Amber Quill Contest Results

Okay...good news and bad.

The bad news is If Only You didn't turn out to be a winner in the Amber Quill contest. Bummer.

The good news...okay the most excellent news is that The Squire did! Woo hoo! I'm over the moon about winning this contest. I have never won a contest before. I've finaled a handful of times but I have never made it to the actual list of winners. And such an important contest where I actually get to have a publishing contract.

So here's to my wonderful men, Duncan and William.

Updates

So I have a release date for my second "duke" book. Release date for Duke Pretender is July 17, 2008. I've very fond of this book mostly because Jack Thorndike is one of my favorite heroes I have ever written. He's shown up in a number of books as the hero or part books really. Duke Pretender is the original book (though not the original version of it even). But when I initially couldn't sell it as a "traditional" Regency I thought I'd use Jack as the hero in another book. In that book he was going to be a disgraced nobleman who became a runner and then got disgraced in that profession and then was hired to pretend to be someone else. I never got very far in that book and it's just as well as the original incarnation of Jack (or close to original) has made it and will be coming in July.

In other Cerridwen Press news I have appeared on their list of authors as of today. No books listed for me, but I am there. Pretty cool.

And on to Wild Rose Press news. Got the galleys on A Man Not Her Own. It looks like the actual book. Very cool and professional looking. It's quite amazing how differently the publishers do things. I am getting the galleys and I don't even have a release date quite yet.

I also asked my edior at the Wild Rose Press if she would like to see the sequel to A Man Not Her Own and she would, so I will be getting that ready to send over.

Struggling a bit on The Perfect Man. Other than the current chapter I am working on I think I have 2-3 chapters left. Then that is off to my EC editor.

Worked a bit on the Sinful re-writes and worked on getting Redemption ready for the contest. Been busy!

Paranormal Medieval Series

I took the plunge and entered Redemption in Hearts Through History's contest. Which means I have to somehow come up with a stupid synopsis by March 15th when I absolutely have to have the entry to the coodinator. Since the book isn't actually finished any synopsis I write will likely be woefully inaccurate.

As for Sinful, I still haven't decided whether to enter it. I would love the final judge's publishing house to take a look should it final but the truth is I entered it in a handful of contests last year and got very mixed results and no finals. True I am working on re-writes but I would also have to re-do the synopsis since it is also woefully inaccurate. I wrote it before I finished the first draft and it has changed dramatically. Hell I changed one character totally 3/4 of the way into it.So we will see. Tempting though.

All those around me are getting agents so I am getting jealous. Sure I have sold three books but on my own with no advances or anything. And until I actually have the suckers available to purchase by strangers I won't believe it is actually going to happen. Plus the places I have sold to are e-publishers and while there isn't anything wrong with that no one is going to be able to walk into their local bookstore and buy it off the shelf. Most of the people I tell about my books think they will, but they won't. I want that.

So the question is, do I start contacting the publishers who take queries and subs without an agent on my own or do I go to the agents first. I don't know. I'm getting antsy and I want action by the summer.

In the meantime, I want to finish The Perfect Man by the second week of March at the latest. Preferrably before that. Then that will leave me freedom to work my little heart out on my series-Sinful, Redemption and Socerer. Those are my books that will get me the real dream. I feel it.

It's Sinful...

Well, it's time to work on Sinful actually!

I finished another chapter on my short story, The Perfect Man. I'm going to give it another couple of days before I tackle more. It's a bit dark and I think I need a break from the trauma.

Not that Sinful doesn't have its dark moments. Its good vs evil. A good magic user vs an evil one. But somehow mental health issues is more intense. At least for me.

So I've already revised the first 8 pages of Sinful. I have loads of work to do. Right now its only 283 pages which even with the method of 250 words times 283 pages that is only 72,000 or so words and actual words is only 52,000 something, so I need to build it up for sure.

Then once I get a good bit of it done I will consider the dreaded query process. I had thoughts of entering it in my chapter contest but I don't do very well in most contests and don't know if I want to waste my time and energy and money.

So we will see...

And the beat goes on

So I am making progress on The Perfect Man. Still not sure what the word length for this story will end up being. I've got three chapters done and it is up to almost 10,000 words. I've just started to get into the issues one of my heroes has. I might have to do a bit of research coming up in the next few days though. Still in wait mode for everything else. I finished more edits on Duke's Project the book coming out in April. Had to redo the blurb based on the changes. Will have to do the excerpt next. Don't have a release date for the sequel. Guessing they are waiting until the first comes out to give me one.Don't have a release for A Man Not Her Own coming out from Wild Rose Press either. I checked with my editor recently ahd she said we were waiting for the galleys. Nothing yet on the AQ contest entries either. Like I said, limbo time. Going to begin the re-writes for Sinful finally. I mean it this time. I'd like to enter that and Redemption in a contest coming up from the chapter I belong to so I need to get cracking!

It's Not Quite Ready

So I found out late last week that there are some rather significant changes I need to make on Duke's Project and since this is the book coming out in two months I have to make them fairly quickly. Everything else is on temporary hold while I do it. So tonight when I get home I will begin the changes. I'm easily distracted by things at home, which means I will have to have my IPOD on or something to try to ignore the distractions. I'm busy this whole coming weekend and I was busy last weekend so I will have to do a lot of work during the weeknights. I don't think they want me to take too long doing it anyway.

So...Anything New?

I can't really say I have much news to report. I am sort in limbo at the moment.

I have works in the fire. Waiting to hear from a publisher on two erotics. Should know by the end of the month one way or another. I have other places to submit them if they aren't accepted there.

I entered a contest for yet another short erotic. I think it is quite some time before I know the result of that. April, I think?

I started a couple more erotics, one a medieval paranormal and the other a contemporary, but I am most excited about the contemporary one at the moment. Not sure how many words it will be when I am finished, though, I think it is more likely to be a novella length story at this point. We'll see. I have most of the plot played out in my head which is more than I can say for the medieval paranormal one.

I really do intend to work on my full-length medieval paranormal romance, Sinful, that I am going to be querying agents with. I'm going to have to give myself some kind of deadline because that seems to be the only thing that works for me. Right now I am going to shoot to have the final draft finished by May 31, 2008. That means I should be able to begin the query process in June when I come back from a short vacation I am taking then.

In already sold book news, I finished all my edits on all three books. I got the artwork for the covers on all three books. I have a release date for Duke's Project of April 10, 2008 and I anticipate having release dates for the other two in the near future. I'm still not altogether certain I believe the release will happen on April 10, 2008. I certainly hope so and I am keeping a positive outlook. As positive as someone who is an eternal pessimist can be anyway.