Busy as a Bee

I’m back from Lori Foster’s Reader-Author Get-Together.  Did you miss me?  😉

Now that I am home and am going nowhere until an industry conference in late October, I need to get down to business and write, edit, write, revise, write … well, you get the picture.

So, what’s on deck, you ask?

First, I need to get Prime Imperative back from my critique buddies. I know they are working hard — and will put me through the wringer.  I expect this.  What they received was a revised first draft, and I know it needed some good-third party critical eyes.  Once I have that intense revision done, it will then go to my publisher where my eagle eye editor is waiting to pick at it also.  After I go through her edits, then the final line editor gets to take another whack at me.  And then and only then will it get published.

Second, I have started and will spend the rest of the summer on the fourth SSI book, Storm Warning. This is Tweeter Walsh’s book and the story will begin with his soon-to-be lady love, DJ Poe, a former Marine helicopter pilot who will think of Tweeter as Andy and Devin Walsh’s baby geek brother.  She is in for a surprise because as we all know, while Tweeter is a very smart computer nerd, he isn’t a marshmallow. What does DJ stand for?  Well, only her momma gets away with calling DJ by her real name — and maybe Tweeter.

The above two books will be my main work product for the year of 2014.  If I’m lucky, I might squeeze in a between -the-novel’s book in SSI and/or a short story for Bria’s research assistant in Prime Imperative. One or the other, people, not both. 🙂  I’m thinking the short story will come first since the research assistant is named for my one critique partner and she wants her namesake to get her sexy on.  We’ll see. 😉

Of course, all the writing and revising only get done when  life does not intrude.  Since I am teaching several online classes this year, beta-reading and critiquing other authors’ books, and setting up registration for Bouchercon 2016 in New Orleans (World-Wide Mystery Authors Convention), there will be days and sometimes weeks where I’m lucky to write at all.

Picture me as a busy bee.