Marcy's Struggle

Marcy's Struggle was rejected for the contemporary line a time back so I've submitted it to the Vintage Rose line at Wild Rose Press. I had to change a few things to root it in the early sixties. Also, the reason I show the Lab Partners cover is because this character is taken from the novel which features Leroy and Jody called A Change of Heart. Leroy only shows briefly in this story. Marcy was a minor character in the novel. Ross, her love interest, shows even more brief in the novel. Since Marcy lost her bid for Leroy in the novel I wanted her to find romance and so enter Ross, the quarterback into her life. She's in graduate school working toward her PhD in chemistry. She must convince Ross that she's over Leroy but she must convince herself too.

A Change of Heart rejected

I have included the Lab Partners image here because A Change of Heart is the novel version cast in modern times for Leroy and Jody who are the characters in my Lab Partners story. I knew when I started reading the email from the editor that it was going to be a rejection. Almost without fail these messages take the same form. The good points are brought out before the other foot comes slamming down with the problems causing the story to be rejected. I've had so many rejections I'm not sure what form the acceptance emails take. Well I just refreshed my memory. The acceptance of Lab Partners took off immediately praising the story and offering me a contract. Thank you Anna even though you won't hear this as you are no longer an editor at Wild Rose. The problems with A Change of Heart were numerous with the same old thing about my using language and events that make the story sound like 1950s instead of contemporary. Also there was a lack of emotion involved so the reader can not feel it. I disagree but then my opinion doesn't count. I'm discouraged to say the least and it was suggested I not submit again until I learned the ropes on emotions and being accurate to modern day. I am extremely discouraged by this rejection and am at the point of giving up. Help, anybody out there. I need some encouragement. I know there are reviewers and my lady friend authors that like my writing. Signing at this point.

Photo Beauty off to good start

My new story at Smashwords, Photo Beauty, has had three downloads at Smashwords already and my first story at Smashwords, Small Is Beautiful, had four downloads after all this time from Smashwords, but I received $10.80 from them due to downloads via e-readers such as Sony and Kindle during the third quarter. That computes to 19 downloads via that mode for Small Is Beautiful. So it appears the distribution via e-readers is a big part of sales. Priced at 99 cents I get 56 cents.

At this point I have three stories out there being considered. One is my science fiction novel, The Higher Mission, one is my novel featuring Leroy and Jody at Wild Rose entitled A Change of Heart, and a short science fiction story to Pedestal Magazine entitled An Arm and a Leg. Pedestal Magazine is an online magazine which is free and they pay very well: 5 cents per word. I had to hold my story to 2000 words. I had to shave off nearly 500 words to attain that.

Release date for Beautiful, Inside and Out

I have a release date for my new Vintage Rose story, Beautiful, Inside and Out, at Wild Rose Press. It is February 15, 2012. The price is $2.50. I also heard from the editor at the Sweetheart Rose line who is assigned my novel A Change of Heart. Her name is Kinan. The editor who is usually assigned to my contemporary submissions, Vicky Reed, emailed me and said she was leaving Wild Rose because of health reasons. She has always been very courteous and complimentary to me. I'm sure the present editor will be too, just from the tone of her email to me when she informed me she would be looking at my novel in the next 3-4 weeks. Could this be it? I can hope so.

New story at Smashwords

As of today I have a new story entitled Photo Beauty at Smashwords priced low at 99 cents. It is about a small town fellow who has paid three grand to dine with a blond model he's crazy about. He has all her available photographs. Can Miss Gena, the New York model, be impressed with Dave? The link to this story is http://smashwords.com/b/99959 and you can read the first 20% (five pages out of 29) free. Already someone has purchased a copy. I purchased her photo from istockphoto.com just for this story. My lightbox over there has 14 photos, all of her. The story POV is Dave and he describes her via my writing based on this photo.

Today I received the images, various sizes for my new short story coming out at Wild Rose. View the image here. I don't have a release date yet but that should be coming down from cyber space before too long. I think it is a rather good cover, capturing the smarts of Bess, the heroine in the story. It does take place in cold weather so the head covering is appropriate.

A bit of bad news today though is the rejection of my science fiction novel by DAW Books. I immediately queryed Crescent Moon Press via email and see what happens there. I encourage my followers or anyone else to drop me a comment. My poor blog doesn't get much traffic that I know of.

Free Read Romance Story

I have a free read short romance story that went live today at http://www.read-a-romance.com/

The title is Ice Rink Romance. There is the option of voting for it in the rating system: 1-5 stars. Here is the link directly to the story. http://www.read-a-romance.com/contemporary_romance/ice-rink-romance/

Hope you take the time to give it a read. Their program is in place that prevents in mass voting so take your time in voting. I'm going to try to place the link in my sidebar as well.