However, the best thing is that Talking Dirty with the CEO is out in 10 days!! In fact it’s up on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes (US), and Kobo for preorder right now!

There are a lot of things I want to say about this book – it’s special to me – but I’m going to save them for a release day blog post.  What I will say now is that Talking Dirty is different kind of book to Falling for Finn. It’s lighter, fluffier, flirtier. It’s still hot – hey, it’s me! –  and still has emotion, but it’s not as gritty, or dark, or angsty as Finn.

So to give you a little taste of what to expect, I’m posting an excerpt for your reading pleasure.  To give you some context, the hero and heroine are Instant Messaging each other…

There was no response for a minute. What was she doing? Had he taken the “naughty” a bit too far? A few moments laterNaughtygirl’s reply appeared:

Naughtygirl25: I do want to play. How about this for a game? Me: bra, garter belt, stockings, and Ugg boots. You: leopard-print thong, baby oil, and…

The cursor blinked, annoyingly still. Then:

Naughtygirl25: …and a smile.

He laughed. So she wanted to stay and chat, did she? He was all for that. Because this was way better than staring aimlessly at the ceiling while he waited for Karl to wrap up his office gossip,that was for sure. Hell, this was better than any of the last few face-to-face flirtations he’d indulged in. He reached for the keyboard again:

Studman500: I like your game, Naughtygirl. But can you make it naughtier?

Another smiley face popped up.

Naughtygirl25: Add a lava lamp, a sheepskin rug, a mirror on the ceiling, and some etchings I can come up and see. Naughty enough now?

Dammit, now he couldn’t stop grinning. They’d bypassed the naughty and were now heading into cheesy territory. That was okay, though. He liked cheesy. After a quick check to make sure Karl was still talking, he typed in another response.

Studman500: Not quite. We need music. How about a bit of Neil Diamond to set the mood? Though, if you prefer Barry White, then I have that, too.

Naughtygirl25: Nope, I’m a Neil Diamond girl all the way. Are we having drinks?

She really had to ask?

Studman500: How does a Bloody Mary suit you? On the rocks, naturally.

More laughing emoticons:

Naughtygirl25: Naturally. So drinks are sorted. What other naughtiness can we get up to?

He could think of several things. But really, how far should he take this? Sexy online chat wasn’t something he’d ever done, especially at work. And although he was enjoying himself, he supposed he needed to get rid of her and not actively encourage her.

The cursor blinked and more text scrolled past:

Naughtygirl25: Don’t leave me hanging here, Studman. I’m coming to the end of my Bloody Mary. Bring on the naughtiness!

Then again, he was the boss, wasn’t he? And what was the point of being in charge if you couldn’t break the rules now and then? Hell, if he wanted to engage in some flirtatious sexy chat with a faceless stranger then he damn well would.

Naughtygirl25: Helllloooo…Studman?

He flexed his fingers and typed:

Studman500: How naughty do you want me to be?

Naughtygirl25: I don’t know, how naughty can you get?

Oh. Very.

*Number of times entire ms rewritten – 3
*Number of times beginning rewritten – 6
*Size of ‘deleted scenes’ folder – 227k
*Number of times hero/heroine conflict changed – 3
*Number of times I wanted to kill hero/heroine – 20
*Number of tantrums pulled while writing – 50
*Number of times I wanted to give up in disgust – 100
*Number of times I DID give up in disgust – 100
*Number of times cried while writing – 5
*Number of working versions of present ms – 8
*Number of titles decided on – 0

That was in December last year.  After I’d finished that post and finished rewriting the story, I sent him off to SYTYCW, plus entered him into the Aussie Emerald competition.

He got precisely nowhere.

Didn’t get ANY feedback at all from SYTYCW and because one judge in the Emerald absolutely loathed him, I didn’t get anywhere with that either.

Here’s some stats for my Talking Dirty book from around the same time:

*Number of times entire ms rewritten – 5 – 6
*Number of times beginning rewritten – 4
*Size of ‘deleted scenes folder’ – Rewrite folder 37k, Original folder, 20k
*Number of times hero/heroine conflict changed – 6
*Number of times I wanted to kill hero/heroine – 100
*Number of tantrums pulled while writing – too many to count
*Number of times I wanted to give up in disgust – too many to count
*Number of times I DID give up in disgust – too many to count
*Number of times cried while writing – too many to count
*Number of working versions of present ms -50 million
*Number of titles decided on – 3

Oh and I should add one more line.

*Number of times rejected – 3

As you can see, both of these books nearly did me in. For the chess player I berated myself daily for the fact that I’d decided on a chess playing hero who everyone CLEARLY hated. For Talking Dirty, I berated myself daily for the fact that I knew I had a good story there, yet I couldn’t seem to find it.

BUT

I am a stubborn-ass b*tch sometimes. And I’d be damned if I let these stories – one of which got to the 2nd revision stage with M&B – languish.

So I started rewriting Talking Dirty for the 7th time and pitched it in a competition. It got a request for a full – which I wrote in a week (from chapter 3) – and then four months later, it sold to Entangled. It’s going to be out sometime in 2013 (May tentatively).

And then with my chess player, I rewrote it for the 4th time and submitted it to my editor at Samhain and that sold too.  Black Knight, White Queen, will be out in July 2013.

Why am I telling you this? Well, sometimes it’s a good thing to give up on a story. Sometimes you don’t have the experience at the time to be able to make it better. Or sometimes you’re too close to it to see it objectively. I first wrote Talking Dirty back in 2008, but it wasn’t until 2012 that I finally had the experience and knowledge to turn it into a book that sold. The chessplayer I started at the beginning of 2011 but didn’t sell it until a year and a half later. Again, it wasn’t the fact that my hero was a chessplayer that didn’t work, it was the fact that I still hadn’t got a handle on conflict or character.

But some stories you can’t let go of. Nor should you. Some stories deserve to have their time in the sun. I don’t know if this inspiration or not, but for those of you who have stories that you just can’t let go of, keep going. Keep working on them. Keep learning your craft. And one day, a year and a half, or four years, or even ten years later, eventually someone’s going to say yes.

And then you can shock everyone with your stats too.