The Great Blog Switch is approaching. My wonderful web designer has done a Wordpress theme for me and I've got WordPress all set up and configured. I have a contest pending (go leave a comment!!). As soon as that is done, I'll switch over.

Current blog subscribers will need to update their feeds. The Blogger blog archives will remain available for our mutual enjoyment and perusal, though I'll close comments to this blog.

In other news, I'm closing in on revisions for My Immortal Assassin which explains why I haven't been posting as much as I like to.

Back to it!

Labels: Blog news, My Immortal Assassin

I have been revising My Immortal Assassin into a much better book. Possibly a book unrecognizable by any one who read it before. Almost done. Almost.

Tomorrow, I'm mailing out various prizes etc. So tardy. But I've been revising like mad. The pain. Oh, the pain. But also, oh the good feeling when you fix something . . .

I've also read two really amazing books. The first one is A Bad Day For Sorry by Sophie Littlefield. She's a fellow San Francisco Bay Area RWA chapter member, so I know her which is cool. A Bad Day for Sorry has been nominated for an Edgar. (Because it's a mystery, though there's some strong romantic elements in it.)

This book seriously rocks. It's a debut novel, too. Go read it. It's Edgar nominated for a reason.

The other book is A Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti.


I seriously loved this book. It's just overwhelmingly good. I felt like I was living with the characters. It's steampunk but let me tell you, the romance is beautifully done. There's no sex on the pages, but I defy anyone not to get sniffly at the romantic ending.

But here's the thing. I read the book because I'd heard it was good. You hear things, you know? A friend whose opinion I really trust recommended it, too, so my usual silly resistance to Books I Keep Hearing About got worn down and I read it. And then I remembered hearing that the author was having trouble selling a second book.

WTF? Really? What is wrong with the people over at Juno Books? I went off to her website and I thought I saw that she was still looking for an agent. (What? That's another mystery to me.) But now I can't find that so maybe it's not true. ETA: Found it: Clockwork Heart Sequel: Looking for an agent

The sad thing is that poor sales can doom additional books sales from an author even if the published book is amazing. Were sales for A Clockwork Heart not robust enough to get a second sale? Criminal if true.

I just know I want to read more novels by her and it seems I can't.

Labels: books, Cool Stuff, great books, My Immortal Assassin

What's it like to be a writer? Well sometimes it's darned expensive!

This week's expenses:

425.00 Register for RWA National in Nashville TN
407.00 Buy round trip non-stop plane ticket Oakland to Nashville
188.50 RWA conf hotel hold on credit card
225.00 Enter RomConInc Contest because editor emailed authors about it, 3 books at $75 each.
093.00 Buy and ship books to contest via Amazon (I'm low on copies plus this saves me postage AND a trip to the Post Office, which would happen God knows when.)

Plus, the really evil thing is I had to use the credit card for some of this, so know I have to go to the "Writing Fund" Bank to get the cash to pay the credit card IMMEDIATELY because credit cards are evil.

Right now, I'm freaking out about money. I'll feel better when the amounts are all paid in cash. But still. That RomConInc contest is freaking expensive. I hope next year they lower the fee. Not that it matters because in 2010, I only have the Regency short story out. So, actually, I hope they lower the fee for the 2011 contest.

Then today, right when I was in the middle of sending an email to my agent about back cover copy for My Immortal Assassin, my website went down -- this would include email and I was on the webmail program. Everything just went ::poof::

Did you hear me scream? Prolly. Yeah, that was me.

So then I had to reconstruct everything and send it from my gmail account.

I'm whining, I know. And I apologize, sort of. But I'm in the middle of massive revisions and not only is that depressing on a number of levels, it's a lot of pressure to get them done both well and quickly.

To top it all off, I made a pound cake and it was a failure. It tastes great, but the texture is all wrong. ::sob::

Labels: baking, My Immortal Assassin, stuff, Whining

On Wednesday jan 19 2010, I will be over at Risky Regencies blogging about Lord Byron and contemporary opinions, among other heavily opinionated things. So if you're reading this on Wednesday, it's a two-fer! Check it out.


First off, here's the cover of The Mammoth Book Of Regency Romance in which I will have a story. I don't know the release date yet, but I will update you all when I know.

My story is about a couple who realize their long correspondence via the post has made them perfect for each other. He's younger than she is, by the way.

I don't know how mammoth the book will be, but hey, what a great way to find out about other authors you might like!


In other news, the official title for My Beloved Assassin is now My Immortal Assassin. You heard it here first!

In other, other news, I recently finished my first book by John Scalzi. I've been following his wonderful blog for ages and have been thinking, for ages, that I should read something by the guy. I was at my local independent this weekend, Copperfield's Books, and there was his first book. Old Man's War so I said Whatever and bought it.

Then I read it. And damn! It was really good. It gave me the warm and fuzzies for SciFi again after years and years of being all depressed about how hostile so much SciFi is to the women in the books. I grew up adoring Azimov and Heinlein etc and even when I was twelve or so I remember feeling sad that the women didn't do much besides die or be cast off or require saving. They were so rarely characters that changed the story on their own. Over the years, I'd pick up something in the genre -- maybe I was just unlucky -- and I'd end up feeling like not much had changed. I love stories with ray guns and space ships and physics and all and I've missed them, as I discovered.

Old Man's War was like reading Heinlein or Azimov only the women were real people! They were capable and worthy of admiration and respect for so much more than big boobs. And the story was romantic. Really, truly romantic. ::Sigh::

And now, back to work for me.

Has anybody read anything good lately?

Labels: Mammoth Book of Regency Romance, My Immortal Assassin, reading, SciFi