Wednesday, November 10, 2010

A tease from "Getting It Right"


Editor extraordinaire (and birthday girl) Rachel Kramer Bussel was featured on the Smutketeers blog today talking about Passion: Erotic Romance for Women. She and my Smutketeer buddy Eden Bradley shared an excerpt from my contribution to the book, "Getting It Right". Go check it out, but be warned: it's kinky*!

Comment and say what brings out your passionate side, be it something as innocent as cupcakes or something a bit racier, and you might win the book.

*Is "kinky" a warning or a recommendation? Around here it's both...

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Signing papers and making changes

Yesterday I signed a contract with Phaze for A Satyr for Midwinter. Gods and grid willing, it should be coming to your favorite e-book retailer sometime early next year, date TBD. I don't even have a firm pub date for Threshing the Grain yet, though, so "sometime early next year" will do for now.

Soon we'll be signing refinance paperwork, which will make the Cat-Herder and I very happy inasmuch as we'll have considerably lower mortgage payments.

And today I signed the offer letter for a new job--my first full-time job, other than writing, in more than five years. I've been working part-time, sometimes very part-time, for all those years, and this will be a huge change, affecting my writing and our home life in ways I'm trying not panic about.

The truth is, costs are rising faster than my husband's salary and my book sales can accomodate. This is a change we need to make. I'm fortunate that I found a job that sounds genuinely fun by my geeky standards. (It involves research!) And hey, it'll be good to go to work in something other than pajamas.

I'll have to be a lot stricter with myself about keeping to a writing schedule. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially during my unemployment, the amount of time I had became as much an obstacle as it was a gift. Far too easy to think "I'll work later" and then get distracted.

Wish me luck!

Monday, November 01, 2010

Happy November 1!

I hope everyone had a fine Hallowe'en, full of fun, candy and costumes (and for those follow a pagan path, spiritual insight). For the first time in many years, we attended a party, a fairly small gathering of good friends at which we wore costumes (I was a cat), ate exceptional food and played "spooky" games such as Zombies and Give Me the Brains (zombies working in fast food, with one brain to share among the crew. Sounds an awful lot like some of my former jobs!)

For me, as a Celtic path pagan, today is the first full day of the new year. (I celebrate the standard New Year too, because it's fun.) I have a feeling this year will be...interesting but I'm going to leave it at that for now.

Today, for many of my friends, marks a beginning of a more secular kind. Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a challenge to produce a new 50K manuscript in a month. I'm not doing it this year because I have several projects to finish and need to direct my energy toward those. Plus, there's job-hunting. But new projects are always shinier than ones I've been struggling with, and the companionship in misery is always good.

Repeat after me: NOT THIS YEAR, TERESA! I will write like a good little writer--but I will not NaNo.