A Year and a Day of Everyday Witchcraft Release Day Giveaway

Okay, so the book actually came out in print a few days early, and some people already have it. (THANK YOU so much to those who have posted reviews! SMOOCHES!) But today is the official release date for A YEAR AND A DAY OF EVERYDAY WITCHCRAFT, my latest book from Llewellyn. As you might guess from the title, it is a 365 day book (well, 366) that is part devotional, part daily reminder to put spirit into your life. Here is the description:

Enjoy the Sacred Wisdom of Witchcraft Every Day
Connect with your witchy self each and every day using quick, easy, and fun practices. This handy book features simple yet meaningful ways to integrate witchcraft into your daily life, inspiring you to take your magic to a new level whether you’re a beginner or an experienced practitioner.
Deborah Blake guides you on a journey through the Wheel of the Year, providing witchy wisdom, affirmations, spells, questions to ponder, and much more. From working with herbs and gemstones to connecting with deities, A Year and a Day of Everyday Witchcraft explores a variety of modern Pagan practices to help you get more in touch with your personal path of witchcraft.

It is the #1 New Release in Wicca over on Amazon, which is pretty cool.

 As are the rankings :-)

So of course, I'm going to have to celebrate with a giveaway, right? I have two remaining ARCs (advanced reader copies), which are almost exactly like the actual book, only not quite. Plus a couple of fun witch's shoe pens for Halloween/Samhain. So we're going to have two winners to celebrate, instead of one. Because that's how much I love you people.

Look how cute!

Magic approves.

 As always, no purchase is necessary (although the author would be very happy if you would leave a review, tell all your friends, and such). And you get credit on the Rafflecopter form for anything you already do, like follow me on Twitter. Happy new book day!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Upcoming Release Schedule and a Giveaway!

So I've been hard at work on The Book of Cat Magic for Llewellyn (my 11th book for them, not counting the tarot deck!) and hope to finish it today. Another couple of days to polish it up, then it will be off to my beloved editor Elysia, and I will be starting work on another novel.

In the meanwhile, I've also been working on A Sekrit Project, which I'm hoping to be able to announce in the next week or so. The folks who get my newsletter will find out about it first, so if you're not signed up yet, you can use the form at the top left of the page to do so. I only send out 4-6 newsletters a year, so don't worry about getting too much mail... (And sometimes I even do giveaways for my newsletter people only.)

I'm prepping to go to the RWA (Romance Writers of America) National Convention at the end of this month. This year it is being held in Orlando, Florida. I'll get to meet up with my agent and lots of author pals I rarely see, so it should be fun. Anyone else going to be there?

More importantly, I now have release dates and covers for all the upcoming books! I thought I'd share them with you so you can start planning which ones you are going to buy... (Subtle hint.)

This fall is going to be busy!

First up, we have the next Baba Yaga novella, Wickedly Spirited. This one features Jazz, the teen that Bella rescued in WICKEDLY POWERFUL (the 3rd Baba Yaga novel). Wickedly Spirited comes out on September 19th--it seems like a long way away, but it is only 2 1/2 months from now! If you haven't read WICKEDLY POWERFUL yet, you've still got time to catch up. (I'm going to help out with that, as you'll see.) And it's only $1.99!

I love this cover!

Next up after that will be my 10th Llewellyn book, A YEAR AND A DAY OF EVERYDAY WITCHCRAFT, which will be out on October 8th. Lots of people seem to be excited about this one. (Not so sure the kitty on the cover is one of them...)

What do you think? Is he impressed? Or annoyed?

Then the book I can't wait to share with you--the second in the Rider series! DANGEROUSLY DIVINE is Gregori Sun's story, and will be out on November 28th. If you haven't read the first Rider book, DANGEROUSLY CHARMING, you still have a few months to catch up on that too.

Oh BOY, do I love this cover! Yum!

Feel free to run and preorder all of these. No, really, I'll wait.

Oh, you're back? Okay, then I guess I'll reward you with a giveaway! I haven't done one for a while, so I thought I'd help out those of you who haven't read WICKEDLY POWERFUL yet, so you'll be ready when the novella comes out. Of course, if you already have the book, this way you'll have a signed copy, plus a cool new dragon friend. And some bookmarks, because who doesn't need more bookmarks?

Goodies!

As always, no purchase is necessary, and I'd love it if you'd spread the word. Pretty please? *smooches*

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Writing Update: The Rider Books

I thought it was probably time to give y'all a brief update on the writing. You know, for those who care.

The last few months have been a little crazy, what with the whole twisted knee thing, but I managed to type THE END on the polished first draft of DANGEROUSLY DIVINE (Gregori Sun's book), the second book in the Rider's Series (or, as I like to think of it, the fifth book in the extended Baba Yaga series, since it is all a continuation of the story that began in WICKEDLY DANGEROUS ).

Of course, in writing, "done" doesn't really mean done until the book comes out. Next up I'll be doing one last revision pass before I send it to my agent, Elaine. Who will then send me her revision notes and I'll do it again before sending it to my editor at Berkley, Bethany. Who will then send me HER revision notes. The way you know your book doesn't completely suck is that you don't hate it once you've finished reading it a dozen times...

I also completed the proof edits for the first Rider book, DANGEROUSLY CHARMING (Mikhail Day's story) which will be out on October 4th. Just over four months from now! Eek! (Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?) That's the last of the work for that one, except a few giveaways and various promotional stuff when the release date gets closer.

You can see from the WIP Progress Meter at the top of the blog (work in progress, for those of you who don't speak writer), I ended up with almost 95,000 words. It will probably be more by the time I finish all the revisions.

In case you want a peek into my process, this is a picture of my White Board after I finished the manuscript.

You can see that I track my daily word count. In this particular case, I started writing on February 13rd (and did 1,500 words--my average is about 1,000). It took me the first two months to write the first 27,000 words, and then another month and a half or so to do the rest. I had a hard time getting going on this one, in part because the first Rider book tried to kill me. If you take a close look at the upper left hand corner, you can see that that one took me over seven months for the first draft, when my average is about four. OY.

In case you were wondering, the picture are the two main protagonists from Dangerously Divine on top (that's Gregori on the right) and the two main protagonists from Dangerously Charming on the bottom. Plus a few misc. notes about things I need to get done.

As soon as I finish the revisions for Elaine, I'll be starting in on work for my next Llewellyn book, A Year and a Day of Everyday Witchcraft, which is going to be a fun little 365 Day book of devotionals, spells, and whatever else I throw in there...

So, that's my update for now. Hopefully I'll be a little bit better about blogging now that I've gotten out of Deranged Writer Mode. Hey, it could happen.