Release Day for The Little Book of Cat Magic!

It's finally here!*

The Little Book of Cat Magic is out in the world. I hope you're all as excited as I am! **

I love this cover!

There are so many things about this book to be excited about. CATS! MAGIC! Plus, it is my first ever hardcover, which is pretty cool. I have to admit, there is something bittersweet for me about this book coming out now, because my beloved Magic the Cat, Queen of the Universe, isn't here to help me promote it (for the first time ever since I started publishing with Llewellyn). But as people have so kindly said, her part of the book is like her last gift to me and my readers, so I am trying to look at it that way.

And goodness knows, the new kittens will undoubtedly try to be helpful.

Here's Harry Dresden, wondering if he can order himself a copy without me knowing...

And here are a few buy links, you know, just in case you feel like ordering yourself one.

Buy Links

Barnes & Noble |Amazon |iBooks |Llewellyn  

Here is the blurb for the book, in case you are wondering what a book of cat magic is all about:

Deepen the bond between you and your cat as you weave magic together. This wonderful and witchy book is filled with a wide variety of spells, charms, and recipes that you can use to improve the lives of both you and your feline friends. From finding and naming a new cat to working with him as a familiar, The Little Book of Cat Magic has something for everyone who loves cats and magic.

Learn about cats throughout history and the myths, folklore, and deities associated with them. Explore spells for living with a cat, improving his health, and grieving and saying goodbye to him when his nine lives have run their course. Enjoy crafts and recipes, divination techniques involving cats, unique ways to channel your inner feline, and much more.

*Llewellyn has them right now. Amazon and other places might be a little late getting them in because there was apparently some delay at the printers. But if you order it now, they'll send it out to you as soon as they get it in, and anyone who preordered them should get them within a few days.

**I would normally have a great giveaway up here today, but as I type this (on Friday night, actually) I am about to head out of town to Baltimore to say goodbye to my beloved friend Bethany, who is dying of cancer. Today is her 34th birthday. And when it came down to a choice between being there for my friend and her husband, or promoting my book, it wasn't much of a choice. So I promise I will put up an even more spectacular giveaway in the next couple of days, hopefully after I have received my own author copies and will have a couple to give away. In the meanwhile, I appreciate your patience.

Happy book day! I hope you'll share a little bit about your cats in the comments.

 

Gratitude Giveaway and Year's End Summary

Well...this has been a year, hasn't it? Lots of good things, and lots of bad, alas. But in the end, I am still so grateful for all I have. And especially grateful for YOU, my friends, readers, and fans. So I'm doing one last giveaway this year for no reason other than to say thank you for taking this journey with me. Thank you for buying my books, and for putting up reviews (really, THANK YOU), and for generally spreading the word and being supportive. Y'all make the hard work worth it. So I'm doing this:

Carried away? Moi? Never.

So, here's this year in review--briefly, because otherwise we'll be here all day.
Good stuff:
Well, I had two books out, which is great. WICKEDLY POWERFUL was the third Baba Yaga novel, which was then followed by DANGEROUSLY CHARMING the first Rider novel.

BOOKS!

Got to go visit my friends in Connecticut, got visits from pal Bethany and her charming hubby Jarrod, and my stepdaughter Jenn, and FINALLY met long-time author pal Alex Bledsoe in person at Robercon (where I also got to hang out with the fabulous Tamora Pierce, which is always a joy).

Terry and Glenn in Connecticut

Jarrod, Bethany, and me

My kid and her two moms (no, not THAT kind of two moms)

Alex, me, and the fab Tammy

Plus, of course, the tarot deck is coming out any minute, so that might end up counting toward this year too.

Mind you, there was a lot of not great stuff too. I lost Mystic and Magic's mother Minerva in March (wow, that's a lot of M's). Had to rehome little Luna, because she couldn't adjust to the other cats (although she IS blissfully happy at her new house and I get to visit often). Angus was sick for months with an eye infection, then Mystic got seriously ill and almost died. (They both got better. That definitely counts toward the "good" column.) I seriously hurt my knee on the first of April, and it is still taking it's slow time recovering, and then I got shingles (which are brought on by stress, so I blame the election, plus all that other stuff...). Plus, you know, life.

Overall, I'd have to say it was a pretty tough year, where the not-so-great stuff often overwhelmed the great. But I survived and have hopes that next year will be better. And in the meanwhile, I still have a lot to be grateful for, including all of you. So thanks! And now, I'm going to do one last giveaway for the year, just because I can. Maybe it will finish off a few other people's years right.

Here's what we've got! A Fire tablet, a set of ALL FOUR BOOKS (signed, of course), winner's choice of one of three book cover notebooks, and a Deborah Blake calendar for 2017 plus a broom pen to write in it with. Four prizes, four winners. Woot!

No, Magic the Cat doesn't come with the prizes.

Winner gets his or her pick!

No, Angus doesn't come with the prize either. But his picture is in the calendar.

As always, all you have to do to enter is fill out the Rafflecopter form below. You get credit for anything you've already done, like following the blog, or signing up for my newsletter. And because it is my big end-of-year giveaway, I'm opening it up internationally. There is no purchase required, although of course, if you want to give ME a year's end present and buy one of my books, or put up a review for one you read, I won't tell you not to!

Good luck, thanks for everything, and happy holidays, whichever one you happen to celebrate.

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.