Much Overdue Update!

My poor, poor neglected blog. I know, I know. I kept promising to set up a regular schedule for this and then time just slipped through my fingertips and before I knew it, months had passed. Shameful, I know. I debated giving up, but I'm a horrible quitter and I've been blogging for so long I hated to throw in the towel even though so much of the media world is now focused on the quick hits like Facebook statuses and Twitter quips.

I have both, but I still like my blog. Call me old school.

For a quick update - I'm toiling away at the second book in the BRIDES OF FATAL BLUFF series. THE OUTLAW BRIDE is out in the big, bad world and appears to have been welcomed warmly. A big thanks to all of you who have left such lovely feedback for my debut effort. Next up will be THE WIDOW BRIDE. This will focus on one of the other brides that took the train ride to Fatal Bluff with Kate in THE OUTLAW BRIDE. Faith meets up with Nate Thompson, who was also introduced in Book 1. This meet up throws Faith's world into a bit of a tailspin, but I won't say why just yet. Wouldn't want to ruin the fun!

After THE WIDOW BRIDE, we'll find out what happens to the last mail order bride on the train, Elizabeth. She has a backstory that was loads of fun to write and was rivaled only by her intended groom's, Tanner. I'm really looking forward to sinking my teeth into this one!

And for those of you who have asked me about Ed Devers and Garrett Bentley, not to worry! I have a book planned for each of them as well. As for those of you who have inquired upon the fate of the real Hannah Stockdale from THE OUTLAW BRIDE? I have something up my sleeve...

Meanwhile, I'm have another western historical I'm waiting to hear from a publisher on, so fingers crossed on that one. There is also a regency historical series that I am debating whether to shop around, or jump into the self-publishing pool. Decisions, decisions...and never enough hours in the day!

And in case anyone is interested, you can find me on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/kellyboyce1/  where I have a board for each of the series I'm working on filled with character pictures, settings, etc.

Enjoy!

I've been a bad, bad blogger

The waste of life occasioned by trying to do too many things at once is appalling. ~ Orison Marden

But I can explain. Really. I've spent the past few months with my nose to the grindstone, grinding away at revisions on An Invitation to Scandal.  Now, it is finally done and has been sent out to the editor and agent that requested it, and I am onto something new! Woo hoo!!! I've spent so much of the past 2.5 years doing revisions on previously written material I almost forget what it's like to write a brand new book. Even the new manuscripts I've written in the past few years have been NaNoWriMo books, which meant spewing it out in 30 days or less. To actually take my time (okay, 3 months as opposed to 1) will be a nice luxury.

The book that is up next is book 2 in the Brides of Fatal Bluff series, The Widow Bride, and a follow up to The Outlaw Bride. I'm looking forward to returning to the town of Fatal Bluff and see what is going on with the other two brides who were on the same train with Kate.

To help with my plotting and note taking, I'm using Microsoft Office's OneNote. I had been hearing about it from a few different people but hadn't had time to look at it. Then at our RWA Chapter meeting yesterday, Michelle Helliwell did a presentation, part of which was extolling the virtues of OneNote. After getting started with it this morning I can officially say I love it!  All my notes in one tidy little spot. Character pixs, plots, subfolders. It's enough to make a girl lose her mind. I'm big on organization, and I really haven't been keeping up my usual standard of late, so this will help big time.

In other news, I have become totally addicted to Pinterest. I expect I'm a few short weeks away from needing a 12-step program. On the plus side, I'm finding the visuals incredibly inspiring for writing and I'm creating little collage like boards for my books that have been a lot of fun. If you haven't tried Pinterest, I highly recommend. I've found plenty of character, setting and atmosphere type pictures. I've also found hoards of different recipes and workouts and humorous sayings. I've even built my own dream closet (that periodically makes me weep because it isn't my real closet).

So now that I have lifted my head up from revisions, I'm hoping life gets a little bit back to normal. Regular postings here. The website updated with new material. Back to regular workouts at the gym and training for the 10K race in May. I may even finally get my honeymoon pictures to Prague uploaded onto Facebook one of these days...

I'm Back...Again!!

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads
which sew people together through the years. ~ Simone Signoret

What can I say...it was a really busy fall season.

In my defense, I got married, went on a honeymoon, did a writers retreat, finished a manuscript requested by Harlequin and...um...probably some other stuff. Right. Anyway - that is all behind me now and I am determined to get back to weekly blog posts.

What am I doing now? So glad you asked (You did ask, didn't you? Let's imagine you did.) Writing-wise, I am revising An Invitation to Scandal to send off to Random House and re-plotting (for the 4th and FINAL time) the follow up novel to The Outlaw Bride, which is tentatively titled The Widow Bride. That one was hard. Every plot I tried to work up kept falling apart on me. Finally, at the annual RWAC Writers Retreat this past weekend, everything fell into place.

I'm also checking out some some different writing software. I have the Snowflake plotting software, WriteWay Pro and Scrivener, which one of my RWAC buddies suggested. It's in beta format right now for Windows, but so far I'm liking the look of it. I was having a little trouble with WriteWay Pro (my own fault since I didn't read the manual yet).

I'm hoping to update my website soon once I find a free minute and I also need to start working on knitting up some Christmas gifts now that I'm down to about two months to get stuff done.

Meanwhile, here is a picture from my honeymoon to Prague. It's an incredibly beautiful city and I'll write a bit more about the trip later, but I have to say this is a beautiful city and if you love history and/or architecture, a definite must see!

The Week in Review

"The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it." ~ John Lubbock

It’s difficult to come up with a scintillating blog entry when you’ve only slept a few hours, so I’m going to forgo the linguistic gymnastics and just give a brief update on what’s been going on.

The past week has been a busy one prepping for the upcoming release of The Outlaw Bride scheduled for April 18th. (Like that little plug? That’s as subtle as I get while sleep deprived.) But here’s what I’ve been up to. I ordered my bookmarks and ad design from Croco Designs and just received word from GotPrint that they are on the way. I also ordered business cards from VistaPrint and they too are en-route. I sent in my first sale information to the RWR and that will show up in May’s edition, and then I reserved space in the June issue of RWR for my ad.

I have a few blogs I’ll be appearing on (in?) the week of April as well and received a list of review sites my book will be available to through Net Galley.

Then, in the midst of all this, my author’s copy of the book came in (which I had totally forgot about!) and I loaded that onto my kobo, ooh’d and ahh’d over it for a few minutes and then realized I needed to come up with some contest ideas for book giveaways.

There’s a lot of stuff that comes along with releasing a book. It’s true what they say about the real work starting after you sign the contract.

I’m also putting the finishing touches on Salvation Falls, cleaning up a few things, before doing the final revision on Invitation to Scandal in time for conference. I’m hoping to get a little time before conference to work on The Widow Bride as well, but we’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to take 2 hours each Sunday to hunker down at the local Starbucks and write whatever I want. Yesterday was my first stab at this. I just sat down and wrote whatever came to mind and I realized halfway through the first page, what I was writing was the opening scene to a contemporary fiction story, Talking to Winston, that I’ve been kicking around.

Training for the 10K is coming along. My friend, Christine, took me hill training the other day and after 6.2K and a hill that I swore was never going to end, I crawled back to the office and questioned my sanity. Then I went out on Saturday and ran another 3K.

I’ve also been trying to squeeze in some knitting time to replenish items on my Etsy shop, At Knit’s End. I sold 3 items in the past week and a half and now I need to restock.

I’ve come to the conclusion, there are just not enough hours in the day, and not enough days in the week.

So Many Books...So Little Time

Choices are the hinges of destiny.
~ Attributed to both Edwin Markham and Pythagoras

I know…I know…I was yet again going to do the Writing Room revamp, but I’m not at the computer that has my photos so unfortunately it will have to wait for yet another week. Just trust me when I say that it looks fabulous. Or at least not as much of a disaster as it did originally.

This week has been busy. I finished off my revisions of THE OUTLAW BRIDE and sent them back to my editor. Then I started thinking – what next. I am so close to having AN INVITATION TO SCANDAL complete and ready to send off to agents it would be a shame to just drop it now and put it on hold while I work on THE WIDOW BRIDE (Book 2 in the Brides of Fatal Bluff series). But at the same time, I have my foot in the door at Carina Press, it seems prudent to capitalize on that.

Oh the conundrum…

In the end, here is what I decided:

1) Since I am so close to finishing INVITATION, I will work on that from now until end of October with a view to completing it and getting out the agent queries, then;
2) I will use NaNoWriMo to write the first draft of WIDOW. (I’m using this week to work on an outline for it.)

My RWA Chapter have our annual Writers Retreat in mid-October and we always do brainstorming on books we are trying to develop, so I will use that to help build the outline for THE SCANDALOUS BRIDE (Book 3 of the Brides of Fatal Bluff series).

I think that is the best way to use the time I’ve got to my best advantage.

I still need to sit down and try to figure out the plan for 2011, but I have a few months left to get that done.