Monthly Round-Up: December 2014

Well we're not only at the end of the month, we're at the end of the year, so this will be a more general overview of 2014.

OUT NOW

It's been a rather good year for me with regard to publications. The first two Shara Summers novels were both published by MuseItUp this year, and in addition I had a story in the anthology THE DARK HEART OF PEEPING TOM.

And if you haven't got around to buying DEATH SCENE and DEAD COOL yet, I'm including the links...

PROMOTIONAL STUFF

Two guest appearances for me this month.  I was on Conda's Creative Centre blog talking about the complicated love life of Shara Summers - despite my constant denials that I write romance.  Then I was interviewed for Suzanne's Thoughts for the Day.

I've been quite busy with guest appearances on the Internet this year, and the complete list can be found on my website.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Well, what can I say here?  I have several projects on the go at once.

The good news is, I have started writing the third Shara Summers book, which is currently titled 'Spotlight on Death'.  But I'm in a very early stage of the first draft, so there's a long way to go.  My aim is to get it to final draft stage by this time next year, but that might be being a tad ambitious.  We shall see.

The horror novel in progress, THE WHISPERING DEATH I was busy rewriting and then I got a bit tangled up when I realised the changes I had made to the draft meant the ending now made no sense.  However, since then I've worked out how I can fix it.  I am hoping that by the end of January I will have this novel in a fit state to start submitting.  I'm also not going back to the day job until Monday, so I've got the rest of this week to work on it.  Hopfully I can make significant progress in the next five days.

I will be back next year with more information about goals for 2015.  In the meantime, I wish everyone a Happy New Year, however you choose to celebrate the end of the old year and the dawn of the new.

Nine Years in the Making

This coming January, I'm slated to have shoulder surgery. As you might guess, this will curtail my writing, at least for a few weeks. So I've compiled a list of writing goals I want to accomplish before January 1. So far, I've written a short radio play based on a short novel, completed a 65,000-word thriller for NaNoWriMo, and, as of today, finished a short novel I began about nine years ago.

Yes, nine years. Cathedral Girl was my second NaNoWriMo attempt, following a "win" in 2004 with a historical vampire story. This project was my foray into studying angels and demons, which would culminate in the following publications, Death Sword and Exterminating Angel, and the unpublished drafts, Serpent Fire, The Judas Dilemma, and Hell on Earth. Hey, if you've got this knowledge available, why not use it? :-)

But why take so long? Part of it was while I knew how the story would end, I wasn't sure how to get to that point. I jotted notes from what I had and used a program called Writer's Blocks to flesh out the rest of the story. The result is a rough first draft, but that doesn't matter. What matters is I have something to work with.

I have a couple of partials to finish. While I'm hoping to finish one before my surgery, I'm not sure if I will or not. But if I can make a dent in it, that's better than nothing.