Numb

I keep forgetting people might actually read this blog. You keep forgetting I’m not very bright!

In case you wondered I really only do it for my own amusement.  It started as a way to declare my deadlines – to myself essentially – and then having declared them – stick to them so I didn’t embarrass myself.  Note the all about me theme here.

Not that I’m bad at deadlines or being a slave driver.  I’m good at those things.  Regularly whip myself into a frenzy of late nights at the keyboard.  As anyone who has received a 3am email from me will know (and probably not love – definitely not love).

All that goes to say I forget that real people other than the BTA – who I occasionally try to entertain with my sparkling wit and repartee – sometimes come here.  Forget isn’t really the right word.  I’m amazed people come here.  They should get a life.  I mean really!

Anyway – I’m vastly overdue for an update.  The reason being I was whipping myself damn hard.

So hard I’ve made two fingers on my right hand go numb.  The pinky and the one next to it.  Numb from the fingertip to the second knuckle.  According to osteopath Andrew it’s all due to my crappy lumbar problem, and twisted pelvis, and in particular related to the trouble I have with my first rib.  That’d be right.  Like all things crappy back related this will no doubt take some time to fix.  Joyorama.  Though really I have no complaints.  It’s no where near as bad as the the sciatica, ankle drop, coccydynia, bursitis, knee misalignment or the time my first rib flipped over and tried to strangle me in my sleep.  What’s a bit of numbness between friends.

Anyway back to the whipping.  In my pre-Christmas too much sugar phase I decided I needed to write a new story to spin off from Jive.  Rhian Cahill kind of dared me to write Ant’s story.  Desk Jockey Jam was born between New Year’s Day and mid January, directly prior the fateful family everyone fought holiday.

The wonderful BTA liked Jam – yeeehah.  But no prizes for guessing.  They thought it was TOO SHORT.  And no amount of me saying, it’s supposed to be short, it’s supposed to be my first novella, would suffice.  So it got an extra chapter and now it’s sitting on Kate Cuthbert’s desk to see if Escape would like to publish it.  If they pass I’ll give it a spin myself.

And then we have Real.  Escape happily want to publish Producing Real.  The problem with this was I suddenly had an attack of the not good enoughs. BIG TIME.

So it’s had a re-write to add, as Rebekah Turner would say, more awesome sauce.  That includes a new title.  I was always eh about the title and it finally hit me that the story should be called Getting Real – which was one of the original reject titles.  Rejected because I assumed – wrongly as it turns out – that there must be a million other books with that title.  Go figure.  Happy Days.  (Now watch them all surface the minue we publish!)

Real is a a stronger story now – reflecting in part how much I’ve managed to teach myself since I first wrote it.  The other part it reflects is panic of the OMG this is going to be published kind.

So it’s much better – but I’m still doing the OMG thing.  I’m more confident about Detained and Floored than about Real despite the re-working.

Real comes out on April 1st which is poetic justice really, given my OMG state that it should be an April Fool’s joke!

Speaking of Floored.  It’s back from the BTA and yes it does have a soggy middle and yes I knew that – whew.  The middle came together when I was gripped with an everlasting migraine.  I wrote through it because one of those cluster migraines can last three months or more so there was no telling when I might not have it and doing something every day was better than doing nothing.  So yes – allow for sogginess, because even sogginess is better than nothingness.

So here we are:  A new novella, a more awesome Real and now getting into the bones of Floored to take out the sog.

Oh and – about three new story outlines:  Sparkle, Rafferty and Swing.  Which I will come back and fill you in on later – when I remember you’re there.

Are you really there?

And lastly.  Jive is gone out and gotten itself a new cover.  A slightly more sophisticated look if I do say so myself.