It has been a busy month or so, hence my lack of posts on the blog recently. It seems the letter of the month is: D, so let me fill you in on what’s been happening in my world…

Deadlines:

My third Tarrin’s Bay novel, Miracle in March, was due on 30^th September. I sent it in on d-day, at 11pm. Phew! Now, fingers crossed it doesn’t suck. 😉

While writing this book I also had edits to do on 12 Daves of Christmas, attended the RWA writers conference, and if you’ve read my last post, dealt with the excitement of signing a 5 book deal for my YA series (see Delta Girls below). There was so much happening at once, my brain felt like it had several internet browser tabs open all at once! Oh, I also got injured. Read on…

Dangers:

Two days before my book was due, the universe decided it wanted me to take some time out. It didn’t seem to care that I had a book to finish, nah-ah. It thought, ‘Juliet needs to take a break, but she just won’t tear herself away from the computer. What shall we do? I know! Let’s throw her down the stairs.’

Yep.

Down I went.

At 1:30am on a Monday.

10 steps to be exact.

An overweight cat in my arms and fluffy bedsocks on my feet probably didn’t help matters.

My son came out of his room and just looked at me strangely as I lay in a heap on the stairs.

“Aren’t you going to help me?” I asked, panting from getting the air knocked out of me.

“I thought you were just killing a spider or something,” he replied.

Apparently I must make a lot of noise when I’m in spider-slaying mode. He soon realized I was hurt and helped me walk back upstairs (the cat was hiding under a chair at this point, looking at me wide-eyed and wary like I was some psychotic person who enjoys freaking the crap out of furry domestic creatures just for fun). He got me a drink of juice (my son, not the cat), which was nice. But I had to get my own ice pack.

I discovered during my fall that the brain can think of many different things in only a second or two. The old ‘life flashing before your eyes’ thing. Okay, I knew I would probably survive the ordeal, but in that second or two when I had no control and was in pain and couldn’t stop myself falling, it was pretty scary. I thought such things as: Will my son remember how to call emergency? Does he remember our address? Will I get a head injury? Will I break a bone? And I even had time to think: Oh crap, will I still be able to finish my book in two days?!

Thankfully I landed, though with a bump to my arm, which went suddenly numb and weak. I hurt EVERYWHERE, and to make things interesting, I only had one packet of frozen vegetables to use as first aid. Despite this, I managed to get some nice, large, black bruises, and strained muscles. I also got scratched by my cat, and even broke a fingernail. Ouch. Okay, so the fingernail didn’t hurt, but damn it I had just grown my other ones long enough to match. 😉

I discovered that being in pain is good for the vocabulary – it’s amazing how many new swear word combinations one can come up with while trying to roll over in bed when every muscle is screaming at you to be still, or after sneezing and pulling your damaged shoulder tendon to the point that it feels like there’s a knife in your back! Three weeks later my shoulder is still causing pain, so I’m getting a cortisone injection soon to kick inflammation’s ass. Silver lining of all this – I couldn’t do housework for a week.

Delta Girls: 

If you missed my post about my Young Adult book deal, here it is. After signing my contract and filling out various forms for my publisher, I started plotting and writing the second book in The Delta Girls series. The first book, SIGHT, will begin edits soon and will be releasing on May 12^th 2015, with each book following soon after. The second book, SOUND, is taking shape and I’m very excited about the story. I’m remembering how much I love writing YA. I find the voice easy to slip into and especially as it’s told in first person, I’m finding it fascinating to get inside the mind of another character.

This book is due at the end of December, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that two days before the deadline I will remember to not carry my overweight cat down the stairs while wearing fluffy socks. 😉

…With all these D words, I think I should end the blog post on a positive note, so here are some random, positive words starting with D. Can you think of any more? If so, leave them in the comments!

Dreams, destiny, dancing, dinner, delicious, drinks, dessert, diamonds, decadent, dashing, Dracula’s muscles (well, have you seen them?). 😉