Joely Sue Burkhart

2.And they answer back.

3. I’ve been drinking a couple of gallons of coffee a day.  (Up at 4:30 this morning)  *pops a Pepcid*

4. I had yet another story idea today.  No, I didn’t do anything with it but crawl in the corner.  *whimpers*

5. Still waiting to hear about a contest I entered Letters in.  *gnaws nails to the bone*

6. I promised my editor to have Gregar’s book (The Road to Shanhasson) to her by early July for possible release in September.  I currently have less than 30K.  Ideally, first draft (80-100K) needs to be done by May 3st, so I can revise in June.  *listens to Gregar, types faster*  Gregar is KILLING ME, but what a lovely way to go…..

7. Beautiful Death edits and promo will be going on at the same time. (Releasing in June)  *frantic*

8. I committed to writing another Keldari novella to bundle with the other two, likely 20-30K.  This year!  Oh, but I had this really killer idea already…  Oddly, inspired by the hymn we were singing in church on Sunday:  He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock…

9. I still have to finish expanding Letters and kick it out the door.  *Conn revs his black Mustang impatiently*

10.I need to drag out RHP and decide whether the plan I spent months on for revisions will actually work.  And then, you know, MAKE THOSE REVISIONS.  *gulp* Another full length novel this year.

11. Take last year’s NaNoWriMo novel at 63.5K and do something productive with it.  Like revisions and kick IT out the door too.  Another full length novel….  *babbles*

12. Evil Day Job trip to MN next week!!!!!  *Squee - I get to see WANDA!*

13. Oh, yeah, and where’s Charon’s book (that follows Beautiful Death)?  *blubbers* 

1.Faith of the Heart by Susan Ashton, overall series theme song:  Cause I’ve got faith of the heart I’m going where my heart will take me.

2.Kiss From A Rose by Seal, Shannari’s theme song:  You became the light on the dark side of me.

3. Everything I Do (I Do It For You) by Bryan Adams, Rhaekhar’s theme song:  I would fight for you I’d lie for you Walk the wire for you Yeah, I’d die for you.

4. Behind the Crimson Door by H.I.M.  Gregar’s theme song:  Your love will be the death of me.

5. Secret by Heart, Gregar and Shannari’s theme song:  We know it’s dangerous  For us to be together How do we keep this secret.

6. Strong, Strong Wind by Heart, Rhaekhar and Shannari’s theme song for book 2:  Now it would take a strong, strong wind To take me from your arms again.

7. Alone by Heart, Dharman’s theme song for book 3:  You don’t know how long I’ve wanted To touch your lips and hold you tight.

8. I Didn’t Want to Need you by Heart, Shannari’s theme song

9. Desperado by the Eagles, book 3 theme song

10.What About Love by Heart

11. All for Love by Bryan Adams

12. Against All Odds by Phil Collins

13. Heartless by Heart

Any other similar songs you can recommend?

1. I am a channel for God’s creativity and my work comes to good.

2. My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.

3. As I create and listen, I will be led.

4. Creativity is the creator’s will for me.

5. My creativity heals myself and others.

6. I am allowed to nurture my artist.

7. Through the use of my creativity, I serve God.

8. My creativity always leads me to truth and love.

9. I am willing to let God create through me.

10. I am willing to be of service through my creativity.

11.  There is a divine plan of goodness for my work.

12. My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

13. I am willing to create.

 What positive affirmations do you use?

[I’m running a Book Giveaway this week but will NOT include Thursday Thirteeners in the drawing unless you voluntarily comment on the main giveaway announcement here.]

1. Rose is the first story I ever wrote to “The End” in the fall of 2003.  It weighed in at 525 pages, 124,000 words.  I was dissatisfied with the epic fantasy (e.g. Jordan, Martin) and romantic fantasy I was reading that didn’t have enough romance for me.  Rose is both epic fantasy and a love story.  And yes, there is more sex than a typical romantic fantasy, but it is not strictly a romance either.

2. Its original title was very cheesy: My Beloved Barbarian.  *cringe*

3. I entered that first version proudly in an RWA contest and was appalled at the judges’ thorough and (in the end) extremely helpful criticism.  (No, the horse does not need its own POV (point of view), and I probably shouldn’t change POV every paragraph.)

4. I continued writing, including book 2 of the series, read a bunch of how-to books, read more fiction, and in the summer of 2004 I finished a second much improved version.

5. I entered that version in 3 contests and it finaled in all 3.  One finalist judge requested a full and so Shannari, Rhaekhar, and Gregar took a ride to NY. 

6. Where they were buried in a slush pile for three years…  I finally formally withdrew the submission last year.

7. I continued writing other stories but always came back to this first beloved story.  Something wasn’t quite right.  I knew I could do better.  Undertaking a third major revision pass was difficult, even gut-wrenching at times.  I basically murdered the original heroine and created Shannari brand new.  I axed all the cheesy stuff I could, tightened the prose, worsened the conflict, heaped emotional turmoil on my characters, and finally finished that third final version the beginning of 2007.

8. Feb. of last year I wrote Survive My Fire, which takes place in Keldar, a country connected to the Rose world but an entirely different culture.  With dragons.

9. End of March, I saw a brand new publisher, Drollerie Press, specializing in mythic fiction, fairy tales, cross genre work.  The lovely artwork on the site immediately drew my attention.  Totally up my alley!    So I sent the novella, SMF, first.

10. April 11, 2007 I had my first sale!

11. Deena asked to see more of my work, so I sent MBB retitled as BloodRose.

12. By May, that old beloved story had also been accepted at Drollerie, retitled to The Rose of Shanhasson (much more epic in flavor, I think).

13. I bawled, called my beloved sister, and bawled some more.  We’re bringing out the champagne this weekend when The Rose of Shanhasson releases!

We have three girl monsters aged 9 (Princess Monster), 6 (Middle Monster) and 4 (Littlest Monster, soon to be 5).  Here are a few reasons I call them MONSTERS.

1.”Mom, the tub is clogged.”  Princess Monster gave the dog a bath — and a haircut at the same time.

2.”Mom, the toilet is flooding!”  Middle Monster flushed hair bands and a wash cloth down the toilet and blew up the sump pump.  Not once, but twice.

3.*screaming, wailing*  “Mom, Middle Monster shut Littlest Monster’s hand in the door!”

4.”But Mom, why can’t I sit on top of the swing set?”

5.Princess Monster came home with a bucket of snapping turtle eggs she found at Papa’s farm.  Thank GOD they never hatched.

6. After we looked high and low for TWO DAYS trying to find Princess Monster’s brand new stuffed poodle, Littlest Monster admitted *with a very cute grin* that she’d hid it so SHE could sleep with it.

7.At basketball practice, I suddenly realized that Middle Monster wasn’t wearing any pants.  “I forgot.”

8.”Mom, Dad’s pool chemicals taste yuck!”  *Hello, Poison Control???*

9.”Mom, can I wear flip flops to school today?”  *three inches of ice on the ground*

10.Middle Monster ripped open her diaper and ate poop when she was a toddler, but refuses to eat * because it’s yucky.  (Insert random normal food)

11.Nasty dark footprints tracked all over the carpet:  “But Mom, you told me stay on the sidewalk.  You never told me to stay off the grass.”  *where the dog poops*

12.It’s not a family dinner if we don’t discuss poop and pee at least once with lots of giggles.

13. I never knew something so cute would out-belch and out-fart their father.

1.BUY ME!! BUY ME!!! BUY ME!!!  All the time, all caps, no other content whatsoever.

2.BUY MY FRIEND!!!!  When they haven’t read the book themselves.

3.Going to another site — say a reviewer who didn’t care for your book or a ”competing” author — and posting anonymously about how FABULOUS the poorly received book was, or how TERRIBLE said competition is.

4.Sending all their fangirls over to another site to start a flame war.

5.Ridiculing readers, posting fan letters and making fun of them, talking down to readers like they’re stupid.

6. Trash reviewers who didn’t like your book.

7.TMI - Let’s just say I don’t want to read about an author’s personal sex life.

8. An honest author who has a terribly abrasive attitude that turns off readers to the point they refuse to buy the author’s books any longer.

9.Endless posts about depression, angst, sales numbers.  Don’t get me wrong–I appreciate honesty and love to read about other writers’ struggles, becaue it makes me feel like I’m not alone.  But CONSTANT downers turn people–readers–off.

10.Spam all the commenters by saving their e-mail addys and adding them to your newsletter.

11.Causing a flame war just because you believe negative publicity is better than none.

12.Irregular updates don’t encourage people to come back.

13. An attempt to be funny or snarky that ends up sounding jaded and bitter.

1. Write every day.  This is tricky, because not every day is going to yield new words, even if I’m working really hard on a story.  That’s okay.  When I’m in draft mode, I want 1K a day.  Otherwise, I’ll be doing some part of writing every day, whether it’s career related (updating the website, requesting reviews) or revisions.

2. Write 300K.

3. Write another draft of Arcana (formerly RHP), polish in first quarter 2008, and query.

4. Write another draft of Night Sun Rising (the NaNoWriMo novel), polish in second quarter 2008, and query.

5. Editor revisions (completed the third pass 12/31/2007, so this one’s close!) and promotion on The Fire Within.

6. Editor revisions and promotion on The Rose of Shanhasson.

7. Editor revisions and promotion on Beautiful Death.

8. Develop a revision plan to extend Letters to An English Professor from long novella to single title length.

9. Finish a first draft of ANTs (may get bumped to the bottom of the list, but it bugs me because this story is 75% finished).

10. Write The Road to Shanhasson (not sure of timing yet).

11. Write at least one short story to give away as a free read.

12. Revise the website for quicker downloads and easier maintenance (done last night!).

13. Read 52 books.

1. I finished the third complete rewrite (new file, start all over again!) of my first book and began querying it.

2. I completed edits on the third novel I wrote and began querying it.

3. I wrote my first novella, Survive My Fire, in February (20K) thanks in part to the Sisters of the Severed Hand.  It was rejected by the anthology I originally wrote it for, so I revised it and shipped it out again.

4. In March, I tried my hand at Fast Draft — write 50K in two weeks — and finished the very rough and scary draft of RHP in 11 days, approximately 51K.

5. Drollerie Press contracted Survive My Fire, my first published piece outside of an e-zine (now gone) and a print magazine that folded before my short stories were published.

6. Drollerie Press also contracted my first novel, My Beloved Barbarian aka BloodRose aka The Rose of Shanhasson.  It should be available soon.

7. I wrote a short story for a pirate anthology about a space pirate that was like “Moby Dick meets Sleeping Beauty in Space.”  You can read it here for free.  Other free reads.  I also wrote Well of Sky for a different anthology (rejected too) but you can read it for free here. 

8. I wrote another short story I dubbed “Alien Goth” that was rejected for a gothic anthology.  I have a dozen ideas for how to expand it into a longer piece.  Someday…  (You can see I haven’t had good luck writing for anthologies…)

9. I wrote a companion novella for Survive My Fire called The Fire Within and submitted it to Drollerie Press.  It should be available soon.

10. Drollerie Press also contracted the third novel I’ve written, Beautiful Death.  It’ll be available sometime in 2008.

11.  I wrote a contemporary romance novella (longish at 47.5K) for the Brava contest.  Over half the finalists have been announced and Letters hasn’t made it yet, but hope springs eternal…

12. Started a companion novella to Letters that I’ll need to finish in 2008.

13. Tackled NaNoWriMo for the first time and finished a first draft of NSR (50K in Nov, total 63K to finish in Dec).

More summaries:

• I read 52 books this year.
• Earned 18 rejections (12 agent queries).
• and 4 acceptances.
• Entered 2 stories in a RWA contest.
• Finished 7 projects.
• Wrote nearly 240,000 new words
• Finally withdrew an oustanding requested complete submission of MBB after a contest final in 2004 that was 3 years old!