I may never come down

Okay, so over at the contest? In the final round, the author panelists (Teresa Medeiros, Julia Quinn, Cathy Maxwell, Eloisa James and Victoria Alexander) get to pick their favorite chapters. Their votes lend weight to who wins.

I've got author picks from Julia Quinn AND Teresa Medeiros.

Obviously, I want to win. But if I don't? Holy crap! Julia Quinn and Teresa Medeiros liked my chapter!

How could that possibly be bad?

*happy dancing*

Yes, I'm posting this everywhere. Eventually the shiny will wear off and I'll stop.

Maybe.

I write this post with my head spinning, a little.

Writers, as a breed (we are a breed, show your pedigrees with pride!) live for validation. As we all know, this is a solitary business. We might join mailing lists or critique groups, or take a class or two, but mostly we do it on our own. We practice and we polish and we hope we're doing it write. We get to the point where we think 'gee, I'm pretty clever' or 'I did that well' and we send our babies out into the world. They don't always succeed.

And sometimes they do.

And when they do, we can't help but be giddy and happy and, you know, we do embarrassing dances in our socks in the kitchen. So I'm going to brag.

Avon's having a contest, much like a 'choose-your-own adventure' sort of thing. It's Regency and they supply an idea for what the chapter must include. Writers flesh that out in the entries they submit. They do mini promos, with headlines and graphics. They write about 1500 words and their peers vote. The goal of the first round is to make the top 10.

Last week, I made the top 100.

This week, top 10!

Picture me dancing. :)

(If anyone's interested in following along [or voting!], the website is Avon FanLit. It costs nothing to register.)

This writing life.

As the author proves that she is, once again, not dead. This is getting to be habit.

But I'm not! Hi! If anyone's still reading the blog after such a long hiatus, hello and welcome back. :)

For starters, I have another great pair of reviews over on Literary Sass for Fortune's Fool. Go check it out!

For seconds, I am at one of those endless loop, writing rut places that authors hate to be in, but that happen to all of us. In reading a couple of other blogs, it appears to be going around. With luck, I'll get out of it soon.

And start updating again. :)

Catching up

I admit it. I am a grade-A slacker. The Engineer is out of the country, and I'm content to sit in my extremely quiet house and write. Or watch movies. Or pet the cats or read. Gosh, reading. I haven't dedicated significant chunks of time to reading for a while. It feels so good.

Still, I have to cook to eat, and do the occasional chore. Go to class, answer the phone, get the mail, that sort of thing.

I dream of the day when I don't have to, though. When I have servants and maids and -- okay, yeah, I'd probably be bored out of my skull, but it's a nice fantasy.

Got my RWR today, which means reading over the candidates and getting ready to vote. I've heard some people say they don't know enough to cast a ballot. To which I say, read. Think. Discuss with your friends. And if you decide not to vote, you have no room to complain if something doesn't go your way. That's how I feel about American politics, and how I feel about RWA National politics too.

I did my stint as chapter president. I may do it again next year. And I loathe nothing more than someone who complains about a decision the chapter made when they don't volunteer their time to do anything about it.

So there you have my rant.

Oh. Question: After all of the kerfluffle over Janet Butler's letter last month, do we know why there's no Letters to the Editor section in this month's RWR? I know for a fact that letters were written...

All about the dragon.

I've been sitting on reviews because. Well. I'm burning out on promotion. It's early in the career to say that, but it's true. I'm sure I'll get it back, but for now, working up the energy to say 'here are more exciting and new reasons to buy my book' isn't all that fun. Perhaps when I'm done writing more things and have a few more releases, I'll be more thrilled.

But the reviews.

First:

Serena at Fallen Angel Reviews says:

"The Dragon Undone is a fantastic tale of understanding and love. Both Chaia and Berdhan are wounded people with obstacles to overcome. They continually find themselves in positions that force them to open their minds and ultimately their hearts. ...I can only hope that there is another book in the works that walks us through the trials with them." -- 5 Angels at Fallen Angel Reviews

And then there's Literary Sass. Literary Sass is a review site run on Blogspot. The reviewers there pride themselves on not giving fluff reviews. It's purely a submit your own stuff site, if you've got the courage to do it, because if they don't like your work, well. They say so. Two reviewers read and review each submission. So I submitted The Dragon Undone.

Their rating scale is a little "backward" in that they judge by how many "shots" (of alcohol) it took to get through the book.

I'm pleased to say that The Dragon Undone, in their opinion, meritted two single-shot reviews. I may have danced. You can find them over here.