End of January

Just realized it's already the last day of January. A good thing in my eyes, since it means we're just that much closer to spring. I had to look over my January goals to see what I've accomplished. Of course, I did get sidetracked by that galley for Confederate Rose, but that superceded all other goals, because now I've got that September 2009 release date.

Although, now that I've looked, I see I neglected to post my goals for January. I just have a list of what I want to accomplish this year. So, I'll list what I did get done this month.

1. Finished galley work for Confederate Rose and got my release date of September 25, 2009.

2. Finished revising my short vampire story, Sweet Redemption. All I have to do now is give it a final polish and send it back to the editor.

3. Wrote most of the first draft of my short Civil War Christmas story, The Christmas Ball. I'm working on the final scene now. Why, oh why, do I have such a hard time writing those final scenes?

4. I'm re-reading the partial first draft of my full-length science fiction romance, Moons of Cynara to reacquaint myself with the story. I'd written the first 200 pages before I had to stop to work on the Confederate Rose galley. And I just can't resist doing a bit of editing as I go along.

Looks like I did accomplish a lot this month. My goals for February will be to:

1. Finish up and re-submit Sweet Redemption.

2. Finish the first draft of The Christmas Ball, take a two week break from it and revise.

3. Start back on the first draft of Moons. Not sure how many pages or words I'll have time to write for it, since I'll be working on it between other projects, but if I can complete another 100 pages by the end of the month, I'll be happy.

Hey, it's my birthday!

And it just happened to be my turn to blog over at Slip Into Something Victorian. So join me over there to find out how I came to write Civil War romance.

Confederate Rose excerpt

I found out yesterday that my full-length American Civil War romance, Confederate Rose, is to be released in digital and print on September 25, 2009.

So, I thought I'd post a short excerpt.


"I'm hating to have to say it, since I'd accused you of being a thief, but I stole something from you." She looked away.

"What could you...?" He racked his mind trying to figure out what she could have taken.

"I went through yer pack."

"In Patrick's tent?"

"No, weeks ago back at the cabin. I went through it to try to learn more about you when you were in the stable. I found a letter and took it but didn't have time to read it until now."

Alex swallowed.

"It was a Federal dispatch. Yer a Yankee."

His chest tightened. No wonder he'd been unable to find the dispatch. She'd had it all along. "What do you intend to do?" He hoped she wouldn't discover his real motive. He could never harm her.

"You lied to me the whole time," she said, disbelief marring her delicate features.

He exhaled the breath he'd held. "I had no choice."

"If I'd known you to be a Yankee, I'd have shot you the first chance I got." Her eyes glittered in the light of the fire. "You touched me...pretended to care fer me. And all the while, you lied to me."

The raw hurt on her face broke his heart. He'd deceived her. He couldn’t deny it. "What do you intend to do?" he asked again.

She shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry, Alex, but 'tis me duty to turn you in."

I've been tagged!!!

Well, she did it to me again. My friend and fellow romance author, Nicole McCaffrey just tagged me again. I'm supposed to list six things that make me happy, then go to six other blogs and tag them.

Here are my six things:

1. writing

2. reading

3. my husband and boys (when I'm not mad at them for something)

4. chocolate (wish I had some right now)

5. hot tea ( I do have some of that)

6. warm weather ( I'd die for some of that)

And no, I don't have anybody to tag. Nicole already took the two I could've. LOL.

Blogging at Slip Into Something Victorian

I'm blogging today over at Slip Into Something Victorian about the Presidential Inauguration of 1865, Abraham Lincoln's second term.

Ever have one of those days ...

It's dark, dreary, raining non-stop and besides laundry, housecleaning and other assorted things associated with my house, I planned to write today. But it's just so depressing. How can I feel inspired? Maybe it worked for Edgar Allen Poe, but not me.

My editor sent me a short list of things to check on my galley that the proofreader caught, so of course, I used that as an excuse to hold off on my writing session. We do need to get this galley finished up as soon as possible. LOL. It's important. But that only took a few minutes and now I have the whole afternoon spread out before me with nothing to do but write. But I just don't feel like it.

Although, the act of sitting my butt in my chair did help. So, after I made prints of my short story cover for promo purposes, checked email, checked the balance on my credit card, and took care of a little online promo, I finally did get to my WIP--my short Civil War Christmas story--and managed to write a whopping 503 new words, before I just couldn't stand looking at it anymore. Then I took a short break and went over the opening of my new vampire story. I had an editor request revisions before I resubmit. I revised the first 22 pages yesterday, but felt I had to go over them again, so re-revised those same pages. But openings are very important, so I feel kind of productive.

Just hoping for some sunshine tomorrow to inspire me.

2009 Goals

So, what do I want to accomplish in 2009?

First of all I want to finish the projects I'm working on at present.

• complete outline for short Christmas story
• write first draft
• revise and polish, then submit by April 1st
• complete first draft of science fiction romance, Moons of Cynara
• after a long break from it, I'd like to revise, polish and search out publishers to submit to
• submit partials to selected publishers
• revise short vampire story, Sweet Redemption and resubmit to editor
• finish proofread of galley for Confederate Rose
• work with editor on contracted anthology story
• start on promo for Erin's Rebel close to the release date of July 17th

Well, that's my list for now. All of these are projects already contracted or in development. It looks like a lot, so I'll see how it goes.