Suddenly News and Upcoming Publications

The original publisher for Suddenly, Itoh Press, is going to be going out of business in the next few months so Suddenly will be moving to Tea Rose Books. It will be undergoing major editing and revisions. I expect the new version to be available close to the end of the year. I'm really excited about this because this book needs some serious editing. It's a great story and I love rereading it, but I want to get if fixed.

I would be focused on getting Suddenly reworked right now, but I'm in the process of finishing my new adult novel, Standing Her Ground. This is a story about a young lesbian mother who stands up to her parents and their church when they try to take her son from her. This is not a romance, but it has an important message about not letting someone push you around. It has a little bit of sex ( of course) and I think a lot of young women will relate to Jodi Nelson's (the main character) story.

Also, I'm editing the first part of The Circle of Confusion. I've decided to publish this in shorts from different characters point of view. The first story will be told from P. J.'s point of view and start at the beginning of the first semester of college. Please keep an eye out for this story. I think fans of Suddenly are going to love following P. J. and Jamie's story through college.

Favorite scenes from Suddenly.

I'm going over some of the parts of Suddenly that I'd gone over in an earlier edit and making note of some of my favorite scenes, including this one:

I had stayed up late last night studying, and I was running out of steam by the time I got to my study period. I went to the library and found an empty table in a corner. I put my books down then laid my head down on my crossed arms. I was out in no time. I slept sound until I felt a hand gently shaking me. “Jamie,” a voice was saying. “Jamie, wake up.” I sighed and shifted positions. The voice chuckled. “Come on, Jamie. It’s almost time for the period to end.” I stretched but didn’t wake up. “Jamie. Come on, wake up.” I finally I raised my head and looked around. I realized that I’d been sound asleep, and then I saw who woke me up. It was P. J. I was mortified. “Oh my God!” I said, “What time is it?” She chuckled again. “You’ve got about five minutes before class is over.” “Oh,” I said sleepily. She leaned down close to my ear. Her musky perfume assailed my nose. She smelled good. “You might want to wipe your face off before you leave,” she said, her breath tickling my ear. What she was saying hit me. I had been drooling in my sleep. I wiped my face and there was a huge glob of slobber there. “Oh shit,” I said. P. J. laughed. “See you at the pep rally,” she said as she walked off. Now, I was really mortified. Not only had P. J. seen me sleeping, but she had seen me with drool all over my face. Oh my God!

*Does the girl in this picture fit your image of Jamie?*

Editing of Suddenly Coming Along

I've been hard at work getting Suddenly cleaned up and ready to be republished by my publisher. My goal is to finish it by the end of May. Yes, I realize that is right around the corner, so I have got to stay on top of this process.

I wanted to share this paragraph that comes from one of my favorite scenes in the book. It's during Homecoming Week, and Jamie dresses up as Amy Lee from Evanescence and this is P. J.'s reaction to seeing her.

“Nice,” she said. Her eyes raked over my whole body, “Very nice. Amy Lee, right?”

“Yes,” I laughed. “I must have really done a good job. You both guessed right away who I was supposed to be.”

“It’s the corset,” she said, looking at my boobs that the corset pushed up. Her eyes had a new look in them. It was more than appreciation. She met my eyes briefly and I felt like I’d just been touched by a flame.

 

I've been reading my first posts on this blog about Jamie and P. J.'s continuing story, and it has been almost as fun as reading Suddenly again has. Even thought the blog originally started the summer before their sophomore year of college, I still feel like I need to go all the way back to their first year of college and tell the story from there. I've had some ideas for twists that will hopefully have readers on the edge of their seats.

This project has been on the back burner for a while because Kayla and Lori's characters were not developing the way I wanted them to. I'm reworking those ideas. I would love to hear what you all think about the characters as they appear in this blog and what you would like to see happen in Jamie and P. J.'s lives.

Editing Suddenly

My publisher is letting me do some editing on Suddenly. There have been several complaints about grammar problems so I am working it over. I hope to have it done by the end of March. It's been great fun re-reading this story after going a long time not reading it. There may be some grammar problems but it is still a great story, if I must say so myself.

So busy and writer's block.

Life has changed a lot for me since my last post in January. My partner's mother has been moved into our house in October and we are caring for her. She is bed ridden and requires a lot of help.  My partner's oldest son passed away shortly after her mother moved in with us which caused a lot of trauma for everyone.I wrote a new story during NaNoWriMo in November that will hopefully get published in 2015. And, I've had writer's block with this sequel so I had to walk away for a little while to rethink it. I'm going to revisit this story later and hopefully finally finish this sequel.