The edits are done for Rachael's Return and A Fair Trader and the former is due for release this month with A Fair Trader to follow within the next thirty days. I've submitted a partial of The Countess and the Pirates to Samhain and have four weeks (on past experience) to complete the manuscript.
That means Focus, Focus, Focus.
All the time-wasting habits must go to the wall. Yahoo groups will get a single glance during the morning hour of administrative duties, as will my fellow author's blogs and nothing more. I hope the world doesn't end in the next four weeks, because I mightn't even notice.
See you sometime mid-October.
Amy
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Saturday, September 08, 2007
The number of the Beast and other things
Mitchell David, our second grandson, joined the clan on Wednesday evening around 6.15 pm. He weighed in at 6 lbs 6.6 ounces and Shelley, our daughter-in-law, noticed the conjunction of sixes into 666 and wondered if it was an augury of some kind, then she looked at Mitchell David's paternal line and wondered no more. Both are doing well and are home already.
Rachael's Return has cover art now and it is the first example I've approved unconditionally since my days with Rocky River Romance and I can tick off another family name from my list with our first granddaughter satisfied. (The family is growing faster than I can write)
A Fair Trader has reached the edits stage with the accolade of "the cleanest manuscript the editor has ever worked on". This is the very nice lady who called me a "Wordsmith", so she's definitely on my Xmas card list.
It's a great life.
Amy
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Coming Soon
Rachael's Return, the third book of the First Family series has made it to the "Coming Soon" page of New Concepts Publishing. There's no artwork yet and no indication of when, but it's good to see movement.
Feodar's World, the second book received a mixed review at Romance Reader at Heart. The reviewer, Julie, chose it because she'd read Mitchell's Valley and loved it enough to want to read what she thought was my first sci-fi story. It is neither my first, nor is it predominantly sci-fi, although the setting is a space ship initially.
I always knew making each book of the series stand alone was going to be difficult because the concept of a world created by a dying veteran of WWI, the French Foreign Legion, WWII and Korea where he and the family he creates there, become telepathic immortals with the ability to translocate physically is not quickly explainable and the plot is complex.
Julie found it confusing from page one, but she was generous enough to recommend it to anyone who'd already read New Blood.
Whiskey Creek Press are still releasing The Widowmaker in May 2008 and Shadowrose publications are anxious to release A Fair Trader soon and are looking at the other books of my backlist.
My work in progress has gone through a couple of name changes as the story develops, but seems to have settled down to The Countess and the Pirates. It's going well and I hope to have the first three chapters to accompany a query letter soon.
Feodar's World, the second book received a mixed review at Romance Reader at Heart. The reviewer, Julie, chose it because she'd read Mitchell's Valley and loved it enough to want to read what she thought was my first sci-fi story. It is neither my first, nor is it predominantly sci-fi, although the setting is a space ship initially.
I always knew making each book of the series stand alone was going to be difficult because the concept of a world created by a dying veteran of WWI, the French Foreign Legion, WWII and Korea where he and the family he creates there, become telepathic immortals with the ability to translocate physically is not quickly explainable and the plot is complex.
Julie found it confusing from page one, but she was generous enough to recommend it to anyone who'd already read New Blood.
Whiskey Creek Press are still releasing The Widowmaker in May 2008 and Shadowrose publications are anxious to release A Fair Trader soon and are looking at the other books of my backlist.
My work in progress has gone through a couple of name changes as the story develops, but seems to have settled down to The Countess and the Pirates. It's going well and I hope to have the first three chapters to accompany a query letter soon.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
"The best I've written so far."
I'm deep in the initial chapters of a new series about pirates and the women who love them. It opens with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 and the heroine is returning to Jamaica after her first season in London. The temporary peace with Napoleon has thrown a flock of privateers out of employment and they have reverted to piracy, etc.
The story's going great guns and I'm enjoying the writing so much, I made the above comment at breakfast, only to have my partner smile knowingly and remind me that I say this with every new book I begin.
Stephen King, in his very readable book, "On Writing", admits to the same feeling, so I'm in good company.
Its a great life.
Amy
The story's going great guns and I'm enjoying the writing so much, I made the above comment at breakfast, only to have my partner smile knowingly and remind me that I say this with every new book I begin.
Stephen King, in his very readable book, "On Writing", admits to the same feeling, so I'm in good company.
Its a great life.
Amy
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Wordsmith
When I first started writing professionally I came across "wordsmith". It wasn't familiar so I looked it up in the dictionary.
Wordsmith: a fluent and prolific writer with a talent for words; a professional whose vocation is writing; a journalist.
It gave me a goal. More than anything else, I wanted to be a wordsmith!
Yesterday, an editor who knew nothing of me beyond my manuscripts described me as a 'Wordsmith" and, influenza virus or no, I felt good. It was, to me, the ultimate professional accolade.
As an aside, it seems Shadowrose Publications may release my early books taken off the shelf by the demise of Rocky River Romances, starting with A Fair Trader, the Americanized version of A Fair Trade. I've done the artwork questionnaire and am waiting for the edits.
More later.
Amy
Wordsmith: a fluent and prolific writer with a talent for words; a professional whose vocation is writing; a journalist.
It gave me a goal. More than anything else, I wanted to be a wordsmith!
Yesterday, an editor who knew nothing of me beyond my manuscripts described me as a 'Wordsmith" and, influenza virus or no, I felt good. It was, to me, the ultimate professional accolade.
As an aside, it seems Shadowrose Publications may release my early books taken off the shelf by the demise of Rocky River Romances, starting with A Fair Trader, the Americanized version of A Fair Trade. I've done the artwork questionnaire and am waiting for the edits.
More later.
Amy
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Four, and definitely counting
Shadowrose Publications offered a contract for A Fair Trader, the Americanized version of my Rocky River Romance book, A Fair Trade and I accepted it. This will be my fourth contract for this year and I have two possible additions in the pipeline. To say I'm a little elated is a major understatement.
Sleep last night was an unattainable illusion beyond a few catnaps and I was up early toiling away at administrative tasks such as updating my website and spreading the news. This is the last of those tasks before I open my WIP and get down to my real work.
It's a great life
Amy
Sleep last night was an unattainable illusion beyond a few catnaps and I was up early toiling away at administrative tasks such as updating my website and spreading the news. This is the last of those tasks before I open my WIP and get down to my real work.
It's a great life
Amy
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
A Great Day at the Office
I began writing as a detailed planner, my engineering background demanded it. I’d take an idea and play with it until I could see its potential and then build a structure to present all its elements in a logical pattern, with mini climaxes dotted a precise intervals, subplots initiated and carried forward to their culmination, everything in its precise place. Only then would I start to write. (I tell the story of using a very complex project planning software, one I used professionally and taught others how to use effectively, to plan one story, complete with critical paths etc, and it’s true.)
These days I’m more likely to begin with a character, a general idea of how I’d like him/her to develop, and dump him/her into a situation I think might provide this development. I then write forward with the only goal of having my character react naturally and let the situation develop, making me as much the observer as the reader and probably with less idea how the story will develop(which requires a gigantic leap of faith on my part).
What happens next always surprises and delights me. A some point in the story, nearly thirty thousand words into it in this case, everything clicks together and I have the complete structure in my mind.(Not the details, just he structure.) My reaction is always the same. I sit grinning like a fool, then get up and prowl around the house, hugging to myself the feeling of success, until I can sit down at the keyboard and begin turning it into reality.
The two thousand words, I’d struggled to produce each day to this point, flow onto the screen so easily I’m tempted to keep going, but I don’t. I have a life away from the keyboard and it deserves my attention.
The end of the first draft beckons now, (from thirty thousand words in the future) with its final skim through before I put it aside and begin another manuscript and go back to the struggle until its time to return and do the hard work of crafting my creation into a readable whole. (It usually takes me twice as long as the first draft to achieve this and I have one waiting for me.)
Back to writing for me.
Amy
These days I’m more likely to begin with a character, a general idea of how I’d like him/her to develop, and dump him/her into a situation I think might provide this development. I then write forward with the only goal of having my character react naturally and let the situation develop, making me as much the observer as the reader and probably with less idea how the story will develop(which requires a gigantic leap of faith on my part).
What happens next always surprises and delights me. A some point in the story, nearly thirty thousand words into it in this case, everything clicks together and I have the complete structure in my mind.(Not the details, just he structure.) My reaction is always the same. I sit grinning like a fool, then get up and prowl around the house, hugging to myself the feeling of success, until I can sit down at the keyboard and begin turning it into reality.
The two thousand words, I’d struggled to produce each day to this point, flow onto the screen so easily I’m tempted to keep going, but I don’t. I have a life away from the keyboard and it deserves my attention.
The end of the first draft beckons now, (from thirty thousand words in the future) with its final skim through before I put it aside and begin another manuscript and go back to the struggle until its time to return and do the hard work of crafting my creation into a readable whole. (It usually takes me twice as long as the first draft to achieve this and I have one waiting for me.)
Back to writing for me.
Amy
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Critique Groups
I joined an online critique group a few days ago, my first foray into this area. I've always been wary of such things, partly because I'm not a natural joiner and few of the group forays I've previously made proved worth the time they consumed. (I find writing time precious and anything that competes with it has to pass stern tests)
I made my first critique too quickly, I should've read more of the previous crits first, and, because this was the writer's most obvious weakness, I chose to "show" rather than tell.
It was not well received and I wondered initially if it were worth the effort I'd put into it..
My second crit was more cautious (not in content, but in approach). The writer was much more competent and it only needed minor errors highlighted, but I'd discovered a basic fact about these groups--doing a crit requires much more trust than offering your work for one. (you can choose to ignore another's words)
It was a moderately long passage and I finished the crit(using their recommended method of inserting the comments direction into the text using capitals) and then I sat and read it several times (It is a measure of my focus that I still missed a simple typo that turned "think" into "thing"). Still not satisfied, I put it away for several hours and enjoyed the visit of all, bar one, of our grandchildren. After tea, when they'd been bathed and gone home, I sat and read it again. It was the balance between highlighting effectively what I saw to be errors and the method I had to use to achieve this that bothered me the most.
In the end, I sent it off and returned to my real work, Kayelle, having forgone five, possibly six, hours in the exercise.
It's a great life (but I sometimes wonder)
Amy
I made my first critique too quickly, I should've read more of the previous crits first, and, because this was the writer's most obvious weakness, I chose to "show" rather than tell.
It was not well received and I wondered initially if it were worth the effort I'd put into it..
My second crit was more cautious (not in content, but in approach). The writer was much more competent and it only needed minor errors highlighted, but I'd discovered a basic fact about these groups--doing a crit requires much more trust than offering your work for one. (you can choose to ignore another's words)
It was a moderately long passage and I finished the crit(using their recommended method of inserting the comments direction into the text using capitals) and then I sat and read it several times (It is a measure of my focus that I still missed a simple typo that turned "think" into "thing"). Still not satisfied, I put it away for several hours and enjoyed the visit of all, bar one, of our grandchildren. After tea, when they'd been bathed and gone home, I sat and read it again. It was the balance between highlighting effectively what I saw to be errors and the method I had to use to achieve this that bothered me the most.
In the end, I sent it off and returned to my real work, Kayelle, having forgone five, possibly six, hours in the exercise.
It's a great life (but I sometimes wonder)
Amy
Monday, July 16, 2007
Works in Progress
My current work in progress is the fourth story of the First Family from New Blood. It has the feel of a good story, particularly as I'm attempting a different structure from the others, but there are many more judgement calls to be made and each one has taken time. Achieving some success with the previous stories in this series has raised the bar considerably.
There are times when the work creeps forward as I juggle possibilities, sometimes even stalling as the moment of decision looms. Other moments have me jumping from place to place in the manuscript and writing furiously as a decision opens up unforeseen possibilities and I hurry to record them. Always my internal editor questions, demands excellence, derides foolishness and taps an impatient rhythm on my shoulder.
In the beginning there was occasional applause for this piece of writing or that from this conscience figure. Now, the best I can expect is grudging absolution and a demand for more and better writing.
It's great life.
Amy
There are times when the work creeps forward as I juggle possibilities, sometimes even stalling as the moment of decision looms. Other moments have me jumping from place to place in the manuscript and writing furiously as a decision opens up unforeseen possibilities and I hurry to record them. Always my internal editor questions, demands excellence, derides foolishness and taps an impatient rhythm on my shoulder.
In the beginning there was occasional applause for this piece of writing or that from this conscience figure. Now, the best I can expect is grudging absolution and a demand for more and better writing.
It's great life.
Amy
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Workaholic Blues
I was not always a workaholic.
The malady grew, undetected, through the years, parallelling my increasing responsibilities, until it became so much of me I had to arrange a physical separation between my work and my home life. The strategy worked most of the time, but there were outbreaks to be curbed.
It is more difficult now. My office is only a few steps away and writing has a tempo imposed by the release of new books. This makes it easy to impose self deadlines to meet some imagined advantage of keeping your name in the public eye, especially when the failure of a publisher reduces the body of your work available to readers. There's a terrible temptation to work harder, write faster, to replace those books in the market.
Marketing is another excuse. Small house publishers, the ones likely to take a chance on emerging and makee-learnee writers like me, do not have the funds to promote their books and the burden falls to the author. I've gone through the initial stage of frenetic energy, interrupted by trips to New Zealand and Europe/UK, and have settled to a level of measured effort directed as intelligently as I can, although the prime requirement still seems to be a sufficient body of work in the public domain to sustain interest.
I guess I'll just struggle along, trying to balance the conflicting demands of my family, my muse and commercial realities.
It's a great life. (I think)
Amy
The malady grew, undetected, through the years, parallelling my increasing responsibilities, until it became so much of me I had to arrange a physical separation between my work and my home life. The strategy worked most of the time, but there were outbreaks to be curbed.
It is more difficult now. My office is only a few steps away and writing has a tempo imposed by the release of new books. This makes it easy to impose self deadlines to meet some imagined advantage of keeping your name in the public eye, especially when the failure of a publisher reduces the body of your work available to readers. There's a terrible temptation to work harder, write faster, to replace those books in the market.
Marketing is another excuse. Small house publishers, the ones likely to take a chance on emerging and makee-learnee writers like me, do not have the funds to promote their books and the burden falls to the author. I've gone through the initial stage of frenetic energy, interrupted by trips to New Zealand and Europe/UK, and have settled to a level of measured effort directed as intelligently as I can, although the prime requirement still seems to be a sufficient body of work in the public domain to sustain interest.
I guess I'll just struggle along, trying to balance the conflicting demands of my family, my muse and commercial realities.
It's a great life. (I think)
Amy
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Demanding Muse
There are moments in writing when the muse needs wooing, others when she teases and tantalizes, but the toughest are when she demands total effort and is satisfied with nothing less than your best.
The fourth story of the First Family series creeps forwards, ideas tested and discarded. Six thousand words trashed because they led into a blind alley. What remains is good, but my muse demands more, forcing me to dig deep into all I've learned since I began this mad obsession with writing.
Kayelle, the heroine of this story, is twenty-two and younger than the others. Headstrong, willfull, hungry for life, she frets at restriction and is impatient with delay. Jean-Paul, on the other hand, is wary of his attraction to this beautiful child, particularly as he finds himself doing uncharacteristic things, his emotions taking charge and tempting him into what seems in retrospect, little better than rape in his eyes.
Kayelle doesn't see it that way.
I'll leave you and get back to the problem.
Amy
The fourth story of the First Family series creeps forwards, ideas tested and discarded. Six thousand words trashed because they led into a blind alley. What remains is good, but my muse demands more, forcing me to dig deep into all I've learned since I began this mad obsession with writing.
Kayelle, the heroine of this story, is twenty-two and younger than the others. Headstrong, willfull, hungry for life, she frets at restriction and is impatient with delay. Jean-Paul, on the other hand, is wary of his attraction to this beautiful child, particularly as he finds himself doing uncharacteristic things, his emotions taking charge and tempting him into what seems in retrospect, little better than rape in his eyes.
Kayelle doesn't see it that way.
I'll leave you and get back to the problem.
Amy
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Recycling is Hell
I'm back in the fourth story for the First Family series and my mind is made up. No more attempting to recycle the stories of my failed Australian publisher. If the two submissions I have in at the moment work, good. If they don't, too bad.
They were good stories, written for Australian readers and a time capsule of my writing style at the time, but Americanizing them and updating their style is surprisingly hard, particularly the style change. It's not just changing telling to showing, the characters themselves no longer ring true and it dates the storyline. Coming back to the present, so to speak, was such a relief and the unnamed fourth story is flowing along with only the story problems to occupy my mind.
This is the major change in my writing style. I know my characters, I know my background and I record their activities. It gives an immediacy to my writing and I experience the story as it happens, just like the reader.
As I've said before.
It's a great life.
Amy
They were good stories, written for Australian readers and a time capsule of my writing style at the time, but Americanizing them and updating their style is surprisingly hard, particularly the style change. It's not just changing telling to showing, the characters themselves no longer ring true and it dates the storyline. Coming back to the present, so to speak, was such a relief and the unnamed fourth story is flowing along with only the story problems to occupy my mind.
This is the major change in my writing style. I know my characters, I know my background and I record their activities. It gives an immediacy to my writing and I experience the story as it happens, just like the reader.
As I've said before.
It's a great life.
Amy
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
A comedy of errors resolved
I sent off one of my WIPs yesterday. It was a rewrite, requested by a publisher, of a story first submitted in 2001 and subsequently published in 2002 as a print book in Australia by Rocky River Romance, which has subsequently closed it doors.
With the rights returned to me, I Americanized the spelling and jargon to find it another home and sent it off with a query letter to a US publisher. It came back within a week, just before we went to Sydney for our granddaughter's birthday, with a surprising run of editing suggestions and a request to see the edited version. When I opened the manuscript file, I found I'd accidentally submitted the original manuscript from 2001 and the comments related to my 2001 writing style. I'd gone to the trouble of renaming the manuscript to prevent confusion, but in the rush to finish everything before leaving for Sydney, I'd clicked on the line below and sent the wrong manuscript.
I sent an email explaining my error and that I would be away in Sydney for some time before I could respond, especially as two of the editing suggestions, still relevant to the updated manuscript, really interested me.
Back from Sydney, re-energized by the break, I put everything aside and plunged into the rewrite. It has been the most difficult writing task, I've attempted so far, and I struggled because the story had changed so much from its 2001 version that applying the editing principles contained in the publisher's suggestions was like applying them to a different language. I hope my efforts satisfy the new publisher, but I have no confidence in them. I even toyed with putting it aside for a month or two, but decided against it. Perhaps I was wrong?
Amy
With the rights returned to me, I Americanized the spelling and jargon to find it another home and sent it off with a query letter to a US publisher. It came back within a week, just before we went to Sydney for our granddaughter's birthday, with a surprising run of editing suggestions and a request to see the edited version. When I opened the manuscript file, I found I'd accidentally submitted the original manuscript from 2001 and the comments related to my 2001 writing style. I'd gone to the trouble of renaming the manuscript to prevent confusion, but in the rush to finish everything before leaving for Sydney, I'd clicked on the line below and sent the wrong manuscript.
I sent an email explaining my error and that I would be away in Sydney for some time before I could respond, especially as two of the editing suggestions, still relevant to the updated manuscript, really interested me.
Back from Sydney, re-energized by the break, I put everything aside and plunged into the rewrite. It has been the most difficult writing task, I've attempted so far, and I struggled because the story had changed so much from its 2001 version that applying the editing principles contained in the publisher's suggestions was like applying them to a different language. I hope my efforts satisfy the new publisher, but I have no confidence in them. I even toyed with putting it aside for a month or two, but decided against it. Perhaps I was wrong?
Amy
Thursday, June 14, 2007
"We be Pirates, by God"
We're back from Sydney after a great time with our granddaughter (They grow up so fast!) and snatching a few moments to follow a discussion about pirates in the NCP group.
It started me thinking and I came up with a story idea about a Royal Navy Lieutenant, put on half-pay by the decommissioning of ships after the Treaty of Amiens, returning to his home in Jamaica and setting up as a trader to gather intelligence about the privateers turned pirates by the peace. 1802 lies outside the golden age of piracy, but there was a brief flurry of activity in this period which saw some quite horrific acts of piracy and it gives a lead in to the Lieutenant's family history in the trade for a possible series.
It would be nice to read a story of pirates that bore some resemblance to truth.
I've put it aside for the moment to concentrate on my two WIPs
It's a great life
Amy
It started me thinking and I came up with a story idea about a Royal Navy Lieutenant, put on half-pay by the decommissioning of ships after the Treaty of Amiens, returning to his home in Jamaica and setting up as a trader to gather intelligence about the privateers turned pirates by the peace. 1802 lies outside the golden age of piracy, but there was a brief flurry of activity in this period which saw some quite horrific acts of piracy and it gives a lead in to the Lieutenant's family history in the trade for a possible series.
It would be nice to read a story of pirates that bore some resemblance to truth.
I've put it aside for the moment to concentrate on my two WIPs
It's a great life
Amy
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Vampires, Werewolves and other things going bump in the night
Amid the rash of polls, blogs and other things about were-creatures and the like, one author wondered about the shift from demonizing such creatures to making them sexy and attractive-think of the shift from The Big Bad Wolf of the Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood to the countless heroes of shape-shifter romances and from Bram Stoker's Dracula to current vampires.
I think the answer is simple. When we feared these creatures, we demonized them. Now our healthy skepticism has revealed them for the figments they really are, we pity them and start conservation movements. The first step of any conservation movement is to popularize, casting the target in a favorable light to gain wide spread support.
Logically, the Devil must be due his day in the Sun soon, then we can expect the most misrepresented of them all to appear, although God as a sex object takes a leap of the imagination.
Global Warming shrinks in comparison.
It's a great life.
Amy
PS We're off to share out granddaughter's birthday in Sydney. See you in two weeks time.
I think the answer is simple. When we feared these creatures, we demonized them. Now our healthy skepticism has revealed them for the figments they really are, we pity them and start conservation movements. The first step of any conservation movement is to popularize, casting the target in a favorable light to gain wide spread support.
Logically, the Devil must be due his day in the Sun soon, then we can expect the most misrepresented of them all to appear, although God as a sex object takes a leap of the imagination.
Global Warming shrinks in comparison.
It's a great life.
Amy
PS We're off to share out granddaughter's birthday in Sydney. See you in two weeks time.
Friday, May 25, 2007
"Foreign" writers
An editor was lamenting in the Epicbiz Yahoo Group about the standard of English in the submissions he received from "Foreign" countries and others joined in with horror stories of the submissions they'd received.
While I sympathize with them, I was in the middle of Americanizing one of my stories and muttering to myself about the changes it imposed--American English is sometimes painful to the rest of the English speaking world.(Its passion for simplification often robs it of subtle nuances)
I toyed with the idea of responding to him with a submission and having a little fun with his guidelines (they were a little obscure in parts) purely out of annoyance, but better judgement prevailed ans I went back to my task.
He's possibly a very nice man, writing out of frustration more than real thoughts, and may even regret his careless use of the English language to define "Foreign" writers, but he was unwilling to forgive lapses in others, so he can't expect them himself.
Back to work for me
Amy
While I sympathize with them, I was in the middle of Americanizing one of my stories and muttering to myself about the changes it imposed--American English is sometimes painful to the rest of the English speaking world.(Its passion for simplification often robs it of subtle nuances)
I toyed with the idea of responding to him with a submission and having a little fun with his guidelines (they were a little obscure in parts) purely out of annoyance, but better judgement prevailed ans I went back to my task.
He's possibly a very nice man, writing out of frustration more than real thoughts, and may even regret his careless use of the English language to define "Foreign" writers, but he was unwilling to forgive lapses in others, so he can't expect them himself.
Back to work for me
Amy
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Busy, Busy, Busy
The demise of Rocky River Romance/Saltwater Press freed four books as the rights reverted to me and I'm busy finding them a new home, Americanizing the spelling and colloquialisms to make the stories more readily accessible to US readers.
One of them, Snow Drifter translated very easily, being part set in Aspen, the second is more difficult and I was tempted to take the Americanization further and relocate it as I did with Mitchell's Valley.
It's great, applying the several years of learning to stories I enjoyed writing, but it is also intense. I end each day with a stiff neck and an ache between my shoulder blades.
New Concepts has Snow Drifter and I'm waiting for their response while I work on the others.
It's a great life.
Amy
One of them, Snow Drifter translated very easily, being part set in Aspen, the second is more difficult and I was tempted to take the Americanization further and relocate it as I did with Mitchell's Valley.
It's great, applying the several years of learning to stories I enjoyed writing, but it is also intense. I end each day with a stiff neck and an ache between my shoulder blades.
New Concepts has Snow Drifter and I'm waiting for their response while I work on the others.
It's a great life.
Amy
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Web Traffic
It is bizarre what brings traffic to a website.
I received a huge boost when Saddam Hussein was hung, mainly from people searching for gallow, with or without the pendent s. The word is still responsible for a higher proportion of visits than any other source.
This type of information brings you down to earth with a thump.
It's still a great life
Amy
I received a huge boost when Saddam Hussein was hung, mainly from people searching for gallow, with or without the pendent s. The word is still responsible for a higher proportion of visits than any other source.
This type of information brings you down to earth with a thump.
It's still a great life
Amy
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Feodar's World has landed violently
New Concepts released Feodar's World today, rating it both sensual and contains violence. The latter puzzled me a little and I had to go back over the story to find the violence as I'd thought I'd skirted around the issue rather well.
The isolated acts of violence are referred to rather than described, but are integral to the story. It will be interesting to see how they rate Rachael's Return which has more violent acts and two battles integral to the secondary love story between Kamran and Helene. They had to be there to make sense of the story and I've presented them as non-confrontationally as possible without losing their reality.
It's a delicate balancing act. I hope I succeeded.
Amy
The isolated acts of violence are referred to rather than described, but are integral to the story. It will be interesting to see how they rate Rachael's Return which has more violent acts and two battles integral to the secondary love story between Kamran and Helene. They had to be there to make sense of the story and I've presented them as non-confrontationally as possible without losing their reality.
It's a delicate balancing act. I hope I succeeded.
Amy
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
A pleasant surprise
Melanie Grant, from Essence of Romance, a subscribed data base of books, contacted me and my books are now listed with them. It's always great when something comes out of the blue like that. I'd just negotiated an amicable truce with my current heroine, by doing precisely what she wanted, and she'd emerged from her trailer to give me another chance, so the story was flowing again. Along comes Melanie and I now have their banner on my website after a pleasant and painless exchange of emails, complicated only by the time differential between Melbourne and Washington.
It's the second time in less than a month where some reputable organisation has contacted me about my books and I'm feeling a little pleased with myself.
It's a great life.
Amy
It's the second time in less than a month where some reputable organisation has contacted me about my books and I'm feeling a little pleased with myself.
It's a great life.
Amy
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