Tuesday, September 07, 2004

So, I took a little vacation...

Caught up in the excitement of a long weekend, I neglected to blog on Friday (and yesterday). Actually, I neglected to do a lot of things this weekend that I'd intended to do. Like update my website to show Barnesandnoble.com as second choice behind RuneStone for buying my book instead of Amazon. Amazon has this quirky thing listed about my book that it takes extra time and charges to get it. So not true, my friends! Go to Runestone Publishing to get it within a few days and much cheaper. Barnes and Noble has it as well.

But anyway, sometimes, I think you just need to take a break. Which is what I did. I kept writing, of course. But other than that, I didn't do anything else. I watched the Monk marathon on USA. Gotta love his quirks. That show wouldn't exist if Adrian Monk could touch anything without a paper napkin and a wet wipe afterward. (Okay, that sounds kind of gross, but you know what I mean : ) )

Let's see...what else? Kerry of New Zealand, the person who won the ARC in the contest last month, posted an absolutely lovely review of my book on amazon.com. You can check it out here. My friend (and technical advisor), Ed, also posted a great review on Barnes and Noble's website, which you can read here. Thanks so much you guys, I really appreciate it!!! If anyone else has read and liked the book, please think about posting a review or comment on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Or, you can send me an email *grin*. I'm thinking about putting together a page for my website called "What People are Saying" or something like that. I'll only use first names and city identifiers -- you know, Stacey K. from Chicago or whatever.

So, I've also been thinking about other website stuff. It was so much fun for me to post the first three chapters of The Silver Spoon. I'm thinking about doing something similar. I just don't know what. I could post an excerpt of my mystery, Bitter Pill. It's not under contract anywhere (yet!) -- actually, it's not quite finished yet (still fact-checking and making minor edits). But I'm pretty comfortable with the first three chapters.

Kelley Armstrong does an eserial, where she writes a novella with new chapters twice a month. That would be a lot of fun, and I'd LOVE to do that. But I'm working a full-time day job yet and also working on my current project. Plus, whatever I'd write would likely not be in the Zara/Caelan-universe unless I:
  1. first checked with RuneStone (which probably wouldn't be a big deal, I don't think) and
  2. I wrote the whole thing ahead of time and posted it little bit by little bit.

The reason is when I write for Zara and Caelan, I write whatever they "tell" me, whatever shows up in my head and I do my very best not to question or analyze it any more than you would do any of those things in the middle of a friend telling you a story. Sometimes that results in some odd things, things that are usually cleaned up after a first draft. But in this case, I'd be essentially "publishing" my first draft. I don't know how I feel about that. And, it would have to be a prequel to The Silver Spoon, which means Zara and Caelan would not be in the story together. I don't know how I feel about that either! : ) Kelley, I think, gives people options about where they want the story to start and stop and then, based on how everyone votes, works from there.

Oddly enough, I'd feel okay with doing a prequel -- which is what it would have to be -- for Bitter Pill, a book most of you haven't even read yet! Perhaps her first meeting with Bristol? It would likely be the assistant swim coach dead in the pool story. I don't know. But then again, maybe it would just be better to post the first three chapters of Bitter Pill.

These are just things I'm mulling over. With time constraints and my weird paranoia/quirks about showing stuff to people before it's done (Adrian Monk's got NOTHING on me when it comes to this), writing something new specifically for my site may not be a practical option. But we'll see.

All right, I've rambled on long enough for today : ) Oh, one more thing, a HUGE thank you to my mom and all various people involved with getting me an invite to the BN in Peoria! I hope to be able to make there on September 23 for Local Author Night!!!

Hope you all had a great long weekend.

Talk to you tomorrow!

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