I woke up one morning about three years ago and decided I wanted to write a book. After I wrote it (120K), I wanted someone to look at it that I wouldn’t have to make eye contact with. That’s when I found Absolute Write. There was a critique section there, so I pasted a chapter and sat back to see what people thought.

I was surprised that even though I needed help [read as: LOTS of help], everyone seemed to like the story idea. Even better, everyone loved my characters.

Still, I needed help with grammar/commas/everything else you can possibly think of outside of characterization and description…

Enter my first CP, Leigh.

God bless her, she answered my ad for a critique partner right off the bat. She taught me a lot. My pages bled with every edit, but I was learning. She stuck with me until I revised that book, my baby, Blood Tithe.

Sadly, I lacked the skills necessary to have it published at a press I thought would do good by it. Although, it’s my most-offered on MS to date. I always chickened out before signing, and I’m glad I did. I wasn’t ready, the book wasn’t ready, and it is too important to throw away.

A few things happened then. I talked Leigh into taking an editor spot with Liquid Silver Books, which paid her for her time. I wrote the phoenix novellas, and she edited From the Ashes, but let’s not go there…

After that, I planned a year off to write my butt off and study. And study. And study. Then study some more.

Instead, at the end of six months, I had written Everlong. I didn’t think it would sell. I thought it was too sweet, too “me” to be marketable. I was wrong. It got me in the door at Samhain, which continues to astound me. If I didn’t get the royalty checks every month, I wouldn’t believe it happened.

[Insert shameless squeeing--Everlong goes to print on January 4th!!!!]

Anyway…all this happened. Years passed. We both moved on.

Then I get an email from her yesterday. Out of the blue, she thought up a solution to an old plot hole I hadn’t considered. I was humbled that my characters stuck with her this long, that she still believes in that book, and in my ability to write that book.

It’s sort of amazing, really.