Serafine Laveaux's Blog

As I fumble through the last few chapters of the first book I've actually finished in over four years, I question my arrogance in thinking anyone will want to read anything I put out after being invisible for so long. Perhaps this is why I'm so consistent in starting books but never finishing them. The fear of not just rejection but total dismissal is a powerful one. Safer to set aside and start anew than finish what I start.

My husband jokes that he is going to take a cue from the men in my books and spank me until I finish something. We laugh, but I'm not entirely sure he's joking these days.

Little Nikki's picture stares back at me from my screen, begging me to finish her story so she can share it. She's quite a precious kitten, and impossible for me to say no to for very long. I've already missed my self imposed deadline to get her wrapped up and sent to the publisher by a couple of weeks, but she and I can smell the ending now and she's giggling with glee.

Has it really been a year? Holy crap time escapes! I admit a degree of shame in seeing my badly neglected blog, though I will plead pain and suffering as part of why I've been so amiss.

A precious few of you know that 2014 was a year of change for me. BIG change, almost as big as my hair underwent from the big Texas do of 1986 to the super long, super straight do I currently sport today. For those of you in the dark I'll try to be brief.

1989 - broke my back
1989-March 7, 2014 - constant pain, hydrocodone addiction, cold turkey, debilitating pain, depression
March 7, 2014 - went primal. Think paleo but with dairy.
March 24, 2014 - no longer needed asthma meds, pain meds, acid reflux meds.

Apparently I had some sort of allergy to gluten or grain or whatever it was that I stopped eating, and when I quite eating whatever it was, the chronic inflammation around my back at last subsided. My asthma retreated, and so did the acid reflux. Cue the singing of angels please.

In May of 2014, 20 pounds lighter and able to move without pain for the first time in decades, I did something I'd always dreamed of doing. I signed up for MMA classes. Tae Kwon Do. Boxing. Ju Jitsu. Hapkido. Even some Krav Maga.

By July I was another 20 pounds lighter and sporting a yellow belt. Not bad for fat old dame. But a new problem had cropped up. The pain in my spine had been replaced by bursitis in my right hip, and if I thought the back had hurt boy was I in for a treat! I did everything they told me to, took time off from the gym, took pills, did special stretching, got shots in it, nothing. Finally I had an MRI done in December.

As it turns out I have bulging discs between every lumbar vertebrae. They bulge to the left, which probably explains why I tend to slouch to the right side when I sit at my desk. The slouching and sitting is what they think caused the bursitis, and baby it ain't going nowhere.

I'm still in MMA training, though I must rely more on fakes, treachery, and a sledgehammer left hook than on speed and fancy footwork. I learned how to do a flying side kick. I can knock your ass out while wearing pink gloves. And I've dropped a total of 65 pounds which, yay me. And I'm writing again, or typing as it were, but at a much slower pace thanks to balancing my laptop on my lap rather than at my desk with my beloved ergonomic keyboard.

I ordered a lap desk with cooling fans, and I'm writing again. 3500 words a day... except for today because I spent 4 hours refinishing two chapters and another hour playing Pepper Panic.

Here's to 2015.

From an early age I was always drawing. If there was a pencil or crayon or bleeding thumb available, rest assured I'd put it to use sketching. The majority of my work consisted of horses in various poses, though I'd draw any animal if the fancy struck. As I got older I began entering my best pieces into local art competitions, mostly 4-H and state fair ones. Why I don't know, because I was always extremely protective of my art. I wasn't drawing for ribbons and I certainly wasn't doing it to hear criticism. Perhaps I wanted to hear serious approval; the best I ever got from mom was "cute" and that always set my teeth on edge. After all, I wasn't drawing fluffy fucking bunnies with rainbows and unicorns.

Over the years I wound up with boxloads of ribbons, lots of seconds and thirds, but never that damn blue. The blues and best of shows always went to full color pieces. Mine were always charcoal and chalk, or pencil. For some reason color eluded me, and back then (or at least where I was entering) the divisions weren't broken up that far. They simply lumped it all in by age group. So, I did what any arrogant, yet slightly insecure artist would do when faced with the realization that their best will never be good enough for others.

I quit competing.

Oh I didn't quit drawing. I just quit showing it to others. And eventually I learned how to handle color. Case in point. :)

My writing goes along the same lines. I do it because I have to, not for the ribbons. My best may never be good enough for others, but sometimes it's good enough for a handful. If it weren't for you precious few, the ones who leave lovely reviews and who buy my books, I'd quit competing once again. So thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate you.

Growing up I hated the color pink. Much of this was a result of having Flo "Kiss Mah Grits" Castleberry from Mel's Diner as my only source of pink-wearing-redhead inspiration. The "pink is for girls" mentality of the day also turned me hard against the shade. Determined to hang with my three older brothers, I denounced pink and all it's incarnations and declared blue to be my favorite color.

It wasn't until many, many years (ok a few decades) later that I began to embrace the hue. It started with a pair of pink stilettos that went oh so awesome with my faded, torn jeans. Then a set of pink rhinestone bangle bracelets came on board. A pink ankle bracelet. A pink ostrich purse. Pink sweaters for my dogs. I even have a pair of pink tinted glasses for those days I don't feel like dealing with my contacts. Even then, I limit the color to easily manageable accessories. Images of gum smacking, blue eyeshadow wearing waitresses kept me properly wary of otherwise adorable things like midriff baring pink cashmere sweaters or fluffy pink scarfs.

More than once someone has told me I'd look lovely in pink, but they've never seen me sweating it out in 112F Texas heat. My normally ivory skin turns an alarming shade of magenta in such circumstances, and adding a pink blouse to the mix would be criminal on the felony level.

I will, however, happily slap one of these on my Samsung Note 3 phone.

Having a blog wasn't my idea.

Upon learning I'd had some books published, a friend of mine demanded I get a blog up and running at once. Never mind I have the attention span of a diabetic hummingbird, she insisted I needed a blog so I could keep people updated on my every move. Because you know, maybe some day my travels will extend further than the well worn path between my desk and the refrigerator. And gosh darn it, people will want to know!

Or so she claimed. I rarely check my stats but I'm fairly certain the number of people I've helped overcome insomnia barely requires the usual number of fingers and toes to keep track of.

I read other people's blogs and am quite impressed. Blog hops! Guest authors! Excerpts from their books! Free short stories! Competitions! Just looking at all the work they put into their blogs makes me swoon for the comfort of the couch and a glass of Disaronno on ice. I'd blame that on my corset being too tight... but I generally write in the buff so there goes that excuse.

I didn't start writing books so I could spend hours pimping them on social media. That isn't the adult way to look at it I know, but tweeting endlessly about my literary hack jobs just ain't for me. I write stories because if I don't, they'll conspire to pack one side of my skull with tannerite and blow themselves a hole to freedom. Sometimes the sheer number of stories and characters clamoring in my head for release keeps me from writing a single word, because the cacophony drowns out the single voice I'm looking for.

So I'll apologize in advance if my blog sends you straight to sleepytime. I have nothing else to blather about beyond my dogs, our occasional road trips, or some character that's in my head refusing to shut up. If I post at all, it's to share my personal bits with you, and though that's rarely entertaining at least it's real.

Jesus I thought this day would never come!

Much like I was at her age, Abby proved to be exasperatingly difficult to deal with. One minute she was in my head, the next, who knows? Probably off stealing a car or flashing a fake ID in hopes of scoring some beer for the weekend.

Love the cheeky cover Stormy Night Publishing came up with!

In other news I have neglected this blog for over six months, partly because I've been lazy but also because I forgot how to get into it. I have too many passwords and email accounts to keep up with these days. With over six inches of snow on the ground (yes it does snow in Texas) I decided it was time to park butt in chair and do a little dusting around here. Thirteen passwords later, I'm in!

And now that I'm in, I realize I have nothing to say. How appropriate.

As I watch Disciplining Little Josey hold on to the Top 100 Erotica ranking on Amazon, I am dryly amused at how far little Josey has come. The original manuscript was a mere 15,000 words, written on the spur of the moment and submitted to a new publisher to see if they would have any interest. When they came back and said they did like it, but requested I build it up a bit, it was like the dam between Josey's voice and my keyboard burst. I did a complete re-write, adding over 7000 words and a whole new chapter. 
In retrospect I probably could have added twice that, but it wasn't until I came to the final page that it occurred to me I'd just barely scratched the surface of the world of Mr. Green and the mysterious organization he works for. The addition of Abby Willis in my head (I'm becoming very United States of Tara these days) brought a much larger scope to the agency than I'd previously thought.
There's also the fact that while Josey was innocent and childlike and fairly simple, Abby ages into her teens, and like most teens is complicated. She's not only trying to discover what it means to be a little, but trying to discover who she is at the same time. That's hard enough for anyone, but when you're confronted with a drop dead gorgeous Greek guy that you'd do anything to please, it's nearly impossible.
Three chapters and over 15,000 words in, Abby's story is only a third, maybe a quarter written. Already the next girl has shown up, patiently waiting in the wings while I deal with Abby. For now she's faceless and nameless. I feel her in the back of my head, urging me to put off watching Kitchen Nightmare reruns for another day so that I can finish this book up and finally begin to tell her story.
For those who have said they wished Josey's story went on further, I'm sorry. I don't know where she is right now, but I do know she'll be back. Not in this book, or the next, or possibly the one after that, but I know Mr. Green's organization has a special event held every year, that she'll be there to fill us all in on what her life has been like, and that I'll be along to record everyone's stories along the way.
For those of you who responded so wonderfully to Josey, thank you. 

I've been very AWOL lately.

A close family member and her husband had a motorcycle accident at the end of last month that broke a few bones on her and paralyzed him from the neck down. We are grateful that he survived; he was shattered pretty badly and had a lot of complications afterwards.

Buried my dog of 10 years.

And other assorted unpleasantness.

However, some good news arrived last night. My latest novella is out. We finally decided on Discplining Little Josey for the name, and I love the cover design that Stormy Night Publications got for it!

And now we're off for a Memorial Day family gathering to remember those who served, those who lived, and eat bar-b-q.

Next book to come out is a novella, part one of a series of three, that deals with age play. New for me, but had fun writing it. I'm working with a new publisher as well and am eager to see how the cover turns out. Hopefully it will be available early next month. The tentative title is "Mr. Green's Girls", subtitled "Josey Tate" for the main character, but my editor may have a better idea for it.

I took a few days off from writing, partly to let the screaming in my wrists die down to a low whimper, but also to clear my head. I'm going from age play Daddy babygirl back to Dark Angel and need time to switch gears. Dark Angel is about to get reworked as well, going from first person to third in order to allow Joshua's POV to come into play, as well as a few of the other characters that insist they be more prominent in the story. It would be easier to leave it as is, and have it finished by the end of the month, but my gut tells me it will be a superior story if I make the change.

Of course this means I have to go back to the beginning and essentially rewrite the first four chapters that I'd written, re-written, edited, and wrapped up. A painful sacrifice to be sure, but I know I'll be glad I did it in the end.

I don't write well with distractions. I don't know if I'm ADD or just unfocused, but when people keep popping up asking me idiotic questions, or banging pots and pans around, or mindlessly blathering at the dogs, I CANT. FUCKING. WORK!

I have a book that a publisher wants. It needs some changes... actually I've gutted it since they said they were interested. You would think that I'm lucky in that I no longer do the 9 to 5 thing. I'm home all day, I got plenty of time to write, right? 
FUCKING WRONG!
You may not know this but if you are home all day, you are obviously doing nothing important. Never mind the ad you've got to get to your boss in 2 hours, or the report that has to be turned in within thirty minutes. You're doing _nothing_ as far as everyone else is concerned, because you're not in some stuffy office somewhere choking in a tie or Spanx. Everyone wants to stop by and bs the time away. The kid wants to yammer endlessly about how fat so and so's hips are getting and how such and such was mean at lunch. Fifty texts come in, one every five minutes, to entertain you with whatever image your husband just saw on Chive.
When the exchange student finally goes back to Czech (6 weeks, 2 days, 9 hours, 28 minutes) I am moving my office into her bedroom, and I am not allowing the phone in there, and I am disconnecting the fucking doorbell. I will hang a sign on the door that says STFU ALL WHO COME NEAR.
And the rabble will still allow me to get nothing done.