Unplugged

I’ve been posting blogs, huh? Are y’all surprised? lol…

I’ve been spending a bit of time unplugged lately. Since the holidays, at least. Very little television, and at times very little interaction online, etc… It’s not much, or not as much as I’d like to do, but it’s something. It’s a chance to recharge my brain. It might not seem like it, but it helps me write, focus, work…better. And didn’t I say I wanted that this year? Some days sure, it seems I’m online all the time, but there are other days it seems I’m invisible altogether.

I spend time crocheting, organizing/decluttering, cooking, playing board games with my family, connecting with them, writing long hand in a notebook.

It helps to step away. My brain is always thinking, always working, but unplugging let’s me think in a different way, a more deliberate way.

For instance, yesterday I had to walk away from my WIP because it took a turn I hadn’t planned on. I paced for a bit, thinking I’d return to it immediately, but I didn’t. Things came to me though, much later… And I’ll be ready to work on it here in a bit.

Yes, there’s more to my work than writing, but right now, writing is it when there’s a problem in the WIP. Other writers work different, this is me. Not right or wrong, just me.

Unplugging. Walking away. Doing something completely different, works. Letting my brain relax and recharge eases the stress and keeps me loving what I do. It won’t make me rich or put me on the New York Times best seller list, but it might keep me healthier, less stressed, happier, and enjoying right now a little more, for a little longer.

~lissa

Thanksgiving and More…

I seem to be doing that a lot lately, huh? Adding ‘and More…’ to my blog posts. But, I have so much I want to say and unless I write 2 or 3 posts in one day, it’s just easier to do it all at once.

So, first of all, to my American friends and counterparts, Happy Thanksgiving.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Family, friends, readers, health (minus the sinus infection I can’t get rid of), writing, a home, freedom… There’s a lot of hardship in our country and in the world and we need to remember the things we do have, the people we do have that enrich our lives and help share our burdens because there are many who don’t have anything or anyone.Be thankful for what and who you have…

If you are not celebrating Thanksgiving today, well, Happy Thursday! smiles…

Onto the more part of my post… Tomorrow I will be participating in a Black Friday blog hop. Myself and 19 or so other authors have gotten together to talk about Black Friday and any deals or shopping tips we may know of. We’re also giving away a Kindle Fire, and most of us if not all of us are giving copies of books and other such prizes. Click here for the details…

There’s also a HUGE holiday party happening over at Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews. A lot of authors with a lot of gifts being given and sharing holiday traditions, memories, recipes, etc… It’s a fun time and it’s going on through the end of December. You should check it out! Click the graphic below if you want see what it’s all about. I’ll be there on November 29th and on December 19th.

I have been writing, but not as much. One of these days, years actually, I’m going to learn that November and NaNoWriMo and I don’t really go well together. I need to stop. I’m not that kind of writer. I wish I were, but I’m not. I want to be, but I’m not sure I ever will be. It’s too much pressure for me. I write differently. Sometimes a lot in a short amount of time and sometimes a little in a very long period of time. It’s gets done. Maybe not on my timetable or your timetable but it does get done.

I will be concentrating in December on finishing up Trouble in the Making for a January release. I had wanted next weekend, but it’s just not going to happen and as I get into December, I want to concentrate on the release of Twisted Up. I am planning a little 10 day party and will give details as they come to me.

Revealed has done well and I’m thrilled beyond imagination at how many of you have written and commented that you want another story in the series. I have a feeling, y’all will keep wanting more as long as I’m willing to keep writing them. 😉 I don’t have a title and I don’t have a cover concept yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll let you know and I’ll get started on it soon.

I will be reworking Sugar Rush soon as well for re-release. I’ve missed cowboy surfer Graham and snarky Jane and look forward to revisiting them. I am still working on Drive Shaft. I’m concerned about some of the business end of it and so while I’ll mull it over, what I want to do with it, what I think is best for you, my readers, I am still writing it. I love it so far… Alli is really out of her element at the moment.

That’s all on the update front for now. I need to get back to cooking… Have a great day, y’all!

~lissa

Mocha Monday – Carnal Ecstasy Sneak Peek

Happy Monday! (Yeah, right!) I’ve not slept well lately and I’m not at all sure how happy I am about that. I am growing exhausted and that’s not a good thing when I need to don the Author Hat and the Promo Ho Corset and Heels!

I am gonna need a lot of coffee over the next few weeks. I’ve been drinking Kona Coffee from Trader Joe’s the last few weeks and damn is it ever good! I am almost out of it, but when I am, I will be buying the new seasonal blend from Caribou Coffee called Lakeshore. I’ll be giving away 1/2 pound bags of coffee over the next few weeks, so, stay tuned! You might win one!

Okay, about today’s blog. I thought I’d give y’all a peek at the blurb for my next Ellora’s Cave Exotika, Carnal Ecstasy due out July 2nd.

If you read Simple Need, at the very beginning there is a bartender. Carnal Ecstasy is his story. It can be read by itself, it is not tightly tied to Simple Need, but, IF for some reason you haven’t read Simple Need, may I ask, why not? Grins…

Here is the blurb for Simple Need just in case there’s someone reading this that hasn’t picked it up yet!

Vinter is not your typical businessman. Tattoos, piercings and not a suit and tie in sight. One-third owner of a bar and a tattoo parlor along with being a bassist in a band, Vinter comes and goes as he pleases. He likes his beer cold, his music hard and his women scorching hot. Until he’s knocked off his game by a suburban doll he can’t stop wanting.

Elise needs a change. In men. The buttoned-up businessmen she’s been dating leave a lot to be desired—in romance, in respect and most definitely in sex. A recent text message from her now ex-lover drives Elise into a popular bar on the outside of town, where she meets one of its owners. He’s just the kind of man she’s never had and definitely the kind she’s always fantasized about. Big, bad and oh so naughty.

Unexpected tenderness. Unimaginable lust. Being dumped has never felt so damn good.

Carnal Ecstasy doesn’t have a cover yet, so, we have to use the coming soon cover from Ellora’s Cave for the time being. As soon as I have a cover, believe you me, it’ll be posted! Here’s the blurb:

When good girls go bad, very, very bad…

The minute Carrie meets tattooed, bad-boy bartender Dallon, her decision is made. He’s the one, her ticket to freedom and a new, independent life. She’s tired of dictates and zero dates and following the path laid out before her by her well-meaning-but-completely-out-of touch-with-her-reality religious parents.

Dallon sees the buttoned-up, full-of-curves woman outside the grocery store and feels the flames of hell licking at his heels. When she asks him for directions to the large, nearby university where she’s starting work, his gut-twisting lust for her doesn’t diminish, but those flames start to singe his tough-as-nails hide.

With the promise he made to himself about not fornicating with anyone associated with the university his father is the dean of about to go up in smoke, Carrie takes the first exit off the Heavenly Highway straight onto Sin Street. She wants Dallon to teach her all the things a good girl should never know and she won’t take Hell no for an answer.

Reader Advisory: What Dallon does with a beer bottle may be illegal in forty-eight out of fifty states…and at least two territories.

So, anyone wanna read it? Hell, with an advisory like that I want to read it and I’m the one that wrote it!

Have a fantastic day and I hope all of you have your credit cards ready for the release of Sweet Caroline tomorrow!

~lissa

The Swing…blurb and excerpt

Two years after his brother’s death in Afghanistan, Jethro’s handmade porch swing business is doing well, his hip injury has healed and he’s still in love with Caitlyn. He knows he should resist her, but can’t, and pulls her into his darkly sensual world of sex and spankings.

Caitlyn has grieved, created a life for herself and has finally come to terms with her need for Jethro, her dead husband’s brother. With no small measure of hesitation, she takes another fateful step toward him, daring him to turn her and their chance at happiness away.

Excerpt:

She got out of the car and walked up the dusty drive to the bottom step of his front porch. He’d known she would come, eventually. She’d taken her own sweet time about it, however, and he couldn’t say he was happy about having been kept waiting. He was tired of living with this need inside when there was an answer, a cure. Albeit a stubborn one.
“Hello, Jethro.”
“Caitlyn.”
She had the prettiest, softest voice and she was a better woman than a man like him deserved. Didn’t mean he was willing to give up the chance to have her though. He was country, she was city and he was the last man on earth she should be with. He was her brother-in-law, she was his dead brother’s wife. They couldn’t do this, shouldn’t do this. They couldn’t be, shouldn’t be together and there were a million reasons why, but he’d be damned if he’d turn her away. Neither of them could deny the feelings. Not when his whole family had known for years, not when his brother lay in the dirt in his arms, telling him it was okay that he love her.
He needed more than the absolution of his twin, more than any church could ever give him, but he’d take her, take her body and live with her contempt after.
“You said if I ever came back through this way, I should stop by.”
She must have been visiting his parents or sister. There was no other reason for her to be in this neck of the woods. “Yes, I did.” He’d said it out of courtesy, fully expecting she wouldn’t, always hoping, knowing deep down she would.
She took one step up then another until she was standing just to the side of him, looking down as he swung back and forth slowly in the double porch swing. Her petite, full-figured body was covered in a pretty yellow and white knee-length sundress. Her feet were clad in a pair of yellow strappy sandals and her toes were painted a bright shade of purple.
Jethro liked looking at her. Always had. She had the deepest green eyes he’d ever seen and the truest strawberry blonde hair that hung down her back in one long sheet unless she had it pulled up in a ponytail like she did today. She had an all-knowing look about her, even though she was soft-spoken and hesitant in her approach toward him.
“Did I come at a bad time?”
“Nope.” He raised his gaze to her chest, to the little nipples poking through the thin cotton of her dress. “You wearing a bra under that thing?”
“Sort of. The dress has the wires and cups sewn in because it’s backless.”
She was every fantasy he’d had for the last ten years. “Uh-huh. Panties?”
She blushed so pretty. “Yes.”
“Take ’em off.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Take ’em off.”
Jethro, I…”
“What are you doing out here, Caitlyn? I told you what would happen if you came back. I told you I’d fuck you and that if you showed up, I would take it to mean that’s what you want too. I told you to come by if you wanted it, otherwise to stay the hell away. You’re here, so take off the panties. I won’t say it again.”

 ~lissa

Mocha Monday – Cover Art Squee…Again!

Good Monday…I think. I’m afraid it’s going to take a while to get used to the time change. Though, it seems to take longer and longer to get used to it each year. Is it because I’m getting older? Probably…
Maybe I can start looking at it different… I’ll consider it! 
I received my cover from Loose Id for my upcoming release Stick Shift. As soon as I have a blurb and as soon as we’re done with edits, I’ll be posting excerpts for you to start sinking your teeth into. It’s a fun, fast paced, sexy story! 
But for now, here’s the cover…

Y’all have a wonderful day! 

~lissa

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