Life gets to be routine. And the routine is uninspiring, not just for writers but for everyone. Whether it’s something as mundane as cooking a meal or doing laundry or something as creative as writing, when you do the same thing day after day, you get sick of it. You need to shake it up a bit. It doesn’t take much.

All it took for us was a trip to New York City.

Big deal, you say. Yes, we both live in/near another big city not that far away from New York, but Philadelphia is light years from New York in many of the ways that matter. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s why we both love our city so much. Flash mobs and subway strikes aside, in a lot of ways Philly feels like the small towns Emery and I grew up in in Michigan, just a lot of them all jammed together. New York does NOT feel like that.

We probably wouldn’t have gone on our own, but our friend Scarlet was doing a reading at a radical bookstore down on the Lower East Side on Friday and a radio show the following morning and asked us if we wanted to go with her for moral support. I jumped at the chance, because as much as I love Philly, New York is my fantasy city. Emery followed a little more slowly, to the point where Scarlet and I forbade her from backing out.

It was the perfect weekend, the first good weekend of spring, sixty-five degrees and sunny the entire time. We’d taken an apartment in the LES instead of getting a hotel, which was the best decision we could have made. It was right in the heart of the restaurant/nightclub scene, with so much great food all around us, including the cupcake bar right around the corner. We had intended to go to Little Italy and Chinatown for meals, but ended up never leaving an eight block radius of our apartment. We didn’t need to. Everything was right there. And for those few days, we were residents of one of the hippest neighborhoods in New York. It was like pretending to be one of the cool kids and getting away with it. It was liberating.

Of course, what goes up must come down, and we were forced to return to our lives here in Philly, with 9-5 jobs and kids and cats and commitments. But somehow getting to step into that other life for a few days was enough to shake things loose. Emery’s started trying to come at her projects from a different direction, and I got inspired for the first time in a long time on a story of my own. And we have a pretty strong bunny for India that’s incubating (yes, I know, I’m mixing my lifeforms. Eggs + bunnies = Spring/Easter. I win.) that we WILL start working on after Emery’s family visit next week. ::eyes Emery threateningly::

And we’re already planning our next escape.

Two posts in one day?  You lucky readers!

From pretty much the time we met, Grey and I have claimed to share a brain.  Despite our disperate writing work ethics, the shared brain overcomes that and pretty much makes our joint stuff pretty seamless.

Usually, the shared brain shows itself in the form of us being on the same track with a story without discussing it beforehand, or voicing an idea that the other was considering as well.  Being on the same wavelength is a great thing.  And then I throw Grey curveballs and she wants to throttle me because I have no idea what comes after.  Sidenote:  I love doing that to her, immensely.

But this morning, our shared brain veered into the realm of the freaky.  Somehow, some way we picked the name Tanner for one of our new characters without any prior discussion.  She didn’t read the email I’d sent with the name suggestion until a couple tags after she’d named him. *cue Twilight Zone theme*

When we’re good, it’s awesome.  When we’re really good, it’s scary.

Another week done and gone.  Aside from it being Friday, which in and of itself is worth celebrating, temps are supposed to get up into the fifties this weekend.  So very sick of winter and desperate for spring.

Oh, and Grey and I finished another story.   A 15k (at the moment) historical M/M.  Grey thought it high time for India to write something other than a contemporary story.  And you know what?  As usual, she was right.  Adam and Jackson took us on quite a journey and to somewhere neither of us thought we’d go.

Of course, there’s no rest for the wicked.  So while Adam and Jackson rest up for a bit until we’re ready to spruce them up, Grey and I started another project this morning.  I’m already loving the characters, but I’m easy like that.

On the solo front, I’ve started moving forward again on one of my WIPs. Got past the fifth chapter slowdown and am now nearing my second stalling point, the halfway mark.  Ideally, I’d like to wrap this story up by the end of the month.  Not impossible if I buckle down.  Ha ha ha.

It’s going to be hard to top February for a release month.  Grey and I released three stories–two shorts and a full–and I manged one as well.  Plus we got another story under our belts.  Not too shabby for two full-time working women.

We dropped the ball on this one.  D’oh.  I just hope Chris and Kieran forgive us, eventually.

Rounding out All Romance eBooks’ 28 Days of Heart was our quick and hot story, Sea of Sin.  Set in the Creatures of Sin universe, we follow Commander Christopher Montgomery on a decadent vacation that turns his world upside down.  In the very best possible way.  Not to mention the money from sales go to the American Heart Association.  Good read and a good cause, there’s nothing like it.