House of Pain |

So as fans of Frank Ocean know, his looooooooong awaited album was supposed to drop today.

fooled ya

Surprise surprise, it hasn’t. Now, technically, there’s still several hours left today in which this album could drop, but it’s not looking good. While Frank’s fans cry in a corner, I was going through people’s reactions on Twitter and I had a realization.

I am Frank. Frank is me.

Not really. Frank is (arguably) a music genius and definitely more influential and interesting than I will ever be, but we’re both similar in at least one aspect – endless delays. Pushing forward projects that we might not be ready to let go of creatively because we feel like they should be finished. Enough, already! I find myself thinking when I’m staring at an unfinished scene in a book that should’ve (by my estimation) been finished months ago. I get so frustrated at myself for taking a long time to finish a book that the book ends up taking longer and longer. Months pass beyond my initial self-imposed due date. Any excitement and stimulation I felt about finishing a book starts to drain away.

But I keep pressing on. This writing ‘thing’ isn’t just a casual fling with me. It’s a lifelong love affair that I have to keep nurturing. Once I finish one book, I’ll move on to the next and then the next and the next. I think about my characters and their plot problems everyday. I write everyday, even if it’s only a paragraph. It might not be as fast of a process as I’d like, but I have to remember to keep it as creatively enriching as possible. I have to stop pushing myself to force out fast food and remember to let my ideas marinate. Not forever, but for as long as they need to become tasty morsels for all of you who enjoy my work.

Who ever said the life of a creative was easy? Cuz they lied! But to all my fellow artists out there, it’s worth it. I think 🙂

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I hope Frank feels the same way.

For all of you dying for updates, here’s what my VERY LOOSE schedule looks for the rest of 2016:

a novella spin-off of Flower in the Desert that I discussed in an earlier post. It’s tentatively titled Light in the Wilderness and should be out late this month
Beautiful Beatdown is very high on the priority list, of course. Hoping to have it out this fall.
I hope to have more installments of Dirty Rotten Dixons out before Christmas

Thanks for reading my rants~

(all images, credit to owners)

Sooo summer is upon us (in the Northern Hemisphere, that is) and I’ll admit I’m not writing as much as I should… It’s so nice out and there’s so much to do and blaaaaaah blah blah.

What I’ve been doing instead of writing…

However, I assure you Stone Cold Knockout is coming, slowly but surely. I’m about two-thirds of the way through and I’m working on it everyday, bit by bit. I’m hoping for a June 25th release date, but I think that might be a little optimistic. It’s looking more like late June/early July.

Other book news:

I’m working on a novella about a rescue in the Grand Canyon featuring a Black Woman/Native American Man pairing that I hope to have out in July. I’m also working on a DARK (we’re talking scary dark) erotic novel that I’m going to put out under another pen name in July. Maybe I’ll tell you what it is, if you ask nicely. Tee hee!

Next, I hope to have Kiss of Life out in September and a short novella featuring Holland St. James out around the same time as well. As you may remember, Holland is Vivica’s brother and Annata and Toni’s cousin, and he showed up last in Kiss of Ice. The novella will set up the last book in the St. James Family Series, Kiss of Night, which will be out in 2015.

Lastly, I’m still planning book one in my new suspense series, A Devil Named Dixon, for November. I’m still in the brainstorming stages for it, but I am super excited about it.

Whew! That was a lot of info. Hope everybody is having tons of fun in the sun!