Doings at Rooglewood: February

My dear imps, I can't believe it's already time for another Doings at Rooglewood post! January went by much too quickly for me, and February looks ready to fly right over my head as well. But we do what we can . . .

Anyway, I thought you might like to learn what's happening at Rooglewood these days and add me and my frazzled brain to your prayers!

Edits. Oh, yes. February is going to be the Month of the Edits. I am tackling the first round of line edits for the Five Glass Slippers winners. Which, truth be told, are not terrible extensive. All of the winners are talented young authors with excellent stories that will really need only a little tweaking here and there to get them ready. It's not the quality of work, it's the quantity in this case . . . five stories which all must be done before next Monday if Rooglewood Press is going to keep on its tight schedule. Yikes!

 And speaking of tight schedules . . . my other big edit is for Until That Distant Day, which I had hoped to finish last month but barely started. Sigh. But while that novel is significantly longer than the multitudinous Glass Slippers, it is a polished draft and needs little help to get it publication ready. My work involves much time spent looking up French phrases to make certain they're accurate (it's been a while since I studied French!), and switching one character name from "Lance" to "Claude" . . . which, while using the search-and-replace option on Word. resulted in a number of characters casting each other "gClaudes" instead of "glances" for a little while there.

But Until That Distant Day is scheduled to release in just three months, so it's definitely taking priority through February! Do remember to add it on your Goodreads pages and tell your friends.

Winners. Speaking of Five Glass Slippers (which we just were a few paragraphs up, so this isn't a random segue, I promise), congrats again to the five winners! I hope to take a moment sometime in the next few weeks to write up a post about the five winning stories. Nothing to give away the plots (because they're too good to spoil!), just talking up the uniqueness of each story and how they all fit together. So be watching for that!

A Second Contest: And yes, the rumors are true . . . there will be another Five Something Something contest hosted by Rooglewood Press this year. Featuring a new fairy tale! You'll have to wait until June 1 to learn more. But we are in the process of designing the cover right now, and I am super excited. We just ordered the costume, and I think we have the model picked (though that is subject to change at a moment's notice). One way or another, the image is going to be stunning. I think this year I'll host an actual Cover Reveal for this project at the same time as the contest announcement. So bloggers, keep it in mind! I'll be asking for blogging hosts as we get closer to June.


Speaking of Covers: The Cover Reveal for Golden Daughter should be happening on February 24. Huzzah! Though this is still subject to last minute change, so don't be quite holding your breath yet. I think it's going to happen though. Which means I'm starting the process of gathering bloggers to feature the image, finalizing the back cover copy, figuring out whether or not I've got time to build the book page before the reveal (we'll see about that one), and selecting a passage for a sneak peek. That's right, dear imps! I hope to give you a little insider's peek at Golden Daughter, possibly a long one even.

And . . . oh dear. Yes, I still write. I really do! But these days, it doesn't feel like I get to write as much. (And yes, I am perfectly happy to have myself a pity party about this, thankyouverymuch.) I had hoped to write all of my new novella through the month of January, but that proved a vain, futile effort. Not for lack of interest in the story but for lack of focus. Even when I have time to sit down, I find my brain SO FULL of other projects, it's hard to keep any plotting and characters in line.

However, despite this lack of focus and a surplus of self-pity, I have managed to get nearly 20,000 words written on this little tale. And really, it's not going to be such a little tale as I first thought. Goddess Tithe is only 25,000, and this new project is going to pass that tally up in short order and still have half a book left to go. So I'm thinking this novella may turn into more of a short novel, rounding out at an estimated 50,000. I'm just more comfortable with longer pieces.

If I can get this novella/novel done by the end of February, I hope to reveal the title by early March, around the same Shadow Hand releases. And the cover is partially designed already, so I should be able to do a Cover Reveal soon after that . . .

Book 8: Lord willing, I'll start seriously working on Book 8 in the Tales of Goldstone Wood this March. In the meanwhile, I am researching and making notes and otherwise preparing for this project. I am reading Blood Sisters for research, which is quite a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it to any and all of you history buffs out there.

 Finding time to sit and read bulky research books has been much easier than I would have imagined! You see, I decided last month to bring my wild Mama Kitty in from the cold and begin the process of taming her for indoor-kitty living. She is currently living in a cozy little pen down in my basement, learning litter box etiquette and the joy of snuggling in laps. And doing very well at both, I might add! Turns out she's much older than we had believed . . . and is missing most of her teeth, poor baby. She's had a tough life out in the bamboo forests of Rooglewood, and I think the time has come for her to experience some cuddles. So I sit down in her pen, reading Blood Sisters and talking kitty-baby-talk by turns. Hoping to bring Mama Kitty (also called Mutti-Cat--"Mutti" being the German word for "Mama") upstairs quite soon now. Then we'll see how she blends in with the rest of our animal family.

Anyway, all that to say, Book 8 is currently in active percolate mode. And let me see, what hints can I drop about it . . . Well, there is a hero and an anti hero, and you have heard the name of one and met the other. The major antagonist is a woman, and you have heard her spoken of, though not by her real name. Una admired the heroine of this new story and tried (unsuccessfully) to emulate her at one point in Heartless.

I think that's enough for the moment. I'm really looking forward to this project! I've been tentatively planning it since the year before I first drafted Heartless and seriously planning it since the winter I drafted Moonblood. So it's about time this story got told!

Sickness. My sweet Rohan is sick with a stomach bug. He claims he has never had a stomach bug before, so this is all new torment for him. He's quite adorably pathetic when he's sick. He boasts the worlds THICKEST hair, and when he's too sick to tame it down, it stands up in the most epic anime hero styles you ever did see. No product needed. But no, I don't laugh at him! Not at all. Not when he's sick, poor darling. Yesterday, he was well enough to stagger out to the living room, so I worked from the couch (instead of my study). This way I could make comforting crooning noises at need. Please say a prayer for him today! I hate to see him so unhappy . . . even if the hair is epic.

That's enough. I started trying to type up the rest of my current doings . . . and it's too much. So I'm going to just sit here with Makoose in my lap (Makoose says, "Hi!" It sounds like, "Purrrrrrrr" but you get the idea.) and work on one of my edits for a bit.

If you have emailed me about anything, do forgive me if I'm slow getting back to you! I promise to get to you as soon as I can. And I'll have word on the upcoming art contest and other fun doings later on . . .