Yay! Yesterday I sent off the latest MARKED book! It was late, and very long (longest book I’ve ever written), but I am so glad to have finished it! I still — after publishing 9 single titles, with 3 more in the queue, plus novellas, shorts, etc. — stare at a finished book and go, “OMG! I wrote all that! I made that whole story up in my head, then mashed all the words together to tell it to someone else!” It’s amazing when I think about it that way. I always start off a book looking at the giant mountain of pages I have to fill and think, “How the heck are you going to do that?” I’m always surprised when I manage to get to the end.

So, now I will quietly freak out while I wait for word from my editor. Is it brilliant, boring, bad, best-ever, or something else entirely?

I’m taking the rest of the week off. I have a pile of books I’m eager to read. I also have some ARCs winging their way to me from writer friends and I can’t wait to dig into them! I have two movies that have been impatiently waiting to be watched until I finished my book. Plus housework stuff — laundry, vacuuming, etc. On Monday, I will start a new book and begin the process all over again.

What’s been happening over the last couple weeks since I blogged?

• We adopted a dog from the local animal shelter. A white and tan chihuahua mix. Her name is Jesse and we think she’s soooo pretty. She is such a lovey dog and she adores the kids. We’re very happy to have her.
• I am impatiently awaiting the release of Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs. Seriously. The wait is killing me. I’m dying for this book!

So what are your plans for the rest of the week/weekend?

So today the UPS truck arrived bearing gifts — ABMs (Advance Bound Manuscripts) for EVE OF DARKNESS!

Aren’t they lovely? I’ve never received ABMs before. ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies), yes. But not ABMs.

What’s the difference? Well, a bound manuscript is just that — the original manuscript bound into book form. This is often done before edits or copy edits for quote solicitation purposes and for certain media/distribution outlets that require far advance notice. An advance reading copy, on the other hand, has usually been edited and sometimes copy edited.

The ARCs for my other publishers look similar to these ABMs — text-only covers (in various colors) and bright white pages. Tor ARCs are prettier, usually bearing the cover art and sized to match the actual book. (These ABMs are trade-size, but the actual book and ARCs will be mass market.)

So now I’m faced with a unique dilemma. What to do with them? One copy is earmarked for the winner of the Brenda Novak auction (a lovely and generous person who paid over $300 for it.) I’ll keep one for me. That leaves me with four copies. Ideally, they should help to promote the book in some way, but it’s way too early to send out to booksellers and review outlets. However, hanging on to them until it’s time to send out ARCs would be silly. By then I’ll have actual ARCs with covers on them and I’ll be sending those out instead.

As far as dilemmas go, this isn’t a bad one to have. Still I’d love to do something with them that serves the purpose of making them. Hopefully, I will think of something…

In the meantime, I’m happy to hold them!

Sorry! I’ve been quiet since I returned from NY, I know. I’m busy mailing out everything that needed to go out, including stuff for the Romantic Times Convention. (If you’re going, you’ve heard about our Safari Happy Hour, right?) Tomorrow I’ll be speaking on a romance panel with Mary Castillo and Susan Squires for Literary Orange — a readers’ event put together by the Orange County Public Library. (And yes, it’s the same OC as the TV show and that lame “real housewives.”)

I’m also wrapping up the second book in the MARKED series. I didn’t update my NY reporting after Thursday, so you don’t know that I hung out with my Tor editor Friday (9 hours! LOL She’s fabulous!) and was able to see the Tor offices and meet everyone. Can I just say I’m super happy to be in such enthusiastic hands? They’re excited about the MARKED series, which is a huge thrill for me, of course, since I’m excited. They had MARKED stuff all over the offices and they shared some of their ideas with me. It’s still early (and obviously I’m still writing!) but we’re gearing up to spread the word (and ARCs!). I’ll keep you posted.

I finally registered for RWA National yesterday. I’m a RITA^® finalist again this year and it’s in my home state, so I couldn’t miss it, but I had to get through NY first. I just prayed that they wouldn’t sell out in the meantime and, thankfully, they didn’t. Next is RT and BEA. So it’s been busy around here (and boring, which is why I haven’t put you to sleep with the details before now.)

I hope your week has been a good one and that you have fun stuff planned for the weekend! ((hugs))

NY update:

Sasha White and I arrived in NY at 5:30 PM Wednesday. We made it to the hotel simultaneously with Jordan Summers, so after we all got settled, we went out for dinner together. That was fun.

Thursday, I headed over to the Kensington offices for lunch with my editor, Kate Duffy. I hung out with her for 6 hours and learned a lot of lovely news about my non-S.J. Day books, so I won’t share that here. *g*

When I got back to the hotel it was dinner-time, so we went out to dinner — Sasha, Jordan, Delilah Devlin, Myla Jackson, and Susan Lyons. That was great fun, too! I really enjoyed it.

This morning I had breakfast with Shelley Bradley/Shayla Black and her awesome hubby. Then we picked up Sasha and headed over to the nearby Borders. They had six of my titles there in various quantities and subgenres, so I signed them all and they stickered them up for me. I heard from Shelley that two of my books were prominently displayed on a bestseller rack in the Dallas International Airport. How cool is that?

Later on this afternoon I head over to the Tor offices to meet the gang over there and pick up my editor, Heather Osborn. We’re going to attend the NINC conference reception this evening, then wander off to dinner somewhere. I’m looking forward to it! I always enjoy hanging out with her.

The rest of the weekend will be pretty mellow. There are a couple workshops/presentations here at the NINC conference that I want to see, but I think I’ll actually get some writing done — like now — and I’ll go out with friends as the opportunities appear. My cab got in an accident on the way to the Kensington offices yesterday. OMG… As Kate says, if something can go whacky around me, it usually does.

I’ll keep you posted!

I’m firmly in the middle of my three book series for Tor. Since they’re releasing back-to-back, I have to write them that way, too. That’s been wonderful. In my previous series, the installments were written apart from each other and usually with another book for another publisher in another genre written in between. It’s much easier to write to them together.

On Monday, my editor told me the publisher was ready to begin planning promotion, etc. for the series… which is still thirteen months away from release. I’ve become fairly used to planning promotions for unwritten books (although I still freak out a bit when I see books for sale on retailer websites and I haven’t even started writing yet! *gulp*) But I admit, I’m especially thrilled about this series promotion. Aside from it being my first consecutive release, it’s my first with Tor and my first under the new pen name. It’ll also be my first mass market original release. Up until now I’ve published only in trade paperback, which has much smaller distribution and much higher price points.

So I submitted my promotional plan/wish list to the publisher, then got back to work. I should have official blurbs, etc. to share soon. ARCs for the first book are also in the works and I’m hopeful I’ll have some for personal use — i.e. contests/giveaways — in addition to the ones the publisher will send out for quotes and reviews. After all the books I’ve released, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be so giddy about all of this, but I am.

I hope the upcoming week is lovely for you. Anyone heading out for some green beer or other verdant treat on Monday?

It’s a gloriously beautiful day here in Southern California, but I’m trapped inside, in bed, suffering from the flu or whatever the hell it is I’ve got. I hit the doctor’s office on Monday and I’ve been drugged ever since, but recovery is slow going. *ugh*

In better news, I turned in the first book in my new UF series last month (EVE OF DARKNESS) and now I’m working on Book 2 (EVE OF DESTRUCTION). So far, so good. I’m loving the story and the characters. I just wish I weren’t so darn sick so my brain would cooperate a little better. I’m heading to New York for a week at the end of this month and I need to be almost done with this book before then. Wish me luck.

I know it seems as if I’m a very lax blogger and that’s probably true. However, I do blog a few times a week on my “other” blog — the blog for my other pen name, so I’m not quite as lax as this blog makes me appear.

Why don’t I blog more here? Mostly because I’m still in the midst of writing the back-to-back series that will be released under this name (S.J. Day), so there’s really not much to share. It’s taking me a lot longer than I expected it would, but I like it a lot more than I originally did, so it’s a good trade. (As long as all three books are done on time, eh?) The books I talk about on my other blog are romances and so I don’t talk about them here. What would be the point of having a pseudonym if both names did the same thing?

In March, I return to New York on business. I go every year to meet with my editors/publishers and touch bases with my agents. I hope to have the first two books done by then, which would put me a month ahead of schedule. But… it’s taking so long to write this series that I may have to hide in my cave for a couple months to meet my goal. The more writing years that pass me, the longer it takes to finish a book. It’s less instinctual now and more methodical.

Anyway, that’s all the news that’s fit for me at the moment. A friend of mine challenged me to reach a certain page count by Monday morning and I’m still 40 pages away from that. I can make it — if I get my ass in gear — so I’m off to do just that!

I wish I had something fun and interesting to share, but alas, I don’t.

I’m writing and doing work stuff, hustling my kids to and fro, and thinking about the rapidly approaching holidays.

For those of you who have a veteran or active duty military person in your household, you might be interested in Knott’s Berry Farm’s annual salute to veterans. My family goes every year and we have a blast. Plus, they always have the holiday craft fair up and running, which is a great way to get some Christmas shopping done at the same time!

Can you believe it’s the second week in October already? Jeez. Time flies faster every year, I swear.

HEAT OF THE NIGHT galleys go back today and then I’m done with the book. The next time I see it will be when it hits the shelves on January 2. Yay!

I started writing new material in MARKED 1 this weekend, even though I said I wouldn’t. Thing is, instead of forcing myself to work through the weekend, this time the problem was that I couldn’t force myself not to. I’m just too excited about it.

Since it’s been so long since I originally conceived the concept, I’ve spent the last year thinking, planning, plotting, etc. I had all these ideas of what it should/would be. (Plus, I had a couple ‘friends’ who said things that made me doubt myself and my direction.) But… awesome thing is, when I sat down with it again and started writing, the story took on a life of its own again. It will be what it will be, and I’m having so much fun with it! It’s the most difficult thing I’ve written, but also the easiest. I guess because I love Evangeline and her story, and at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing — that I wrote a story I loved and then shared it with readers.

I spent a lot of the weekend doing technical stuff with my sites, which I love doing. This week it’s all about tearing myself away from writing to clean my house. Writing is way more fun than cleaning, I must say.

Happy Monday!