Author Christine d’Abo

Woohoo! Sweet and Spicy Spells is officially out on the EC home page. Having a Halloween release actually come out on Halloween is fantastic. I’m so excited and I want to shout out a major thanks to Renee Field. You are fantastic to work with, Renee.

Go! Read!

And Happy Halloween to everyone! I’ll be going out with my girls tonight…they get me candy….

Yes, that’s right. The insanity of NaNoWriMo is coming and I’m PUMPED! Now that I’ve settled on what story I’m writing, I can’t wait to dive in. Watching my daily word count creep up will do my little OCD heart good.

I love to challenge myself. I think that’s why I’m always looked for something else, something exciting to do. And in a way, writing is the perfect profession for me.

Everytime I sit down in front of my computer to start a new project, I get excited. I dream about my character (especially my heroes ), work on their scenes, hear what they are going to say. It’s a huge challenge to try and create not only characters that are going to interest people, but stories and worlds that will stick with people.

It’s a never ending challenge - and I love it.

Crazy day today, but lots of fun. I didn’t do any writing. I’m going to hit Taber’s story hard starting with NaNo on Thursday. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything though. I’ve been plotting scenes in my head all day long.

Man they were making me hot.

Taber is going to be such a fun hero to write. I just hope I can live up to everyone’s expectations. I guess this means I’ve finally figured out what story I’m going to do for NaNo! LOL!

A few little updates in my writing world. I’ll be participating in a group blog for NaNoWriMo called Creative Insanity. If you stop by you’ll recognize a few of my fellow bloggers who have decided to joing me in the NaNo fun time. I’ll still be posting my progress here, but we’ll be cheering each other on there as well.

I’m also going to be participating on The Romance Studio’s blog. This is a great site and there has already been some fantastic posts. Please try and stop by to check them out. I’ll let you know when my turn is coming up.

Lastly, I just have to giggle. I got my author copies for Sweet and Spicy Spells today. Man, I got excited all over again seeing them. The butt on that cover is so….*drool*

I’ll be back later tonight with a longer post, but I wanted to let you all know that I’m posting over at Six Degrees of Sexy today. Please stop by and say hello!

Oh boy did I have a good writing day yesterday. I didn’t plan to either, things just sort of happened. I sat down and was going to do some planning for NaNo and instead thought I’d peck away at The Bond That Consumes Us (Taber’s story). Well a few hours and 4678 words later, my husband pulled me away to watch NCIS.

Wow. Once I got into Taber’s head yesterday things started to really click along. He’s easily one of my favourite characters, and it’s great to finally be in his head and getting his thoughts on paper. And his girl, well, she’s a spit-fire bartender who’s going to shake him up big time. I have company visiting today (they are playing the Wii so I thought I’d sneak off to write this) and can’t work on this until later.

Most of my writing goals this week are going to center around NaNo:

• Write 2000 words a day for every day of NaNoWriMo

Basic, but straightforward.

Now my dilemma is this…for NaNo I’m supposed to start a brand new story. I’m only on chapter two with this one. Should I stop and not start again until Thursday, or work on this like crazy until then and start my urban paranormal for NaNo. ARRGGH!! Bond That Consumes will be 70,000 plus, so I’m not worried about not having room for the 50,000 words I’ll need for NaNo. But I don’t want to cheat either.

What do you think?

…till the release of Sweet and Spicy Spells!! OMG I’m so excited about this one coming out. I have to say working with Renee Field on this story was a fantastic experience. Not only did it force me to be organized and actually plot out the story, but it was amazing to be able to brainstorm with another writer. The ideas came so quickly and easily that it almost wrote itself. If you haven’t checked out Renee’s stories before, you should. You won’t be disappointed.

*does the snoopy dance*

Here we are at the end of my first week back in Ontario. It’s been interesting to say the least at my EDJ. That said, I really love my new position and think things are going to go well.

Now as far as writing goes, I haven’t done a thing in two weeks. No, I’m not beating myself up over this, but I really want to figure out a way I can get some writing done while we are running on this insane schedule for the next two weeks. And with NaNo starting next week I really need to figure out a way to work everything in. So I’m thinking I’m going to have to start getting up extra early in the mornings again to get at least an hour of writing in before I head off to work. I can try to get an hour in at lunch (not likely, but a bonus if I can make it happen) and then an hour after supper. If I don’t stop to check my email, blog, surf, etc, I can average about 1000 words per hour.

So that is the plan going forward from next Thursday on.

This weekend I’m going to take a look at some basic plotting. Believe it or not, I’m still dithering between writing Taber’s story (The Bond That Consumes Us) and my urban paranormal (Heaven’s Gate). Honestly, I think I’ll only know the day before the start of NaNo. Taber keeps popping into my head these days, so he might win me over…

This weekend I think we are going to hit the market and get ourselves reaquainted with the city. Really, I just want the time to rest and relax. What are your plans??

I LOVE candy. Love, love, love. I have a big bowl of it sitting on my desk at work and love to snack on it all the time. So it goes without saying that Halloween is one of my favourite holidays. No pretense - it’s about candy, dressing up and fun. For my Thursday Thirteen this week, I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite candies.

1. Fizz

2. Pixie Sticks

3. Rockets

4. Laffy Taffy

5. Popeye Sticks

6. Caramel

7. Chocolate

8. Swedish Berries

9. Candy Corn

10. Pop/Soda

11. Bottle Caps

12. Suckers

13. Tootsie Rolls

For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m not much of a plotter when it comes to my stories. Now for the most part, this works well for me. But I’ve noticed when the stress in my life begins to build, I don’t work so well by the seat of my pants. Which leads me to my current state of affairs.

NaNoWriMo begins next month. Yes, I’ve known this has been coming, and yes, I’m still super excited about it. I need this kind of structure to get me going again on the writing front. This move has been a bit stressful, and starting a new position on top of that has only added to things. But I feel calm and relaxed when I’m writing.

So I’ve decided to plan out what I’m going to write this week for NaNo. Having a basic plot that I can fall back on will really help me next month, and will help elimiate the stress if I get stuck. And the less stress I have in my life over the next few weeks, the better.

I’m also bouncing because I realized that Sweet and Spicy Spells comes out NEXT WEDNESDAY!! I can’t wait for this release. I had so much fun writing it with Renee. I’m going to try and run a little contest on Wednesday to celebrate. Keep your eyes peeled.

I had some great news today. I sold the second book in my Bond series. The Bond That Heals Us will be coming out in 2008 from Ellora’s Cave! I’ve been doing the happy dance all afternoon since I found out. So for all of you who have been asking for Sara’s story, you can look forward to it soon.

My first day on my new job went well, but I’m beat. It’s a big change for me, but I think it will all work out. My poor team will have a crazy manager LOL!