A long dark silence filled with life, work and other nasty things

It's been what...? Seven years since I first started this blog and so much has happened since then that it all compacted into a thin wafer of memories that give me an illusion it's been just yesterday when I wrote my last post. I love illusions. They give hardships wings to fly over the mosaic of daily strife which translates into survival.

In the last seven years, since 2007 when I first opened this blog, I've written 10 books and finished - actually finished 8 of those. The two that are outstanding will be finished...when I retire from daily grime which means...I've no clue when I will be able to retire.

Out of those 10, I've placed 2 solidly with publishers. Vinspire Press is coming out in May 2015 (oh, how I hate the fact it always, always takes upward of 18 months to see your book out) with my romantic thriller, "The Heirloom."  Here is the blurb to appear on the novel's back-flap:

Thirty-two year old Dr. Amelia Rimgold is about to testify in a generic drug fraud. Two days before she's to go before the House Committee, she's shot during an intermission at the New York Fowler's Opera. The hit man takes the victim's antique gold locket.  It is an heirloom and once belonged to the victim's ancestor, Rebecca Taylor, executed in Salem. Rebecca had pressed the locket against the octagonal seal on her death warrant and cast her only spell – to protect her female descendants from the kind of persecution and injustice she had suffered at the hands of the cruel and the ignorant. The heirloom does its job and Amelia survives.

But the young scientist still has to give up her life and identity, and becomes the FBI's witness-in-hiding. The hit man moves on to his next job when the gold amulet begins to exert its power over him. The locket wants to return to its rightful owner. The owner is obligated by the ancestral legacy to keep searching for her heirloom. But she can’t convince the FBI of it. One man though is convinced when he “meets” a presence staring at him through her eyes; he starts to believe that an ancient curse works. Ted Bester is a veteran CIA agent who knows that his agency’s protocol dictates that an incredible opportunity like Amelia should be used as bait. He never had a problem with such ruthless approach before. But he does now. His growing attraction to the young woman makes him hesitate. For a member of country's security agency to hesitate is a very bad thing.

Then the other one, "Mistress of Deceit" will be coming out - soon I hope - from Eternal Press. That one is a romantic suspense with fantasy elements. Once again, here is the plot premise:

Ambrosia Severn is a gifted but insecure young doctor who has fast-tracked to recognition and academic prestige. She takes a beach-vacation in upstate California and while beach-combing, she sees a naked man walk out of the surf. She had left her cell phone at the villa up on the cliff overlooking the beach, and the only weapon she has is her new metal-detector for treasure hunting. Running is definitely an option but the orthopedic surgeon in her knows that the best collection of limbs and musculature she’s ever come across would outrun her in seconds. She settles for standing still, hoping that she might talk her way out of the situation.

A few hours later, across the dinner table she’s not only facing Niven, the stranger who walked out of the surf naked but a horrendous decision. Niven has just asked her to choose between giving up her life’s work – her achievements, place in the medical research community, her father and her identity – or die.

He is a descendant of Quen star-lords stranded on Earth thousands of years ago. He must protect the beautiful but temperamental young doctor and find out who wants to kill her. His mission directive is simple. Nothing else is because unknown to him the one who wants to kill Amy is Niven’s betrothed. And while some women turn into dragons when they see their fiancé escorting a gorgeous and sexy young woman, Niven’s fiancé really is a dragon. 

And I've just started an exhausting search for a publisher for my New Adult novel (series really), The Witches of Calamora. I don't know about the rest of you, but this is the part that I hate the most. You polish your pitch, you compress your plot into an impossibly skimpy synopsis and you do your homework on "similar novels out there that were published and were success" and then you re-compress all of the above into an insanely short pitch to the publisher -- and then you wait, and wait and wait. Well, I've been at it long enough to just "wait" once and not long either and then move on with the search. Often I even do simultaneous submissions since, hey, let's face it, no one out there these days honours anything in a professional manner. I've long stopped bothering to pitch to agents. They're just  nuisance to me - you know, those cobblestones on a path that have become loose and risen to come up to trip you when you're making your way down the garden path. And then, all of a sudden, comes an email request for the novel that you've just started pitching; and in fact it's a request to the very first publisher you've pitched to and there is a contract. So, I don't expect anything these days. Whatever happens will happen regardless of me trying to force it or ignore it.

As for the nasty things, one horribly cold day last December I opened the garage to get in my car and that was the last I saw of a healthy ankle. The next three months were spent in a wheelchair with one cast after another -- the last one was a designer-purple and cost a fortune extra but the ortho people said I should get it as it would cheer me up. They meant well but they were wrong. Now, I've a brace on the ankle that will stay there for at least two years if not forever since the ankle takes a long, long time to grow strong again. Since the summer's coming, it's time to get back to writing -- and hopefully finishing those two novels that are 80% done. And if my novels with Eternal Press and Vinspire Press do well, then I won't have to go through the dreaded "publisher search" because either of the above two publishers will consider my next novel, and the next...and the next. That's when it's time to smile and relax.