Bad News

Well, here I am, finally updating. I wonder if anyone even remembers me these days? I'm such a terrible blogger, it isn't even funny. But I've been busy with real life stuff - both writing and non-writing related, so unfortunately, something had to give. And since it seemed like I'd blogged about everything I could think of, guess what got sacrificed?

Anyway, I'm back for now and unfortunately, I'm the bearer of bad news. Last Friday, I woke to an email from Musa Publishing. It seems they are closing their doors as of February 28, 2015. And just like that, I've got orphaned books.

Six orphaned books, to be exactly.

The four books in my McKenzie Brothers series and the two in my Mordainia series are now homeless. Damn it.

Now, I'll admit, they didn't earn me a fortune, but the royalties were a nice little bonus every month. But more importantly, it just makes me sad that they will no longer be out there. I've received quite a few good reviews on them, and frankly, I'm very proud of them. They are--in my humble opinion, of course--good stories. And I've grown quite fond of both the McKenzie family and the Mordianian royal family.

So, I don't really know what my next step will be. I will have the rights returned to me free and clear as of the end of the month. I'm considering self-publishing them, since they've been edited and the only changes I want to make to them are very small. But I don't know yet. We'll see. One day at a time and all that and I have a ton of research to do before I make a decision.

But, considering I believe that every time a door shuts, another one opens, I"m trying to look at this as a positive thing. Trying. I was lucky when this happened with Aspen Mountain Press. Musa scooped up my three orphaned McKenzie Brothers books (The Pursuit, Playing With Fire, and A Perfect Lady) and gave them a home. This time around, I don't know what will happen. We'll see.

There is quite a long thread over on the Absolute Write Water Cooler forums regarding Musa--both the good and the bad--and I have to admit, I've had my ups and down with Musa, I was always paid on time, but there were issues with what seemed to be a long list of revolving editors. But over all, mine was a good experience and I don't regret it. What I do regret is that it's ending this way. And I wish they'd given more than a week's notice. But what's done is done. All I can do is look to the future now.

We'll see what happens.

It's ALIVE!!!!

That's right! It's finally here - Musa Publishing has opened its doors and gone live! Check the Musa Publishing blog to learn more about them, their philosophy, and the people behind Musa.

Want to read some great books? Pop on over to Musa Publishing's bookstore. Want to read one of my books (and you know you do, right? Wink wink) well, they can be found right here!

So why are you still here (not that I don't love having you here because you know I do) but go! Scoot!


But come back real soon, m'kay?

It's Coming!

Musa Publishing, that is!

I can't tell you how excited I am about being a part of this - so spread the word and check out the great books, terrific authors, and maybe even win a prize!

Well Hello There...

Good Lord, is it really almost October? Yikes. Bad blogger is bad and then some. I'm so far behind on reading blogs, never mind posting in my own.

So to catch up...

You might have noticed my Aspen Mountain Press books are no longer here, or on my website. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I no longer write for them. There are some serious issues with that publisher with non-payment of royalties (mine included), books being sold after the contracts on them expire, the owner dodging rights-reversion requests and basically vanishing from view. It's been a mess, really, and I feel for AMP authors who are still being held hostage over there. What the owner is doing is terrible and childish and frustrating and I hope those authors can get themselves freed as soon as possible. Check out the thread over at Absolute Write, especially the last few pages.

But I'm one of the fortunate ones. Musa Publishing bought out (and promptly released) the contracts of Aurora Regency and Aurora Regency Historicals imprints (Well, they bought the imprints themselves, as well.)

Have no fear, though. The Pursuit and Playing with Fire are back under contract with Musa and will be released in the near future under their Clio imprint.

Remember A Perfect Lady? Well, I'm thrilled to announce that it will be released in October from Musa, which is kicking off their launch next week. I'm so excited about working with this publisher, it isn't funny, and I should have shiny new cover art to show sometime this week.

I've also finished the first draft of Midnight Angel, and the (hopefully) final draft of To Dance with the Devil. That one will be going out later this week, or so I hope.

So that's it for now. I will be posting with a little more frequency as the clock ticks down to Musa's launch. I may even give away some books. I'll never tell. Well, okay, I will tell, but not yet. :D

Happy Birthday, A Few Thoughts (And Some News, Too!)

Okay, it's a little silly, but today, A Few Thoughts turns five. I looked back at the very first post, which is amazingly boring. Some six months after I posted it, someone commented. I remember being shocked - shocked, I tells ya - that someone actually --yanno - read my blog. I clicked on it (I was moderating comments at the time) and....

It was spam for a porn site.

Ouch.

Okay, so the blog's come a long way since then - now my comments are usually from real people (I still get the occasional spam link) and I love reading them! I don't blog as much as I used to - although I keep telling myself I will get back to it. And I will. Promise. :-)

And now for the news...

I recently sold A Perfect Lady to Aspen Mountain Press/Aurora Regency Historicals and it's set to be released in October to coincide with Aurora Regency Historicals first anniversary. It's the first book I've sold based on only a rough outline, so now I'm under the gun to get the book written. It's almost halfway finished right now and it's what's keeping me from a lot of other things. I've never worked under these circumstances - my books are usually completed by the time I sell them - so this is new (and stressful) for me.

A Perfect Lady is a McKenzie book, a prequel to Playing with Fire and The Pursuit. It's James and Rebecca McKenzie's story, which starts with one night of unbridled passion (if you're going to have passion, it might as well be unbridled, right?) and ends with... well... you'll just have to read the book when it comes out, right?

So, in order to celebrate both this sale and A Few Thoughts' birthday, I think I'll hold a bit of a contest. From now until May 15th, just leave a comment here to enter for your chance to win digital copies of Playing with Fire and The Pursuit.

Happy reading!

Playing with Fire is Out!

Okay, I'm a bit slow this weekend, I confess. Playing with Fire came out on Friday and I didn't say a word about it.

I am shamed.

Anyway, here it is now - happy dance time!

The last place Heather Morgan thought she’d find herself was in a house of Eros. There she waited to be sold to the highest bidder as a way to pay off her father’s mountain of debt to the proprietor of the gaming house holding the auction.

Drew McKenzie had no intention of buying a mistress. But something about the delicate beauty with chestnut hair and gold-flecked dark eyes stirs something inside him. He's been hurt before and isn’t willing to risk his heart a second time.

But when Heather's  scandalous past is exposed, Drew must choose  between his love for Heather, or his family’s honor.  Caught between the two, Drew realizes what it means to be playing with fire.

Want to read an excerpt? (Of course you do!) Check it out right here.

Want to buy it? (Of course you do!) Well, just pop over to Aspen Mountain Press and pick up a copy!

And when you finish reading, come and have a happy dance with me! :D

Kindle vs. Nook - Which One to Choose?

I have a confession to make -

I don't own an e-reader.

There. I said it. I don't own an e-reader. Whew, I feel better now.

Okay, so that said, I'm thinking about taking the plunge and getting one. Maybe after Christmas. Trouble is, I'm a little torn between the Kindle and the Nook. My brother swears by his Kindle. I've heard others swear by the Nook. So, which to choose? Decisions, decisions.

In other news, I finished my NaNoWriMo project over the weekend, and the edits to Tiger Eyes are pretty much done (one more read through before they go off to my editor), so now... vacation! What a lovely word and I am soooo looking forward to the time off.

Oh, and have I mentioned Playing with Fire comes out this Friday? Yay! :D

And then there's Thanksgiving. Last year, I inherited the cooking duties. This year, with my mom being sick, we're having a full house. It will be noisy, there will be much food and wine, and it will be nice having the family together. I'm glad I don't have to do any traveling, as I'd much rather be home cooking than going anywhere. We'll be up early, the Macy's Parade will be on, the house will smell wonderful, and we'll all be together. That's all that matters.

What about you? What're your Turkey Day plans?

Popping In...

Because yes, I am still alive. I think.

Final edits on Playing with Fire are done and turned in. It'll be out next Friday so look for it. Buy it early and buy it often! :)

Ahem...

I'm most of the way through final line edits for Tiger Eyes, so yay! I'm thisclose to being completely caught up on everything. Five books in less than six months is madness and I'll be glad when December rolls around. I'm taking the month off.

I'm also thisclose to finishing my NaNo project. It was supposed to be a western historical, but I scrapped that idea partway into the first week and decided to finish writing Aidrian's story. It's coming along nicely and I should finish it up sometime in the next two or three days. Yay!

Hopefully then I'll get around to regular (or at least semi-regular) blogging.

Hopefully.

Taking a Break

From my NaNoWriMo project. I have to be honest, I hate the story. I hate the characters. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I don't want to write. I have to force myself to sit down and hit my word count each day.

I think it's partly because I didn't have time to do much more than a few paragraphs of a synopsis. Now, I'm not really a plotter. Never have been, though I've been leaning more and more toward it. But, I usually have a bit more of a skeleton, and I know the time period I'm writing about. But this year, I was editing two books during September and October, which meant I had no time to do even the most preliminary of research. As a result, my NaNo story, which is supposed to be an historical set in the Old West, reads like it could take place in any time, which is Not Good when writing an historical. Not Good at all. Yeesh.

But mainly, I think I'm tired. By the end of January, I'll have four books out (The Pursuit - July, Playing with Fire - November, Tiger Eyes - December, and After the Storm, January) with a fifth one coming as soon as I get a release date. Playing with Fire and Devil in Disguise (release date TBA) were the books I was working on in the run-up to NaNo (I also did first round edits on Tiger Eyes in there somewhere.) I finished The King's Bride. I started two other books in addition to everything else. It's been a busy few months, and that's without adding in everything that's been going on with my mom as well. Which all adds up to one tired writer.

So I'm looking forward to December. I'll take the month off from most of my writing (I'll have final edits on Tiger Eyes and that should be it for deadlines.) I'll work here and there on The King's Bride because I plan to start subbing that in the new year. I'll work a little here and there on my current WIPs, and I'll blog, but that's about it until sometime next year. I need a rest. I don't want my writing to suffer and I'm thinking that it's starting to do just that. And when the time comes that I have to force myself to work on a story? Yep, that's a hint.

So, I'm looking forward to my little vacation. I think I've earned it.

I'm BACK! didja miss me?

I've been running like a freak for the last two weeks. Way back, when contracts first crossed my desk, having several books coming out over a few months seemed like a good idea. Sure, get out there with new stuff, since it's been two years since my last release. Why not?

Seemed like a good idea at the time.


or so I thought.

Deadlines have overlapped. Major rewrites have come in all at once (eek!). But on the plus side - I kan haz kool kovers?

Check these out -

Playing With Fire ~ will be released by Aspen Mountain Press/Aurora Regency Historicals on Novemvber 26. And here is the smokin' cover...

And following that is Tiger Eyes, which is coming from Samhain Publishing on December 21, 2010. W00t!

Yowza...


And coming in January, 2011, from The Wild Rose Press:

And with a release date to be determined (but edits mercifully thisclose to done) is Devil in Disguise from the Wild Rose Press...

So this seemed like a great idea, like great exposure - and it was. But there was a lot of work and a lot of craziness on top of all the RL craziness going on in my word.

But now everything is thisclose to being finished. WHew.

Now I can begin working on my NaNo project. And then I'll tackle The King's Bride. Mary, my most awesome beta reader, gave me a lot to think about and made some great suggestions. So when those changes are made, The King's Bride will leave home to go out on submission.

Then I'll take a vacation. Maybe. :)

NaNoWriMo and Other Stuffs

It's hard to believe we're pretty much halfway through October already. I love October. It's my favoritest month. The days are warm (for the most part), the nights are chilly (perfect!), and the colors - OMG.

One of the best things about living where I do is the autumn. The leaves become the most beautiful shades of red, orange, and gold. We have one tree in our backyard (a black tupelo, if Wikipedia can be trusted) that becomes the most gorgeous colors when the leaves turn. It's just starting to turn now, and I'll try to get pictures of it. I love it. It's my favoritest tree ('Mom,'  the Girl says, 'don't you mean favorite, since favoritest isn't really a word?' Gotta love her.)


And during this month, I begin thinking about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those who have never heard of the challenge of writing 50k words in 30 days or less.) This year, I'd planned on finishing Midnight Angel. But when I finished my edits for Tiger Eyes and turned them in, I got hit with the urge to write. In the last two days, I've added almost 3k words and the way I'm going, I'll finish the rough draft before November 1st.

So, I think I'll work on the western I've wanted to write. We'll see. I've got eighteen days to mull it over. Or, I can do as I've done in years past - finish one book and start another. That's how I ended up with Tiger Eyes and Devil in Disguise. One was begun, the other ended, during NaNo 2008. That's the beauty of NaNo. And, even better, I've sold every one of my NaNo projects, and they usually inspire more books as well. Writing's funny that way, work breeds inspiration. :D

Now, Playing with Fire is set to be released on November 26th, so I'll be knee-deep in edits for that as well. And there is still at least two more rounds of edits on Tiger Eyes - so I'm going to be busier than a one-armed paper hanger for the next few weeks. And, I should have cover art for Tiger Eyes and final cover art for Playing with Fire very soon.

I'm in for a couple of very busy weeks, but it should be fun. Surely I'm not the only loon signed up for NaNo - anyone else out there doing it?

Imagination

When I first sat down to write this post, I planned to blog about imagination. But no matter what I wrote, it sounded ridiculous. Probably because it was ridiculous. What do I know about imagination? I know that I've always had a good one and sometimes it runs wild with me. :)

I never had invisible friends (either human or rabbit, and a cookie to anyone who gets the reference), but my favorite toys were my Barbie dolls. My best friend and I would play almost every day and we never played like those stupid Barbie commercials ("Barbie's a veterinarian!") We had storylines. And drama. And conflict. There were love triangles, and betrayals, and reunited lovers (oh, yeah... our Barbies were gettin' a little somethin'-somethin' as well. Hardly a surprise I grew up to write steamy romance novels, eh? :D) Kris's grandmother would come to watch her and her brother for two weeks every summer, and she said she preferred watching us to her soaps. Is it any surprise I'm a writer now?

I miss those days now - those Barbie games and their stories, laid the groundwork for the writing I do now. I learned all the basics just from my imagination, without even knowing I was learning and without ever thinking that it might be something I'd actually get paid to do.

Imagination is limitless. It's infinite. It's a gift. And it's a shame most people lose that gift, or let it fade away. The ones who retain it are the lucky ones.

Checking In...

It's been very crazy in my neck of the woods - between the kidlets starting school, and my mother's latest go-round in the hospital, I haven't had the time or the energy to post anything. We're settling into a daily routine here, and my mom was moved from the hospital to a rehab facility, so things should calm down a little. Of course, every time I think that, something comes along and slaps me upside the head.

Anyway, I have some exciting news - Aspen Mountain Press offered me a contract for the follow up McKenzie book, Playing with Fire! It's scheduled for release on November 26, 2010, and I should have cover art very soon. When I do, I will post it. Yay!

I'm still waiting for cover art for Tiger Eyes, and when I have that, I will post it as well.

I'll also be receiving edits for Devil in Disguise, Playing with Fire, and Tiger Eyes, so things are going to get way busy in the coming days. Yay for busy. Right now, busy is good.

 Busy is very good.

A Quick Detour

I'm thinking of hosting a contest to celebrate the true releases of The Pursuit and Playing With Fire. Now they won't be out until later this fall, but it's never too soon to begin planning, right?

So, here is where I call on my wonderful readers (and I know you're out there!) to tell me what they think or what they'd like to see as prizes.

Right now. I have books to offer as prizes. I have ARCs (complete with editor notes that'll make you laugh or cringe.) I have earlier drafts loaded with my own revisions and notes scratched from front to back on page after page. If it's on paper - I have it as a possible prize.

But I also had an interesting idea. I've seen done before and wondered about holding a contest where the main winner - the grand prize, so to speak - is the winner appearing in a future book as a major secondary character. Now, I've never done a contest of this sort, so I'd love to hear some information either for or against such a contest. Pros and cons would be super appreciated, so anyone who has an experience to share - I'd love to hear it so leave me a comment!

I've got time, but it's going to go fast, so get your ideas in quickly! I'm dying to hear any and all suggestions!

Checking In

I'm still here - just running like crazy. My mom finished up her radiation therapy, but now she's back in the hospital because she's sick as anything. They don't think it's because of the radiation, but they aren't really sure why she's so sick. It doesn't make any sense to anyone. Hopefully we'll have answers real soon.

I'm going through the first edits for Devil in Disguise and my editor is a wonderfully patient woman. She knows what's going on, so at least I don't have that stress.

I may even have a title for Aidrian. Yay! As of right now, it's now titled, Midnight Angel. :D

I'm revising the cover copy and excerpt for Playing with Fire. I hate writing cover copy. It's a skill. I don't haz it. :( Fortunately, my editor does haz it. So this copy will happen. Oh yes, it will.)

I'm in the midst of getting the cover for Tiger Eyes. When I can share it, I will. Promise. :D

Okay, I think that's it - time to finish my coffee, jump into the shower, and trek on up to the hospital.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! :D