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.

The Higher Mission revised

I have revised my novel The Higher Mission and tried to address everything the acquistions editor from Champagne Books Group, Ms. Judy Gill, has asked me to do in her lengthy email.  I've probably not addressed everything but it took me nearly a month to do it using every spare moment I had.  I just sent it back to her today.  Also, I've heard from my Wild Rose editor and she will ask the Historical editor for a contract for me on my short story Help Sessions.  When Wild Rose reconvenes on July 9 after their summer break I'll hear from them about that.  I'll keep you posted on both of these projects.

Update on The Higher Mission

Ms. Gill from Burst Books came back to me in a week after I submitted the full manuscript of The Higher Mission and said the story has potential but before considering a contract I must revise it, changing passive to active voice, clean up my grammar and do some other things to it.  She said she wouldn't ask for a revision if she didn't think the story had potential.  So I'm feverishly revising the 300+ pages and am half way through on that.  If this flies then it will be my first accepted novel.  I hope that happens.  So far I've cut 4000 words out to tighten up the prose.  Again the image I've included is Saturn as seen from Iapetus which is appropriate for the opening chapter of this novel.
On another matter my short story Help Sessions is being considered by Wild Rose and I believe I'll get a contract for it soon.

The Higher Mission submission update

The submission of my first three chapters to Burst was on April 23 and I received a request for the full manuscript from Judy Gill of Burst on May 30.  I sent the full manuscript to her the next day and she acknowledged receipt of it the following day.  So now it is a waiting game again but I'm hopeful that this first hurdle has been cleared.  She said she read it "with interest" so I can hope.