Busy week!

Source: Wikimedia Commons

This has been one of the busiest weeks that I can ever remember in the blogosphere. There's been so much going on that it's been even harder than usual to keep up, and this is the first week I've posted every day since the A-Z Challenge in April.

With everything else going on there were a few things I wanted to post about that I didn't get to, so I thought I'd just do a wrap-up post for the end of the week and share what I missed.

First off, Kittie Howard's new book Rings of Trust was released yesterday and is now available on Amazon and Smashwords. Congratulations to Kittie! Kittie is a great writer and I've no doubt that Rings of Trust is a very powerful story. And to make it even better, between now and January 15, Kittie is donating royalties from the book to the Wounded Warrior Foundation. So this is a chance to get a fantastic book while helping a wonderful cause at the same time.

In more book release news, Johanna Garth announced that Losing Hope, the sequel to her excellent book Losing Beauty, will be released on December 17! I read Losing Beauty and really enjoyed it. It's a dark and suspenseful read, and I thought Johanna's modern take on Greek mythology was very creative and interesting. I'm looking forward to getting back to the world of Persephone Campbell. Congratulations to Johanna!

The Writers for Readers project is something I've been meaning to post about for a while now. The wonderful Julie Luek at A Thought Grows came up with the idea after reading about next week's Cheers, Cavanaugh blogfest in honor of everyone's favorite Ninja captain Alex. In recognition of what a generous and giving community the blogosphere is, Julie suggested donating to firstbook.org in order to help get more books to children. As someone who loved nothing more than reading and being read to as a kid, this organization is right up my alley. If you're interested, you can read the details at Julie's blog here.

Last but not least, I just learned about L.G. Keltner's Beginnings Blogfest coming up after the holidays and wanted to help spread the word. L.G. is celebrating the first anniversary of her blog by hosting a fest. It's nice to have something to look forward to during the January doldrums after the holidays, and I know this will be a great blogfest. Click here to learn the details and to sign up.


It's been fun to have such a busy week full of good news and great events here in blog land. I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead! :)

Doing the Happy Dance

I took an unplanned break from blogging the past few weeks because I got wrapped up in working on revising and editing my novel Polar Night. This week, thanks in huge part to my trusted editing partner, I actually finished the final draft! So, like the kitty pictured above, I've been doing the happy dance in spite of my extremely limited dancing skills. It feels so good to be able to call my novel a finished manuscript instead of a work in progress!

I've now started dipping my toes into the query letter waters and trying to learn everything I can about the whole process. All I can say to that is yikes! I knew this would be intimidating, but it's starting to feel like writing a good query letter is going to be significantly harder than writing the novel itself. Each time I've started a letter I haven't made it past the first few lines before I just delete the whole thing and send it to the recycle bin.

But, I'm going to just take a deep breath and keep working on it, and I know eventually I'll have a letter I feel is ready to send out. I hope so, anyway!

I've also been catching up on some great books this month after being too swamped in April to do much reading at all. I just wanted to give a shout-out to three fantastic books I discovered because of the A-Z Challenge.

One of the best things about blogging to me has been the opportunity to meet so many excellent writers I might not have discovered otherwise. I've been making great use of my Kindle because of them! If you haven't already checked out these three books, I highly recommend them.

Losing Beauty by Johanna Garth

Johanna blogs at Losing Sanity, and her book is an intriguing and modern take on Greek mythology. This is Johanna's debut novel and I will be looking forward to more from her!

Provex City by Michael Pierce

Provex City is the first novel in Michael's Lorne Family Vault Series and I'm already anxious to read more of the series. The artwork alone is fantastic! Michael has a great blog at Michael Pierce Books.

Ripper, My Love by Glynis Smy

I first discovered Glynis' blog last year sometime, but it was one I unintentionally lost track of until finding it again during last month's challenge. I'm so glad I did, because I learned of Ripper, My Love as a result. A blend of historical fiction and suspense, set in Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel? That's a can't miss as far as I'm concerned. :D





Huge kudos to all of these great writers! I'm inspired by their journeys and I hope to someday be joining them in the publishing world now that I have my first novel under my belt.

I'm looking forward to catching up with my blog reading while I continue to do my happy dancing over the weekend.

Happy Friday to all, and I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead. :)