabet Bishop is an award winning and bestselling author who loves to write naughty stories. She is the author of Lipstick, Crave, Snow (Three Times More Lucky Box Set), Malediction (upcoming-A Wicked Halloween Box Set), Map of Bones (upcoming-A Wicked Affair Box Set), Sanguine Shadows (Vampire Bites Box Set), The Science of Lust, Wicked for You, Heart’s Protector, Burning for You, Red Hot (upcoming), Bayou Shadows (upcoming-Nola Naughty Nine) Hedging Her Bets (Alpha Fever Box Set), Cat’s Got Her Tongue (Alpha Heat Box Set), Arcane Imaginarium: Spirit Board, Holidays in Hell, Mallory’s Mark (upcoming),The Devil’s Due (upcoming), Charity Benshaw’s Enchanted Paddle Emporium (upcoming), Sigil Fire, Glitter Lust (upcoming), Written on Skin, Club Beam, Pomegranate, A Red Dress for Christmas, The Black Magic Café, Fantasies in Red, Sweet Seductions, Holiday Cruise, Fetish Fair, Temptation Resorts: Jess, Temptation Resorts: Marnie, Taming the Beast, The Erotic Pagans Series: Beltane Fires, Samhain Shadows and Yuletide Temptation, along with being a contributor to many anthologies. She lives in Texas with her husband, furry children and can often be found lurking in local bookstores. She loves to bake, make naughty crochet projects and watch monster movies.

Follow her on Twitter @erzabetbishop.

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#WriteTip - Balancing Sex and #SciFi by Jessica E. Subject (@JSubject), spotlighting Bryce, an #Alien #Romance

I'm delighted to welcome author Jessica Subject back to my blog today. She's the queen of sexy, slightly naughty aliens, and she's brought one along for a visit (his name is Bryce). Before we get some much-needed alone time with her hunk from space (Google likes organic keywords...bear with me), I figured we should learn a thing or two about science fiction, science fiction romance, and writing in general (i.e., I needed an excuse to goof off and make pretty graphics). 

Balancing Sex and Sci-Fi

by Jessica E. Subject

Because science fiction romance combines two different genres, there are many assumptions from both sides. Some Sci-Fi readers believe that SFR is sex with aliens, sex in space, or something similar, that no research was involved in creating the story at all. On the romance side, some readers believe that SFR is too technical, or has too much world building and becomes boring with all the unnecessary details. While some of those assumptions are true with some of the SFR books I’ve read, SFR ranges from one extreme to the other. My favorites always fit right in the middle with just the right amount of world-building and hot sex. I guess the key is--there can't just be hot sex.

For example, besides those from Earth, I included at least seven species of aliens in Bryce, from planets across the universe. I found the inspiration for some on Pinterest, and others from my own mind. I keep a record of each species and which characters are which in a notebook, on a spreadsheet in Excel, and on a board in Scrivener. I keep each up-to-date so I have all the information depending on where I’m writing. The characters who are part of the Galactic Alliance are mostly humanoid, but each has at least one or two characteristics that makes them distinctly different from us on Earth.

There's quite a bit of plotting involved in writing as well. Bryce is the rewrite of a story I wrote at the beginning of my writing career, before I was published. It began as an alien living on Earth story, but after several edits, and a letter from a bestselling, well-respected author, who is also a friend, I decided to take the story from what it was, and make it better. Bryce went from being an alien who worked for the local police force to being an alien hunter sent to Earth to destroy the Erebus who had been spotted there. Lindsay was a woman who found out her father came from another planet in the first draft, but in the final version, she’s the long lost Princess of Hemera who escaped to Earth when her planet was invaded by the Erebus.

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Bryce

Galactic Defenders

by Jessica E. Subject

A dedicated Defender…

Bryce fell in love once, but after Lalia was ripped away from him, he locked his heart from feeling anything for anyone else. Instead, he devotes his life to the Galactic Alliance, killing every bloodthirsty Erebus he comes across.

A shunned princess…

Lalia Comosova fell in love with the wrong man. When her parents learned of her transgressions, they sent her to Earth to hide her error in judgment from the rest of the kingdom.

A second chance?

When these lovers are reunited after many years apart, they have a chance to find happiness together. But fate steps in and threatens to rip them apart as it did years ago.

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Excerpt

Bryce raised his crossbow, lining his sights on the creature standing amongst the bushes, its branch-like tentacles undulating in the gentle breeze. Focusing the crosshairs on the alien’s torso, he drew in a deep breath. He had one shot. If he missed, the Erebus would cry out and alert the natives of Terra to its existence, resulting in more casualties. At first glance, no one on the planet, also called Earth, would believe an Erebus anything more than an overgrown bush, but Bryce knew the truth. He’d trained to hunt the creatures from childhood.

Each step carefully placed, he advanced until he stood twenty feet from the Erebus, no chance to miss the shot. With a slight movement of his finger, he squeezed the trigger, sending a zuranium-tipped arrow racing toward the alien.

“Quinn, would you grab me another garbage bag?”

Fornax. The creature lunged toward the female voice, Bryce’s arrow stuck in one of its tentacles. A kill, but not instant.

He loaded another arrow. At the risk of being seen, he charged through the hedges. He had to cut the Erebus off before it had a chance to kill the Terran. He leaped over metal furniture and large urns, keeping his focus on the creature.

“What the hell? Get out of my yard!”

The woman rushed him, but Bryce darted around her. When the Erebus lumbered in front of him, he raised his weapon and fired. A clean shot to the middle. The creature dropped like a fallen log, crushing the furniture it landed on.

Bryce loaded the crossbow again. No time to celebrate the kill. He had to worry about the possibility of other Erebus in the area, along with the Terran woman who had seen him. Instead of running away screaming, as he’d expected her to do, she stared, wide-eyed in horror. Not at him, but the Erebus. Her body trembled as she shuffled backward, mumbling incomprehensible words.

An unexpected sense of familiarity washed over him. He couldn’t draw his attention away from her slim figure, the way her long brown hair flowed over her shoulders. Far more attractive than he’d pictured the Terrans when others talked about them. He took a closer glance. Lalia? How had she traveled so far from home without anyone knowing? She was no stranger, and definitely not Terran. Or, perhaps she was simply a doppelganger of the woman he’d once loved. He had the sudden urge to comfort her, relieve her worry. Hold her in his arms the way he had many years ago. But what if the missing princess had somehow made her way to a planet unaware life existed beyond their own? After she’d left Hemera and him behind without so much as a goodbye, he’d searched everywhere. Though not once had he thought to look on Terra.

A ground-shattering bellow pierced the night. Bryce spun around, finding himself face-to-face with another Erebus. It stared at him with beady red eyes. Thick black goop dripped from its mouth.

Bryce raised his bow, but the creature slammed him with one of its tentacles, flinging him back. The Erebus lunged at Lalia.

Rolling to his knees, Bryce aimed and fired. He hit the alien from behind, launching it forward. Onto his former lover. Slinging the bow over his shoulder, he raced toward her. The creature’s tentacles still pulsed, even though dead. Careful not to trip himself up, he shoved his hands under the creature’s torso and heaved it off her.

Lalia stood immediately and wiped the black goop from her clothes, as if she hadn’t been flattened by an alien. “They weren’t supposed to follow me. I was supposed to be safe here.”

About Jessica E. Subject

Jessica E. Subject is the author of science fiction romance, mostly alien romances, ranging from sweet to super hot. Sometimes she dabbles in paranormal and contemporary as well, bringing to life a wide variety of characters. In her stories, you could not only meet a sexy alien or two, but also clones and androids. You may be transported to a dystopian world where rebels are fighting to live and love, or to another planet for a romantic rendezvous.

When Jessica isn't reading, writing, or doing dreaded housework, she likes to get out and walk with her giant, hairy dog her family adopted from the local animal shelter.

Jessica lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and two energetic children. And she loves to hear from her readers. You can find her at jessicasubject.com.

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#WriteTip - Writing the American Way by @Diane_Saxon, spotlighting her @HartwoodBooks #Romance

As a transplant to America myself (yes, I still type "colour" and "odour"...MS Word fixes it for me), I totally sympathize with Diane Saxon's difficulties when writing the American way. Being a perennial expatriate, my manuscripts often return with a few question marks over phrases I find second nature (do people really not say "potable water" on a regular basis?). Since misery loves company, Diane and I are going to commiserate for a bit, before introducing you to her newest release from Hartwood Publishing. 

Writing the American Way

by Diane Saxon

When I sent my first manuscript, Loving Lydia, out to publishers, little did I know that it would be a U.S. publisher that picked it up and ran with it, and me. Since then, I have learnt so much about writing, but one of my first lessons was how to write in U.S. English and not U.K. English.

I’ve read predominantly American authors for as long as I can remember. I love my Nora Roberts, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Karen Rose etc, these are the authors who fill my bookcase and I’m quite comfortable with reading U.S. English.

So, you’d think it would be easy, wouldn’t you? Change the Word dictionary from U.K. to U.S. and away you go. Don’t forget to take out all of the extraneous ‘u’s – e.g. color, not colour, odor, not odour and change learnt to learned, dreamt to dreamed. Not so very hard really. The dictionary can help me there.

But then I received my manuscript back from my editor and I realised just how wrong a girl could be. Word dictionary doesn’t tell you to replace wardrobe with closet, pavement with sidewalk. Car boot is a trunk, car bonnet is a hood. Well, heavens, whoever would have known?

Even now, a few years on, I still have hilarious conversations with my editor when she says “Diane, what do you mean by this..?”

I have found though that I’ve started to naturally produce U.S. English when I’m writing a manuscript, because I still have a cowboy in my head and his language skills have developed along with my own. So when he talks, it’s in American.

And when I write articles and blogs? Well, the English in me just jumps straight back in.

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Barbara's Redemption

Disarmed and Dangerous Book 2

by Diane Saxon

Black Hawk pilot Captain Barbara Lynn Perry is running scared. Witness to an event too horrible to think about and too dangerous to talk of, she finds herself alienated from a world she has always had faith in.

With her Special Forces brother missing, she has only one other person to turn to. When her friend Flynn Swann isn’t available, Barbara is left with no choice but to trust the man Flynn sends to save her.

Psychiatrist Dominic Salter’s information from her superior officer’s file is that Barbara has gone rogue. Despite the damning evidence, every instinct tells him he’s dealing with an honorable woman, one who single-handedly saved Flynn from torture and a sure death. Dominic’s challenge is to delve his way beneath her tough, defensive attitude and coax the truth from a woman who’s too frightened to reveal her dark secret.

In his brand new facility containing a state of the art Dreampsych Transcender he’s experimenting with, a machine far beyond a simulator, Dominic has to gain the trust and confidence of Barbara while he resists the hard pull of attraction to this kick-ass woman.

Betrayed by a member of his staff, events take a sinister turn, and the pressure is on in a fight against time for Dominic to persuade Barbara to put her trust in him and reveal the truth before matters are taken out of his hands.

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Excerpt

She raised a shaky hand to rub her fingertips over taut lips and tried to swallow, but her tongue was too thick to allow it, her mouth too dry to comply. She held the same hand horizontally in front of her face and watched the vague tremble. The tremor that threatened her sharp shot. The shake that no longer allowed her to pick up a glass of whiskey without being a dead giveaway.

She needed help.

Flynn.

Flynn could help.

She’d saved his life, goddammit. Of course he would help.

So she waited in the silent twilight for Flynn to come.

Pitch black descended and still no sign of the man. So dark she could no longer see the trembling hand in front of her face, but the sweat still formed in the creases along her palm, making her hand slip as she tightened her grip on the gun. She swapped it over from right to left while she rubbed the damp onto the leg of her black yoga pants. It made no difference, she could shoot as well with one hand as the other. Not that she could see to shoot, but she hadn’t imagined for one moment Flynn would have kept her waiting this long, and dark would close in before he arrived.

She’d hunkered down in the comfort of the straw, her mind filled with visions of blood and gunshots while night descended faster than she’d realized.

She’d kept Flynn waiting three nights previously. God only knew how long he’d waited for her, but she’d listened to her sixth sense, believed someone else was there at the meeting point, and she’d hightailed it out of there, leaving Flynn to his own devices. He was still a tough cookie. No point in her hanging around to save him. She’d already saved his sorry ass once before.

The dim light of the stables flickered on and filled the place with a dull buzzing sound. Cautious, she straightened and moved toward her target. The cowboy seemed to be the right height, but it looked like Flynn had gone to seed since leaving the Special Forces three years earlier. She’d heard rumors he hadn’t coped well with civilian life. Probably more to do with having half his face carved up. She twitched her nose in distaste. The voices of the men who had tortured him filled her head, the vicious sound of their hyena cackles as they cut Flynn with glee. It hadn’t been the prettiest of sights, but she’d seen worse. She’d even killed men herself, but never for fun. Only out of necessity, duty, and a desperate desire to live.

It was the pleasure they’d taken out of torturing a man that had turned her stomach. Not that anyone knew. She’d die before she allowed anyone to see her eakness. It looked like she may have to, after recent events. She’d thought she’d never witness anything worse than Flynn’s torture. But she had. 

About Diane Saxon

Diane Saxon lives in the Shropshire countryside with her tall, dark, handsome husband, two gorgeous daughters, a Dalmatian, one-eyed kitten, ginger cat, four chickens and a new black Labrador puppy called Beau, whose name has been borrowed for her hero in For Heaven's Cakes.

After working for years in a demanding job, on-call and travelling great distances, Diane gave it all up when her husband said “follow that dream”.

Having been hidden all too long, her characters have burst forth demanding plot lines of their own and she’s found the more she lets them, the more they’re inclined to run wild.

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