Baba Yaga Themed Giveaway!

When I was at Pantheacon in San Jose last February, I bought some really cool original drawings from an artist named Laura Tempest Zakroff. (You can find her website here.) There was a painting of a black cat that reminded me of Magic that caught my eye first, but then, low and behold, I noticed that she had not one but TWO Baba Yaga pictures!

The hut on chicken legs, and the Baba flying in her enchanted mortar and pestle.

Naturally, I got them both. But I wasn't being greedy, I swear. I'd intended all along to give one away here. I just kind of kept forgetting. (Despite the fact that I purposely propped them up on the counter where I couldn't miss them.)

Then one of my friends online told me about a cool graphic novel that she thought I'd want to read, written, ironically, by a woman with a REALLY cool name: Marika McCoola (with illustrations by Emily Carroll). Of course, I bought it and read it immediately, and it is truly fabulous--a modern fairy tale about a girl who meets the Baba Yaga, with a slightly unexpected ending.

The book is called BABA YAGA'S ASSISTANT (and here's a link, in case you want to check it out further).

When I finished it, I immediately thought: I need to share this! So here we are, with a Baba Yaga themed giveaway to celebrate the fact that I just finished the final edits on WICKEDLY POWERFUL, the next Baba Yaga novel in my series (coming in February). I couldn't decide which one of the pictures to give away and which one to keep, so I'm actually going to let the winner decide! Go ahead and tell me in the comments which one you like best. Or, of course, if you'd rather have the book (although you get both).

The prizes: the book and your choice of one picture

Doesn't this look cool?

So, all you have to do to enter is use the Rafflecopter form to chose the usual options. You can share the contest on Twitter, visit my Facebook page (and click like and "get notifications" if you haven't already). You get extra points for leaving a comment, and extra EXTRA points for leaving a new review (or a copy of an old one in a new place, like Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, etc.), or buying a book (old purchases don't count, although I do appreciate the heck out of them), any book of mine. Some options can be done on every day the contest runs. 

As always, no purchase is necessary, although if you want to preorder the new novel or the novella that comes out in January, Wickedly Ever After, or even the non-Baba Yaga urban fantasy coming out in November, VEILED MAGIC, now would be a good time to do so! 

*I'm afraid that this one has to be for USA folks only, since it would cost a mint to mail this stuff out of country. Sorry. But hey, my last contest winner was from Australia!!! *waves hi to Ang from Oz*

  a Rafflecopter giveaway


 

Meet Baba Yaga

 As some of you know, I have written a series (a novella and two novels so far) about an updated version of the Baba Yaga tales. The novella came out recently, and the first book will be released on September 2^nd. But not everyone is familiar with Baba Yaga, so I thought I would introduce her to you. Here—let me fill up the samovar with tea, and we call gather around the hearth fire while I tell you a story…

Most people are familiar with the standard fairy tales (many of which were written down by the Brothers Grimm, and then prettied up into the versions we know today…the earlier stories were, well, grim). You know Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, of course. But when I set out to write an updated fairy tale, I wanted to use a story that hadn’t been done quite so many times. There are some fabulous modern rewrites of all those classics, as well as things like Beauty and the Beast, but I wanted something completely different. I wanted, as it turned out, Baba Yaga.

When I was growing up, I loved fairy tales, and read as many as I could get my hands on, including a fabulous series of old tales compiled by editor Andrew Lang into The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, The Yellow Fairy Book, and so on. I’m guessing that it was there that I first encountered the Russian witch known as Baba Yaga. (I am of Russian Jewish descent; I don’t recall this being a story told at home, although my mother says that my grandfather would have known it, and loved Russian culture, so it is also possible I heard it from him.)

Unlike many of the more conventional fairy tale heroines, the Baba Yaga wasn’t pretty. Nor, for that matter, was she weak, or sitting around waiting to be rescued by a prince. If anything, she rescued them. Or, you know, ate them. Baba Yaga wasn’t a princess, you see—she was a witch. Ah, now you’re beginning to see why I decided to write about her.

The Baba Yaga tales all agreed on a few things: She was a powerful witch, and not to be trifled with. She usually appeared in the guise of the “old crone” type of witch, and sometimes traveled with a dragon named Chudo-Yudo. She lived deep in the woods in a hut on long spindly chicken legs, which could move through the forest, or turn its back to any passing journeyer. Unlike most witches, she didn’t fly through the air on a broom; instead, she rode in a mortar steered by a pestle, and used her broom to sweep away her tracks behind her. She was sometimes cruel, but could also grant help or wisdom to a worthy seeker. She was often associated with the three riders: White Horseman, the Red Horseman, and the Black Horseman. She calls them, “My Bright Dawn, my Red Sun, and my Dark Midnight.”

Then we get to the really fun stuff.

You see, there are deeper layers to the Baba Yaga than you might find in your average fairy tale. There are those who consider her to be much more than simply a witch. According to Judika Illes, who wrote about Baba Yaga in her books, Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses (HarperCollins 2009) and The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft (HarperElement 2005), the Baba Yaga started out as a goddess of birth and death, and only over time did she devolve into the witch whose name was used to threaten children who didn’t eat all their dinner.

It was in part what Illes wrote which inspired my modern version of an immensely powerful, neither moral nor immoral witch who was not exactly good nor essentially evil, but in fact, had the potential to give great gifts to those she finds worthy, or kick a little ass for those she does not.

“She is an underworld goddess who controls the forces of life and death…She performs miracle cures. On the other hand, according to fairy tales, personal encounters with Baba Yaga are often fatal; whether this was meant literally or shamanically is unknown. Either way, she is potentially very dangerous.”

And this:

“In some legends, she is completely solitary, but in others, she is a midwife spirit who is the mother of three sons or three dragons. Sometimes there is one Baba, sometimes there are three: three sisters…”

In The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, by John and Caitlin Matthews [yes, I have a lot of pagan/witchy/mythical reference books—and your point?], I found some more intriguing information about Baba Yaga:

“Although Baba Yaga has become the archetypal bogey-woman with which to frighten children, she is actually a primal goddess whose knowledge of the world is unequalled. Baba Yaga can also appear as a peasant woman of kindly disposition…she is helpful to women and a guardian of good order and behavior, punishing those who outrage it.”

And what became some of the major components of the story:

“Baba Yaga confers upon Koshei, the dragon in human shape, his immortality. She also controls the fire-breathing dragon Chudo-Yudo, who guards the Water of Life and Death. Baba Yaga’s house sits between the world of everyday and the Otherworld, where it acts as a guardian to the land of the dead.”

Yes, there are three Babas in my tales, each with her own Chudo-Yudo. Koshei shows up (looking, in my mind, a lot like Rufus Sewell, but hey, you can imagine him any way you want to). The riders are in there too, although they have traded in their horses for motorcycles, just as my modern Baba’s wooden house on chicken legs is now an Airstream trailer, and her mortar and pestle have been transformed into a classic BMW motorcycle. After all, even the most powerful of witches needs to keep up with the times.

My Baba Yaga may not be a goddess, but she is mightily magical, with strong connections to the elements. You definitely don’t want to get on her bad side. She might just let Chudo-Yudo eat you.

There is something to be said for taking ancient mythology and fashioning it into something modern that is easier for us to connect with—after all, isn’t that what many of us do with our spiritual paths, too?

For more information on the legends of Baba Yaga, you can look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga

For an interesting take on using Baba Yaga in a modern witchcraft practice, check out this great blog post by Gail Wood: http://rowdygoddess.com/2014/02/25/celebrating-the-hag-baba-yaga-the-hag-of-winter/ (and yes, she mentions my book—how cool is that?).

And if you are so inclined, you can find up what Baba Yaga has been up to lately, at least in one writer’s imagination. I hope you’ll be pleased when you finally meet her.

The Baba Yaga--guest post by Gail Wood

My writer pal Gail Wood put up a great post on her The Rowdy Goddess Blog about the mythology and spirituality of Baba Yaga, and how she and her coven were using Baba Yaga energy to help them get through the bitter winter. (She might have mentioned my name a time or two as well...) And since we've spent some time here talking about my Baba Yaga characters in the upcoming novels, I thought you folks might like to see it. Thanks for sharing, Gail!
(And no, that's not a picture of the lovely Gail, it's a picture by amazing artist Kinuko Y. Kraft of Baba Yaga. Silly people.)


This eternal winter, dubbed the Polar Express by the press, has turned into a polar depression for many people.  The persistent cold and sudden snow squall is peppered by blizzards, traffic accidents, and cruel, teasing almost-thaws.  It can lay siege to our hearts and our nerves.  How do we melt our frozen wills?  By celebrating.

Our circle celebrates the hag.  We laugh, we kvetch, we keen, and we laugh some more.  Two of our witches have decided to bypass the wisdom of the crone and, as they say, “go straight to hag,” because the hag doesn’t care.  She wears what she likes, she says what’s on her mind, and she does as she pleases.  If children cross the street to avoid the hag’s house?  So what, the hag views that with glee!  And that is what the hag has become for us:  a woman of a certain age who stands in her power and acts as she wills.
Each quarter this year, we are identifying a Witch of legend and lore to celebrate and explore.  In the grip of a cold, harsh winter, we celebrate the Hag, Baba Yaga.

There is no character in folk-tales or mythology who is so irredeemable and wicked as Baba Yaga. She is a fearsome, ugly old hag who lives on the edge of the forest. Her house is surrounded by a fence of bones and topped with skulls whose eyes glow red in the dark. The house itself is set on chicken legs and can move around with great noise and frightening disruption.

The hag herself is not a pretty sight. Her nose is so large, it is said that it touches the ceiling when she sleeps. She has iron teeth and is frequently called, Baba Yaga Boney Legs. While she is said to have no control over the pure in heart, she does have a reputation for baking young children in her huge oven and crunching on their bones.

She rides around in a mortar using a pestle to propel her and when she arrives a great winds begins and stirs up the world around her. When she leaves, she removes all traces of herself with a broom made of silver birch. Sometimes her conveyance is a huge kettle. Other times, she appears as a kindly old crone, assisting people in distress.

Like so many legends and stories of the mythic creatures and the gods, there is great power underneath. Who was she before these stories; and who will she become as we work with her. The author Deborah Blake describes her journey of creating a modern-day story with Baba Yaga in it. You can read it at her blog. I am very much looking forward to reading her first novel published by a major house–it now has a cover.

As Blake points out, John and Caitlin Matthews in The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures have researched the story behind the story of Baba Yaga, pointing that although she is portrayed as an “archetypal bogey-woman, she is actually a primal goddess. The mortar and pestle are symbols of creation and destruction, and her broom cleanses and cleans.

She inhabits the borderlands, those places between life and death, the places between this world and other worlds. She gave Koshei the Deathless, a dragon with human shape, his mortality. She also controls another fire-breathing dragon, Chudo-Yudo who guards the Water of Life and death.  She has fierce companions and friends.  She befriends the friendless and empowers the powerless.  She is one of those teachers you strive to meet her standards, because she hold the bar high and demands your achievement.

It’s obvious she’s a great witch of power.  I met her during a healing journey.  She was fierce, strong, and in good fighting shape.  She gave me strong words of wisdom for my protection and healing.  I’m working through a lot of uncertainty and sorrow at this point in my life, and she made it clear that she was at my back.  She joked about the chicken legged house, saying a lot of disruption and noise is not a bad thing.  She changed her visage from kindly old crone, to girl, to hot chick and back to fearsome hag before me; and then told me people see what they need to see where she is concerned.  She gave me some advice about some of my struggles and then said “I leave that with you to do or not do.”  Then she gave me a very fierce hug and was off again.

Baba Yaga

I am the wild, untamed nature of the world
I am the whirling music of nature
And the strange heartbeat
Of life and death.

I fly the world in my vessel of change
Propelled by creation and destruction.
I sweep from this world to the others
Clearing and cleansing the way.

I am in love with the unusual
Finding beauty and interest in the odd.
Wonder and curiosity move me
From marvel to marvel.
Shift your vision and you will see it too!

May the paralysis you feel about certain things be melted in glee, delight, and fierce determination

You can find Gail on Facebook too. 

COVER REVEAL Wickedly Dangerous!

I never do two posts in one day, but I finally got the okay to post the cover for the first Baba Yaga book, WICKEDLY DANGEROUS, and I just couldn't wait! 

I hope you all love it as much as I do! 

Meet Barbara Yager, the first of three Baba Yagas, and her dog (well, sort of, when he's not a dragon), Chudo-Yudo. And yes, that's the front of her classic BMW motorcycle you can see in the bottom right corner. Berkley did a FABULOUS job, and I couldn't be happier. 

So tell me, what do you think? Do you like it? Would you buy a book with this cover?

Deborah, who is over the moon.

A Few Cool Things

It is snowing again here, and although it was 30 overnight, then temps are now heading back down into the basement--it is expected to drop to the teens during the day, then back to the negative single digits overnight..for the next few days.

All of which has brought on a migraine (on a day when I planned to Get a Lot of Writing Done, dammit!), so I'm just going to post a couple of cool things to amuse you and then run away again.

Cool Thing the One:
To celebrate the upcoming release of the Baba Yaga books (September and December, if all goes well with Berkley), I found myself this REALLY COOL shirt on Etsy.
Baba Yaga Tee Shirt

 I'm not a big tee shirt person, especially because I only like them if they have V-necks or scoop necks (not the normal crew neck, which is much easier to find). So you can imagine how excited I was to find this one that had a picture of the Baba Yaga's traditional cabin on chicken legs.

In case you're wondering, the writing says "Turn your back to the forest, your front to me." That is the magical phrase that you were supposed to say to get Baba Yaga's hut to turn around and show you the front door. (And no, I don't read Russian...I asked the shirt's creator.)

I've been thinking I might give away one of these when I get closer to the book release. What do you think? Is that something anyone might like? They're cotton, and very comfy...

Cool Thing the Two:
I just finished reading my pal Alex Bledsoe's newest book in the Eddie LaCrosse sword jockey series. He Drank, and Saw the Spider is the fifth book in the series, and they just keep getting better and better. In fact, when I started reading, I intended to make a note of some of the best lines, and email Alex to tell him how great they were. By the time I hit about the 10th one, at only chapter two, I gave up. Yes, the book really IS that good. (Minerva didn't want to give it up so I could read it, as you can see. She is a cat of discerning taste.)

Cool Thing the Three:
I spent the last week putting together all my numbers for my accountant, so she could do my taxes. (Gah. No, that is NOT the cool thing.) For the first time ever, my combined jewelry and writing income actually exceeded my "Day Job" income. Mind you, that's before taxes, since once the government gets their huge Self-Employment chunk, it will be a lot less. And I'm going to have to pay out a large amount in taxes, which isn't going to be fun. And to be honest, some of that is a reflection of the not-so-large size of my salary for running a not-for-profit shop and not working full time. But still, as a concept, it is kind of cool. You have to take your wins where you can find them.

That's all I got, folks. Tell me something cool that's happening in your life, okay?

The Writing Life: January

I thought I'd do something new this year, which hopefully some of you will find interesting. I love hearing about the writing process with all it entails (I follow the blogs of a number of other authors), so I decided to add monthly updates so y'all could get an idea of what I'm up to, writing biz wise.

Here's what's happening in January. Let's call it "Juggling January"...that should give you an idea of what I'm dealing with!

The thing about being an actively working writer with multiple contracts and deadlines (as opposed to my earlier years where I was doing a book a year for Llewellyn and writing the fiction obsessively, but on my own schedule) is that you are never just working on one book at a time. In my case, I'm not even working with just one publisher.

I spent from December 29th to January 13th (that is to say, LATE last Monday night) madly writing the prequel novella for Berkley. In some ways it was easier than working on a book--it was shorter, for one thing (it came in at just over 19,000 words--the novels tend to be about 110,000) and because it is an intro to the Baba Yaga series, I had already done the world building and character creating. [The novella will take place right before the events in the first book, and should come out about a month before the September release, as an eBook.] But it was also tougher, because I'd never written a novella before, and wasn't quite sure about the pacing, or the amount of story needed for that word count. Also, I was coming off of the holiday rush at the shop, and it was tough to switch gears back to writing.

In the end, I really liked the way Wickedly Magical turned out, and it went off to Leis Pederson, my Berkley editor an hour ago, right on schedule for my January 15th deadline. Whew.

So now I get a break, right? *insert hysterical laughter here* I did take yesterday to work on the bathroom repainting project (more on that in a future blog post).

Today, I got the proofs for my 7th Llewellyn book, The Witch's Broom.

Proofs are the final copy of the manuscript before it goes off to the printer. It is the last chance an author has to catch any mistakes that her editor and the copy editor both missed (and there always are some...the more eyes on a manuscript the better). Usually there is another "final edits" step before this, but my production editor at Llewellyn, the fabulous Becky Zins, said that there were so few issues, she just added them as notes in the proofs.

Because of the way things tend to back up on the desks of overworked and overloaded editors (i.e.--most of them), Becky needs the proofs, with any changes or notes from me, back by January 23rd. Yes, today IS the 15th. Welcome to the wonderful world of publishing. So everything else I was planning to work on now gets pushed back a few days until I can work my way through the manuscript. Hopefully I'll get it done by the end of the day Monday the 20th.

After that, I will be working on the Midsummer book for Llewellyn--this is one in a series of eight books on the sabbats that will all be written by different authors and put out under the Llewellyn name, not ours. It is a small book (35,000 words), but has to contain specific things so they all match. This is what they call a "Work for Hire" project. I get paid a flat fee for doing it, rather than receiving an advance and then royalties like I would with one of my own books. But it should be fun to work on, and I am looking forward to reading the entire series. The appendix is due by the end of the month (since the books will be coming out at different times, Elysia, who is supervising editor on the project, needs to make sure that all the books will coordinate), then the rest of the book will take up February, and probably part of March.

Miscellaneous other writing stuff:

• I was sent an advance look at the cover for Wickedly Dangerous, the first Baba Yaga novel--it is too early to share it, since they will be tweaking a few things, but I can tell you that it ROCKS.
• I also had to send Leis some notes on my ideas for the cover of Wickedly Wonderful, the second book, including a description of the protagonist and some other things. (Because the books are coming out back-to-back, September and December, things are going to come fast and furious for both close together.) And an author picture of myself.
• At Llewellyn, they held the Launch meeting for my current book, which had originally been titled "Wisdom from the Pagan Path," but which Elysia has been calling that Paganwitchykitty book for months, since we knew we were going to have to change it. (Another author came out with a book with a title that was too close.) During the Launch meeting, where they discuss things like final titles, cover ideas, release dates, and such things, the lovely Becky Zins came up with the PERFECT title and subtitle. So this book (which I will be working on revisions for after I finish the Midsummer book) will be called....Everyday Witchcraft: Making Time for Spirit in a Too-Busy World. I love it! What do you think? (This is the one that is a follow-up of sorts to The Goddess is in the Details)
• Any minute now, the revision notes for the 2nd Baba Yaga book are going to land on my desk too. I'm just hoping they hold off until I can catch up on a few of these other things!

So--that's January in a nutshell.  What's on your "must get done" list? And what do you think of the new title?

How a Book is Made: The Idea

One of the questions authors are asked on a regular basis is this: where do you get your ideas?

After all, that's where a book starts, in that germ of a notion, a fleeting thought, the aha moment that sparks the birth of what will eventually become a finished novel or work of nonfiction. But as any author will tell you, that can be a hard question to answer. The process is usually different for every writer, and sometimes for every book; my ideas have come from dreams, or other books I've read, or something I saw in my daily life, or just one of those lightning flashes out of nowhere.

In the case of the Baba Yaga books, however, I know exactly how the idea came about, and since a number of people have asked me "How did you come to use the Baba Yaga as a character?" I thought I'd explain how--in this particular instance--the book process began.

For the professional author, it isn't always enough to wait for inspiration to strike. Those who write book after book often have to sit down and purposely work at coming up with an idea. In this case, my agent Elaine Spencer and I had sent out a couple of my previous novels to make the rounds of the publishing houses, and gotten back great, very positive responses, but no offers. [This isn't unusual, by the way. For every author you hear about who sells their first book within a week of submission, there are dozens more who submit manuscript after manuscript for years before finally breaking in.]

One of the advantages of having an agent is that she/he has a much better idea of what is happening in the market: which trends are hot, which have peaked, and which are so overdone that no one in publishing wants to look at anything in that genre. A good agent will also be able to pinpoint your strengths as an author, and make helpful suggestions for what to write and what not to write.

Don't get me wrong--the author has to write something she is passionate about, and writing to the trends never works (in part because publishing moves so slowly, the trend that is big today may be over by the time your book is written, and then comes out a couple of years later). But a smart writer will often confer with her agent about what will and won't work.

So Elaine and I had a great phone chat to discuss "what next." She said that she loved my witch characters, and would like to see me do another one that was completely different from any of the ones I'd done before. And we came up with a list of basic concepts that we both liked, including modern renditions of old fairy tales.

After the call, I mulled over the idea of fairy tales. The problem with the common ones was that they've all been written about numerous times. (Often by writers I love, like Robin McKinley and Jim C. Hines.) Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast...they'd all been done. I needed something different.

Since Elaine and I had talked about witch characters, Baba Yaga popped into my head right away--she's a Russian/Slavic witch who hasn't been used at all, really. (I went online and checked, something I always suggest if you come up with a brilliant idea. You'd be amazed how many times you'll find that dozens of people have come up with the same thing!) And since I come from a Russian Jewish background, I've always had something of a soft spot for her. But she is usually pictured as the "wicked old crone" type of witch, so I wasn't sure if there was a way to modernize her into a kick-ass protagonist.

Then I looked through some of my favorite reference books (which I use both for research and ideas), including a great book by John and Caitlin Matthews called The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures. The Matthews had some interesting things to say about Baba Yaga, including these tidbits: she started out as a elemental goddess, she can sometimes appear as a kindly woman who will help those who can prove they deserve it, she guards the gateway between the everyday world and the mythic Otherworld, and is associated with a dragon named Koshei who takes human shape, and a dragon named Chudo-Yudo who guards the Water of Life and Death.

BOOM! Suddenly the story was exploding in my head. I did lots of research, and took many elements of the original mythology and used them. For instance, Baba Yaga was known for living in a hut that moved around the forest on three huge chicken legs, and she flew through the air in a giant mortar which she steered with a pestle. She was sometimes said to have sisters, also called Babas. So I wrote about three women--all Baba Yagas, and all tasked with keeping the balance of nature, guarding the doorways into the Otherworld, and each traveling in her own fashion with her own Chudo-Yudo as a companion. Throw in some romance, and a few wicked enemies, and suddenly, I had a book series!

Barbara Yager, the Baba Yaga in WICKEDLY DANGEROUS (the first book, coming in September 2014), rides around in an enchanted silver Airstream trailer and rides a classic BMW motorcycle. Her Chudo-Yudo is disguised as a gigantic white pit bull. And she is definitely wickedly dangerous.

You can see that from that one conversation with my agent (who LOVED the idea when I ran it past her, by the way), and some brainstorming and research, I took an old, almost forgotten character and turned her into my Baba Yaga. I look forward to having you all meet her when the book comes out!

Any questions?

THE END: And There Was Happy Dancing

Yesterday I typed two of my favorite words in the English Language...
THE END. The 2nd Baba Yaga book (tentatively titled The Baba Yaga's Sister) is done. Well, done for now, since this is just the polished first draft, and will go through a number of revisions before coming out in book form late next year. But still, DONE.

Insert the happy dance of your choice here :-)

This book has been interesting to write, since it is an odd combination of a series novel with completely new characters and settings, but the same basic world set-up. It actually got off to a slow-ish start, as I was trying to find my way, but apparently then it Ate My Brain, because when I looked at my whiteboard, where I track my daily word count [I'll put up a picture later, when I have more time] I discovered that somehow--don't ask me how, I have no idea--I wrote 65,432 words in July. Yoinks! The one time I did NANOWRIMO, where you are supposed to write 50,000 words in a month, I barely made it through, and swore never to attempt it again. So, well, there's that.

[Honestly, I think that part of it is that I was in so much pain from my dental stuff, I literally wrote to put myself in a different world. I am not, however, suggesting using dental torture as a writing too.]

Mind you, I'm assuming that my writing that fast means that there will probably be more editing down the road than usual. I do a polish on the previous day's writing before I start each new day, so my so-called first draft is really quite neat.But I'm sure I  missed things in the rush.

The book has now gone off to Elaine, my agent, and a couple of first readers, who will all very kindly tell me what's wrong with it, so I can make it all shiny before sending it off to my editor at Berkley.

Of course, I now get to go back and do the edits I got from Leis at Berkley for the first BABA book. But still...

THE END! DONE! HAPPY DANCE!!!!!

Big BIG News! (Yes THAT Big News!)

In case you wondered what Magic the Cat was looking so secretive about this morning...

I have a two book deal for my novel, THE BABA YAGA, and it's sequel, with Berkley Publishing!

Yes, there is some major happy dancing going on at my house.

As most of you know, I wrote my 1st book for Llewellyn in 2005 and it came out in 2007. Six other books on witchcraft followed, including THE WITCH'S BROOM, which will be out in about a year. During this time, I also wrote seven novels. I spent a couple of years polishing the first one, then two years submitting to agents. And being rejected, over and over again, until happily, I signed with the fabulous Elaine Spencer of The Knight Agency. That was three years, one month, and 4 days ago. Not that anyone's counting. (Ahem.) In those three years, we sent out four novels. And they were rejected, over and over again. Usually with absolutely great rejections that praised my writing. But still. Book four, which went out in mid-January, was a modern fairy tale/fantasy romance called THE BABA YAGA.

And thankfully, editor Leis Pedersen at Berkley loved it! (And the idea for the next book in the series.)

 

  

More happy dancing.

The reason I mentioned all of this, rather than just shouting

I FINALLY SOLD A NOVEL, WHOO HOO!!!!

(Although there is a little bit of that) is to say to those of you who are still out there trying to get published...

don't give up! Some day it will happen for you too! And we'll all join you in doing the happy dance too.

Did I mention YAY I FINALLY SOLD A NOVEL (well two)?!

I owe huge thanks to Elaine (YAY #AgentWin). But also to my many writer pals who have encouraged and mentored me along the way--they made the journey a lot more fun and contributed to my ending up here.

So, what do y'all think I should do to celebrate? I'm thinking some kind of giveaway, so everyone can celebrate with me. Because, you know
I FINALLY SOLD A NOVEL! WHOOOOO HOOOOOO!