Dangerously Charming in TWO MONTHS!

You know how it seems like it is forever before the book you are waiting for comes out and then you turn around and it is almost time? Guess what? DANGEROUSLY CHARMING will be out in TWO MONTHS!!!!! Is it October 4th yet?

Dangerously Charming Prize Pack #2

Not quite? Well then, here's something to help tide you over.

I'm giving away a cool tote bag and a notebook (plus some bookmarks and such) to one of you lucky blog-peeps. Enter at will!

Tell me, are you excited about the Rider books? Or would you have rather had another Baba Yaga novel?

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.

Baba Yaga Book 3 -- Finished!!!! (Giveaway)

I just finished writing the first draft of the third Baba Yaga book, WICKEDLY POWERFUL. Booyah! This one was more of a struggle than usual for a number of reasons (including the serious side-tracking that came with my step-daughter Jenn's mom Jo having a massive heart attack in March) but it is finally done, done, done! I had to stop in the middle and redo the entire front end because it had Issues, but I think shaped up pretty well in the end. I sent it off to my agent Elaine Spencer at the beginning of the week, so now I just hope she agrees! (And that after I do whatever revisions she suggests, and I send if off to my editor Leis, she agrees too! Although even if she loves it, there will be more revisions.)

I got to see the cover for the book and OH MY GODS I love it! I'm just waiting for the word that it is okay to share, and then I will let you have a peek too, I promise! [I also got to see the cover for VEILED MAGIC, the non-Baba Yaga series book coming out in ebook form in November, and that one rocks too!]

Next up is the fourth book in the Baba Yaga series. The next three (in theory--I only have a contract for the next two, so we'll see) will center around The Riders, although the Baba Yagas will make appearances I'm sure. Do you want to try and stop them? No, I didn't think so!

Book four is going to be Mikhail Day's story. I'm still playing with titles (since the "Wicked" titles only work for the not-so-wicked witches). What do you think of LIGHT OF DAY? (With the following titles being something like DARK OF KNIGHT/RISING SUN or SUN RISING) Or do you prefer something that plays on the original Wickedly titles like DANGEROUSLY CHARMING? Inquiring minds want to know.

But here's the big question: Who comes next after Day? Do I write book five about Gregori Sun (the Red Rider) or about Alexei Knight (the Black Rider)? I can't decide, and I need to make up my mind once I start working on the extended outline for Day's book. (I'm doing some research and character studies right now.)

So here's the deal! Give me your answer to either or both of the questions (title/which Rider) in the comments here, and I'll pick a commenter at random to receive a signed copy of the Baba Yaga book of her or his choice.

Also, did I mention I FINISHED?!!!!!