Brief Update

I made the coming soon page of Cerridwen Press for next months release of Duke's Project!

Wahoo!!!

More Waiting

Back to waiting.

Waiting for the insurance, waiting for my car to be fixed, waiting for my contracts to be signed, waiting for another book submitted to be reviewed, waiting for contests. Sigh.

I am up to about 5000 words on Unexpected. I am pleased with the work I have done so far on my newest WIP, an interracial m/f story.

So at least I am not sitting back doing nothing.

Day From Hell

Absolutely a sucky day.

Stopped by the post office on the way to take the bus into work to mail out some contract stuff. That's what I get for being anxious. Coming out of the post office and going to make a left turn onto the street to take me down to the bus stop I made my left turn too wide and hit a curb. Hard. Not hard enough to pop one of my new tires but hard enough to swing me into the next lane where I had to get control of the car before some one came along and hit me or I hit them. Thank God THAT didn't happen.

So I continued driving to the bus, but I could tell things were not right with the car. Steering was off and it squealed especially going into turns. Sigh. I made an appointment to have it fixed tomorrow and I am absolutely dreading the cost. I am planning on having it towed to the mechanic because I am afraid it is a bent tie rod or something expensive and major like that.

So when I get home tonight that is what I will be having done. I will be having my car towed to the mechanic to be fixed tomorrow. I was supposed to go to jury duty this week too so I postponed that until April.

But sheesh. I can never get a break. Stupid, stupid, stupid

Happy Almost Birthday

Well it's good friday for those of us who are Christians. Will it be good? Yes, indeed!

Tomorrow is my 43rd birthday and a lot has happened in the last year with my writing career. All good. Here's to a year from now when I hope to report even more success.

I started a new erotic romance, Unexpected. This one is a m/f romance. Not sure of the length yet but I doubt it will be a novel length. I seem to be having trouble writing anything long these days. Even Sinful is well below the word count it needs to be to compete with the print publishers.

My plan is to send The Prisoner off to Wild Rose Press this weekend so I can settle down to wait for a good quarter of the year on that. I hate waiting, but that is part of the publishing/writing process.

I received my sixth contract offer today. Will post details when I am allowed to do so.

Got the release date for The Squire from Amber Allure, June 22, 2008

Another Friend With An Agent.

Today is a happy day for my friend, Nicole Collins.

I vowed to myself I would not do another entry until I had something new to report. While it isn't really my news I am reporting it anyway.

My very gifted writer friend, Nicole, has just signed with an agent (or is about to anyway). I knew she was very close to getting somewhere soon. She is still working on revisions but I expect to hear in the not too distant future that she has made a sale. Not sure yet what name Nicole will use for her books other than not her real name. It's funny I always wanted to use my real name and still plan to on any books I get published by the print publishers (I use it now for some of my e-published books as well).

I did feel yet another twinge of envy. I had an agent once, of course, who was not a good match for me. Both of my close writer friends have agents that I think will do very well by them. Naturally I want the same. But a very wise person reminded me that I have five contracted books in the works. I am grateful for that. I've come very far this year in my writing career and I intend to get farther still.

So congratulations, Nicole! It is well deserved.

* I have received my edits for The Squire coming from Amber Allure in June 2008

A New Day

So having got over my blog tizzy the other day...

Not much to report at the moment. Mailed out a contract on Monday and will be mailing another on Friday. I have one more story currently under consideration and am waiting to hear if that will be a contract or if I must seek publication elsewhere. The particular editor is generally fast in getting back to me so I suspect I should know one way or the other about that in the next few weeks.

I'm almost done getting The Prisoner ready to send to my Wild Rose Press editor. That's the sequel to A Man Not Her Own and therefore also the option piece under that contract. Their response time seems to be about ninety days so once I send that off I know I'll have a bit of time to wait. I'd like to send it off well before the end of March though and I think that won't be a problem.

Working on newer material so I will have more to submit. I only have until June 01, 2008 to get Sinful ready to query agents. Self-made deadline.

I should be coming out in the monthly newsletter for Cerridwen Press in April or May. I did an interview for it yesterday in anticipation for the release of Duke's Project next month.

Brief Rant

Okay, I just have to say it is just rude and immature to leave nasty comments on someone else's blog. Really, what is the point of bashing total strangers you will never meet? What pleasure do you get out of it? There are probably thousands of blogs out there you would consider pointless. Here's something to consider, if you don't like it, don't read the blog. It is really quite simple. Anyway, having just received such a mean-spirited comment I have changed my comments section to be monitored by me. Therefore I must approve them before they are posted. It's really a shame it had to come to this, but I'm just not going to allow children to ruin my day with pointless rude comments. It's my blog and I do have that choice. Go bother some other innocent victim with your immaturity. Not that I have a ton of folks commenting anyway, but you never know when that will change as my books come out. Honestly people never stop disappointing me. You'd think I would be used to the cruelty of humans, but I am not.

It's funny but a well known agent just blogged about liking her Kindle and that caused all sorts of people to believe they were entitled to insult her and others who read her blog and write. I'm not sure that the anonymity of the internet is really what is allowing these people to believe they can be jackasses or if they just would be anyway.

Rant over...

Good News, Part 1

Well!

For reasons known only to someone else I am modifying this entry slightly. I don't agree with the reasons, but don't want to cause any troubles for myself so I have edited it.

I was offered a contract for a short erotic romance that I have accepted, mailed off and am waiting to hear back from the publisher who made said offer.

I am not at liberty to give any further details until the publisher mails the signed contract back. If they do, I will have 5 contracted books.

So this is good news and I hope to post in more detail about it soon.

Hopefully more good news to come

Not resting on my laurels

Well I am waiting for the release date of Duke's Project next month. And to learn the release date for A Man Not Her Own. And for my contract to arrive from Amber Quill Press for The Squire. And for the release date of that, of course, edits too probably. Also final edits for Duke Pretender when it comes out in July.

What else? Oh yeah, for one of my editors to either accept or reject a very short story I sent her. I think it will be a rejection. Not because I don't think it is well written, I'm just not sure it has a place with that publisher.

In the meantime, I have finished The Perfect Man. It's just a smidge under 22,000 words. If you approximate up it would be called 22,000. Anyway, I like it. I like it alot. I think I did a good job with it. This weekend I intend to write up a synopsis for it so I can then send it to my editor at Ellora's Cave. Will she offer a contract? That remains to be seen and I have some weeks until I am sure I will hear one way or another.

So what's next? No resting on my laurels of course (tie-in to my title there). I have much work to do. I'm getting The Prisoner ready to send to Wild Rose Press. I have those dreaded re-writes for Sinful and of course I can pick up where I left off with Sorcerer's Lover. It feels like months since I've been able to rest and play...oh say a video game...my other obsession after writing and reading. And I can't really do much of that now. I have to build many stories and many books to sell.

Latest

So my release date for Duke's Project has been changed to April 24, 2008, two weeks later.

I wrote another chapter of The Perfect Man and expect to have one more chapter and the epilogue to go.

March Madness

Okay so it's Monday and March now. What is the latest?

Of course my coolest news is The Squire winning a spot in the Amber Heat Wave contest. I re-read it over the weekend and you know something, it was good! I actually went, hell this is good, this is hot, the characters are great. Something I wrote that I didn't think was absolute garbage. I always think that, but re-reading The Squire I did not. I did notice I changed the eye color of one of my heroes mid-way through the story and wanted to smack myself upside the head for that. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I finshed reviewing my galleys for A Man Not Her Own over the weekend and have sent my notes/corrections back to my editor at Wild Rose Press. Just minor things.

I also got an email from my EC/CP editor about a few more things to fix on Duke's Project so I had to get those done uber fast. This book has just over a month before it is supposed to be released so I have a feeling things will be moving fast in the next few weeks.

I submitted If Only You to my editor at EC/CP for consideration. She won't be able to get back to me for a few weeks. In the meantime my plan is to finish The Perfect Man, come up with a synopsis and send that off to her as well. Then it will be waiting to hear about that. If I can manage it I would like to be able to send it to her within the next week or so.

Did my horrible unjudged synopsis for Redemption and sent that off to the Romance Through the Ages Contest. I am still torn about entering Sinful. I'd love the editor but I just think I might be wasting my time. Anyway I am definitely leaning toward not entering it at this point.

As my good friend and very soon-to-be published, Nicole (she is a brilliant writer) reminded me I have now sold 4 books. The last year has been more successful for me than ever. Things are starting to happen.