Wow, I have been holding so many things back that I must share with y’all. Here is all the news since my last post.
As of this past Sunday night, I turned in the first book of my contemporary romance trilogy to the professional editor I’ve hired through the awesome HEA Author Services to do a developmental edit.
As most of my regular followers know, I wrote this book the first time back in 2013, edited the crap out of it, Frankensteined it, and lost my voice. In early 2021, I left my cable TV exec gig to become a full-time writer, replotted and rewrote everything from scratch, and expanded it by almost 30,000 words. I joyously typed the end in August 2022.
This fall, I took a break from my book to let it rest and wrote my science fantasy romance short story, which is now coming out in just three weeks!!! Remember, you can pre-order it now, and paperbacks will be available when it releases. You can get it on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble, among others.
BUY IT NOW HERE. Not to be bossy, ha!
The anthology I wrote with six great friends of mine is called Love at Dawn.
Here’s the cover:
And within, you’ll find my story “Butterflies and Goodbyes”. Here’s a quick blurb:
He’s a fighter, but she’s got knife skills—in the kitchen. Once betrothed, he needs her now for the rebellion against the Morphos, but all she wants is to survive. Can Kendrick help hope dawn for Beatrix in time to save all their souls?
Once I was done with the work on my short story, I returned to my book to edit it—as everyone knows, I so love to do—to turn over to my editor. I’ve contracted her to work with me on the next two books of the trilogy this year! Book 2 is due July 30th to her, and Book 3 is due December 10th. A lot of writing is planned. This is the year.
In the meantime, because that is clearly not enough—in mid-January, en route to visit family in Clearwater, FL, I submitted my short story for copyright. I received my official certificate in the mail yesterday! I can’t even explain how holding this piece of paper makes me feel. Like I’m a real writer with a piece of intellectual property that I own, and no one can ever take that from me. I mean, how cool is this?
Then additionally, in the month of February, I’ve been taking two Lawson Writer’s Academy classes, one called, Submission that Sell with Laura Drake, and one called the Sizzling, Scintillating Synopsis with Suzanne Purvis. Both were excellent and helped me prepare my query letter, synopsis, and overall submission packet to pitch my book to editors and agents.
This was convenient because I also participated in the Savvy Authors Sweetheart Pitchfest in mid-February. Fingers crossed, I get some nibbles!
Lastly, and this is what I’m doing here–I relaunched my website! Whoop whoop! I hope you like it. It’s more modern and evergreen, so hopefully, it will better stand the test of time, as much as I loved my former ’80s fuchsia airbrushed look. And it allows me to feature my works (both writing and painting) while keeping up with my blog updates.
Next up, I have to dig into the plot of my entire trilogy, mapping it to Romancing the Beat—crucial to me for envisioning the proper story structure before I write. My developmental edit should come back by March 20th though, so I also have to work on my pitch list and individual submissions so they’re ready to go once editing is complete. Eek!
And don’t worry. I’ve signed up for more classes and pitch events in the coming months that I’ll share more about later. Who said writing is the quiet life?