A Gathering of Cool Stuff!

So, as many of my followers have noticed, I haven't blogged in a long time. Actually, I haven't blogged since my dog, the best dog in the world, mind you, died. I had thought that when I could bear to write about it, I would dedicate a post to Fraemie's phenomenal life. I am still not at that point, but it will be soon.

Instead, I wanted to discuss some of the cool things happening in my life and the lives of those around me.

First off, the writing. I continue to work on revisions with my wonderful agent, Colleen Lindsay. I have found her to be most insightful and have agreed wholeheartedly with almost every suggestion she has made. ASSASSIN'S NIGHTMARE will be a much better book with her input.

I also finished my newest manuscript for VICIOUS CIRCLE. It is unrelated to ASSASSIN'S NIGHTMARE, a bit lighter in tone, though it still features an assassin as the protagonist. I would categorize it as space opera/romance with a touch of fantasy. I'm very proud of it, but still nervous sending it off to Colleen. I guess that's normal, but I really hope she enjoys it.

The hubby has also had some recent writing success. He won first place in the YA Fantasy category of the Do It Write literary competition. This is a contest I won last year in the sci-fi category. The Harper Collins editor who ranked him first had some very nice things to say about his manuscript for VANISHING ACT, and he is starting the query process himself, now. In addition, a good friend of mine, Alina Blanco, won in the sci-fi category this year. It's nice to know all the winners!

And speaking of winning, Joe (hubby) entered a contest on author S.L. (Lynn) Viehl's blog. He won an amazing prize--a galley copy of the as-of-yet-unreleased novel in her STAR DOC series, and an extremely rare copy of the short story on which the series was based. In fact, there are only two copies of the short story in existence. The author has one, and we have one. How cool is that?! The actual book doesn't get released until August, but I get to read it now. I've read all the other books in the series and am a huge fan. I'll be diving into that this weekend. And no, I won't tell how it ends. You all will have to get your copies in August.

So, that's the latest news around here. Sorry it's been so long. Fraemie has been gone two and a half months. I still miss her terribly, though a new puppy in the house has helped ease that loss somewhat. It's hard to lose a friend of 16 years.