Well, first things first! The little bit of cuteness in my mood photo is my new Shiloh, Kiki! We got her in August and she has been a ROYAL PAIN (in the way of energetic puppies) but we still love her. :)
Second things second--a lot has happened since my last post. I engaged beta readers and professional editors and a proofreader (oh my), I did at least five more rewrites on East of the Sun, and I submitted to 84 agents and got two partial requests and a lot of personalized responses but no offers. Even as I was submitting to agents, though, my mind had started to switch gears, and I was honestly relieved when the last rejection came in. I am now less than a month away from finally indie-publishing East of the Sun, and West of the Moon (the sequel) is about done, so that should be out later this year.
Though I understand that putting my first books out myself could mean dropping them into an endless black hole of unread books, I am honestly happy to finally be moving forward with my writing. I have digested reams of information on how to do all this "properly" while recognizing that everyone's road is different. I am progmatic, but hopeful that the books will find an audience who love this stuff as much as I do.
So, later this month I'll be making the final post on this blog, because I have a new one--on my new author web site, in fact! I'd post it now, but it's the last thing I'm finishing up before I hit "Publish". Well, that and the dang reader magnet for my mailing list. I still struggle with short fiction. Give me a new novel any day...
I did want to make a couple more posts here because I was on the Viable Paradise web site this morning, touching base with old memories, and I remembered that they'd linked to my post on how much I loved and valued my experience at VP. Since there's always the chance that someone will run across this old thing when they access that, it seemed smart to touch base again and at least give a bit of closure here and a redirect.
So--anyone who ends up reading this, do check in again toward the end of the month. I'll have a shiny book cover and new website to share!
Thanks everyone!
