New Book and Warmer Weather

Love the sunshine. I've always said that I'm solar powered. You know, like those little bobbing animals you get at the dollar store. I perish during the winter months when it's overcast and flourish during the summer months with the sun.

Right now I'm sitting at the computer doing edits and itching to work on book 20 of The Border Lands. Once I finish edits I'll get to write all about Amanda, the third sister and her fate. Speaking of the Border Lands, book 19 is now on pre-order. You can get it HERE  

Lucille is ready for her own family and hopes Ty and Jeff are the men to make that happen. Ty and Jeff are immediately attracted to her and hope she is the woman for them. When they approach her, she is receptive, and they see their future in her eyes. Can they make a go of it? They certainly plan to try.

Lucille returns to their home with them and quickly jumps in to the daily routine of keeping the place going while they work out on the farm. When someone tries to kidnap her, she realizes that there are other dangers to consider outside of starving or disease.

The men vow to keep her safe and one of them remains near her at all times from then on. Once again the future seems bright for all of them and the promise of a family forms on the horizon as Lucille makes an announcement that gives them all hope.

For all my Amazon buyers, you can now find the following available there now.
Her Mountain Family   HERE
Her Mountain Ménage  HERE
Their Forever Love  HERE

I'll keep you up to date on what's out there on Amazon as I find it. They don't let me know when it comes out. I find out by checking each day. I get all excited when I see it pop up!

So, a quick story about one of my feline muses. Maggie the fierce started snarling and hissing and throwing a major temper tantrum at the backdoor the other night. I went to see what she was all upset about and found that I had two raccoons eating the food I'd left out for the stray cat that eats here. Looks like I have more to feed than one stray cat. I have a raccoon family as well.

The raccoons didn't appear the least worried about Maggie. They just stood on their hind legs and stared back at her then sat down and began shoveling food into their mouths with their hands. Cute things, but there were quite large. Larger than any of my muses. And that's saying something as Bella is pushing twelve plus pounds.  

Hope you have a great weekend out there. Enjoy the sun if you have it and soak up that Vitamin D!

Marla Monroe
www.marlamonroe.com
@marlamonroe1
www.facebook.com/marla.monroe.7

Writing Down the Words

What do I write next? There are so many ideas and thoughts in my head that figuring out what to do next can be painful for some. Usually, with me it's what scratches at my brain the hardest, who yells the loudest. You know, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. But what happens when there are two equally squeaky wheels? How do you pick and choose?

I don't know. I don't think that there is any rhyme or reason to how I decide. Sometimes, I write on two or three things at once and the one that I finish first is the one that won. Sometimes, I try to push it to work on one specific work and that usually crashes on me.

So, in other words, for me it's a crap shoot. I write the one that claims the majority of my attention. Isn't that how it is when you have a roomful of screaming kids? You deal with the loudest and most obnoxious first.

I'm going to give you a hint of something I'm working on. It's a super secret project that involves vampires and wolves. I've never written vampires for you guys before. Admittedly these will play a minor role—for now, but they will be there.

Here is what one of my characters looks like to me. Isn't he handsome–viral? Maybe even a little scary. What do you think?

There will be more information coming on my website in the forum. www.marlamonroe.com

That's all for now,

Marla

Wow! Already December and I Haven't Even Put Away October Yet!

Hmmm. How did I let this happen? December sort of snuck up on me. I never saw it coming. I can't even remember November, except for the yummy dressing the other day. Days fly by pulling the entire month with them. Before we know it, an entire year is gone again. What do we have to show for it?

I have about 14 books and two short stories to show for the year, but what about life points? You know, the things that really matter. I've spent quality time with my brother and his family several times this past year. Could I have spent more time with them? Yeah. I could have.

I've spent some wonderful days with my parents this year. I love having them here with me. Not only are they fun to be with and help me in so many ways, but watching just how much they love each other keeps the love alive in my heart, too. I wish I'd spent more time with them earlier in the year instead of some of the trips I took. I didn't realize just how quickly things change.

I refuse to regret anything because it adds to who I am, but I can feel sad for some of the opportunities I've missed or blown off; for the time I wasted when I should have been writing spending time with friends and family; for decisions I've made that weren't all that smart.

So, looking ahead, I plan to do things a little differently this coming year. I did this last year and the year before. No matter how many times I do this, I always end up missing something I should have seen coming.

So for the end of 2014 as it tops the hill on its way down, don't have regrets, don't think the what ifs. Spend some time thinking about what you want out of life for next year and then make plans on how to get there. You may not get there the first time you try, but if you keep regrouping and looking at where you got off track, you will eventually get to where you are supposed to be.

I'm going to introduce whoever out there is reading this to what hope looks like to me right now. Her name is Maggie and she's a kitten. When I found her, she was about 4 or 5 weeks old and entirely different than what she looks like now.

 

 

 

 



Isn't she cute? A tiny ball of fur and great big eyes. She was such a sweet kitty who had a rough start in life. Something had tried to eat her and she had a massive abscess from one side of her neck through to just above her chest. We got that all cleaned up and she turned into a whirlwind of energy after that.

Now she is about 4 months old and she looks so much different than she did.

Yep, that's her tongue sticking out.

 

 

So where am I going with all of this? This hope I was talking about? Well, she brought hope into our house when she came to live with us. My mom took one look at her and smiled—really smiled for the first time in a long time. Now the house revolves around Maggie or "my baby" as mom refers to her. Seeing that

smile and how the kitten keeps her engaged and happy is seeing hope reflected in my mom's eyes. Taking care of the kitten gives her one more reason to get up each morning and brave the pain and near blindness that colors her world grey. Only now, there is a streak of color that captivates her each day and I call it Hope.

 

Marla



Home Sweet Wild and Crazy Home!

 

I love my mini writer's retreats. They give me a chance to recharge while I write without feeling guilty about something I think I should be doing instead of writing. But once I'm home, I'm glad to be back here, too. I missed my muses who are always doing something to make me laugh. I miss my parents who live with me. What I don't miss is work. :-)  KWIM?  Anyway, there's no place like home.

I mailed out the winners of the fugly stuffed animal contest and hope you enjoy the poor misunderstood things. They could really use a forever home that won't laugh at them nearly as much as I did.

 

I'm finishing up the first book of my new bear shifter series, Shifting Desires, A Lynx in Their Den. I'm also going to be finishing up book one in the new Sci Fi series spin off of The Men of Space Station One. Remember, there were three planets they were planning to settle? Well this one starts out as the first group of settlers are headed to Omega One only to end up crashing on a different planet that is already inhabited and in a solar system they didn't know about. I haven't named this book or the series yet. It will come to me by the time I finish the book next weekend.



My next projects begin with finishing a book set in New Orleans as part of a continuity series with other authors. It will be centered around Halloween and has me so excited! I can't wait to dive into that one. Besides that one, I will be working on book two of The Wranglers of Bear Mountain.

I will be in Las Vegas, Nevada the first weekend of June. If anyone out there is interested in saying hi, give me a shout out either as a comment here or message me on Facebook. I'm just writing and hope to be joined by more writers to collaborate on a book series we have going.

In the meantime, be sure to grab the next Marla Monroe book when it comes out. Their Border Lands Freedom on June 6th. It will probably be on pre-sale the week before.

As always, play safe but play hard.
Marla Monroe
www.marlamonroe.com

Gatlinburg For Writing

I'm in Gatlinburg, TN this week writing. I came with some friends who are out tearing up the town and generally causing havoc everywhere. I'm here writing, available to post bail if they need it.

It's been a wonderful few days and I still have two more left to go. The quiet time really helps get the words on paper, or in my case, the computer. No distracting TV's blaring or phones ringing and I don't feel guilty about not washing clothes or anything. I need one of these a week. :-)

Funny thing here though. It was 74 degrees yesterday and today it's chilling out at a cold 42 and going all the way down to 27 tonight with the chance of up to 3 inches of snow in the morning. No wonder half of us are sick all the time.

Working on book 12 of the Men of the Border Lands series. Wade is an ex-cowboy who used to work ranches but is just drifting around now. Stanton was a stock broker in Manhattan before the year of catastrophes. The fact that he's managed to survive in the world for the last ten years is amazing even to him. Wade thinks he's damn lucky but admits he has to have more skills than crunching numbers and sitting behind a desk.

Lyssa was a nurse practitioner in a charity hospital before it all ended. Now she's with two men after spending the last seven years in a prison cell in Border Town. The world is a scary place for her.

Where are they going to end up and will they come to care about each other along the journey? What do you think?

Here are a few pictures of my trip so far. Some are of men in a swat team that were running around a building across the street. I wished I'd had my good camera with me, so I could have gotten much better pictures.

Then there is the parrot guy! LOL  What do you think of this one?

I'll post more pics later. If we get that snow, I'll for sure have some for you. I'll be playing in it!

Marla Monroe
www.marlamonroe.com

 

The Importance of Feeding Your Human

Sometimes we get all caught up with research, plotting, and writing to the point that we forget that the human side of us needs a break sometimes. No matter how much we eat, live, and breathe writing, there comes a time that we all need something different for a change. For some of us, we naturally take periodic breaks to relax, read something fun, watch a fun movie, or take a family vacation without the computer. Yeah, right. Not happening here either.

My poor human side gets very little time away from writing. The time I do take usually still has something to do with writing in some form or fashion. For example, I’m going on a long weekend out of town where I will meet up with my writers group that I’m a member of and discuss writing as well as catch up on how everyone is doing. I’ll also take some time to visit a couple of friends that don’t write but always in the back of my mind is that part of me that is cataloguing everything in case I can use it later in a book.

 

Even after I’ve visited with my friends, I’ll be going back to my hotel room to write. I’d never get any sleep if I didn’t write some before going to bed. It’s a habit so engrained in me now that if I try to break it, I fear I’d go insane. What will happen when I’m too old to see well enough to write or have such bad arthritis that I can’t hold a pen or use a keyboard? My mind will slowly implode. Then again, maybe I’ll just go happily into that amazing world inside my brain and live out the remainder of my days there.

The point is that if I didn’t do something to relieve some of the constant pressure to write, write, write, I would go stale and my writing would ultimately suffer. Just feeding my muse all the new things I find for it isn’t enough. The human side of us has to be, well, human at times. Remember, we might drive the obsessions, the passions, and the finance side of things, but our human is only human and if he or she gets sick, we all suffer.

 

So remember to feed your human different ideas, experiences, and other human interaction. Becoming a monk or, in my case, a hermit at times, isn’t a good thing. As much as I would love to bury myself in a little cabin in the woods with damn good satellite Internet but not much else, just so I could write uninterrupted, it would eventually lead to my demise as an author and ultimately as a human.

Find something that gets you out of your little hidey-hole at least two or three times a year and take advantage of it. Keep your muse looking and smelling fresh so that your writing remains exciting and unique to you.

Marla Monroe

www.marlamonroe.com

http://bit.ly/1fGPpzR

http://bit.ly/MzcA6I

@MarlaMonroe1

 

 

Back From Montana Minus a Cowboy

Coming home was one of the hardest things I've had to do in a long time. I did not want to leave that little piece of heaven I had found. The views were breathtaking, the food amazing, and the people truly wonderful. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Lone Mountain in Montana outside of Big Sky, you should take it. You will be well taken care of.

I made lots of new friends there. Here is Pork Chop, my trusty horse.

 

 

Here are Craig and James, two of the yummy, um I mean knowledgeable wranglers as they are called there.

 Below is Tiny telling us more about horses. I don't know why they called him Tiny cause he sure wasn't Tiny that I could tell.

 Another shot of my Pork Chop

 James relaxing at the bar with us as we listened to some great live music.

 

While there, I created an entire series that I will be announcing as soon as I firm it up. It will feature a place not unlike Lone Mountain but none of the people or events will be similar at all. After all. Everyone knows I write mostly ménage. :-) There were no ménage relationships located near the area that I could find out about. LOL  I did plant a seed of suggestion in some of their minds though.

 

One of the things I'm doing now is going through all of the vast amounts of material I picked up while out there. Lots of guides and educational information on the land and animals in the area. Since we were close to Yellowstone. I went and learned a lot about the ecosystem there. It was all amazing.

 

Okay. That's all for now everyone. I need to get back to writing. I'm finishing up my Gatlinburg, TN book now. I can't wait to see it up for sale!

 

Be Kinky

 

Marla Monroe



 



The Fate of the Children of Space Station One

 

The children of the newly settled planet, Alpha are growing up—at an alarming rate. Not only that, but there are other strange things about them. Their parents are clinging to the positives that show up, but what about their future? Don’t miss this much asked for book, Planet Alpha’s Secrets to find out more about the children and how the ménage way of life is suiting the families that were thrown together when Earth began to fall apart.

I’ll be working on this book in June. I can’t wait to get started and find out what is going on with them. Can you imagine learning that your children are different? How would that affect you and your husbands?

 

 

Keep an eye out for more information as I listen to the characters tell me their story. I'll keep you informed here.  Be sure to check my schedule on my web page at www.marlamonroe.com







Looking Ahead...

RomCon in Colorado is just around the corner everyone. It’s located in Colorado Springs, CO, just outside of Denver. I’ll be arriving Thursday, June 20^th and return home on Sunday, June 23^rd.  We have so much planned for the long weekend for our readers. I can hardly wait to get there. Expect great things and lots of cool swag, everyone!

I’m finishing up Charlotte’s Master now. I plan to submit it by the weekend provided nothing gets in the way. It is a follow up book from Nina’s Neighbor. Remember Freak, aka Baxter? Well this is his book. He’s developed a hard on for Nina’s friend, Charlotte, and isn’t about to let her get away. The only problem is that he isn’t sure she can handle his darker nature, and there’s an ex-boyfriend who isn’t going away easily.  If you enjoy BDSM, voyeurism, and kink, you’ll love Charlotte’s Master.

Putting the Office Back Together

So the office got a makeover and it is finally ready to be put back to rights. It's a long slow process though as we put ceramic tile down and all that tile dust is on EVERYTHING!!!  Lots and lots of dusting and washing things down.


Here are the initial pictures...

Notice that the walls are a cheerful net soothing shade of green. I like green :-)  The ceramic tile looks great and will be so much easier to clean. I have to get a plastic floor mat to put under my chair though.

 

So next comes washing down the floor one more time then dusting and washing down the shelves and other furniture that belongs in there.  I have copies of my books for give aways and other goodies to give away that I keep on the shelves. I also have some favorite books and some research books on the shelves.

 

Here are some pictures of what it looks like now. I still have some organizing to do and another table that goes in there next to the file cabinet, but it's closer to being finished.

 

And this is one of my many muses. Little. He's very old and bony, but helps me by keeping the back of my office chair in place. I'm sure without him it would be beating me when I try to write.

I'll be back writing tomorrow and then on Sunday, it will be back to cleaning and organizing once again.

 

Marla

www.marlamonroe.com





The Ghost Riders - Book Three

I decided to write book three of The Ghost Riders this month. Ajax and Murdock were speaking to me. Ginger is going to make them earn her affections. When Jessie and her guys, Vernon and Rhodes settle down in Reo to build their home, she begs Ginger to move back so they can be together. Since she believes that Ajax and Murdock are heading back to Las Vegas where they were from, she agrees. She's looking forward to having her best friend close by again and starting over.

Guess what? Ajax and Murdock weren't going back home to stay. They were merely tying up loose ends with their charter there so they could transfer to Reo into Dominic and Reece's MC. Wonder how that is going to go over with Ginger when she finds out?

Ginger is going to live up to her name, as in being feisty where the guys are concerned. I'm looking forward to learning more about these three characters as I go.

I'm also gearing up for May's Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Kansas City. Have part of a basket started and trying to decide what books to include in it. Anyone going this year? I hope you'll stop by and see me either in club RT or at the Giant Book Expo. I'll post times and locations closer to the day.

Off to write some more before bedtime. I'm going car shopping tomorrow. Not sure if I'll actually jump into a new one or not, but need to consider it.

I'm leaving you with a little something to look at. This is how I see Ajax in my head. He's a mixture of these two guys. Intense.