Goals and how we got there

I came into writing romance by accident. It's a long story which I will tell sometime over drinks -- it's truly hilarious how I read my first romance novel. Suffice it to say, it was a Book on Tape, I was driving, and the narrator got to the steamy part -- I almost drove off the road, I was so shocked!! I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was stunned that such a genre existed. I immediately went to the library, checked out a bunch of books, and read for about two months. Then I sat down and started to write.

I guess my long term goals are (1) continue to have fun writing and (b) continue to be published. [Note that I mixed up my 1 and b -- I did that to see if you're paying attention.] I'm in the middle of a deep rewrite now, and it's not at all fun. I mean, it has to be done. I know it. It's one of those books where I said, 'hell, if an editor falls in love with it and wants me to fix it, I will, but it's okay for now."

Yep. You guessed it. And editor fell in love with it. Now I have to fix it.

I'm curious to see how this all shakes out once I have to start promo for my books. I figure I've got a little bit of time. Books don't come out until next year, so January is my Kickoff Month. I don't want to bore people too far ahead of time. I have no problem firing off emails to relative strangers and even schmoozing at National Conferences with people. Book signings? Not sure about that one. That seems to be a big setup for a Huge Embarassment. I mean, I'll probably give it a shot, but I'll have to see.

Of course, now that I'm facing a possible layoff in my Real Job, I may have a chance to write full time again (I was laid off once before and wrote one of the books I sold, and the other one that I'm doing rewrites on. I don't waste time when I've got it, that's for sure). I'm seriously thinking about getting out of high tech and going to work at the coffee shop. It's not that I don't love high tech work (and I'm good at it, I must say), but I'd like a change. I've been in High Tech since before there was a High Tech (yeah, that long). We'll see what shakes out.

Hmm. That seems to be my philosophy of life ... "We'll see."

[shrug] No use agonizing over it. What will be, will be [cue Doris Day singing in the background].

Hey, for those of you in the States (or who celebrate Stateside holidays), have a good Turkey Day tomorrow. And for those of you who don't celebrate Stateside holidays, have a good day on the Yahoo loops without us Yanks clogging up the airwaves.

J