Just one of those weeks...

This has been a really weird week. I had a book due on Monday--Wolf Tales 11--and I missed the deadline. I rarely do that because, one, deadlines are important and they're set for a reason. Production is geared to the date a book is supposed to be turned in, and unless I warn my editor way in advance, I can really mess up Kensington's schedule. Did I say this does NOT endear authors to their editors? But, an even more personal issue is that if I'm late on one book, it cuts into the time I have slotted to write the next book, so this extra two weeks I've asked for will probably come back and bite me in the butt around the end of April when StarFire, the third book in my DEMONSLAYERS series is due.

Anyway, the book's late partially because I've been doing a lot of promotional stuff for DemonFire, which is scheduled to release next Tuesday, February 23rd. I've spent so much time writing blogs and "letters to readers" for various websites that it's put me behind and I've been scrambling to finish. Of course, it helps that I finally figured out yesterday how the book should end. (That's a big part of finishing these things.) The plus side of all this is that I've been so busy working on promo and writing WT11 that I haven't had time to worry about DemonFire coming out, which is a VERY GOOD THING.

Plus, I'm going to spend all next week babysitting the grandpuppy in town while our daughter Sarah and her family are in Disneyland, so I'll be too busy consoling Gigi while her family is away to freak out about my first mass market release. Gigi is absolutely wonderful--she's a rescue dog that Sarah found after weeks and weeks of searching for just the right pet for a family with three live wires known as children. She hadn't had much luck--the dogs she saw were either too big or too small or not trustworthy around small kids. Then she found Gigi at a "pet fair." She was filthy and matted and Sarah said she took one look and fell in love. Gigi looks like she should be a big dog, but somehow she got the wrong set of legs, which means she's a big but very short dog. Now tell me, who could NOT love a girl with a face like that?

But I digress...what's made this week so strange is the way my writing has been going on the current book. Each day that I've booted up the laptop and started in on the story, I've had the day's scenes in my head from the get go. Once I've gotten each scene down, I haven't had a CLUE what was coming next. So I'd shut down for the night, and when I got up in the morning, there was the next part of the book. Not my usual process as I generally have a little bit of an idea by the time I'm down to the last three or so chapters, how the book is going to end. Not this time--I didn't know for sure until yesterday, and I'm still not positive how I'm going to get there. It's not that the process has failed me, but it's sure taken a jog. It's left me a bit off balance, but also really excited to see what's going to happen next. I should be done by this weekend and be ready to turn it over to my beta readers. That's when I find out if this new writing method will have paid off or not! (My beta readers are not at all shy about telling me when I've totally mucked up a story. I "think" this is a good thing!)

My publisher has put up a wonderful webpage for me with the first chapters of DemonFire and HellFire, the second book in the series. I hope you'll take a look, and if you're out and about with a camera in your hand and see any displays of DemonFire (it's supposed to make it to grocery stores and Walmarts and Target stores along with bookstores around the country) take a picture and send it to me at kate@katedouglas.com. I'm so excited about having a book out with this type of distribution, I'll be running a contest on my Facebook page and posting some of the photos I get of places where readers have seen it. The winner will get an ARC of HellFire, the second book in the series.

Now I need to get back to work on Wolf Tales 11 and make sure the ending I think it's going to have is the one it's actually going to get. And then I need to think about StarFire and what's going to happen in that one.

And totally off subject, but have I mentioned lately how much I absolutely love my job? I'm sitting here writing this blog with a stupid grin on my face, thinking about what I've got on my schedule that's making me nuts and at the same time how much fun I'm having. I hope the day never comes where I feel jaded by the wonderful opportunity I've been given, to write the stories that pop into my head, and actually have people read them. It's an absolute rush, and I'm thankful every day for such a cool opportunity. It's got to be the greatest career in the world.

So how has your week been? Were you stuck in snow on the east coast, glued to TV and the Olympics, or are you taking your free time (we all have LOTS of that, right?) to read some good books. And if so, what are you reading? I'm waiting for my copy of Stella's OUT OF BODY to arrive. With any luck, it's going to show up AFTER I finish Wolf Tales 11! Wish me luck!