Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Wild Rose Press SONY eReader

I've not come to a standstill on my writing, but it's slowed down quite a bit this last week. It would be nice to say it's because I'm doing revisions but that would be a Big Fat Lie and very wrong of me. It's going to be tight to reach the 50k goal by 30th June but I haven't given up the race yet!!

I received the score sheets for the MTE contest and the encouraging comments from the judges were just amazing. It gave me added enthusiasm to dive back into the story and it's great to know complete strangers actually enjoyed my writing and wanted to read more!!

In other news, The Wild Rose Press are holding a drawing to win a SONY eReader, which looks rather fabulous. Full details are here.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Contests & Challenges

My little piece of good writing news from 18th June is that I'm one of the finalists in the Romance Writers of New Zealand's Meet the Editor contest. This is the contest I had such fun with a few weeks ago trying to figure out the formatting! I'm pretty excited by finalling as it means my pages are winging their way to Cindy Hwang, executive editor at Berkley Publishing, for her comments. The finalists also get the chance to chat to Cindy at the NZ conference about their pages. Doubly exciting!!

This means that I've gone back to that story, which I left at the end of May a quarter written. I did originally mean to tackle it for my June Challenge, but became sidetracked with a contemp romance (and I'm not complaining because that dead body had been haunting me since last October. Am very glad to have sorted that problem out!!)

So adding together the words I managed on the contemp romance, the second short erotic paranormal I wrote last week and the new chapter I've written on the paranormal I entered into the contest, I'm just about still on track to get my 50k in 30 days. If I manage that, it will be the most I've written in one month for ages. Hooray!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

18th June 2008

Today has been a Very Good Day!!!

First of all, it's my 25th wedding anniversary. Aside from the fact it's impossible I've been married for 25 years (seeing how I am only 29!) I can't believe it was a quarter of a century ago we actually got married! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun!

Then I received some very exciting writing related news which was a lovely pressie to wake up to today of all days (more about that later!) and then this evening TWRP uploaded my author page on their site! Check it out here!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Challenge & Website Update

After the excitement of the last week, I got a bit behind in my 50k challenge. On Thursday I decided to put aside the novel I'd been working on, and started a new paranormal erotic romance (thank you, Meat Loaf!!!) Yes, I'd once again been listening to Bat Out of Hell while burning the dinner. It's coming along nicely although I haven't quite worked out how the hero and heroine will end up together. Unless I kill them off. Now there's a thought!

My husband has always been very supportive of my writing, but on Saturday his support took on a whole new level. Before leaving for work he told our son he was not to watch tv in the theatre room today because Mum was working (my desk is in the corner of that room). It was a little thing, and yet huge. Just to be on the safe side I barricaded myself into my corner by angling the sofa so no one (iow my son) could creep up behind me and lurk over my shoulder. I still haven't quite recovered from the time he was in Year 3 and told his teacher and the entire class that his mum spent all day on the computer writing sex.

I've also updated my website. Yet again! The lovely Rach suggested I post my sale story, so that's up there now under Articles.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Thank You!!



Thank you to everyone who sent congratulations and good wishes on my blog and privately on my sale to The Wild Rose Press! I've been getting quite tearful over the last couple of days!
.
And I got all tearful again today, when the lovely witches sent me these beautiful flowers. Aren't they gorgeous? As if that wasn't enough they even specifically asked for irises (the irises are all in bud at the moment so I'm looking forward to them blooming tomorrow!
.
Because my editor uses track changes, and I've never got around to using them (and you can bet I now regret laughing at Sara four years ago when she tried to educate me in that direction!!) I've been taking a crash course. The online tutorial was in double dutch, but thankfully the ever patient Sara and Shelley (who both deserve medals of endurance) have come to my rescue. It's actually quite a cool function once I got past the freak factor!
.
My eldest daughter told her friends I had sold, and apparently they are in mild shock that Mrs Phillips *could* write such things. *cough* My brother, bless him, asked if it was autobiographical.
.
He was joking. I think.


Sunday, June 08, 2008

SOLD!!!


MySpace Glitters



Yes, it's finally happened!!! Today I sold a paranormal erotic romance to The Wild Rose Press and I am so excited I can hardly sit still!

The email arrived this morning (on a Sunday!!) and after I recovered from a mild panic attack I bravely opened it up. To a contract!!! And to My Editor (omg I can hardly believe I have an editor!) saying lovely things about my story!!! She called it 'an interesting blend of smoky eroticism and a dramatic look into the dark world of vampires and witchcraft.' Squeeee!!!!!

Thankfully I managed to flush out the witches so we could all squeee together because it's much more fun that way!!

So now I'm waiting for edits! OMG!

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Update

The first week of the challenge is going well and I've managed to clock up over 15,000 words. This puts me ahead of myself which is just as well as I never seem to get much writing done on Sundays.

Did you notice I was very clever and put the 50k in 30 days widget on my blog! Thanks to Sandie who created it (I have no idea how these things work, I just copy the coding!!)

Monday, June 02, 2008

And We're Off

Usually I don't manage to write a word on Sundays, seeing as it tends to be the only day my husband has off and I always do a full Sunday roast no matter what the weather. But yesterday I was very good and did 2410 words. I think they might even be quite passable words too!

We have word meters up on the Challenge blog and it does look good to see them slowly move upwards. Today, I fully intended to try for another thousand, despite the huge turkey I had to prepare for dinner, but things didn't quite go to plan.

My son had his friend round, and while I can just about tune out the sound of the tv in the background, combined with two thirteen year old boys laughing and carrying on about two feet behind my chair was pushing my powers of concentration too far. I got 771 words down and gave it up as a lost cause.

But I'm still pretty happy with the total so far so, and am even happier with the fact I had two fulls requested from two different publishers on Saturday!