Anya Bast

I’m leaving soon and will be out of town until after the first of the year. I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! May they be merry and bright!

I did a blog over on the Bradford Bunch blog recently about a few of my favorite winterish things. Here’s the testosterone laced version.

A few of my favorite things male actors.

A few of them are gimmes, but how many can you name?

…when I get my first shipment of bookmarks.

The release day isn’t for…ZOMG!…I just realized it’s only two and a half months away! Zoinks! Ahem…so, anyway, the release date for Witch Blood is getting closer.

Witch Heart progress: I’m about halfway done! I’m just getting through the middle. So excited to be past that point. The middles are always the hardest part of the novel for me to write. Although, I have to say that this middle wasn’t nearly as hard as many of them.

Lauren Dane and Megan Hart have sold a co-authored contemporary erotic romance, Taking Care of Business to Black Lace! It’ll release in the UK in October 08 and here in the US two months later.

Big congrats to them!

Being able to write sentences like this one is just one of the many reasons.

“I guess if my last lover had his head ripped off for having sex with me, I’d be a little jumpy too.”

~*~

And now, for your morning flashback edification. Really, really ugly and strange overalls. Black beanies with jaunty red balls on top. And, as a bonus, Madonna-hair like wow.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z9bPrUark4]

I’m running a blogwarming contest over on Maverick Authors until the first of the year. You can win books from Lauren Dane, Megan Hart and me. Go on over to the entry titled Blogwarming Contest and enter! It’s super easy. All you have to do is talk about books.

It’s early on Friday morning and I’m up having some coffee and worrying about my husband driving on icy country roads. My daughter’s occupational therapist will arrive in a couple hours and I need to clean my house! It’s a mess. See, right now, I have Book Brain. Like I wrote about in a previous blog post, it’s when the novel takes over and I can’t really think straight anymore. Cleaning? Bwahaha! Ain’t happening when I have Book Brain.

What’s good about having Book Brain right now is that I’m entering the middle section of Witch Heart. The middle is always the hardest part of the book for me to write. I have my strategies to get through it, and I usually revise the hell out of it before I write the end. But, still, the Dreaded Middle. Ugh. However, the pacing of this book is so that entering the middle isn’t that bad. So Book Brain right now is a very good thing. Hopefully it will carry me over the hump of the middle and start me down the slope toward the conclusion.

Last night I wrote about 2k on Witch Heart. That’s actually pretty good for me in one sitting. I also wrote 2k on a sooper seekrit story I don’t want to say anything about. So, 4k for the whole day. Not bad.

This morning I’m itching to get started on Witch Heart again. I have all kinds of things to write and I can’t wait. But, life, you know. She gets in the way.

I get a lot of hits from people looking for my free story, Fury. It’s a spicy werewolf romance I wrote for the subscribers of The Sultry Pen a couple years back and there are still links around directing people here for it.

This is just to let you know that Fury is completed and I’m now sending it out in sections to my Writerspace newsletter subscribers. However I am writing another free story now for Sultry Pen members. That one is called Tranquility (also werewolf) and it’s a spin off of Fury.

These are just little short stories I do to show appreciation to my readership. They’re about the length of an EC Quickie and they’re largely unedited. I wanted to place an updated note somewhere on my site in case someone followed one of those broken links and did a search.

So, there you have it. That’s the low down on Fury.

Frauke at Crocodesigns has done it again. I think the web site she’s designed for me is BEAUTIFUL. And look at that cool Youtube widget on the sidebar, where all my book trailers are uploaded. Genius!

I am sorry I had to change my blog’s url, but it was necessary. Eventually I’ll be deleting the other one, so please do update your links if you have them. I have to update my links too. There are several author blogs that need to be there that aren’t. If you think your link should be in my list, let me know.

I’ll be back in a few with news of a contest over on Maverick Authors.

The Maverick Authors have new digs. And they’re pretty! And you should totally go over and say hello! (And bookmark it, so you can come back)

Cross-posted to the Bradford Bunch Blog 

At some point in every novel, it consumes me. I start living in my character’s heads and the world I’ve created for them. While I’m making coffee, I’m thinking about how to write a certain scene. When I’m taking a shower, I’m thinking about how my character would react if this or that happened.

Conversations with my husband go like this:

DH: Hey did you see that some of our little pine trees are going brown. They might even be dying.

Me: Nahuh.

DH: I think it might be a tree disease. Maybe we should call in a specialist.

Me: Nahuh.

DH: And then aliens landed in the front yard, took off their pants and did a dance!

Me: Nahah.

I start dazing into space and wandering around the house putting the milk in the cabinet and the coffee in the fridge. I go to bed with sheafs of paper and my (special) ball point pen. In the morning I find I fell asleep on it all and now have ink marks on the sheets, my legs and my arms. (Sadly, all these things really have happened.)

That’s where I am with Witch Heart right now, the third book in my Elemental Witches series. I’ve hit my stride. I’ve got a firm handle on my characters and the plot is progressing nicely. I’m at that point where I’m consumed.

Christmas, what’s that? Good thing I’ve almost got all my shopping done. Housework? Pbbbtbwhahaha.

My hero is particularly fun to write. He’s a secondary in Witch Blood, so I already had a pretty good grip on his personality and backstory. Adam is fun to write because his personality isn’t a whole lot different from mine. When I’m in his head it feels sort of comfortable. Odd, since he’s a guy (and a guy’s guy, too), but there you have it. There’s no logic to this stuff.

So, anyway, Witch Heart is officially eating my brain (and I wouldn’t have it any other way).

What are some activities in your life that consume you? Something that makes you forget to eat and sleep and drives you to distraction?