June 2010

Wow. All I can say is "thank you, what an honor," to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I'm one of three nominees for their Writer of the Year award. I'm definitely the most inexperienced author (here's a look at the nominees, under Mario Acevedo, the 2009 Writer of the Year). This was such a surprise--I was asked for a bio when they were considering nominees, but I thought my actual chances of being nominated were infinitesimal, microscopic, even nil...

May 2010

In May, we visited the biggest Ham (amateur radio operators) Convention in the United States, and I watched my husband go silly with glee. See, I'm not the only geek in this household. We also visited Michigan's Upper Peninsula, called the UP, and fell in love with Mackinac Island. No motorized vehicles are allowed on the island, only horse-drawn or human-powered conveyances. The weather was still crisp and due to a recent spring storm, we got to see the island when there were few tourists.

April 2010

April was busy. First, I was at the Pikes Peak Library District's 4th annual Mountain of Authors (here's the program in PDF). I was on the genre panel with three other authors. To my surprise, all the other authors spent their introduction time explaining why their books don't really qualify as genre (to be fair, one of the authors was self-published, so she really isn't a genre writer). But what is it about "genre" that insinuates "ghetto" and sends writers running for cover? Sorry, I'm not ashamed to say I write genre SF/Fantasy--because that's what I always wanted to write, ever since I started devouring the paperbacks in the drugstore. Too bad they're not there any more (the paperbacks and the drugstores).... but I digress. I also had fun at the Pikes Peaks Writers Conference later in April. Donald Maass's Fire in Fiction presentation was inspiring, as usual.

March 2010

Nothing much seemed to happen, but we did replace the wrecked Ford Ranger with another one (USAA insurance is awesome!), traded in two Mazdas for a Honda, had someone rip up the parquet in the entry hall and replace it with tile, while I worked on a proposal for three more Kedros books, started reworking the unpublished fantasy series, took two fused-glass jewelry classes, a Kumihimo braiding class, and a Viking weave class. Obviously, I'm indulging my craftswoman side (and I don't want to see another auto dealership for quite some time).

February 2010

Took time off from writing, and redesigned the art on this web site. I visited my sister and her husband in Phoenix and enjoyed the mild weather (see photo at right), while hubby stayed here and fought the snow and ice. That's speaking literally, because hubby was in an accident where he rolled my truck and managed to walk away without a scratch--on him. The truck was totaled. Needless to say, we're getting another Ford Ranger, after it protected him so well.

January 2010

I attended COSine again this year and even though it's small, I have a lot of fun (perhaps more so than at larger conventions). At right, I'm relaxing between sessions with my friend and critique partner, Robin. More COSine 2010 pictures are in the Image Gallery. As for my writing tasks, this month I put together a proposal for the next three Ariane Kedros Novels. I think it'll be a while before Roc makes a decision about the next books, however, because they'll want to assess how the first three have done. Sales feedback takes time in publishing, not entirely due to data collection (which, honestly, is crude and incomplete), but also due to the "long tail" of book sales.

December 2009

Because of Mem's funeral, I had to push my review of the Pathfinder copyeditor changes in to December. After that, we ran around the house cleaning and throwing away junk (or hiding it--which is good enough, right?) My sister and her husband, as well as my parents, stayed with us over Christmas. It's been a long time since my family has been all together for Christmas, and I had a wonderful time.

November 2009

Even though we had a busy month, all events were overwhelmed by the news that my mother-in-law passed away. It wasn't a shock, because she'd slipped into end-of-life hospice care, but we'd still managed to ignore the possibility. We also didn't expect to scramble for flights on Thanksgiving weekend, but that's what happened. Down in Louisiana, we had good weather until the day of the funeral, and then rain continued through the end of our trip. Anna Guyote was the last of her many siblings, and almost the last of her age group. In listening to my husband, his siblings, and his cousins, I definitely had the feeling we were saying farewell to an entire generation.

October 2009

October 6, 2009: Vigilante is on the bookshelves!

Ran myself ragged, what with signings, conventions, and the release party. Much of MileHiCon was a blur, although I remember best the panel where we considered whether paper books would be totally replaced with e-books (that question never goes away, does it?) Of course, I didn't think it possible that books would entirely go away, considering the sensations and memories I get from the feel of paper, the weight, and smell of books. In response, someone questioned whether a person who'd never experienced the sensation of a paper book, who had no memory of curling up with an old book on a rainy day, would care a whit about tactile/olfactory feedback. Hmm... what a loss, when you think about it.

September 2009

It's been a busy month, what with the RMFW Colorado Gold Conference, a signing, my birthday, etc. The conference was fun, as was the signing, because it happened during the last Monument Art Hop of the summer. If you live near Monument, CO, then I recommend getting to those summer Art Hops, as well as the outdoor concerts. For my birthday, we found a Sony PRS-600 Touch Edition Reader in red. It's candy-apple red. It's beautiful. And it has the feature I was waiting for in readers: a touch screen. This allows me to actually scribble notes in the margins and find them later (you can also flip pages by swiping your finger, but that's no big deal for me). The other features I like include the ability to load and work with different and non-proprietary formats, interface with USB devices, memory cards, etc. This allowed me to load Explorer (book #3) on it for my husband to read on his trip. He circled some things, put question marks in places, and now I'm addressing his comments. Love it!

August 2009

We had a great family vacation and get-together down near Mesa Verde, where we rented a house with gorgeous views. The distinguishing event of this vacation had to be watching my mother determinedly climb the ladders of "Balcony House" at Mesa Verde National Park. My mother hasn't been that athletic, so I was surprised she wanted to go on the tour--even after the guide warned us of climbs up sheer cliff walls and tight tunnel crawls (to be honest, we mistakenly thought he was exaggerating). My parents, both 75-plus years old, and my sister's father-in-law, 85-plus years old, all went on the tour. I watched teenagers and children start whining about climbing or crawling though tunnels, then clamp up when their parents pointed at our group. After talking with us, one mother turned to her son and said, "If an 85-year-old man can do it, I'm pretty sure you can." My mom did have difficulty with the last ladder (shown at right), but she got through it and I'm bursting with pride.

July 2009

The Basic Cadet (doolie) we're sponsoring caught the swine flu after arriving at the U.S. Air Force Academy, so he couldn't visit us on his one day off in early July. Actually, our sponsored cadet is really my husband's-sister's-nephew-by-marriage and in Cajun terms, he's family. It looks like he'll be okay and he's been given excellent medical care at USAFA, but it sucks to be him (heading to Jack's Valley for harsh summer doolie training, after recovering from a temperature of 102 degrees F). For me, late June and early July marked the arrival and checking of the Vigilante proofs. Most important, my first look at the new cover!

Going back further...

Here's the link to the historical page, where you'll see how I came to be published.