Monday, March 24, 2014

The Body Institute

Today I'm so excited to help writer friend Carol Riggs share about her pub deal for her debut novel The Body Institute! Her agent Kelly Sonnack navigated multiple bids for her light sci-fi novel, and Strange Chemistry ended up making the winning offer!


Read about her deal here. Carol is an amazing writer with crazy good editing skills (she's helped me more than once!), so I'm so stoked about this awesome news. Go say congrats!

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Woman, Interrupted

It's been a while since I posted anything because I went through a pretty major life change. I got a divorce in early February, and moved to a new apartment with my son at the beginning of March. I had to pause on anything writing related and focus on regular life stuff. Getting utility accounts changed. Finding affordable internet and cell service. Buying new furniture and household stuff. Settling into my new life.


My new place is awesome, and two minutes from my son's school. At my old house I was way out in the country, so I'm back amongst society again, enjoying the luxuries of little things like running down to the CVS at the corner, and not having to stress about forgetting something at the grocery store since it's three blocks away. There are sad things, too. Not getting to see my stepdaughter on a regular basis. Not being able to look out my bedroom window and see my horse in the pasture (I moved him to a new farm and that's a whole other story). The loss of some peace and quiet (I can hear my neighbors talking downstairs and next to me sometimes). All in all there are vastly more pros than cons, but it's been a big change and I miss my old house, and I felt very out of place the first few days.


What has been especially odd is not writing every day for about six weeks. Usually I write or edit something almost every day. But I had so much to do I just had to let that go for a bit. In just the last two days I've jumped back into edits on my latest book. It's in the final edit stages before querying, just trying to polish, polish, polish. Taking so much time away actually gave me a nice, fresh perspective on it. It's just about there, and I may even send my first couple of queries next week. I was super close to querying in January, but definitely didn't want to jump into the query trenches with a divorce and the move right around the corner! I'm not that much of a masochist, even as a writer :)


Anyways, it feels great to get back to work on what I truly love, and I have next week off for my son's spring break, so plenty of time to rejuvenate and get back on track. I've got to get back to exercising too, which I've been pretty good about the last week. As the last of winter fades, the new me is blooming with the spring flowers. It'll still be a while until everything feels normal, but I'm on my way.


How about you guys? What have I missed during my hiatus?