to my husband. Four years today! You’d think a romance writer would come up with something eloquent and emotional, full of properly beautiful sentiment to suit the occasion, but then, I started off in comic greeting cards. However, we’re moving and I’m so tired it’s painful, so I’ll just stick to the basics and spare the world the results of Tired Wit.

Happy anniversary. Let’s do this again next year.

It’s not done. I realized this morning, laying in bed, that I need another chapter in between the last one and the currently second-to-last. There are things I don’t have room to fully resolve there and I need more room. So, another chapter to add. Which should fix my problem with the ending not feeling punchy enough. I always find if some critical scene feels too soft, it’s because some point leading up to that moment didn’t get enough build-up.

I’m glad I can see what needs to be done there, but I’m nearly certain this means Wolf will NOT be ready in time for the 2006 Cavemen anthology deadline. Which is tomorrow. I haven’t had the time to put in over the last two weeks due to getting ready to move. It’s just bad timing this year, and I knew it would be tight if I didn’t turn a story in before I had the baby. I thought I could make it, but…looks like close but not quite.

There are advantages to this. Wolf is set in a very complex and interesting world and I’d like to spend more time there. Since anthology stories are not supposed to be part of a series, not entering it leaves me free to go further with this world. Also, it removes the 12K limit and means if I need to go longer to fully develop this story, I can. A Quickie can go up to 15K and if I go over that, it’ll be a novella. Also, it’s likely to release sooner if I submit it alone than if it goes into a 2006 anthology. In other words, missing the Cavemen deadline isn’t the end of the world and might turn out to be very much to my advantage.

I’ll see what I can get done in the next two days, but given the level of activity going on with the move preparation and the amount of work still remaining on Wolf, I’m going to mentally write off making the deadline. I’d rather make sure the story is fully told than rush it, and the Cavemen anthologies are a voluntary deadline. I’m not breaking an obligation by missing it.

It’s official, Catalyst is a Cerridwen Press book. The contract is in today’s mail! Yes, I’d already talked about it with my editor, but then Raelene went on vacation and my editor went on vacation so I thought it might be the end of the first week of October before it was official. I’m very happy it didn’t take that long! Yet another reason I love dealing with EC, that’s how efficient they are even when people are dealing with post-vacation backlog. The business runs on rails.

Catalyst is my backwards book; the first one I ever wrote and the last to get a contract. It probably could have had a contract sooner, but it needed major revision after I learned enough to know how to fix it and I let it sit on the back burner while I worked on other things because last year, I was revisioned out.

Not only is its publication date backwards, but I released it independently before I submitted it to raise funds for Katrina relief. (Glad I did, too; every dollar matters and people arriving at shelters were in dire straits. “Lost their shorts” is not a joke down there right now. It’s the literal truth.) I did everything with this book backwards, but I love it and I love that it’s ending up an official Cerridwen book where it can raise many more dollars, because the double whammy of Rita on top of Katrina means the money is needed more than ever. Every buck I can raise and send on with this book makes a difference. And that’s backwards, too; the problems of fictional people going to work to solve real problems for real people.

This book is not the only backward thing in our lives right now. After owning homes as single people, we looked at the latest batch of places we could afford to own now, looked at each other, and said, “What we really want is to go rent a nice, clean, new, modern, SAFE apartment.” I know, most people live in apartments when they’re single. Then they get married and have kids and buy a house. Well, now that we have kids, we don’t have time to maintain a yard and a house. And we also aren’t in a position to deal well with surprises like a new furnace or a new roof. In an apartment, those things are somebody else’s worry. So we’re taking a step backwards and we plan to be apartment residents as soon as we can sign on the dotted line. We’re incredibly happy about this decision, too.

Doing things backwards can sometimes be the only direction to follow your bliss. Don’t let conventional wisdom tell you forward is the only way. We’re living proof that you can go backwards and arrive exactly where you want to be.

1. Cancer
2. Triple-bypass surgery
3. I was going to say having wisdom teeth extracted, but on second thought, that came with lots of really great pain killers and moving doesn’t so…
4. Being wiped out by a natural disaster
5. Being stranded on a desert island with only one book, and it’s Ulysses by James Joyce. (Spare me the explanations, I’ve heard them all and I still consider it the most unreadable book ever written.)

OK, so there ARE worse things than moving. Good. I’m all cheered up now. And since I’m going to need more cheering up after filling some more boxes, tell me what book you would most hate to be stranded on a desert island with. And what book you’d love to have most.

I’m just about done with revising Wolf, and I’m really pleased with the story. It’s a very ambitious kind of story, especially for the length and I love how it works. Lots to do today so I’m going to blog and run and maybe post some more later if I get a chance. Picture me with my nose to the grindstone and one eye on the calendar.

Forgot to add: Romance Junkies gave Catalyst 4.5 Blue Ribbons. Review won’t post until Cat re-releases, but I got an advance copy. : ) Here’s a quote from reviwer Chrissy:
“CATALYST had me laughing out loud over the antics of Sebastian in all his territorial male glory. I could easily picture this mangy tomcat acting like the lord and master over Veronica and running off any men that come into the vicinity. Veronica’s obsession over the need for coffee and the loss of the coffee bean grinder is what initially brings Veronica and Scott together, but a mutual need for each other keeps them coming back. Charlene Teglia’s CATALYST is fast paced, a pleasure to read, and will have you smiling through to the end.”

I should have some news on the status of Catalyst after my editor gets back from vacation. I’ll update the book page as soon as I get more information.

Sheesh, the days go by fast when you’re raising small people, writing, and packing in preparation to move. I feel better today after a couple of days of taking it easy. Only got a couple of hundred words yesterday, so today I’m back at it. The cleanup is going pretty well. I only really have a consistency issue in the scene I already know I have to rewrite (and how I’m going to do it), but it does raise a point I have to clarify early on, so I’m working on that.

Yes, I’m obsessive about my story cleanup and refining before I submit. I always worry that I’ve missed something. My editor appreciates it, and that’s always a good thing, a happy editor. I don’t think any author can afford to be the one who’s difficult to work with, creating uncessary work for others. Editors do a very vital job, but no editor should have to do MY job for me. If it’s something I could’ve fixed myself, it’s just sloppy not to. I have a Thing about sloppy work. It’s fine to be sloppy in the draft, but clean it up afterwards.

I’m very pleased with Wolf overall and I’m also happy that Jane’s Addiction is clicking along, too. I have that top of my list to kick out the door next, or I’m probably going to get lynched by people who have waited far too long for When Sparks Fly #2. And then the next Hal’s Heros installment. And then…yeah, I’m going to be busy into the next century. But today, I clean up more of Wolf.

I keep seeing all these, well, rules. Rules about how to blog, how to attract more readers to your blog, what an author should or shouldn’t on pain of death (or loss of book sales) blog about. It’s all kind of depressing. Reminds me of those books that used to tell me I wasn’t a real writer if I didn’t write a 20 page outline and use 3×5 scene cards to plot my story in advance. And that GMC stuff.

In some ways I can see the point; if a blog is so offensive that it drives away readers, that’s a Bad Thing from a marketing standpoint and I can see why publishers and agents would frown on that. But a blog by its nature is personal, at least to a degree. And honest. And there’s that Julia Cameron quote I love about it being nearly impossible to be honest and boring at the same time. If I write a dishonest blog, I wouldn’t want to keep doing it and I can’t imagine why anybody would want to read it. Also, if I want to make stuff up, I go write fiction and get paid! I don’t get paid for blogging. So I think I should at least be free to ignore The Rules. After all, anybody who doesn’t like my blog is free to not read it. ; )

I’ve finished The Blurb for Wolf and I’m pretty happy with it. It’s solid, maybe needs a little minor tweak before I send it off, but a good blurb. I have story cleanup to do, but the bulk of Wolf is done. I’ll be spending the next few days polishing, refining and tweaking and then it’ll get sent off. I’d be done sooner, but I seem to have come down with bronchitis so I’m going to take it easy the next few days. (If you’ve ever had it before, that ache in the chest is unmistakable.)