An Explanation: Dead Ends

Salutations, fellow readers. Hope this Monday finds you in fine spirits. I'm settling back into the swing of things. Writing again, running errands, and lamenting the constant disorder of my household. Time to start blogging as well. And so I am. I thought I'd take today's post to explain a few changes on my website. In the books section, a few of my titles are listed as No Longer Available. People ask, What does this mean? It's an ebook. Why can't I still download it?

Answer: Because my contracts with NCP are ALL terminating, in order of when they were first signed. Blackthorne's Light and The Thief of Mardu were the first to go. (The Thief of Mardu will be reissued by Total E-Bound later this summer.) Lurin's Surrender and Winner Takes All are currently on the not available list. And soon, The Fire Within and Aftershocks, books 1 and 4 of the Storm Lords series, respectively, are coming down. This means no more availability at NCP or any of the other third party vendors selling them for NCP (like Fictionwise.) So if you wanted to read them sooner than later, buy them now. Otherwise, they'll be going into a short hiatus of limbo while another publisher decides if they want the rights to those books.

Every contracted work out there has a shelf life. We e-authors are more fortunate in that our books can last longer, because in digital format, they're always "on the shelf" unless a contract terminates. Many of my titles have contracts that have expired, but so long as I, the author, and they, the publishers, agree, the books remain. Needless to say, my association with New Concepts Publishing is coming to an end. So stay tuned, and if you have further questions about any of my work, don't hesitate to email me.

Marie
marie_harte@yahoo.com

Newsletter Winners

Congratulations to Cathy M. and Eva S. for winning this month's free ebooks/Newsletter contest.

Marie Madness Winner

The winner of my Marie Madness Contest for a bundle of books is....

Melissa K.

Thanks to everyone who participated, and look to my next quarter contest for more great reads.

Return of the Queen....

That's me, the queen of hearts. haha I'm back from my trip abroad--read, West Coast--and trying to decompress. The husband tried, but the house is just icky. Yeah, he picked up, but the dirt and dog hair on the floor are killing me.

The kids are back to fighting with one another. Joy. And I haven't written anything substantial in two weeks. I have the shakes. The need to create is overwhelming, even though I have to do some research and figure out where I want the story to go before I start typing anything.

Vacation was fun. Oregon was a blast. Beautiful mountains, snow, and the chance to see my mom again. Yet a part of me is glad to be home. Dirty as it is, it's familiar. Now we can all sink back into routine while I find a new story to write. Or it finds me.

I'll post the winner to my contest later tonight. Have to sort through some emails first.
Good luck if you entered. If not, there's still a chance to win. Check out my website for details.

Location, Location, Location

I'm over at Hitting the Hot Spot today. Go see a taste of what I've been looking at. Sorry, nothing sexy, but the mountains are spectacular. Just four more days 'til I'm home and back to the grindstone...

Out of Town

Well, I'm heading to Oregon for a few days. I'll be posting sporadically, so don't count on too much from me these next two weeks. From shorts to snow, all in a day...

Don't forget my Marie Madness contest, and Circe's Recruits: Derrick will be out next week, March 17th. Enjoy!

New Release! Creating Chemistry

I meant to post this yesterday. Creating Chemistry is now available from Total E-Bound.

They are two of the strongest men in the System, yet helpless against the submissive woman in need of their care, their love, and their mastery.

Rescued from a lab where she was Created, Anin has had to learn a lot in little time. There's a death sentence on her head, and she's been ordered not to interfere with her two self-designated protectors - by her protectors themselves. Designed to submit, Anin craves submission the way she craves air. If only her protectors would understand. The Fas brothers like her, but they don't seem to understand how very much she longs to call them "Master," both in and out of the bedroom.

Nu and Set Fas are Raggas, from a planet where the strongest in the System are born. At first they fear hurting Anin with their desires. But Set soon realises that to give Anin what she needs is to accept what he wants, a true submissive. As he comes to know her, he senses that she might be the key to a true Ragga bonding, tying him, Nu and her together with a child. But Nu has been hurt before, and he refuses to allow Anin close enough to pierce his heart. It will take Set's skill and Anin's discovery of herself to help heal Nu's past hurts, and to defeat an old enemy bent on revenge.

This is the third of my "Creation" books, centered around three being created ,not born. They are all stand alones and may be read in any order.
The Perfect Creation and Creation's Control were released last year.

Lots Going On!

Wow! Lots going on. I have a trip to prepare for, odds and ends to do around the house, books to buy (for the plane trip) --not a chore at all, a few more writing projects I'd almost forgotten to do before leaving, and making a list for my husband.

When I tried to tell him what to do to care for the bigger kids while I'm gone, he gave me that glassy-eyed stare. In other words, brain went one way, ears closed up, and he nodded to appear as if listening. As if I don't know that look by now.

So, won't be a few relaxing days before I leave after all. Ack, and that laundry that never stops!

Adieu, Hale!

I meant to post about this Wed night. I finally finished Circe's Recruits: Hale!!! Yippeee! Now I have to go through it several more times before handing it off to my editor. I edit as I go, so extreme edits aren't necessary, just the usual spelling, grammatical stuff.

I know some authors never look back until the end. So their first draft could be totally different from the final 5th or 6th draft. Not so with me. Let's say I write 10 pages a day. Before I can write again the next day, I have to first review those previous 10 pages (only the work I just wrote, not the entire story beforehand). Letting the work sit makes it easier to go through and spot consistency and grammatical errors, at least for me. Then I go through a quarterly editing process, where I'll edit the work when I think I have at least 1/4 of it done. Even if the entire novel isn't finished, I have to look back at it as a whole, as much as the book is written. I then write some more. I do it again at the half point and 3/4 point mark.

Once I push through to the end, I let the book sit. Normally I'd give it a few days, but I really want to shoot this to my editor since I took a long time putting it together. Maybe because I edited too much before it was done! Anyway, now the sucker is finished. A few more read throughs and it's off and out of my hands. Good-bye Circe's Recruits, or should I say adieu, in the off chance my editor likes my idea for a loosely related story about another group of Circs?
Ah, who knows?

Happy Friday. I know I'm going to have a nice weekend. :)

New Contest!! Marie Madness

MARIE MADNESS

To enter to win this bundle of books*, simply send me an email at marie_harte@yahoo.com. In the header, write Marie Madness Contest. And in the email, list what catches you most about a new (to you) author. Book cover, blurb, excerpt? I want to know! Also list your shipping address. Note: the winner will be randomly selected. Location is not a factor to win, but will determine which prize is won*.

Good luck! Contest ENDS March 25th.

*The box of books is only a valid prize for those entrants who live in the continental United States. Any other winning entrant will win a bundle of electronic books, to make postage a heck of a lot easier.

Slower Than Dirt

You know, I feel as slow as this sloth lately. Though I've been burning up my keyboard, my latest WIP just isn't there yet. I figure one or two more chapters. Finally!

I'm not sure why this occurs with some books. I'll struggle for days, then write 20-30 pages in a single sitting. I've been on fi-ya, not fire, but fi-ya, since Sunday. Even the kids being home on Monday didn't deter me from writing. (The teenager watched them for me.)

But in all other matters, I've been horribly slow. The taxes still aren't done. I'm not ready at all for a trip I'm soon to take. My house is a mess and the laundry just keeps getting larger, no matter how many loads I think I've done.

I just hope that it's not me that's moving so slowly, but that the world is just so fast. I have at least another month and a half to get my taxes done. And another three days before I hand in my MS. So gooooo me.

A Snow Day... In March...In...Georgia?

Ah, the joys of impending snow. Afraid of inclement weather, our lovely school district has already announced school closings tomorrow. Great. Terrific. Please shoot me now.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. But I have a lot of work to do this week, and I was really hoping to get it done while the kids were in school. My taxes and manuscript are still swinging in the wind, and will continue to do so, apparently. Sigh.