A Year in the Life of an Author - March

This is the time of year--three months into the year--where I start to say to myself, "Good heavens, where has the year gone?" That and I start panicking about school letting out in about two and a half months. Yikes.

If you haven't been following this series, I am writing a monthly blog here at Tote Bags 'n' Blogs, giving you an inside look at the working year of an author. My first two recaps can be found here:

• January
  
• February

March revolved around two things: writing as many pages as I could and going to Philadelphia for the Public Library Association Conference (PLA). Like most trips, especially when you are going from one coast to another, you lose days just in travel--but I try to make my flights count. I spent the time doing the final read through of an e-pub version of a short story I wrote several years back for the Mammoth Book of Regency Romance.

The nice part about being an author is that a lot of your work is portable. I take notebooks with me everywhere for scene planning, and with the short story, I had it loaded on my ereader. Two cross-country flights gave me the focused time to get Cynders and Ashe ready for publication and I am happy to say it is now available on Kindle and Smashwords. Nook should be available this week.

So it was off to Philadelphia--where I spent a whirlwind day speaking and signing. Three different signings--giving away advanced copies of Along Came a Duke (lucky dang librarians!) and Lord Langley is Back in Town. So you are thinking--two full days of travel crossing the continent for one day of work? Yeah, I know. Crazy. But really fun. The librarians I met were a kick in the pants and I fell in love with Philadelphia. Loved it! What's not to love about a city that embraces its history on every corner. Loved, loved, loved the place. Blogged about my visit here.

And in between all this jet setting, I was writing. Full on, get your pages running, writing. I am now past my difficult part--every writer has their difficult part to a book, whether it be starting, editing or finishing. Mine is the first seven chapters--and from here on out it is a dead run to the end. By the end of Chapter 7, I find that I finally really know my characters and stories. Instead of having the story trickle out, it becomes a river of words rushing toward the ocean. In the late afternoon and evening, I map out with a paper and pen my scenes for the next day, and the next morning, I lay out my notes and just start story telling. I love this part of the book.

After months and months of writing, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and the first draft should be done in about two or three more weeks. And then comes April. But we'll talk about that next month.

Oh, hey! If you are bummed that you aren't a librarian and didn't return from PLA with an extra suitcase of books and ARCs, Mondays find me giving away books over on my blog, and if you are looking for a great deal on my new book, Along Came a Duke, the e-version is currently $4.99 on preorders.

See you at the end of April!