So in 70 days, my first NY single title releases from Berkley Heat. I’ve been doing this writing gig a while now (sold my first book just about 4 years ago this month) so I’m not a noob when it comes to promotion but this is on a whole different level and the timelines are farther out so I’m working with to do lists and trying to keep myself in check.

Today my husband took 12,600 bookmarks in four heavy boxes to the post office to mail to RT magazine. That little project had me making 700 rubberbanded packages of 18 bookmarks each. I did them here and there over the last six weeks. And then the ads, just took care of some online stuff and the print stuff has been done for a while. I got bound galleys so I‘m running a contest at my blog for those - have you entered yet?

I have no idea of any of this stuff really works, but it keeps me busy and obsessing less, which anyone who knows me will tell you is a good thing. I want this book to do well (obviously) and so I spend a lot of time alternating between angst and brainstorming up ideas (while doing laundry, making lunches, dropping kids off at school and all that jazz)

I’m really proud of this book. I came up with the basic idea for what was then called Battlefront in 2006 but didn’t really get to it until mid 2007 when my agent finally pitched it. I was thrilled when Leis Pederson at Berkley wanted it. Berkley is one of my dream houses and I’ve not been disappointed in them yet. each new step has been wonderful. First the blurb, then the cover (which I still stare at to this day) and the overall book design, which is simply gorgeous.

I’m a lucky woman. Even on days like Friday when I seriously wondered just why I ever thought parenting was a good idea, I know I’m lucky. My life is filled with ten thousand kinds of wonderful. From my family and friends to the good fortune I’ve had with writing - my life is good. Even if I know I will be a maniac the closer December 2 comes, LOL.

Oh!  Undercover is a futuristic erotic romance (with some BDSM elements and some mild MM but the focus is Sera, the heroine). It’s a Heat book so for those of you who aren’t aware - HEAT is an erotic line so the sexin in this book is described in detail with all the “words” you’d expect in an erotic romance. (I just say that up front because apparently someone was surprised by the level of sexual detail in the book)

Here’s the blurb:

A sexy debut exploring an erotic future universe of passion, danger, and deceit…

On the battleground or in the bedroom, one woman and two men fight for dominance in a bold, new, and excitingly different direction in erotica…

As a lieutenant of the Federation military, Sera Ayers is accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. Now she must obey the one man she can’t stand—and can’t stop thinking about.

With the enemy Imperialists gaining ground, a covert team is assembled by Ash Walker. Ten years before, Sera had lovingly submitted to Ash’s dominance in the bedroom. But when he was forced into a political marriage, she refused to play mistress. His marriage now over, Ash wants Sera on his team—and back in his bed.

The third team member, Brandt Pela, has an elegance to match Ash’s savage sexuality. And when their undercover plan requires Sera to pose as Brandt’s lover, it ignites a passion among the three of them more dangerous than their mission.

I’m beginning to see some reviews come in (nail biting time) and so far so good!

April says: There are not enough words in the english language to describe how fantabulous this book is. It show the true development of emotion between the three main characters. Yet it is so steamy I thought it would burn the pages

Terri at Night Owl Romance gives Undercover 4 hearts and says in part:  This book kept me up way past when I normally go to bed at night and I couldn’t wait to pick it up again in the morning.

Chrissy Dionne at Romance Junkies gives Undercover 5 blue ribbons and says in part in an early review to go live in November: Wow! This book rocks! Lauren Dane pulls out all the stops with this soul searing, awe-inspiring read. Sera is a ballsy kick-ass character whom I absolutely love. Ash and Brandt are dominant men and each is a member of a ruling Family, which adds an extra complication and emotional aspect to the storyline. Sera’s feistiness really cracked me up but she also has an emotional vulnerability to Ash and Brandt that drew me into the relationship so that I felt like I was there watching as each scene between them played out (and believe me there are some scenes that heated my face and left me tingly all over).

UNDERCOVER may very well be Lauren Dane’s best work to date. Definitely a must read and deserving of a special spot on the keeper shelf.

Anyhoodle - life is good even if I am all angst girl. I’m managing not to eat Top Pot donuts all day while I obsessively look at Amazon - well for the most part anyway. Don’t forget to head over to my blog to enter my ARC contest if you haven’t already!

So yesterday I typed the last line in my first draft of my upcoming Spice Brief, working title Everything Changes. This story, mind you, won’t see the light of day on teh internets until 2010. And yet it’s finished, all but for the last bits of of polishing.

Wow.

I’m looking at a schedule that takes me out until 2011. Dudes, I can’t even imagine 2012. Won’t we all, like, have flying cars and download books right into the implanted memory chips we all get when we’re in utero?

In 2011 I’m going to be 40 years old, people. I’ll have a teenager. How on earth can I write something now that will still make sense to me in 2011!!!!

The short answer is, of course, that I won’t. I won’t write the books coming out in 2011 until, oh, 2009 and 2010. And by then 2011 won’t seem so far away, you know?

But this story, this short Spice Brief, is interesting, because I’m writing it now, it will come out in 2010, and it’s actually taking place in 2008, the year Tempted came out (because the short story is Alex’s version of the events in Tempted) and I actually WROTE that book in 2006.

Okay, now I’m losing track. Talk about a mind-hump. It’s like time travel only without the funky machine and the Morlocks!

Basically what it all comes down to at this point is, just like that blue fish in Finding Nemo, I’m gonna just keep swimming. Just keep writing, just keep writing, keep writing, keep writing!

I used to keep a notebook marking my progress — 5 pages one day, 3 another, etc. I love to look at that notebook, because it was a daily record of what I was writing and how fast or slow, or what I was doing. I don’t do that  now, because I blog online. I should get back to that notebook, though. There’s something satisfying and nostalgic about going back and realizing, wow, I wrote this book or that story in this time of my life. 

Of course, I could read the books and tell from hidden clues what was going on in my life at the time (favorite songs crop up, or little events like going to the circus, or watching a television show — they happen to me, they end up in the current work.)

That’s my ramble for today. Now I have to get to writing!

M

With apologies to Madonna… *grin*

So, yes, in case you hadn’t heard, I’m back from what some might call the “trip of a lifetime.” I think it was the trip of a lifetime because I’m not sure we’ll ever do it again. It was fabulous, wonderful, exciting…um…long…but overall a great trip that gave me oodles of inspiration and research!

So, now I’m back, the kids are back in school and the man I live with is back to work. One might imagine I would be pounding away on my keyboard, typing typing typing. 

Alas, this is not the case.

First off, the laundry we brought back after two weeks (and I even did a couple loads at one of the campsites!) was, literally as high as my waist. It was bigger than a first grader, lemme tell you. Then there was the school shopping we didn’t get finished before leaving for the trip. Oh, and a trip to IKEA to pick up some bookcases for Superman’s office and a chair for mine…so he’d have a place to put all his stuff I told him to get out of my office when I redecorated/organized and I’d have a place to sit…to write.

Yeah.

So the slipcover for the chair is missing a piece (the one you sit on!), the phone service we just switched to before the trip is wonky, one kid had to have a tooth pulled yesterday and the other one fell off his scooter over the weekend which meant a trip for x-rays and now one to get a cast put on his wrist.

Did I mention I had the bright idea of putting together a photo book for the nearly 2,000 pictures we took on this trip? Since they’re digital I wanted to have something to hold and look at and show around, and uploading them all to make prints was too much effort. But um, yeah, 2,000 pictures take a long time to organize when you consider I wanted to add text and commentary — and yeah, it had to be done soon, before I forget where we were and what we were doing!

Nonetheless I managed to get started on my next Spice Brief, tentatively called Everything Changes. It’s a short story told from Alex Kennedy’s point of view, about his feelings about what happened in Tempted. I started three times because I couldn’t get a feeling for the style — first person present was what came out first, but I thought first person past tense might be better, and then I chucked it all and made it third person past tense. I got 10 pages done, but heck, with all three versions is should count as thirty, right?

RIGHT.

So I’m back but not quite on track, and I’ve decided that’s just the way it goes when juggling motherhood, wifedom, household goddess status AND writerly pursuits. Never enough hours in the day to get it all done. And I guess I won’t complain too much because heck, I’m still doing what I love and getting paid for it, and I’m not the one who fell off a scooter and broke my wrist!

Have a great day, everyone!

M

The Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

So many good tihngs to celebrate for me of late. Finishing books, editing, book releases, some personal retail therapy treats…

I finished the first draft of Outshined and starting tomorrow I’ll begin to revise it. I love finishing a book!

Cascadia Wolves: Fated released on the 19th from Samhain and so far it’s been getting some wonderful reviews and I’ve recieved a number of reader emails about it. I’m glad - it was one of those difficult books to write but I’m pleased with how it turned out.

On Tuesday the 26th, Reading Between the Lines releases in trade paperback!  You can check out an excerpt over at my blog, I put one up yesterday.

I also picked up some new makeup - because even just a small bit of retail therapy can make a girl all warm inside. I decided to try the Bare Escentuals Buxom lips full color gloss in “Stella” which arrived on Thursday and I love! Instead of a sponge tip it has a brush, which is not good for quick application without a mirror, so that’s a drawback. However, it lasts forever, it’s not painful like some similar products can be with more peppermint than capsicum and the color is flat out luscious. With the little brush it’s like a treat to put on, slow and precise. I like that.

I also ordered a custom made bag from UniqueNPersonal so I can’t wait to see what it looks like! The price was very reasonable for a custom bag, I have to say.

I’ve got Wanderlust and Everlasting Bad Boys on pre-order to read so I’m thrilled about that and I’ll be starting to run some ARC contests for Undercover very soon.

Enjoy your week, I hope it’s filled with some wonderful moments.

Lauren

I’m pretty straightforward about writing. At its best, it is truly magical but most of the time it’s a matter of hard work and perseverence. I don’t personally subscribe to the idea of muses or of a lot of writing rituals. Most of my writing rituals revolve around notebooks and colored 3×5 cards with character notes and story points on them, LOL.

One thing I do truly subscribe to is that each story has a good sense of itself if you just let it. By that I mean, I can plot a story and I usually do have a somewhat solid structure in mind when I write, even an outline in many cases these days because when you sell on a partial or a proposal, you need to sell the idea so you have to write an outline of some sort. So I can have that outline but I know, as I write, things will reveal themselves to me that I had no idea of at the outset. This is something I can’t plan ahead on, it’s something I personally find magical and I never know what or when it will happen in any given story but it always does in some way.

Most often this is about character details, things I didn’t know about my characters until I began to write them. Liv Davis in Chased for instance - I didn’t know her mother had died when she was young and that she’d walled a part of herself off because of it. I didn’t know it until I got about halfway into the writing and it just came out. It happened to me recently with Relentless when I got to know Abbie and her real motivations, who she really was, came to me. It changes the book, layers in it ways you can’t plan in advance.

That’s the beauty of the creative process, it’s like alchemy and I truly love it when it happens. Well sometimes I get annoyed because I’ll have to go back and alter the earlier stuff to adjust for something I learn later on, LOL, but still, it’s wonderful and I love it.

Right now, I’m writing Outshined, a contemporary erotic romance for Berkley and something I hadn’t planned on AT ALL just jumped at me so many times, no matter how many times I tried to fend it off, that I’ve finally given in and let it happen. I now have to hope it works, LOL. Sometimes you have to fight off a story idea that tries to invade your book but other times, I give my story her lead and in the end, I think the story is better for it.

I’m nearing 64,000 words so I’ll let you know when I finish the first draft and go in to edit.

BTW, you have until noon pacific today, August 11 to enter a contest at my blog to win a copy of my upcoming Cascadia Wolves book - Fated.

So I came to the conclusion I have no time to be an author and, therefore, I should just give it up. But then, after several weeks of moping over that heinous thought, a good friend pointed out that I was simply experiencing the same summer fizzle which I go through every year. She also threatened mass injury if I did stop writing, so it appears I won’t be quitting after all.

The whole summer fizzle thing definitely resonates with me. As my stepson isn’t at my house any more in the summer than other times and my daughter goes to preschool year round, it isn’t the kids at home that is the issue for me. It’s the light and brightness. The draw of the morning sunshine and the breaking dawn wonder and stillness that I know will be gone with the coming of the fall and winter months. Oh, the dawn still breaks and often glorious, but the ability to step out on the porch in my sleep shirt and nothing more, and draw in a breath of fresh, warm country air will soon be passing. And the light is an issue because my daughter can’t sleep if it’s light out. I can close up the house to utter blackness and her inner light vamp somehow still knows it’s light out and she must be up and “entertaining” mommy….in other words the writing time, which is only ever at night, goes kaput.

In the midst of this summer fizzle, I stopped the other day to find I had a new book release. I honestly missed its release day. I knew it was coming, then it blew past and it was a few days later before it occurred to me it had come and gone. Wow, that is so not like me. I must be fizzling more than usual this year. Anyway, the book in question is Sweet and Sinful, my latest out of Kensington Aphrodisia. When I got the cover art (see pict above) for this book, I wasn’t sure what I thought. Hot or just cheesy? Honestly, I still don’t know. I do think it’s cheesy, but maybe it’s also hot…enough so to outdo the cheese?

Speaking of covers and the like (and, yes, this is a jump in topic, but my brain is fizzling as well), how do you feel about receiving cover art and bookmarks in the mail? Not really talking about from an author you enjoy here and are on their reader list for that reason. But, rather, do you like it when authors you enjoy send other author’s material to you with their own? I ask as I often pick up various items at conferences. The marketing specialist in me is in love with anything shiny and bright and printed. But then, I get home and realize I have way too much stuff to contain. So is it good to share it, or is that cheesy, too?

~ jodi

www.JodiLynnCopeland.com

I was thinking about milestones today. How excited I was when my books first became available on Amazon.com because it was a milestone — it was a place I could say, hey, find my books here. You couldn’t find them easily in the stores but you could get them online.

When the books started becoming available in brick and mortar stores? Wow. Talk about a milestone. Now not only could people buy my books online they could actually walk into the store and find them on the shelf.

So what’s next? What do I look forward to? 

Finding my books in grocery stores and airports. Seeing someone reading one of my titles on a plane or at the beach. Getting a review in a major national magazine. Hitting a bestseller list.

Will my life be complete if I don’t make these milestones? Sure. Of course. It doesn’t mean I’m not successful. It just means I have something to look forward to.

Every step of this journey has led me higher, and when I look back at every step I remember how exciting each one was. I hope I never lose that excitement, no matter how small or vast the leaps. Every step, every milestone, every level I reach — I hope it’s as exciting and breath taking as the one before it.

In other news, go check out www.danehart.com or www.bringmemyhookah.com — Lauren and I have launched a our brand-new, multi-media site for our video blogs, both joint and individual. We’re having a couple contests to celebrate, so stop on by!

M

I actually made this yesterday but as I’m deep in edit country, I’ll toss it up here for your enjoyment. Or something, LOL!

Oh, the joys of multi-tasking. So I’m sitting here, writing some Pleasure and Purpose (my book for Berkley Sensation) and it’s going along swimmingly. At the same time, on the same computer, I have a little video window open, and I’m watching Queer as Folk! Mmm, mmm, I love me some Brian Kinney.

Funny thing is, I’m actually getting more work done while watching Brian than I was before I turned him on. Heh. Boy, I wish I could. Turn him on, that is. Yeah, yeah, I know he’s fiction but…did I mention I looooooove me some Brian Kinney?

As Lauren and several others have pointed out so recently, it’s summer. This means I spend a lot of time during the day wrangling kids and running kids around and doing stuff with the kids and playing Wii with the kids…and generally, you know, being a mom. Which means at night, I write.

And finally, finally, after months of struggle, each word like pulling teeth…this story is…

Sweet.

Oh, it’s sweet. It’s like eating candy, licking syrup from a lover’s lips, standing in sunshine after too many days of rain, waking in the night and knowing the alarm won’t go off for another six hours. I’m enjoying it. The words are flowing, the story  makes me happy.

So I’m gonna type type type, type type type! And finish this story so I can go on vacation in a few weeks with a clear conscious! Yay!

And now I’m off to drool over some more BK and write my Mary Poppins Handmaiden — I called her Mary Poppins, you see, because just like MP she swoops in and is all “CLEAN UP THIS MESS, SPIT SPOT!” and the mess gets cleaned up. My goodness, I wish I could be that commanding and be OBEYED!

But isn’t that the joy of writing? Living vicariously through our characters, even for a few minutes? Wheee!

Okay, so it’s late and clearly I’m tired, and Brian Kinney is making me a little giddy. But so is this story, and I can’t tell you what a relief it is!

Yay for me! Yay for dominatrix Handmaidens! Yay for QAF! Yay for late night writing! Yay for summer!

Tell me what you say Yay! About and I’ll put you in a drawing for a signed copy of Tempted.

I know you all have one but…it’s all I got.

M

Out of all the parts of a story I might find myself struggling to get down, it’s always the beginning that leaves me obsessing for days, if not weeks. I just want it perfect. Something to grab the reader and keep their attention engaged till the chapter end and hopefully long after. Of course, I realize what grabs one reader might not grab the next. But perhaps there are certain elements that are more liable to gather a stronger audience in short order.

I would love to know what grabs you? What kind of story opening is most likely to get you reading and keep you reading? Are you a fan of the opening murder scene? Perhaps a steamy scene that starts right in the heat of the moment? Or a life altering decision?  Do you like a bunch of narrative up front so you know the characters ASAP, or would you prefer to get to know them over time and instead have the story be what starts out ASAP?

I just got my hands on author copies of Sweet and Sinful, my next Aphrodisia which is out in mid to late July. From all those who comment, I will select two winners to receive signed copies. One thing, It is an erotic romance, so if you do win, be prepared for plenty of steamy heat!

~ jodi