It's been a weird few weeks.

My alter ego's home life has really been encroaching on my work time, as have our mutual health issues (we share a brain, we share a body, it sucks, I'm over it).

But the good news is that Resurrection is with some lovely ADVANCE advance readers who have agreed to help with proofreading (bless them), cover art is in progress, formatting is done save for one INFURIATING issue with Word for Mac, and I've got my newsletter set up and ready to roll, complete with a few introductory emails AND a generous four-chapter sample of Resurrection for everyone who signs up.

Kinda cool.

I mean, I will never be ready to send this book out into the world no matter how many people love it or how excited I am about the project. That's just me. I like my peaceful bubble and not having to do anything other than actually produce the books, but I've been informed that promotion and publication are necessary if one wants to be able to afford future editing and such.

What a system, eh?

Anyway, here's the link if you want to get your hands on those chapters, or if you want to be in the loop for cover reveals, release news, giveaways, chances to grab advance review copies, and news about the rest of the series. You'll get a confirmation email right away, and your welcome email about 24 hours after that (and if you don't, check your spam or promo folder. *snarls at gmail*)

See you there.

We have progress!

Big progress, in fact. In spite of snow days, damned winter colds, and life being the troublesome nuisance that it sometimes is, Resurrection is with beta readers.

What does that mean?

It means it survived its trip to the editor, and though it came back bleeding from multiple flesh wounds, it's nothing that left it too scarred. It means I went through and accepted or rejected all of my editor's changes (mostly accepted... this is what I pay her for, after all), made some slightly larger fixes based on her comments and ideas, and did another pass to check for flow and to make sure everything was clean and coherent.

And now it's with several people who will be happy to tell me if and where I screwed up. and then I'll fix it again, and it will go out to some more people who offered to help with proof-reading.

It also means that this book is very much at the point where I as an author wonder what the hell I'm doing. Sure, people have loved the book so far. My editor was thrilled with it.

But I've been working on this book for years now, first as a fun little novella I started on a whim and  didn't finish, then one that I did, then one I re-wrote in its current novel-length form (which suits it far better). I've drafted, re-drafted, read, revised, and fixed it a whoooole lot of times. I'm familiar with the story. And while in this case familiarity doesn't breed contempt, it does breed... well, familiarity. I know the twists, the turns, the dialogue. It's a story I love and characters I adore, but there are no surprises left.

​It's hard to see a book clearly when you've read it more than twenty times, you know?

So that's why I need these beta readers. While I can never read this story for the first time, they will. Their fresh eyes and sharp minds will see what I no longer can. Their reactions will guide me through the last phases of production, and they'll help me make sure this is the best damned book it can possibly be.

My readers. My heroes. 

(I'm also almost ready to work on cover copy, teasers, and cover art, but that's a whoooooole other issue...)