News
December 28, 2007: All Eating, Little Writing
I have fallen into the holiday vortex and am spending an inordinate of time with a fork or spoon in my hand and away from my desk. But today will be different, sort of. The plan is to start on my outline and synopsis for my fourth book (I'm not even going to bother to title it) and send it off to Sulay, my editor at Touchstone, by next week. As for the eating part, there's no end in sight but I'm jumping on my bike for a nice long punishing ride before I belly up to the dinner table tonight.
December 20, 2007: Double Review Happiness
The busy readers and reviewers have been busy over at Love, Romances & More and posted reviews for UNDERNEATH IT ALL (remember that books?) and LIFE OVER EASY. I also had the chance to do a very insightful Q&A that will be up later this month. LatinoLA.com has kindly posted my latest essay which I adapted from a blog post. I'll be contributing more essays on writing and publishing and other stuff on a more regular basis by the request of
Abelardo, editor and publisher of the site. I met him at the ChimMaya opening and book signing and it was such a treat to have Dan, one of the owners of ChimMaya, introduce us. I'm also still working on, or at least thinking about working on, my guide to writing which I may either publish via amazon or try to do myself for not free but real cheap since the whole point is to make it accessible to people but not put myself deeper into debt.
December 18, 2007: Phone Call Fun
Had a lovely raunch-filled chat with my demure editor Sulay yesterday and sold her on the new idea for my next book. Well, sold her on it to a point. As soon as I mail off the copy edited manuscript for MORE THAN THIS (Touchstone, August 2008) on Monday (my deadline) I'm going to start on the outline and synopsis so she can then pitch it to her boss who'll give us the red, green or yellow light. So by the time we get together for drinks (for her) and karaoke (for the both of us) during my mid-January trip to New York, I should be either panicking because I need to come up with another idea or panicking because I need to whip out a manuscript draft in six weeks or less. This is why the karaoke is so important to the writing process as it will give me something real and immediate to panic about. Sober karaoke. Has anyone ever been dumb enough?
December 17, 2007: Hello, World!
My short story is up and I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing. It's only the second piece of fiction I've put out there for the world to read with it first going through an editor and publisher. My sister helped me clean it up but I tweaked after she sent her edits and I'm sure I missed something. (She has a cold and is wasted on NyQuil and no use to me in her current state.) So it's back to burying my head in the MORE THAN THIS (Touchstone, August 2008) copy edit review...
December 14, 2007: Next...
No sooner did I send off my revised short story to my sister for her keen eye that I had to rip open the package from Shawna, Sulay's able assistant at Touchstone, containing the copyedited manuscript for MORE THAN THIS (Touchstone Books, August 2008). Things are happening at a pretty snappy pace, from the cover to the check, and I was pretty tickled to see that two blue pencils were included in the mailing for me to use for my own notes and edits. Wow, what a difference a change of house makes.
December 13, 2007: Thumbs 'a Twiddling
I've made my formal pitch (plea?) via email to Sulay at Touchstone for my fourth book after my original idea was nixed earlier this week. And guess what!? I'm sort of excited by the prospect of going somewhere completely different from where Potts' Luck was taking me. This story goes back to the one woman slow train to disaster scenario and since I'm a pass holder, it's always fun to just jump on and enjoy the ride. I'll hold off on oversharing the details or even the working title since I'm a little keyboard shy and don't want to jinx anything.
December 11, 2007: And, Oh By the Way...
Well, guess what? My editor, Sulay at Touchstone, says Potts' Luck is a no-go because of various editorial and marketing reasons. Fair enough. I understand this whole book publishing thing is also a business, not just a creative endeavor. So now my assignment (and I already signed the contract so I have accepted it) is to come up with a new idea. I have a couple but time is getting short and well, looks like I'll be writing under pressure and we all know how much I love that.
December 10, 2007: The Doldrums
I know I'm not the only one out there who is succumbing to holiday overload. You know where you start doing stuff you'd normally do on the weekends and before or after work while your working instead of actually working. But the trick is to acknowledge you're only human and this is temporary because deadlines (and mine is for a whole novel) are looming.
December 08, 2007: Super Productive
I've surprised myself by finishing the first draft of my short story, The Make-Up Artist. Not only that, yesterday I did an interview that'll be appearing on Love, Romance and More (I think I come under the More category) later this month. So what now? Well, I should start in on Potts' Luck again, but first I have to walk the dog...
December 06, 2007: Paper Crafts and Writing
I'm almost done with my short story, see below, and expect to have it done by tomorrow. Why tomorrow? Why because I've rediscovered the joys of origami. It's my turn to decorate the tree and I'm going Japanese, baby. Also still waiting for edits on More Than This and my editor says to expect the usual copy edit stuff but we both know I won't be able to keep myself from making tweaks here and there.
December 04, 2007: Short, Sweet and Free
I've signed on to do a blog bonanza of free shorts with prizes with 11 other authors, my story The Make-Up Artist will be on my blog on the 17th a queston will be asked and answered the next day on the next writer's blog. I'm halfway or thereabouts done and now all I have to worry about is forcing the sister to read it to make sure it isn't riddled with the usual array of misplaced commas, grammar errors and general stupidness.
