A FRIDAY FUNNY

FREE BOOK FRIDAY

This week’s Free Book Friday offering is The Ex-Girlfriends’ Club, a Harlequin Blaze by Rhonda Nelson.

To enter the giveaway for this book, simply leave a comment to today’s post that includes the code FBF—for “Free Book Friday,” of course—to let me know you’re interested in the drawing. (U.S. residents only for the prize, please, but everyone is welcome to chat.)

Winner will be announced during our Happy Sunday post on…well, you know, Sunday.  Winner is responsible for contacting me with her mailing information—i.e. I will not be contacting you—so be sure to check back in or you might not even know you won! :whhhat (If prize isn’t claimed within 7 days, another name may be drawn or item may be tossed back into the goody bag to be re-used for a future giveaway.)

One of the hardest parts of an author’s job is the waiting.

Quelle surprise, right?  You’d think it would be the deadlines or the revisions or the fear of never selling another book.  And those are all there, believe me.

But there’s nothing worse than hurrying to plot a new story, work up a synopsis or proposal, rushing to send it off…& then having to WAIT to hear back.

Will the editor like it?  Will I need to make any changes?  Did I dot all my Is, cross all my Ts?  Is there enough sexual tension between the hero & heroine, & do all my plot points make sense?

At the moment, I am waiting—rather impatiently, I might add —to hear back from Editor C on the outline I turned in for my “Dynasties:  The Kincaids” continuity book for Harlequin Desire.

Is he taking an exceptionally long time in getting back to me?  Not really.  In fact, if I weren’t watching the clock like a husband timing his wife’s contractions, I probably wouldn’t be giving it a second thought.

But I happened to turn my outline in a full week before they were due, & I suspect the editors were waiting for all of the proposals to arrive before they started reading them, since the stories are so closely linked.  Which means I unintentionally created a full week of extra nail-biting waiting time for myself.

Yeah—way to go, brainiac! :ubermad

And I’m so darn eager to start this story that I really want to know if my outline is okay.  If it isn’t, I’ll have more work to do, of course.  (Fingers crossed that isn’t the case, since I’ve got my brain really firmly wrapped around the current idea. LOL)   But if it is, I can start writing.  I could be writing already!

But alas, I cannot do anything until I get the okay from TPTB.

To paraphrase Alvin & his chipmunk brothers, “Hurry, Charles!  Hurry, fast!”

For RWA members who are judging this year’s Golden Hearts & RITAs, today is the deadline for submitting your scores to the Romance Writers of America office.  (Consider that a Dungeon PSA. :winkwink )

For those of you who are Catholic, today is Ash Wednesday.  (Consider that your stern religious reminder for the day.)

So if those of you who qualify for either have been good Darlings of The Dungeon, I offer you some Gold Star beefcake for your excellent behavior.

Oh…& the rest of you are welcome to enjoy the view, too. :gotcha