Hello Winter Break!

Two weeks to write, catch up, get ready. To have some quiet time - I hope. To stay up late and not have to get up at five thirty. Sounds good to me.

Looking forward to some uninterrupted writing time if I can get it. New territory, writing the third of the Dreaming Anastasia trilogy. Although I've always known in theory more or less where I wanted this story to go, I'm finding surprises and revelations as I push into this last installment. The old standby question to each of my characters: What do you want and how and why am I going to keep it from you and for how long? continues to bring me new answers. My critique group and I had quite the interesting chat the other night about whether we truly believe certain very famous writers when they say that they had every detailed plotted out from the beginning. Can you really do that? Don't your characters grow each time you tell their story? And your writing - it evolves, too. So can you honestly follow a blueprint to the letter years down the road?

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on that.

Beyond that, I'm gearing up for the Haunted release on 2/1. It's up for presale everywhere (Amazon, B&N, Borders... Walmart!, your favorite indie and more) and the ebook versions are starting to appear on the various sites as well, although interestingly the e version debuts a week later than the paperback.

A hearty thank you to bloggers who have already signed on for a blog tour; Publicist Paul promises another wild and crazy time. And I'll be traveling some too - more on that after the year turns. Maybe I'll be coming your way! (Yes, Joy, we'd love to see you. Please come to our city.) Push those presales in your city and who knows, maybe Sourcebooks will send me to you.

And if you're here in the Houston area, come to The Woodlands Barnes and Noble on Saturday 2/5 from 2-4 PM for the launch party. Book signing! Cookies! Coffee! Swag! Me!

Between new book and book in progress and the prodigal son getting married in late spring methinks that 2011 will be a busy year. Bring it on, I say.

Mostly I'm very much looking forward to getting HAUNTED out into the world. I am so excited about this story. Anne and Ethan's romance ratchets up. New boyfriend Ben adds to the mix. Tess gets to shine in the way that only Tess can. And Baba Yaga tells us some of her secrets. Plus the rusalka - I love my rusalka. Loved working with that bit of Russian folklore. Rusalkas aren't like Disney mermaids. They're sadder and more malevolent and definitely cursed. They can be saved - at least in some Russian tales - but it takes some avenging. HAUNTED is a story of secrets, of love and loss and hopes for second chances. It's about what we want and who we are and how we got that way. About family and destiny and love.

I hope you come to love it as much as I do.

In the meantime, feel free to post a response to my question above about plotting.
More soon. Hoping to have some guest posters of my own in the coming months. Some more interviews. A contest or two.

Until then - peace, joy, good tidings, health.