I'm done!
Oh, joy! Oh, bliss! I finished AFTER THE WEDDING... last night. For all intents & purposes, anyway. I stayed up way late the past couple of nights to do it, but it was worth it. I said I'd be done by May 1st...whether or not people believed me is an entirely different story! I still need to proof read & polish the ms. from the very beginning, & I'll probably tack an epilogue on the end, but I consider the book done. The rest won't take me long at all. I'm going to take a day or two off to let my brain recuperate, then I'll jump into the revisions. My goal now will be to have the book printed & in teh mail early next week. Yay!
I'm already eager to get started on the next one...my first continuity story for Silhouette & the book I've been chomping at the bit to work on for months now.
close but no cigar
I was on the treadmill this morning (reading Maggie Price's HIDDEN AGENDA, btw) when the UPS truck pulled up in front of my house. Finally! Normally, I don't stop exercising to answer the phone or the door, but I jumped right off today, thnking he'd have my BLACKOUT author copies. Well, he didn't, but he brought something almost as good--the new bookmarks for my October release, WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN.
Oh, they're nice! The front is very similar to the last version I had done because I'm trying to maintain a similar look with all my promo to match my website. But I had Shelley (my ingenious web designer) do a little tweaking with the back so they look even crisper & cleaner than before. I like it!
This also means I'll have them to take along to the WRW Retreat next month & can start handing them out, along with the ones I still have for the February & June books. And in June, I'll be able to stick them in any copies of BLACKOUT I sign. Always thinking ahead, that's me. LOL Actually, just a few weeks ago, I remarked to Shelley that I rarely plan ahead, which accounts for all the times I e-mail her with an emergency request. :-p
Hopefully I'll be seeing the UPS man again soon, tho...those author copies really should be arriving any day now.
a new title
After much deliberation--which basically amounts to me wracking my brain & then my editor riding to the rescue--we have an official title for my February 2006 Desire. AFTER THE WEDDING... Or, as it's becoming known around here, "AFTER THE WEDDING dot-dot-dot". Call me crazy, but I love that I'm going to have a title with ellipses at the end.
I'm anxiously awaiting the author copies of my June Desire, BLAME IT ON THE BLACKOUT. I think getting the February ones so early last time spoiled me because now I find myself jumping up & running to the door every time I think I hear the UPS truck. So far, tho, nothing. Hmph.
Got a few books going, too. IN SILENCE by Erica Spindler, HAVE YOU SEEN HER? by Karen Rose, & THE MACLEAN GROOM by Kathleen Harrington. I'm enjoying them, but since I'm nearing the end of my deadline on WEDDING (dot-dot-dot
), I haven't been reading as much as I'd like.
all's well
Got the bookmark design fixed & resubmitted. Fingers crossed no more crises occur. Then I got on the airbike for half an hour (five miles!) & watched Monday night's episode of CSI: MIAMI. It's time for lunch, then I need to get down to writing. Only two or three chapters to go in my WIP. I really like the scene I'm working on, but this stage of a book always seems to go slowly, for some reason. I feel like I'm writing a lot, but when I send the text from my Alphie to the computer, it doesn't usually translate into that many pages. :-(
panic attack!
Well, I had quite the scare today! Early this morning, I approved a large & very expensive order for bookmarks to promote my September Desire, WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN. I don't know what possessed me, but a few hours later, I logged into Harlequin's book tracking system, where authors upload information for their cover art. Like I said, I don't know why I even bothered bringing up the site, since I didn't have an Art Fact Sheet due, but now I think a heavenly hand must have been guiding me. Anyway, when I logged on, I noticed that LIGHTS was listed as being an October release. The ISBN number was the same one I had, only I was pretty sure my editor had mentioned she'd moved the book to September. (See the December 19th entry.)
Since I was more than a little worried, I e-mailed my editor, only to discover that LIGHTS is
not a September release. I don't know when the book got moved back or how the mistake happened, but it really & truly is coming out in October. Which would be fine if it hadn't been for that large & very expensive bookmark order I'd
just sent in. So I immediately e-mailed Su Kopil at Earthly Charms (no phone number--curses!) & asked her to use any means necessary to stop the order. A part of me thought the order probably hadn't even been processed yet, since I'd just approved in three or four hours ago...but another part of me worried that once it was submitted to the printer, there was no going back. The next forty or fifty minutes were spent pacing & praying...& not necessarily in that order. But thank God for Su! She's a miracle worker, that's for sure. I finally got a note from her saying the order had been stopped & that I could have the bookmark design fixed, then resubmit the order when I was ready.
Whew! My heart is beating again & my breathing is almost returned to normal. I feel like I dodged a bullet for sure. If I couldn't get that order stopped, my next plan of action would have been to print "October 2005" in teeny-tiny font on label paper & fix the incorrect date by hand...on all ten thousand bookmarks. Ha! My eyes cross just thinking about it.
On a much less stressful note, I finished reading Iris Johansen's FATAL TIDE last week & really enjoyed it. Now I'm reading IN SILENCE by Erica Spindler & HAVE YOU SEEN HER? by Karen Rose.
Now the kitty's crying, so I have to go open a can of moist food. Spoiled brat! :-D
