Now available for online viewing here.
If you’d like to receive this newsletter, which comes once every two months, directly to your email, you can subscribe here.
SFWA New Release Newsletter!
// //
What’s Your Core Story?
//
So, this happened.
And it was awesome.
Plus it’s apropos that this week’s topic at the SFF Seven is “What is your recurring theme and how does it manifest?” Come on over to find out about all of it!
Out Now
//
Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads
//
It’s Hot & Muggy Flash Fiction week at the SFF Seven. In beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico, it’s never muggy and rarely all that hot. Perfect weather for drinks on the patio!
Instead I’m talking about what I *am* writing (hint: Ash & Ami) and I’m sharing a post I wrote on the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) blog about compiling a list of Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads. SFWA asked me for a list of ten authors, so they could also be put on bookmarks. In culling all the terrific recommendations down to ten, I found myself having to take a hard look at how I define the subgenre of Fantasy Romance, so that’s part of this article, too. Come on over to weigh in with your opinion!
Keeping Secrets and Creating Suspense
//The judicious use of secrets and revelations can be a difficult skill for new writers to learn. Jeffe Kennedy, known for her slow reveal of deeply held secrets, worldbuilding details and using secrets to amplify sexual tension will teach skills to approaching this delicate task.
She’ll discuss when to withhold information and how that functions to build tension, even in books that aren’t technically mysteries. She’ll also give pointers on how to know when NOT to withhold information and how to seed important clues. She’ll cover how to create suspense through setting, body language, and dialogue. Finally, Jeffe will discuss different approaches for the big reveal and how to avoid info-dumping so that the pace remains climactic.
Do You Want to Be THE WRITER?
//
This is pretty exciting! My local chapter, the Land of Enchantment Romance Authors (LERA), is changing up our unpublished manuscript contest this year! Instead of having agents and editors as final judges, we’re switching things up to offer mentoring and promo support via judges who are established authors. Writers of all stages may enter! Only the manuscript needs to be unpublished.
And I’m the judge and mentor for the Paranormal/Speculative Fiction/Urban Fantasy/Fantasy Romance category! Yes, it’s a broad category. What can I say? What this means is that the chapter will judge all entries and forward their top three to me. I’ll pick my favorite and mentor that writer and their manuscript. This means whatever that person needs – help with recs and prep for traditional publishing or help with self-publishing. Plus I’d help that person win overall against the wimpy writers chosen by the other judges. 😉 The overall winner gets to choose from the mentors and the whole chapter will support their efforts!
Other categories and judge mentors are:
Contemporary Romance – Long, Judge: Tamra Baumann
Contemporary Romance – Short, Judge: Katie Lane
Romantic Suspense, Judge: Robin Perini
Young Adult, Judge: Darynda Jones
Find out more information and enter here!
What Blender Setting Do You Go For?
//
We’ve been on a long road trip this last week, seeing all kinds of family. And leaving the cats behind, like the monsters we are. Here is Jackson showing off his best Pitiful Abandoned Kitty face.
Thus, I’m late posting today. But so it goes!
I’ve shared this news elsewhere, but I’m happy to share again here! Many of you have asked what I’m up to with various writing projects, including a few delayed ones. (Yes, the next Sorcerous Moons books are coming – I promise!) Basically what happened is that I changed agents back in February/March. And then I worked up something entirely fresh for New Agent Sarah Younger. Basically I gave her a list of ideas, we debated them, and I wrote 100 pages of one of her top three choices – the one I loved best. We went back and forth on it with several revisions. That’s a great benefit of working with an agent as sharp as Sarah. She gave me great feedback on the book, tightening it up and making it the best it could be. Basically we spent three months working on this.
Which meant I kept setting aside other writing projects to work on the next round of THRONE OF FLOWERS, THRONE OF ASH. Thus my entire schedule getting delayed and shuffled. The beautiful part is, when Sarah took this out on submission, we had tons of interest, multiple offers, and a sale two weeks later. And here it is!!
These books won’t start coming out until 2019, so now I can go back to a regular schedule. Which absolutely means finishing both the Sorcerous Moons and Missed Connections series. The other thing that happened is that Kensington, who published my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books, started up a new SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) imprint. They wanted to publish THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE, but that would have delayed its release until March of 2018 and I knew you all would have fits. (See? I do love you and want you to be happy. I really do!)
So, we said no on that, but they really wanted me to be part of this new imprint, so we settled on me writing a trilogy for them set in the Twelve Kingdoms world. It will be high fantasy, which means less of a romance arc. BUT, I’m pretty sure it will be Jenna’s story. For those of you who know what that means! We finished talking about that right before the other submission, so that got announced at the same time.
All that taken care of, our topic this week is Scrapbooking—taking stories from real life as the springboard for your stories and subplots. Come on over to get my take on blender settings.
The One Thing I Need
//
Really lovely how RWA sends the RITA and Golden Heart Finalists this invitation to the reception, along with our shiny finalist pin! Both are mementos to treasure.
Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is “I need to make more space in my life for…”\
I came up with only one thing – come on over to find out what it is.
Exciting New Project!
//I shared this video in various places, but I wanted to share it here, too, because it amuses me so much. Jackson had been snoozing in the shade and apparently decided a warm-up was called for. I looked up from my screen and he was lolling out there, soaking up the sun on his belly, king of his little universe.
That cat just cracks me up.
I’m popping in here today to let you all know about an Exciting New Project! (Hence the title. *cough*) The fantastic Thea Harrison has asked me, Grace Draven, and Elizabeth Hunter to participate in an anthology for the midwinter holidays!!!! It’s going to be called AMID THE WINTER’S SNOW. <- I love this title. Don’t you love this title? It’s very Enya to me.
We’ll each contribute a novella from our fantasy worlds, the story taking place around some sort of midwinter festival. Release date: December 12, 2017. We should have it up for preorder about a month before that. We’re working on a cover now, so stay tuned for that!
I’m also going to have some exciting news soon on a whole new series, but I can’t spill yet. Woo hoo!
Getting that Word Count While Traveling – How Do You Do It?
//
I’m delighted to announce that THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE is up for preorder!! A few others will be coming soon, but – as with many things – Amazon is fast and efficient, making us both love and loathe them. Smashwords wants me to promise to upload the final doc ten days before release and I … just can’t. Ten days is forever in my world, regrettable as that may be. But, hey! The book is coming along really well, and I’m tentatively thrilled with it.
~knocks on wood~
~tosses salt over shoulder~
~pets black cat and gives it extra treats~
Want to see a little snippet? Okay! But you have to click over to the SFF Seven, where our topic this week at the SFF Seven is Writing On The Road: How to stay on task while traveling. See what I did there? Tasty, tasty click bait! 😀