Sinfully Sexy Saturday Ahead of Incoming Ike

I just finished Deadly Liaisons edits for the new vampire romantic suspense and am in the middle of finishing up The Accidental Highland Hero in a couple of weeks. This guy could be James when he's out of his kilt and taking a dip in the loch. And then it's off to another werewolf adventure.

Hoping Ike won't hit us too bad. The winds have already picked up considerably this morning. Torrential downpours are expected. And I expect that we'll lose our satellite, maybe our electricity as any little storm can do it.

I'm off to work in a little bit. Hope that won't be a disaster. Grocery stores were crowded and the gas pump lines were insane last night. People were stocking up on bottled water--we've made additional ice to help keep our food referigerated. Hopefully, it won't be anything like what Houston has experienced.

Hope everyone has a Sexy Saturday and stays safe in the path of the storm!

Terry Spear

http://www.terryspear.com/

Heart of the Wolf, Don't Cry Wolf, The Vampire...In My Dreams, Winning the Highlander's Heart

I've Been Shipwrecked!

Hmm, I feel I've been in a shipwreck and I'm trying to find what's left of the pieces. :)

I've moved, closed on the house, have a library talk to give this morning, and can't find anything. :)

But otherwise, it's a great Saturday! I woke at 4 am, couldn't sleep and so have been working again on Allure of the Wolf edits. Should be done soon, hopefully this weekend. Just got word that Betrayal of the Wolf is going into edits...AND, it will be a FALL release after Don't Cry Wolf's spring release in 2009!!! Woohoo, no waiting 11 months from one book to the next. So I'm really excited about that.

Allure of the Wolf should be a Spring 2010 release, and have to get to work on the next couple of books. I'm working on Deadly Liaisons edits also--a great vampire romantic suspense, and have to finish The Accidental Highland Hero.

What's really great about writing, is the wonderful fan mail we receive from time to time. I got a letter from a lady who has an incurable illness and is stuck at home, and has read Winning the Highlander's Heart three times, plus bought copies for her friends. It's letters like these that make me love writing so much, despite all the trials in getting the works published. And another, from a thirteen year old girl who loved The Vampire...In My Dreams, couldn't put it down, and is dying for a sequel. Then I had a note from a lady who watched the book trailer for The Vampire...In My Dreams and loved it. This, after I found someone had given it a one star rating.

With all my heart, I thank my readers, for encouraging me to continue sharing my stories.

Right now, I'm off to search for the magazines I have stories in to use in my talk today....if I can find them in the shipwreck. :) Will anyone be at the talk? I envision seven people...the other authors who are speaking, the librarian, and my mother. :) The good thing is we have chocolate kisses to hand out. Chocolate is always a good thing to help cope with adversity.

What do you do to cope when you've been shipwrecked in life???

Shapeshifters!!!

As I'm writing Allure of the Wolf, I look for pictures about Arctic wolves to get me in the mood. Sitting in the 104 degree heat in the south makes it hard to envision cold Arctic weather. So here, my hero has dropped his glove and has shifted into a werewolf. Neat, huh? See the wolf track??? And here he is, protecting the camp in his wolf form.

And then, back in civilization, he's shifted again and getting cleaned up. Hmm, now I can see the story more clearly. Sometimes so many things distract me--things that have to get done, it's hard getting back in the story. So sometimes, creating a photo album of the story can help. :)

What do you do when you're trying to work on a project and nothing seems to be working?

Terry Spear

Heart of the Wolf, Allure of the Wolf

The Vampire...In My Dreams

www.terryspear.com

What Did I Do Today??? More on Goals~~

I posted a note about goals the other day, to make them quantifiable and doable. Also, it helps to keep oneself honest by either having a friend or family member making you accountable, or by keeping track of your own progress.

Take for instance, Betrayal of the Wolf, the sequel to Heart of the Wolf. I started writing it 4 weeks ago. The holidays cut into it a bit, but I was able to manage 89,000 words. I'm now uploading some of the chapters for critique, getting it ready to send to my editor. How did I manage to write so much in such a short amount of time?

First, I set a goal of 5,000 words a day. Some days I made it. Some I was far short of--mostly because of the holidays--but other days I wrote even more. Every single day I noted how many words I had left to write, and how many I had written. So on the first day 5,200 done, 84,800 left to go. Sounds horrible, right? But I kept whittling it down, day after day.

And now I'm nearly finished. I'll go beyond the 90,000 while I'm doing revisions and will no longer worry about the word count but about the quality of the story, adding more conflict, characterization, hooks.

Every day I told my family, I've finished such and such and have only so many more words to go. Lots of rolled eyes and laughs for the first 45,000 words, but as I continued down the road, my mother was asking when I was sending it to my editor. Monday?

Not ready yet. I need to finish editing it. But at least now I have a novel to edit.

So whether it's writing a book, losing weight, or doing some other project you've a mind to accomplish, make yourself accountable. Even with losing weight, if you keep track of all the calories you've eaten in a day, it can be astounding...making yourself aware of how much you're accomplishing can be all that it takes to make it work.

What about someone who wants to be more productive at anything? How much time is wasted on tv? Emails? Phone calls? Daydreaming?

By making yourself accountable, you can reach your goals. :)

Terry Spear

http://www.terryspear.com/

Heart of the Wolf will be released April 1st from Sourcebooks!!

If you're looking for a sexy, urban fantasy with hot alpha males and alpha females who stand up to them, take a look. Best selling authors~~Joy Nash, Cathy Clamp, and Patti O'Shea~~along with Tess Mallory, Deborah Macgillivray, Sandy Blair and new Red Sage author, Nicole North have endorsed it!