Black Rose Writing

It's been too long since I've gotten an update up; although this is not for lack of material.  Middle of March Nina and I finished off the first draft of “A Fire is Woken”, the second book in the “Wings of Fire” series.  It's good to have the first draft done, but I'm already ready to edit and fill in the holes that we missed first time around.

The finished manuscript is 130,000 words—far too long for any publisher to consider it unedited.  Until we start querying, though, we intend to take nothing out that we don't want to.  The book is very complete, and it spans four years!  To compress it will be a hard, and painful, process.  There was some doubt when we first finished as to whether the book was too slow and had too many endings, but a read-through has assured us that it moves very rapidly!

Which is very exciting in and of itself.  I would have to say that I feel “A Fire is Woken” has more quality than “Through a Rain of Fire”.

In other news, we've had another press, Black Rose Writing, interested in the novel.  Some looking into the background of the press, however, shows that they've been known to be dishonest in the past.  Also, they're on both Writers Beware List and Publishers Beware List.  Even if we could make a go of it, it would hardly be a publishing credit!  In fact, much to the contrary...

Also, they are very little help with the marketing aspect.  The author seems to have to do it all themselves.  We feel that we'd do better to go with a press like OkeTarra that would pay us 30% of royalties rather than Black Rose Writing that would give us 10% if that's the kind of the service we're going to get...

I rather liked the look of Vintage Romance Publishing, but they opened for spring submissions on April First and I saw that they only take manuscripts under 75,000 words; and “Through a Rain of Fire” is 95,000 words.  It looks like OkeTarra will be our next query.  They're POD (Publish on Demand) but they have a good reputation, and that has to count for something.

So...that's our newest endeavor!

A Fire is Woken in progress!

Progress update on A FIRE IS WOKEN.

Nina and I have been working very hard on it over the past few days and have now gotten to the stage where we're starting to put the pieces together.  Much too much of the book I wrote in advance...long before we actually got to the scenes.  Over the past few days I have written some 10,000 words, which has allowed me to put another 10,000 words together into a readable manuscript!  It's amazing to watch the book come together.

I'd have to say that with this addition to the manuscript I'm well over two thirds of the way through the novel.

Both Nina and I feel that we're outgrowing the book, which is, ultimately, pretty sweet.  Both of us have begun to delve deeper into darker writing, so sometimes keeping up the sweetness of the novel.

The goal is to have it finished by the end of February, and right now I think we're on track to make the goal.  It'll be wonderful to have the novel done.  In one way I think I'm going to miss it and I'm going to miss the characters, but.   It'll be amazing to have it done.

And ultimately I'm ready to have BOTH of the first two books published.  It's almost like I'm out of editing mode and into marketing mode.  Almost like I can detach myself from the books now...

Even if we haven't finished the second one.  ;)

Fun stuff, all of it.  You can all expect to have more updates forthcoming!