July 7 – My First Contract

Wow.

I’m still freaking out about this.

I never expected to get my story accepted. I was sure that, although it was a decent story, it wouldn’t be right for the book. But apparently the editor felt differently, and late Monday night (after I posted my last entry) I checked my e-mail to find a message saying that they wanted the story.

Then I panicked.

I had no clue what to do with the attached contract. I read it over, but without any idea of what I should be watching out for I didn’t know whether or not I should sign it. Thankfully, the woman from my critique group that told me about the call for submissions also had her story accepted, and it wasn’t her first trip around the block, so she was able to give me some pointers. I sent a few contract changes back to the editor based on her suggestions, and I signed the revised contract today. They are shooting for a September release. I’ll let you know when I have more information about the date.

I actually did it!

My name is going to be in a book!

Now I just have to finish editing my three novels and figure out what my next story is going to be…. Time to get back to work. See you on Monday!

ROW80 Status – Day 41 (Feb 12)

Goals:

1. 500 words of new fiction every day
2. Finish first draft of Finding Valhalla
3. Start editing Dragons At Dawn
4. Post to my blog on Monday and Thursday
5. Post ROW80 updates on Sunday and Wednesday

Word counts:

• 2/9 – 724
• 2/10 – 600
• 2/11 – 530
• 2/12 – 867

Six Days To Sabbath is at 5,076 words. Finding Valhalla is up to 63,669 words and is finished. It wasn’t easy wrapping it up, and I will probably redo the ending later, but for now, I think i’ve done as much as I can with it. I’m going to focus on writing Six Days from now on, and continue planning the edits of Dragons At Dawn.

I’m also looking for anyone willing to critique Finding Valhalla. It’s a first draft, and I’m not exactly an accomplished writer, so don’t expect much. But if you are willing to help a newb and give me some constructive criticism I would really appreciate it. Just leave a comment if you are interested and I will send you a link to the PDF. You might also want to check out my post on Finding a Critique Partner. Thanks bunches, and I hope you are all doing well in your goals. We’re all in this together!

PS: Happy Birthday wishes go out to my friends Nick and Joe Alfano, and to my son Ronald. Happy Happy!

Finding a Critique Partner

So what do you do when you have finished your story? The obvious thing is to get someone to read it, right?

I just finished my second story, Finding Valhalla. I wrote it as what I thought would be a paranormal romance. The story is about a Valkyrie. She is the equivalent of a supernatural cop, and it is her duty to keep the paranormal world from becoming a problem for the mortals. A killer is stalking the city of Madison, and she needs to find it and deal with it before the body count gets too high. There is also the theft of a very valuable necklace that complicates things even more. The problem is that she doesn’t have any clues and she keeps getting distracted by a mortal man. She finds herself attracted to him and wants to open up about what she really does for a living, but fears that it will be too much and he will get hurt, or even killed. How can she deal with all of this when all she really wants is to have a normal love life?

When I finished my first story, Dragons At Dawn, I passed it around to a bunch of my friends and family. Most of them read it and said they thought the story was pretty good. The writing needed work, but the idea is pretty solid. I’m working on editing that story now.

I am planning on giving my family first crack at my new story as well, but I thought I would also see if anyone with a little more experience might be willing to take on a new writer as a critique partner. I don’t have much experience in writing, and I have no misconceptions about the quality of my work. I know that my stories are going to need a lot of editing before they will be worth publishing. But as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So, if you are willing to read through an amateur’s attempt at a paranormal romance and provide some much-needed constructive criticism, I would really appreciate it. Just leave a comment below and I will e-mail you a link to a Dropbox shared folder where you can find the PDF file of the first draft.

The rest of you will just have to wait for the finished version. 😉