Gang A-Gley Giveaway!

What happens when you just can't meet a writing goal or deadline?

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley.

~Robert Burns

So...

I'd asked for this date on the illustrious Here Be Magic calendar - governed by the menacing and truly frightening Calendarzilla - because I'd planned to have book three in my Sorcerous Moons, fantasy romance series out around now. 

Like yesterday, even. 

Instead, I finished writing it the day before yesterday. This isn't the first time I've had to adjust a deadline, but it feels like the most egregious slip. When I had to push back a deadline by a month once before - also (not coincidentally) for the third book in a trilogy - it was for my publisher, who'd built in months of buffer to the production schedule. I knew it; my editor knew it (and was cool with it); otherwise it didn't show.

This time it shows and I feel sheepish about it. Maybe that's not a strong enough word.

See, I figured back in mid-August that I simply wouldn't be able to write this book in time. Part of it was tying up the story. The rest was... well, all those mice and men!  I started off great - I wrote more than 18,000 words the first week, at the end of July. Good words, too. They survived mostly intact to the draft I just completed. 

Then I had a couple of weeks of totally unproductive shite. I could go into all the things that did happen instead, but I'm pretty clear with myself that I make the writing a priority, regardless of what else happens. 

And, really, what happened is the dominoes that started falling back in February caught up and smashed down. It wasn't that I didn't make the time. I just couldn't produce the words.

For the first time, I believed that burn-out might be a real thing.

I hauled back, shed a few tears, spent a few days staring at the sky, and pushed back my own personal production deadline.

TA DAHHHH!!!

Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.

At any rate - the big ratchet-back helped. I finished a story I owed Grace Draven for TEETH, LONG AND SHARP, which turned out pretty damn cool after all.

And I finally finished THE TIDES OF BARA. More: I'm happy with it. Just wait until you see the freaking cover for that! It's coming out October 29, so stay tuned for that.

In the meanwhile, I'm offering a giveaway of the first two Sorcerous Moons books. Comment here and tell me about a plan gone wrong, and I'll give a commenter those two novels in the digital format of their choice. Open to international!