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I was definitely the Little Engine That Could this weekend. I took Friday off and started serious work on the Prince & Pea. That little bit I posted for you was all I had… but by 11 pm last night, I had over 21K words. It was a rough weekend with heat, distractions, and a host of other things. However, I just kept telling myself “I think I can, I think I can” and sure enough… I did!

The story needs to be edited. I just rushed and put it all down because sometimes that’s what you have to do to finish something. In this instance, it was what was working for me. This is the longest thing I’ve written in quite awhile. Bar posts are often 3K or less. Some of my other stories have been around 5-8K. But I do have about 20 chapters (75K words) in a Regency romance that I haven’t finished so I can write longer stories. I really should finish the Regency. 75K words is a lot.

So the Prince & the Pea will go to beta readers now and I will get back to the Bar. I have a Girl’s Night Out with fighting and naked dragon rides to write. I’m a little tired this morning, but I feel good. Also, as soon as I finished, my brain was whirring with ideas for the sequel to the Prince. Max’s best friend Alexa needs her story told, but I’m not sure whether I should try to make it fit a fairytale or not.

Before I give you a Marcus for this Monday, I did want to let you know that I heard back from singer/songwriter Dan Wilson. His song Breathless in part inspired Runaway Train which was the introduction of two new characters to the Bar. It also is a great stand alone erotic story. Dan said that he doesn’t own the copyright to Breathless, Sony does. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it was okay to use the song for a trailer since I’m not selling the song or anything else with it. I went ahead and polished up the trailer. Here it is.

I will be catching up with all your blogs this week. It’s gonna be this way for awhile as I try to get myself established as Lex Valentine. I’ll be reading you in my feedreader and coming by to make at least one or two comments a week on your blogs. I love you all so I can’t just click read and move on without at least one comment from me.

And now for a Marcus to finish out this post.

Hey, baby. Nice … erm… wheels. Yeah, wheels. HEH

FYI - If you tried to see the vids in the other posts and couldn’t try again. I updated them. Also you can CLICK HERE to see them all on You Tube.

Have a great Monday everyone!

So, I didn’t get a post up on Sunday. I’m afraid I’m gonna be a little erratic with the posting for a bit here. I’m seriously obsessed with this writing thing.

It’s Monday and not only do I need to post Marcus, I have some other media things to share. I think I’ll start with Marcus because I need to start with something yummy and sexy.

Whew! He’s hot. I’m ready to move on now.

Last time I posted I told you about learning to use Windows Movie Maker. I made a couple of videos while I was trying to figure out the software. One of them was for my new Pink Chair Diaries post The Wiz & the Chair.

When I was writing Wiz, I needed a name for one of the characters, so I asked Justin if I could use his. He graciously agreed. Then, when I was making the video, I needed a song and Jester came to my rescue. The song he suggested was a hot one, to complement the hot story. So here it is, the video for the Wiz & the Chair.

My last bit of media is twofold. I have a free story available for download at lexvalentine.com. I made a little video for it too. Then I used one of the stock images I bought to create a cover for the story. So here’s a link to the pdf file of the story, complete with a cover made by yours truly. Underneath it is the video. Strangely, enough, even though there are things wrong with this video, it’s my favorite.

The Silver Queen’s Death

I hope you enjoyed my second media blitz. It’s been a lot of work learning to promote myself. I still don’t have this stuff down. I wonder how any writers have time to write with all this stuff they have to do. I’m not even published yet, but just putting all the stuff in place has been a huge project. When you send in a query letter or submission, these publishers ask you to tell them what you can do to help promote yourself and your writing. So I have to have the ability to handle this media or I’ll have to pay to have it done. Luckily, I love Photoshop. Heh.

Have a great Monday!

I’m not praising the Monday, really. However, there are things for which I am grateful this Monday. So I shall commence singing the praises of those things!

First, let me say that I would make a crappy politician. See, I can’t just nod, shake hands and move along. So when I said I got a rejection letter on the same day I lost a contest, and all the bloggers and all the writers and authors from my Yahoo groups came out to send me email and post comments here and at Lex Valentine… well, I was touched. And I spent like the whole day sending and posting thank yous. I can’t just nod and move along like a politician. I most sincerely appreciate all the encouragement I’ve received from everyone.

I do have to mention three people who most especially deserve an extra thank you from me. First to Jen, for her constant encouragement, for helping me with Silver Linings from the moment I finished the first draft, and for wanting to see Alex and Maris get pubbed. Next, to Jason X for the comment that had the most impact with me. And finally to author and editor Mary Winter, who took the time to read and critique Silver Linings and email with me on Saturday night. I’ve added 2K words to this story and it’s going someplace I never thought it would go. We’ll see how it all shakes out.

Next is my Marcus for this Monday. I found a few new photos of him this weekend. Some not as flattering as usual, but that’s okay. My guy is getting older. Lots of women don’t think he’s the thing anymore because he’s almost 40. My reply to that is how many men look this hot at 40?

And finally for today, Dawg, who is one of my most favorite reads now, has gifted me with a cool award, which I can now pass on to others! I love the ones I can pass on. Spread the love! Thanks, Dawg. You’re awesome!

Here’s the rules of the award:

• The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
• Link the person you received your award from.
• Nominate at least seven other blogs
• Put links of those blogs on yours.
• Leave a message on the blogs that you’ve nominated.

So here are seven eight of my favorite blogs (while trying not to give it to someone who already got one):

• It’s Just Justin - Sweet, hot guy. Awesome photography. Plus, did I say he was hot?
• Banal Leakage - A day without Marty is not a good day. He’s one of my fave people!
• Tech-Babe - TB is a snarky, sexy IT girl with a heart of gold.
• Kapgar - Why I didn’t start reading him sooner, I just don’t know. I must have been brain impaired.
• Redneck Romance Writer - I can’t miss Jen’s blog. I get twitchy when I do.
• Bagwine Ruminations - I love a man who posts meat on his blog and no one does that better than Matt-Man.
• Why? What Have You Heard? - Mojo is another blogger with great photos. Plus, he’s just a little naughty too.
• West of Mars - No list of my favorites is complete without Susan and her rock band.

Give those people a read, if you’ve never read them before. There is a reason I visit them! Happy non-rejection Monday!

There’s something to be said for a routine. It’s peaceful. It was a little hectic this weekend launching LexValentine.com and all, but overall, I’m so glad it’s up. Having the site go live was so inspiring that I got several Bar posts done and started the menage story. While it’s true that I have other works in progress that need some time and energy, I have to go with whichever characters are talking to me. Today, it was the new menage trio.

At any rate, it’s back to the Monday grind here with a little Marcus and a shameless plug for the Better than a Hot Blogger calendar. Cissa Fireheart sent me a photo! Where is YOURS? I really will start stalking your Flickr accounts. I know where they are after all! Send them to winter at winterheart dot com.

So here’s a yummy Marcus for Monday. I was thinking of him a lot this weekend because I had to write about Alaric and Alexandria. Oh, and I made a Photoshop picture of them again, a baby bump photo. Maybe I’ll post it later this week. Do a Thursday Thirteen on graphics again or something. Oooh, look at Marcus! He has the nicest arms…

Please stop by and visit my new author website!

Have a simply great Monday!

I’ve been in the zone. On Friday night, I wrote a post for Karl’s Summer of Love. I’d been thinking of something short, cute, and amusing all week. By Friday, I was revved and spit out the post… about common courtesy. *sigh* It was a LOT of words.

Saturday, I wrote just under 7200 words and completed the third part of my trilogy for the Pink Chair Diaries. Nick was flowing. He was talking to me. He was flogging the naked girl in the story. *gasp* I have no clue where Nick’s proclivities came from. I had something altogether different planned for him. But I’m writing and writing and the next thing I knew… he was flogging her with a three foot braided leather single lash. I had to make a mad dash for JR Ward’s message board and send a message to one of her admins who lives with a friend of mine who knows his flogging. Several messages later, I had the info I needed. I totally owe Nath and Darrie now. Nath for putting up with me asking Darrie questions through him, and Darrie for the information I needed. The Whip and the Chair will be up on the PCD site next week.

On Sunday, the second part of my trilogy was now begging to be written. Probably because the arrogant wizard Drake couldn’t handle it that Nick’s story was finished before his. Well, Drake’s story was supposed to be a menage. Of course, that didn’t happen either. I sent Justin a twat and asked him if I could use his name in the story. Justin, being the nice guy that he is, said absolutely. By the end of The Wiz and the Chair, some 6500 words later, Justin Scott had tamed the arrogant wizard Drake. I sent the rough draft to Justin to read. Let’s just say that I think he liked it. It will be posted on the PCD site this week.

Monday was filled with edits and revisions. They took all day. Both pieces needed work. I finished long after it was dark… and then I took two paragraphs I’d started on an emotional Bar post I needed to write and finished the damn thing. I posted it around 10 pm, I think. In it, Lex sits down to talk to her father whom she hadn’t seen since she was six, and who she figured was dead. The two of them trying to connect after so many years was a tough write, but it went easier than I thought.

I easily wrote 15K words this weekend and the reason I’m in the zone is because if I had today off, I would make a significant dent in Dream State, a 25K word piece I’m working on to submit to Liquid Silver for their Quick Silver line. Oh, well. Works calls. And tonight it’s horse racing night. Gotta enter my nags in races for Saturday. So no writing for a couple of days, zone or no zone.

I’ll start catching up on blogs at lunch today. I probably won’t be caught up until Thursday because you people are nuts posting every day! I can’t do that. I have totally missed reading you all though. Oh! And I do thank you all for your comments here and at Karl’s on my Summer of Love post. Adam’s was funny and succinct at the same time. I’ll have to post some gay porn for him over here. An XTube link. I wouldn’t want him to be deprived.

Regarding the Better Than a Hot Blogger Calendar, if you didn’t get into the Hot Blogger Calendar, send me a photo. I don’t care what kind. You could be dancing in your Guinness boxers or wearing a tiara on your head or making guacamole. Something that you think represents you and your blog. No voting here. I’ll make as many calendars as I have photos for. Motley and either her ass or her corset will be May. Just email the photos to winter at winterheart dot com. The higher the res, the better. Stretching stuff makes it all pixelated. Give me a few different months you’d like to be on.

And finally, I missed Marcus yesterday. I was busy and didn’t have time to put him up here. So here’s a lovely photo for today since today is totally our Monday.

After all that writing, that photo is totally how I feel. And since I did so well, I totally deserve a hug!

Have a great Tuesday in the zone!

First of all, let me thank Hilly for letting me guest post at her site yesterday. It was a lot of fun and the Cupcake Girls photo amused me all day! Also, I found Certifiable Princess’ comment so funny I had to check out her blog. And I totally laughed my ass off. She’s a lot like my bitch Mary, so I put her in my feedreader and on my blog roll.

It’s Monday and I feel short on time. I’m sitting here in my towel trying to put together a Marcus Monday post for you and I’m running late. It’s been unbearably hot in my house. I’m not sleeping well. In fact, I’m all out of sorts this morning because I didn’t hear the alarm when it went off at 6. I heard it when it went off again at 6:15, which totally threw me into one of those “moods”. I don’t sleep very soundly so I usually am awake by the time the alarm goes off. I went to sleep so late, and slept so poorly that when I did hit the zone, it was early morning and I missed the alarm by 15 minutes. Have I said I hate being late?

Now, I feel off kilter. I dislike that too. I’m sure I won’t stop feeling panicked until I’m at my desk at the office sucking down Starbucks Caffe Verona. Thank god for a nice dark blend of coffee. At any rate, I don’t remember what I was gonna talk about this morning or which picture I was going to use. Maybe I was gonna tell you all how Jen the Redneck Romance Writer has been encouraging me lately. The woman is amazing. She’s a great cheerleader. She got me to sign up for this Yahoo group of authors from Liquid Silver Books. They were tossing out hot book excerpts most of Sunday.

For some reason, this was like a burr under my saddle. All day, I kept thinking, I can do that! So I went to Liquid Silver and looked at their submission guidelines, and pulled out that freaky dream I had that ended with little red monsters… and I started working it into a piece for their Quick Silver line. The hero has a pussy sounding name, but the heroine’s name is… Jen. HEH.

Oh, yeah. I remembered what I was gonna write about! All those excerpts were from published or about to be published authors. Then there were two excerpts that shocked me to the core. The woman who posted them acted like she was just like any of the other authors there. However, the quality of the excerpts was so far below the others that I think I threw up a little in my mouth.

The writing had bad grammar. It had bad punctuation. It had no capital letters. The excerpt was written badly too. I kept thinking to myself, “rough draft” just to give the writer the benefit of the doubt. Then I checked out her website (not a real website but one of those popular places where you have friends and post stuff) and found a post of hers where she said she’d submitted this work to a bunch of publishers and one was interested. Now, I really had to go rinse my mouth out.

To say I was shocked is pretty mild. I mean, we have Bar writers who write in the same unpolished style as this woman, but at least they know when to use a capital letter! I think I got a little pissed. How could a publisher be interested in something that was so poorly put together that I had difficulty following it? It read like someone was on the phone gossiping to a girlfriend!

In the end, I just figured that the woman was blithely spinning along acting as if she was one of the authors in the group, when she wasn’t yet published, and that everyone was sort of ignoring her and her bad writing to be polite. I mean, I hadn’t seen anyone reply to her the way they had to the published authors. So I ended up feeling sorry for her. I wouldn’t have had the balls to post an excerpt from the Bar in a group where the excerpts were supposed to come from published authors. Some people are just oblivious, I guess. It just ended up being a surreal thing.

Anyhoo, here’s a Marcus to enliven your Monday if you’re female or gay. You straight guys may have to wait until Wednesday for some heat. I think I have a naked Keeley Hazell in my photo collection for you. Hmmmn.

Oh, yeah. In anticipation of me getting my shit together with this writing thing, I updated winterheart.com to look more like an author site. *sigh* Yeah, I’m gonna do this. How can I not with such great cheerleaders as the Bar writers, Susan from West of Mars, and Jen in my corner?

Have a great Monday!

Is it Fall yet? Where’s the fog? The clouds? The temps in the 60s? Can you tell what my problem is? Yup. It’s my utility bills. An A/C unit that doesn’t work very well and sits at floor level in my DINING ROOM, plus fans equals a utility bill of $225. Usually the bill’s about $50, or at the very least under $100. This is just insane. On top of that, my gas bill is double too. I think the rates have jacked up, but you know they do that shit and never tell you cept in some tiny ass print some place I’d never find. If I had known the bills would be double and triple the usual cost I would have made provision for that last month, but I didn’t, so now money is tighter than Batman’s shirt.

Anyway, to help combat my misery at the continued humid swelter in my house, here is a Marcus photo guaranteed to make us feel the tropical breezes. I’m not gonna go the dream route again. The last time I did, I ended up with a thought about sand in my ass, which is not the stuff of fantasies.

Yeah, he could so be the poster boy for swimming is fun. Being a sucky ass swimmer myself, I would go to the pool if I could look at that all day.

So last week I started sucking down all the B vitamins, and I worked really hard at tuning out the crap TV that Motley has playing loudly in my bedroom while I’m trying to write. I also ignored the lure of my feed reader. On Monday, I got some work done for the Bar. Tuesday, I got my horse races done early. I missed Adam and Britt’s show because I was in an IM conference with the Bar writers. I did manage to make Karl’s inaugural Talk Shoe show. I got a lot posted at the Bar last week, and the story has now made a significant move forward.

I feel really good about the writing. However, it took me all day today, between Twitter and Yahoo, to get my feedreader cleared out. But I did! And I posted lots of comments! There were a lot of tough subjects covered by the people I read, but I threw my 2 cents into the ring whether it was a popular thing to say or not.

I added people to my Twitter and Facebook this weekend too. I was really glad to see The User Pool on Twitter. Jason X is a really amusing guy and if you know anything about the corporate world, you want to read his blog. You will laugh and laugh! I also added the Redneck Romance Writer. Jen is one of my favorite writers. In fact, I’d bought one of her books long before I ever read her blog. It was a Christmas story… and I loved it. The fact that she likes what I write is hugely flattering to me.

Before I go, I want to give a shout out to one of my favorite hotties. Justin has a very nice photo blog that you should check out at Piczar Photo. I asked for DaveLouis photos and he posted them before going to bed last night. Now, I think I’ll go play a few rounds of solitaire with my Blogography cards. I’ve been wanting to try them out, but I never seem to have the time.

Have a great Monday!