As you can see, I've moved the Bewitchments cover and added Everything Falls, my latest novel.  I was talking with one of the gals that contacted me via my email and, when asked when Bewitchments would be out, I hedged. (shout out to Teresa in MI!)
I'll admit it.  I'm having trouble with the latest of the Grantham, CO series.  I want the gang, you know the ones…Caitlin, Marianne, Leila, Crys and Frank-kay to interact with Zoe, Trevor and Samantha but haven't found a way to do it yet.  And, it's driving me NUTS!  (Yeah, I know.  It's a short trip.)
So, instead, I bumbled around with Jax's story. 
What IS it about men with an 'X' in their names? 
Because, frankly?  I fell totally in love with this guy.  But, then, we all know I have a weakness for people that want to change their lives, to grow and become the people that have always been there, hidden and crouching inside them, all along.
I want to also talk about writing sex scenes because I get a LOT of emails about them.  To answer your questions…No (4), yeah (12), on occasion(19), I didn't but he did (3), you'd think (12), uh-uh (5), and are you freaking kidding me (9)?  And, finally… girl, you've got that and your complaining about not getting this (15)?  One question, though.  Is his dad still alive and is he single? 
Sex scenes are HARD to write, no pun intended. 
First, you've got to worry about if you've done your build up (the foreplay) enough.  Does she want him, really?  Is there joy in his boy-toy?  Would I, in the ad naseum of edit re-reads, want to be with him, like, you know, in THAT way?
Then, there's body placements.  Where are they?  How are they dressed or undressed?  Who's hand goes where?  What's the response to this touch, that caress?  Who's the aggressor and who's reacting?  Do they talk or are they quiet? 
It's not just tab A going into slot B.  Oh, heck, no.  None of us enjoy reading  just the basics.  Never mind the consideration if the story has too much or too little of the physical act.
Are you getting it yet?
And the words.  Holy, moly, the words.  Do you know I have four thesaurus (how do you plurarlize that?)  I use when I write?  There's the 'synonyms' I use on the MSWord program, Roget's Super Thesaurus, dictionary.com's version as well as (OMG) Val Kovalin's "How to Write Sexy Descriptions"--which is blazingly hot and should, in my opinion, be required reading for EVERYONE. 
 Let's face it, you can't use the word 'tongue' seven times in three sentences.  It even gets old  even when just you type it.  So, what do you do?  You look it up. Then, oh yes ma'am, THEN you type words like mouthed, licked, sucked or laved, wetly circled and the like.
See?
Big difference.  Huge!
I'm hoping to have Everything Falls out by the end of this  week.
Then, and only then, will I go back to working on Bewitchments. 
But, if any of you have any ideas on how to get Cait, Marianne, Leila, Crys or Frank-kay into the local sex shop, please let me know!
To Reese, Lori, Rita, Margarita and Jenny (my girls!), couldn't do any of this without you.
Smiling and waving into the scorch of an Arizona summer morning,
~J.A.

HH2 is uploaded to Amazon and Smashwords.
Finally, right?
Again, I'm so sorry about the delay and I appreciate all the emails with your encouragement.  They helped.  Oh, goodness, they've helped so much.
Want to give a huge shout out to my girls again.  My fierce girls that have read the pages as they were written, re-written, and forced into some semblance that resembled a book.  I think they've all got a view that they'd never anticipated when it came to the writing process.  
At least from this author.
Letting a novel go into publication reminds me of when J. and Jazz left home.  My heart hurt when they left, just like it does now in allowing Crys and Gabe out into the world.  I've had the same feelings with each of the books. 
A kind of mourning. 
A kind of 'if I've done my job right, then they'll be alright'.
And, those feelings  come with the bubbling excitement of a parent releasing their young out into the big, wide world. 
Fly, little ones, fly.
When I mourn, I clean.
Sick, huh?
But in cleaning, I found notes on a story idea from a year ago.  In a notebook, college-rule, four divided kind of notebook.
"Jax's brother mean everything to him--parent, band-mate and best friend--so it's only natural that Jax's entire world is destroyed when his brother dies unexpectedly in an horrific car crash.   With no home, no job and no marketable skills beyond 'Rock Star', Jax (known as the Eternal Teenager) needs to grow up in a hurry. " 
There were 8 pages of notes on Jax's story.
I think it might be a good one.

Okay, so we missed the 4/1/13 estimated publication date.  But hopefully the book will be ready for purchase next week. 
I don't want to shove it out like I did Pole Dance, with the plot holes, missed words and crazy word choices.  I want HH2 to be something that you consider a good read.
So, watch for it.
I swear its coming.  Truly, it is.
But, if you read HH1 - Dex & Leila and liked it, I think you're going to really enjoy HH2!  There are a lot more scenes with the Posse:  Frank-kay, Cait, Marianne, Leila and Crys. 
There are a couple of scenes that more than a few of us can relate to; that were crap when you went through them. But then, upon reflection from a later age, weren't really so bad.  Too cryptic?  Yeah, well. 
I do hope you enjoy reading it, when it is FINALLY published, as I enjoyed writing it. 
Because, as a lot of you know, these stories come from my heart and hopefully make it straight into yours!
Again, sorry for the delay...~JA

Finished doing the edits and the formatting and getting it uploaded to Kindle.  Human Hieroglyphix - Book One /Dex & Leila is finally done.
I hope.
Like I've shared with a couple of you, this was 'something else' to try and do as a new writer.  Too bad you can't just put a sign out telling your Muse that you are still new to the whole writing thingie and please be nice and not hit you so hard with a new story. 
Especially when you are still trying to figure out how to properly format your 'old' story. 
And do other necessary things like, I don't know, eat?
But, I've been told it could be worse.  That I could have a Muse I couldn't  hear.  Or that I never had another idea for a story after the first one.   
Which is true. 
Plus, I got to spend a whole month with Dex, which really wasn't so bad when he would just shut the hell up.  He's gorgeous and warm, and likes to dance in the kitchen on sleepy Sunday mornings.
Guess it could be a lot worse.   
I wonder how the true crime  author's Muse gives them ideas?
**Special shout out to Melissa** Couldn't have done this without you!  Great ideas, great sense of humor and a lot of patience. '

Okay, so its been a frustrating two weeks.  Two weeks where this ol' dog (...please note that I'm the ONLY one that is allowed to call me, myself and I that!) has had to a-freakin'-gain learn new skills.
As a side note, that soft thud you hear in the background? That's just me banging my head softly against my keyboard in frustration.   Pay it no attention to it and perhaps it'll go away.
First uploaded Pole Dance to Kindle after finding out that Smashwords doesn't support adding your book to Kindle.  Really?  Uhm, you're kidding, right?
No, they most seriously are NOT.  But (and here's the kicker...wait for it...) you have to not only load your book separately, but it has completely different formatting than Smashwords.  *insert dull thuds, here*
So I looked and searched, played and prayed until I finally, FINALLY found Amy McDaniel's Kindle Formatting Formula who saved me.  Can't, seriously, can not thank her and her inexpensive e-book enough for giving me step by step instructions on how to do this sh...uhm...stuff on my own.
That was only the first portion of my frustration but, then again, I'm a girlie-girl so we don't just bang our heads against the keyboard for one measly thing.   The second layer was over Dex and Leila's story.  Honest to goodness, if I'd had a way to get my hands around Dex's neck, I would've strangled him.  Let me phrase this right.
This. Story. Consumed. Me.
Every waking moment, and even a few dream moments as well, had me in the clutches of Dex and his mind consciousness stream that made me want to lose my ever loving mind.  Dex didn't care about plot, story structure, char development or scenes.  He couldn't care less about word choice, verb choice and freaking forget point of view.   All the man seemed to know was that I was supposed to do some kind of transcription regarding the story of him and Leila.
Whatever.
Got the last bits of the story tonight...or as I glance at the clock, this morning. 
Hope to be uploading both new Pole Dance and Hieroglyphix/Book one to Amazon first thing tomorrow. 
That is, if the dull echoing thud doesn't keep me awake.
And I thought, but please PLEASE don't remind me of this later, that writing would be fun.

It's taken me a while to create my website, actually to LEARN why I even needed one.  So, with your permission, I'd like to make this first post a compilation of previous posts--the posts that I've squirreled in the back of my mind as I went through the different learning curves for writing and publishing my first novel.
1/4/13
Pole Dance was accepted into Premium Status on Smashwords.  (Insert happy dance and loud "Squee" here)  I'm still working with Dex and Leila in Metamorphic.  I say working with because even though I'm trying to follow my scene list, Dex just seems to go off on his own tangents.  Honest to goodness, sometimes I think that my characters own me instead of the other way around. 
12/27/12
Finally!  I finally did it!  I published Pole Dance on Smashwords and am damn proud to say that it only took me three tries to get it accepted.  When they say follow their Style Guide, they weren't kidding!  I am absolutely over the moon and hoping that the readers that decide to download or buy it enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I'm also remembering all the help that I've had along the way, especially authors who have taken the time to the books that have taught me, shown me the way to plot, write a scene, to develop characters and tell the story I want to tell.  These folks, these wonderful teachers,  have my complete and utter devotion for their help and encouragement through their books.
12/18/12
I had planned on working on the second book in the Dance series, Tap Dance, which follows Marianne, Ram and Paul (a love triangle) which I'm dying to write about since I'm still not sure how it's going to turn out.  But when I got out of bed, there was this voice inside my head that I couldn't push aside.  A number of authors that have taken the time to write how-to books, books that I've devoured, all say to listen to the voice, the voice you can't shake off...not talking about voices that you need medication for , but the voice that speaks to you when you sit down to write.  I did an interview and he said his name was Dex Nelson and gave me his story in 19 handwritten pages.  He also gave me the series name as well as the name of the first book in the series.  Was honestly the most amazing thing that has happened  to me!