Hail to September!

What an awesome month it’s been! I finally finished Black Lily after a long, busy, and obstacle laden summer. It releases on October 3 – (but is available on Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords for pre-order) so be sure to check it out, especially if you loved Training Amy and/or Switched! I think readers will enjoy that Black Lily is more like Training Amy than Switched was, but it’s different enough that all three books have their own unique flair. Black Lily also has a paranormal undercurrent that will make for fun reading this Halloween, especially if you like mystery/thrillers. But, never fear — if spooky stuff isn’t your thing, it’s not so spooky that it will turn you off. There’s plenty of HOT BDSM, and non-paranormal story to make Black Lily a sexy, fun read no matter what time of year. Read an excerpt!  While I don’t know if there will be any more novels in the Gilded Lily series (that’s Training Amy, Switched, and Black Lily), I am leaving the option open. There might be a story with Hildolf somewhere in there. Come on, he’s not really such a bad guy. Just misunderstood, as my editor said.

There was also the debut of my online photography exhibit over on Salon Arcano! That was incredibly fun to put together. It made me realize I really can be rather artistic in my own way despite the fact that I can scarcely draw a stick figure.

Pictures or it didn’t happen, right? After nine long years I finally earned my RMFW PEN Award (the second time around). Haha! Many of you already know the story. I should have gotten one for Left Horse Black back in 2006, but when I initially joined RMFW for the second time, my debut novel (Left Horse Black) had already been traditionally published.  I missed out. Despite having many novels published I never really qualified again. After all – you can only have a debut novel one time, right?  But then IPAL (for Indie Authors) came along and I learned I would have to qualify for membership there, too. So I used Her Demon Lover, which earned me membership in IPAL (I could have used several novels to qualify anyway, it’s just that it was the most recent at the time).  The rules for the first qualification being that the debut novel had to be traditionally published and had to have earned at least $250 in an advance or royalties. The rules for the second being that it had to be an independently published novel that earned at least $250 in royalties. So I’ve done both, because I’m an over-achiever evidently.  ::snark:: Actually, there were quite a few folks in IPAL who were in the same boat. 🙂 Ah – very excited. Probably too excited. Go ahead – laugh at what a dork I am, but the reality is this is the first real writing related award I’ve ever gotten and I had to, technically, write 8 published novels (5 traditionally published via small press, and 3 independently published) to finally get it.  LOL!  I’m not sure if I should find that fact sad, or illuminating. 🙂  I think I’ll go with illuminating.

I managed to finish up a piece about the Asmodai for an anthology. It still needs a good edit before it’s ready to go, but it should be out the door here in a week or two. You’ll have to wait until 2015 for that one.

Finally – I was hit with another really big opportunity that I can’t talk about yet, mostly because I haven’t decided if I’m going to do it. But if this is any indication of how my year is going to end I am REALLY excited.  Yes Sir – I’m ready for another ride!