I no longer change my blog template with my whims like I did in the early days but I did feel a need for a change in the header photo.  While the roses were lovely, I thought the San Antonio flamingos would be a nice change.

Besides tweaking my blog, I’ve been beta reading, dabbling (a little too much) with my fourth novel and entering contests, lots and lots of contests…anything to avoid editing my second novel so I can start submitting it to agents.  I think I am afraid of going through the cycle of rejections.  I trunked the first one after four query rejections, a partial rejection (a rejection that happened a bit further along in the process) and an “emperor’s new clothes” beta read.  I don’t know if I have yet done a good enough job “selling” Gayle.  I believe that given a chance, Gayle from the PURE tells a good story and her wry outlook on events make you root for her.  But I fear that nobody is going to give her a chance based on the 100 MPH flybys that the industry runs on.  She’s the underdog in her story and mine.  But I’ve entered her in the Daphne du Maurier mystery/suspense contest that a sub-chapter of the RWA is sponsoring.  I’m a shiny new member of the Romance Writers of America as of Wednesday of last week.  The beauty of the contest, assuming I make the 100 entries max cut, is that I get feedback on the synopsis (now shaved down to a mere 675 words) and the first 5000 words of the story from four judges.  Feedback is worth its weight in gold or at least the entry fee that I paid.  We’ll see.  Cross your fingers for me on that. Continue reading →