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I’m in a tearing hurry this morning because I’m very close to finishing Insolence, which puts me back on track to get done all the stuff I need to do.  A part of the scene I’m struggling with came to in the shower so I need to spit it out so I don’t forget it. So forgive me if I rush through this Monday’s inane chatter.

First of all, I’m guest blogging at Cindy Jacks’ about Love. CLICK HERE to see what I had to say! Second, Fire Season’s trailer was reviewed by 1st Turning Point and received 4 parrots! That’s a great score! Third, I tore down Winterheart Design this weekend and it’s slowly coming back up. I needed to change some outdated links (a former client took down the template I made for her and didn’t tell me) but when I looked at the site, I went… aw, fuckit. Fourth, I was in a chat with publishers and editors and the like and the Editor in Chief from Ellora’s Cave (generally considered THE big romance epublisher) made it clear that she’d been looking at my work. Off the group, in email, she invited me to submit a manuscript directly to her rather than through the regular channels. Even if I didn’t send her a manuscript, it’s a feather in my cap to have her issue the invite. As far as I could tell, I was the only one in the chat she spoke to like that. Yup, I am flattered. After all, didn’t I just start this journey a year ago?

So now, I’m gonna slap a Marcus on here and head out to clean my inbox and drop that bit of scene into Insolence. That story is so hot I don’t dare open it in the office to work on at lunch!

Yum! Even in a hoodie and jeans he looks great!

Wishing you all a very happy Monday!

Yanno how things never end up as you planned? Yeah, well, the Ride the Lightning video I made falls right into that category. No Alice in Chains music after all. I ended up with a brand new Breaking Benjamin song. The funny thing is I still couldn’t make up my mind on the song even after I’d firmly decided on the band. So Nikki and I listened to three different tunes. Every time I heard one I’d think, “THAT’s the one!” Then I narrowed it down to two songs. I was pretty sure I wanted Without You but then I listened to Dear Agony again. But Nikki was sure. Without You.

So I finished the video and uploaded it wondering if I’d chosen right. The next morning I found myself unconsciously humming the song as I thought about the next scene I needed to write. Funny how things work out. It was the perfect song after all! It worked out like a plan within a plan although sorta random at the same time.

I’ll get back to Ride the Lightning in a minute cause I have a cute story to tell about it. But first I need to let you all know that Fire Season was nominated for a Rainbow Award. At the moment, they are taking votes from the public so that they can narrow down the nominees to a set of finalists that a panel of judges will chose a winner from. If you read and liked Fire Season, I very much appreciate your vote. I’d tell those of you who just want to support me to vote, but that feels sorta unethical for me say.

Anyway, the voting isn’t all that easy either unless you’re used to Live Journal polls. Here’s how you can vote for Fire Season in the Rainbow Awards:

Click this link to be taken to the poll. http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=1471994

Once there, you must sign in with either a Live Journal, Google ID or Open ID in the upper right corner. After you’ve signed in, on the left hand side click Fill Out Poll and you will get the voting page. Each category has multiple groups. You may vote for only ONE book in each group.

If you do not have any of those IDs to log in with you can leave a comment at this link with the name of the book you are voting for. Scroll to the bottom of the category and click on Leave A Comment.  http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/822605.html

I’m also guest blogging over at Naughty n’ Nice where I talk about being a Flash in the Pan! LOL You won’t want to miss me being all self-critical. *wink* I have lots of stuff coming in the next two weeks from interviews to blog posts to video features and contests. One of the things you can check out daily for one of my videos or books is The Romance Studio’s 13 Days of Halloween.

So, Ride the Lightning. First thing I have to say is that if it goes to print I’m sending autographed copies to Dave and Vahid. Vahid, of course, is my black dragon hero. Although, he’s a little tarnished at first. Dave, on the other hand, is blazingly hero-ish as the heroine’s best friend. Vahid Delrey is an arrogant black dragon who doesn’t really want Emily as his mate. She’s cold and haughty and not at all what he thinks will suit him. It’s not until he finds her in a BDSM club, hanging from her wrists, beaten bloody by an inexperienced Dom that he discovers her secrets and begins to feel chivalrous. So Vahid has issues. *sigh* (Yes, I know the story is sorta plans within plannish too.)

Dave Forrester, on the other hand, is a Magia (a wizard) who has been Emily’s best friend for years. As the owner of Far From Heaven (a BDSM club) he watches over Emily and tries to keep her from going too far off the deep end.

The funny thing about using bits of real people in a book is that I get it, but new readers don’t. Carol, a sweetheart of a woman on my Tales Yahoo group, didn’t realize that there was a REAL Vahid. So I showed her a photo from my Flickr account. Oh dear. She positively DROOLED over the real Vahid. Not that he’s not droolworthy. It’s just that she had a “Oh, oh, oh! OMG He’s REAL!” moment and it amused me. LOL Vahid already knew he was gonna star in this book but I hope Dave doesn’t get pissed that my character looks like him and has a thing for Liz Hurley… Wonder if he knows anything about whips?

Okay, time for a Marcus and then I need to haul myself off to work!

Ahh, so beautifully pensive. If you like Marcus click on this one and download it. It’s a large file. I’m off now, so have a great Monday!

So I have this guest blog post at a review site today. It’s title is Six With a Bullet. The reason for the title is that Fire Season is now #6 on All Romance eBook’s Top Ten List. This sort of equates to being the #6 most sold book at Barnes and Noble. ARe is one of the biggest distributors (e-bookstores) on the internet.

Because of riding this bullet up the bottom half of the top ten, I’ve been invited to be on ARe’s Blog Talk Radio show What’s Hot in Romance. It’s been awhile since I did any radio, but I’m sure I’ll remember how it works. I’ll prolly get a tad nervous because, after all, this isn’t Jester or Karl both of whom I’ve met and love. The show is on at 9:30 EST tonight.

I finished two novellas over the weekend thanks to the Word Wars ladies who kept cracking the whip. One is due tomorrow and I need to tweak on it some tonight. It’s not as polished as I would like it to be and it’s not going to get a crit either before it goes to the editor. I’m bummed. So many things have taken up my time and I’ve had some issues with this story. I think I need to break up my M/M writing sprees a bit. Doing a bunch of them in a row is very tough. It’s not an easy genre to write in the first place. You’re stuck saying he he him him his his name name name over and over again until you can’t figure out yourself whose arm, leg, lip, or dick you meant. I’ll be writing some good old fashioned BDSM when this over. It will be a welcome relief!

So here’s the part of Monday everyone but the straight men like. It’s that Marcus part. Here’s one of my all time favorite Marcus images. I just need this today. He can do my laundry anytime.

If you get a chance stop by Socially Dead. I bought Motley a tablet with my royalties and she’s put up some awesome new artwork. Hope you all have a spectacular Monday!

I know I’ve been MIA. I’m sorry. The power supply went out on my desktop and apparently it had been shorting out for awhile unnoticed. It tweaked a lot of stuff on its way out and I ended up having to reformat my hard drive AGAIN. This has been the 3rd time in 2 years. I’m so not happy. I do have Mozy backups of stuff so I mostly didn’t lose things, but I’m having issues restoring my email and I think I’ve lost it all which is really a serious thing because I’ve got fulls and partials of submissions for Freya’s Bower and Wild Child Publishing there.

I need some kind of new system with email I think. Or I need to reassess how I’m doing my Mozy backups. I should have been able to restore the folders and emails. No dice so far. Anyone who is good with Outlook (an old version) care to try? I could use the help. I’m at wits end here.

Anyway, I’m not really here today. I’m guest blogging at my pal Selena’s talking about length. Click the link and come by. You’re more than welcome to disagree with me about length. Hee hee.

Selena Illyria’s Blog

Rott and I went on a late night run for Mexican food last night. Ahh. Cruising in the SUV. Ten pm on a Saturday night, the county is clogged with traffic because the fair is going on. We went all the way to Alberto’s in Fountain Valley and found… a line out the parking lot onto the street. Seems Alberto’s is very popular late on a Saturday night. Rott got a little turned around going home. I can’t say I blame him. I never go there so I didn’t think he was doing wrong either. We weren’t lost or anything. We just took the wrong freeway exit – south instead of north.

I gotta say, I wasn’t all that unhappy with the wrong turn despite the fact that it frazzled Rott’s nerves. (He doesn’t like to do stuff wrong. And like me, he never gets lost. So the wrong exit thing kinda upset him.) The wrong turn meant we got to drive longer. For me it had a twofold plus, one I got to spend more time with Rott. I love watching him drive. Always have. I love his hands and forearms so watching him steer and shift has always been a secret pleasure of mine.

The second thing that was cool was getting to ride in the truck. It’s a really nice SUV. Infiniti Q45. It’s not a stick so no shifting like in his Prelude, but it’s a seriously nice ride. He was finding it to be a pain in the ass because he couldn’t just zip around the freeway and change lanes like he used to. It bothered him that the blind spot was so huge and you have to rely on your mirrors a lot more and be more cautious changing lanes. It’s an adjustment and last night it added to his frazzled nerves. Still, for me anyway, it was a nice outing. Upped my hope level that maybe things can be worked out.

Hopefully, I can find my Marcus photos and get a Monday Marcus up. At the very least, he’ll back the following week. I think I know where the images are. Meanwhile, have a great Sunday!

I’m doing Karl’s Summer of Love again this year. So today you will find me over there talking about the Fickle Finger of Fate and how my significant other’s SUV has caused some … issues … for me. One lucky commenter will win a book so run run quick quick to Karl With a K’s house!

Have a great Saturday!

I am a pimping ho at Midnight Moon Cafe today. Not only did I pimp myself out… I pimped out Karl, Marty, Gooster, Vahid, Hilly and Becky. All for the sake of selling books about TVC (throbbing vampire cock) and SDC (swelling dragon cock).

Well, I have to admit it’s not so much the selling thing that I like, it’s the fans of the stories. I like it that people like and read what I write. I don’t get scads of traffic here, but with the books, my writing gets exposed in a lot more places. I like giving people stories they enjoy. I love it when they adore the same characters that I do. And it’s nice to be able to take a snippet of a friend’s personality and turn it into a character that lots of people read and fall in love with.

I can’t tell you how many people loved Karl with a K in Hot Water. They loved his snarky humor. I got so many comments on Corey in Hot Water that I decided to give him his own story Sunstroked later in the series. I don’t think I would have come up with such vivid characters if it hadn’t been for Karl and Gooster’s real personalities making an impression on me.

Next up is Marty who is the fairy godfather in The Pixie Prince. Cobblestone is releasing that book tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what the readers have to say about Marty. Ride the Lightning, which is Vahid the black dragon’s story, will probably be out in December. I have a feeling our own Vahid may have women beating down his doors even more than they do now once this book is read. (Note to Vahid… buy a bullwhip. The character has one… the ladies love it.)

In the fall and winter I’ll be getting to the sequels to The Pixie Prince which include a story about a Hilary and one about a Becky. I’m hopeful that Cobblestone will take them. Meanwhile, I’ll just do lots of pimping and hope to get more readers so more people can also find out about my friends and their blogs. I know there’s a whole phalanx of women who come through here to click the link to Gooster’s site. Okay, maybe the hotties he posts are the main draw, but I bet they read his other posts too!

Now, hie yourselves off to Midnight Moon Cafe and leave a comment. I’m giving away more books there. Have a great Thursday… oh! And wish me luck that I get to see Stone Temple Pilots on the 4th. Cross all your fingers and toes… Loves yas!

I don’t watch teevee. Want to know why? Go to Snackie TeeVee and you will find out! I’m over there expounding on my teevee-less life. Well, not completely teevee-less life. I watch teevee for the eye candy. Oh, and not just any eye candy, but specific eye candy.

Christian de la Fuente from In Plain Sight.

George Eads from CSI.

You’ll know what I’m talking about if you go read the post: Winter Hates TeeVee – Almost.

Happy Tuesday!