Checking In

Lots of stuff going on here…

I’m in the midst of edits on FireDrake, which are light, but I’m having a hard time finding time to actually DO them! Ack! Speaking of FireDrake, I got a proof of the cover and it is AMAZING! As soon as I hear it’s been approved, I’ll be posting it all over the place. Believe me, I think you’ll LOVE it. Very dreamy and fantasy-ish.

I’ve also been asked to fill in for my good friend Stella who cannot be at RT this year. (We’ll miss you!!!) She was scheduled to give a workshop on inexpensive promo materials - which is a subject near and dear to my heart - so I’ll be filling in for her. I’m in the process of gathering promotional items to share with the attendees and planning my presentation. I’m really looking forward to it!

I’m also still checking in with NASA TV to see how the shuttle mission is progressing. I love watching those space walks. It’s just SO cool!

March Newsletter

The D’Arc Side NewsletterIssue 25 - March 2008 To view the newsletter Click Here.   There’s a super sneak peek excerpt from a work in progress in this month’s issue, along with information on Bianca’s upcoming releases, awards and appearances. And check out the new, free, desktop wallpaper featuring the Sons of Amber print cover. There’s a super sneak peek excerpt from a work in progress in this month’s issue, along with information on Bianca’s upcoming releases, awards and appearances. And check out the new, free, desktop wallpaper featuring the print cover.

New Contest for March Click the graphic above to learn about the fabulous prizes this month and how to enter!

Website - Chat Group - Newsletter Group

All Kinds of Book Related News

A bunch of things have happened in the past day or two…

First, I turned in the manuscript of FireDrake to my editor, so the rest of the process should begin shortly. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. Lots of action, lots of romance, lots of dragons and knights and a very cool heroine I think you’ll all like a lot.

Second, the print edition of Hara’s Legacy seems to be making an early appearance in some book stores. Joy (of Joyfully Reviewed fame) reported in on my chat group yesterday that she just picked up a copy at her local Borders. I also received a copy I’d pre-ordered from Amazon as a test. It showed up in the mail yesterday afternoon and may I say, it looks really GREAT in print!

Third, I had dinner with my publisher in Manhattan on Saturday night and a great time was had by all. I love it when she invites me places - we always have a gab-fest talking about anything and everything.

Now that FireDrake is finished, I’ve been giving some thought to what I’m going to work on next. I have one more contractual obligation to write Book 3 in the Resonance Mates series - Jaci’s Experiment - and then I’m free to do some other projects. I’m just not sure where to start.

Also, yesterday I got a great email from a reader asking if Prince Wil would get his own story in my Dragon Knights series. He most definitely will! I just am not entirely certain where to go next with the Dragon Knights. I had intended to do a time/dimension travel thing with the older set of twin princes, but given the way FireDrake ends - on a very action-oriented scene - I thought maybe I should pick up directly from that point in the over-arcing story and write a different story altogether. I’ll probably do that, and save the twin princes for the next book. Believe me, they’ll be worth the wait.

January Newsletter

I forgot to mention that my January Newsletter is now out. You can read the online version by clicking here. Here’s the official announcement:

The January Newsletter from Bianca D’Arc is now available. Inside, find a sneak peek of Davin’s Quest, the winner of last month’s contest and a new contest for January. Also find reviews, links to polls, some great online jigsaw puzzles and other links to all sorts of D’Arc Side features and mentions.

New Contest for January This month’s prize is a package of D’Arc Side goodies including the new promotional bath salts for my upcoming Sweeter Than Wine promotion. Plus a magnetic 2008 calendar, Czech glass earrings, and as much Bianca SWAG as we can fit in the package! How to enter: Sign up for my NEWSLETTER by midnight on the last day of January. Anyone who is a member of the Newsletter Group on midnight of that day is automatically entered! One winner will be chosen at random and announced in my next newsletter, so stay tuned…

Come over to the D’Arc side… WWW.BIANCADARC.COM

Sad News

I think many of you know I’ve been scarce of late and wrapped up in family concerns. Unfortunately, the trend will continue for a bit. We’ve had a death in the family, which in a way is a bit of a relief because he was so sick, but still it’s heartwrenching. So I’ll be around, but not as much as usual for the next little while. Thanks to those of you who’ve prayed for my family. I hope you’ll continue to remember us in your prayers, if you believe in such things.

Bianca

Chippewa & Lady Aibell Closing

I found out this afternoon that both Chippewa Publishing and Lady Aibell Press will be closing at the end of the month. You may not realize this, but Chippewa was the very first publisher to ever offer me a contract.

Near the end of 2005, I saw an announcement on the EROS list about a vampire romance anthology competition offered by Chippewa for their Vamprotica 2006 collection. I’d never written a vamp story before, but had read a bunch and loved the genre. I figured, why not?

I wrote the story in about an hour - there was a 5k limit - and sent it off, not really expecting anything would come of it. A few weeks later, though the story hadn’t been selected for the anthology, I was offered a contract for One & Only to release as a single-title. I was floored!

That was in October. In November, I did NaNoWriMo for the first time and decided to try another new topic - dragons. I finished writing Maiden Flight in about 3 weeks. Building on the newfound confidence of having One & Only contracted, I decided to send Maiden Flight off to Samhain. It was contracted shortly thereafter. Although Maiden Flight was my first book to actually come out (on Valentine’s Day of 2006), One & Only was the first ever contracted, so it holds a special place in my heart.

I also went on to write more vamps and expanded the world to include weres and fey. Rare Vintage came next, then Phantom Desires, which did make it into the Vamprotica 2007 anthology. Forever Valentine went to Samhain, as did Lords of the Were, and in a few weeks, Sweeter Than Wine will join the collection.

There is some uncertainty regarding those first three stories right now because they won’t be available for sale after November 30th. However, I’m already looking for a new home for them and will underoubtedly be expanding them before they are re-released somewhere else. Stay tuned. I’ll let you all know when I know where they’ll be going.

In the meantime, I’d just like to thank the folks at Chippewa and Lady Aibell for giving me my start. I suppose this’ll be one of the last times I get to post the covers for these books. I created them and had a lot of fun doing so. Thanks again to Chip/LAP for allowing me to stretch my wings artistically.

Happy Monday!

I had a great time meeting everyone in Marlboro on Saturday. Such a nice group of people! And I loved the Halloween costumes!

It’s been a busy few days. First off, today I posted my snippet from the Dunvegas collection we’re doing on the Behind The Veil blog (Link in my sidebar). It was also my day to post on the Daughters of Circe blog and now I’m posting here, so there’s been a whole lotta posting going on!   I spent last night finalizing the Dunvegas cover art and also working on a page where I’ll be posting links to the various free stories I have floating around - 3 in total, right now. We’re promoting the Duvegas collection as a whole on the blog for the month of November, then I’ll be posting just my story - titled “The Big Bad Wolf” - on my site, probably at the beginning of December. Like I said, I’ve been working on a page just for free stories to add to my site, which will probably go live then, if I can finish it in time and figure how to add it into the existing framework of the site.

In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at the cover. I did a basic cover for the collection as a whole, then adapted it for my individual story. I’ve offered to do individual covers like this for the rest of the authors in the series, but so far, nobody’s taken me up on it. But then, we’re all pretty busy, so I’ve noticed some paying more attention than others at different points in this project. I know I was guilty of that until a week or two ago, when I got moving on the story in earnest.

The story is a short - only about 5,000 words, but it introduces the head of security for the ficticious casino called Dunvegas. He’s a werewolf, of course, and the red-haired woman who stumbles into his path is much more than a tasty morsel… she’s his mate.

The full story will be available on Halloween, along with the others in the collection, so look for the download link on the Beyond The Veil blog.

Sniffle, Sniffle, Sneeze, Sneeze

Yup, that’s what I’ve sounded like for the past 2-3 days. I’m still away from home and got a wicked Summer cold, complete with fever. It’s been horrible being sick away from home. No creature comforts and especially no tea kettle! I usually like to have tea with lemon and honey, but you can’t quite get that when you’re staying in a hotel. So instead, I did a quick supermarket run and got a gallon of orange juice and have been drinking that pretty much non-stop. That Vitamin C really works!

I’d hoped to get some writing done while away from home, but no dice. Being sick makes me just want to lay in bed and stare at the TV. I did that most of yesterday (some vacation, huh?) and watched an episode of Jake 2.0 on the Sci Fi channel. Great show! I’m going to have to find the rest of that series on DVD somewhere.

So for now, I just wanted to check in and say hello. I’ll be back on track after I get home sometime next week. Though I expect a few days of recovery will be in order.

A RAW Weekend

Checking in from the road, I just wanted to talk a little about the weekend I just spent signing books and meeting readers and authors at Lora Leigh’s Reader Appreciation Weekend (RAW). It was absolutely fantastic and I was flattered to be included in such a great roster of writers.

I roomed with Sylvia Day, who was on deadline and had to try to write during the event, as did Shelley Bradley (aka Shayla Black). Now that’s dedication! I had breakfast yesterday morning with Lorie O’Clare and Lora Leigh - two of my favorite authors! It was so cool to meet them and chat. I also got to talk with Christine Feehan, my pal Jacquelyn Frank, Lucy Monroe, Veronica Chadwick, Mary Wine, and a bunch of others.

The readers were absolutely terrific! I met so many people and had such a great time chatting with everyone. I love these kinds of events where I get to talk with all kinds of people and learn new things. I had a really great time!

In other news, Wings of Change is doing very well. (Thanks to everyone who’s read it already!) And things are on track for my next paranormal release, Sweeter Than Wine. Lots of folks were asking me about it this weekend and I’m happy to say the manuscript has been turned into my editor and we’ll be working through edits in the next few weeks.

Sweeter Than Wine will bring together my vampires and werecreatures in a very tangeble way. They were always inhabiting the same contemporary paranormal world, but up ’til this book, I don’t think it was completely clear. Though this book is not a direct sequel to Lords of the Were, some of those characters do make a cameo appearance in Sweeter Than Wine and the over-arching story about the Altor Custodis (a secret society of watchers) and the evil Venifucus is advanced. This story paves the way for the more direct sequel to Lords of the Were, which I’ve tentatively titled Inferno because it’s Dante’s story.

I’ll be recovering from RAW for the next few days as I extend my trip a bit. When I get back home, be sure to check this blog for a contest where I’ll be giving away a RAW T-shirt and some of the goodies I picked up over the weekend!

Working Weekend

I know I’m going to be meeting some of you next weekend at Lora Leigh’s Reader Appreciation Weekend (RAW). By that time, if I look a little frazzled, I hope you’ll understand! The work that goes on behind the scenes at these events is often unseen and unrealized — except by those who do it. My own little part of this event is minor. All I have to do is get myself there with all my stuff and try to be coherent. I’m sure Lora and her team are way more stressed by having to coordinate with the hotel, the guests, etc, so kudos to her and all the people behind the scenes (Melissa Bliss, the bookseller, springs to mind) who are going to make next weekend a whole lotta fun!

That said, I’m going NUTS! See, I ordered some promotional items so I would have something fun to give to the folks who are coming from as far away as Australia for this shindig, but they haven’t arrived yet. I’ve been on the phone daily with the vendor to try to see what the hold-up is and keep getting the run around, though to be fair, they did expedite some of the items in my order and they are arriving today - I hope! My plan was to make little goodie bags (over 150 of them!) but I don’t want to start assembling that many bags until I have all the items for them, to save work. Still, I’m going to have to start soon if I want to finish in time.
Aside from all of that, I have a release on Tuesday - Wings of Change - a new Dragon Knights story. I’m also supposed to be running all over next week, running back and forth over 3 different states before I officially leave for Kentucky and the weekend at RAW. Oy. What things I get myself into, huh?

Not to mention the whole 9/11 thing. It’s a bad day for me. I worked on Wall Street during 2001 and have dark memories of those times. The friends who made it - those who didn’t. It’s good to remember the fallen, but also really hard on those of us left behind. And then all this crap on the news designed to scare the bejeezus out of us who still live and work in NY. It’s disgusting. I truly wish the terrorists would all just die to burn in hell. I have no compassion, no pity for them. They have none for us.

Whew! Sorry. Like I said… bad time of the year. I’m off to hound that vendor some more. Hope you all have a great weekend, and be sure to stop by the Samhain Cafe Group on Sunday for a Dragon Party featuring all five authors of the I Dream of Dragons anthology. I’ll be giving away some downloads and a lot of bookmarks and fun stuff! Hope to see you there!