So, I just about calmed down from my monday release mad tigger dances but I’m off again! This time about Moonlight & Magic, which I’ve just been offered a contract for by Changeling Press!! Woohoo!! *more tigger dances*

I tell you, contracts are like buses, you wait for ages chewing your fingernails down to the bone, then a bunch of them turn up at once. Am I complaining? HELL no!! It’s like christmas come early!!

However things will calm down on that front now, with three books in the works and upcoming edits for them I think my writing time might be a little curtailed :S But it’s all good, I’m looking forward to the edits because I have a new editor at Lyrical. I chatted to her and she’s really nice (not that I didn’t like the last one, she was really great and I learnt a lot during the edits for Moon Madness!!) But I think we’ll work well together and Changeling will be a new person to get to know as well.

I really do like the editing process, even if I have to walk away sometimes and do something else before coming back to it. It’s kind of hard not to take things personally when you’ve written something. The stories are like my little babies so I get quite protective. It helps to remember the editors aren’t there to pick at you, or put you down, they’re interested in making sure the product (you book becomes a product for the publisher at this point, at least that’s how I see it) is the best read and as polished as it can be. I like this bit, I learn more and more about writing and the way I write from it. LOL, I also learn about the things I do wrong and, more importantly, how to watch out for them and correct them (this isn’t something the editors do btw, that’s just me making a note of what they’re pointing out and remembering to watch out for it in future). Lol, this was gonna be a short post so if you’re still with me, have a cookie!

So, for any writers out there, what are your views on the editing process. Love, hate or necessary evil?

Sqqquuuuuueeeee! It’s here! It’s here!! *runs around in mad circles, doing random tigger dances* Ok, will calm down… maybe, sometime later!

Anyway, today Moon Madness was released by Lyrical Press. I just luuuuurves Lyrical! They’re great to work with, the editors aren’t at ALL scary and everyone’s so helpful and supportive!

Moon Madness It’s never easy staying ahead of the pack when hunting for the right man. Penny Stephens is a wolf with problems. She’s contended with her wild side all her life, but it’s about to catch up with her. She needs a mate who can love the woman and tame the wolf within. Not just any wolf will do. Lone wolf Cade Steele could be the one to fill her needs. He’s wolf enough to match her animal instinct, and perhaps enough of a gentleman to satisfy her feminine side. As a mated pair, her bed might become part of his territory, but her heart is another matter. More than love is at stake in this call of the wild.  Warning: Paranormal geeks, a sexy loner and hot sex (oh, and chocolate cake).

Read an Excerpt Online for Free

And, if anyone feels like spreading the word out there (I promise to love you forever and send much virtual chocolate ), here’s the link code all ready to go!!

<br /> <table width="450" align="center" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="5"> <tr> <td colspan=2 align=center><a href="http://www.lyricalpress.com/moon_madness.html"><img src="http://mina-carter.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mm-buy-banner1.png" border="0"></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="210"><a href="http://www.lyricalpress.com/moon_madness.html"><img src="http://mina-carter.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mm-210.png" hspace="5" vspace="5" align="left" border="0"></a></p> <p><b>Moon Madness </b></p> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font size="3" class="ws12"><strong><i>It’s never easy staying ahead of the pack when hunting for the right man.</i></strong></font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3"><br /> </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3"> </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3">Penny Stephens is a wolf with problems. She’s contended with her wild side all her life, but it’s about to catch up with her. She needs a mate who can love the woman and tame the wolf within.</font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3"><br /> </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3">Not just any wolf will do.</font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3"><br /> </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3">Lone wolf Cade Steele could be the one to fill her needs. He’s wolf enough to match her animal instinct, and perhaps enough of a gentleman to satisfy her feminine side. As a mated pair, her bed might become part of his territory, but her heart is another matter. </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3"><br /> </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3">More than love is at stake in this call of the wild.  </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3"><br /> </font></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;"><font class="ws12" size="3"> </font></div> <div style="text-align: left;"><font class="ws12" face="Times New Roman"><i><font size="3"><span style="font-family: times new roman,times,serif;">Warning: Paranormal geeks, a sexy loner and hot sex (oh, and chocolate cake).</span></font></i></font></div> <p style="font-size: 8pt;"> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" align="center"> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.lyricalpress.com/moon_madness_excerpt.html" target="_blank">Read an Excerpt Online for Free</a></p> </td> </tr> </table> <p>

Time always seems to get away from me. I blinked and the release date for Moon Madness is tomorrow!! How did that happen? It was a week away the last time I looked!!

I’ve been looking forwards to this release for so long. I liked the story as I was writing it and it was one of the first few I did write so when Lyrical accepted it I was over the moon! (LOL no pun intended there) Not that I’ve gotten so used to stories being accepted I’m blase about it now but this one was amazing as I really wasn’t sure about it. Would it be strong enough? Would they laugh at me? I go through that every time I submit something, so I figure that’s never going to change! I have to say the editors and everyone at Lyrical Press have been amazing Ok, I’m going to wander off and write something before I start blubbing and thanking everyone and their cat like at the oscars!

… well I wouldn’t exactly say blues really. But I’ve reached that ‘dead spot’ I always seem to find in a story. It’s the one that creeps up on you, sits on your shoulder and comments, ‘You know, ROCKS write better than you do’. The bit where the characters seem flat, they don’t want to do what you want them too and the last couple of thousand words feel like inane drivel, even to me.

This is usually the time where I settle in with my plot notes and grimly section each planned scene down into post sized chunks (any RPer’s will be familiar with what I mean by post there) and then methodically work through them. I find nibbling at the day’s word count in 3-500 word chunks makes it a lot easier. I can fool myself into thinking, yeah, I’m just writing for a game, this isn’t serious and actually keep getting the words on the page until I’m through the ‘wall’ and the characters start being less like cardboard cutouts.

This is also the point where I don’t, under ANY circumstances, start looking at notes or thinking about another story. If I do, I’m off like a shot and I really need to stick to the story I have going. Luckily I’m very much a control freak about this. I like to finish one story, all packaged up neatly as finished in my head, before I start another. Otherwise the first story bugs me until I’ve finished it!!

Ok, lack of coffee and sleep now. I’m heading off to bed! Catch you on the flipside!!

I opened my inbox this morning to a wonderful surprise. Blade Publishing have offered a contract for Feral! The book after Vixen in the Kyn Series, Feral is well, Feral’s story.

Big, silent type Kyn Warrior he’s tough but like most big men, he has a heart of gold. A heart big enough to trek halfway across the wilds of Faery to get a baby to safety, a pixie baby no less and if there’s any species Feral detests it’s Pixies. But somewhere along the way he realises, with a little help from the baby and Tessa, the half pixie woman he’s conned into helping him, that not all Pixies are bad. In fact, some pixies, especially a particular pixie woman, are actually pretty damn sexy…

*goes off to do the tigger dance* Yay!!

… come check it out!

http://lyricalpress.blogspot.com/2008/11/ok-so-its-my-day-to-blog-over-here.html

So I’ve finally managed to navigate through the murky waters of desktop publishing which involved much frustration and swearing at the screen when it didn’t do what I wanted but by jove, I think I have it now! So, without further ado, here’s the link for the November Newsletter!

Downloaded a total of 28 times

This week has literally just flown by. Honestly, I blinked and we’re at saturday already and I have NO clue how that happened!! It’s been a full week though, nano is going well. I’ve been writing most afternoons in word wars with my freind Doug Brown (http://doug-brown.net/) and the combination of the accountability and the extra pressure of the stopclock has worked wonders with the wordcount. I’ve been consistently a day ahead of the minimum wordcount and I’m hoping to carry that on.

Which is a bit of a feat considering that I got an answer back from the publisher I submitted Moonlight & Magic to. They like (loved) the story but asked if I could lengthen it a little and add a HEA etc. Which is not a problem as it subplots and an ending I stripped out anyway! I’d written it as a shorter erotica piece so I took them out. Guess I shoulda gone with my first instinct on that one huh?

So this weekend are M&M (only I could name something after chocolates) and carrying on with Nano. I also need to update my Lucas North story over on the Armitage Army forum over the weekend, which is always fun (and leads to watching the last episode of Spooks on BBC iplayer - purely research you understand!)

Busy, busy, busy bunny atm.

(And the nano widgets are now working YAY!!)

I don’t know when it went up on the site but I was wandering around earlier and found another review for Vixen! Coffeetime Romance gave it 4 cups and their reviewer, Maura, writes “I really enjoyed this quick read. Kalen and Vixen are charismatic characters with a strong attraction to each other. Vixen has always been different and has never felt wanted and Kalen was rejected and betrayed by his former wife. Once they act on the attraction the love scenes are scorchers. The second part of the book is in a different area entirely. The scenes in the pixie’s barrow are exciting and not at all what I expected. I cannot wait to read more about the world of the Kyn.”

I’m really impressed, it’s a great review!

In other news, desktops for both Moon Madness and Vixen are now uploaded to their relevant pages

I’ve been faily silent for the past couple of days as I’ve been racking up the word count on ‘Playing with Fyre’ for nano and working on ‘Dirty Dream’ with Evey. Both are going really really well so I’m a happy little bunny atm!

Short and sweet, at …

now on Fyre, and I need sleeeeeeep! More tomorrow!