A Meerkat's Bolthole

from Publishers Marketplace:

"Laura Anne Gilman's SYLVAN INVESTIGATIONS, a two-novella set about a half-human, half-faun PI, investigating cases that fall between the cracks of the magical and the mundane, to Jacqueline Smay at Plus One Press, for print rights only."

Yes, these are the Danny novellas. Yes, I am pretty damn pleased. :-)

Kickstarter patrons will get their novellas soon. The general-release print and digital editions should go on sale in Autumn 2013. Updates and info as it happens.

First sale of the year: audio rights for "Blow Job Red" to podcaster SFZine. They're still pre-launch, so no idea when it will be available. Listen here for updates.

I'm starting to get antsy about my last unanswered short fiction submission from 2008. Although not superstitious as a rule, I hesitate to ping the editor, but... we're going on three months now. Antsy. Hrm. Wonder if just talking about it is enough to bring on the jinx?
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I finished the outline for MUSTANG last night. This morning I get to read it over and see if there's anything important I left out, then it goes off to madame editrix so she can approve it, and start a Contract Payment in motion. Normally my outlines are more like Google map directions -- accurate until they're suddenly not, and to be read with a casual and forgiving eye. Nocturne is a little more stringent with this -- the editorial director likes to know Exactly What She's Getting. so I have to do a bit more work up-front. Things will still change in the actual writing, of course, but there tend not to be the joyfully exasperating Ah-HAH! moments of plot recognition. Pluses and minuses to that....
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I am informed that my revision notes for THE VINEART WAR should arrive in the next handful of days. I'll be in the corner, fretting. Except here's no time to fret, as I need to get back to work on PACK OF LIES See my head go 'splodey, soon...
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And in the non-writing news, this amused me, in a sad sort of way. Our Geek President. "I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry," Mr. Obama said Wednesday. "They’re going to pry it out of my hands."

Note icon.

Seriously. The past week's been a blur of me quietly flailing and freaking behind the scenes, while Best Agent Evah Jenn did her thing. Her thing done, I can now -- with great glee -- announce that the project formerly known as "The Project Eating my Brain" has et an editor's brain* as well.

Henceforth, it shall be known as The Vineart Wars 1-3, and they will be coming from Pocket Books (via the amazingly talented and most-excellent judge of books, Jen Heddle).

Because, really, a second-world fantasy based on wine-magic? Totally me, yes. :-)

Now I get to move from "hopefully someone will want this" to "OMG they want it when?" Eeeep.


I think I'm still slightly in (delighted) shock. Wheeeee!

(and no, I haven't forgotten about/lost any love for the Cosa Nostradamus books. Like any parent with more than one child, they're ALL my favorite. Just more on some days than others...)

EtA: and yes, fakefrenchie, this means what you think it means. Dust off that guest room! ;-)


*two editors, actually, hence the flailing and freaking

At Lunacon this afternoon, I was handed a contract (thus making it official after the "I like this, I want it" e-mail a few months ago) for my story "Wolfling" to go to Abyss & Apex.

(for those keeping track at home, this is a story in the "Dragon Virus" universe)


I also, on my way out the door, got in the mail my very first ever piece of fanart. Specifically, of P.B. *squeeeee!* I have been showing it around proudly, and the general reaction has been "how cool! And it's really good!"

As soon as I have the scanner set up, I will share it with y'all. :-)

And now I need to get some sleep, as tomorrow is a damn full day of conventioning...

Because the moment a freelancer clears her schedule of one thing, something else should appear to keep her crazed, I've just agreed to write an "e-Bites" for Harlequin Nocturne e-Books. Basically, a novelette-length paranormal dark erotica.

*pauses while msdori has moment of squeee.*

It took a while because I held by my refusal to write about amorous vampires, werewolves, werecats, or anything else that triggers my "oh god not another" reaction. So what am I writing about?

Heh. Heh heh heh.

You'llllll seeeeee.....


Of course, they want to publish it in August (yes, this August, yay for e-production schedules) so I need to get started. I also need to start on Bonnie #1, which is due in August. While I'm still (because it won't leave me alone) writing forward on TPEMB. And working on a client manuscript or two, because Publishing Grinds Slow and Accounts Payable even slower.

This is why being organized is the #2 secret of freelancing. Oy.

I am pleased to announce that Nocturne has taken the next "Anna Leonard" book (Daughter of the Sea, the sexy selkies in Nantucket one) for publication sometimes in.... well, damned if I know, actually, since The Night Serpent hasn't been scheduled yet, either. But probably sometime at the end of 2008 or early 2009.

Go Anna!

Of course, this means that the schedule of Shit I Gotta Do Before December has just gotten a smidge more, um, crowded. (EEEP!) I'll spare you the list, because typing it out might drive me to tears, and it's too damned hot for that. Let's just say that I ain't gonna be bored...

NEW NEWS:

Sale: Untitled paranormal romantic suspense, to Nocturne. This is the project I began in November, just to see if I could. My editor and I have a bet on to see which will be finished first, the book, or the contract request.

This will NOT be published under the Gilman name, as the style's going to be somewhat different from my other work (more in the romance side of the force than the fantasy/SF/horror), and I don't want anyone to stumble in expecting A and yowling because they got B.

Although there will be smut. And, yeah, a smidge of snark. Because, hey, me.

No, this new identity will not be getting her own LJ. You'll just have to come here for news of her exploits.

Alas, my family has reached the point of "well, yeah, you sold another book, *yawn* isn't that what you do?" reaction to a sale. Most disheartening. And yet, reassuring. I must be actually making a living at this.


NEW UPDATES:

Retrievers update: Book Five now has the editor-approved working title of DOWN INTO DARKNESS. I begin production in January. Book Six also has a tentative working title Madame Editrix likes, thereby making this the first time in my entire career I can write file labels in pen, not pencil. See me, tempting fate....

The really short story kind -- my flash fiction piece "Fire Rising in the Moon" has sold to Dark Wisdom Magazine -- http://www.darkwisdom.com/darkwisdom.htm

"Fire Rising" is an odd sort of literary-horror-ish piece,* and it needed to find the right kind of home, and I think DW is it.  Am quite pleased.

Will give publication info when I have it.





* I described it to my mother as ''think Lovecraft meets Updike over a bottle of tequila." Or maybe absinthe....