Randomness.

Nothing too terribly exciting going on the last few days. I've been grinding through World Enough and Time, which broke 75,000 words last night. Today, I expect to hit 80,000. The closer I get to finishing it, the happier I am with the story, which is a good sign, I hope. My female main character was inching dangerously close to TSTL (that's "too stupid to live") because of the reasons behind some of her actions, but once I clarified her motivations, she moved safely back into the realms of a sympathetic, believable character. Not that I write stupid people, but she would have come across that way to a reader because while her motivations were clear *to me*, I wasn't conveying it properly on the page. Fortunately, I have my trusty, if bitchy and demanding, writing partner to help me sort these things and keep me from making an ass of myself.

And I totally didn't get myself choked up with the final 7 chapters...

So anyway, the story is coming along. I expect it'll be done in the next week or so, since it seems to be creeping up on the dreaded 100,000 word mark. As soon as it's finished, I have another project already in the offing, one that will most likely be the one to carry me past that million word mark. That project would be Nocturne, so titled by the Almighty Title Ninja.

In other news, the release date for Rules of Engagement is fast approaching, so I've been wangsting and losing sleep over that. This is normal. No cause for concern. Expect plenty more wangsting between now and November 30, and likely some after that too.

Rejections are trickling in from the last batch of queries, but maybe a full or partial request will find its way to me too. The full manuscript of With The Band was rejected, which was a bummer, but I sent it out the very next day to a larger press. So, we'll see what happens there. Fingers crossed. I still have two other fulls out there (Luke Boydston's Baby and Breaking the Rules), plus a couple dozen queries and a short story submission. Here's hoping for some happy news in the near future. :D

Eddie and I are going out again this weekend to take pics around the island, so expect another "Look! We live on a tropical island and you don't!" blog post in the very near future.

In the meantime, a pic of Tim Kelleher as a sneak peek of tomorrow's Friday Mancandy:
What's the theme for tomorrow? You'll just have to wait and see...