Hit Send…and receive!

Hey all,

My new fantail shirt! Sweet as.

Plenty of you seem to pity me enough to click my post links on occasion, and as such you're likely aware that my road to making my second sale to Harlequin Blaze has been…shall we say…uphill. Well this morning I hit send on my FOURTH proposal since selling my first—and for now, only—book with them.

This latest attempt emerged after much frustration, persistence, and well-timed guidance, which you can read all about in my scheduled post with the Blaze Authors Blog tomorrow (I'll post a link to it here.) I felt confident as I sent this new story out into the editorial ether… Well no, "ether" is wrong. My experience with my editor at Blaze has been nothing if not clear and open, nothing ephemeral or murky about it. But anyhow, this time feels different. Not because I'm positive it will hit the mark, but because my fingers aren't crossed gangrene-inducingly tight for once. The theme of this submission has been "Don't Overthink It." Probably ought to get that tattooed on my palm, an added reinforcement the next time I find occasion to slap some sense into myself. Shouldn't be long at all. Anyhow, what will be will be. Perhaps fourth time's the charm?

Three varieties of Almond Gold!

So, I hit Send and spent the rest of the morning feeling that weird mix of post-submission hopefulness and paranoia. By lunchtime I was feeling downright blue for a variety of non-dramatic reasons, but things took a nice change by the time I got back from my daily walk. Not only was there a royalty check waiting for my evil conjoined erotica-writing twin, but my faithful Kiwi pen pal Gerry's yearly birthday care package had arrived! He sent me an ace bird-nerd shirt (a fantail is a common New Zealand bird) and the requisite pile of Almond Gold chocolate bars, plus some Spaceman Candy Sticks. My new shirt smells of them. Bonus. Also had some new cover art waiting in my inbox for the evil twin, which I'll post on her site and Goodreads this afternoon. So I've perked up a bit. I hit Send in good faith, and good things have already come to me in return. Feels like a hopeful enough omen.

Now if only someday soon I get to write the blog post entitled, HELL FROZE OVER! I SOLD MY SECOND BLAZE!!! But patience, oh spastic one.