Exciting news of the non-book-publishing-but-still-pretty-dang-exciting type

It’s that time again…updates. You know I like to give ‘em. SFWC was the middle of February. I always take the month of March off from writing because I’m usually recuperating from the conference and working on any requests or final tweaks and edits for my current WIP.

When April came around, I decided to do something I’ve never done before and that was sign up and participate in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. Let me tell you, that was fun and challenging. I wrote around 14,000 words to a story that was only meant to be a throw-away story. Who knows, maybe one day it will become a trunk novel.

Between the A2Z challenge, reading close to EIGHT books and offering reviews, I didn’t have much down time to write for me. That’s what May’s for. Starting today.

CASTE – I’ve submitted the full ms to three agents, one has already come back with an R&R (which is entirely awesome), two more have it in hand and I’ll probably nudge them sometime this month.

Funny story: One thing you’ll notice when you get into the business of writing books and wanting to get published (especially if you write in a specific genre), is that you end up submitting your different works to the same agents over the years.

One of the agents who has a full sent me an email the other day. I glanced at it on my phone when it came in and it said something to the effect of, “So sorry, but your query got trapped in our junk filter. Please resubmit if you’re still seeking representation.”

I chuckled to myself, thinking it was no big deal; I’d read the email in detail the next day and resend my ms. When I opened the email and read it closely, I found out that it wasn’t for CASTE. It was for my very first book I queried them about back in 2010!

Holy crap. Thanks for being a rockin’ enough agency to come back and ask me to resubmit. That’s awesome. So, after I type this, I’ll be spending my time at Starbucks spit-polishing those first few chapters and resubmitting them. Who knows, right?

I found out over the weekend that I might have a slight allergy to bees. I know, It's a little late in life to be figuring that out, right? But, believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever been stung by a bee. I got stung on the head (actually, a very funny story, maybe I'll tell you about it sometime), instantly got a migraine for the rest of the day--not to mention the pain was the worst I'd ever felt, not even kidding--and then things started to swell. But not until the next day. Then, a protrusion the circumference of a softball proceeded to make its way from the top of my head and across my forehead before finally settling--yesterday--on the bridge of my noes and both eyes. I looked like a Klingon. No joke. Anyway, it's finally gone this morning.  

So, now on to the BIG news. Some of you may already know that I work at a newspaper crunching numbers. Not exactly my calling with words, but I get by. Plus, I sit close to the news department so it counts for something.

Anywho, we have this cubicle that’s filled with nothing but ARCs. Me and a couple friends (Pam & Janice) often peruse the contents to see if there’s anything that catches our interest. I didn’t realize what a travesty this graveyard of books was until I came across The Hunger Pains. I about cried (a slight exaggeration). What a missed opportunity!

I complained to Janice and Pam that we don’t have a good book review column in our paper for “everyday reads”. NYT AP wire stories don’t count. I mean, local reviews in a casual voice.

“We should offer to review these books!” I said with a fist of injustice in the air.

“Yeah!” Pam chorused.

“You should write a proposal!” Janice said.

So I went back to my desk and did just that. I explained why the paper needed this and why it HAD to be the three of us to do this. And before I could think about it anymore, I emailed the newspaper editor.

She emailed me back and said, “Let’s meet.”

Then, in the meeting, she told us, “I love this idea. Let’s do it. But instead of a column, I want a page for your reviews. And I want you guys to have a blog for the paper, too.”

We were excited into speechlessness. Then we started talking about other ideas. It was crazy, and they loved it all. We were basically given free reign to make this ours and make it the best we could. A community calendar for upcoming reading and writing events. Editorial pieces written by us, FAQs, Twitter, Facebook, email, the whole kit n’ kaboodle. They wanted writing samples and they loved those, too.

It was heaven. I think we’re all still floating on Cloud 9.

Anyway, our first deadline was yesterday for the very first installment of our PAGE. It’s still hard to believe. I’ll probably buy about a thousand copies and frame at least ten, giving them out as gifts.

So that’s my “big news”. I can’t wait. I’m one step closer to getting my book published. Kind of.

Anyway, I’ll be sure to keep you all posted on how that goes and give you the link so you can visit us over at our official home (Book Addicts) when that’s all up and running.

What about you all? Anything new and exciting going on? Little or big.

--Me