Yup, that's me. Incognito. Hiding out in my revision cave. I've come up for air just long enough to let you know I'm still alive. I think. (I hope!)

Nothing new to report on the writing front. Just hoping to get through these revisions in the next week or so so I can get back to Shane & Hailey's story. I'm really starting to get into those two.

If you're around on Saturday, hop over to the Bradford Bunch. I'm guest blogging there. Still have no clue on what though. ;) Which reminds me I need to come up with a topic and get that article written.

Oh! And I'm back on my promotion bandwagon. Thinking, thinking, always thinking. What's the most effective promotional tool you've ever seen a writer use? Websites, blogs, bookmarks, myspace, book signings, book trailers...other ideas? I'm curious what's caught your attention as both a writer and a reader. Several years ago at the Reno RWA convention, Kresley Cole gave out "sexy water" in the goodie room. (At least that's what my good friend Piper called it). Basically bottled water with Kresley's sexy historical book cover as the label. I thought that was clever and different from the "standard" bookmarks other authors left out. Piper did too. She kept that water bottle for I-don't-know-how-long and kept rewashing it and reusing it. Every month she brought it to our RWA meeting. Now that's effective marketing in my opinion.

My editor sent me the cover art for Stolen Fury. OMG. It's GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, I can't share yet - copyright laws and all that - but as soon as I get the go-ahead, I'll be throwing it out for the world to see. My DH looked at it and said, "Whoa. That's hot!" I think he was shocked even though I'd told him exactly what they were going to do with the cover. LOL

In other news...Paty tagged me (grumble, grumble). Paty, I'm only playing along because it's you, dear.

Okay...six random things about me...

1. I've never been a "Beth". I've gone by every other nickname you can come up with for Elisabeth - Eli, Lis, Lissie, Elisa, Lissiebeth...but never EVER Beth. Don't know why. My HS choir teacher used to call me Beth all the time and I never responded. You'd think he would have figured it out. Never did. Interestingly, new people I meet don't ever call me Beth. They always go for one of the other nicknames. Weird. But good. Because I am definitely not a Beth.

2. I love yoga. Well, centergy - a class at my gym which is a cross between yoga and pilates. They keep asking me to become an instructor. It's tempting - free gym membership and all that - but I don't want to sacrifice writing time to teach. Plus, though I'm strong, I'm not naturally flexible like those girls who can do the splits.

3. I am a pasta-holic. Seriously. I could eat pasta all day long, three times a day. Of course, my body can't handle all those carbs anymore (sucks to get old). But I think I'm part Italian and my parents just don't realize it.

4. I met my DH in a ballroom dancing class in college. I know...awwww, how romantic, huh? LOL. I took the class because it sounded fun. He took it to meet girls (worked!). Interestingly enough, I picked HIM up.

5. I was a cheerleader in HS. Basketball (played VB and ran track, too, but that's not important). The hubby still teases me to no end about it because I am the FARTHEST from a typical cheerleader you will ever meet. Case in point - I was nearly kicked off the squad for being too "snarky". (Now you know where my characters get it...)

And finally...

6. Unlike every other writer out there, I didn't know I wanted to be a writer by the age of 3. Or 13. Or 23. Or...well...until I was 30, really. I always had stories playing in my head and used to make things up on my drive to work, but I never wrote them down and I didn't realize that made me different. (My mother has since told me that makes me odd). I didn't even consider writing until I quit my day job to stay home with my two kids. Then thought I'd go insane without something to do and started writing a book. Who would have known that near-insanity would be the start of something great?!

Okay...I have to tag six people. No idea if they'll play or not but here goes:

Joan
Linda
Lexi
Edie
Lisa (This is an excuse to get back to blogging, missy.)
Marissa

Ciao for now. (See?! Maybe I really am Italian!!!!)

This is a conversation I overheard my oldest two Gremlins having the other day while watching Star Wars II - Attack of the Clones.

A -(9-yr old girl): "Ack! They're kissing again!" Throws blanket over her head and hides, while mumbling incoherently to herself in total embarrassment.

B - (newly-turned 6 yr old boy): "What's the problem, A?"

A: "I don't like the kissing! Why do they have to have all that kissing?"

B: Rolling eyes while watching movie. "Anakin and Padme have to kiss to fall in love. And they have to fall in love so he can turn into Darth Vader. If they don't kiss and fall in love, he's got no reason to turn bad! Then there'd be no more movies! Think about it!"

*Sigh*...

*Big grin*

Does that just not warm your romance writer heart???? The six-year old boy gets it!

***

In other news...wild WILD weather here. Seriously. Last Saturday it was 75 degrees. DH got a sunburn on his neck and arms working in the yard. I got tan shoulders sitting in a tee and capris at the baseball game. Today? Snow. As in, not just a mix of snowy rain but S-N-O-W. My deck, yard, trees, cars...everything was white this morning. It melted pretty fast but still...snow? In April? In late April????? Wonky.

Ran 8 miles today. My feet hurt. My legs are sore. Have I ever mentioned my running partner is a slave drive? No? Let me do so now.....slllllllllllllllllllllave driver. To the max. After all this running I better look freakin' hot by the time we go to Hawaii in August.

(In case you didn't know, I'm training for my first half-marathon in June. Today was my longest run to date. I don't know how I'm going to survive thirteen. Ay ya ya...)

In other news...tomorrow my RWA chapter has an all day workshop, so I'll be there most of the day. Should be fun. I love hangin' with my gals. I really want to go to the Reader's Luncheon the Rose City Romance Writers are putting on next Saturday, but alas, it's not going to happen. That'd be two weekends in a row gone for writing stuff. At some point I need to go watch my two older gremlins play baseball.

Just for laughs (or shock, you pick), you should go over and read Gemma Halliday's post from Friday at Killer Fiction. Oh. My. God. I'm so thankful I'm happily married.

What's on your agenda for the weekend?

Last night was my RWA meeting. We had the great privilege of having fellow long-distance chapter member and SuperRomance author, Terry McLaughlin, join us from California for the evening. I can't say enough good things about Terry. She's one of those people you just love to be around - fun, witty, hilarious. When she talks to you she makes you feel like you're the only one in the room and that what you have to say is important (I love people like that!). She's involved in everything - national board for RWA, speaks at conferences and chapter meetings, was a local officer for years and a (very recent) past Golden Network president. Not to mention her stellar publishing record since selling only a few years ago. The girl is BUSY. But she still LOVES to talk writing as much as some of us newer to the business do - obviously, or she wouldn't have made the long trek up to the rainy Willamette Valley to join us.

The pic above was taken after the meeting last night. From the left it's me, Barb Cool Lee (also VP for the Golden Network), Genene Valleau (whose recent debut, Songs of The Heart, came out this month), and Terry. Terry's topic last night was voice - and specifically, what makes yours unique. And while she didn't talk a whole lot about craft, the one thing I came away with was that your voice is yours alone and worth fighting for. You can't change it to make others happy or in order to sell. Because your voice is who you are as a writer. You can change style, genre, characters all you want, but your voice is the one thing that remains consistent through all of that.

I LOVED hearing what Terry had to say, and for me it was perfect timing. I just finished my para RS and have started revisions, and one thing I've noticed is that the first half of the book - which I wrote before Christmas - has a very stilted form of my voice. I was trying too hard - trying to fit with what I "thought" a paranormal romance voice should be. The second half of the book - which I wrote all in the last month - is written in my voice. My fun, a bit snarky, lighter voice. It's me. And that's why writing the second half of the book was so much easier - and faster.

I've heard a lot of writers say they "knew" when they wrote the book that was eventually going to be their first sale. They just felt it. I used to think that meant they knew they'd found a cool plot or characters or something intangible I hadn't found yet. But that wasn't it at all. They'd discovered their voice. The them that shines through their characters and writing and makes their story unique and different. I felt that way when I was writing Stolen Fury. The writing, words, characters, story came easier because I let my real voice come through and didn't try to revise it to be something it wasn't. And I found that voice again when I wrote the second half of my para RS.

So, Terry, if you're reading this, I just want to say thanks. You gave me a light-bulb moment last night. One that - hopefully - will make my revisions (at least on the first half of my book) a little easier.

How about the rest of you? Have you found your voice? Are you still looking? Do you struggle to stay true to it (like I obviously do)?

How do you feel about the concept of soulmates in romantic fiction? Generally, I'm not wild about it - not in contemporary romances anyway. The idea that there's only one person you're destined for . . . it kind of negates the whole "free will" thing in my head. I think people make choices - especially in relationships - and romantic fiction is no different. If you're open to new experiences and people you'll find the person who's right for you. Does that make them your soulmate? I don't know. I think it makes you lucky.

The whole soulmate thing seems to come up more in paranormal romance than any other subgenre that I've seen. And ironically, I'm okay with it here. Probably because in paranormal fiction the hero or heroine are enough outside the realm of "contemporary normal" for me to buy into it. Yesterday I happened to be looking up when Kresley Cole's newest paranormal will be released and saw a discussion thread about soulmates. The title was "Soulmates In Romances - I'm Sick of Them!" Turns out the original poster was sick of them, but the majority of people who responded said if done well, they enjoyed them.

I found the whole discussion sort of fascinating because I'm in revisions on my para RS and I've taken a strange twist on the whole soulmate thing. Yeah, I included a soulmate element, but not in the traditional sense. To me it works, but it will be interesting to see what my CPs and agent think when they read it.

So how about you...do you like soulmate books, not like them, really don't have an opinion? I'm curious.

WIP update: 4401 words today, 15 pgs.

AND I'M DONE WITH THE WIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wahoo!!!!!!!

Whew. What a relief. I know there are a lot of things that need to get fixed, but at least the draft is finished. I love revisions, so this is where it gets easier for me. (I know, I'm sick. LOL) I came in right at 98K words - my goal was 95K - so I'm a little over. I'm not stressing though. I ALWAYS have to cut in revisions (I tend to get long-winded, especially with internals. Ay ya ya).

I'm off to stop ignoring the gremlins. (And get a nice stiff drink to celebrate.) ;) Tonight I hope to start on revisions after they all go to bed. Have to fix those things that need fixing before I forget all about them.

Man, it feels good to be done. How close are you to finishing your wip?

Making myself work today. Ran six miles with my running partner this morning and now all I want to do is sleep. I'm about to put Gremlin #3 down for his nap and then I'm going to work. Two more scenes to finish the wip.

Will report in later.

In the meantime, I blogged today about fairy tales over at my chapter blog. Go check it out.

I just got confirmation that my books have definite titles!!! (I'm a little giddy!)

The titles are:

Stolen Fury - Release date: January 2009
Stolen Heat - Release date: Summer 2009
Stolen Seduction - Release date: TBD

Oh, my gosh. I couldn't be happier! Stolen Fury was actually my suggestion (along with the whole stolen theme) but the staff at Dorchester came up with the others and I just absolutely LOVE them.

In addition to that, my editor told me she just saw the cover sketch for Stolen Fury and she said it's beautiful. It has (as she put it) a "sexy as hell" scene on top and a spooky cave scene on the bottom. I cannot wait to see it myself. It's exactly what I envisioned when I used to dream about my first cover.

I have ten thousand things to do today - it's Gremlin #2's 6th bday party - so I need to go get a few things done, but I just had to share.

Eek!!! It's real!

I think I'm getting sick. Sore throat, runny nose, general ickiness. I DON'T need this now!

A friend suggested gargling with salt water. Ew. It tastes like blood. I would never survive as a vampire.

I'm uber-close to finishing the wip. All I've wanted to do all day is write (the gremlin's 6th bday party prohibited it.) Of course, now that things have quieted down and I'm feeling icky, all I want to do is sleep. Grrrr.....

I'm off to try to write something before I crash.

My agent calls them "passes". "So-and-so passed on your book today." I've always found that terminology to be rather amusing. A pass just sounds like a gentler way of saying, "you were rejected".

Let's face it. Whether it's a pass or a rejection, the end result's the same. And it generally sucks. I've never been one to talk about my writing woes - esp. not here on the blog - but today I'm going to.

Last year my book *nearly* sold to NAL. The editor loved it - the characters, the romance, the premise - and sent it up to committee. We waited over two weeks for word, and in that time I chewed my nails to the quick, said every prayer I knew and promised God I'd do just about anything if my book would sell. You all know what happened - NAL passed. I was devastated. To get so dang close only to hear, "We love this but it doesn't fit with the other RS books we're publishing right now. Our line is full of dark and gritty RSs and yours is...well...not." Ugh. It was probably one of the hardest things I've ever heard. I went through a week of feeling bad for myself, then bucked up and dragged myself back to work. But it wasn't easy. And I asked myself over and over why I was bothering. During one of our many conversations, I remember clearly my agent saying (and I'm paraphrasing here), "I know you're disappointed, but the truth is, we don't want a house that only feels so-so about your book. We want one that LOVES it." My response? Whatever. I'd take whatever I could get. I didn't care if they didn't love it. Now though????? Now I understand what she was getting at.

In the past few weeks I've been a little overwhelmed - and a lot stressed - over promotion stuff. I remember reading one blog post about the topic and the poster kindly said today's new authors are basically thrown to the sharks. It's either sink or swim, and most end up sinking. Optimistic, eh? Over and over from pubbed authors I've heard that author promotion - while great and fine and dandy - really only takes you so far. That, ultimately, how your books do is dependent on what your publisher is willing to do for your releases, and how much they support you. And in the end, that goes right back to what my agent was saying about having a publisher that's only lukewarm toward your writing and books as compared to one that LOVES them.

Today I got some very cool news. My first book has moved up on the release schedule. Instead of late spring '09, they're moving it up to January '09. The earlier release was prompted because they feel so strongly about these books and they think they'll do well. My editor (I LOVE HER! Let me just say that now), sent me the tentative titles for all three books and I couldn't be happier with what they chose. I'm not ready to share them yet, but when I am, I think you'll be as thrilled with them as I am. And not only that, but she described what they want to do with the covers, and I get all giddy when I think about it. They're going to be AMAZING. But the really awesome part - and the part that makes me smile whenever I think about it - is how totally excited my editor is about these releases. She believes in the books. She LOVES the premises. And she's willing to go the extra mile for them.

There was a reason I got a pass (or rejection - however you want to phrase it) from NAL last year. I didn't understand it at the time, but now I do. I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason. You got a pass from an editor? You'll find out why later. An agent hasn't responded yet? There's a reason you can't yet see. You feel like your writing journey is taking longer than it should? Don't give up hope. Something wonderful is about to happen for you. I see this so often not only in my writing life but in life in general - in my husband's job, in friendships and relationships. It's easy to get down when things aren't going the way you want them to go. Have faith that good things are yet to come, and they will.

Have you ever been disappointed by an event only to realize later things happened the way they did for the best? Share with me. I'd love to hear your stories.

My Bad and Book Update

My writer's brain works in the strangest ways. I swear it gets me into more trouble than not.

Saturday night the DH and I went to a poker party. My running partner and her hubby (he's a lieutenant with the state police) were there. We were laughing, drinking, having a good old time, when out of nowhere I had a writing thought. I turned to my running partner and said, "Oh! I forgot. I have this scene in my new book that I need your husband's help with."

Now, being a smart girl, my running partner eyed me and said, "Elisabeth, I've read the scenes in your books. He's not allowed to help you."

Of course, it took me a few seconds to clue in to what she was getting at (I admit I was a little slow that night), but I quickly shook my head and - thinking everyone else lives inside my brain and knows how my frazzled writer's mind works - said, "No. You don't understand. I meant you could both help me by demonstrating. I'll just watch."

*ahem* Yeah. You can only imagine what happened next.

My running partner busted out laughing. Her hubby clued in on the conversation and became very interested. Conversation at the poker table stopped as everyone looked our way and stared. My hubby (on my other side) glanced my way, rolled his eyes and though he didn't speak I could all but hear him thinking, "What the heck is she up to now?" He, at least, knows how my brain works - how I can take off on a strange tangent in the middle of a conversation and come back with things like, "If you were going to kill someone and wanted to hide the evidence..." or "When you're in a strip club..." The others at the table? Ahhhh...not so up to speed on my brain.

Now, to clarify, I was NOT implying what it sounds like I was implying. The scene in question takes place in a gym. My heroine is working out and I need to know some self defense moves cops might know to drop someone to the floor. TOTALLY innocent. But alas...my bad...it didn't come out that way.

*sigh* Such is the way this writer's brain works.

In other news....I'm uber-close to finishing my paranormal RS. I can see the end in sight. Unfortunately, each step I take towards that end seems to push it that much farther out of my reach. But I'm ticking off scenes, and I think I'm down to seven. Or eight. Something like that. I can't wait to finish!

So share with me...how does your brain work? Ever find yourself having to clarify with friends and family? Or am I the only one who lives in her own version of la-la land?