Anticipated Releases of 2016!

A rare photo of my stepsister Hope. She's not on social media (*gasp*) and so doesn't appear in my sharing. We became stepsisters as adults, though we knew each other in high school. (My mother and her father, however, did not know each other until MUCH later, so it's not nearly as weird as it sounds.) At any rate, as an only child for most of my life, I count myself privileged to have a sister now - especially one  I like so well. And not only because we share a deep affection for Starbucks.

(In a total aside, another friend of ours who grew up on the same block with us, now works at Starbucks corporate and invented the Flat White, which we also love. Great neighborhood, huh?)

This is the best part of the holidays for me - meeting up with the wonderful people who make my life whole, but who I only occasionally get to see.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Instead I'm to address this week's topic of 2016 Releases I'm excited about.

I'm a total fangirl of Grace Draven, both personally and professionally. Early 2016 promises to bring us the sequel to her brilliant novel, RADIANCE. Brishen and Ildiko's story will continue in EIDOLON and should be wonderful. I get to beta-read, so I'm feeling particularly grabby-handed about this one. Here's the preliminary blurb:

In a bid for more power, the Shadow Queen of Haradis has unleashed a malignant force into the world. Her son Brishen, younger prince of the Kai royal house, suddenly finds himself ruler of a kingdom blighted by a diseased darkness and on the brink of war. His human wife Ildiko must decide if she will give up the man she loves in order to secure his throne.

Three enemy kingdoms must unite to save each other, and a one-eyed, reluctant king must raise an army of the dead to defeat an army of the damned.

A tale of alliance and sacrifice.

I also love the writing team Ilona Andrews and have rabidly followed their Kate Daniels series from the very beginning. Their new Hidden Legacy series looks to be equally transporting. BURN FOR ME came out in October 2014 and we've been semi-patiently waiting for the sequel, WHITE HOT. Here's a fervent wish that 2016 will give it to us nao! I'd also love to see MAGIC BINDS, the next Kate Daniels release, but that looks unlikely and I wouldn't want to be TOO greedy.

I would be falsely modest if I pretended I wasn't excited about some of my own releases. The year will start out quietly release-wise for me, then we get a wham-bam triple-threat release slam!

April 26 will see the release of THE DEVIL'S DOORBELL. This is an anthology of some of my favorite writers of erotic fiction, all ruminating on the euphemism that the clitoris is the devil's doorbell. I've already read the stories from Anne Calhoun, Megan Hart and Megan Mulry. So much awesome there, people.

On May 1, Grace Draven and I plan to release our first duology, FOR CROWN AND KINGDOM. We don't *quite* have a cover yet, but the book will contain her story, THE KING OF HEL, and mine, THE CROWN OF THE QUEEN. Mine is the story of the aftermath of THE TALON OF THE HAWK, the final TWELVE KINGDOMS book, as so many have asked to have. Really excited for everyone to read it!

Finally, on May 31, THE PAGES OF THE MIND, finally will hit the shelves! This is Dafne the librarian's story, and launches the overall tale's next phase, THE UNCHARTED REALMS.

AN ORPHAN’S THRONE
 
Magic has broken free over the Twelve Kingdoms. The population is beset by shapeshifters and portents, landscapes that migrate, uncanny allies who are not quite human…and enemies eager to take advantage of the chaos.

Dafne Mailloux is no adventurer—she’s a librarian. But the High Queen trusts Dafne’s ability with languages, her way of winnowing the useful facts from a dusty scroll, and even more important, the subtlety and guile that three decades under the thumb of a tyrant taught her.

Dafne never thought to need those skills again. But she accepts her duty. Until her journey drops her into the arms of a barbarian king. He speaks no tongue she knows but that of power, yet he recognizes his captive as a valuable pawn. Dafne must submit to a wedding of alliance, becoming a prisoner-queen in a court she does not understand. If she is to save herself and her country, she will have to learn to read the heart of a wild stranger. And there are more secrets written there than even Dafne could suspect…

Should be an awesome year!

Why It's Crucial for Writers to Reward Themselves

This is my new wind sculpture.

It's by Lyman Whitaker, shown by the Wiford Gallery here in Santa Fe. This is the one we picked out in motion. That animation is a bit misleading, however, because the true movement is much smoother. One thing I love about this artist's sculptures is how effortlessly the pieces flow with the slightest breath of wind - almost as if they're moving on their own.

Magic.

I've wanted one of these sculptures for most of my life. Whitaker has been making them for 40 years and I've probably been looking at them nearly that long. We used to come down from Denver on spring break or long weekends, because my mother is an art nut. (I come by it honestly.) I remember being a little girl and staring up at the spinning sculptures in awe.

So, what happened is, I got my first advance check. Kensington sent the check for Book 1 (formerly called The Middle Princess, soon to be called something ELSE) of my Twelve Kingdoms series. This is not only my first check from them, for this trilogy - it's my first advance check EVER. Since my first professional publication in 1996, I've been paid for my work either upon completion or with royalties from sales. For those who don't know the business, and "advance" is shorthand for "advance against royalties." Kensington pays me ahead of time for the book that will eventually be published and will deduct my royalties from book sales from that money until I "earn out" the amount of the advance, at which point I get royalties.

It's a big step towards being Grown-Up Writer.

Those of you who follow my personal blog know I pre-spent some of this advance money when I bought my treadmill desk. I wanted to start off the new year on a healthy note, which has been working great. (At my lowest weight and body fat since early 2012, thank you very much!) When Agent Pam said she was sending my advance check (and made me tell her that she looked great in her new glasses first, which is another story), I realized that I intended to deposit the money and pay various bills with it.

Which seemed kind of wrong.

See, I've been working towards this moment - working pretty damn hard, in fact, what with the day job career, too - and it occurred to me that I should enjoy the reward. When I mentioned this idea on Twitter, a couple of people said that's the Christina Dodd Rule. She says every writer should spend his or her first advance check on something frivolous, in celebration. After all, it's a milestone event and should be treated as such. There will be plenty of opportunities later to pay bills.

So, that's what I did. Being my mother's daughter, I bought art.

Being a writer can involve long, tedious slogs of unrewarding work (see "since 1996" above). In fact, this week's topic is "How do you deal with writerly demoralization?" It's not an easy career - full of rejection and sometimes poor reviews and times when it seems Everyone Else's books are selling better than yours. There are long periods when nothing seems to happen at all. What keeps us going is hope and determination. The determination is the engine, but hope is the fuel.

Now, when I look out my studio window, I see the sculpture spinning - hope made manifest.