Cover for Help Sessions

I received my cover for my Wild Rose story Help Sessions today.  I like the cover and emailed the cover artist to tell her so.  There is no release date yet but that should come soon.  I also heard briefly from my two novel submissions.  The science fiction thriller, The Higher Mission, doesn't have news yet on acceptance by the acquisitions editor but my editor who has read my novel through three times and used to be the acquisitions editor emailed me and asked a question about time dilation at a particular part in the novel.  Also I heard from Wings e-Press about my romance novel A Change of Heart and it is in the hands of the senior editor from the second reader and I should hear something by the end of the year.  Let us home good news on all fronts.

News on my two novels

I inquired with the two publishers where I have my two novels.  One publisher, Burst Books, has had my science fiction thriller/romance for three and a half months.  The other publisher, Wings e-press, has had my romance novel for five months.  They both answered me in the same day as I inquired.  The romance novel, A Change of Heart is now in the hands of a second reader.  My science fiction novel The Higher Mission being with the acquisitions editor has a new development.  The acquisitions editor has resigned but she asked me to send my manuscript again which I did.  Today, Sunday December 16th she emailed me with a suggested change in one part of it and said she would recommend to the present acquisitions editor acceptance on Monday if I agreed to the change she suggested.  I gladly agreed with a careful and tactful minor change to her wording.  Now it is the waiting game once again.  By the way, she will ask to be my editor but doesn't know if the present acquisitions editor will go along with that or not.  I hope that happens.  This is as close as I've ever come at gaining acceptance for one of my novels in my 37 years of writing.

New Smashwords Story: Runner's High

I have a new story listed as of today at Smashwords.  The cover is as above and is priced at 99 cents.  Cover is by Miss Mae using an image I downloaded from istockphoto.com.  This story is about Ted Stoddard who lost his young wife twenty years ago to cancer.  He never thought another woman would catch his eye until Hillary Hansen moved to town.  She captured his eye and his heart without even trying.  He despairs though because of their vast age difference.  He is 59 and she is 28.  When he joins the local track club she is assigned as his trainer.  Hillary gets on his case for harping about their age difference and reminds him of two couples in the Bible where the man is much older than the woman.  Will Ted muster the courage to tell Hillary he loves her?  What will her reaction be?
The web address for downloading this story and reading the blurb and description is http://smashwords.com/b/252442.
A word about my other Smashwords stories.  Small is Beautiful has had 91 downloads and Photo Beauty has had 95 downloads to date.  Both of those are priced at 99 cents each as well.

A popular ebook

This my most recent release via The Wild Rose Press, the vintage line has been my most popular story.  Since its release this past February it has had more down loads than all my other stories put together and in fact nearly double even including Lab Partners.  Thanks to all who downloaded Beautiful, Inside and Out.  I have another story via vintage line coming out sometime next year, hopefully early.  I've not received the cover or final galley proofs yet on it.  Its title is Help Sessions.  I do have a personal photo I sent to Wild Rose.  It may not be used but I'll attempt to display it here.
Of course it isn't a spectacular image but it shows the old days of slide rules and physical chemistry texts.

The Higher Mission submitted again

After the first revision of The Higher Mission was rejected because of continued grammar problems, I worked for a month on it again.  I consulted Strunk and White's Elements of Style at Ms. Gill's suggestion, my Harper's Handbook, and Grammar Girl on the internet trying to straighten out my errors in verb conjugation.  I went through chapter four of Strunk and White trying to correct my usage of the words in that chapter that we typically misuse.  I have submitted it again for Judy Gill's look at it.  She is the acquisitions editor at Burst Books.  At the time she received it she was on a boating vacation so I expect a reply no sooner than the end of this month.  She is very communicative and nice to work with.  I've done about all I can do with grammar.  If nothing else comes out of this I will have learned some grammar.  That's a good thing.

No word yet on my Leroy and Jody romance novel submission.  It's title is A Change of Heart.

Higher Mission revised still not right

The acquistions editor at Burst Books has looked at my revised The Higher Mission novel and I still have too many grammatical mistakes.  However, she says this doesn't close the door on my submission.  If I can correct the horrible grammar mistakes I still have a chance.  Beta Readers on the internet are way too expensive so I'm going on my own.  I'll see what a teacher friend of mine has to say about the first chapter which she has graciously agreed to do.  I knew she would.  She's very nice, name of Kathy, a grade school teacher and running friend.  Still no word from my Leroy and Jody romance novel.  It will be a while on that one.

Bad and good news, sort of

Being concerned about not hearing from Wings Press for six months about my Leroy and Jody romance novel I tried to figure out who to ask at their site.  Being unable to do that I expressed my concern and confusion to my good writer friend, Joyce Dipastena.  She graciously found the email addy and gave that to me.  I emailed my inquiry to someone named Pat and she replied in short order and said she never received my submission.  I wondered if they considered my story as a solicited manuscript since they don't accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore.  Pat said yes, they had asked me for it.  I sent it again and this time it didn't get lost in cyber space.  She said she would add it to the readers list.  How long this will take is unknown since they have a big backlog.  I have included the image from my short story Lab Partners because this is a novel about those characters only cast in modern times.  The segment of this short story is in the novel only modified as Leroy and Jody had aleady met in the novel when they are lab partners whereas in the short story they had not met.
Still no word on The Higher Mission, my science fiction thriller.  I sent the revisions back and Judy Gill said she would get to it soon.  She is a person of her word so I may hear within the next week.