With that out of the way, I finished reading the last of the Golden Heart entries I received to judge this year, and I have a few thoughts on how I scored them and why that I thought you might be interested in (especially if you entered this year or might enter in the future).

For those who don’t know much about the Golden Heart, I should probably explain that it’s RWA’s premier contest for unpublished manuscripts. Each entry consists of a synopsis and partial manuscript. The two items together cannot exceed 55 pages. Entrants must also provide proof to RWA that the manuscript is completed, usually in the form of the entire file provided on a CD or other medium. No one reads this full manuscript in the judging round, but the goal is to ensure that entrants actually have a full manuscript to submit to editors or agents should their entry reach the final round.

Each entry is scored on a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 representing a perfect score. Tenths of a point are allowed. From what I’ve seen in past contests, to final, an entry must basically run the table in terms of perfect scores (although a slate of multiple 8.8s to 8.9s can be good enough to reach the final depending on the number of entries in the category). Judges cannot provide comments or feedback as they do in many RWA chapter contests, which is both a positive and a negative for authors. On the one hand, it means authors don’t always know WHY they got the score they did. On the other, it means they can also write off low scores as just having gotten a judge who was incredibly mean and picky or just hated their voice or some other factor over which the author had no control.

Because I couldn’t give feedback on my entries, I’m giving feedback (broad and general–I’m not identifying the manuscripts I received for judging nor do I think any of my comments are likely to let on to those authors whose entries I did judge that I got theirs) here.

First of all, the lowest score I gave was a 5.6; the highest an 8.6. This is the first year I’ve judged where I didn’t have any entries that I felt deserved below an “average” grade. For that, I am grateful, because reading the ones that do score below a 5 is a real chore!

So, with that in mind, why did I score my entries as I did and where did they tend to fall down the most? Here, in no particular order, are the things that stuck out to me most:

1. Story issues: I always judge first on the story. Are the pages engaging? Are the characters interesting? Is the setup believable? Does the story start in the right place. Does each scene have a clear purpose and end with a change in the story question?

   On each and every one of these questions, every one of the entries I received lost some points. Sometimes it was only a tenth of a point lost, sometimes it was whole integers. In the case of most of my entries that lost whole points, it came down to one of two things: either the story was simply not very interesting (the stakes weren’t high enough and/or the scenes didn’t convey any urgency) or I didn’t buy the setup. Particularly in historical romance, the setup is so important. If I can’t believe people in the time period in question would behave in the manner described in the story, I’m not going to believe anything else in the manuscript, either, no matter how well it’s executed. I had one very, very good entry that I scored very high, but that, when it came right down to it, I just couldn’t “buy” the plot.

2. Weak mechanics: Yes, it’s true. I’m a frustrated high school English teacher, and mechanics matter to me. I will overlook minor issues with grammar and punctuation if they occur fairly infrequently or, oddly enough, if they occur consistently (in other words, you make the same mistake regularly).

   What I can’t overlook is overuse of commas in all the wrong places (it makes me stutter in my head), grammatical inconsistencies, and (this one hurt a manuscript that otherwise had a lot going for it) wrong word uses (e.g., discrete for discreet). Although I understand that wrong words can slip in from time to time, if it happens more than once in fifty pages of manuscript that you should have polished to DEATH before submitting, I’m going to take off points. Same goes for the commas and grammatical errors.

   Yes, editors will buy manuscripts that have errors easily corrected by a copy editor. Notwithstanding, this is a fifty page entry for the most important and prestigious contest RWA has for unpublished writers. Take the time to make it as close to perfect as humanly possible.

3. Voice issues: Voice is a hard thing to describe, let alone score. However, I didn’t score anyone down for a voice I didn’t “like.” I scored down for voice only once, and that was on an entry I liked a lot. It was extremely well executed overall and I actually loved the voice. Why did I score down for voice, then? Because the voice didn’t fit the book’s time period. The book was set in the 19th century, yet the voice read like a contemporary, which pulled me out of the story.
    
4. Poor synopsis: I have to say that in the stack of entries I received, there was not one GOOD synopsis. Not one. And, although the pages are the most important part of the entry, if the synopsis is a garbled mess that I can’t follow to save my life, I have to deduct points.

   One of the reasons writers are asked to provide a synopsis for the Golden Heart is that most of the time, when submitting to an agent or editor, you will probably at some point be asked to send a partial and (gasp!) a synopsis. The synopsis, while not as important in terms of voice and verve as the actual manuscript pages, is critical for an agent or editor to determine what your story is going to be about. The first fifty pages give a sense of your voice and how you execute a story, but it’s only fifty pages, perhaps 10-15% of the total book (slightly more if you write category length). It’s nearly impossible to tell from a mere fifty pages whether the total story is going to be worth reading without a decent synopsis to explain where you’re going “from there.”

   And most of the synopses I received were a nightmare. The primary problem most of them had was that they mentioned FAR TOO MANY characters by name. There were so many names in one synopsis, if I hadn’t read the pages, I wouldn’t have known who the hero and heroine were. In your synopsis, you must concentrate on the hero and heroine. You should only name secondary characters when absolutely necessary, and then, the character must have a significant role in the plot (e.g., he/she is the villain or plays a pivotal role in multiple scenes). I simply don’t need to know the heroine’s best friend’s name or the name of the girl who broke the hero’s heart or the name of the maid who appears in one scene and never again.

   There was also one synopsis (for an entry I otherwise scored very well) that was so sketchy, I had absolutely no idea what the plot was. I just knew the hero and heroine would fall in love and live HEA. Sorry, not enough. I needed more to judge the partial appropriately.

So, if I scored your manuscript in the Golden Heart this year, your entry got the score it did based on some combination of the four factors listed above. Of course, it’s entirely possible I didn’t score your manuscript, but who knows, maybe whoever did used similar criteria. Either way, I hope you find the information helpful .

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Okay, onto the topic at hand.

My latest proposal went out on submission yesterday. This is the third proposal my agent and I have tried to sell since I received my contract with Kensington for Behind the Red Door back in April of 2008. Since you haven’t seen any sales announcements from me since then, I think you can safely assume that two of the three attempts were unsuccessful. We have yet to hear about the third, although I’m not holding my breath.

But this post isn’t to whine or curse the universe for failing to recognize my brilliance. Rather, it’s a reflection on what I’ve come to realize is most important to me. And perhaps it would surprise you to know that it isn’t landing another NY contract or getting the big bucks or racking up good reviews. Or maybe it wouldn’t, I don’t know, lol.

What I’ve realized, however, is that there’s really only ONE thing I want: to be read. I don’t write for any other reason than to share my stories with readers. Readers. Not my CPs (who are awesome, by the way, but have very different goals and motivations when reading my books than true readers). Not my agent (though, bless her, I think she’s my biggest fan). And not editors, whether they work for big traditional publishers or small epresses or any combination in between. Those folks I just listed are all in between you–the reader–and the story I want to share with you. Editors, in particular, can keep my story from ever making it into your hands

So, if that’s the way I feel, you might wonder why I don’t just self-publish my books. The answer is complicated, but I have to admit that I’m considering it more and more lately. When and if the time comes that I have a completed book that I really believe in and no publisher I want to work with makes me a reasonable offer for it, I’ll at least look into that possibility.

That said, I still want the help of a publisher to get my books into readers hands, and that’s simply because I don’t have a lot of faith that my books can find readers (and vice versa) without the help of a publisher. As much as I want you to be able to read my books and enjoy my stories, I want a publisher to believe in them and (most important) hel me get them into your hands. I’m only one person, and my reach is limited to what I can accomplish on the Internet, and let’s face it, the signal-to-noise ratio is high and getting higher.

But in the end, what I really, really want (and what I think most authors want) is to be read. Anything else is gravy.

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Rereading what I had so far, I don’t know WHY I came to the conclusion that it sucked. It’s actually–dare I say it myself?–pretty good. Yes, the scenario is far-fetched and, yes, given that I’m trying to keep it short (15k or less so it can go to Spice Briefs), the HEA might come (pun intended, lol) a trifle quickly, but I have to admit that as I was reading what I’d written, I completely BOUGHT that these characters were meant to be together and would have an HEA.

Okay, so now, having meandered far from the subject line of this post, I have to say that one of my favorite things about this manuscript is the opening paragraph. Although I’m not one of those who believes the opening of every book has to be mind-blowingly good, I am well aware that the first paragraph(s)/pages of a book can strongly influence how I feel about the characters and a great opening will make me want to read more as fast as possible. It’s also the case that opening paragraphs, even if well-written and catchy, can spoil a book for me. I won’t name the book, but there is one highly acclaimed romance that I simply never liked, and I think it’s because the first paragraphs distanced me from the characters and I just never came to care about them as a result.

Because I like this opening so much, I thought I’d share it with y’all:

It was a truth universally acknowledged that Lady Grace Hannington was the most inaptly named young lady in all of England, if not all Christendom. Within two months of her debut, she had ruined at least a dozen gowns—none of them her own—and half as many cravats by spilling tea, wine, or some sort of sauce upon them, trod heavily upon many a gentleman’s slippered toe, and broken the nose of one unfortunate chap with a misplaced elbow during a reel. That list of missteps did not encompass the full measure of the lady’s sheer gracelessness, however, for she was herself forever nursing some sort of self-inflicted injury, ranging from a sprained wrist and a stubbed toe to this evening’s glorious and ill-concealed black eye.

So, how do you feel about openings? Any books in particular that you think have stellar openings (or really bad ones, lol)? Or, if you’re a writer and motivated enough, share your favorite opening paragraph from one of your books. From all the comments, I’ll pick one poster at random to receive a copy of Erica Ridley’s wonderful debut (with some great opening paragraphs), Too Wicked to Kiss, which officially hits the shelves next Tuesday.

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Hidden in the midst of all this controversy, however, is the question that really interests me: how much are books worth? And by “books,” I mean not the paper and ink on which they’re printed or the computer bytes on which they’re stored, but the actual dollar value of STORY they contain, however packaged. In other words, when you buy a book, are you buying it for the storage medium or for what you perceive its entertainment/informational value to be?

I’ll be honest–I’m still a primarily paper book reader. This is a function of a combination of factors, including the fact that I don’t feel ready to invest in an ereader as I think the technology is still too fluid and the prices for the devices too high for what they do. I worry about amassing a library of ebooks in formats that will become obsolete and unreadable, something I know will never happen to my paper books (well, unless my house burns down). That’s not to say I can’t be converted–and in fact, the groaning of my bookshelves argues I should hope to be converted soon–but I’m just not there yet.

That said, I have bought ebooks, though usually these are books that aren’t available in print format. I don’t dislike ebooks by any means, nor do I feel they’re intrinsically less valuable than print books. Yet I know many, many people DO think ebooks are instrinsically less valuable (in the dollar sense) than print books for a number of reasons, including the fact that there is no physical object, the digital file cannot be legally shared or resold, and (in the case of Kindle) the file can be removed remotely by the vendor. And then there’s the whole DRM thing (something I’ve honestly never encountered because I don’t believe I’ve ever purchased an ebook that had it).

Okay, so I do agree that a physical book has slightly greater intrinsic value than a digital one because, once purchased, it cannot be repossessed and it can be legally shared or resold. Obviously, it also costs more per unit to produce paper books, which argues for a higher price than digital books. But how MUCH more?

A large part of the MacMillan/Amazon kerfuffle was driven by publishers’ fears that setting prices too low for digital books would act to “cannibalize” hardcopy sales, especially of hardcovers, and also set consumer expectations that a digital book is NEVER worth more than $9.99. MacMillan would prefer to have more flexibility in establishing the core value of the CONTENT of their books than Amazon’s pricing structure would have allowed, even though (according to Nathan Bransford’s analysis), the Amazon structure actually results in the publishers receiving about $2 more per copy sold.

The thing is, I sympathize with MacMillan’s position even though I don’t know that I’ll ever be willing to pay much more than $9.99 for a digital book. Certainly, the high end that’s being discussed for digital books in the “agency” model of $14.99 is WAY more than I’d ever pay. But that isn’t because we’re talking about DIGITAL books. It’s because, as a book-buyer in ANY format, my price range for a single title novel is no more than about $10, with an absolute ceiling of about $14, and I’ll pay that only in VERY special cases. (If I want to buy a book that’s only in trade paper, I’ll wait for a coupon or a special 3 for 2 deal to come along to make the unit price more tolerable.) I never buy hardbacks, not only because I think $20+ is outrageous for a book, but because I find them heavy and unwieldy.

So, basically, I don’t see my price tolerance for books changing all that much based on whether it’s digital or print. I don’t tend to pass on my paper books to other people very often (most of the folks I know IRL don’t share my taste in reading material), so the whole “I can share/resell it” thing doesn’t factor into how much I’m willing to pay.

In the final analysis, I’m willing to pay for a book what I think the story contained within its pages or bits and bytes is worth. For me, that’s around $10. But that doesn’t mean I begrudge publishers for wanting to establish higher prices for their books. Maybe I’ll adjust to those prices or maybe I won’t. Only time will tell. But I don’t think format should be a SIGNIFICANT factor in determining the dollar value of a book’s contents.

Okay, tell me why I’m all wet . And how much do YOU think books are worth?

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Okay, so I kind of get it–it’s a riff on iPod, and Apple’s hoping this device does for ebooks what the iPod did for digital music. But honestly, what is it about devices for ebooks that makes manufacturers so determined to give them ridiculous names? Granted that Kindle is okay (although what starting a fire has to do with ebooks is beyond me) and Sony’s eInk name is a downright win, the two latest high-profile entries into the market, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and now Apple’s iPad, are just jokes waiting to happen.

Oh wait, the jokes didn’t wait. They were all over Twitter within minutes of the announcement. To the extent that iTampon became a trending topic and SBSarah from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books asked what happens if you have both a Nook and an IPad. (I suggested iFlow.) Jody Wallace wondered if a future, slimmed-down version would be the iMini, while a bigger, souped-up one (possibly for the large print reading public) might be called the iMaxi.

Whenever an unmistakably silly and riffable name like this comes down the pike from a large and respected company, the first thing we wonder is where the logical people were when the name was suggested. How could they have come up with a such a train wreck of a name, something so patently laughable?

The obvious answer is…they knew EXACTLY what they were doing. And in Apple’s case, I totally think they chose iPad with their eyes wide open. People are talking about it. They are getting a ton of free publicity from having given it a name that makes most of us wonder what the marketing people were smoking when they came up with it. There is method to their madness.

What I’m NOT sure there’s a method to is the pricing. The least expensive version of the iPad will set you back $499 for 16GB of storage space. Maybe I’m overly price sensitive, but I’ve got an iPod that has 30gb of space and a video screen that cost only a little more than half that. And while you could argue the iPad does the music function AND the music/video function in the same device, it’s a device that (judging from the photo of it in Steve Jobs’ hands) isn’t going to fit in my purse. Yes, it’s smaller than my laptop, but it doesn’t look a WHOLE lot smaller than a netbook, and I can get one of those for $250 according to today’s ads in the local paper.

I’m sure there are a lot of people who will buy the iPad and love it. But for me, the price entirely quelled my (initially very positive) response. At $200-$300, I very well might have bought one, but not outside the realm of possibility. $300-$350 would have made it harder to justify. But there’s nothing this device offers that I don’t already have elsewhere that I’m willing to shell out $499 plus 8.25% local sales tax.

In other words, I guess I’ll be reading mostly dead tree books for a while yet.

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Okay, so, I’m not here to be a cheerleader for the big publishing houses, because I don’t think they’re always in the right, but I’ll tell you what–I don’t think they’re always in the wrong, either.

For example, I know DRM is a touchy subject for the ebook readers out there and that they are unfairly being tarred with the brush of “pirate” because they just want to share their digital books the way they’d share print ones. I completely sympathize with that point of view. But by the same token, I understand why publishers feel they MUST use DRM and why they equate peer-to-peer sharing with piracy. For book publishers, the reality of digital formats means that a single copy of a book can be shared infinitely without any degradation in quality.

It’s as if we were living in world where Star Trek style replicators existed and any manufactured item could just be popped into it and reproduced ad infinitum at virtually no cost. If people could do that with print books (instead of having to copy them painstakingly page by page), you can believe that publishers would be trying to do something to paper books to prevent that, too. DRM may suck as a solution and do more to piss readers off than to protect digital books from being pirated, but publishers are over a barrel on this one. While it’s a poor solution at best (and doesn’t even really work), until the digital book market settles on a single file format a la mp3 and a model like iTumes comes into existence for books, they’re just trying to stick their fingers in the dyke.

And then there’s the issue of authors airing their grievances with the publishers. This particular round has to do with cover art. You can read the post on Dear Author if you’re interested in the specifics of the discussion.

Here’s the thing: when it comes to cover art (and by extension, titles), I’m inclined to believe publishers generally DO know what they’re doing. Even if the author hates the result, even if the models don’t look like the protagonists, even if the title makes the author cringe in mortification. All of the major publishing houses have been in the business of designing, marketing, and selling books for longer than any living author has been writing books. They haven’t succeeded in staying in business for 100+ years by being clueless. Authors are often surprised to discover that the title/cover that made them want to cover their faces in shame are actually beloved by readers and precisely what drew them to the book. This isn’t to say that every title/cover produced by a publisher is a winner, but on balance, I think it’s safe to assume the publisher has a better grasp of what sells than the average author.

Part of the reason I think authors don’t complain a lot in public about the publishers isn’t just that they’re afraid of the consequences (which is certainly an issue, especially for authors without a significant track record), but because in the final analysis, the publisher is taking the lion’s share of the risk (at least if it’s an advance-paying, traditional print publishing house) and therefore, you tend to err on the side of suspecting the publisher isn’t all wet. If you do think they’re all wet, then once your contract is up, it’s time to go looking for another publisher, and again, if you don’t have much of a track record, the last thing you want is to gain a reputation as someone who makes a big stink over things you really don’t know much about.

So, yes, there’s some fear there but also prudence and a sense of respect. You wouldn’t want your publisher complaining publicly about what a pain in the ass you were to work with and how you were completely clueless about how to write a book that could sell. That being the case, I think it’s just decent to return the favor and not trash talk¹ your publisher–even if you’re sure it’s all true and your publisher fatally sabotaged your career. There are just some places you’re wise not to go.
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¹I hope no one will construe this to mean I think the letter by Barry Eisler that was posted at Dear Author constituted “trash talking.” It was actually anything but. Which is precisely why I think writing and distributing it isn’t likely to cause Mr. Eisler any damage. That said, if I were to be moved to complain about something my publisher did, I doubt I could be so well-reasoned and insightful, which is one of the reasons I won’t go there.

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When they arrived at our house (after finding three of the four possible routes blocked by trees/tree limbs), they discovered the pecan tree in the southwest corner of our yard was one of the storm’s victims. It missed hitting the house (although if it had, it would only have harmed on corner of the garage), but it didn’t miss hitting the power line. It didn’t completely detach the service line from the pole, but it seriously stretched it.

As it turned out, the entire neighborhood was without power from 2 that afternoon until about 5 on Wednesday morning, but we had to wait until 10:30 Wednesday night for someone to finally come out, remove the old line, and attach a new one above the fallen tree.

And thus the topic of my post. As I was wandering around my candle-lit house, it dawned on me that I was seeing things in much the same way the characters of my 19th century historical novels would have done. Of course, living without electrical power in the modern world is a good deal more inconvenient that it would have been for our non-electrified brethen who were, after all, accustomed to cooking meals and doing other day-to-day tasks without the help of electrical appliances like stoves and ovens and whatnot. They didn’t expect to have TV or radio or (ye gods how did I go 30 hours without?) the Internet, so they didn’t miss any of those things.

Even so, however, I was struck by how PRETTY everything seemed those two nights without power. Candles actually throw a surprising amount of light, particularly when well-placed, and after a while, it stopped seeming dark to me and instead seemed warm and cozy (even though, to be honest, the house was REALLY cold!). I became very aware in those hours how much softer things looked, how much less I noticed dirt (a very good thing for someone with my aversion to housekeeping, lol), and how relaxed that candlelight made me feel (once I got over the horror of figuring out how I was going to feed my family dinner without a stove).

After it was all over and the lights came back on, I almost MISSED the flickering warmth of candelight. My husband felt the same way. So we’re considering having a “back to the 19th century” night every now and again (with or without the assistance of the power company) just to enjoy it.

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To say that a theft represents a loss of income to the seller of the product assumes two facts not in evidence in this case:

1) The thief, deprived of the opportunity to steal the product, would have purchased it instead.

2) The object, having been stolen, cannot be sold to another customer who would have purchased it.

Assumption #1 drives me crazy because I would be willing to bet a very large sum of money (assuming I had it) that the vast majority of ebook pirates either never pay for books or do so only under extreme circumstances. They consider it beneath them and their mad skilz to actually pay for books. That’s why they’re out trolling torrent sites in the first place. People who don’t have any intention of pirating books don’t go looking for them on known pirate sites.¹

In other words, these people are thieves, plain and simple. And just like a thief won’t buy the diamond bracelet because he can’t knock over the jewelry store, the ebook pirate won’t go and buy a legitimate copy if she can’t get it for free. (Special thanks to Courtney Milan for the analogy.)

That said, I saw a few folks on Twitter comment that they hate DRM and because they want DRM-free books, they think piracy is justifiable. I’ve also seen some people claim that it’s okay to download a pirate copy because the publisher hasn’t made the ebook available yet or that because they’re “trying out new authors” without financial risk, it makes them more likely to buy another book from that author down the road.

These are all, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, lame rationalizations for doing something you know is wrong–e.g., stealing. If you’ve ever knowingly downloaded a pirated ebook, I don’t care what your reason for doing so is: you’re still a thief. (The DRM rationalization is extra lame, by the way, because of my books that have turned up on torrent sites, the vast majority have been DRM-free from the publisher. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve yet seen my NY-published book–the ebook version of which presumably has DRM–turn up on a torrent site yet, although that may say more about the popularity of my book than it does about piracy and DRM, but the point is, no one has to resort to pirating to get the vast majority of my catalog without DRM.)

So, I think whatever that actual dollar value that can be assigned to pirated ebooks may be, it doesn’t tell us anything about how much money the publishing industry is losing from it because there’s no way of knowing what percentage of those downloads might have been sales if the opportunity to get pirated copies didn’t exist. I’m sure that the amount lost to piracy is far from zero. But it’s also far, far from 100% of the retail value of the pirated copies.

But Assumption #2 above is also interesting to me, because it points to one of the inherent problems with treating digital files as “inventory” in the first place. If the retail value of a pair of socks is $6 and someone steals that pair of socks from the store, it’s quite clear that the retailer is out those $6. The store can’t recoup that sale because the ITEM is gone.

But a digital file (whether it’s a book, music, software, etc.) isn’t a THING in the way a pair of socks is. The retail value of my digital book may be $6, but the fact that someone downloads the file for free from a torrent site does not in any way impair my publisher from selling an infinite number of copies of my book for that $6. The publisher didn’t make $6 on the copy of my book that was pirated (and yes, I’m simplifying, cutting out wholesale vs retail, etc.), but the pirated copy doesn’t somehow reduce the available stock of my book. There will still be just as many of my ebooks available for honest people to buy as before.

For these reasons, I have to admit that I don’t get all that bent out of shape when one of my books shows up on a pirate site. That’s not to say I like it or think it’s okay for people to steal my work, but I don’t see those illegally downloaded copies as lost sales or money out of my pocket because I don’t think those people would have bought my book in the first place.

I do, however, see the people who make pirated copies of book available as the worst sort of slime, because they absolutely KNOW they are doing something immoral and illegal. Book piracy is largely a crime of opportunity, and the people who provide the opportunity are the prime offenders.

Now, tell me what you think.

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That said, goals are not the same as resolutions. Goals are the targets you set for yourself and you don’t expect to wake up on January 1 and have them all accomplished. And I do think goals are useful, as long as they fall within the Erica Ridley guidelines for goal-setting, which are as follows:

* Goals should be specific
* Goals should be quantifiable
* Goals should be realistic
* Goals should be attainable
* You should be accountable

Erica gave a great explanation of all five guidelines on the Manuscript Mavens back in January of 2007, which you can still read here. (By the way, have I mentioned recently that Erica’s awesome paranormal gothic Regency, Too Wicked to Kiss, will be released by Kensington Books in their Zebra line in just two months’ time? If you haven’t already, hop over to her website for the book. It’s chock full of fun stuff and extras.)

So, now that we are a full week into the new year, here are Jackie’s specific, quantifiable, realistic, and achievable (cough) goals for 2010:

1. Write or revise every workday, even if I don’t feel like it and even if only dreck comes out.
2. FINISH at least two projects with word counts over 40,000 and two under 40,000. (In 2009, I was real good at starting, but very bad at finishing. Aside from one novella and two very short stories, I didn’t actually write THE END on anything.)
3. Submit at least three proposals/completed manuscripts to major publishing houses.
4. Submit at least two short stories/novellas to major epublishers.
5. Read a minimum of one book per week (I have really been falling down on this one and I know it’s not helping my writing).

That’s it. Pretty simple, really. I could have been a lot more specific about the individual projects I’m planning to work on, but decided that probably wasn’t a good idea since a sale of any one project could derail my plans to work on others (especially since they’re mostly unrelated to each other and/or targeted to completely different genres/publishers).

Check in with me again in about 358 days to find out how I did !

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I have no gold, frankincense or myrrh to present to you today, but I do have the final, full version of the Twelfth Night anthology. Now, instead of twelve individual files, you can download one instead. I hope to also have a version available for Kindle in the next few days (still working out the process), and I’ll let everyone know when it’s up there.

In the meantime, if you’ve been putting off downloading all those itty-bitty pdfs, here’s you chance to download one big one!

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