Author Archives: S.J. Maylee

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About S.J. Maylee

S.J. Maylee fell in love with storytelling at a young age and with it came a deep-seated desire for everyone to find their happily ever after. She’s finding the happy endings for her characters one steamy story at a time. When she’s not reading or writing, you can find her caring for her garden, laughing with her two young sons, or dancing to her husband’s music. She’s a PMP (Project Management Professional), Nia instructor, and coffee addict. As a writer she has a tendency to break hearts, but she always glues them back together

Links of the week #3

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The evil day job got in my way this week, good news for the pocket book, but not so much for my finds of the week. The list below may be short, but it is still awesome so I had to share.

12 Steps to Self-Publish Your Book by Mimi Barbour, she provides her word processing tips to quickly clean up your file and get it ready for self-publishing

Vickie Motter at Navigating the Slush Pile provided a really interesting post yesterday: January Query Time: What to include. She provides a query breakdown and two example templates, seriously good stuff

Yes, I’m a newbie, but I just found this site yesterday and it looks like a lot of fun: She Writes, it’s a writing community for woman, very cool

ROW80 check-in #4

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3-weeks into the new year and things seem to be moving and shifting for me.  I’ve been in edit land for months now and since it’s my first book I still have a lot of work to do. It seems like I will be in edit land forever. NO! Not forever, I will finish the book!

In the months since I’ve started writing I have read advice about putting the 1st book aside and starting your second. I’ve also seen a lot of authors release novellas first before longer works. Then this week Kait Nolan published her post called The Juggle.

hmmm…

My plotting mind took off and didn’t come down for several hours, but when it did I had an idea for 3 novellas. The shorter stories will take place just before or around the time of my first longer book (the one stuck in editsville) and I’m findings small ways to intersect the characters. Yesterday I spent some time charting out my scene ideas for the first novella and then I started to write. 1025 words and gosh it felt real good!!! I have not written that many words in one day since late October.

My goal this round is to spend an hour a day with my characters and this week again I have met my goal. I also edited over 100 pages. I’ve already accepted the fact that my editing process is about to start all over again, as I have several new things I need to be looking for.

Editsville doesn’t seem so terrible now that I will be juggling it with my 1st novella. If that wasn’t enough to make me smile, the new path has brought me newly written sentences…so I hope to join the Six Sentence Sunday group once again next week!! Yeah!!

Links of the week #2

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Lots of good stuff this week!!

Roni Loren had a guest on her blog earlier this week, Suzanne Johnson is an urban fantasy author. She wrote a fascinating post about her writing process: My Writing Process: Draft Zero to Done

Over at A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing I came across a very interesting take on the benefits of self-publishing over traditional publishing. This post is not just for the newbie: Self-Pubbed Author Beware

at Jenny Hansen’s Blog  on Thursday she had a guest post from Maggie Lawson entitled Put Your Reader in Your POV Character’s Skin

Ed Bott had a post this week entitled Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement, after reading this post I’m pretty sure I wont ever think about putting one of my books (if I ever finish one) on ibooks, well thanks do change, right 🙂

Over at Publisher’s Weekly, Karen Springen posted Should Authors and Agents Weigh In on Citizen Reviews?

The Lawson ladies are really something special, I hope one day to be able to take one of their courses!! Until then I thoroughly enjoy their posts!! Tiffany Lawson Inman posted at my fav Writers In The Storm Blog this week. I’m going to be re-reading this post for a while. Writing Naked Will Take You To The Top!

ROW80 check-in #3

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Yesterday was the end of the 2nd week of the year and things are really starting to move. I’m still in edit land, but I seem to be picking up speed.

My goal for this round of ROW80 is to spend an hour a day with my characters. Last weeks effort got me back into the swing of things and re-attached me to my story. This week I found the time of day that works best and in that time I’m finding my grove.

I spent at least 7 hours with my characters this week, edited over 100 pages, and added 700 words, I’m pleased!

During the last couple of months I realized my story was missing a couple of scenes.  For the life of me I could not figure out where and what the scenes should be, but I knew I had a hole. Yesterday they came to me, I have ideas for both, although they are not fully thought through, I know I’m onto something!!

Yesterday I posted some links that I really liked this week, please take a look, and don’t forget about SixSunday

Have a great week and let your imagination sore!

Links of the week #1

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All week long I come across interesting reads on the web, in fact my day often gets derailed by some of the great stuff out there. I’m hoping this will be the first in a series of posts with links that I found helpful & hopefully you will find them helpful too. Although a good portion of links I go after are related to writing you will find other types of stuff here as well. My test: I found it interesting, thought-provoking, or I learned something and I will be sure to link it here.

Here I go, here are my links for this week:

 

Stacia Kane, an author of Urban Fantasy posted very honestly about the relationship between readers, reviewers, bloggers and authors.  I’ve been reading about the troubles lately in the fine balance and this post really got me thinking: Something in the water?

 

Roni Loren, a romance author, had a very interesting post in her blog tour 5 Ways Writing Erotic Romance Differs From Writing Other Genres. I found this posting interesting not just because my family and friends do not know what genre I have been writing in, but because no mater your genre the writing needs to be well done and compelling. Nothing can bomb a book faster than poor plots and structure, erotic romance is no different. What assumptions have you made about Erotic Romance authors or authors of other genres?

 

Meljean Brook, author of Paranormal & Steampunk Romance had me rolling in laughs with this post: Diary of an Author, Day 5 – 365

 

Lots of good stuff over at Writers in the Storm, including this post (perfect timing since I can be found editing most days): Kiss Your “As” Goodbye! by Margie Lawson, she explains the good and bad of the word “as”

 

Ingrid Schaffenburg had the most thought-provoking post of the week, I’ll be thinking about this one for some time to come!! In her Post Dream Catchers she ponders the difference between doing what you love & doing what you love to learn. Seriously good stuff!!

 

Did you find anything interesting or helpful in the links above? Please let me know!!

ROW80 Sunday Check-In #1

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My first week in ROW80 has come to an end and I’m happy to report that I’m back in the swing of things!!

My goal for this round was to simply spend one hour a day with my characters doing something to move my book forward. The holidays got me totally off my goals and away from my story and I needed to get back in the game somehow. The week started out great, I got organized and I was ready to go. Monday I woke with some neck pain, Tuesday was crazy pain day and somehow I survived the week. Finally today, after sleeping on my new memory foam C shaped pillow, I’m doing much better!! YEAH!!

My goal was 7 hours this week and I got in just over 5 hours. After considering the pain I endured this week I’m very pleased with the results.  I added almost 500 words and edited almost 80 pages. Sure this is not a huge step forward, but it is progress!!

In even better news, after spending just a few hours with my characters I’m feeling re-invested.  I’ve bonded once again with my story and I’m on the road to getting it done!!

Several weeks ago I started participating in SixSunday, really great group of writers (there are no restrictions on published/unpublished, genre, heat level or publisher). You simply post 6 sentences from something you have written and that’s it.  Their site explains it all. It is amazing how much you can get out of 6 sentences and how quickly you can get hooked on a book.  I encourage you to stop by their site, as today they have a whole new slew of posts filled with six sentences.  You can also follow this wonderful group on twitter at #sixsunday. I hope to start posting with this group again soon.

Here’s to an even better week, more hours with my characters, less pain in my neck and finding more authors to enjoy!!!

ROW80 Midweek Check-In #1

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I’ve already had 2 good days and 1 not so good day. Bad news first, I’ve done something terrible to my neck and it HURTS!! I’m on my 2nd day of icing and taking it easy. Tomorrow I hope to begin to add heat and stretching to my neck recovery, I HOPE!!!! My week started on the right foot and that is what I am hanging on to.  I signed up for ROW80 finally and spent Sunday and Monday getting re-organized and I am very pleased with the results.

For the past two months I’ve been in editing mode, looking for what was missing and cleaning up as I go.  In two months I got through just over 100 pages, boo. Between Sunday and Monday I got through 42 pages, yeah, and came away pleased with the pace of the book and I have confirmed each scene IS pushing the story forward, double yeah!!

Yesterday I was a mess of pain and made no progress in my ROW 80 journey.  I was simply trying to do too much and I kept aggravating my neck.  I’ve learned from these mistakes and I got a good night sleep. Today I plan to dig back in and get back to my hour a day goal.

Here’s to progress and healing!!

ROW80 -Round #1 2012- The Goals

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In 2011 I started to write and write and write.  I ended 2012 in the middle of editing.  I lost my footing somewhere along the way and lost my daily retreat into my writers head.  Goal #1 is to get back into daily writing.  How am I going to make this happen?… Oh, Oh, I know!!!  ROW80

It’s the writing challenge that knows you have a life! ‘Round of words in 80 days’

I’ve been wanting to sign-up for ROW80 for sometime and now is the time or else something terrible could happen…I could stop…no I wont even finish that thought, I can’t, I must finish!

For round 1 I’m going simple. Work on my book for 1 hour everyday.  Everyday I will write, edit, what ever is needed, I just need to visit my characters daily.  No this is not a perfect plan, but it is better than the plan that occurred in December, which resulted in a grand total of 1107 words, well that was better than November’s 874 words.

Starting today I will spend 1 hour a day with my characters.  I’ll let you know on Wednesday, my first check-in, how I am doing.

Review: Masters of the Shadowlands 6: To Command and Collar by Cherise Sinclair

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Cover and details from Cherise Sinclair

Determined to find the human traffickers preying on Shadowlands’ submissives, Master Raoul gets himself invited to a small slave auction. Once informed, the FBI orders him to reject the limited choices so the slavers will invite him to the big auction. To Raoul’s shock, one of the slaves is the kidnapped friend of a Shadowlands sub. She has a scarred body…and an unbroken spirit. He can’t leave her behind. Ruining the FBI’s carefully laid plans, he buys her.

Kimberly’s freedom has come at a devastating price: the other women are still slaves. An FBI raid is their only hope for rescue. Desperate to help the Feds locate the big auction, she agrees to pose as Master Raoul’s slave. Wearing a collar again is terrifying, but under the powerful dominant’s care, Kim starts to heal and then to blossom. This is what she’s been drawn to—and fled from—her entire life.

She escaped the slavers who captured her body—can she escape the master who’s captured her heart?

Genre: BDSM contemporary suspense

Publisher: Loose Id, LLC

eBook release: November 29, 2011

ISBN-13: 978-1-61118-667-3

Available : Loose Id |  Amazon

S. J.’s Review:

I’ve been very open about my love for Cherise Sinclair and everything she has written.  One of the things I love about all my favorite authors is their ability to write something new and challenge my love for them.  I know I probably wont always love everything all my favorite authors write, right, and that’s OK, really.  So did I love Cherise’s new book?  I’ll tell you that in a minute, first let me give you some feelings I had while reading.

First feeling, 753 KB!!  Oh yes, I was not going to finish this book in one night and I was thrilled.  I just knew her characters would get their hooks in me and I wanted that feeling to last for several days.  I must say that Kim and Master R hooked me faster than any of Cherise’s books.  Knowing that I wanted them to have a happy ending with in the first minutes of reading was hard when I remembered I’d have to wait for 753 KB to find out how their story ends up.  As a reader nothing is better than needing to know what will happen next when you are fully invested in the outcome.  At one point in the book I got so frightened for Kim that I wanted to put the book in the freezer, Joey Tribbiani style, but, luckily for me, my eReader would not appreciate that treatment so I kept reading.

Kim has a ton of healing to do and she needs a Masters help.  Watching not only Kim, but Master R change and heal through the course of this book is breathtaking but it doesn’t happen easily.  When Master R gives Kim the firm hand and control she craves, oh my, I could feel the heat waves coming off my eReader, something my freezer definitely could NOT handle.  Kim has big problems in this story and her own needs are right up there.  You’ll have to read the book yourself to find out how she heals and the path she takes to discover her true needs.  We also get more suspense in this book, soul wrenching, heart pounding suspense, love it!!!  Catching up with couples from the other Shadowlands book is always fun and we get that as well.

Book 6 takes the steps takin in book 5 a full step further.  I think book 5 did prepare me well for book 6, which I think is pretty cool.  I also must say that book 6 has prepared me for several future books in the series.  Bring it all on Cherise Sinclair, every possible idea you have for the Shadowlands, pretty please with some Sam on top!! 😀

I loved this book, the streak continues, in fact I think this might be my favorite.  Well, I love all her books, don’t know that I can pick actually.  I have to give To Command and Collar…

6.0 out of 6.0

Because I love it and because I did set a book aside to read this one and am very glad I did!!

Six Sentence Sunday #4

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Picking my 6 this week was the hardest so far.  I’m still working on my 1st WIP but as you can see by the graphic on the right I’m getting close to being done with this book.  I’m hoping I do not turn into one of those writers who never finishes.  I really like to finish projects and I really want to join a critique group!!!  I’m currently working on some edits.

Back to today’s post, this week I’m starting to show you some heat from my book.  Although this isn’t the first heated scene, it’s the first I’m sharing.  Sam and Mark are meeting for the first time at Club Voyage.  Here are six from the end of their greeting at the beginning of the evening.

While staring deeply into my eyes he takes both his hands and caresses my breasts.

He locates both of my nipples through the fabric, pinches and then pulls.

He does pinch a lot harder than I do, oh that’s nice.

“Eyes on me Sam,” he commands.

I open my eyes and he’s staring into…me, making me feel so many things.

“Follow me.”

I’m starting to get the feeling Sam would follow Mark just about anywhere, but we shall see.  I hope you enjoyed my first sneak at the heat!!

I’ve really enjoying all the authors who participate in SixSunday!!  I have a few new books I’ve already read, couple waiting for me to read and still a few to buy.  I wonder what new attachments I’ll make today, make sure to go make some of your own: SixSunday