Darlene's Digest

Word came out today that my publisher, Amber Quill Press , made the list of Romance Writers of America accepted publishers. This doesn't mean a great deal to the average reader, but it's important to me as a writer. I've received word of more epublishers folding this week and leaving their authors high, dry and unpaid. Having the RWA approve my publisher is a good sign, indicating the company is moving from the edge to the mainstream. It also means I'm now eligible for the RITA awards, the romance equivalent of a Nebula or Edgar, and that too is good news.

My second beta reader checked in today and said she found no problems other than a few typos. Most importantly, since she's a sailor, she didn't find any egregious errors from this sailor of the armchair variety. Whew! Now to finish my own read through and send it off!

If my lips are chapped I'm nearly finished. The last edit I do before I send a book off to an agent is to read it aloud under my breath. This allows me to judge the pacing and flow of dialog, and it catches some amazing typos that the eye just skips over. Time to invest in another tube of Burt's Bees and hit the books.

I know I'm done with the book now in revisions and edits because when I was walking my dog I began getting snippets of scenes and dialog from the next book (working title-- Babes in Breeches ). Oh, and speaking of working titles, I'm still mulling over alternatives to A Pirate's Treasure for the one I just finished. One reader suggested Going for the Gold , which while accurate, isn't quite what I had in mind either. Anyway, I've got some interesting ideas on where I can go with this next novel. I'm anxious to begin working on it, and if I can hammer out the remaining edits this week on Treasure and get it off in the mail, I'll begin research on Babes. And I'm just kidding about the title. But it's a good enough working title for now.

I read an amazing novel this weekend, The Necessary Beggar, by Susan Palwick. It's part fantasy, part futuristic SF, and utterly captivating. A young man commits a heinous crime, and under the laws of his land not only is he exiled, but his entire family joins him in exile. They're shuttled through a dimensional portal to another world--Earth, circa 2020. They're illegal aliens of the most dramatic sort, trapped without papers, skills, language or anything else that will help them survive. But survive they do, and the story of how this family adjusts, copes and loves one another is powerful and beautifully written. There's a lovely bit of romance in here as well, and I highly recommend Palwick's wonderful story of emigration and growth.

Heard back from my first beta reader today and she said she liked the story a lot and didn't find any major plot holes! After that, it's all small stuff like little edits. That certainly has put me in a smiling mood today!

There's a review of Samt Und Sabel over at Amazon.de. I ran it through Babelfish and got an idea of what it says, which was fun. But even I know that four out of five stars is a universal language in reviews.[g] If you read German, check it out.

I wanted to expand on my post yesterday when I put up pictures of my clean desk. Here are a few shots of my office. The large window looks out over the street, and you can see my muse's bed down in the corner in front of the bookcase. You also get a glimpse of the Dachshund of Doom gazing out at her queendom. The sword leaning between the two bookcases was a birthday present from my younger brother. My son said, "Other moms in the neighborhood get sweaters for their birthday. You got a sword. That's pretty cool." The red wall is for energy, and the other walls are a shade called "mellow ivory". The combination of colors works well for me. I don't think I'd paint the walls red anywhere else in the house, but it was fun to experiment in my office.

I know I should wait until I get back my beta readers' notes, but I just couldn't sit on this manuscript any longer. I even cleaned my desk this morning so I'd have a fresh space, a good way to mentally prepare. So I'm starting revisions, red pen in hand, and I've already found some wince-worthy typos. This is a good thing, I tell myself, I can fix this even before the readers get back to me. Of course, my fear is the beta readers will get back to me and say "Burn this manuscript at once!" But in the meantime there will be less typos.

Just sit on it and let it hatch I've set my manuscript aside for a week or two. Ideally, I wouldn't look at it again for six months, but I do want to get it off to the agent. Taking a break from it will help me look at it with a fresh eye, and be more likely to catch mistakes or find a passage that needs to be rewritten. But it's hard. I also don't want to dive right into the research for my next novel 'cause I don't want two different stories spinning through my head, so I'm catching up on reading the TBR pile, cleaning a little around the house (my porch looks fit for humans again) and assorted other small tasks that get neglected at the end of the book. Oh, and I printed out a copy for myself in Courier rather than Times-Roman. When I go back to the book, it will be easier to catch errors if I use a font that's different from what I've been staring at for the last 18 months. The remodeling continues, and so far, so good. No major crises. Ye...

Looking for a good read in German? Then look no further. Samt und Säbel aka Captain Sinister's Lady, by Darlene Marshall, is now available from RandomHouse.de. A perfect beach read for when you're winging from Munich to the coast of Spain for a summer getaway. Or, given the weak dollar, when you're flying from Berlin to Disneyworld. Tell all your friends who read German! Who want to improve their German! Who think it would be cool to read about Florida pirates and privateers, in German!