May was a super busy month. I have no idea what I was thinking, joining MayNoWriMo while doing the uber-challenging (but also uber-rewarding) mentorship with Kate Pearce.

But the good thing is I got a lot of writing done. Finally I'm finished with my sooper-sekrit project set in futuristic Paris and Shintokyo (New Tokyo) to the point where I'm satisfied with all the major plot / character arcs. I also edited a short erotic novella and sent it off to Agent, wrote the first draft of a paranormal romance novella plus a synopsis for the sequel.

On the non-writing front — I'm sure you've noticed that my site looks different. Frauke from CrocoDesigns worked her magic again. It's amazing that she knew exactly what I wanted even though my emails were somewhat vague. If you ever need a web designer, definitely check her out. She's just fantastic.

Also say hello to Miss Moneypenny (Dragon Naturally Speaking 10). I've been having problems with wrist and hand pain, and I figured I should learn to dictate. If nothing else, I can “speak” dialogue out loud, so I don't have too much downtime due to pain. I honestly don't mind having pages and pages of dialogue to go back and fill out later with descriptions and tags, etc. And now that I have a new helper, I need to train her so she can transcribe correctly.

(BTW — Amazon has an incredible deal on Dragon 10 right now. So if you're interested in trying it, you may want to check out Amazon's price.)

Finally, I uploaded A Happily Ever After of Her Own on Amazon Kindle. Several people asked me about its availability in the Kindle format, and I decided to just go ahead and do it. It's still available on my site for free to my newsletter subscribers, but if you want the convenience of reading it on your Kindle, you can get it. (Unfortunately Amazon doesn't allow individual authors to give away stuff via Kindle, so I had to price it at ninety-nine cents, the lowest allowable.)

Later this month I plan to give away a copy of Kate Pearce‘s Kiss of the Rose, the first book in her Tudor Vampire Chronicles. Vampires in Henry VIII's court — what more can paranormal and/or historical fans can ask for?

Stayed tuned for your chance to win!

(FYI – The giveaway is open to anybody anywhere in the world. I don't have any author copies or ARCs; BookDepository will ship a copy to the winner when Kiss of the Rose is released.)

May is one of my favorite months. Not only is it beautiful and warm, but everything's so green and lively! (April is hit-or-miss where I am, alas…!) Also May is when I try to organize my stuff, toss out things I no longer need, etc. Hero Material and I bought bunch of shelves and closet storage boxes. And I found the coolest thing called DropBox. It allows you to back up all your project files, etc. on their server. It also automatically syncs your files so no matter which computer you're working on, you have the latest version of your work.

Perfect, huh? :)

Since my last update, I've been pretty busy. I found a project that I had totally forgotten about on my hard drive. I know, you guys are thinking, “How can you forget about your own project? Aren't your stories like your babies or something?”

Alas, no. I don't really consider my projects babies. If I did, I couldn't be a writer since trying to sell babies for profit is a crime, and I do try to be a good law-abiding citizen. *grin*

Actually, I worked on the project all the way up to my wedding. But around that time we had lots of drama, including the bride getting ready to call off the wedding (not the groom's fault), and so on…and in all the excitement the project kinda slipped my mind until I was going through my project folders last month to decide what to back up on DropBox.

Anyway, I revised it and sent it off to Agent, who told me she liked it. Yay me.

The mentor program with Kate is going very well. She's been super encouraging, and I've learned so much from her already. I don't know how she does everything though because she has insane deadlines this year. I'm in awe.

I may also have found a good crit partner whose interests match mine. She likes to read the kind of stuff I like to read and so on. And speaking of reading, if you haven't done so, check out Larissa Ione‘s awesome Demonica series. She made my autobuy list with solid writing, hot heroes and strong heroines.

The rest of the month is going to be spent on reading and doing MayNoWriMo. I have some simple goals for the challenge and for the rest of the year. I plan to do a book giveaway in June, so stay tuned!

I'm a big fan of figure skating, and Yuna Kim is one of my favorite skaters right now. On my trip back from Thailand, I happened to have a layover in Seoul, so I went to the airport bookstore to pick up a copy of her memoir, Yuna's Seven Minute Drama.

Most of the book is about her figure skating career, leading up to the Olympics, where she won the gold medal with two stunning performances. (The book was published in January, so it doesn't actually talk about her Olympic experience.) But she also had a few thoughts on motivation, and out of those, “the final one degree” really stuck with me.

Yuna said that no matter what you're trying to do, you eventually reach a point where you feel like, “Hey, this is enough”. It's normally because you've been working very hard on something for a while, and you feel sick and tired of it and lose all motivation and enthusiasm. But this is when you really have to push forward.

The situation, she wrote, is like boiling water. If you're trying to boil water, you have to make sure the temperature reaches 100 degrees Celsius. No matter how long and hard you've been working on it, if you stop before your water hits 100 degrees, it will never boil. You can have very hot water, of course. Maybe even 99-degree hot water, which is pretty damn hot. But it's not boiling, and you won't achieve your objective, not because you're lazy or untalented, but merely because you stopped one degree short.

Writing is much the same. If you're working on writing the 1st draft, but stop before you type “the end”, you don't have a finished first draft. If you're revising but stop before your story is completely polished from the first page to the last, you don't have a revised project ready to send out to the world, even if you've spent months on revision.

It's easy to lose focus and enthusiasm for a project after spending so much time and energy on it. But don't stop when you're at ninety-nine degrees. Go for that final degree. Recognize that it's going to be the hardest and most grueling degree you'll have to work on, but get through it. And celebrate your accomplishment when your own water is finally boiling.

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs

Demon from the Dark by Kresley Cole

Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley

The Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

Alpha and Omega #3 by Patricia Briggs

Changes by Jim Butcher

Hourglass by Claudia Gray

Unholy Ghost by Stacia Kane

Kiss of the Rose by Kate Pearce

Do you have any titles that you think I should add to the list?

This is easily the best historical romance novel I've read in 2009. Go treat yourself!

Merry Christmas to me!

	Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
	Desire Unchained by Larissa Ione
	On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
	Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre
	The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines
	The Mermaid's Madness by Jim C. Hines
	The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and Struggle by L. J. Smith
	Skin Game by Ava Gray
	Death Angel by Linda Howard

How about you? Bought anything interesting recently? (It doesn't have to be a book.)