After brainstorming with my critique partner on the HORRIBLE get-together between hero and heroine after he screwed up big time, I rewrote the entire second to the last chapter of book 2 this morning and early afternoon. He has groveled and tentatively rewon the heart of his lady fair. A Renaissance Affair is just baaarely over 50k words. I told my editor friend I wanted them to take a crack at it because I know it needs work, badly. I’ll be sending them the manuscript in the middle of August as my critique partner still has one more chapter to go.
I also heard back from the mystery anthology. They had some issues with not getting enough submissions and losing staff on it but they are revamping the timeline to write in (it was just about or in the ancient world) and then reopening it up in August. I will be submitting again, so I’m going to take a look at it with fresh eyes and see if I can’t tweak it or fix some off things if there are any to be found.
August 8-9 is Romance Genrecon here in Kansas City, to which I will be attending. I have no books published so the only thing at the book fair I can do is shop. Oh darn! LOL! Just what I need: to enbiggen the TBR pile. Though to be fair, most of my TBR is either Star Wars novels or non fiction for research. I’ve been reading a lot of cozy mysteries through the library recently.
Right now I’m reading a book called The Last Dynasty about the Ptolemies in Egypt, with Cleopatra of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony infamy being the last of the line. I wish the author had more citations of his source material but it feels good to flex that memory muscle on the time period. I’ve found a couple of books on the Seleucids (Hellenistic Persia) and Antigonids (Hellenistic Greece and Macedon) that’s on my Amazon wishlist but I may just request them through interlibrary loan. I don’t know much about that time period for those two regions after the Successor Wars, following Alexander the Great’s death. Since I was so Egypt and Alexander focused when I was in college, I had no interest in them so I didn’t research them much. I’ve been toying with trying to finish up my master’s degree, assuming my credits are still good to either transfer or stick with Wichita State University now that they have an ancient world professor back on staff. I should get off my duff and see how a long-distance arrangement can be done, if it can be done at all.
But I digress. It’s a bucket list wish that I might fulfill one day.
Cheers!
