First off, thanks to everyone who voted for BEDKNOBS & BEANSTALKS. We won the Whipped Cream Book of the Week poll. All the exposure popped us up on the sales charts over at Ravenous Romance, so the authors are very excited. People are coming out of the woodwork to tell me how much they enjoyed it, and the editor wants the lesbian version even more now. That’s next month’s project.

For now, I’m working on my jewel heist story for Torquere’s Color Box series…. and I need some help with choosing my setting.

Tobin is a curator, putting together an exhibit which includes a very famous emerald, and his old boyfriend turns up. In another time and place, that might be wonderful. The problem is Pierce is a jewel thief. Or at least Tobin thinks he is. Things have a way of going missing when Pierce is around, but no one’s reporting the thefts. All Tobin knows is he needs to protect his jewels and his heart.

So, I don’t know where the exhibit should take place.  It could be a real museum, a made-up museum or at some other location like a casino or a castle somewhere in Europe. I’m open for suggestions at this point. I considered a casino in Monte Carlo, but not sure if it’s worth doing the extra research.

What do you think? Do you like to see stories set in real locations? Do you prefer vague locations which don’t say specifically where they are? Or would a made-up museum work for you? Does it matter?

For me, I like to see real places used as settings in fiction ONLY if they are realistic portrayals of the place. Otherwise, I’m fine with a fake place, as long as nothing substantive is completely implausible.

What about you?

Word Counts - Today: 0 | March: 5,305 | 2010: 25,046

It certainly felt that way when I tried to get out of bed this morning.

I got home late last night after a far-too-eventful journey home. I went to bed almost right away. Turns out my slightly sore throat and stuffed sinuses weren’t due to talking too much or allergies. I’m definitely coming down with something. Lack of sleep over the 5 days I was gone didn’t help, and I’m still not caught up.

The good news is that I had a few hours while I was gone to put the final touches on BEDKNOBS & BEANSTALKS and I sent it off to Ravenous. Just one more round of edits to get back and I hope to hear about the release date in the next week or so.

I’m reading angels/demons stories intermittently while I crank out the last couple of chapters of RARER THAN RUBIES which is due in a couple of weeks. It’s in pretty good shape but I’ll still have to work my butt off on that.

I’ll post about my trip soon, but right now, I feel like crawling back under the covers! I had a fantastic time and met some great new people as well as seeing old friends.

Word Counts - Today: 0 | September: 0 | 2009: 158,042

We’ve been told this since before we could read and write, but it’s still excellent advice when you’re querying or submitting your work to an editor or publisher. This is probably more useful to new writers, but it never hurts to remind people why it’s important.

If I excluded all the subs I received where the author didn’t follow directions, I would have ended up with 10 stories instead of more than 50. I decided to not let this determine which stories I read, though it may have influenced my final decision when deciding finalists. Is that fair? Yes, and here’s why:

Bottom line here before the examples: editors can form an opinion of how easy you are going to be to work with by whether or not you can follow simple instructions and how well you can communicate. The publishing process requires a lot of communication, from contracts to editing to working with cover artists. Any time you fail to follow instructions delays the process.

Just as important: How well you pay attention to detail in submitting your story is probably a good indicator of how much attention you paid in writing it. If you don’t go and check the call details before subbing, does that mean maybe you didn’t go back and revise your story before sending? more…

Word Counts - Today: 1,055 | August: 11,272 | 2009: 158,042

I’ve seen a few comments and blog posts recently that got me thinking about how I view my own stories while I’m writing them. More than one fellow author mentioned over the weekend that they hate their current project and think it’s awful and have begun doubting whether they have any talent at all.

This struck me as interesting. Until recently, I was not a writer who had a folder full of unfinished stories gathering virtual dust on my harddrive and I always wondered how someone could not finish a story. I’ve learned that phenomenon is partly due to different writing styles. Some people have no idea where the story is going when they start, so it can be harder to write unless the inspiration and momentum are there.

But now, as a person with several unfinished stories, I see everything entirely differently. more…

Word Counts - Today: 1,073 | July: 20,047 | 2009: 142,946

It’s been a while since I made much progress on my novel and it’s so far PAST the original deadline, it’s not even funny. But I got a huge burst of inspiration and managed about 7k on it during the last week. I’m just thrilled that the story is starting to flow again. I was really panicking for a while that I wouldn’t be able to get back into the story and finish it. I got sidetracked with health issues that kept me off the computer and a couple of other projects also got in the way.

But it looks like I’m getting back on track here.

Since it’s been so long since I even mentioned this project, it’s the m/m novel inspired by Romancing the Stone and set in Thailand. I’ve been doing some research on Buddhism and superstition in Thailand and that’s been fun and given me a lot of ideas. Makes me wish I’d made this a paranormal and not contemporary! Maybe some ideas will blossom into a short story instead!

Word Counts - Today: 2,390 | July: 15,809 | 2009: 138,708

For some strange reason I got a huge burst of inspiration during the past ten days or so, and managed to make it to the 50,000 word finish line almost a full 24 hours before the deadline!

I had plenty of ideas for the story I wanted to write, but the beginning of the month was very hectic, with work issues and being away (while sick) in the middle bogged me down. I also had another idea that was begging for my attention, so I decided it was better to get down 50,000 words between the two stories rather than hardly any of the one I had originally intended.

So, I’ve got about 30k of one story, and 20k of another, though admittedly neither is finished. I’ll put up an excerpt of one of them sometime during the next week or so.

Word Counts - Today: 4,340 | November: 57,762 | 2008: 384,186