Ramblings...

So...  there's a writing contest I want to enter. The deadline is May 15. I have one more major scene to write in the story I'm currently actively working on. Then I have to go back and do some major re-writes and trimming. Then I'll have to do some polishing. I have two weeks so that should be plenty of time, right?

Uh... no?

We're on overtime for the next two weeks at work, there's an all day class tomorrow on 16th century fencing I want to attend, I've been asked to do a little speech at church this sunday about a missionary I knew, I have an SCA event to go to next weekend, and my apartment looks (as my mother would say) like a bomb hit it. I don't need perfect cleanliness, but I find I do better in tidy surroundings. What a shame I don't like to clean. I wonder what it would cost to have someone come in and vacuum, dust and sweep my dumpy little apartment? Probably far more than I could afford, so when I got home from work today (after a mere 12.5 hours after leaving home) I cleaned the cat boxes, brushed the kitties, took out the trash, tidied and vaccuumed the livingroom and loaded the dishwasher. Yay for being productive! I would dearly like to sit down and knit while I watch TV. But that deadline is looming. Better go pull up the book and at least get my final scene mapped out.

This is the life of an author. Geez, such glamor overwelms me. And I'm betting it won't change much after I get published. Sigh.

What if?

What if the plane you were on was thrown fifty years into the future, where war and plague had reduced the world to the Wild West? What if the people that survived that catastrophe had supernatural gifts hidden in their genes? Imagine that the plague had eliminated 90% of all females in the world, and the ones that remained were seen as precious commodities to be protected and parceled out to the men who would be most likely to re-populate the world with strong healthy offspring. Suppose you were offered as the prize to a dozen men who would fight for the right to marry you. How would you react to the werewolf who won you?

Those are the questions that Carla Z, a rising country music singer, has to face when the plane taking her to her next show crashes in the middle of what had been the state of Nebraska. Cell phones, lap tops and the plane radio are dead, so the uninjured survivors pair up and walk to find aid for the wounded and dying. It's unbelievable but undeniable that the world she knew in 2014 was gone along with most of its technology. The prairie rolls on forever, empty except for an occassional abandoned farmhouse and broken crumbling towns with no inhabitants. When she and her partner finally find people in a small farming community that doesn't have phones or televisions they are taken by wagon to a nearby town where they are sold to a man who sets up a Bride Fight. Men come from all over town to pay to enter the fight that will decide which man will marry which woman. Carla is won by a man named Taye Wolfe, the leader of a group who lives just north of town. Taye is the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, and he is fascinated by the woman his wolf chose as his mate. Her scent is arousing and comforting at the same time. Now he just has to convince her that he really has fallen in love at first sniff.

Here we go!

A few weeks ago one of my friends at work was complaining about her husband being a dick. We love 'em, but let's face it, they can all be dicks from time to time, right? I mean, after eleven years of marriage, he picks now to tell her he has always hated having a night light on? And the kids were sick. And the new workload at work was kicking our butts. Sound familiar? That's Real Life (TM) Anyway, to cheer her up I began making up a story and sharing it with the gals at work. It wasn't meant to be serious, just a little diversion to help us forget how stupid men can be and how stressful work is. 

I've always written stories in my head, mostly when I should have been paying attention to teachers and other authority figures. I had even filled several spiral bound notebooks in school when I probably should have been taking notes. But I never took my storytelling seriously. But the story for the gals at work grew and branched off into stories centering around other characters and I'd go home from work and spend a couple hours at the computer writing it all down. Then I'd email a copy of the newest pages to them to critique. They were more than generous with their praise and began saying I should get published.

Published? I have never submitted anything to be published, except for a few knitting patterns on http://www.ravelry.com/. It was an exciting, and scary, thought. But wouldn't it be great to have other people enjoy my stories? The e-publishing world has a lot of businesses out there looking for new authors with fun and unusual romance stories. So if one rejects me another may accept me. And maybe a rejection could have some suggestions for improvements. That would be really nice. I'll keep posting here on my progress (or lack thereof), without naming any publisher names. Unless one accepts my story.  I figure I'd be allowed to write about that. :)

So I'm finishing up and polishing my short story. I want it to look its best when I introduce it to publishers.