I'm excited to be launching the first ever post for HOOKED ON ROMANCE! I figured I'll save the sordid details of how we came into existence a little bit down the road...for now, I'm going to attempt to liven up this blog with a tale of Fast Draft and the dreaded women's annual!

I've decided that 2009 would mark the year of getting back on track so like any obsessed author trying to make a change in her own life, I was coerced into doing Fast Draft. First off, the incredible Candace Havens introduced me to this workshop a while ago and every so often I revisit it. Fast Draft is basically a challenge with several writers in which you provide the moderator with the daily number of pages you plan on writing for the 2 weeks of the challenge. You can't edit and you just keep writing until you hit your pages every day. At the end of the two weeks you will have completed your goal. There's also a Revision Hell workshop where you focus on cleaning up your project once it's done...but that's for another time. Today, I've promised to edit 10 pages of my YA and hopefully finish 50 pages by the end of the week on my new project set in Tuscany! Woohoo, the excitement is in producing and seeing the end result...which will only help you with your speed. I recommend everyone to try it at least once. If you have a tough moderator like Candy was, I am more than certain you'd meet or exceed your goals. I know the first time I did it with her group I was sick as a dog and still made it to the end..it's really an accomplishment....

So you wonder how your annual womenly exam goes into play with this post? Let me tell you, my routine is usually 6:30-7:00 AM wake up, coffee and writing by 8:00 AM. This morning I had to go in for my annual checkup and it's not something I love doing. All I can think about was getting home and working on my Fast Draft. Of course, when you're naked underneath a thin robe with your legs up in the air in a stirrup contraption, waiting to be probed and proded by your gynecologist...there's this feeling of utter vulnerability. As an author, I'm quick on the small talk. You can learn a lot about your nurse practitioner or doc by what they've read. Mine was super cool and made the ordeal less awkward. I filled her in on my contemporary erotic novels and she confided that the dirtiest book she had ever read was Anne Rice's erotic stories. Funny how easy you forget where you're at when you're talking and in a matter of seconds, I was outta there...

Okay, bottom line, as authors we are always vulnerable when we write. We're pouring our heart and soul out on the pages and hope that someone, some reader out there will appreciate what we're doing. When you're stripped bare, it's the best situation because you are able to create something so fresh, so YOU. It may not be easy, it may not be comfortable, but once you're deep into your project, you'll discover that this is the story you really one to write. I know when I re-read passages of my new project, it's foreign to me, as if someone else wrote it. It's a refreshing discovery.

I hope you'll discover your voice, too...

Yours,
Jenius Jax