Growth

With each new year, one of the ideas that gets tossed around is, instead of making resolutions, to pick a word the embodies what you want to accomplish in the coming twelve months and figure out how to accomplish it. So, in the spirit of things, I've selected my word–GROWTH–and have begun to set things in motion.

The first item to take care of was to take inventory of what I want to apply the word to. Certainly not to my body. We don't need any more growth there. I'm continuing my three-times-a-week workouts at the health club to keep growth from happening. No, what I want to apply the word to is my writing career. I took a workshop last week that helps in that regard and am wrapping up the filling in the blanks and gaining perspective on where the career has been. Now, I need to implement a plan for where the career is headed.

To help with my forward progress, I hired an author coach to help me strategize. Already, I can see a way forward. When I regain the rights to Winning Violet, the first book in my Regency Flower Girl series, I will have books two and three finished and be able to present them as a package to a publisher. And, as a kind of offshoot on these stories, I am working on another story that takes place in the same time period, but in America. I'd like to work in some of the culture of my new home state, North Carolina. If for no other reason than an excuse to take some road trips.

And speaking of road trips–providing things move forward during the year, I am poised to take my first-ever European vacation late in the year. Can't believe it's taken me this long to cross the pond, but fingers crossed, this will be just the beginning of my growth there. You can do all the research you want, but nothing will add spice to your story line more than actually walking the streets you are describing, visiting the battlefields, or, for that matter, being on a ship in the middle of a vast ocean.

Stay tuned!

No More Waiting!

I'm pleased to be able to announce that the demise of Crimson may turn out to be a good thing. Tara Gelsomino, the executive editor from the company, has decided to form her own business, a literary agency, and I'm pleased to be one of her first clients. We plan to continue my Regency series, which was begun by Crimson.

I'm also finishing the first draft of a mail-order bride series that takes the brides from a matchmaker's office in Boston to the mountains of Montana. If you've read the Cotillion Ball series, you may remember Jake Shelton, the wagon master who was set to take Temperance Jones and her family to Oregon, until she admitted her love was not Oregon, or Jake, but instead it was Basil. Well, Jake's back and this time, he won't be denied in love. Imagine a cowboy with a wavy shock of hair, blue eyes and a wide-brimmed hat and you have Jake.

So, a new liaison, a new couple of stories, and a new outlook. Seems only fitting, since I'm in a new house in a new state. And it's only April.

Going to be one hell of a year.

Finishing Touches

If you follow me on Facebook, you know already that my trusty hammer is still on a pegboard in Ohio.

I'll be picking up a spare one from my brother-in-law today and will finally be able to start hanging pictures. I consider picture location one of the final acts of getting settled into a new home. I've already begun to position some of them where I think they'll end up, but one never knows until something's on the wall whether it's in the right location.

While all this has been going on, I've also been given the boot by Simon & Schuster, along with all my fellow Crimson authors.

While I work to get my rights reverted to me on the eleven books I have with them, I was putting the finishing touches on the second book in my new Flower Girl series. Book One, Winning Violet,  has been out since December, but S&S isn't willing to continue the series. As I see it, I have two choices here: 1) I can finish book 2, write books 3 & 4 while I wait to get my rights back for book 1 and position myself to self-publish the entire series next year, or 2) I can find a publisher who doesn't care if they have all the books in the series under their flagship and only care if the writing is good.

Since the first option means going an entire year with no income from this series and then having a considerable outlay of cash to get the four books ready next year, Option One is not feasible. That leaves me with Option Two. Readers don't look twice at who the publisher is, unless they are also an author, so I decided to pursue my second choice. Instead of abandoning Losing Lily, the second book in the series, I put the finishing touches on the manuscript and got it ready to head out into the world. Simon & Schuster had given me a due date of April 15, so I kept myself on track, even during my convoluted move to North Carolina. I finished the final edits on it this past week, so all I need do is read through it once more before sending it off to the interested publisher, who has vision enough to not care if they don't have the rights to Book One. A good series is a good series, regardless of who produces it. So Losing Lily and her beloved maze, not to mention her beloved Scotsman, may see the light of day yet. And I feel like I've been through the publishing gauntlet, trying to find a new home for the series.