Summer's End

Hard to believe it's almost September and my boys will be in school again next week. That's life, right? It flies past us at breakneck speed.

I received edits for Tactical Strike on Friday and they're not half as heavy as I feared they would be. I love it when that happens! My editor even liked and agreed we should keep a scene near the end where Ryan meets Candace's, uh...unconventional grandmother. It's actually a family anecdote about my grandmother, and ever word of it is true. When you'll read it you'll wonder if I'm lying, but I promise you I'm not. She was a character in life, and now I've made her one for real. I always promised to immortalize her.

My dad and stepmom are currently on a three month vacation to all the countries ending with "stan", including the "safe" parts of Afghanistan. Why would anyone want to do that, you ask? They're very adventurous. I'm not. I get my adventure by writing about what's going on in that corner of the world.

O_o

Hope my heroes don't think less of me for staying home. *g*

Tactical Strike is set to release sometime next March. I'll let you know when I receive the official release date. I'm about a third of the way through the draft of Jackson and Maya's story. It's pretty wrenching so far.

I hope you all had a fabulous summer. Any really great summer experiences you'd like to share with me?

Hitting A Wall

I'm scheduled to being edits on Tactical Strike (Ace and Ryan's book) next week, and have frantically been trying to verify little details about things in the story before I receive the manuscript back from my editor.

I have a couple of trusted sources I always turn to, including a retired PJ who has been incredibly sweet and patient with me regarding all the copious questions I send him. He's never condescending or disrespectful even though he knows that all this info is for a romance novel. I love that guy.

Because my characters belong to AFSOC, certain details are murky or unknown for security's sake, and I can't seem to find the information I'm looking for. And there's a reason for that.

Well. In my desperation to tease out last little bits and pieces, I tracked down a gunship crew chief group on Facebook and posted a couple of questions. Turns out that wasn't my brightest idea ever.

In hindsight the questions I asked were of a sensitive nature, and I never should have posted them in such a public forum. Long story short, I was shot down in short order. Hard. In trying to make my story as accurate as I possibly can, I inadvertently offended and pissed off the very people I admire so much and want to spotlight in my books.

I posted an apology (don't you just love Canadians?) and most of them seemed to accept it, but told me not to post any more retarded questions.

Yeah. Lesson learned.

So, in the end my books will be as accurate as I can make them, but please know they won't be perfect in their detail. Hope you'll still get a good sense of what these AFSOC folks do out there in harm's way.

Bagram Books

Summer's in full swing here, and it's been a busy one so far. The boys were in day camp last week and will be again next week, so I'm managing to carve out some time at the keyboard. Since I'm not a very fast writer, these "days off" from mommy duty have been a godsend and so far I'm ahead of schedule on my deadlines.

My editor is due to send developmental edits for Ace and Ryan's story soon, and I've just sent her the proposal (synopsis and first three chapters) of Maya and Jackson's book.

This morning I heard from Carina Press about the titles for the books, and it looks like they're going to be called Tactical Strike (Ace and Ryan's book), and Lethal Pursuit (Maya and Jackson's story). Woot! No word on release dates yet, but that's a long ways off yet. Will keep you posted. In the meantime, enjoy your summer!

Bagram Special Ops Series and Giveaway

I'm over at the Ex Libre blog today, talking about my Bagram Special Ops series and giving away a copy of Deadly Descent to one commenter. Mmm, all those yummy AFSOC heroes...

Stop by and say hello for a chance to win!

Beware: Writer at Work

I'm almost finished with revisions on Danger Close (currently in the process of being retitled). Right now I'm picking at the details and trying to work everything into the story smoothly. I want to show/teach my readers about what my characters do, but without making them feel like they're taking a class. Lol. I also started plotting out Maya and Jackson's story. It's gonna be a nail biter!

Baby Humpback

Kind of a sad day here. You all know how much I love whales, yes? And in particular humpbacks? I even went out on a whale watching tour in Kauai in hopes that I would catch a glimpse of one in the wild. Just before we turned back toward the harbor at sunset, we saw a mother and her calf surface, then their humps and flukes as they dove again. It was magical and was a big highlight of the trip for me.

Well, this morning, we had a something highly unusual happen. Here on the west coast we get gray whales and orcas (killer whales) in our waters. This morning, however, a lone baby humpback washed up on shore close to us, and died. This poor baby got tangled in a fishing net far to the west of us while he swam north toward Alaska with his mother. The calf's fluke and body were covered in deep lacerations from the nets. It was very sad. My aunt and I took the boys down to see it, not realizing it had already died. The boys had brought their pails to pour water over the baby to keep its skin from drying out. We were all very sad to hear it had passed away.

 Crowds of people were gathered around it, and a few people had placed flowers on its head. I hate to think of it suffering such a horrific death, frightened and far away from its mother, who must have stayed with it as long as possible. When the mothers give birth down in Hawaii and other tropical places, they don't feed for months, starving while the baby nurses and gains enough strength to make the trek to either Alaska or the Antarctic, where the mother can feed again. My heart breaks for them both. 

I was glad to see my boys were deeply touched by this animal's plight. I make them watch National Geographic shows all the time, especially oceanography or anything to do with whales. Big weasel came out with me on the catamaran in Kauai to see the humpbacks in the wild, so seeing this calf really hit home for him.

No Pressure

It's the start of June already, which means I have only three more weeks until my two weasels are out of school for the summer. It also means I have to get as much writing done as possible before that happens! Since I'm writing on deadline for the first time and have two manuscripts due August 1st, you'd better believe I found some camps to put the boys in. But they're cool camps. One is going to a Star Wars and a junior film makers camp, and the other is doing a space and junior scientist camp.

I've finished the draft of Danger Close (which will probably be retitled), and now have to put it aside while I do edits for a Callie Croix release coming out early next year (Covert Seduction). Once that's done, I'll be juggling line edits and copy edits for that story while I revise and polish Danger Close. After that I plan to take the first week of August off, to let some ideas percolate in my little brain for Jackson and Maya's book.I'm certain by then I'll need the break!

I also entered Deadly Descent into the 2013 EPIC Awards, so please cross your fingers and toes that someone falls in love with Cam and Dev's story. And, because I've been such a good girl and working so hard, I bought myself this pretty little Victorian jacket that I'm very excited about. I keep waiting and hoping that hoop skirts will come back in style again while I'm alive...