Jan 3
2011

2011??!

It’s a new year?? Holy crap, how the hell did that happen?

Okay, so I didn’t mean to lay off blogging for six months. (Cringe!) Things got busy, yanno?

Anyway—here’s a bit of catch-up:

July: Went to San Diego ComicCon. Had a total blast. I LOVE this con and fully intend to go every year if possible.

July-ish: The German version of Mark of the Demon came out.

German cover for Mark of the Demon

Isn’t it purty??? I can’t read a lick of German, so I’m taking it on faith that it’s really my book. :-D

August, September, October, November: Wrote. Caught up on various TV. Prepared for the holidays. Gained too much weight. Wrote some more. Didn’t blog. (Heh.) Did something to my knee that made it hurt. A lot. Went to the doc, had an MRI, was informed that I have an impressive amount of osteoarthritis in my right knee. Go me! Sheesh.

December: Got mad at myself for gaining too much weight. Re-joined Loseit! (loseit.com) along with a handful of friends, got my ass back into the gym and become BFFs with the elliptical (since I can’t run any more.) Got back into the heavy weight-lifting as well. Love me some muscles! Lost 8.5 pounds since Dec 5th. Go Me! Did some more writing, but nowhere near as much as I needed to. Sigh. Survived Christmas. Did promo for Secrets of the Demon. Holy crap, I have a book coming out soon!

January: Still exercising, still writing!

So, yes, Secrets of the Demon officially comes out tomorrow, but I’m hearing lots of reports of sightings! I have a signing at the Barnes & Noble in Mandeville, LA, on Saturday, Jan 8th, from 2-4 pm, and another at the Books-A-Million in Baton Rouge on Jan 15th, also from 2-4pm.

And I know many people who don’t believe in making resolutions, and I seldom do, but my routine and my already-paltry organizational skills fell apart during the latter half of 2010, so my biggest resolution this year will be to stop screwing around so much and get the work done that needs to get done. 2010 was actually a terrific year for me in a lot of ways, and I’m hoping 2011 will build on that and totally rock. I have a lot of great opportunities popping up for me, and if I miss out on them, I’ll only have myself to blame.

Oh, and I’m thinking of getting pink stripes in my hair once I reach my goal weight. :-D

Dec 9
2009

Distracting puppy is distracting

More cool news came down the publishing pipe yesterday: Mark of the Demon has gone back for a second printing!

I had a busy day today, even though I spent most of it sitting on my butt. I’m trying my damndest to get the draft of the third Demon book finished by the end of the year so that I’ll have time to get feedback from first readers and critique partners (and rewrite accordingly) before my Feb 1 deadline. I managed to set down about 3200 words today, which, while quite respectable under any sort of normal circumstance, was a bit of a disappointment to me since I’d really hoped to make it to 5K. (2-3K in a day is my norm.) However, as cute and adorable as the puppy is, he’s also a HUGE distraction in a million different ways (many of which involve puppy bodily functions which I would prefer for him to conduct outside.) And yes, I do crate him at intervals, but then the distractions consist of varying degrees of puppy-whining. Besides, I can’t exactly keep him in the crate all day. Sigh. Frustrating. I’m hoping tomorrow is better, because otherwise I have a feeling I’ll be saying, “I’m sorry, but the dog ate my novel.”

In other news, The Kid recently referred to “God gave Rock and Roll To You” as “a catchy tune.” Somewhere, Gene Simmons is crying.

Also, The Kid also told me that she KNOWS that there’s a spirit world, because she saw it on Scooby Doo and the Goblin King, so therefore it MUST be true. Watch out, wikipedia!

Dec 7
2009

Welcome to the madhouse!

Well, both of my loyal readers will be pleased to know that, once again, I’m participating in the Holidailies challenge, which is to post a blog entry every day for a month–Dec 7th to Jan 6th.

So, for any new readers coming to this blog, you can find out a little bit more about me by reading my bio. Basically, I’m a published novelist with one book on the shelves already, another coming out at the end of February and many more coming out in the next few years. (More on that later!) I worked in law enforcement and death investigations for close to a decade, I’m married and have one daughter, I’m currently training in kenpo karate, and I like chocolate waaaay too much.

This is my umpteenth year doing Holidailies. Yeah, I’m one of the ones who updates perfectly for Holidailies and then lets it slide afterwards and then updates only once every couple of weeks. Really, I’m going to try to do better this time. (Yeah, I say that every year as well, but I will at least do my best to make this month as interesting and entertaining as possible!)

This whole daily-updating thing should be interesting with a deadline LOOMING Looming looming looming…

Okay, the deadline thing is my own damn fault, but luckily I’m one of those people who works better with a deadline. If a deadline is many months away I will find any and every reason to put off doing what needs to be done. (Trust me, in many ways looming deadlines are good. It means someone wants what you’re writing!!)

So, here’s the BIG NEWS, and the reason why I have a LOOMING deadline. (Note: those of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook already know the Big News, but here are few more details about the whole thing.)

DAW is buying three more Demon books–tentatively titled Secrets of the Demon, Sins of the Demon, and Touch of the Demon. (These titles are not set in stone, but so far they give a bit of a hint as to what the themes of the books are. This could change upon the writing! A few of you might be aware that the working title of book three used to be Promise of the Demon. I’m pretty far into that one right now, and realized that “Promise” didn’t work, hence the change to “Secrets.” At some point in the process it may well change to Frickin’ Pain In The Ass of the Demon.)

So, hurray!!! Three more Demon books! I’m unspeakably excited about this for a number of reasons. First off, obviously, is the fact that I get to keep writing about Kara and Ryan and Rhyzkahl. There’s a LOT of story to tell, and I’m thrilled that I’ll get to reveal more of who’s who and what’s what and how it all fits together. Secondly, I’m quite pleased to have a job for a while longer yet..LOL But the last reason I’m so excited about this sale is a bit more complicated. A few observant readers have noted that I have apparently changed publishers. Yes, this is true. The first two Demon books have been/are being published by Bantam. I’ll say this right now: I had a WONDERFUL experience with Bantam/Random House in damn near every way. I knew perfectly well that I was a very small fish in a very large pond, but I almost never felt that way. My incredibly skillful and fantastic editor, Anne Groell, was an utter delight to work with, and she guided me and goaded me into making Mark of the Demon and Blood of the Demon 10,000% better than I ever thought possible. Her input and insight was nothing short of brilliant, and I’m unspeakably grateful that I was able to begin the series under an editor of her caliber. Her assistant, David Pomerico, was an absolute godsend as well, and was incredibly kind, patient and supportive of me as I made my debut as a published author.

Unfortunately, as they say, “love is love, but business is business.” When the time came to negotiate a contract for more books, the Powers That Be at Bantam were unable/ unwilling/ unsomething to make an offer within the option period, which meant that my agent and I were faced with some difficult decisions. In the end we decided that our best move was to look for another home for the Demon series, and thankfully DAW made an offer that was quite acceptable. I’m going to miss working with everyone at Bantam, but I’m confident that the door is always open for future projects.

Okay, so on to the rest of the good news! See, while we were going through the contract stuff with Bantam, I was busy working on proposals for other projects (since I was being realistic and mature and all that crap and had accepted the uncomfortable truth that the series might not sell anywhere else which would then put me in a bit of a publishing limbo for a while.) One of the projects I decided to work on was an idea that I’d been noodling around with a while back, about a “white trash” girl who gets turned into a zombie, who then has to get a job as a morgue tech in order to have easy access to brains. (Yum! Heehee.) As I wrote the sample chapters and synopsis for it I got more and more excited about the project, and saw it as a really neat and fun–and oddly meaningful–coming-of-age story. As a zombie. I finished up the proposal and sent it to my agent, who replied that he loved it. (This was in sharp contrast to his reaction to a previous young adult/urban fantasy proposal that I’d sent him, wherein he said–far more nicely than I deserved–that it didn’t knock his socks off. He was being quite kind, because what he was probably thinking was, “Oh my god, this sucks ass.” Because, really, it did. I can see this now.)

Well, you’ve probably figured it out by now, but, yes, my agent also sent the new proposal on to the editor at DAW, and she made an offer for three of those books as well.

Six books sold! SIX. BOOKS. (Commence alternating between elation and terror. Holy shit, I sold six books! Holy shit, I have to write six more books! LOL)

And now, here we are! I have two month to finish up Demon #3. And I’m going to post every day. Welcome to my madhouse!

Sep 29
2009

Where I write

I’ve posted a number of pictures of my writing lair (along with proof of my nerdiness) at my flickr set. Enjoy!

Jul 16
2009

Revisions: Done!

Blood of the Demon is revised, complete, and on its way to the copyeditor!

And, the Editor Goddess sent me this!
Blood of the Demon cover

::is happy!!::

Jul 8
2009

Sun, fun, and cars that don’t run

Coffee… need..more…coffee!!!

Well, the past week has been pretty darn full (to put it incredibly mildly.) I spent last week in Florida with the husband, the Kid, the manuscript for Blood of the Demon, and the revision letter from my editor. Woo! Do I know how to vacation, or what? :P

Unfortunately, there really wasn’t a choice about working while down there. I have a bit of a tight deadline for the revisions, and I couldn’t afford to waste a week. But fortunately, the resort had some terrific kids programs, and the Kid had an absolute blast doing games/crafts/beach stuff while I parked myself at an empty table in the bar and worked.

We headed back on Friday, with the plan that we would stop at a number of bookstores on the way back so that I could sign stock copies of Mark of the Demon. It was a great plan, and we hit two of the bookstores on our list…

And then the car broke down just past Pensacola. There must have been a god or two smiling down upon us, because the temps were in the high nineties, we had a fully loaded car and a five-year-old, and we broke down after we’d exited to get gas. We were right by a muffler place, so Jack pulled in and the guy took a look at the car. But when he said, “Well, I think it’s your catalytic converter, and I got a buddy down the road who’ll fix it for just $4000,” we smiled, thanked him, and limped down the road to a Waffle House where Jack borrowed a phone book and starting making calls. Two hours (and several hundred dollars) later, the car was on a tow truck to return to Louisiana, and we were in the backseat of the tow truck driver’s wife’s pickup. (Okay, “pickup” is an incredibly paltry description for this vehicle. It was a gleaming white extended cab four door dual wheel truck with every possible bell and whistle.) Jack had managed to negotiate a price that included our own transportation along with the car, and since the driver and his wife had family near where we live, it worked out well for everyone. (Well, except for the fact that the car was still dead.)

So, I’ve been carless since we got back (which actually hasn’t been that big a deal since I’ve been hunkered down with revisions) but we’re crossing fingers that we’ll get it back today. (Oh, and for the record, it was NOT the catalytic converter. $4000 my ass.)

In book news, there’s not much new to report. Mark of the Demon has officially been on sale just over two weeks now. I don’t know how sales are going, but I’ve been getting some really wonderful emails and comments from people telling me how much they liked the book. I’m trying to respond to everyone, but I’ve fallen a bit behind because of the revisions, so please bear with me! I really appreciate all of the kind words, and it’s an absolute thrill every time I read that someone else has enjoyed the book.

About the only other news I have is that I’ll be in San Diego in two weeks for Comic Con. I already have a couple of events scheduled, and I’ll try to post the details tomorrow. I’ve never been to a ComicCon before, so I expect to be completely out of my depth. Fun stuff! :P

Okay, back to revisions!

Jun 21
2009

The Awesome goes on and on

This is the front window of my local Barnes & Noble:

I am full of happy!

Those readers of this blog who are local to this area, I’ll be signing copies of Mark of the Demon on Saturday, June 27th from 2-4p.m. at the Barnes & Noble in Mandeville, LA.

Jun 9
2009

It’s a book!!!!!

The wonderful David Pomerico at Bantam FedExed me a couple of copies of my book so that I could coo and drool and make goo-goo eyes at them!

See? It’s really a book!

And it has stuff on the spine too…

And on the back as well!

Demon (the cat) gives his approval:

Angel is uninterested…

and then feels the need to wash his butt to remove the taint.

Seraphim kitten is too tired after a day of destroying the curtains to care:

But Fluffy Bunny will give it the love it deserves!

May 27
2009

Busy is my middle name!

Holy crap, too much to share!

First off, less than a month until Mark of the Demon hits the shelves! Woot! Reviews are starting to pop up here and there (scroll down to the second review,) and in the next few weeks I’ll be guest blogging at various sites around the ole ‘net. (Yes, I hear you complaining that I can’t even keep up with this blog, so how the heck can I think that I can blog somewhere else? You just hush!)

Second, some holy crap news: Blood of the Demon is now available for preorder on Amazon! (Release date of January 26, 2010.) OMG, I have a backlist!

Lessee… I’m heading up to Kentucky this weekend for a couple of days to be a guest instructor at the Writers Retreat Workshop. I’m sincerely hoping that this almost-a-cold that I’m fending off stays fended off, because flying with stuffy sinuses is never fun. After that I won’t be going anywhere writing-related until late July when I head to San Diego for Comic-Con. I’m also dragging Jack and the Kid along with me, so they’ll most likely be hitting LegoLand and SeaWorld while I have nerdgasms at the Con.

I’m also going to start with some contests/giveaways on this blog (and I promise I’ll update more frequently too!) So, either keep your RSS feed well oiled, or check back frequently!

And finally, on a non-writing note, a while back the Kid was watching Go Diego Go. The episode was about a young road runner (the bird) getting ready to run some sort of race. The Kid turned to me and asked me what kind of noises road runners made.

I answered, “BeepBeep!”

Like, duh.

Apr 29
2009

Guest blogging and a chance to win!

I’m guest blogging today at SciFiGuy about Mark of the Demon and urban fantasy, and one lucky commenter will win a free copy of the book! So, be sure to stop by and check it out!

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