With the debut of “Romance Under Wraps,” promoting, writing “Alex and the Very Dead Doxy” AND “Rules of Engagement,” I am having a riot!
See?
I am pleased to see solid 4s and 5s popping up for “Romance Under Wraps,” and on Kindle, it is on sale in time for Christmas for 99 cents from December 24th to December 30th.
That’s what my main character, Catherine Cade, would call “easy as takin’ candy from a baby.” She’s a thief, and betting within this romantic suspense, she’d tell you to get it while it’s hot enough for the black market!
The good news is that the ebook How to Steal a Romance is on schedule, end of this month (July 31st in case COVID scrambled your calendar brain).
I’ve set up signings in my town, and I’ve been asked for an interview with Inked Voices, who are chock full of new and established authors as well as editors, agents, and publishers.
That said, COVID, oh joy of joys, has slowed the presses enough to kinda tick me off. The paperbacks will be available around September.
Next on my list is Rules of Engagement. Oh yech. I mean, editing goes slowly. Sigh. Since How to Steal a Romance is coming out soon and very soon, I am whipping my way through a novella, a sequel to How to Steal a Romance.
Name? Currently, the name of said WIP is When I Was Dead. It’s How to Steal a Romance from Rick Calhoun’s perspective. Takes place? Of course, in Whiskey River, a small community in Southern Oregon.
Looks dead to me
Then, I will return to finish Rules of Engagement. This is perhaps the most complicated of all of my works, a military/intrigue with plenty of romance and sparks in the middle of a kidnapping. You won’t find one soul in the first-person narrative. Instead, because of the plethora of characters, everything is in the third person, past tense.
Other works, in the works: Glass Slipper, a noir sequel to How to Steal a Romance with the morose medical examiner and a new tech. He doesn’t like her. At all. She thinks he’s a pig. They’ll get along great…
Next is a small town detective with zip experience, working to solve a serial murder. She is totally out of her depth and the only one in town who knows it. Alex must find another detective. Someone who knows what he/she is doing. And, a behavioral analyst. Alex and the Very Dead Doxy takes place in a rural community in Northern Minnesota.
Anyone notice a small town theme?
Next? Murder in the Mist. Takes place, again in Minnesota with one minor difference. Small one. The main character’s only help is from Whiskey River, a woman with a past like hers. That could only mean homicide detective, Catherine Cade Calhoun. With her husband out of town, homicide detective Rick Calhoun, she can take a short leave to help her friend languishing in jail. What could possibly go wrong? Alex doesn’t know what to do with her, and the main character is beside herself, a witness to a murder, as the cultish madman hunts her down.
I have the skeleton of a novel called, The Corpse in the Cupboard, which lives to its name. Kit Russell awakens in a strange town, in a strange house. Alone. Of course, a bit freaked out, she scouts out the digs she was tossed into. Finally, as she seeks coffee, she opens a broom closet and out falls a you-know-what. Most unfortunately she knows who it is. After getting said dead body back in the cupboard, a knock on the door stops her scream and a private detective, seeking shelter from a storm (which conveniently knocks out the power and the phone), walks into the kitchen when Kit’s back is turned. Oh, mercy. When he opens the broom closet he starts yelling. No wonder! So, what happened? How did she get there? Why is the woman dead? And in a cupboard? Can she trust this alleged private investigator? Can he trust her?
Welp. That’s what’s up with me.
How are you doing on your reading and writing?
I LOVE COMMENTS, so gimme a heads up, tell me what you think and how you’re doing!
The first pass edit of How to Steal a Romance passed the publishing house’s editing team with three whole blips, which I call a win. Fixed in 3 minutes.
Made those corrections and sent the manuscript back, and it is ready for submission to be published.
Whoosh!
And anxiously awaiting to see what the cover will look like. I know what my brain says, but let’s see what their graphics team comes up with!
So, what are you doing during the ‘stay-inside’ plague?
I am thinkin’ I need to distance myself from social media (mercy! I am already social distancing…!) to do some catchup reading and writing.
Expect How to Steal a Romance on the shelves, KDP/Nook, etc., before fall. YEEEEKS!!
Military intrigue. Not my usual genre. Yes… yes. There is some romance. But more of a dude’s novel.
I ‘usually’ write romantic/suspense, however, several years back I started this military thriller/intrigue. By the time I finished ‘How to Steal a Romance,’ it was time to do a rewrite. This is a fictionalized novel loosely based on happenings in 2014.
I’ll leave you to guess what it’s about.
Got a lot done in the past few days on the new novel. I find it truly amazing how much can be accomplished when not on social media… who would have thought.
Anyway, the next steps include: Finishing the last third of the rewrite. Putting this through the paces of my Grammarly and electronic reader. Send it to beta readers (whom I will need, btw, in the event you want a free copy). Then off to my Grammar Nazi who will also rip it to shreds. Then… a copyeditor and off to publishing houses out there and/or agents.
My timeline ‘was’ six months to finish the rewrite. Well, I am almost done. So, the next goal, I continue now at three months to beta readers, six months or thereabouts to copyeditor, minus the copyedit, send off, acceptance by agent/publisher, and their edit requests.
For the NanoWrimos among us, I suspect you’ve dented your couch and eschewed Thanksgiving as I have done (but not this year).
50,000 words, one month, fingertips on fire, total focus.
WELL THEN. I am not quite there this year since I decided I really needed to work on those 5 novels already in the works since I began the Nano challenge.
So, after a good chapter + that I worked on, I plowed through Thanksgiving (mostly… foodwise) and didn’t work on it and still was too full to work yesterday.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
How are you doing on your WIP? Oh, and I changed the WIP I am working on. Made more sense to me to edit that one.
I should add perhaps… bon chance (GOOD LUCK!). Bon courage (roughly, be happy, don’t worry…).
Have copyeditor, will travel. Before I sent her the MS I found a gazillion gaffs so… I fixed ’em, notified the agent who graciously let me dump the first submission of cover letter/proposal/synopsis/first 50 pages.
That being a big, fat whew, I moved on. Now, it’s a condundrum.
Should I really work on Murder in the Mist?
Or… back to my romantic/comedy/suspense (noir), Glass Slipper? The immediate sequel to HTSR? A tough edit.
(Image courtesy S. Spalletta)
What about the wee town of Olvegaart? Where a romantic/mystery occurs (some suspense)? Where the working title is Alex and the Very Dead Doxy?
Yes… doxy means lady of the night. Or day. Or whatever.
Just needs a cleanup, okay a lotta cleaning up.
AIR, military suspense/romance? Note: Imagination in overdrive. Again.
(Image, courtesy my brain)
I mean, that is done! But not vaguely edited. At. All.
Since I have been procrastinating I haven’t posted.
Because… I have been procrastinating.
Got back into it last night until 2 a.m. My grammar-a-holic I can credit for crackin’ the whip and makin’ me git back to it.
Fearing ProWritingAid’s (PWA) incredibly slow process again, I tried the free Grammarly only to find that punctuation / proofing was not included. Oh, please.
So I plugged the whole MS back into PWA and typed away.
Funny thing happened on the way to (Damascus) this process. I submitted my cover letter/proposal/synopsis/50 pages without the PWA edit — to the agent.
MERCY. Should I tell her? I am hoping she is blind to my gaffs. Otherwise…
My apathy and angst over reading and writing lasted far too long.
Time’s up.
Got the 1st 50 pages proofed (because I can only take fixing stuff a small dose at a time). Then about a week or so later fixed them thar errors.
Today, wrote … wait for it … synopsis, cover letter, and polished proposal.
The awesome thing right here is that an agent listened to my pitch on P2P (Pitch-top-Published) and said, send it!
Sweet! But that was, of course, months ago when I was still having that eReader read through my manuscript. Not quite done with that process I might add.
Sent my grammar-a-holic friend the next 50 pages and the 1-page synopsis and 1-page cover letter.
As I quake in fear.
Once fixed, I will send that into the ether and finish that read-through if’n I can’t finish it in the next few days.
Then, onto fixing one of my 3 other novels, listening to the fire.
