Assassin P.I. News

I've got big news! 

So, a couple months ago, I entered into a Pit2Put pitchfest on Twitter. Here's how it works. You tweet your logline - a one sentence description about your book - along with a couple of hashtags to indicate which genre your book fits in to. Here was my pitch:

The vigilante justice business gets mighty complicated when the killer you’re tracking . . . might turn out to be you. #Pit2Pub #A #RS

Editors and agents are standing by watching their twitter feeds. If they stumble across a pitch they are interested in, they favorite your tweet. Within seconds of posting the above tweet, Deborah Nemeth of Carina Press favorited it. EEK! My heart stopped and then I reached for the phone. Who to call first? My husband? My sisters? 

While on the phone to my hubby, I got another favorite, and then another. Cheryl Yeko from Soul Mate Publishing was interested in my manuscript as well. By now I was on the verge of hyperventilating. By the time I'd called everyone in the family, I had 4 publishers interested in my little old noir romance. Now what? 

After giving it some serious thought, I decided I was only interested in working with either Carina Press or SMP. I quickly finished my final edits, gave it one last read-through, and hit submit.

Fairly quickly, I heard back from Cheryl from SMP. Based on my synopsis, she wasn't so sure she could take on a hero with such a shady past (and trust me, Jack Gaines is definitely not squeaky clean). I could see her point. Jack was a risky character, but one I truly loved writing. He deserved to have his time in the spotlight, so I suggested making a slight alteration to the ending. Cheryl agreed to give him a chance and I sent her my revised manuscript. 

Waiting is always the worst part, no? After what seemed like forever, I finally heard back from Carina Press. After careful consideration, they'd decided to pass. They felt my story worked better as a mystery rather than a romance, but they invited me to submit to them again. The rest of their feedback was spot on, and while I was sad they were rejecting my manuscript, I appreciated their comments. 

The very next day, I kid you not, I heard back from Soul Mate Publishing. They wanted to offer me a contract. Hallelujah! 

I immediately called my hubby and told him the good news.

"Are you going to accept their offer?" he asked. 

"Of course I am!" After calling my sisters and the rest of my family, I filled out my contract and sent it back to be signed. And now the waiting begins again. 

Months ago, I created these promo cards in hopes that someday Assassin P.I. would find a home. While Jack and Angie scurry off to get their final polish, I'll leave you today with a bit of tease. 

Summertime Fun

Thanks for stopping by today! If you found me by way of LaNora Mangano, welcome! Today on the Romance Weekly Blog Hop, Fiona Riplee wants the inside scoop on our summer. She's posed three questions for us to answer. 

What is your favorite summer memory?

I don't think I have one specific summertime memory, but I have lots of little memories I hold dear. Camping at Lake Cachuma with my family as a kid, and going to church camp in Big Bear as a teenager are two of my favorite memories. As far as this summer goes, I would have to say my favorite memory will be watching my daughter finally learn how to swim. Until this year, she's always struggled with her confidence in the water but is finally overcoming her fears. Hopefully the video of her swimming works.

What you enjoy the most about summer?

You'll laugh, but all you teachers out there know what I'm talking about. What's best about summer? 

1. I get to pee whenever I want to. I don't have to pee on a schedule dictated by my school. 
2. I don't have to wake up at 5:15 to get ready for work. I can sleep in every day of the week. Like until 6:15. 
3. I can spend huge chunks of my day locked away in my room, writing. 
4. I can pretend to be a fabulously organized housewife and stay at home mom. I cook more, get the house cleaned and organized, and spend time with my kids dragging them to swim lessons and the public library. Pinterest and FlyLady.com become my favorite go-to websites for recipes and cleaning challenges. 

How do the warm days and sunshine affect your writing habits?

C.C. 2.0 - https://www.flickr.com/photos/124075341@N03/14480063966 

I live in SoCal, where most of my days are warm and sunny except for the crazy weather we've had this past week. 

But for me, warm days and sunshine means school's out and I can spend my days writing. This year, my in-laws took my kids on vacation with them to San Diego for six days. I missed them like crazy, but with a quiet house and no swim lessons to get to, I was able to complete all of my revisions on Assassin P.I. I even had enough time to participate in #Pit2Pub, a pitchfest held on Twitter. Within an hour or two I had four different editors request my manuscript. Now I get to spend the rest of my summer waiting on pins and needles while Carina Press and Soul Mate Publishing review my submission. In the meantime, I'll be busy plotting out book number three. 

Next up? Check out what Jami Denise http://jamidenise.com/blog enjoys about summer. 

Composing a New Career

Welcome to the Romance Writers Weekly Blog Hop. We're a merry band of writers who love to chat about romance, writing, and pretty much everything else under the sun. If you found me by way of Xio Axelrod http://www.xioaxelrod.com, welcome! I hope you're enjoying this week's blog hop.

This week's question comes from Xio Axelrod. "If you weren't a writer, what other creative career would you most want to try?"  

Ooh! Such a fun question this week with so many options to choose from.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/ 

I think of myself as a pretty creative person. It's just part of who I am. When you think about it, most of the jobs I've held in my life, require a lot of creativity. Teaching definitely allows me to tap into my imagination when I'm building my unit lesson plans, especially now that we have a bit more freedom with Common Core.  No two days are alike. 

Photography allowed me to view the world (and people) in a more artistic way, finding the beauty within each of my subjects. It's a relaxing but expensive hobby of mine. 

Designing websites was the perfect blend of art and science and allowed me to use the skills I'd learned as a type setter. I could let my imagination run wild with the design, yet had to be meticulous in order to make everything run smoothly. 

Heck, I've even been a color guard instructor for a local high school. I taught teenagers how to spin a flag and rifle and then wrote routines for them to perform. In a way, it allowed me to bring the music to life for the captive audience. 

But if I could choose any artistic endeavor to pursue, I would want to be a composer. I began writing music, or at least composing songs, when I was around 14. I'd only been playing the piano for a year but I'd been singing in the church choir for kids since I was six, so I'd been raised around music. You know how writers say they can hear the characters talking in their heads? Yeah, music was like that for me as a teen. I could hear the songs playing in my head and would stay up until midnight working it out. 

Composing music is one thing but actually putting it to paper? That's a whole other beast. My skills are seriously lacking in that department. To the right is a picture of my piano/keyboard and some of the songs I've written. My music isn't pop or rock music, though. I tried to include a clip, but fortunately for you, Blogger was too horrified to even let me share it with you. 

Writing music was always a way to process my emotions. Like writing, it's a fairly solitary process for me. I truly wish I could have taken my music farther. Maybe in a different life, I could have played a ton of different instruments and been a composer. Who knows?!

Next up on the blog hop is Fiona Riplee http://fionariplee.com/blog. Hop on over to see what artistic career choice she would like to try.