Lexi Dare's Blog

November 20, 2014

It's Alive...

Finally, have my website up. Nothing fancy but it’s been a long time coming. Check it out and tell me what you think…www.lexidare.com
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Published on November 20, 2014 11:12 Tags: website

November 13, 2014

Get it while it’s hot!

Cowboy Blues

Running my latest book, Cowboy Blues, as a giveaway on Amazon this weekend, November 14th through the 16th.

Cowboy Blues is a standalone title featuring a gay cowboy, a straight (ish!) cowboy, and what happens when you combine a long-standing crush, alcohol, a little bondage, and proximity. Nevertheless, not to worry, no cowboys were harmed in the telling of this tale.

So hurry to Amazon this weekend and pick up your free copy. It also contains sample chapters from my other works so plenty for you to read…
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Published on November 13, 2014 15:25 Tags: book-giveaway, cowboy-blues, free-book

October 31, 2014

Suggestion for authors

I will freely admit I am a book pig. I passed the more polite bibliophile about three exits back and many moons ago. I read a lot and as the price of books has gone up, I’m always on the lookout for a way to make my reading dollar stretch and keep the reading monkey on my back satisfied.

When I read physical books, I haunted used bookstores like Half Priced Books here in Texas. At first I used the regular aisles since the books were half priced (hence the name) I could get twice as many. Ah reading nirvana. The stock turned over regularly, so if you shopped there often, you could find what you were looking for eventually.

Well, then I discovered the reduced rack and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Books for a dollar or two a piece. I could fill up a basket and have material for weeks. God does love me, oh yes he does, I would think as I gathered up books like a child on an Easter egg hunt.

In January 2012, my mother gave me with a Kindle Fire as an early birthday present. It took me a while to get the lay of the land, but at that point, the fine folks at Amazon had a link on their front page to Free Books. FREE BOOKS! That was like offering a drug addict free hits of their drug of choice.

I clicked the link and began downloading like crazy. I couldn’t get to everything immediately, but it was nice to know I had stuff to read close at hand at all times. I would go there, pick up five to ten likely titles before slinking back to my reading den to gorge upon my literary kill.

At first, I didn’t understand what the authors were getting out of this letting their work go for no money, but I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Their ‘foolishness’ allowed me to read with happy abandon. Life was good.

I found several new authors that have since become my favorites like the talented Shayne McClendon and the fabulous Pamela Ann. Authors I had never heard of and never would have discovered if they hadn’t had offerings in the free book section. So now, I got it and I started downloading more trying to find my next new literary love.

That’s where the problem started. I downloaded quite a few books and by the time I got to book ten of my latest downloads, I might not remember why I downloaded it in the first place. Unlike my books from the discount racks, there was no, oh so helpful back cover with a synopsis to jog my memory.

I spent too much time going back to Amazon to reread the synopsis, which of course put me way too close to the tempting free books section, which might lead to another spate of downloads.

So my hint to authors? When you’re putting together your eBooks, could you tuck a synopsis or ‘about the book’ in there somewhere? Some authors already do and it helps a great deal when I run across your book in my stash and am struggling to remember the story.

I am in the process of reformatting my books to include one as I discovered I was as remiss as anyone else. Just an suggestion…
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Published on October 31, 2014 08:01

June 14, 2014

Free Book!

Just a heads up my lovelies, running The Distance, Book One as a freebee on Amazon this weekend. So head over to Amazon and pick it up free this weekend.

This is book one of the series which is getting ready to wrap up but the book also contains sample chapters of my other three series so you get a taste of everything…

Don’t have a Kindle Fire? They have an app for that!

Enjoy…
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Published on June 14, 2014 13:26 Tags: free-book, giveaway

May 27, 2014

Read and Return…the bane of the indie author

One of the issues with eBooks is the ease of return. In the days of physical books, you had to trot your well-thumbed tome back into the store, face a cashier, and explain while the book ‘looked’ read, it actually hadn’t been. Most people didn’t bother. However, today, with a click of a button, you can return a book, no questions asked, no embarrassing face time.

The issue I have with returns is not the returns themselves. I mean I get it, money is tight, and if you didn’t like it, you shouldn’t have to pay for it. Okay, the store gave you the option of a sample, which should have given you a taste of the writer’s style but still you took the chance on a book and you really didn’t care for it so you want your money back. Fine. I would rather you get your money back then run all over creation talking about how my book was the biggest waste of money you ever spent so I’m cool with returns…on the FIRST BOOK.

However, what I am seeing lately, since I write series is books 2 and beyond being returned and this is where I get a little suspicious. I mean book one, yeah, you took a shot and it didn’t work for you but by book two you know the ride you’re signing up for so what’s the problem now?

That’s where I begin to suspect ‘read and return’ or using the store as a type of library and that’s frankly not fair. The people who do this are stealing the writer’s work for no other reason than they can. I don’t blame the stores that much as bottom line, if there was not a liberal return policy then a lot of buyers might not take a chance on an unknown author but like all systems there are those who will take advantage of it. I don’t expect this little diatribe to change that but still I had to put this out there.

I write for a living, this is how I pay my bills and support my insane coffee habit. The same way you do what you do to earn your living, I do this. Imagine you’re at work, you do your job, then right as you’re totally up your hours, suddenly hours that you worked and expected to get paid for disappeared from your check. How would you feel? No explanation, no nothing, just gone. For no other reason than your boss had the option of docking your check while still getting the work you preformed.

You can’t get that time back, just as I can’t get my story out of your memory so you’re stuck, just as I’m stuck. It sucks and it’s part of the ‘game’ of being an indie author so I deal with it but I had to get this out there.

Although while I keep saying ‘you’, I don’t actually mean ‘you-you’ since the people who are doing this probably wouldn’t read something like this anyway but again, had to get this out there.

Thanks for letting me vent and get this off my chest. I love what I do, I would just love to get paid for it by the people who are actually reading my work.
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Published on May 27, 2014 18:37 Tags: read-and-return, returns

April 15, 2014

Lexi got some nookie…

Okay, now that I got your attention… lol, let me clarify, it’s not the nookie you’re thinking about, but my books are now available at Barnes and Noble for the Nook reader. (See what I did there? Nookie = Nook? No? Well, I thought it was cute… lol).

Anyway, for all you Nook owners who’ve been driving me nuts asking when my books would be available to you, the time is now, the books are there… enjoy…

You’re welcome…
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Published on April 15, 2014 08:09 Tags: barnes-and-noble, nook-books

March 28, 2014

The Story of a Boy

He was a boy. Young but I was young, so that wasn’t the problem. It was him. He couldn’t have been any less my type if he took lessons in it and he was so quick to tell me I was his. Sucks to be you, I thought, in that typical twenty something year old arrogance.

Of course, I never said that. I was raised better than that and more than that, having been rejected myself a time or two, I wouldn’t be rude. In my mind, there is never a reason to be rude. What I did say was no. A Lot.

“Can we…?”

“Could we…?”

“Will you…?”

“May I…?”

To each and every request came a polite but firm, ‘NO’. No, we can’t. No, we couldn’t. No, I won’t. No, you can’t. No became my mantra and my byword. No matter what he asked, I said no, although I must admit to a certain inward satisfaction in his persistence.

I’m not every man’s cup of tea now and wasn’t back then when I had more youth on my side. I am neither ugly nor beautiful. I’m like a number of women you pass every day. I don’t make an impression, although a number of people think they know me from somewhere. They stop me on the streets or in stores to tell me about it. I’m just me. He wanted me… badly. There was a certain satisfaction in that.

He and I worked in a restaurant in the kitchen. Nothing fancy, part of a chain, one of those that yuppies and families go to when they want something different but not *too* different. He was a cook and I was an expediter. In layman’s terms, my job was to make the plates pretty before they left the kitchen. That parsley you find on the plate? I put that there. You’re welcome.

Anyway, long before the restaurant would open to feed the yuppies and families, the kitchen crew would show up to do prep. We’d prep everything to make sure that when it was ordered, it was there and ready to cook. One of my jobs was to make bacon.

Making bacon in a restaurant when you’re cooking twenty five pound cases, not 12 ounce packages is different than cooking it at home. No skillets here, you lay out the bacon by the sheet on sheet pans and cook it in a convection oven.

Oh, I guess I should describe our uniforms as they do have a bearing on this story. We wore white outfits kind of like the scrubs they wear in hospitals. White in a kitchen would not have been my first choice but the customers seem to like it as they thought it looked cleaner. They’ve done studies on the fact. How do you think White Castle got started?

Well, they didn’t have ‘hippy’ when I started so I got the best thing they had so my pants were snug. Snug is being polite, they were tight. Think skin on a sausage and you have the picture. As I was *blessed* with the thick thighs and round butt of most of my ‘sisters’, I made a bit of a picture.

The top was loose, thank goodness, as Mother Nature gave me a bust to make sure my thighs and butt weren’t lonely. My waist was small and my stomach flat. Not a six pack by any measure of the word, but not a beer keg either. A lover I had later in life described me as ‘lush’ a description I still hold close to my heart when confronted with the slender women that the media say are beautiful.

I was one of two women who worked in the kitchen. Not that that really came into play. In the kitchen my sex wasn’t an issue. Everyone was moving too fast trying to get too much done in much too little time for anyone worrying about what I had under the hood.

Penis or vagina wasn’t the parts they were concerned with, it was hands and feet. Hands to do the job and feet to get you into the position to do that job. Since I had both in working order, coupled with a quick mind and a willingness to do what it took to get the job done, that’s all they were concerned with. Except one person, that boy.

The other woman who worked in the kitchen was proudly lesbian and very butch. Which was fine, but she was a little too butch for my nascent, still closeted bisexuality so when she sent an inquiry my way, I claimed a heterosexuality that would have made Jerry Falwell proud. I’m not sure if she believed me or was thinking about ‘turning me out’, but from time to time, I would catch her giving me speculative looks that I ignored.

Anyway, back to the boy and the bacon. We were rushing around trying to get things set up for the coming lunch rush, short handed as someone had called in. Someone was always calling in, so you would think the managers would plan ahead, but no, they wrote the schedule with the same hopefulness of a kid writing a letter to Santa Claus at Christmas. A hopefulness that said *this* shift everyone would show up. Like that kid at Christmas, they were routinely disappointed, but they weren’t the ones running around trying to pick up the slack.

I was cooking bacon and I have to admit the only thought I gave my pants or my ass was a hope the seam of the pants would hold and keep my ass off display in the kitchen. The convection oven was against a back wall which meant when I was putting bacon in or taking it out, my ass was facing the room.

Anyway, I was on my second case, my mind on the myriad tasks still awaiting me when this flipping bacon was done. I had reached into the lower oven to pull the current batch, when I heard a crash behind me. Stainless steel hit the floor with a rattle that brought instant silence in the kitchen.

I turned around to see who had dropped what and if it was something I was going to have to replace when I saw *him*. He had been carrying a load of empty serving dishes and dropped them, for no reason I could discern. I looked at the floor to see if he had slipped on something, then I looked at his face.

His dark brown eyes were pinned on me with a combination of shock and… hunger. I have to admit it was a little disconcerting. I had never had a boy look at me like that. As if he wished I was a liquid just so he could suck me through a straw. As if he wished I was on a plate so he could eat me.

I guess the shock on my face told him that look was not welcome as he dropped his eyes, then dropped to his knees and began to gather up the serving dishes he had dropped. I watched him for a minute to see what he was going to do next, but he just got the dishes together and took them to the dish area to be washed.

I went back to cooking bacon, but only pulling pans when I was sure he was elsewhere and well occupied. My mind kept trying to drift back to that look, but I had work to get done and no extra brain cells to worry about that boy and that look. ‘He’s not my type’, I told my eager libido, when it tried to chime in with a suggestion to see where a look like that might lead.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was no virgin. I had had a boyfriend or two at this point, but nothing to really get excited about. I needed… *something*, and thus far no lover had delivered it.Frankly, at that point in my life, I didn’t really see what all the fuss was about.

Sex was a messy, awkward business that my partner was apparently getting a lot more out of than I was. The few sexual tricks my boyfriends did know back then, I wasn’t willing to let them try.

‘You want to put your mouth where?’, I told my first boyfriend who tried to suggest cunnilingus. I told him ‘no’, in much less polite terms than I had been using on this current boy. I also stopped kissing him. I knew if he wanted to do that to me, he had already done that to someone else and no way was I kissing a man with pussy lips.

The subsequent lovers hadn’t even suggested such a thing, although they seemed to think it was a fine idea for me to put my mouth on them in that way. Again, the answer was ‘no’, and when they found out that ‘no’ was a firm and unequivocal no, they soon moved on to more accommodating partners. I wished them well.

Finally, the bacon was done and cooling and I could move on to my next task. I walked into the walk-in to get the vegetables for a salad I needed to prep when suddenly the door shut behind me. I turned around to see what was the problem as I had propped it open with a box. My hand would be full on the exit and I wanted a clear path.

I looked at the door and there stood that boy. On his face was that look. Suddenly the walk-in seemed a lot smaller and this boy, whom I had been laughing at and dismissing seemed a lot more intimidating which was quite a trick.

The reasons this boy were not my type were numerous. He was too short, although still taller than me, too light skinned, too slender. In football terms, I liked full backs and he was built like a quarterback. Light and built for speed, which would have been fun if I was looking for someone to chase, but not so great if I wanted someone who could take me down.

“What?” I asked rudely, about to show this boy the crusty part of my ass.

I had been nice up until now and was willing to keep being nice, but I don’t like being intimidated and that’s what this felt like. I especially didn’t like someone who I suspected I could beat trying to intimidate me.

I have two brothers, both of them much bigger than me but one, the one closest in age, and I used to fight like two cats in a sack. My father thought it was hilarious since I was the eldest and for years used to beat my brother’s ass like a big bass drum.

“One day that boy’s going to be bigger than you, then what are you going to do?” my father used to warn between chuckles. He never stepped in as he thought I was helping to make my brother ‘tough’.

Well, that day did come and my younger brother was bigger than me. He was 6’0 to the 5’7” I topped out at and he weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. By this time, our fights had dwindled to twice a year melees when he would get on my nerves too badly.

The day came of our last fight. It started the way it always did. I was a solitary child and spent most of my time in my room reading or writing. Not bothering anyone except, apparently my brother who couldn’t stand the fact I would close the door and stay in there for hours. So he’d start picking at me until I snapped and the fight would be on.

That day he had a confident look on his face when he kept knocking on my door asking me stupid questions just so I’d have to open the door and talk to him. He knew he was pushing it, but he wanted a fight. A fight he finally thought he could win. Well, I won’t go into a blow by blow of our final throw down, but needless to say, I put all 250 pounds of him through a wall.

At that point, my dad did step in as he knew my mother would throw a fit when she saw her wall. My mother was a bit house-proud and no décor scheme was going to cover a big hole in the wall.

“Y’all need to stop that. You’re too grown to be fighting all the time,” my father said before putting my brother and me to work repairing the wall before my mother got home.

You see the one thing my brother didn’t remember is I don’t like to fight. I will do whatever I have to to make it stop as quickly as possible. Also, women don’t fight for show like many men do, women fight to win. This means ‘no-holds barred’ is just a good jumping off place. I will do whatever I have to to get someone off me.

I already catalogued possible weapons in that walk-in when that boy decided he needed to start talking or I was getting ready to start throwing shit and he could explain to the managers about the increased food cost resulting in all the wasted food I was about to start pouring down on his head. I said the boy wasn’t my type, not stupid.

“Look,” he said, “why won’t you go out with me?”

“You’re not my type,” I said, finally ready to stop playing with him. I had been polite as long as I knew how but he was dancing on my last nerve at that point.

He looked at me, frustration and hunger mixed in his eyes. “So you have a type to have dinner with? You only eat with men that are your type?”

At that point, I figured all he had in mind was some talking so my manager’s produce was safe for another day. I huffed at the stupid question. “So all you want to do it take me to dinner?” I asked skeptically. He could say what he wanted to with his mouth, I was too busy reading what was in his eyes.

He opened his mouth to say something and I just held up a hand to stop him. “No,” I said then went back to gathering the items I had gone in there for in the first place. He watched me and I kept an eye on him out of the corner of my eyes. I saw him open his mouth to say something a couple of times then shut it.

When I had my stuff together, I guess he saw his window of opportunity passing and he opened his mouth again. I looked at him and said it again, firmly, in the tone of a mother talking to a misbehaving toddler, “No”. I walked out, leaving him standing there in the cool dim walk in.

After that I avoided him as much as possible. Our jobs were complimentary, but we didn’t really have that much reason to talk to him so I did as little as possible. I came in right as my shift started and left as soon as clean up was done. I avoided the walk in, using the woman who I think wanted to be my girlfriend as my own personal ‘step and fetch it’ to get stuff out of there.

This went on for months and I could tell he was getting frustrated by his inability to even get me to engage in a simple conversation with him. I wasn’t interested and I felt bad about not being firmer in that declaration earlier in the game. I’m not rude and to me teases were the height of rudeness and I hated if he took the fact I didn’t shut him down hard from the beginning as a form of teasing.

One night the restaurant was having a party. We had won some kind of competition and as the prize, the whole restaurant was being thrown a party at a nightclub downtown. I vacillated for days about going as I really wasn’t feeling partying with the same people I already spent too much time with while working. The assistant manager, Sarah, pulled me aside to ask me if I was going and made it clear that EVERYONE was expected to be there. I sighed and nodded.

Since I was obligated, I decided to do the full-on girlie thing. I didn’t wear makeup to work as I didn’t see the point since it would be sweated off in minutes in the steamy hot kitchen and I usually wore my braids back in a ponytail, to keep them out of the way. Feminine wasn’t something that came to mind, but I didn’t go to work to be cute, I went to crank out food as fast as possible then get out of dodge.

But this one night I decided to do it up right. I had a dress I had bought for no real reason than I liked the way it looked and I liked how I felt in it. It was leopard print with a high collar with two buttons, then there was a cut out that put the girls on display… tastefully. It was nipped in at the waist and flared out into a full skirt that hit me at the knees.

I saw this dress in the window of a store and had to have it. Which was weird as I normally didn’t pay clothes that much attention. I walked in, tried that dress on and it was over. Easiest sale the salesperson had all day along with the matching pumps. The dress and shoes went into the closet where they sat for months. From time to time I would look at them and sigh over the wasted money, but taking them back never crossed my mind.

Well, from the description of this club I finally had the occasion to take my dress out for a test drive. I did the whole female thing from the face to nails to hair. My braids which I was wearing to the middle of my back, I left down but pulled the sides back into a high ponytail so they all tumbled down my back like a black waterfall.

I smiled as I got ready imagining the shock on everyone’s face when I showed up looking like a girl of all things. Yeah, in the back of my mind was that boy. He had gotten on my nerves to the point a vengeful part of me wanted to show him just exactly what he wasn’t getting. Yeah, I can be mean sometimes…

I got to the party about 30 minutes after it was scheduled to start thinking I would make an entrance. Well, apparently everyone else had the same idea as there were very few people there. I shrugged that off and went looking for some liquid entertainment when a man in a very nice suit stopped me.

He was about 6 feet, slim built, tanned with gray eyes and sandy blond hair. We chatted and the whole time I was trying to figure out which part of the restaurant he worked in. This was a private party, but you could bring a guest, but I didn’t see anyone he was attached to. The way he was acting the only person he wanted to be attached to was me.

He walked me over to the open bar and got me a drink and we were chatting merrily away. Right when I was thinking he’d do just fine, I saw the assistant manager heading towards us like a heat seeking missile and she didn’t look pleased.

Sarah was an okay looking woman of about 40. She was sturdy, to use a phrase my grandfather used to use to describe the way certain women were built. She had broad shoulders and wide hips, she was built solid. That would have been fine if she didn’t wear women’s suits all the time with shoulder pads she really didn’t need.

She joined the man and I and slipped her arm around his and I got the picture. I took a big step back, the universal sign of ‘I’m not poaching’. He looked irritated and tried to get his arm back, but Sarah was gripping him like he was the last lifeboat off the Titanic.

She looked me over and said, “well, you look… different.”

“Thanks,” I said with a big sunny smile while plotting my exit strategy.

This man was attractive, but not as attractive as eating on a regular basis and keeping my bills paid. I mentally sighed. The problem with throwing out bait is you never know what’s going to be attracted and this time apparently I had hooked my boss’s… *something*.

I knew she wasn’t married, but it looked like she had a groom picked out even if he didn’t look on board with it. How ever they worked that out, it was none of my business so I quickly excused myself to find someone else to talk to. He tried to stop me and I acted like I didn’t hear him. I didn’t need those kinds of complications.

I wandered around for an hour, greeting people I knew and giggling inwardly at their shocked looks. I knew I looked like five miles of bad road at work, but since most of them didn’t look much better, I didn’t sweat it. They looked nice too, without that thin coating of grease which seems to be the cost of working in a restaurant.

After an hour, when I was sure I had shaken off my boss’s ‘friend’, I finally found a table and sat down. My pumps while cute were pinching toes not used to anything other than flats. I sipped my drink and wondering if I could slip my shoes off when my hair was gripped from the back.

The seat I was in had its back to the door so I hadn’t seen anyone come in. I had had an eye out for that boy just so I wouldn’t miss the look on his face when he saw me in all my glory. I started to shake off the hand, thinking it was one of the waiters who liked to play with my braids.

The grip changed to the nape of my neck and I felt every ounce of tension, I didn’t even realize I was carrying slide from my body. A feeling of languor came over me and I remember thinking if this was my boss’s friend then she and I might need to talk. Maybe a timeshare if nothing else.

I smiled as the hand gripped my hair tightened and tilted my head back. My eyes slid closed in this newfound bliss. I had never had this, but this was… nice, I thought. This was *something*. The grip shook my head and my eyes popped open and I found myself staring into the eyes of that boy.

Apparently, while I hadn’t been looking he had arrived and the second I stopped looking for him, he found me. My eyes widened and I pulled my head to get away from his hand. His grip tightened and again, I relaxed. Peace and panic warred in my bosom which he was looking at with approval.

He leaned down and murmured into my ear. “Nice dress,” then he looked into my eyes and smirked as if he knew what he was doing to me. “Let’s go,” he said confidently and I frowned at him.

What the hell, I thought, my bliss shattering like glass. I opened my mouth to tell him how the cow ate the cabbage and his grip tightened again. Bliss like liquid gold poured into my veins and instead of blasting him out of the water, I looked into his eyes and said the word he had never heard from my lips.

“Yes.”
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Published on March 28, 2014 22:29 Tags: short-story

March 26, 2014

Bigger, better, Lexi-er…

When I first started publishing erotica, I did some research on size, word counts, etc. I was new to this field (well, the publishing of it, not the writing… I’ve had a dirty mind for years… lol), and the common wisdom said do this, so I did that…

Unfortunately, ‘that’ doesn’t work for me so now, I’m doing thing a little differently. While my work will still be serialized, I’ve decided on bigger chunks. You know, more bang (pun intended) for your buck. So, I’m working on reworking some of my older stuff and newer stuff will be coming out in a larger format.

Let’s see if size really does count…

You’re welcome… lol.
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Published on March 26, 2014 09:20 Tags: books, erotica, size

March 11, 2014

The Process, Part One

A writerly (work with me, I tend to make up words as I need them) friend of mine encouraged me to blog about my writing process and I almost burst out laughing. Not that I think that’s a bad idea, I just thought calling what I do a ‘process’ gave it a lot more gravitas than it deserved.

My process, if you want to call it that, is simple. The first thing I should mention is I would rather read than write. I love writing, don’t get me wrong, but I tend to head toward the path of least resistance and reading what other people write is easier.
However, I have a muse (don’t all creative folks) and she’s a pushy bitch so she will show up with an idea. Well, again, too much gravitas, she will show up with a concept or a word sketch.

I liken my muse to a snitch for the police and the first time she shows up, she’s heard… something. Not enough detail to make an arrest (write a piece) but enough for her to come see me. I am usually busy, reading or writing, and tell her to go away until she has something solid. So she will.

Then she’s back with a little more. Again, I will send her away until she’s got more. This routine goes on until I finally get my opening line or scene and enough detail to start. Only then will I drag my tired bones to the keyboard or away from what I am currently working on to get it down.

Now just because I start a piece does not mean I will sit and work on it until finished. Sometimes, if I’m busy with something else, I only have time to get down enough to make sure I ‘have it’. Meaning, if I can’t work on it right then, that when I do choose to return, I have enough to figure out where this was going. I refer to these bits as ‘seeds’, as in seeds for future pieces.

These seeds can be anywhere from 500 to 5000 words, depending on what kind of piece it is. Anything less than 500 words and it’s not enough to jump-start the creative process when I have time to work on it. Anything more than 5000 and this is my new project de jour and I’m usually in for the duration. Whether the duration is finished or I’ve written it into a corner or off a cliff, is up for discovery but I’m usually there for a while.

Therefore, you see why I hesitate to call this a process. To me a process is something that can be documented or duplicated and thus far, none of my books have followed the same path. Some I have sat down and written in one fell swoop. Some ended up on my hard drive languishing until I happened to run across them and finally figure out how to finish them.

I envy writers who outline, as I don’t. Nothing against the practice, but my head doesn’t work that way. Most of the time I don’t know where I’m going until I get there. It’s part of what makes writing fun for me and trust me, if this wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it. There are many other unfun ways to spend my time that don’t call for as much skull sweat, cursing or crying. I’m not saying outlines never get done, but that’s usually further down the road or after a piece is finished for editing.

I am a bear about timelines and that’s usually when I will begin outlining to make sure my timelines work as written. If they don’t then this will show up in my timeline and I can tweak things while I edit. A few judicious ‘later that same day’s and ‘the following week’s and generally all is copasetic with my timelines and I can rest easy in that respect. My first drafts tend to read as if the events are happening during the longest day in human history so I have learned to spread the events out when I edit.

So there you have it. My process, if you want to dignify it with that name. I get an idea I sit down and write until I can’t or don’t have time to work on that particular piece anymore. That can either be finished or stuck, but I write as much as I can. The finished are edited, polished, and published. The stuck are tucked into my store of seeds.

Now my writerly friend can laugh at me because I actually took their advice. I hope you found this enlightening and if not at least entertaining. Tune in later for part two.
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Published on March 11, 2014 20:52 Tags: process, writing

February 11, 2014

Opps, spoke too soon...it's twins!

Just uploaded Four-Play, a taste of Lexi Dare here at Goodreads for your downloading and reading enjoyment so download and find out who Lexi Dare is and what she does...

Again, for those who missed the last post, Four-Play, a taste of Lexi Dare contains sample chapters from all four of my series, the synopsis of those series, the back story of the stories, my bio and live links to where you can purchase them on Amazon...again, FREE...

so read and enjoy...

lexi
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Published on February 11, 2014 15:36 Tags: four-play, free-book