The most excellent news for the week is that Bound to Shadows ( Riley 8  ) is finally finished!! YAAYYYYYYYY!!!  🙂  I even had a little tear in my eye as I was writing the final scene, but of course, that could have just been relief that the darn thing was almost done. Right now, I’m taking a break from the story, letting the muse go ‘cold’ before I turn around and edit it. Then I’ve got to hand it over to crit buddies and Miriam, and see what they say about it. Hopefully they won’t find too much wrong with it, because the deadline is getting way too close.

Speaking of deadlines, the Deadline Dames site launched into cyberspace next Monday (19th Jan). We’re just putting the final touches on the website now and then we’ll be right. And there’s going to be some great giveaways over the first two weeks of our launch, so it’ll definitely be worth visiting (plus, of course, the dames have some really interesting things to gas-bag about).

In other news, as I mentioned first up, I’m taking a week away from Riley, but that doesn’t mean I’m taking a week away from writing. I started a short story yesterday, as I’ve been invited to submit a short to an Australian paranormal anthology.  The theme is ‘stories that accentuate the dark, sexy feel of the urban and contemporary paranormal fiction, and empower women’. Which made me go ‘hmmmmmmm’. Because while I can do the dark and sexy thing, I’m not entirely sure about the whole ’empower women’ bit. I mean, I write strong, kick ass women, but can that be classed as ’empowering women’? I’m not so sure. Plus, there’s the whole worry that Australian publishers just don’t get what I write (probably a left over from being told by a major publisher years ago that while urban fantasy and paranormal romance did have its niche in Australia, it was dominated by Americans and they really couldn’t see an Australian breaking in. Hence my decision–and it was the best thing I ever did–to go overseas with my work. So I guess in the end I have to thank them  🙂  ).  Anyway, the short story isn’t connected to any of my current novels, although originally I was going to make it an offshoot of the Myth and Magic series. The short had other ideas, however. I’ve written ten pages, and have another forty to go. If I can get it done in a week that would be brilliant, but as ever, I’ll probably fail miserably at that sort of deadline. Which is what my first post at the Deadline Dames will be about. lol