THE END.

Yep, finally got to the end of the first draft of The Werewolf Whisperer! What a great feeling. To celebrate, I’m having my hubby take me out to dinner tonight (okay, so we were really going anyway, but now it’s nice to have something to celebrate)

My plan is to let it sit while I revise Crystal Clear for a resubmission.

Yep — there’s not too much more to write on TWW, but, in case you’ve noticed that the word count isn’t progressing much, there is a reason.

THE SYNOPSIS.

NOW I know why people dread it so. How in the world do you know what to leave in and what to take out to get a 30K document down to 1900 words????

I’ve taken my best shot at it and am firing it out to my Partners in Crime critique group tonight. We’ll see what they say. . . then, tomorrow, it’s back to finishing up the first draft.

Well, 45 days passed and I got an e-mail regarding Crystal Clear (CC). It was one of the most encouraging rejections I’ve ever gotten. No contract forthcoming for this story; however, some suggestions were offered and the publisher asked to see it again after revision. So. . . there’s still hope.

I’ve decided to finish The Were Whisperer (TWW) before revising CC. Although I have some good ideas of what to add to CC, I don’t want to stop my momentum on TWW.

On another note, I just finished “attending” the online Cobblestone Press Historical Workshop. Wow! What a lot of information about the genre and the e-publishers. And the really great part is that I now have a critique partner!

I met Beverley during Avon Fanlit. She’s just now completed the first draft of her sexy historical and I’m excited that I’ll get to be part of helping her prepare the manuscript for her opportunity to pitch the manuscript to a Berkley editor. Go Beverley!

I’m a plotter by nature — I keep lists at home of things to do, I have lists of long and short term financial goals, and a list of long and short term writing goals. Honestly, I don’t know if keeping the lists makes me any more likely to achieve the goals, but if I have them to look at, at least I can be reminded of how far off I am!

Goals for 2007:

• Write 500 words per day on the WIP (with 3 weeks of vacation, Christmas, Easter, & Summer)
• Write and submit for publication: 3 new novels or novellas
• Complete and submit for contests or publication: 2 to 3 short stories
• Convert Mary’s Christmas Wish into a novella to submit for publication in time for the next holiday season.
• Attend a conference (either mystery or romance related)

As I also write short stories in the mystery/horror genre and have separate goals for them, I’m going to be a busy little author in the coming year! Will I achieve these goals? I sure do hope so!

So, what are your goals for 2007 and how do you plan on achieving them?

I’m supposed to be writing. . . I am writing, just not as enthusiastically as I’d like. But it’s the holidays and hard to get motivated. I want to just curl up with a good book and take a day off.

I just finished Shelli Stevens Silk Hauntings. I love a good ghost story and this one had not only a ghost but was a very satisfying romance too! The best of both worlds (so to speak).

In my to be read pile is:

Stacking the Deck by Sara Dennis
and
Melting Iron by Ann Cory

Well, my Christmas wish didn’t come true, but in the spirit of sportsmanship, I’d like to offer congratulations to Dan Stroschein, The Naughty List, for winning the Fast and Festive Fiction Contest at Echelon Press.

I’m shelving Mary’s Christmas List for this year, I’m planning on turning it into a much longer novella with a lot more character development and submitting it for next Christmas. . . I need to do some more research and am waiting on a book from the library that I’d ordered 2 weeks ago. Guess EVERYTHING slows down for the holidays.

Meanwhile, back to writing The Were Whisperer. . .I had hopes to have the first draft written before the holidays. . .guess we’ll see. . .

Mary doesn’t believe in Santa anymore. Besides, Santa couldn’t bring what she and her brothers want the most: a new Ma.

Katherine Larson is a spinster, working in her aunt’s boarding house in Chicago. When her friend ends up with two marriage proposals, Katherine fixes the situation by taking her friend’s place and traveling to San Francisco to marry a man she’s never met. When she arrives, she discovers that the man she’s come to marry didn’t send for a wife.

The last thing grieving widower, Jonathon Muller, expects for Christmas is a new wife. However, his children have conspired together and answered an advertisement for a mail-order bride. Katherine isn’t the woman they are expecting, but is she the answer to Mary’s Christmas wish?

I got the e-mail from Echelon Press (http://www.echelonpress.com) , announcing their Fast and Festive Short Story Contest. Further information about the contest is listed on their blog. Echelon only accepts submissions by invitation, so this might be a chance to get my foot in their doorway. This morning in the shower, I got the idea for a historical romance. So, I’m going to give it a shot. . .

Cool — I just found my link on Romancing the Blog — I’m right there under Making Mischief!