Confederate Rose takes 2nd place!!

I am so thrilled that my Civil War romance, Confederate Rose, has taken 2nd place in the historical category of the 2010 New England Reader's Choice Bean Pot Contest.

This story is not your typical Civil War romance, since the heroine, Katie Rose O'Reilly, is a soldier in the Confederate army. Her story is loosely based on real women who fought for both North and South at the time of the Civil War. A time when women weren't considered capable of serving the army in any fashion.

Since Civil War romance isn't a popular choice for editors with the big NY publishers, I was gratified that my editor, Allison Byers, and publisher, The Wild Rose Press, would even consider publishing this story and even more gratified that readers love it! But without TWRP, Katie's story wouldn't be available for readers to find at all.

Just one of those days

Had way too much to do this morning and book promotion ate into my normal writing hours. I posted excerpts from all my stories on my email loops, then remembered I was supposed to post over at Slip Into Something Victorian. So, if you'd like to stop over there, I'm posting about what I do to promote my books and myself.

A rejection on a dark, rainy day

Just got a rejection for my latest manuscript, Cassidy's War. But you know, it's not all that bad. The editor had a lot of great things to say about the submission and only had one problem, but gave me a lot of ideas on how to fix it. And although fixing that problem will require a whole lot of rewriting, I've decided I'm going to do it.

The suggestions will make the manuscript better, so why not put a little more work into an already good manuscript to make it great!

For now, I'll put it aside until I finish up some other projects, then I'll tackle it head on. If you're serious about writing you have to learn to write and revise, revise, revise.

It's a beautiful day!

Finally, after months of bone-chilling, buried in snow, or drowning in buckets of rain weather, we're experiencing our first real touch of spring. The temps are supposed to rise to 72 degrees here.

And it's making it all that much harder to stick at my desk and work. But I put in more than a solid hour of plotting out my science fiction romance story. For now, I'm calling it Jason's Honor, although that might change. I have the general plot worked out and for now, am working on a scene by scene outline. Although I have a lot of blank pages right now, the beginning and end of the story are really starting to jell. Just have to work on that darned middle.

I've also been working on an idea for a short comtemporary romance and ideas were flashing through my head early this morning, while I was busy with my workout and household things. Just have to sit my butt in the chair with my pad and write them down. That little story is starting to come alive too. It always seems the ideas come when I'm doing non-writing related things.

Feeling a bit off today

I just can't seem to get into the swing of things. Guess I can blame it on the switch to daylight savings time or the cloudy, dreary day we're having.

Although I got up at my usual time and have been on the go all day, I don't feel like I'm accomplishing much.

I should have already put in an hour on the plot for my science fiction romance, but just can't seem to psych myself up to open the file. So, what have I been doing?

A lot of promo. I've joined the TWRP authors over at Rites of Romance Chatters to showcase excerpts from all my TWRP books. So, I guess I have accomplished something. If I could only get myself to open that plot file, maybe I could actually have a very good day--writing wise.

Confederate Rose is a finalist in the Reader's Choice Bean Pot Contest!!

Here's the full list.

2010 New England Reader’s Choice Bean Pot Award
Announcing Finalists

Finalists are listed in alphabetical order.
***NEC Member

Short Contemporary Finalists
Colorado Christmas – CC Coburn
Healing the Boss’s Heart – Valerie Hansen
Meant To Be – Donna Marie Rogers

Long Contemporary Finalists
Hope Street – Judith Arnold***
Hot Flash – Kathy Carmichael
Spinning Forward – Terri DuLong

Historical Finalists
If He’s Sinful – Hannah Howell***
Confederate Rose – Susan Macatee
Wickedly Ever After – Michelle Marcos

Romantic Suspense Finalists
Operation Sheba – Misty Evans
No Alibi – Valerie Hansen
More Than Great Riches – Jan Washburn

Erotica Finalists – (this category had a tie in one of placements – hence the four finalists)
Illegal Moves – Dalton Diaz***/Samantha Cayto***
Adored – Tina Donahue
Do You Trust Me – Desiree Holt
Past Lies – Shayla Kerstan

Future/Fantasy/Time Travel/Paranormal Finalists
A Highlander of Her Own – Melissa Mayhue
Desire Untamed – Pamela Palmer
Ghost of A Chance – Judi Phillips***