Works in Progress

Currently, I expect to finish the first draft this week.  Then it’s a quick edit on my part and sending it out to my beta reading/editing team.  I always go through the final draft before I publish.  In this case, the book goes to my publisher, Parchment & Plume, but the nice thing about small publishers is that they are quick to get a book up.  And I always try to hand in a polished up book to the publisher so the publisher has the least amount of work to do.

Fingers crossed I’ll have the links on where you can buy this in my next newsletter.

I have plotted most of this book out, so I now have a good sense of what I need to do.  I’m really enjoying the book as it develops.  It’s fun watching how the wager I mentioned in His Reluctant Lady that Christopher (the hero) told Agatha (the heroine) about–the same wager she exposed in The Tittletattle–play out.  I love it when I can bring something from one series into another one, whether it’s a character, a wager, or something else.  The more books I write, the more possible this becomes.

At the moment, I’m about 1/3 of the way done with this book.

This one is close to being done.  I figure I have a good 15,000 words left in it.  I’m very happy with the rewrite and am so glad I opted for this route instead of putting up the original (Ann’s Quest to be Queen).  You know it’s bad when an author wants to slap her own heroine, and after reading through the book again, I had to make the heroine a lot more likable in order to want to republish it.  It does have the same plot, but I’m adding more scenes to it (and deleting a couple others).  The good news is that I love the heroine now.

*****

Side Notes

1.  What to do about Madeline Thompson…

At the moment, I have a couple ways I can go, and I’m trying to figure out the best options.    One thing is that I can write Madeline Thompson’s story.  Madeline was the woman the stagecoach thieves were looking for at the beginning of Boaz’s Wager.  I do want to write it, but the question is, do I make it the fourth book in the Montana Collection or do I make it a separate “possible” series.  I’ve already decided writing series beyond 4 books is not a good idea.  The ideal series length is 3-4 books.

I had originally called this book Stolen and was going to make it part of the Mail Order Bride Collection I’m working on.  So the series would be Mitch’s Win, Boaz’s Wager, Patty’s Gamble, and the fourth book.  I’m really tempted to go in this direction, but I am afraid of making a hasty decision I’ll later want to change.  I might start working on it and see how it goes.

2.  I am still writing His Convenient Wife.

I’m trying to get away from making promised on when a book will be out because I don’t want to keep disappointing people.  But I am still working on it.

3.  About Sep (from Shotgun Groom) and Vivian and Hugh (from Her Heart’s Desire)…

I do plan to write their books, but I have no idea when I’ll write them.   But they are on the list of books I plan to write.