Category: The Blog

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I have the BEST FAMILY.

My beloved Sister, Papa from Mexico, Aunt BB and Uncle J came over today to help me celebrate the release of The Rose of Shanhasson. I made Settler’s Beans (with splenda brown sugar and drained all the fat off I could), Spinach Salad (with light sour cream and light mayonaise), potato salad (light mayonaise)—-and nobody noticed it was healthier than usual! We also had steak, delicious home-raised beef that Papa brought. I baked homemade bread and Aunt Molly brought cookies which I’m going to treat myself to one tonight.

We talked and talked and talked. We drank a couple of gallons of coffee. I had time for girl talk with BB and Molly and promised a trip to Sally’s Beauty Supply next Friday with BB and a trip this spring to introduce her to Papa’s horses. I forgot to tell Molly this, but I plan to come see her in Joplin too.

We topped the night off with a bottle of champagne and lots of wonderful words and support from three of my biggest fans: Papa, Molly and Aunt BB. I love you guys.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

You’ve seen parts of Rose before (originally titled BloodRose), but since it comes out this weekend from Drollerie Press, I thought I’d post a snippet that shows why I love Gregar so much.

Setup: This is the day after Rhaekhar defeated Shannari’s army. All is not sunshine and bunnies despite their first night together. In fact, he stalked out of the room thoroughly insulted and hasn’t seen her for hours. This discussion with his two best friends who are also Blood, or bodyguards, worsens his turmoil.

Varne is the nearest Blood, the first of the nine Blood and the last line of defense.

Gregar is the shadowed Blood who used to be a Death Rider, an assassin.

[translation notes, or check the Sha’Kae al’Dan dictionary]

Rhaekhar shaded his eyes against the rising sun and surveyed the green fields to the east and then the river to the southwest. “I

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Thirteen Things about The Rose of Shanhasson’s Journey to PublicationThe Rose of Shanhasson, the first book in my romantic fantasy trilogy, releases this weekend! Here’s the timeline of how that first dream came true. 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!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. I also bought The Artist’s Way because I loved the first book so much. I even bought a nice journal at B&N over the weekend and I started using it this week to get my Morning Pages.

I’d heard of Morning Pages before but hadn’t bought into the idea. I get up D&E to write as it is — I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of taking precious time to “brain dump” into a journal. However, as soon as I started doing it, some amazing things have come up, and I have a feeling it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m not very good at doing things for myself. I don’t think most Moms are. We’re so busy taking care of kids, working, cooking, folding laundry, homework… Then maybe 1 or 2 hours a day (if we get up at the butt crack of dawn before anyone else in the house is alive) we have a tiny bit of time to pursue our hobbies or dreams. Our families often resent even that much. To do something nice on top of that little bit of personal time seems… selfish. At least it does to me.

Working from home, I hardly ever go anywhere. Rarely by myself. I work. I take and pick up kids from school. I cook dinner and on bad nights, work around the bake time. I do homework with the kids after school and dinner. When the EDJ is really demanding, I work after that or after they go to bed. On a good night, we watch American Idol and I tinker with e-mail and might edit a section or two, but by then, I’m usually too tired to get many new words. (Plus the TV is on, which is really distracting, even when I hate the show That Man is watching.) Since I don’t have to go into the office, I never put on makeup. The only place I do go that I even have to “dress up” for is church, and I really don’t “dress” up either (our church is pretty casual).

When was the last time I did something for ME?

I realized last night that I hadn’t colored my hair since before Christmas. It takes too long. I had too much to do. Nobody really cares anyway, do they? Ah, but I care. I put on about 20 years of age when I don’t color my hair, if not more. So I dumped the dye on my head and then read The Artist’s Way while waiting for it to soak in. Another shocker: I haven’t had a hair cut since Sept of last year. *boggles* That was when I went to the home office. So that’s the next thing on the Taking Care of Me list to accomplish before this weekend.

And I’m going to plan a small outing for just me. No kids. No That Man. I have no idea what I’ll do yet, but I’m going to do SOMETHING.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

For the chance to win a free copy of The Rose of Shanhasson, The Fire Within, or Confessions of the Creature, comment on the Drollerie Press blog here in honor of Read an E-Book Week! Stories will be 15% off if you order directly from the DP Bookshop or 10% off from Mobipocket.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

February in Review

It wasn’t the greatest month but not bad. I wrote 16,500 words, about 10K new words to expand Letters to an English Professor. (About half of what I planned.) I don’t know that I’m going to get the 30K I needed or not. I wasn’t able to finish the revisions by 2/29 like I hoped, but that’s okay.

The Evil Day Job was crazy and demanding, so that took a toll on my desire to get up D&E to write. I did make it several times, but I wasn’t as productive as usual. I was simply too tired. This month will hopefully be better, although I have several big things due by 4/1.

This month will be huge for a lot of reasons. My first novel will be released 3/9, the dreaded book of my heart. The first book I wrote and completed, the book that haunted me until I got it right. To say I love the book is an understatement, and I’m so thrilled to see it coming out shortly! Of course, that means I’ll be busy getting promo items lined up, requesting reviews, etc. If you have a blog and are interested in reviewing either The Rose of Shanhasson or The Fire Within, please let me know. (Ann, I already sent the ARCs to you, my dear. Hopefully you got them.)

This month, I’m not sure exactly how the writing will all play out. I’ll be straddling two projects: the Letters revision and The Road to Shanhasson, book 2, otherwise known as Gregar’s book. I don’t have an outline prepared for the second so it might be touch and go. In this case, knowing exactly how the book ends doesn’t guarantee writing the middle will be a piece of cake. Let alone the beginning, in this case. But I did start wading through notes and old files this morning and made a little headway. I’ll continue muddling my way through a plan the rest of this week.

Sven: 2501 words

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I have a dilemma. Round 3 of 70 Days of Sweat has started, and I’m already behind. I’m torn. I don’t know what to do, which has allowed me to dither.

I’d hoped to have Letters revised by 3/1 so I could move perfectly into Gregar’s book for Sven. However, that hasn’t happened. I might not even be halfway through the revisions. The Evil Day Job took a toll on me in Feb and my D&E sessions just weren’t as productive as I’d hoped, and definitely fewer and farther between than I planned.

After sleeping in yesterday (no basketball!) and today (oops, overslept and missed church), I’m ready to begin a month of hard writing. Yet I still can’t get my mind in gear. I’ve done NO OUTLINING whatsoever for Gregar’s story. I know it inside and out… yet there are several sticky points. One just happens to be the beginning. To claim on the page or not… (Inside joke — read Rose to find out what the big deal is about a claiming.)

Letters isn’t in an any better place right now. It’s hard to change scenes around to another POV. I’ve added some nice layers and texture, definitely, but I’m in a Dark Valley where I’m really wondering whether I’m doing the right thing, if I should have just left it alone.

Well, enough whining. I’m going to make a decision tonight and get up D&E tomorrow ready to work. I’m just not sure on which project yet.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Tonight, That Man picked out We Own the Night to watch. I agreed simply because of Joaquin Phoenix, even though I really don’t like Mark Wahlberg or Eva Mendes at all. Of course, Robert Duvall is always a great choice too. Unless he dies. Grrr.

Not as dark as Eastern Promises, this movie was about Russian drug runners instead of the mob. Joaquin played Robert Green, an irresponsible, fun-loving bar manager who turns a blind eye to the drugs passing through the nightclub. He pays a great price for that blind eye. At one point, he’d lost everything: his life, his career, his friends, his father, even his brother, played by Mark, who was nearly killed by the bad guys. And yes, Eva left him too.

He did get the bad guy in the end, joined the police force, and stood up when his brother crumbled during a gun fight. The flighty party lover turned into a cop. However, he didn’t get the girl and his dad died. Not a feel good movie, although it was okay. I wouldn’t watch it again.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Last week was a toughie. I did get a little written each morning (around 500 words) so it wasn’t a total loss, but I’ve been under a huge amount of stress at the Evil Day Job. Slinging code as fast as possible, so much I even moved my ergonomic keyboard and mouse over to my work station because my wrists were killing me again. (Once you’ve been a computer programmer for over ten years, you don’t actually do much straight coding! So my wrists are out of practice.)

Then on Friday late afternoon (when I’m supposed to be ready to turn everything over for testing next week), all my work blew up in my face with an unrecoverable error. My design is flawed. Big time.

Needless to say, I wasn’t in a good place mentally this weekend.

Littlest Monster got up Sat. sick and I took her to the doctor (ear infection) while That Man took the other two kids to basketball. We ran errands all weekend. Every moment, my brain was chewing on my work issue, trying to think around this wall and come up with a fix. (I might have — but man am I behind now.) No writing done — how could I with my brain crammed full of logic?

Then whammo… The zombie story suddenly made perfect sense. Anyone who finds it ironic that I figured out a ZOMBIE story after a hard week of work, raise their hand. Anyway, I slammed out 3K of it last night and am nearly finished — I just need the big climax/resolution. Maybe it’ll come to me after slinging code all day today…

So not a huge writing week for me until last night, but I did manage to get up 4 days D&E and accomplish a little progress in Letters. I’m behind there and I’m not going to be ready to start Gregar’s story in March if I don’t find time to outline.

This week, I’d like to finish up the zombie story and get back hard to Letters. What’s on tap for you this week?

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’m in the mood for a little poetry. This is from Longfellow’s The Day is Done.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.