Adventures in Writing

Huh. Shying Away just got the lowest 'pro' level review any of my books have ever gotten. (yeah, okay... it's here.)

I wish there had been reviews posted at other review sites so I could get a wider perspective on it all, but I think I'm still pretty pleased with the book. It's not Dark Horse. I loved Dark Horse, too, but it's done, and I don't think it's a good idea to keep trying to rewrite the same damn book. I tried to write a sequel, even, and it ended up tepid at best. (Chris does not WANT drama in his life, damn it. He'll just adjust to whatever I throw at him).

Shying Away has gotten good reviews at Goodreads, AllRomanceE-books, and Amazon, so maybe I'll just have to be happy with that. It's not for everybody, but it's what I set out to write, so...

So, as usual, I'm stalking my new release.

I think this used to be easier, back before I knew all the different venues for surveillance and speculation. For Dark Horse, I remember that I watched the 'best sellers' cover scroll on the Dreamspinner website. And that was about it. What a rookie.

Now, I'm watching that scroll, but it only updates, what, once a day, maybe? I've also got a window open at Goodreads, one at All Romance E-books, and, of course, my hourly refreshment spot, AMAZON! Right now, Shying Away is at number two in the books>gay and lesbian>literature&fiction>fiction>romance subcategory. (I know, it's a pretty small niche. But it's MY niche, damn it!) And number two is excellent - I'm very pleased. But what if it goes up to number one? Wouldn't that be exciting? Well, it would be, except I need to go to bed in about an hour...WHAT IF IT GOES TO NUMBER ONE AND I DON'T SEE IT BECAUSE OF STUPID SLEEP?

These are the trials that plague me.

We won't even get into the Google Alerts...


ETA: 10:04pm, Eastern time, April 12th - Yay! It's at number one! I can go to bed now. And I'll worry about what rank it will be when I wake up in the morning...

ETA2: 6:15am, April 13th - okay, still number one (or number one again...who knows WHAT went on overnight!). Now it's time to worry about what happens to it when I go to work...

Just one week from the Shying Away release date - look for Aaron and Quinn's story on April 11 from Dreamspinner Press. You can see details, here.

Shying Away (working title) is done! It ended up over 80 000 words, which is longer than my stories have been since I started trying to stick to outlines, but I think it's pretty good. I'm back to the angst, which is fun - I do love my tortured pretty-boys!

I've got it out to my first beta, while I sit and try to forget about it, then I'll have another look before I send it out for the next round of review. Hopefully I can submit it in early to mid December, depending on how much revision is needed.

Now, on to the next! (Chris, have you met Ryan? I think you might get along...)