WordPlay

It’s my own fault.  I waited a couple weeks, and then I put that new book release schedule on the blog this past Monday morning.  Right out there for the world to see.

And lo, Monday afternoon, I exchanged a few words with my editor, in which we counted on our fingers, looked at what remained to be done, and decided that July for Tiger Bound was just a leeetle too optimistic.

So that book is now an August baby, and my editor and I get to keep our sanity.

Except for the part where I run around my web site, blog, FaceBook, newsgroup, and Twitter, cleaning up after that July thing!

The Sentinels

Night of the Tiger (Bite): Dec ’11
TIGER BOUND: Aug ’12
KODIAK CHAINED: Dec ’12

Demon Blade
Demon Touch (Bite): Sept ’11
DEMON BLADE: ’13
DARK BLADE: ’13:

No, really.  I MEAN IT!

Once upon a time…

I wrote some Nocturne books and I delivered them.  And then I went on to the next books, waiting for the usual to happen–editing requests, production, scheduling.

They kinda didn’t.

And then there was a bit of chaos driven by editorial promotions and transition, and lo…some years later, just as the first book is at the point of being reverted back to me due to non-publication, I’m on the schedule!

For starters–and ironically, thanks to the shuffling, this title was scheduled about a year sooner than expected ( real surprise to me when it wasn’t even slated to be written until next spring)–and look, it’s almost time–!

Night of the Tiger

December ’11
Nocturne Bite e-novella
An installment in the Sentinels series

Nook
Kindle

Marlee Cerrosa turned unwitting traitor to the shapeshifting Sentinels, and Scott O’Brien paid the price. Now, with another traitor amongst them, Marlee hunts redemption, and Scott hunts what he lost…and it looks like they can only find the answers in one another.

=================

But wait!  There’s MORE!

The Sentinels: Powerful and Passionate Protectors of the Land

Night of the Tiger (Bite): Dec ’11
TIGER BOUND: Aug ’12
KODIAK CHAINED: Dec ’12

Demon Blade
Demon Touch (Bite): Sept ’11
DEMON BLADE: ’13
DARK BLADE: ’13:

So finally, I get to the very best part about writing:  the sharing!

Just makes me want to write more…

Party time creeps closer!

(Is that disturbing, to have that sentence first thing after that title, or is it just me?)

Either way, here we are.  Demon Touch is available as a Nocturne Bite!

Actually, they’re calling it a Nocturne Craving.  This comes under the heading of, “Don’t ask me!” and “The author is always the last to know.”

The Bites line is transforming into Cravings, but it seems that somewhere along the way–even though the flavor of the stories between these two lines is substantially different–all of the Bites have retroactively become Cravings.  Even the one I had published several years ago.  Hmm.  It’s magic?

And, well, hmm.  I was about to send you to my web site, where I’ve just updated the various pages to reflect this release, but I just discovered I was interrupted in the middle of those updates and…

Well, I wouldn’t bother looking for them just yet.  

Luckily (and quite by coincidence), here are all the pertinent details, right HERE!

Demon Touch

Ever since the night Alex Donally found the demon blade in his hand—and in his thoughts—he has been driven to fight evil.

When he meets Deb Marchand, he is compelled to protect her from her violent ex—and aroused by the visions of passionate encounters they both experience when they touch. The blade is showing them what they can have—if Deb can risk giving her trust and heart to a vigilante…

Kindle
Nook

Not quite party time, but getting close!

For starters, there’s the Backlist eBooks site.  We’re running through a two-stage transition with the authors–currently, they’re pulling their individual author pages today; we’re about a third done with that and it’s looking way cool.

Mine is currently the only page with the complete bookshelf, simply because I’m working everything ahead as an example for the authors…won’t it be totally cool when all 100 of us have all our books up like this?

Definitely working up to a really big party.

Party #2! is this!

After a good long wait to get something on the schedule (I have completed books sitting in the queue), September is quite suddenly the release date for my Nocturne Bite, Demon Touch.

Not only that, it has a really…nice…cover.

Really nice.

Heh.

Nook
Kindle

Ever since the night Alex Donally found the demon blade in his hand—and in his thoughts—he has been driven to fight evil.

When he meets Deb Marchand, he is compelled to protect her from her violent ex—and aroused by the visions of passionate encounters they both experience when they touch. The blade is showing them what they can have—if Deb can risk giving her trust and heart to a vigilante…

Lookin’ for my party hat…

A year ago–which is approximately 3.72 centuries in digital revolution time–I was just putting up the first of my backlist.

I’d meant to have them all up by now, but that was before I expanded my own personal revolution into the Backlist eBooks project with partner Pat Ryan, and that’s required a massive amount of time, so…I’m about halfway through my various backlist books/stories.

When I started with the backlist, my focus was on creating a cover “look.”  You know…glance at the cover and instantly recognize it as mine.  I had a strategy and everything!

Well…the learning curve, it be steep.  It wasn’t too long before I realized my strategy was too restrictive, and shed it for new ideas.  Now my new covers have a new approach, and most of my old covers have been replaced–some by the aforementioned Pat Ryan (she of many talents), and some by my own self.  The change hasn’t propagated through all of the retail venues, but this is their doing, not mine.  *annoyed sniff*

When I put Fountane Of up for sale, I didn’t actually put it up for sale–I gave it away as a teaser, and didn’t worry too much about the cover.  Well, that all evolved, too, and currently Fountane Of is 99c like the rest of my short stories.  And LO.  It finally became time for a new cover, and that’s what fun I had this past weekend, in between the plumbing excitement moments.

Fountane Of

(That link?  It’s a peek at the new Backlist eBooks web site, and what all the book pages will look like when we’re done!  At the moment, we’re only just getting started)

I’m thinking Touched by Magic is the next project–I’m about halfway through it, and skipped over to get the non-series books done first.  Well, after I turn in the next Sentinels book, put the polishing touches on the new Nose for Trouble edition, launch the September Nocturne Demon Blade Bite, and get the Nocturne Sentinels Bite through production…

*runs away*

Yes.  I am writing.  Instead of working on the planned blog (which I wrote most of in draft while waiting for an appointment today, so I did have good intentions), I did another scene in the current book.  That’s Dark Blade of my Nocturne Demon Blade series, if anyone’s keeping track.

I am not feeling particularly guilty.  More like…smug.

smug smug smug smug

To assuage my not-guilt over my not-blog, here is a picture of a puppy owning the Best Toy:

This is THE BEST TOY. Ever. For the moment.

…Monday

What fun to start the week with babbling good news. I think next week I’ll MAKE UP some good new so I can do it again!

This week, though, I don’t have to. I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be writing three more Nocturnes, and two of the online Nocturne Bites along the way.

The Nocturnes are the ones I’ve gotten the most requests for so far…remember Maks, the straightforward bodyguard who’s played a role in all three of the Sentinels books so far? Maks takes the tiger as his other form; he’s a quiet guy with an unusual background. Not quite tame, for all his reliability–and with reason. The first Sentinels book is Tiger Bound, and that’s where I get to play with Maks’ story. Oh, gleeful, evil, rubbing of hands together!

Ruger is the character who first started getting the requests–right from the start. Was I ever going to write a book for him? Well, in fact…yes! Ruger is the healer who also spends time as a Kodiak bear, and who (in Lion Heart), took the brunt of an Atrum Core ambush. In the wake of that, he’s still looking for himself. Could be he just needs a little help, hmm?

But before I dive into those two books, I’ll be writing a second Demon Blade book. You haven’t seen that first one yet–it’s been waiting for scheduling, and to some extent waiting for this cycle of decisions to come around, to see if we’d be working it as a series or as a one-off. Well, guess what! I get to do a series!

And then there’s a Demon Blade Bite and a Sentinels Bite.

And there’s ME.

VERY HAPPY!

Getting to write books I love, knowing my schedule is planned for these next months, hummm hummm humm! The muse wins!

BLOG PARTEEEE!

The Monday Post

This is the second Monday in the new home!

On this Monday, the office is in minimal working condition–no stereo yet, boxes on floor diminished but present, no pictures hung.  Internet access still relies on ArroyoNet, a remarkably stable WIRELESS WIZARD WIN! as long as a certain wireless phone at the broadcast end isn’t being used.

On this Monday, Duncan Horse is one step closer to his first ride in his new place–the modest north flat now clear of machinery and introduced on a nice walk-in-hand.  He has also observed his large donkey neighbors up the road with much indignant strutting of his studly stuff, to which the donkeys said, “Got it, you’re a horse, yada yada yada.”

There is still a lot of mud.  Much of it is now on Duncan.

On this particular Monday, I get to start the week knowing that over the weekend, I not only unpacked things, drove out new routes to old places from this totally opposite approach to the city, beat up on non-functioning new appliances (marginal success, sigh), spread shavings and straw over the aforementioned mud,  and cleared the garage of some freecycle items, but I slammed through a huge chunk of the second pass through Demon Blade (the next Nocturne novel) and wuh!  Finished it!

The last couple of previous books, I worked second pass on directly on the computer…logistics made it more viable.  But this one hit hardcopy early, and it went everywhere with me.  To doctor’s offices, where long waits ensured work time.  To the vet’s–yes, even to the doggy ER on New Year’s Eve while I was waiting for the vet to return with ConneryBeagle’s x-rays.  On the road between the old house and the new, every time we drove over to check on progress, plan out the fence line, or try, once more, to figure out where the little barn would fit.  If I went, the battered manuscript pages went, too.

It’s been a busy and well-traveled book, yes it has.  Me, my customized clipboard, my stack of papers, and my Energel pens.  Purple or green, please.

Tomorrow I start putting changes into the laptop, and then it’s time to make sure all the threads hold together and all the little rough spots are polished.  And then I get to call it a BOOK!

I am almost inspired to cackle with glee.

(Ha!  Maybe I even did it!  You’ll never know!)

What’re you cackling about this week, out there?

ConneryBeagle Crate Countdown: THREE DAYS!!!

PS: WordPress spellchecker suggestion for “ConneryBeagle” = “anaerobically.”

The Wednesday Post
with obligatory cover shot for current release

Well, wrap me up in a neat little bow and call me happy!

On Monday, I mentioned that I’d finished Demon Blade over the weekend–a fact I’m so particularly pleased with because second draft is perfect to work over a move, while first draft…not so much.  And also because I came in under word count, which has been a challenge for me since last year’s illness.

The Monday Post

It’s a different kind of Monday this week…out of kilter, out of pattern, and full speed ahead!

(Okay, that last part…pretty much always that case.)

Coming off a holiday weekend of packing and moving stuff, it turns out that Demon Blade, the WIP,  is…well, it’s  DONE DONEDONE.  It’s time to dive right into second draft, of course–not to mention more packing, and wow,  I’m about to dismantle the stereo, so you know I really mean business!

This week, while I have some web work to tend, most of it is for little old me.  With books out in January and February, I’d darned well better get my act together, oh yes.

So this past weekend, I played with graphics.  It’s the best way I learn, because I’m on my own time–and by golly I’m not afraid to waste it!  And so, with “two-page” ads all the rage these days, I have made me one of those.  See it, over there, to the left?  Is it not so very pretty?  My very first shiny, annoying, two-page ad made by my very own self!

(I swear, the author banner I’m making for this same site will be a nice static little piece.)

Still, isn’t it fun?  Don’t you just get that same little thrill, looking at something you’ve put together from pieces of this and that, and finding the whole of it then sitting before you?