Where Personal and Professional Life Collide...

Very pleased to say that my short story "Heartbeat" has made it into the ToC of Genius Loci, edited by Jaym Gates.  Some very nice ToC-mates there...

Santa Cruz–Andy Duncan
And the Trees Were Happy—Scott Edelman
Blackthorn—B. Morris Allen
Ouroboros in Orbit—Jason Batt
Reef—Kathleen Miller
Scab Land—Wendy Wagner
The Forgetting Field—Caroline Ratajski
The Town the Forest Ate—Haralambi Markov
Imperator Noster—Sonya Taaffe
The Other Shore—Rebecca Campbell
The South China Sea—Z.M. Quynh
Iron Feliks—Anatoly Belilovsky
Forest For the Trees—Steven S. Long
Drowning Again—Ken Scholes and Katie McCord
The Grudge—Thoraiya Dyer
Twilight State—Gemma Files
Coaltown—Heather Clitheroe
In the Water, Underneath—Damien Angelica Walters
Afterparty—Chaz Brenchly
The Gramadevi’s Lament—Sunil Patel
Blue & Grey and Black & Green—Alethea Kontis
Heartbeat—Laura Anne Gilman
Long Way Down—Seanan McGuire
The Snow Train—Ken Liu
The City–Vivienne Pustell
The Crooked Smile Killers—James Lowder
Threadbare Magician—Cat Rambo
Serenity Eternal–Steven Silver
Beer and Pennies—Rich Dansky
The Sleck–Keris MacDonald
The Transplant Specialist–Sarah Goslee

BookView Cafe is having our "Dog Days of Summer" sale, which means that there are bargains all over the site.

Including, yes, "Practical Meerkat's 52 Bit of Useful info for New (and Old) Writers)!


Regularly $2.99, use the coupon code DOGDAYLAG2012 when you check-out to get $1 off.



[and remember, all royalties I get from this book through the end of the year will go to the Food Bank of New York.]

Okay, the I's have been crossed and the T's dotted, so I can announced that - via the ever Best Evah Agent Madame Jackson, I've sold the first two books in a new mystery (amateur detective) series to Pocket.

Yes, mystery. Really. Straight mystery. Okay, not quite straight, because hey, this is ME we're talking about*. But they're 100% in the mystery category, not fantasy.

What can I say, I like to shake things up occasionally. :-)

The working series title - which I'm sure Pocket is NOT going to let me keep - is Gen & Tonic Investigations.

(What? Why're you looking at me like that? People, if you don't know to expect puns from me by now....)

The first book's not due until January 2012, so you won't hear much on the topic for a few months. But I just wanted to jump up and down and squee for a bit. :-)

*squee!*


[and yes, I'm still writing fantasy - there are books yet due to Luna, and a few other things cooking, never fear...am not giving up my first love any time soon.)




*( the deets: )

So. In the way that production screws with your sense of time, and when a book finally reaches Actual Readers you're already on to the next book, or even the book after that... PSI/Bonnie #3 is due this week, which meant it was time to send in my option material and see if they were interested.

Yes, option material to a series that won't start until May.

No, I don't get confused, but my larger sense of time* is kinda loose to begin with.

Anyway. I sent a proposal in to madame agent, who liked it, and sent it on, and... oh hell, cut to the chase, and I'm delighted to say that Luna has, through Madame Agent, made me an offer for three more books in the Cosa Nostradamus universe, and I have accepted.

*pause for quiet squeeing which you, hopefully, will join in on*

( some of the specifics, for those interested )

I'm really, really psyched about these books. As in, doing the happy-author excited wicked giggle dance kind of excited. (The cats, having ascertained that they will, indeed, be fed throughout 2010, yawned and went back to sleep.)


And um, yeah. For those playing along at home? That means these are the 10th, 11th, and 12th books in the Cosa Nostradamus universe. 6 Retrievers, 4 PSI, and 2 in the yet-untitled new series. Why yes I am sort of quietly hyperventilating, nice of you to ask. *takes paper bag, breathes into it.*



*"what year is it" time as opposed to deadlines and be-there-by time.

Although it's actually been a done deal for a while -- my story "Dusted" has been accepted by Edge SF&F Publishing for their anthology "Those Who Fight Monsters", edited by Justin Gustainis

Yes, Cosa Nostradamus fans, this is the Danny story I've been talking about*.

I don't have an on-sale date yet, but I can tell you when you'll be able to get your hands on an electronic version of the story -- in January** I plan to make all my existing*** Cosa Nostradamus stories available in a single collection through BookView Cafe.

(There. I said it. Now I actually have to get all the cleaning-up and coding done...)






*bastard's already asking for a novel. He's even picked out his co-star.
**maybe early February
**assuming I can get the two on Fictionwise shaken free in time

First sale of the year: audio rights for "Blow Job Red" to podcaster SFZine. They're still pre-launch, so no idea when it will be available. Listen here for updates.

I'm starting to get antsy about my last unanswered short fiction submission from 2008. Although not superstitious as a rule, I hesitate to ping the editor, but... we're going on three months now. Antsy. Hrm. Wonder if just talking about it is enough to bring on the jinx?
------------------
I finished the outline for MUSTANG last night. This morning I get to read it over and see if there's anything important I left out, then it goes off to madame editrix so she can approve it, and start a Contract Payment in motion. Normally my outlines are more like Google map directions -- accurate until they're suddenly not, and to be read with a casual and forgiving eye. Nocturne is a little more stringent with this -- the editorial director likes to know Exactly What She's Getting. so I have to do a bit more work up-front. Things will still change in the actual writing, of course, but there tend not to be the joyfully exasperating Ah-HAH! moments of plot recognition. Pluses and minuses to that....
-----------------

I am informed that my revision notes for THE VINEART WAR should arrive in the next handful of days. I'll be in the corner, fretting. Except here's no time to fret, as I need to get back to work on PACK OF LIES See my head go 'splodey, soon...
----------------------

And in the non-writing news, this amused me, in a sad sort of way. Our Geek President. "I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry," Mr. Obama said Wednesday. "They’re going to pry it out of my hands."

Note icon.

Seriously. The past week's been a blur of me quietly flailing and freaking behind the scenes, while Best Agent Evah Jenn did her thing. Her thing done, I can now -- with great glee -- announce that the project formerly known as "The Project Eating my Brain" has et an editor's brain* as well.

Henceforth, it shall be known as The Vineart Wars 1-3, and they will be coming from Pocket Books (via the amazingly talented and most-excellent judge of books, Jen Heddle).

Because, really, a second-world fantasy based on wine-magic? Totally me, yes. :-)

Now I get to move from "hopefully someone will want this" to "OMG they want it when?" Eeeep.


I think I'm still slightly in (delighted) shock. Wheeeee!

(and no, I haven't forgotten about/lost any love for the Cosa Nostradamus books. Like any parent with more than one child, they're ALL my favorite. Just more on some days than others...)

EtA: and yes, fakefrenchie, this means what you think it means. Dust off that guest room! ;-)


*two editors, actually, hence the flailing and freaking

At Lunacon this afternoon, I was handed a contract (thus making it official after the "I like this, I want it" e-mail a few months ago) for my story "Wolfling" to go to Abyss & Apex.

(for those keeping track at home, this is a story in the "Dragon Virus" universe)


I also, on my way out the door, got in the mail my very first ever piece of fanart. Specifically, of P.B. *squeeeee!* I have been showing it around proudly, and the general reaction has been "how cool! And it's really good!"

As soon as I have the scanner set up, I will share it with y'all. :-)

And now I need to get some sleep, as tomorrow is a damn full day of conventioning...

Because the moment a freelancer clears her schedule of one thing, something else should appear to keep her crazed, I've just agreed to write an "e-Bites" for Harlequin Nocturne e-Books. Basically, a novelette-length paranormal dark erotica.

*pauses while msdori has moment of squeee.*

It took a while because I held by my refusal to write about amorous vampires, werewolves, werecats, or anything else that triggers my "oh god not another" reaction. So what am I writing about?

Heh. Heh heh heh.

You'llllll seeeeee.....


Of course, they want to publish it in August (yes, this August, yay for e-production schedules) so I need to get started. I also need to start on Bonnie #1, which is due in August. While I'm still (because it won't leave me alone) writing forward on TPEMB. And working on a client manuscript or two, because Publishing Grinds Slow and Accounts Payable even slower.

This is why being organized is the #2 secret of freelancing. Oy.

I am pleased to announce that Nocturne has taken the next "Anna Leonard" book (Daughter of the Sea, the sexy selkies in Nantucket one) for publication sometimes in.... well, damned if I know, actually, since The Night Serpent hasn't been scheduled yet, either. But probably sometime at the end of 2008 or early 2009.

Go Anna!

Of course, this means that the schedule of Shit I Gotta Do Before December has just gotten a smidge more, um, crowded. (EEEP!) I'll spare you the list, because typing it out might drive me to tears, and it's too damned hot for that. Let's just say that I ain't gonna be bored...