Checking in, Catching up

Posted on May 9, 2005 by Annie Rayburn/Carol Burnside

Sorry to have been so quiet lately. My life has been a madhouse of travel. My son graduated from college with a BA this past Saturday – a very nice Mother’s Day present. I had a lovely weekend with both my kids, but am happy to be back home.

Lets see … what’s happened?

Oh, yes. FKoG took Honorable Mention at the Laurie’s. Waiting for my packet to come back so I can decide whether to re-work the manuscript or chalk it up to experience. ::sigh:: Congratulations go out to Darcy Crowder, my CP, for her win in the Long Contemporary Category with Dancing In The Dark. Another chapter friend, Melissa Beck, took 3rd place. Great job, gals!

Writing has taken a back seat to life and travel for the past couple weeks. Now I need to make up for lost time. I did come up with a couple new ideas for books during my travels, but they may just have to wait on the back burner while older ideas are dealt with.

For now, I’m off to write and crit.

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Still counting

Posted on May 9, 2005 by Annie Rayburn/Carol Burnside

>18 days until Insight is available for purchase. I must work on promos.

HeatWave Romance has had P&F for 3 weeks today, and I’m starting to get antsy.

Just to give you a taste of Zeenie and Turk, here’s a short excerpt from their first date:

Inside him lay the knowledge of their rightness together, he and Zeenie. Ever since their brief meeting during her sophomore year in college, he’d known. If it hadn’t been for the rape and Zeenie’s titanium padlocked receptors at the time, she would know it too. He’d been in his senior year, looking forward to graduation and entering the work force. For weeks his libido raged out of control, drawing him to a life mate who, under normal circumstances in the Crainesian world, should have been pursuing him.

He’d turned to the myriad of available human co-eds ready and willing to sate his sexual appetite. Heady stuff, but he’d tired of never finding complete fulfillment. Only Zeenie would do.

The tap, tap of her very sexy, high heels on his hardwoods told him she had returned.

“What would you like me to do?”

If I told you it would blow your mind and you’d be blowing mine. He retrieved the defrosted chicken. “There’s a bag of prepared salad in the fridge, along with several other vegetables. Include whatever you like. I’m going to put the chicken on the grill.” Turk made the mistake of glancing over his shoulder.

Zeenie stood in the fridge doorway. Reaching to open the vegetable bin with one hand, she pulled on the hem of her miniscule dress with the other. She succeeded in keeping her butt covered, but the expanse of long well-toned legs had him staring. Would he ever know how it would feel having them wrapped around his waist, him buried deep within her soft moist heat? Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively, he forced himself to return to the heated grill before he did something completely stupid. Like that whole lip-lock scenario that kept teasing his mind.

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That subjective thing again

Posted on April 23, 2005 by Annie Rayburn/Carol Burnside

Okay, so I finally got my stuff back in the mail from the Great Expectations contest this week. I came in 5th. Not a surprise. Didn’t expect to final in the first place.

The thing is, my manuscript pgs were in front of and read by a Senior Editor at Harlequin Books. So natually, hers are the first comments I read. I got a perfect score on the Query letter. Yay! From her other comments and scores I deduced the following: Overall, she thought the descriptions were too much and slowed the pacing. She thought characterization was strong, but heroine’s motivations might not be strong enough to sustain an 80K book. The comment “very real writing ability” stuck with me, buoying me through the disappointment of hearing that FKoG wasn’t as “distinctive as it needs to be to sell in this competitive market.”

Well, pooh! How depressing.

Oddly enough, the other three judges thought the pacing was good, fast and an easy read.

Now what? Oh, yeah… the Laurie winners are being announced tonight. I’m not expecting a win, but there’s that tiny bit of me that wishes for even a 3rd placement which would get me over this sudden writing funk.

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