Month: May 2008

Chatting With…Mary J. Forbes

secret_child.jpgI’ve updated my Articles page with a Chatting With… column featuring award-winning Silhouette Special Edition author Mary J. Forbes. Mary talks about Fogwalking (you’ll have to read the article to find out what that is) and provides tips for aspiring writers.

Mary just won the Holt Medallion for Short Contemporary with her July 2007 Special Edition, HIS BROTHER’S GIFT, and several of her books have received 4.5 star reviews from Romantic Times. THEIR SECRET CHILD, the first book in her “Home to Firewood Island” trilogy, is in stores now. Here’s the blurb:

SKIP DALTON WAS THE LOVE—AND HEARTBREAK—OF HER LIFE

But that was all in the past. Addie Malloy had moved on and made a life for herself and her young child. Except now Skip had come home. And he’d brought someone with him.

Skip was determined to make amends for running out on Addie when she needed him most. But how would the single mother react when she discovered that his daughter was her daughter, too? Would this be the end? Or could this long-awaited reunion be a new beginning…for them all?

Mary is known for delivering issue-driven, emotion-filled reads. I’ve read all her books and am eagerly awaiting my copy of THEIR SECRET CHILD.

Go. Read. The Interview. Then return and tell me…Are You a Fogwalker, Too?

Tell Me Tuesday–I’ve Been PANned

Not much to report in the WIPpy department. The writing is going well, but I’m still in the No Man’s Land of writing new scenes before I get to begin revising the scenes drafted during my NaNoWriMo experiment. The closer I get to those drafted scenes, the more I realize that the manuscript might just fall in line with my “plodding” (a.k.a. plotting). This, of course, amazes me to no end. And I have my brainstorming group to thank for it, because I couldn’t have done all that plotting without them (thank you, Looney Binners!).

My big news this week (well, last week or the week before, but I don’t think I’ve announced it yet), is that I’ve finally been admitted to RWA’s Published Authors Network (a.k.a. PAN). My Alter Ego’s third sale to Red Sage Secrets did it. It’s taken me so long to get here: two novel sales and three novella sales. Phew! And, if not for the change in RWA author eligibility standards last summer, I still wouldn’t belong to PAN. Because, before the changes, novella sales, regardless of advance level, didn’t count. Only novel sales counted, and my two Amber Quill novels, as amazing as they are, have not yet reached the level of income generation (LOIG – and, yes, I made that up) required to join PAN. However, now I am in PAN and they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

I know not everyone in RWA is happy with the changes to the eligibility requirements, but, I have to admit, being in the position of being able to continue entering the Golden Heart although I was in fact a published author always felt weird to me. This year, for the first time, because of the changes, I was able to enter the RITA, RWA’s contest for published works. Even though I didn’t final with either my or my Alter Ego’s entries, that I get to enter feels, well, exactly where I should be.

I was also able to join NINC this year (Novelists, Inc.). However, NINC’s membership requirements are different from RWA’s (which makes sense, considering they are different organizations). When I joined NINC in the fall, the requirements were two published novels. HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX qualified me. Last I knew, NINC was in the process of changing its membership requirements to one that might also include an income generation level (IGL for those into acronyms, as I, um, appear to be), however, seeing as I’m already a member, even if my earnings don’t reflect the minimum (I have no clue if they do), I don’t have to worry about it. I’m grandfathered in, and, unless I allow my membership to lapse, they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

Does anyone else have good or bad or lackadaisical news to report?

I Need Me More S.E.P.

I hope all the moms out there had a wonderful Mother’s Day. I know I sure did. You see, my iron broke—what a Mother’s Day treat that was!

Wow, I’ve been lucky in the book-reading department lately. First, Gemma Halliday’s SPYING IN HIGH HEELS, then Augusten Burroughs’ RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, and now Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ MATCH ME IF YOU CAN. I finished MATCH last week. Like the aforementioned Halliday and Burroughs, I loved it. But then I love nearly everything S.E.P. writes, so it’s not a surprise that MATCH ME IF YOU CAN fell into that category. But there’s something about this novel that puts it in my “Fav S.E.P.s” category. Here’s a blippy (taken from S.E.P.’s website, it’s not exactly the same as the back cover blurb on the mass market paperback, but I can cut and paste it, and I can’t cut and paste the back of the paperback):

You met star quarterback Kevin Tucker in This Heart of Mine. Now get ready to meet his shark of an agent, Heath Champion, and Annabelle Granger, the girl least likely to succeed. But that’s going to change now that Annabelle’s taken over her late grandmother’s matchmaking business. Why does the wealthy, driven, and gorgeous sports agent Heath Champion need a matchmaker, especially a red-haired screw-up like Annabelle Granger? When the determined Matchmaker promised she’d do anything to keep her star client happy . . . did she mean anything? If Annabelle isn’t careful, she just might find herself going heart-to-heart with the toughest negotiator in town.

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A cute-sounding story, right? Also fun and uplifting, which does my heart good on a Sunday afternoon. MATCH ME IF YOU CAN is Book #6 in S.E.P.’s Chicago Stars (that’s a football team) series. Athlete stories are supposed to be hard sells in romance, but for S.E.P. they work because of her characterization. Her heroines are often screw-ups, but they persevere and come out victorious. I think I identify with them (well, except for the big-busted ones), because I am a self-acknowledged screw-up and also persevere (and am waiting for my multitudinous victories, which can happen any time now, thank you very much!). Annabelle Granger in MATCH ME IF YOU CAN is such a heroine. But what I really love about this book is how, although it’s marked as a Stars book, it really has nothing to do with football and yet it reintroduces the reader to characters we’ve come to know and love in previous Chicago Star stories—Phoebe and Dan from IT HAD TO BE YOU, and Kevin and Molly from THIS HEART OF MINE (one of my absolute all-time fav S.E.P.s). There’s something comforting about becoming reacquainted with fav characters from my reading past. I can already see several future S.E.P. heroes and heroines in the making…as the children and teenagers in MATCH ME IF YOU CAN grow up to become the heroes and heroines of their own books (if Phillips chooses to write that long). Oh, yeah, Phillips claims that NATURAL BORN CHARMER, her next book after MATCH (that I really need to buy), is the last of the Chicago Stars series, but we’ll see. As long as her secondary characters keep cropping up in books of their own, I don’t necessarily need football to accompany them—I don’t even like football!

Much as I enjoyed this book, DREAM A LITTLE DREAM is still my #1, All-Time Favorite S.E.P. I loved how it was a little darker than her standard fare. Are you an S.E.P. fan? Which of her books are your favs?

No Takers?

So far no one has tried to guess the identity of Lucienne Diver’s agent. Need a hint? Okay, okay. Read yesterday’s blog. I’ve named her agent there. There, that narrows down the choices. You can either guess straight out or surf the agents’ websites (hint #2: check their client listings). Put your answer in the comment trail of this post or that one. I’m not picky. If you guess right, well, maybe I’ll be nice and promo your own blog or website on this one (if you have one) (as long as it doesn’t contain objectionable material…and, yes, whether the material is objectionable or not is entirely up to me. I’m ornery that way.)

I hope to update the Articles section of my website this weekend. That means my latest Girl Talk column with Jamie Sobrato will go into Archives. I’ve interviewed Silhouette Special Edition author Mary J. Forbes for Chatting With, and unless I run into major problems installing the family’s new router and helping Youngest Son set up his new laptop, the interview will go on-line. I’ll announce here when it is. In the meantime, if you want to read Jamie’s and my differing philosophies on Writerly Procrastination, feel free!

Lastly, Happy Mother’s Day in advance to all the wonderful moms out there (including mine).

Agent Lucienne Diver Moves to TKA

I was all set to publish a post about my latest Susan Elizabeth Phillips read when I found some big news in my in-box. Yes, folks, it pays to subscribe to agency newsletters. Today The Knight Agency newsletter reports that agent Lucienne Diver, who worked at Spectrum for fifteen years, has joined TKA. Very exciting news. Congratulations to Ms. Diver and everyone at TKA.

I had the pleasure of accidentally meeting Ms. Diver during the Death by Chocolate party at RWA National in Reno in 2005. I say “accidentally,” because I entered the party late and needed to scramble to find a seat for the Daphne Awards. I sat at the first table with empty chairs that I could see. As it turned out, the two women seated to my right were both writers, but Ms. Diver and agent Sha-Shana Chrichton were sitting to my left. Both were gracious, but once I realized who they were I didn’t want to bug them, so we didn’t speak much that I can recall, and I’m sure neither remembers I was even there. Then along came a friendly woman who asked me if she could take the chair between me and Ms. Diver. I said yes, because Elle Muse is invisible, after all, and therefore doesn’t mind if people sit on her. She just slides under the table and melts into the floor. Very accommodating, that Elle (sometimes). So the aforesaid friendly woman sat down and began conversing with Ms. Diver. Then I read AFW’s name tag. She was agent Kristin Nelson. Nice person that she is (see how good I am at sucking up?), she asked me a question or two about my writing. My mind went blank, and I said something ridiculous and she pretended not to notice. Thereafter Ms. Nelson and Ms. Diver engaged in spatterings of conversation between the presentation of the Daphne awards.

Moral of story? Well, there isn’t one, I guess. Can you come up with one for me?

Here’s another interesting tidbit about Ms. Diver. Like her new colleague, Deidre Knight, Lucienne Diver is a published author as well as an agent. I accidentally found this out while surfing the web a couple of weeks ago (as you get to know me, you’ll realize most of my life is a series of accidents). Ms. Diver has published a couple of short stories and a novel with Five Star under the name, Kit Daniels. Her first novel under her own name, VAMPED, releases in 2009. And guess who her agent is?

I mean it. Guess.

First commenter who answers right wins…well, nothing. But I will congratulate you on your brilliance. Isn’t that enough?

More than Magic

The good news I hinted at yesterday? BORROWING ALEX is a finalist in the Romantic Comedy category of the More than Magic writing contest! The finalist names aren’t announced on the More than Magic website yet, however I noticed that the Romantic Comedy winner from last year was none than other than Vicki Lewis Thompson. Am I thrilled that my book is even sharing “former finalist slot space” with a writer of Vicki’s caliber? You bet!

Of course the coordinator needed the 2 books for the final rounds delivered in two days—a difficult task when shipping from Canada unless you want to pay mega, mega-bucks. But the coordinator came up with the great idea for me to order my 2 copies off Amazon and have them shipped to her house. I hadn’t thought of this option, because neither BORROWING ALEX nor HEAD OVER HEELS are available on Canadian Amazon (although Canadians can order them from U.S. Amazon—hint, hint). What a wise and helpful contest coordinator, huh?

What made the news about my final even more wonderful is that I logged on to one of my email loops yesterday morning to learn that my good friend, the talented Diana Cosby, is also a More than Magic finalist with her November historical romance, HIS CAPTIVE. I’ve read HIS CAPTIVE, and it’s a fantastic debut from Kensington. Congratulations, Diana, my friend.