Pick Your Poison

 Last week, I talked about great beginnings to stories. The reason for the topic stemmed from a fellow author here in the Sandhills who publishes an amusing blog each week, mixing a dash of history, a side order of applicable famous quotes, and a sprinkling of insight. I look forward to reading it every Sunday afternoon. 

A few weeks ago, he decided to run a contest. He assembled a guest panel of judges and told his readers he'd accept up to three entries from each person. The only rule was the entries couldn't be from already published works, but rather, works in progress. I was beyond excited to get the news earlier this week that, of the over 500 entries received, one of mine made it into the top fifteen finalists! He said there was no clear winner among the fifteen, so he was sending the small list back to his judges for a consensus. There will be three winners and twelve runner-ups, but all the finalists will be featured in his blog this afternoon. 

I don't know yet which of the three I submitted made the cut, so until the official announcement, you all can choose your favorite. Here they are: 

1) Johanna Taylor stopped crying when she hit the Virginia state line. 

2) Wisteria Campbell felt the weight of the necklace as if it were an albatross around her neck. 

3) She needed some legal advice, or a husband, and fast. 

Pick your poison. I'll let you know the one that finaled next week. 

Worth The Wait?

Since the demise of Crimson Romance, I haven't been able to release any new books, only re-publish the ones they returned to me. A few loyal readers have reached out to me over the past year, asking when I'd put out something new, and I had no answer.

Now, I do. Sort of, anyway.

I labored this past year writing two manuscripts set in the Regency era. Labor being the key word here. They were both very difficult to write and now have taken up residence under my bed. But in each book, I introduced a secondary, minor character to move the story forward and became entranced by these characters. One of my beta readers told me I should toss the Regency and write the story of the secondary woman. I'm glad I listened.

I decided to take the minor character from the first book and tell her tale. But instead of having her be in England, I transported her to America during the Revolutionary War. I figured her penchant for a good cheroot would not be so frowned on in America. The book idea came to me so easily, and I really enjoyed writing it. I entered it into a few contests to get some good feedback and to see if it held up under the scrutiny of others. And look what happened!

I am a finalist! Haven't been able to say that in a while. We'll see where this leads, but right now, it's under scrutiny at four different publishers and I'm working on the next one. My secondary character from the second rejected Regency is a courtesan who finds her way to Boston one year after the Declaration of Independence was signed. She's left her profession behind. Or so she thinks. Can anyone really leave their past behind?

Stay tuned.

Contest Season

Every year, I look forward to getting my books for the RITA contest. This year, I got seven, which I had to read and judge in the space of six weeks. I added on a few more contests this year, judging the Prism contest because I wanted to see how historical paranormal was handled. I had to read three books for that one. And now, the contemporary chapter of RWA has reintroduced the Stiletto contest and I just yesterday received two more published novels to read and one unpublished entry.

Our own NEORWA chapter has a contest for unpublished authors going on as well, and I had to judge three entries there.

Even though it's a huge time commitment, I see this as my way to pay back the industry. I got a lot of help, and still am getting it, on my road to publication, and contests were the way I received valuable feedback to make my works stronger. And this way, if I'm lucky, I might find a new-to-me author in the bunch, find a book I would never have picked up otherwise.

 I think I went a bit overboard this year. I understand all these contests want to gear their announcements of winners during the RWA conference, but I really wish someone would hold a contest in the fall. It would even out my reading enjoyment.

Now, back to work. I still have two books to go before I can get back to my book-in-progress, not to mention my work-in-progress!

Ready To Rock

I may have been under the weather these last few weeks, but I have managed to stay busy. Here's what's going on:

Two of my books are up for Reader's Choice Awards through the website The Romance Reviews. Expressly Yours, Samantha is listed as a Western Romance, http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=17155 and The Duplicitous Debutante is listed as a Historical Romance. http://www.theromancereviews.com/viewbooks.php?bookid=14894
I need 50 votes for each title in order to continue to the next round. Simply click on the above links, hit the top button that says Nominate This Book, and you're done. Thank you so much for your help.


My little puppy-mill rescue dog, Mary, is a guest on USA Today's Happy Ever After Column.  Reminds me of the rock song about making it on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. You can see her here: http://wp.me/p5HLSC-1pb8

We had a serious nibble on the house, so my sister and I are spending the afternoon (along with the celebrity, Mary), doing drive-bys of the handful of houses we've narrowed our search to. For some reason, we want to be near water. So it's the Portage Lakes, or the canal, or any random lake or swimming pool. I think we have visions of pool parties in our future.

Hopefully, I'll have good news to report here soon. In the meantime, don't forget to vote!