Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 163

Pick YOUR Wednesday Worthy

We shall not talk about my week so far. Even Wizard can’t believe the ridiculous frustrations. The only good news is I’m just finishing the revision today despite it all. I’ll still have to do a clean edit but it should go in Friday.

Anyway, I went looking for fresh meat um, I mean fresh candidates, but I seem to be a little hunk blind right now….I probably wouldn’t recognize a hot sexy man unless he buys me my own private Starbucks staffed with Hugh Jackman and Chris Hemsworth lookalikes on my own private Island with a house full of French bulldog puppies…oh and health insurance that provides the services without making me jump through flaming hoops that magically vanish…oops, I may have slipped into a rant.

Sorry.

So…I looked for a hunk but couldn’t find one, so I’m going to put up three from my private stash, and you can choose your own Wednesday Hunk! So what do you think? Wizard’s in the background, yelling, Say yes! Just agree with anything Witch says! She’s got Crazy Eyes.

All right, here’s Hunk Candidate #1

Hunk Candidate #2 ( I originally typed that Hung Candidate #2, LOLOL!! And I haven’t even touched wine or any alcohol at all!)

Hunk Candidate #3

 

 

So which one is your choice for Wednesday Worthy?

Weekend Roundup

I’ve bought one Christmas present, that’s progress right? LOL! I’ll get on it soon. But first I have to finish this revision. I wanted to finish the revision over the weekend, then spend a few days cleaning it up. However BLB (Youngest Son and yeah, I know I should quit calling him BLB but it kind of stuck) came over Sunday. Wizard was gone racing, and BLB and I talked and talked. He’s doing amazing and worth any lost writing time to hang out with him.

Now for a quick subject change, somewhere around four in the morning on Sunday I realized that I had NOT yet pre-ordered our own Silver Jame’s book COWGIRLS DON’T CRY. I literally woke up and thought, Holy Crap, why haven’t I pre-ordered that? While Silver is a multi-published successful author, this is her first traditionally published book and that is a very special milestone. So yesterday I pre-ordered it at Amazon for my Kindle. Here’s the link   I’m looking forward to reading it when it releases January 1st!

And last, I’m sorry to say that Siri (my cell phone, a now outdated iPhone 4s) has been leaving threatening messages for Sammy (Wizard’s dumb Samsung–so dumb all it can do is talk and text. Barely).  Sammy keeps TOUCHING Siri. It’s creepy. For instance, I’ll put Siri on the charger, and when I go back, Sammy is right next to her TOUCHING her. But yesterday, we started finding little yellow post it notes stuck to Sammy with threats. Stuff like frying his battery, or dropping him down the garbage disposal.

Things are getting a little scary here

I’ve tried to have a talk with Siri and tell her that violence isn’t the solution. I don’t know if she’s hearing me….

So that was my weekend, how was yours?

Happy Friday!

 

So cool, the German edition of THE PROPOSITION released yesterday (Dec. 4th) on Amazon! They are releasing the trilogy in  two books instead of three, the first now and the second one in January 15th 2015. Here’s the link to the book on Amazon.de 

So in other news,  I’m two thirds of the way through the revisions on EXPOSING THE HEIRESS and holding my breath that this works.  This essentially had a been a “square peg into a round hole” revision to make it fit the new line. I hope I’m doing it, but I’m too deep in the middle of it to really know. So this weekend, more work. I’m hoping to get it done next week so I can tackle Christmas and get back to CAGED MAGIC.

And I’ve fallen in love with audio books! To relieve stress, right now I’m walking…and I’m doing a good two miles while listening to audio books. I swear it’s saving my sanity. I was MAD this week because it rained and I couldn’t go. Which is super petty of me since we desperately need the rain here in So Cal. And I can listen to audio books at the gym too, but I have to actually drive there Anyway, the book that I got hooked on is REAPER’S STAND by Joanna Wylde. The male narrator on that book is hot! So hot! Now I’m listening to REAPER’ S PROPERTY. Unfortunately there’s only a female narrator on this one, and not the super sexy guy  The point however, is audio books + exercise + stress relief for me.

What are your weekend plans?

Wednesday Worthy

These revisions are so much fun…yeah I don’t believe me either.

In better news, this guy made me laugh. He’s applying for our Wednesday Worthy spots but I think he might be in the wrong audition. He’s pretty clean cut, and most of our guys have a little rougher edge. On the other hand, I thought maybe you all should take a look at him and vote. I know, I’m asking a lot of you all, but I think you’re up for the challenge.

By the way, anyone know why Wizard is trying to take away my wine? It’s to help me plot, Wizard! Give it back!

Anyway…here’s the guy:

 

Oh good job! You’re all paying very close attention Now what’s your verdict, is he worthy? And don’t you think Wizard should give me my wine back???

Weekend Roundup

So who went out shopping? I stayed home, I haven’t even started Christmas shopping yet.  I look at a few online deals, but didn’t buy anything. Mostly I worked. I’m about a third of the way into my revisions. I’m telling you this book EXPOSING THE HEIRESS and CAGED MAGIC are two of the most frustrating books I’ve ever worked on. But I hit a turning point his weekend on revising EXPOSING THE HEIRESS, and most of that is due to the fact that I had coffee with Biker Witch (my sister) on Saturday. We were just hanging out, when I was telling her what was going on with this book.

And I blurted it out; I feel so sorry for Hunt and Alyssa, I’m having to force them together sexually before they are ready. That was just a random comment, but it stuck with me all night, and the next day I realized what I had to do to make it work.

The point of this story is IT’S GOOD TO WALK AWAY FROM A PROJECT WHEN WE’RE STUCK ON IT. I’ve been doing that more and more lately and it’s helping. Plus having a sister like Biker Witch who will leaving me alone about it when I don’t want to talk about a book (sometimes I need to NOT think about it) and then listen when I’m ready is pretty awesome too

And now to the other side of writing.  So Wizard and I were watching some version of House Hunters that reminded me of a heroine I always wanted to write. So I tell Wizard about it, and he gets super excited. “You have to write this down.” And he’s throwing out ideas.

I’m like “Whoa dude! I have like four or five books to write before I can get to that.”

But Wizard has the solution to that. “So write faster.”

Seriously? LOLOL! I wish I could!

How was your weekend?

Happy Friday!

We had a great T-Day at Wizard’s brother’s house! Except that we missed BLB (youngest son) as he had other obligations. But otherwise it was awesome and relaxing. Both my brother and sister-in-law did a great job cooking and hosting a great day. Plus everyone was teasing Wizard about getting me a dog

This weekend, Wizard has plans both days which frees me up to work. I’m getting deep into this revisions on EXPOSING THE HEIRESS. I’m extremely torn between wanting to get this right for the more suspense/sexy line and needing to get back to CAGED MAGIC. Time is getting away from me (I blame Wizard! His retirement is making me too lazy!).

So how was your T-Day (for the U.S. folks) and what are your weekend plans?

Happy Thanksgiving!

For all those celebrating:

I’m very thankful for all of you here on the blog!

Weekend Roundup

First, we didn’t have Bailey which is a bummer, but we’ll go visit him soon

Okay so this weekend got kind of crazy.

1) I had to have my lawyer review a contract, that turned out to be very simple. I wish it was always this easy! I’ll tell you more on that later, but it’s NOT a new book. More of a part two of a previous contract. (Yeah, I know that sounds confusing).

2) I’m making progress on Linc and Risa’s book CAGED MAGIC. It’s hard work but I’m loving the challenge. I’m “all in” which means the book is taking up of my brain power and I’m fighting for the best way to tell this story, as well as the Ram and Ginny, and Eli’s story lines that are weaving through there.

3) Then I got an email from my editor on EXPOSING THE HEIRESS (book 3 in Once A Marine). They’ve decided to move the series to the Ignite line with has more suspense and more sex. Okay, so I’ve already ramped up the sex, but now a different editor would like to see even more suspense.  Which isn’t a surprise to me, I more or less saw this coming and yet I’m still panicking and hyperventilating.  I’ve committed to getting CAGED MAGIC to my freelance editor Feb 1st and I need to get this book revised while doing that, plus the holidays.

4) Wizard sees this panic and last night, he piled me into the car and we went to…The Kitchen Store. Nothing like buying a new sifter, two different sizes of muffin pans and cookie/muffin scoops to take my mind off work stress

Wizard knows I stress-bake and he benefits from this addiction. (I try to stress exercise too, but that’s happening less these days) Anyway,  I had mentioned to him that I wanted to try pumpkin cheesecake muffins so he decided to “help” by making sure I had the tools. LOLOL!! But it really did help to get out and have a little fun.

5) Thanksgiving. As much as I enjoy doing the Thanksgiving holiday, this year I’m grateful it’s not at my house. We’re going to my sister in law’s and all I have to bring is deviled eggs. So easy! It’ll be fun.

How was your weekend? And what are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Happy Friday!

So I’m trying to steal as much writing time as I can right now. I know the holidays are coming, and it’s going to get harder. I have a love/hate with the holidays. I really enjoy gathering with family, reconnecting with people I haven’t seen in a while, baking and trying fun things, and for the last few years, one of Wizard and my high points is shopping for the  CHP (California Highway Patrol) gift drive for Toys for Tots. For many years, all we could eek out of our budge was one gift. But now that our kids are older, we cut back on them and have so much fun doing getting more gifts for Toys for Tots, including the older kids. (Wizard and I learned young how hard life can be. Contributing create One Magical Day for some kid out there is very personal to us). Anyway I love all that.

But I am sick with worry every year over trying to get gifts for others, and get it all done in time. Plus I’m not a big fan of shopping in general.

Anyway, so this weekend is my last one before I launch into the craziness.

How about you? What are your plans for the weekend? And are you looking forward to the holidays?

Brownies & Wednesday Worthy

It’s all B.E.’s fault! She posted her brownie recipe in Monday’s comments. If you missed it, you can see if here   I did my absolute best to resist while writing some pages. And by the way, Linc (from CAGED MAGIC, coming around March 2015) has a dirty mind and I give up fighting him on this. I’m writing it the way he tells me and I can fix it later. Linc tells me it’s MY fault for leaving him hanging (his words) for sooooo long.

 

Yeah. sure, blame the writer, dude. Whatever gets you through the day.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the brownies. So I was thinking hard about B.E.’s recipe wondering what would happen if I swapped out the regular unsweetened cocoa for special dark unsweetened cocoa, use Kahlua in place of vanilla (I double or tripled the amount) and then dump in the left over mini chocolate chips I have on hand?

Well of course, this became a matter of SCIENTIFIC CURIOSITY. I had no choice but to run this Very Important Experiment. And here is the result:

This picture is off center, because Wizard was standing over me saying “I have a scientific curiously too…” And he told me in detail  making me laugh. It had to do with pictures of me…and yeah…never mind. IT’S NOT HAPPENING WIZARD!

So The Brownie Verdict? I was unsure, suspecting the B.E’s original version is better. Wizard, however, said these brownies rock. I dunno…maybe I have to make the original version for a side-by-side comparison

Now for our Wednesday Worthy Candidate. This one is  a couple picture, you can mentally delete the woman if you wish

Do you think he’s worthy? Or maybe the guy in the first pic? Or are neither one of them doing it for you today?