submission

News Bytes – SKIN DEEP is contracted!

Hey everyone!

I’ve been quiet and pretty busy lately since I’ve had a lot of things going on. Hubby’s birthday, a nice vacation in Las Vegas (woot!), a blistering sunburn and a cold… wait… those aren’t good things lol, and my five year anniversary was yesterday.

I’m really excited to announce that SKIN DEEP, a steamy paranormal romance, is contracted with Etopia Press! WOOHOO!! I’m thrilled to be working with them. Currently, I’m going through the whirlwind of blurbs, taglines, and cover art ideas. Yay!

Here’s the 50-word pitch I used to give you an idea what Skin Deep is about. This pitch helped get me a request from my editor, Rachel Firasek! 🙂

After a painful break up with the love of his life, Connor (a werewolf) is set on winning back Angelique regardless of the power she possesses. He has a secret of his own, which may wedge another gap between him and his flighty ex-girlfriend, but answers are the least of their concerns.

Woot! Thanks for celebrating with me!

EDIT: Blacklist Rogue is up for DRB1stChp’s Best of June 2012 for Cover and First Chapter! I’d love your vote. 🙂

Looking for Agents and Editors?

Recently at Castles & Guns, there have been several visiting the blog. I’m thrilled with the wealth of knowledge brewing up over there.

Here’s the rundown.

Agent Saritza Hernandez: 10 Answers from Agent Saritza Hernandez She represents, “Primarily romance. I’m currently representing all sorts of romance with a special interest in GLBT-themed erotic romance such as male/male but I also represent gay fiction, urban fantasy, and paranormal suspense. I have several clients whose works straddle genres, but erotic romance is my favorite and what I love to work with the most.”

Agent Marlene Stringer: What’s Hot, What’s Not: A Q&A with Agent Marlene Stringer She represents, “In fiction, Stringer Literary Agency welcomes queries in mystery, thriller, contemporary and urban fantasy, romance, women’s fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, and Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction. The agency also represents select non-fiction.”

Publisher Christina Brashear, Samhain Publishing: Interview with Christina Brashear, Publisher of Samhain Publishing Samhain’s submission guidelines are at http://www.samhainpublishing.com/submissions.

Acquisitions Editor Donna O’Brien, Crescent Moon Press: Interview with Acquisitions Editor Donna O’Brien She’s looking for, “Crescent Moon Press as a whole publishes high quality fantasy, futuristic and paranormal romantic fiction. Me personally? I like the dark stuff! LOL Give me a dark hero that needs to be saved by the heroine or some epic dark drama that they both have to navigate and survive. I also like stories with lots of magic and then I grew up watching sci-fi with my Dad, so that always has a special place in my heart. So…I guess, what…that’s everything! LOL And of course, there must always be the romance.”

Entangled Publishing: Entangled in Publishing’s Brave New World Entangled’s submission guidelines are at http://entangledpublishing.com/.

Acquisitions Editor Lin Browne, Crescent Moon Press: Interview with Acquisitions Editor Lin Browne She’s looking for, “Everything CMP looks at—fantasy, science fiction, paranormals and any variation on those themes with some degree of romance. I like it all. I am particularly excited to see science fiction and high fantasy romances. I do read YA, and like it, but I prefer adult-focused books. However, if you have a great YA story, feel free to send it to me—especially if it’s science fiction. I’m also comfortable editing any heat level. CMP doesn’t accept erotica or erotic romance, but if you write toward the hotter end of the spectrum, I’ll look at it. Oh and if you happen to write funny, PLEASE send it my way. I love funny. Dark is good too, but I find funny is much harder to pull off so if you manage it, I want to see it.”

Coming soon:

March 23rd at Castles & Guns: Acquisitions Editor Sherry Soule, Crescent Moon Press.

March 30th at Castles & Guns: Acquisitions Editor Rochelle French, Crescent Moon Press.

I hope this blog helps anyone out there querying and submitting!

And the Waiting Begins

Hey everyone! Right when I state my great intentions last week of sticking with Monday blogging, I slack yesterday. Okay, I really take that back. Yesterday wasn’t a lazy day for me. As last week’s post stated, I’ve been immersed in revising, and yesterday was the culmination of that as I dove toward the finish line to get my novella in before the submission deadline. And that leads me to today’s post.

The waiting game. Waiting can be challenging, but I think it’s hardest when you send out a freshly revised manuscript for the first time. My head is all buzzed with thoughts of “This is the one! Woo!” and “Oh no, what if I missed something?” It’s the rush of a newly submitted project, especially since that project has been one of the most fun I’ve worked on in a while, and it’s in an entirely different genre. I’m also on edge since I tried out a more effective way to revise. My critique partner even commented on the draft being cleaner! Woo!

Anyways, I know that one of the best ways to deal with waiting is to write the next book. Although, for me, that’ll be editing my 2010 nanowrimo.org novel. But what other ways do you handle the waiting process while on submission? You know, besides from constant email checking. *grins*

And an update!

So, as you might’ve seen I had a “revise and resubmit for novella” on my blog. I’ve completed that, and as I said in the previous blog, it lifted a weight off my chest to have that sent off. Writing with Nano is going well, too. I’m planning on doing about 10k words this weekend to get me ahead of my goal. Then I won’t have to worry about pushing out large numbers when Thanksgiving rolls around and family comes into town.

I’ve also gotten up to 21 books read this year (leaving only 4 more until I reach my goal of 25), which is pretty amazing for me. I have so many books, but it seems like finding time to read (or so I thought) was really hard. It isn’t. I just had to make the time, exactly the same concept as writing or editing. If you want to do something, you have to make the time.

Woo!

I’m actually beginning to feel productive, even though I’ve been working pretty hard on my paranormal romance novella. Yesterday, I finally was able to submit it off to three publishers. It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’ve waited for a long while to be able to get it off the back burner, always looking to work on the next novel and not paying much attention to finishing up the final touches on it.

Needless to say, I now have to do put finishing touches on my urban fantasy novel. Ack… But hopefully it will be a bit easier and just flow out! My goal for it is to have those done by the 21st. There, I’ve said it. Now I have to stick to it. That would give me the end of the month to focus on plotting my upcoming historical urban fantasy novel.

It’ll also give me lots to take my mind off of the submissions, but I like putting those out of my mind anyway. I do like to keep in mind when I expect to be hearing back though. I don’t want to be waiting forever on something when a place has lost my submission. Guess it’s just a balance.

Revised query, check!

I hope everyone had a Happy Father’s Day yesterday!

Today I’ve spent some time revising my query letter, which has done pretty good so far. It took me several hours to do, but I’m more content with it than I have been previously. I had some great writing resources to stare at while in the process of revising it too. There’s Query Shark, Jill Corcoran’s Formula For A Query Letter, and Guide to Literary Agents’ How to Write a Query Letter. If you’re looking to write or perfect a query letter, Query Shark is a great place to go, but all of those resources are really good.

Anyways, I can’t believe it’s nearing the end of June. Between writing and the FIFA World Cup, where has the month gone? Not that I completely mind, since I’m highly anticipating next month with the 2010 RWA National Convention at Swan and Dolphin in Orlando, FL. Woohoo!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I hope everyone has had an awesome St. Patrick’s Day. Mine consisted of meeting my trainer and having a nice dinner with my family, which was pretty cool. I also submitted Jungle Heat, a paranormal romance of mine to a publisher I’ve been connecting with about guest bloggers. It was exciting to be invited to submit. Besides from that, not a whole lot has been going on around here.

I’ve began reading Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews, which is awesome so far. I had the opportunity to go to some of her workshops at the 2009 RT Convention in Orlando, FL. She was so funny that I decided to talk to her at the big Book Signing Fair event (can’t remember it’s proper name). My husband and I met her, and she was so great that we got two of her books. She kept urging us to by the second book in her series, but I sooo don’t like to read books out of order, so I kept leaning toward the first one. We ended up getting both. In the first book, she said something like, “They get better. Trust me.” But yeah, I absolutely love her books. My husband does as well. I’m so happy that he and I enjoy the some of the same kinds of books since we book love reading.

Anyways! This Friday, we will be having LA Andrews with us. So make sure to come back and check that out.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Okay so some people don’t think of it as a happy day since it’s known to be filled with superstition, but I’ve never really had bad things happen to me on the 13th. If anything, good stuff tends to happen to me! =) Yippee! I can’t wait to see what happens today.

Not too much has been going on recently. I’ve been writing more for the Book in 30 days program, and I’m in the process of sending out proposals for an anthology, so I’ll have to see what happens with that. I’m excited and utilizing my synopsis writing abilities. Yikes! Although, I admit, they’re not as scary as they seem. I’m not sure mine are the best, but… ah well.

There’s something exciting happening today! The Deadly Vixens has a Friday the 13th giveaway today! We’re giving away three ebooks, so come leave a comment for your chance to win!

Hello again…

Happy New Year everyone! Recently I’ve decided that I’m going to start blogging again on my own blog. Not sure how interesting it’ll be, but I’ll try to make sure to entertain and not do so many “Here’s an event I’m doing, go check it out” kinds of things. Perhaps I’ll share pictures and other fun things as well. =)

So, what’s been going on with me recently… I submitted to an agent (I’ll keep you informed on how that goes!), I won Nanowrimo, and I completed my third novel, which happens to be the first in an urban fantasy series. I’ve gotten 60 pages of it edited so far. I’m now working on the next in the series, but am running into a little bit of confusion with my plot. Now I need to go through and outline it so that I can get on course.

I also bought an awesome whiteboard yesterday. It even has a small tray at the bottom to hold my markers and eraser. I’m excited about using it.

Also, for everyone on the newsletter, I hope to start back with that, too. Things have been a bit hectic in my personal life, so I’m happy for a new year. Who knows what you’ll find there? *winks* I’m thinking over a few ideas for making it more exciting. I plan to have something in the works on it by the 15th.

Anyways, that’s enough jabbering for me tonight. I need to get some writing done! Hurray!

Not too much new to discuss besides from the fact that classes have started again at my university. I can’t wait to graduate though, which will be upon finishing my summer semester. Yippee.

I have been submitting a children’s picture book. I received five rejection letters and a request for more information. I really hope something comes about with the request for more information! Or one of the other fourteen query letters out there. Three are about at the time when I’m guessing it’s a “no response means rejection” kind of thing, but…the way I feel is that a rejection just means that I’m putting myself out there, so I don’t take them too personal. I do feel a little bit of frustration at first, but then I pick myself back up and push on. Hooray!

Not too much else I can think of. I’ve been trying to work on my writing project and my editing project, but for the past two days not much has been happening. Ugh. I had wanted to write today, but then I got an injury and rested instead. There’s always tomorrow (today since it’s 12:34 AM)!

‘Night