This week I finished a manuscript and put it away to rest. It was HARD to put this one away! I got very close to these characters and I...miss them. Sniff. I hope that means it's good, but what the heck do I know *rolling eyes at self*

Anyway here's a tiny peek at the finished manuscript:

“Dude,” Dylan said. “Your girlfriend is smokin’ hot.”


“She’s not my girlfriend,” Matt automatically replied. “We’re just friends.”

Dylan lifted an eyebrow. “Just friends? That’s why she was asleep in your bedroom? Just sleeping?”

“Okay, yeah, friends with benefits. But still, just friends.”

“Oh ho.” Dylan grinned. “Mondo, dude.” He held up his empty bottle. “Beer me.”

Matt laughed and headed to the kitchen. When he returned with two more bottles of ale, Dylan said, “So you two sleep together but you’re just friends.”

“Yeah.” Matt popped the top of his bottle.

“How’d you luck into an arrangement like that, man?”

Matt shrugged and frowned a little. “Well. It just kinda happened. We were friends for a long time. We worked together at Pancho’s, and we had some classes together at UCSA. It was never more than that, because I was living with Lysett, and Corey was going out with some asshole who treated her like crap.” He made a face. “Corey finally got smart enough to dump his ass, and then Lysett dumped me, and Corey and I started hanging out more.”

“Just friends.”

“Yeah.” Matt huffed out a laugh. “You know that’s what girls always want from me. I’m not a chick magnet like you, stud.”

“Bullshit. That’s not all girls want from you.”

Matt shrugged. “Whatever.” He’d heard it enough times in his life. Women regarded him as a nice guy, friend material but not red hot lover material. “You’re too nice.” “Let’s just be friends.” Yeah, he’d heard it a few times. He and Lysett had been together for years but in the end, she’d dumped him for a guy with two ex-wives and three kids, who’d decided to quit his job to play in a rock band, buy a Harley Davidson, and who she said “rocked her world”. Matt wasn’t a world-rocking kind of guy, and after that he’d decided maybe friendship was the best he was going to get with women.

I started a new book this week but I'm not sure if I'm going to name it here because it got off to a very rocky start for me. This is the second time I've purchased a book by a "new to me" author based on a great review at one of the "big" review sites and been disappointed. Not sure why that is. I guess readers and reviewers (and I guess some editors, since they publish the books) are less concerned about the technical aspects of writing than a writer might be. Which is food for thought and what it means to my own writing, given a number of disappointments lately.

I finished!

Yes, I finished my WIP last week! "With Strings Attached" ended up to be 75,000 words, exceeding my goal by about 5000 words. Then I started going back over it to fix things and polish and edit, and I ended up adding another 7000 words, so it is now 82,000 words. Wow! Now I'm going through it one more time, and then I will put it away to rest for a little while before I send it off to critique partner Nara Malone for her to read. I enjoy revising, it feels almost relaxed compared to the tension of creating something new. And I feel a great sense of accomplishment, along with an impatient feeling of wanting to share this story!

Since that manuscript is now finished and almost all polished, I've been thinking about what to work on next. As usual, I have so many possibilities. I have four stories started and in various stages. I also have several other stories that I've planned out (as much as I plan, not being a big plotter) that I could start on. As usual, I've been in a stage of "wait and see", with submissions out in the world I'm waiting to hear back on, and that could change what I work on next.

And then I did hear from my agent this weekend about the manuscript I'd sent her. She liked it! But...there's always a but!...she had some suggestions for things she thought could be better. So now I know what I'm working on next...

Edited to add: Blogger failed me again! This was supposed to post Friday morning!
Last Friday was release day for Taming Tara so I thought I'd share another small excerpt from that book:

Christ, she was smart. That itself was a huge turn-on, never mind the sexy sparkle in her eyes. Heat curled inside him. “So which is it?”


“What do you mean?” She frowned as she looked back at him. His eyes moved over her smooth, golden skin, her cheeks lightly tinged peach, her eyes framed with thick lashes. Her full mouth gleamed, like yesterday, with a pale shiny peach gloss.

“I mean, which do you want to focus on? The niche market, producing small quantities of high quality olive oil; or expanding your production using new planting methods like high density planting and producing larger quantities of oil.”

Her frown deepened. “I…I want to do both.”

He met her gaze. “You think you can do both? Really?”

She blinked at him. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. “Increasing production doesn’t necessarily mean giving up those high quality oils, those niche markets.”

He kept looking at her.

“Does it?” Her mouth turned down and her eyes narrowed.

“Well, you just said you have high production costs here, compared to Spain and Italy. That limits how much you can produce. Why not focus on the specialty markets then? Do what you can do well.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe we have to limit ourselves to that. I think with new planting methods and mechanical harvesting, we can do both.”

“Show me.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“Show me. Show me how you can do both.”

“Well, I…I…just know it.”

He almost laughed. “Not good enough, Tara,” he said softly. “If you want me with you when you try to convince Tyrone that high density planting is worth the investment, and let’s face it, it’s going to cost up front, you’ve got to convince me first. I need facts and figures and cost-benefits analysis. You’ve got to prove to me you can do both.”

She stared at him and the hint of deference in her amber eyes and soft mouth sent lust slicing through him, making him hard. Oh, man. This was bad.

Then her gaze hardened. “No.” Her brows drew together and she shook her head. “No! This is insane. I don’t have to prove anything to you. Who the hell do you think you are?”

He still just looked at her, using the power of his gaze. It always worked.

She jumped to her feet and stood there. He leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head.

“I’m going to talk to Grandpa right now,” she muttered and stalked out of the office. He watched her go, her cheeks flushed a deeper hue of peach, her back stiff, long slender legs striding across the room.

Adrenaline sizzled through his veins. Holy fucking shit. She wasn’t going to give in without a major battle. He smiled. Anticipation tingled over every nerve ending. She had to be the most difficult woman to master he’d ever met. She was smart and strong and, Jesus Christ, she had him dangerously on the edge of losing control.

He could physically dominate her. He was bigger, stronger—he could restrain her and he could show her that. Too bad that wasn’t appropriate behavior for the office. No, here he had to rely on his wits—intellect, experience, instinct. He had to know her triggers…and he was definitely getting to.

Not a lot to report this week since I'm still reading the same book - Cowgirls Don't Cry by Lorelei James.
This is very unusual for me to take a whole week to read a book! I usually do several in a week. It's not that's it's not a good book either, I'm enjoying it. But I have been writing a lot (I finished my WIP! Yay!) so maybe that's why. And I've got so many good books lined up to read next!

Wow I've been doing pretty good on the WIP this week! I might actually finish another book!

It's so funny but it seems I can't get over the feeling that I might never be able to do it again. I don't know if other writers feel that way...?

As I get closer to the end of the story, I'm more motivated to keep going. I think the hardest part is starting a book - those 70,000 words (or whatever the goal is) loom in front of you like an impossible goal. But when you're at 68,000 words it finally seems doable.

And not only that, when it gets close to the end, like any book, I have to find out how it all turns out!

I said that to my husband on Saturday morning -  I have to work on it and finish it because I have to know how it all turns out! He laughed at me. "Don't you know how it's goign to turn out?" he asked.

Well, yes, I do. Sort of. Of course there's going to be a happy ending. Of course they're going to end up together. And in this case I knew WHO was going to end up together, though I hope readers wonder. :-)
But I don't know exactly how that's going to happen, because it's up to the characters. I don't know what exactly they're going to say or do until my fingers are tapping on the computer keys. And I want to know as much as anybody!

I'm keeping this post short because I've blogged in several places this week about my release today. Taming Tara is out with Ellora's Cave. I've blogged about how this story is a modern-day telling of The Taming of the Shrew. If you're interested in how Shakespeare inspired a D/s story, check out the blogs  here and here).and I also blogged today at Nine Naughty Novelists about the naming woes I had with this book.

As always, if you're a member of my newsletter, I'll give away a copy of Taming Tara to one commenter there - I know it's a busy holiday weekend so I'm going to draw the winner Sunday evening.

Click to join KellyJamiesonnewsletter

I finished It Had to be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. This story turned out better than I expected from the first chapter, with lots of fun and interesting twists and turns that I really enjoyed. Now I'm reading Cowgirls Don't Cry by Lorelei James, always like her books.

Sorry this is a day late - for some reason Blogger decided not to post it yesterday.

 I'm not sure how many words I wrote this past week because I don't always keep track of that. I don't think it was the most productive week ever, but I did do some work on my WIP, which I posted a little excerpt from last week. I also spent some time working on a couple of new ideas, getting them started. This time I'm using a little different planning process, thanks to the workshop I've been taking called The Big Question. In fact, in that workshop I've been working on  yet another idea and planning it out. This process of starting with "the big question" that your story is about works the opposite of how I usually plan a story. Sometimes I have a story idea and sometimes I start with the characters, but I always start the planning process with the characters, developing them and then figuring out plot points that will challenge them and make them grow. With this other process, I have the story question and then come up with some plot points and THEN develop the characters, developing them to fit the story. There's no right or wrong way, but I'm going to try this and see how it works out.

Beth Kery is celebrating the release of her next book Explosive (can't wait to read it!) at her blog and I'm a guest there Monday/Tuesday - some time Tuesday she'll draw for a winner of a download of  my book Power Struggle and she's also having an "Explosive" contest - so come by and find out what my next Ellora's Cave release Taming Tara has to do with Shakespeare!

By samsfadil Flickr

Here's a sneak peek from a work in progress, tentatively titled With Strings Attached:


“Hey if you guys are going to hang out in here, you can help.”  Matt got Corey scrubbing the little potatoes he’d bought at the market and Dylan cutting up the vegetables he’d already washed.

Dylan held up a baby yellow zucchini, not much bigger than his thumb. “Hey, you know what this reminds me of?”

The wicked gleam in his eye told Matt exactly where the asshole was going with that, but Corey turned and looked and said, “What?”

“Matt’s dick.”

“Oh har,” Matt said. “Very funny.”

Corey snorted, though. “As if.” She looked over at the counter where Dylan sat on a stool, and picked up a large green zucchini. Really large. “I’d say more like this.”

Matt grinned and nodded. Dylan laughed. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot you two are friends with benefits. Of course you’d know all about that.”

“You must have been thinking of your own junk,” Matt said, nodding at the tiny squash.

Corey laughed again and so did Dylan. “Bullshit.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about the size of your man parts,” she said, reaching for a towel to dry her hands, the potatoes all scrubbed and in a pot. “Men. You guys are all so insecure about your size.”

“I’m not insecure!” Dylan protested.

“Sure,” she said with patent patronization. “Uh-huh. The more you protest...”

“Hey. You want me to whip it out right here?”

“I dare you.”

Matt held up a hand. “Stop! Not in the kitchen, for god’s sake.”

Happy Wednesday everyone! Last week I finished off my Kristan Higgins marathon with Catch of the Day. I really, really liked it, but it wasn't my favourite, though I'm not sure I could say which one was - really loved Just One of the Guys. Also The Next Best Thing. My only complaint about her books is they end too abruptly - I'd like a little more satisfaction with ending, if that makes any sense at all.

Decided to switch conteporary gears and go with a Susan Elizabeth Phillips novel - and I chose It Had To Be You. Now I've already met these characters in a later book, but that's okay.The thing about this book that really struck me (and not in a great way) is the omniscient point of view in the entire first chapter. Which might also be called head hopping. Holy man, times have changed I think. That really just set me off. Into Chapter Two we seem to have settled into one character's point of view. We'll see how it goes.

The last week hasn't been extremely productive in terms of working on my two "works in progress", though I have continued to work on them. I did write FIVE blog posts however, and did some work to prepare for release day coming up November 26 (Taming Tara). I'm also doing another workshop right now which takes some time and involves homework - gah! And I did some planning and brainstorming on another project I have in mind. I got this idea and I want to try to flesh it out, but I know once I do that I'm going to be tempted to abandon my WIPs and start on it. I keep thinking about priorities and what I can do with these projects and time frames but there's so much that's out of my control as a writer (response times from publishers, response time from agent, whether something will be accepted or rejected, how long it takes to actualy get published after acceptance) it makes it nearly impossible to plan ahead. I LIKE planning so this frustrates me and I have to keep reminding myself, "JUST WRITE".

It's blogtastic Friday!
I'm at The Bradford Bunch today talking about Remembrance Day/Veteran's Day with a true story about my father-in-law that I hope will inspire you.

I'm also at the Nine Naughty Novelists and I want to know - where do you buy your ebooks?

For a Friday sneak peek, here's another little snippet from my upcoming Ellora's Cave release, Taming Tara:

“You want that,” he whispered, bending his head to her. She shivered in his arms. His hand slid lower on her tummy, over the corset, lower…Her pussy clenched hard.


“No,” she said. “That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?”

“I…I want to be the one in control.”

“Why aren’t you with those submissive boys tonight, then?”

She blinked. “I didn’t…they’re not here.”

“There are others.” He nuzzled her hair.

She sucked briefly on her bottom lip. She didn’t want to admit to him last week’s scene had left her feeling let down; as though none of them had been truly satisfied.

“Remember what I told you—the best way to learn is to experience it. Come with me,” his voice cajoled, seduced, his hands caressing her stomach. “Let me show you.”

Heat raced through her, lust sliced through her. Everything inside her yearned to say yes.

The scene in front of them, the beauty of the woman’s submission, the thrill of the man’s dominance, combined with the hard strength of Joe’s arms around her made it so hard to say no to him.

“No.” The word came out like a whimper and he gave a soft laugh.

“Oh yeah, that was convincing.”

Yes I AM on a Kristan Higgins binge! This week I finished off  All I Ever Wanted and immediately bought The Next Best Thing. This one has my heart aching for Ethan. Although there is no male POV in her stories (that I've read so far, anyway) I can see what's going on with him so clearly, which is really well done. Pretty sure I'm going to read another KH book after this...

So how do you like the new photo? I'm kinda liking it!

This past week I've continued working on my two main works in progress, going back and forth between them, and it's been going great! I've been cranking out some great word count, though I did get a little hung up yesterday, so I went for a run and did some yard work. Today I broke through the little writer's block.

Last week I also spent some time working on a plotting spreadsheet. This isn't as scary as it sounds. I've learned I'm not a plotter, or I shouldn't be anyway, because it takes all the fun out of writing when I know what's going to happen. But as I write (this is my own process) I have some looseleaf sheets that I jot down notes about each scene and chapter - the page numbers, whose point of view it's in, a few words about what happens. This helps me pace myself, so I know when I need a hook to end a scene or chapter, so I know I'm not writing too much in one character's point of view, and so I know when I'm getting close to a turning point (which I do plan out ahead). Lately I've been highlighting the character POV with different colour markers and adding in the plot, subplot or secondary plot that's in the scene also with coloured pens, thanks to the last workshop I took.

So I decided to try a spreadsheet instead of paper and it's been working well. I could use it to plot the whole story, but I just use it to do my scene notes as I go. It shows the word count for each scene as well as the TOTAL word count, and I've got colours for each POV and plot line. It has spaces for the scene goal (which I usually know before I write) and a short summary of the scene (which I don't know until after I write it - sometimes those darn characters just take over!) So I'm pretty happy with my plot spreadsheet!

Here's a little snippet from my upcoming Ellora's Cave release, Taming Tara - coming November 26!!

Also you can see the trailer here

      She poured a small amount of olive oil into a plastic cup. “Place it in the palm of your hand and cover it with your fingers to warm it,” she instructed Joe, showing him with a small cup of her own. “After a minute or two, hold the cup under your nose to appreciate the bouquet of the oil.”
     They lifted the cups to their noses.
     “Remember earlier I said the organoleptic properties were taste, aroma, feel?”
      He nodded. “It smells like olive oil,” he said, wrinkling his nose and flashing those appealing dimples.
      She laughed. “Okay. Now place a small amount of oil on your lower lip, and with the tip of your tongue, taste the oil for its degree of sweetness.”
      Oh God. This might have been a big mistake. Watching his tongue come out and lick his full bottom lip was so sexy. She cleared her throat. “Now, sip the oil and taste for spiciness, using the sides of your tongue.”
      She waited.
      “First, what do you feel?” she asked him, watching his face.
      “Mmm…” His dark brows drew down. “It feels smooth…oily.”
      “How about thick? Sticky? Cooling?”
      He shook his head. “Yes. It’s thick and smooth but…not cooling, it’s…warmer.”
      Huh. How about that. “Good. And what do you taste?”
      “I would say this is…kind of peppery.”
       “Wow. I’m impressed. Here, try it with some bread.” She ripped a hunk off a crusty loaf and handed it to him. He dipped it in the oil and chewed on it thoughtfully.
      “It’s peppery and warm, but not really biting.”
      “It’s not making you feel like you have to cough? Not burning in the back of the throat?”
      “I do feel it in the back of my throat, but not like I’m going to cough.”
      “Good. It mellows over time. This is our Arbosana. It’s a perfect complement to traditional, rustic dishes such as bruschetta with garlic, pasta and beans, panzanella.”
      Joe grinned. “Sounds like home. And it’s not pasta and beans—it’s pasta e fagioli.”
      He said it with an Italian roll to the words that was so freakin’ sexy she felt herself melt deep inside.
      Drawing in a deep breath, she poured more oil into a clean cup and they continued their tasting. Watching Joe savor the tastes, closing his eyes to get a deeper appreciation of the aromas and tastes and feel of the oils was a disconcertingly arousing experience. He was a sensual man, obviously enjoying the sensory pleasures of the olive oils. Her lower abdomen grew warm and achy and she squeezed her thighs together.

Except it's Thurday *hanging head with shame at being such a delinquent blogger*

I finished Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. Not my favourite book of hers either. It had a couple of funny moments, but for me there wasn't enough about Mnnie (cute name; get it?). I never sensed the maternal love Becky has for Minnie, in fact they didn't spend a lot of time together and when Minnie has "issues" they hire a professional nanny to deal with it instead of dealing with it themselves. That disappointed. me. I do sense another story coming, though, with Luke reconcilitation with his mother  - any bets?? :-)

I then read another Kristan Higgins books, Just One of the Guys. LOVED this book! Chastity really stuck in my mind, what a great character. Since I liked it so much, I bought All I Ever Wanted, also by Kristan Higgins. Just started it last night. My third book of hers and I'm starting to see the pattern...