Birth Announcement: Carved In Stone out to editor

For a writer, there really is nothing like finishing a book and getting it out to the editor.  I am still hoping to get it back, revised, and published by the end of May, but it's looking more like the first weekend in June now.  Sorry.  It turned out to be a more complex story than I thought. 

After this week, the analogy of book writing to giving birth suddenly makes sense to me. I had Chapters 1-16 finished for ages. Even the beta reader finished those several weeks ago. It was the last five chapters that hurt the most and took me more than two weeks to resolve. When this one was finally finished, it really was like those first few hours after birth where a mother stares in shock at the new human that came out of her and wonders how it all happened. Too tired from labor to appreciate the higher purpose of creating new life, all the mother can think is "Thank God, that work is over." That's exactly how I'm feeling right now to finally see this book finished. My characters and their emotional problems wore me out. If it wasn't for the women fighting over my hero in the final scenes, I'd have never made it. It was the most fun I'd had with them in over a month.

So tonight I'm exhausted and tomorrow (May 15) is my birthday. I can only say thank you to the muses for granting me one more. Finishing a story is the best birthday present in the world for me this year.

Read Chapter 1 posted in a note on Facebook. 

Also, the cover was finished this week, too. Thanks to my cover artist Dara England for another fun one!