I am working on and off with five (okay six) stories at the moment.  Now, it’s not as impressive as it sounds.  I hit some patches where I’m not sure where to go next in the story, so I’ll try to wade through with a hundred or two words to see if I can get “jump started” to keep going.  A hundred words only takes 5-10 minutes, so we’re not talking a huge amount of time.  Meanwhile, the stories that are easier to work through, I devote more time and attention to until I hit rough patches in one or two of those.  Then I do the same hundred word thing for those stories.  Sooner or later, the rough patch passes and I’m able to get more words in for the day.  Having more than two stories (I like 3-5) at a time to choose from helps me.  And you know, even a hundred or two words a day adds up nicely.  😀

However, when I’m editing, I might work on one other story (two tops) during that period.  At the moment, I’m free of editing and can devote all my time to creative endeavors.

I’m now over halfway through A Most Unsuitable Earl.  If all goes well, I’ll have this done before November 8 when I am due to head out to the conference in Kansas City.  So I think I can have this out around Christmas.  *fingers crossed*  If I do, this will be my 28 romance!  My current goal is to reach 30.  After that, 40.

Anyway, everything is going along great with this book.  I’m really enjoying this one.  The hero and heroine are so funny together.  😀  And it helps when the father-in-law keeps giving the hero grief…in a funny way, of course.

I hope to have a couple samples up pretty soon, an “inspiration for the book” post, and (if all goes well) a character interview or two.  But first, I’ll discuss Loving Eliza which is already scheduled for this Sunday and Monday.

I’m also halfway through Mitch’s Win, but I’ve hit a rough patch and have had to cut back to 100 words a day on it until I get the rough patch resolved.   I also need to write a book proposal for it that will be critiqued at the conference in November by someone in the publishing industry.  I haven’t done a book proposal since 2009, so I had to do some research and dust off the cobwebs in my brain that used to do the query and synopsis thing.  Two things I love about self-publishing (besides full control of the story) is making my own covers and crossing over characters from one series into another.  I’m not sure I can go through and put Mitch’s Win with a publisher because I’d lose that control I’ve enjoyed up to this point.  Something in the back of my mind tells me I need to pair Boaz (Mitch’s brother) with one of Dave and Mary’s children.  That’s what is making me think I need to self-publish it.

But I still feel compelled to get feedback from those in the industry to get a feel for how things have changed since 2009.  I do like to keep abreast on trends in publishing.   I didn’t go into self-publishing because I had no other option.  I went into it because it seemed to be the best way I could keep the story I wanted to tell the way it was meant to be told.

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Since this post got too long, I’ll have to add Part 2 tomorrow.  I have a lot of other things going on I’d like to share.  😀