As you may have noticed, I’ve pretty much disappeared. It’s hard for me to stick my head up and tell you what’s going on, but it’s time I did just that.

The sequel to Shadows of Evil has been rejected by Samhain Publishing. And no, there is no chance of resubmission. I worked with an editor for months in an attempt to produce a manuscript that would fit their needs, but in the end, it just didn’t work out. Please understand, I don’t have any hard feelings against that editor or Samhain. This was a business decision, and I understand.

Of course, this is far from the first rejection I’ve ever received. Yes, this one hurt more than most, but it was just another rejection. And while it was one of the things that contributed to my need to hide in my cave for a while, it wasn’t the only reason.

The truth is that I’ve been facing down some personal demons that I’ve been trying to shove under the carpet for quite a few years. The problem with the shoving under the carpet way of coping is that eventually the demons under there climb out and dance around waving hands and sticking out tongues and laughing at the very idea that you thought you could ignore their existence. To make matters worse, while they were under that carpet, those ugly little demons have grown to enormous proportions. Now you really have a problem on your hands. And that’s the situation I found myself in: facing down huge, ugly, terrifying personal demons. These are things that happened to me when I was very young. Things I barely remember. But things that have affected me on a daily basis for basically my entire life.

What now? Well, I have a fantastic therapist who I believe can help me defeat these overgrown bullies. As far as writing is concerned, I’ve been taking online classes, attending workshops, and reading craft and inspirational books. I’ve done some serious soul searching about what I want from my writing career, and how to get there. And yes, I’ve been looking at potential publishers for the Shadows sequel, because I believe in the book. But I also realize it still needs a lot of work.　

I have no idea when I’ll have another book or story out. I am writing, I am working toward the goal of being published again, and I will try to keep you all in the loop. Please be patient as I sort out my life. And if anybody has any personal demon slaying hints and tips to share, feel free to send them my way.　

Take care, and may all your demons be tiny ones.

My husband and I participated in Earth Hour Saturday night. As I sat trying to read to the light of a flickering candle, nostalgia filled me. I grew up in a small town whose electrical supply was the tail end of a larger city’s supplier. The city was miles away, and they got priority. Every time it stormed, and it storms a lot in Tennessee, our power went out. We kept candles and an oil lamp—and trust me, they got used. I loved those times.

There was something special about those evenings when the power went off, when my grandmother and I sat at the kitchen table and talked and read. The scent of the oil, the flickering light, the closeness to another person. Sometimes my mom would join us. Sometimes we’d play Author Cards—and I learned about people like Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Sir Walter Scott, Washington Irving, and Edgar Allan Poe. Can't find the dang things anymore, and it's a shame.

I had lunch with my mom last week. I had given her a print copy of Shadows of Evil, and she gave me an amazing compliment when she said she liked it. Then she leaned closer and said, "But I think it would have been just as good without all that," she lowered her voice even more, "sex. Don’t you think so?"

I sat there, in the middle of the restaurant, wondering just how red my face was becoming. I told her that my love scenes were very mild compared to most of what’s out there. "It is?" she asked. The shocked disbelief in her voice killed my embarrassment, and send that little doubt worm burrowing through me. Oh. My. God! My mother had read my sex scenes! Should I have given her that book to read? Was my work too sexy? Maybe I should just write sweet romances. Okay, that was when my logic circuits twitched and sparked. I had tried that gig, and it was not a good fit. I tried to explain that when you have somebody’s arm ripped off in the prologue, closing the bedroom door just seems silly. Then I changed the subject.

Shadows of Evil’s print edition officially releases tomorrow. Ebooks may be the wave of the future, but holding an actual paper book in my hand—a book with my name on the cover—is one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. Having my mother like the book (except for the sex, of course) just made it more special.

Have a great Monday!
 

I gots books!,
originally uploaded by dragon_quill.

I got my author copies of Shadows of Evil today. I'm excited, I'm goofy, I can't believe it's true. My book in my hand. It's an awesome feeling.

Thank you to everybody who helped me live my dream. This is amazing!

As I said yesterday, fantasy and science fiction cons are fun and exciting. I loved the Con Nooga experience, but I am a bit shy and it’s still strange to me being an author. Speaking on panels, sitting at a table and people coming up to me, signing autographs! Crazy.

The two panels I was on at were a "Writers Roundtable" and "Promotion for the Creator." At the roundtable, there were more writers than audience members, but it was interesting. It was exciting—and a little scary—to think that people might be interested in hearing what I had to say. The promotion panel was better attended. The other panelists were more experienced in this promotion stuff, and I learned as much as the audience.

I reunited with some fantastic people over the weekend. I met Christina Barber at Hallowcon last year. Though she’s probably about the age of my daughters, she took me under her wing at Hallowcon and again at Con Nooga. I appreciate her help and support. Other nice people I met at Hallowcon and saw again at Con Nooga were Mark Helwig—an amazing artist, and Joe Dickerson and Lonny Harper from Aberrant Dreams.

I met some really nice people at Con Nooga. D. A. Adams was nice enough to give me hints about how to overcome my shyness. Robert Freese had the table next to mine, and we talked a lot. He’s a nice guy with good information. Shane Moore is an amazing guy who knows more about promotion for an author than I ever will. Thank you, gentlemen.

I would also like to thank my friend Barbara for getting me involved in the con scene in the first place. You created a monster, girl!

I’m only now recovering from the weekend, but the experience was well worth a little exhaustion. I can’t wait for FantaSciCon next month. See you there!

Last Wednesday, my novella Keepers of Legend was released from The Wild Rose Press. I’m excited, thrilled, beside myself.

So why, you might ask, is this crazy woman promoting the novella today, when it was released two days ago? Well, you see, it’s like this, not only do I write well, I also am quite talented in the clumsy department. I was up early Wednesday morning, ready to immerse myself in the wonder that is a new release. I was feeling great, up early, ready to get started on this magical day. I was grooming myself, as we women are wont to do on such occasions, and this grooming involved tweezing my eyebrows. I even had a new pair of tweezers. Sharper than most, I’d caught my skin several times with the things. I love the way they work, but I knew I had to be careful with them. I wasn’t careful enough though. I managed to scratch my eye with the dang things. Pain, much tearing, inability to tolerate light—for instance the light coming from a computer screen. I felt quite foolish, and very frustrated.

My husband had to get Online and pull up The Wild Rose Press. I peeked at the wondrous sight, then went back to my dark room to continue feeling foolish and frustrated.

My eye was somewhat better yesterday, but I still could only tolerate the computer for limited amounts of time. Even today I’m still quite sensitive to light. But it’s better.

Here’s a blurb for Keepers of Legend:

Deep in the Smoky Mountains a strange creature sweeps through the air and captures the imagination. It looks like a dragon, but is it? Jessica Knight has her doubts, but can she protect the amazing animal long enough to discover the truth?

Wanna read an excerpt? You can go here.

The Dragons are awake. Now everything changes.

Happy Friday the 13^th!

Coming to you from the Hutton writers retreat. Never heard of it? Neither has anybody else. It’s actually my house. My husband is out of town for four days and I’m using the time to polish up The Manuscript That Will Not Die. Don’t get me wrong, I really love this story, but I’ve been working on it for almost a year. It’s a long story, and I’ll fill you in when I can. But for right now, I have to get back to the TMTWND (Not the real title, by the way).

The last two weeks, the Otherworld Diner employees have been posting about goals. There’s some really great stuff there. I even posted last Friday andtoday about writing a business plan for your writing business and using that as a guide for setting writing goals.

Back to the polish!

 I’m almost halfway. Wish me luck.

 Have a wonderful weekend!!

I’ll admit it, I’ve been holding back. I’ve been losing weight with a system that sounds too good to be true. I didn’t believe it either, so I wanted to make sure before I spread the news.

A few months ago, I happened upon a six-part television show called, I Can Make You Thin. The shows, and the program, were developed by British PhD Paul McKenna. There are four simple rules to his program: 1. When you’re hungry, eat. 2. Eat what you want to eat. 3. Eat slowly and enjoy every bite. 4. When you’re full, stop. Sounds too easy, right? And yet it works. Really. I didn’t believe it, but it’s true. I can’t tell you how much weight I’ve lost, our scale bit the dust two moves ago, but I do know my clothes fit better, and I see the difference when I look in the mirror. I’ll let you know how it’s going.

Over on the Otherworld Diner, my snack, dishes up a light serving of paragraphs in the middle of books by bestselling authors. If you want to check it out, go here. As always, while you’re there, feel free to look around. My coworkers always serve up thought provoking entrees and snacks.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Over at the Otherworld Diner, I’ve posted a piece on middles (of manuscripts, not people). Come on over and check it out. While you’re there, my coworkers’ posts are wonderful. If you’ve ever had a manuscript slow down after the initial excitement, then come on down for some great ideas.

Have a great weekend!!

The Today Show did a report. They interviewed Nora Roberts, who did a wonderful job of explaining that romance is about hope. Personally I was hoping they wouldn’t make romance look bad. As they showed scenes from San Francisco, where the conference is held this year, they only showed the literacy book signing (the only event open to the public). No mention was made that those books are donated and the proceeds used to support literacy programs. Actually, from the report, you’d get the impression that the entire conference was about fans gathering in droves to meet their favorite authors.

Then, when the camera goes back to the Today Show set, two female hosts were sitting on a couch. One of them said, "We should take up that career in our spare time." I took that to be the usual "I could write one of those trashy things in a few hours" type comments. I don’t think I was wrong.

I dare her to try. Come on, lady, show us what you can do. It’s easy to write a romance novel. It only takes hundreds of hours of hard work, including planning, plotting, research, revision, more revision, and polishing. And then comes the rejections. Yeah, it’s easy. Hey, why don’t we take up being a Today Show host in our spare time? It can’t be hard to just sit there and talk. Right?

Meanwhile, over at the Otherworld Diner, I blogged about my muse. Her name is Quill, and she’s a...

Sorry, you’ll have to go see for yourself. J

Good Monday, folks. I know the beginning of the work week is not known for being a pleasant day, but I hope there are some things in your life today that you can happy about.

As for me, I’m basically taking a class without a teacher. Sort of. Long story, but the punch line is that I needed Margie Lawson’s Empowering Character Emotions class, but she wasn’t teaching it anytime soon. So, I bought the lecture notes. She writes at the beginning of the notes that the class is intense, graduate class level type work. My thought process was that I’ve been writing for a long time. I’m intelligent. I’ll breeze right through this thing.

Wrong.

She wasn’t kidding. The class is intense! At the moment, I’m averaging two days per lecture. And I haven’t even finished all the assignments of those three lectures yet. Now part of that is because I had some dental work done toward the end of last week. (My face is still sore.) But the biggest reason is that the class involves complicated stuff that takes some serious thought and study. Especially when it comes to applying the principles to my own work.

The up side of the whole deal is that I’m very sure I’ll come out of this experience a better writer. My biggest regret is that I didn’t take a class from Margie before. She’s awesome! I heard she’s an amazing teacher, and she’s even better than I imagined. If you get a chance to take one of her classes or workshops, I definitely recommend it. Just be prepared to work. Hard.

It’s a challenge, but—like everything else in life—nothing worthwhile is easy.

Back to work.