My Site has Moved!

I haven’t blogged in about a year. And, wow, what a year it was. My family adopted the most lovable French Bull-Shih Tzu. I learned a LOT about transgender men and asexuality. I fell down the rabbit hole of Mormonism. I wrote a contemporary romance. I met Christine Ashworth and Lynn Rush IN PERSON. I’ve been talking to them both online for years, so this was very exciting. I pitched my new book to two very enthusiastic professionals. I got eyeglasses. Embraced makeup. I resigned my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after 20 years of inactivity. (Thank you, Mark Naugle, for making it easy.)

It’s been long enough for me to have to re-evaluate if I want to blog and why? And, yes, I do. I’m a big machine person. I usually have my feet, separately, in the muck of differing opinions. (Voting is torture for me.) I have things to say, but I’m an introvert with anxiety. Online is where I express myself best. So, I’m going to blog. At least until I don’t want to anymore.

I hope you’ll follow me to my new site and keep me company.

Wendy

HUGE $0.99 eBook Sale

Rainy Kaye, the twisted mind behind Dimitri (aka the worst djinn in history), organized an ebook sale a few months back. A HUGE book sale. I’m talking with like 130 authors besides me. You should start seeing Thunderclapped posts about it tomorrow, but if you don’t…the books will be featured here: http://99centbookblast.com.

January Black’s link will go to Amazon, because that’s the link I had at the time. But…times change.

My book is now available for Nook and KOBO as well. And the book will be priced at $0.99 in every location.

IF you read on something OTHER than Kindle, Nook, or KOBO, you can download other formats from Smashwords, which ALSO has a free sample. So, please check it out.

Follow me on Rebelmouse!

Are you social media weary? I know I am. Keeping track of what your favorite people are doing online is HARD. If you’re like me, you find a favorite platform and you hang out there. And I’m hoping you are like me, because I found a platform where you can get ALL of my social media activity in an email inbox you already have. Or, if you prefer to look online, you can see them all on one, scrolling page.

You can see pages where I collect things I find funny, or things that appeal to my inner geek, or just show off cool science.

And best yet, YOU don’t need an account to see/interact with public pages on Rebelmouse, and these days, I think that’s a definite plus.

I hope you Follow Me on Rebelmouse. 🙂

Mosquito Bites (or the Itchy Welts of Rejection)

Photo by James Jordan (CC BY-ND 2.0)

If you’re an author seeking publication, rejection is something we encounter often. It’s sort of like that time of day when walking outside is an invitation for mosquitos to sit down to supper. They will bite. The welts will swell, itch, and annoy you for a few days. And then, the evidence of their presence will go away.

The inclination of reasonably intelligent people will be to stay inside during the hours when mosquitos are out for blood. That, or apply lethal quantities of bug repellent. For authors, the DEET in the aerosol-propelled smelly stuff that allows us to party out of doors at dusk is optimism, perspective, and/or sense of humor.

I received a rejection today from a publisher I admire. Friends are published with them. At least one of their authors has books on the shelf at the local Barnes and Noble, and she’s not local. Of all the recent submissions, I had high hopes for that one.

Still, when I got the email today, I couldn’t be upset at having been turned down. I chose not to be. I’ve been rejected before, after all. Recently for Glitch, by publishers both more and less notable, and in the past for January Black. And I have observed a difference between now and then. All three rejections received thus far for Glitch came with feedback, while January Black was turned down mostly by non-response.

Sure, I could focus on the rejection from an awesome publisher, but why when I choose to see the progress? I, as an author, now warrant feedback from people who read for a living! That’s HUGE! And with feedback comes opportunity.

So arm yourselves with bug spray, lovely readers, because whatever party you’re joining, things will probably start getting interesting right around the time the mosquitos start biting.

The Big 4-0

My husband keeps asking me what I want to do for my birthday, and I have no idea. Texas de Brazil will probably be getting money from us this weekend, in which case I will consume a cocktail with a Portuguese name I will butcher when I attempt to pronounce it. And I won’t feel bad, because, yeah…I’m 40.

Honestly, I’ve been claiming 40 for a while now, because what difference does a few weeks make, really? And I really love the looks I get when I tell people that I’m 40. That started when I was 36 and sitting in a pitch session with Jenny Bent, from The Bent Agency. I could see the doubt and confusion fighting in her brain.

She’s lying. There’s no way she’s 36. Why would a woman over 21 add years to her age? She’s really that old?

I love Jenny Bent, by the way. She doesn’t represent my genre but asked to see pages anyway, told me I was a good writer, gave me some advice about dialing down my vocabulary, and gave me a recommendation to the YA agent in her office. All this in the span of five minutes. I seriously wanted to send her chocolate to say thank you for the boost of confidence, which came at just the right time, but I was advised of the many ways that could be taken as more than simple gratitude.

Where was I? Oh yeah, 40.

Maybe it’s the amount of time I’m spending in the heads of upper teenagers because I write YA, but I don’t feel much different than I did at 20. I consume more alcohol and I have a different opinion of both MTV and God, but otherwise, I don’t think I’ve changed much. I’m much too concerned with what I want to have done in the next 20 years to worry about where the last 20 went.

Recently, I spoke to a writer friend about Jennifer Armentrout. If you’re not familiar with her, she’s a big deal in publishing as a hybrid author. Multiple series with multiple publishers. She’s got contracts for books she hasn’t written yet. She’s the poster child for “successful” author. She has an impressive backlist, a rabid fanbase, and writing novels IS her day job. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about Daemon Black, but I want to be Jennifer Armentrout when I grow up.

What am I doing to get myself there?

First, while waiting to hear back from agents and editors about GLITCH, I’m working on a to-do list for a self-published launch. It’s a longer list of tasks than you might think.

Second, I am starting the outline for VIRGO. Glitch and Virgo share the same universe, so there’s a lot of world building I have to do to keep the world consistent, because I’m intending to write the series in tandem. (Yes, you may call me insane.)
Third, I’m starting to put together an idea for a standalone magical realism. It took me a good two months to wrap my head around what magical realism is exactly, but I think the idea I’ve come up with is pretty good on both the genre front AND the diversity in YA front.

Four, I’m stalking #MSWL on Twitter, and you know what I’ve discovered. Dystopian is out. High Fantasy is back IN. I have a two volume High Fantasy sitting on my self. May have to drag that sucker out. Would require editing though…a lot of editing.

OH…if you’re reading this and you just happen to write High Fantasy that is based on non-European cultures, there are agents looking for that.

So, if I get off my ass…I should be able to complete 2 series, 2 stand alone novels, and a 2-volume epic, for a grand total of 11 published novels before I’m 50? Ask me again in 2024 how I did. If I manage to get it done, I will certainly have been too busy to care about the big 5-0.

That reminds me. My driver’s license expires today.

My Anniversary Giveaway – January 15

 

 

To celebrate my 1st anniversary as a published author, I am giving away SIGNED, hardcover copies of Cassandra Clare’s “The Infernal Devices” to someone who has either purchased or reviewed January Black.

Click here for the rules and Rafflecopter Link.

 

 

 

 

Hello, Lovely Readers

My old blog is still available, but all of my posts should be accessible here now.

Quite Possibly The Coolest Swag Ever…

…for those of us not nominated for Academy Awards.

Ciara Knight is holding an international giveaway. If you live on planet Earth, and you own a copy of The Curse of Gremdon, you can win cool stuff. Take a picture of yourself holding your copy of the book, (and yes, ebooks count), and send the image to her by March 31 to enter. (For complete contest rules, read the post on Ciara’s blog.)

Ten finalists are going to have a chance to win:

A signed copy of The Curse of Gremdon.
A notebook with The Curse of Gremdon cover.
A key chain.
A deluxe tote bag.
And a very pretty amber amulet.

About The Curse of the Gremdon:

In a world where marriage is forbidden, sex is only granted to male warriors, and the outer realm is full of murderous creatures, Arianna fights to protect the life of her only living relative, her brother.


Tardon, an elite warrior, is granted anything he desires by the Elders, but finds little joy in the voluptuous women presented to him. Born for the bloodlust found only in battle, complicated emotions emerge when he discovers his equal in the alluring warrior, Arianna.


Charged by the Elders with saving the castle from attack, Tardon and Arianna risk the curse when they traverse the vast outer realm to retrieve serum from the Tree of Life. If successful, the Elders have promised Tardon the right to marry and Arianna the cure for her brother’s death fever. Will their love carry them through or will the discovery of a great deception be their ultimate demise?

What are you waiting for? Go win cool stuff!

xkcd: Backward in Time

xkcd: Backward in Time

Matty would do this. Iris would find it adorable.

I {heart} Anne Mini!

If you are a writer, and you have not discovered Anne Mini’s site yet, I am once again imploring you to go. Now. I’ll meet you back here in a year, because that’s about how long you’re going to need to climb your way back out of the depths of her insight. You can find her at her blog and Facebook.

The Real Catherine T. Great

I’ve mentioned Anne Mini before. I tweet her posts, which automatically post to both my Facebook wall and page. Her blog is rolled on my right margin. It’s a good chance that if you know me, you know about Anne Mini. And knowing that, you might wonder why I am devoting an entire post to mentioning this once again.

She critiqued my query. You see, it’s Queryfest 2012, and she needed samples to post for the benefit of the class. I had just finished version 37.4. I thought, why not get a free professional opinion on it? That’s right, folks. She does this for a living, as in people usually have to pay for her advice. She gave me a “great” pen name for the post. Today, for educational purposes, I am Catherine T. Great. (Can I use that? I totally want to use it.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. January Black Query version 37.4.

I was pleasantly surprised, after a year of form rejections, that my letter didn’t face plant upon opening. On the contrary, she told me it was solid, but in need of a few tweaks. Indeed, when she took her readers through four edits of the letter, she had made a few changes that had huge impacts on the way the letter looked and read. It might be ready to send out to an agent, and I will if the two e-publishers currently looking at the manuscript both pass.

I {heart} Anne Mini.