Another One Down

I've set some challenging goals for myself this year, but I'm having some trouble deciding the order in which I should attack them. Two major goals have already earned the 'finished' moniker and now I'm taking a day to decide what to work on next.
To Tame a Tiger finally has found a home with TWRP. I'm thrilled about that. That company is super organized and constantly striving to improve everything about themselves from their customer service and what they do for their authors.
The second book in my fantasy series with Medallion Press, Beyond the Gate, is finally traversing cyper space to their docket with the expected edits completed. In the past three weeks I cut nearly three thousand words to make the writing tighter and do more showing and less telling. I think it's the best book I've ever written to this point.
Now what should I do next? The choices are varied and I want to have them all done before the end of 2009. Here are my choices in no particular order.
Book three of my fantasy series with Medallion Press, Beneath the Mountain, is about half completed. I had to set it aside to work on other projects. This is the thing I most 'want' to work on but it's also the one I probably have the least need to get right on. My editor at Medallion probably won't look at it until fall at the earliest as we work on getting the first book ready for its January, 2010 release.
Book four in my Solonian Chronicles with New Concepts Publishing is finished. That is the first rough copy is done. Unlike some of my writer friends, my first copy always needs tons of work. This is probably the one I should get right on because I'm sure they'll work to get it out as soon as possible since it's another book in a successful series. This is the last book in that series and I'll probably be pitching another series to them next fall. But for some reason, I'm feeling little inspiration to get started on this, perhaps because I know I have to major revisions to the first part of it.
My 'Tigers of Salubria series,(I hope it ends up being a series with TRWP) also has a second and third book completed and waiting for revisions. I hesitate to start work on that because I don't know how quickly TRWP press moves on looking at a second book when I don't even have a release date for the first one.
The last option is my newest fantasy book, First Dragon, that I completed a few months ago. I've been querying agents who like my writing and give my kind words but no contract. They want urban fantasy not sword and sorcery type. They think they can't sell it. So after months of frustration with those replies, I'm going to try and find a home for it on my own. Wish me luck.
Those are all my choices. I'm giving myself today to decide. Suggestions are welcome.

Where Have All the Hours Gone

So many of us are juggling jobs, kids, household chores and still daring to call our 'real' job as being a writing professional. Despite my determination to be an author, in high school and college, my academic strength was math and science. And I have to say when looking at all those jobs I listed above, the numbers just don't add up.
Let's start with a big time drain, that dreaded day job. Even if you love that job, it interfers with your writing time. Let's give that job at least ten hours if it's full time. An hour to get ready, half hour to get there, eight hours on the job and another half an hour home. So, 10.
Now, you probably have to spend at the least another hour in the morning getting the kids ready for school or the sitter and if they're very young, get them breakfast. So now the total is 11.
Once home from work you have a variety of things to do. Fix dinner, dishes, perhaps laundry, help the kiddies with homework or spend some good family time with them. If they're older, you may be spending hours at athletic endeavors, dance practice, music lessons or just on the road as the family taxi service. This is going to take no less than three hours and likely more. 14
The evening would be deeply upon you by now and you might think you have time to do some promotion, but it's time to put the kids to bed, read the little ones a story and do that softball uniform for the older one she has it clean for tomorrow. 15
Finally the kids are in the bed, the spouse asleep in front of a basketball game on the telly, and you can sit down in front of your computer. You visit a few blogs and update your status on facebook and twitter. Finally you open up your WIP and read the last few pages you wrote the day before. Probably it was only two pages at the most. You gather up the threads of your plot and finally find the emotion you want to instill in your prose when your jaw cracks with a might yawn. Three more hours so you're at 18.
You fall into bed and get up at 5:30 am to start all over the next day. You glance at the morning paper and see a health article on the minimum requirement for a good night's sleep is seven and you've been averaging five and a half to six. Geez, who didn't know that?
As a former math whiz, I know I don't have enough hours in the day to be all I want to be. But I won't give up and neither should you. There are days when I want to put it all aside because I have so many other things I could fill those precious couple of hours I spend at the keyboard. But I don't. I squeeze in every minute I can including writing this post while my favorite show, Supernatural is playing. When it's over I'm going to get back to the edits on Beyond the Gate, the second book in my fantasy series from Medallion Press. After I do at least twenty pages, I'll go get my six hours of sleep for the night. How many hours do you average?

My To Do List

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me on my to do list this past week. I nearly made it.
First the things I didn't accomplished. I failed at the squidoo page. Seems like it was a simple thing to do, but I didn't quite get it done. Sorry to all my friends whose blogs I didn't visit despite the best of intentions. Third failure was more personal as I skipped the treadmill twice.
I did manage everything else. It's such a relief to have my edits on To Tame a Tiger, done and off to TRWP along with all the other paper work. So it was a good week though very busy with long hours. I cut over 1000 words from Tiger without deleting any scenes. Hopefully I cut the right ones.
This week I'll be working hard on edits for Beyond the Gate, the second book in my series with Medallion Press. BTG is the second book in The Chronicles of Futhark and takes up the epic fantasy adventure in the moment following the end of the first novel, The Keepers of Sulbreth.
I also made a new list and some of it involves promoting A Ruthless Good. I've fallen behind in that.
So I'm going to go visit some blogs and then get to those edits.

What I Will and Won't Do This Week

I have so much stuff piled up on my desk there's barely room for my coffee. I keep writing reminders, lists, and stacking things into meaningly piles. I need to catch up, but I also need to finish up some other things. So I writing a public list reminder to myself of what I will accomplish this week and what things I will set aside until later.
#1. I will finish the edits on To Tame A Tiger for The Wild Rose Press.
#2. I won't waste any more energy or emotion complaining about my books being on all those pirate sites for free download.( But it makes me so mad).
#3. I will take the time and do the paperwork to join PAN.
#4. I will set up my squidoo page.
#5. I won't start reading the third book in Brent Weeks' shadow series because I can't seem to put his books down once I start.
#6. I will send all that paperwork off the TWRP and join their yahoo groups.
#7. I won't visit Facebook twenty times a night to see what interesting things my friends are up to.
#8. I will visit all my favorite blogs once a day and leave comments. They're so funny and informative.
#9. I will not under any circumstances visit Borders or any other bookstore this week including and not limited to online booksellers.
#10. I will get on the treadmill each day and run instead of walking no matter how many other things I can think of that I need to do.

I intend to stick to this list and complete all ten by this time next week. Wish me luck.

A Sweet, Sweet Week

Where to start. The past seven days have been a whirlwind for me. On Monday, I was still fuming about the pirates stealing my three futuristic romances. I won't use all the words to describe them I've used in conversation when I discovered it. I did very little writing last weekend. Anger is not an emotion that lends itself to creativity. At least not for me.
But Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and knew the path I needed my plot to take as I navigated my characters through their dark moment. And I still remembered it when I woke up again an hour later.
That was the start of a lot of good things. Checking my fantasy publisher, Medallion Press, in a moment of procrastination, I discovered my book cover had finally been put up on their website along with a blurb. It's so beautiful as you can see from the picture alongside this post. The blurb isn't the one I wrote and I wouldn't call it entirely accurate, but it's there. Here's the link if you'd like to read it.
http://www.medallionpress.com/blurbs/sulbreth.html

Later that same night, I discovered the book cover for my newest futuristic romanc release, A Ruthless Good, is on a list over at Goodreads for the hottest erotica cover. Now remember I was a bit distraught because my book isn't erotica and feared it would turn away my ususal readers or mislead new readers. But I'm not silly enough to cry about free publicity. Please go vote if you will.
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/531.Hottest_Romance_Erotica_Covers

As if the good fates hadn't smiled on me enough, the very next day I received an offer of a contract for a fantasy romance from The Wild Rose Press. I've heard so many wonderful things about this publisher, I can't wait to have my book in their lineup. To Tame a Tiger is the novel I had tied up in that bankruptcy mess with Triskelion even though they never published it. I was so afraid it would never see the light of a readers book light.
Continuing on my quest to make this one of the best weeks of my writing career, this morning I finished the first draft of my fourth book in The Solonian Chronicles, the futuristic romance series I have with New Concepts Publishing. This book is the last in the series that started with The Greater Good, The Lesser Evil and A Ruthless Good. I haven't titled this one yet and will tell you more about it later when and if I get a contract.
So I've met my writing goals for Febuary, snagged that new contract and had the joy of seeing that fantasy book up before the world. Everything is flowing.
Until last night. Did I tell you I think I destroyed my website?

The Edge of Season

My writing has lagged a little this week. It's that odd time of year when winter is holding on with sharp, biting cold claws while spring wears away at it with added minutes of daylight and the increased warmth in the afternoon sun. I'm anxious to be outside, cleaning out my flowerbeds, trimming back my raspberry bushes before they get completely out of control and raking up the last of the old brown leaves that escaped last fall.
I usually do my promotional work when I first get home from school and then do my writing after dinner. But now when I get home, the longer daylight hours call to me. One day I cleaned out the garage instead of promo. Another day I washed my car and cleaned windows I haven't touched since last fall.
Things may get worse before they get better. The first day of spring sports practice is only a week away. My daughter plays softball and my son runs track so I'll be busy being taxi to and from practice as well as being number one fan. And in two short weeks, daylight savings time begins. How will I stay at it when it's light out even longer?
Do the seasons distract you? What is your best writing season or are you steady throughout the year? I know the holiday season slows most people down, but what about other times of year? You would think as a school teacher and having my summer months off, I would get a lot of writing done during June, July and August, but the opposite is true. I love the outdoors and near rain or cold to keep me at my keyboard. My alpha smart helps because I can take it outside and to sporting events and get some writing done. Am I the only one distracted by the great outdoors?
It's dark and cold now, so I'm going back to my WIP. I have to get it done before that time change.

Real Pirates Aren't Cool

First you might think of the bandits preying on ships of all sorts off the cost of Africa, but they're not the ones I'm speaking about. Though I admit, I don't understand why those ships don't mount some guns on their vessels. Those pirates are usually in some really small speed boats. It's not like they're in armored battle ships.
But back to my point. Yesterday I discovered all three of my books from NCP were available for download from a pirate site. Those SOBs were giving my books away right beside free downloads of The Dark Night and every other movie recently released on DVD. And considering A Ruthless Good has only been for sale for a few weeks, it was fast and evil work.
I've sympathized with other authors when their books appeared on pirate sites, but mine have never been there before. At least I didn't catch it if they were. It's so infuriating. I couldn't sleep last night for my fuming and today I took it out on my poor students at school.
Finally one of my colleagues pointed out the upside. If my books haven't been on a pirate site before and they are now, should I be complimented that I'm finally popular enough to make it worth their while to steal from me? Is that really reaching for the silver lining?
I think the more popular ebooks become, the more widespread the pirating of novels will become. Just as it's impossible to protect the illegal sales of video and music, I don't believe there's any technological answer to protection for authors. In the end, we can only trust the honesty of our customers to purchase our books through honest means.