Excerpt

Chapter 1

Private airfield near Toppenish, WA

“My mom told me never to trust anyone who looked too good to be true. I should have listened.” Victoria Cunningham’s voice was loud to be heard over the wind, gunfire and plane noise. Her fiery red hair whipped around her face as it escaped its confines she had relegated it to. Her muscular body moved with grace and power as she fought off her attackers.

Her green eyes snapped her anger at not only the man firing his weapons at her while giving orders for others to do so, but at herself. Erica’s blue eyes were snapping their own fire only slightly less volatile then Victoria’s fury.

Victoria and Erica had been fast friends ever since they’d gone to the same boot camp right out of high school. Their friendly rivalry had kept both of them at the top of their game and caught the eye of a special recruiter visiting their base.

In looks alone the two of them turned heads. Victoria had the height to be a model, five eight, but Erica was only five six. Erica’s blonde hair made the perfect foil to Victoria’s red and together they looked as all American as an Army poster. They were also deadly accurate as many Army commanders could ask for.

Victoria knew Erica watched her closely and that her comment wouldn’t go unchallenged. She calmly reloaded her Glock as shots rang out around her.

She and Erica had hit it off as best friends in and out of the army. After their recruitment for special ops, they had learned how to recognize lies and deceptive behavior using body language and verbal cues. They’d also learned to control their own idiosyncrasies and be believable undercover. Erica knew this and she would also know that their training caused Victoria to take Kurt’s defection and lies very personally. Victoria shot at the plane, trying to incapacitate the plane before takeoff and keep Kurt ducking and away from his getaway plane.

Winds of Fire

Damn. It's been way too long. I have tried to post at least twice a week. None have gone through! So you can imagine the kinds of weeks I've been having. Everyone in the house has been sick at least once, including my baby and myself.

I've been able to get a minimal amount of editing done. Problem is, I'm cutting out so much, it's hard to make up from the last huge editing I did. I'm still 200 words shy of where I was when I started the major editing. The book is only half done, so I'm scared to think of what I've done to my story. LOL

Here is the promised excerpt from Winds of Fire.

Posting by twitter

There is a romance writer that is posting tweets to "publish" a story. Sounds like something fun for one of my short stories. Will have ot think about that.

Lack of sleep has kept me from being able to write like I want to. Today, the ideas are simmering, which is a marked improvement over yesterday.

If you haven't bought Rebellion on Piza 7, do so and encourage your friends to do do so. Yes this is a shameless attempt at selling my book.! I want to stay home with my baby. I don't mind working, but he needs me. The more I sell the less likely it will be that I have to work full time.

Plus, it will help inspire me to finish Blood Traitors if I get feedback on the characters. I'm at a deciding point - who should go and why and who should stay. I have the mainline for the story throughout the three books pretty much figured. However, I need a couple of Martilians to die, and I need to introduce the mastermind from the home planet. HMMM. Any ideas?

My thriller is being ruthlessly edited by moi. The novel-to-be is going from great to excellent. Mostly from what I'm learning about writing from my lovely blogs on my follow list.

Friday, I will post an excerpt from my thriller, Winds of Fire.

Writer's Block

I'm having a bit of writer's block. Need to print my stories on paper so I can look at them better. It's just not the same on computer screen. It's much harder for me to see mistakes. Plus, I have an easier time finding the flow. All the wonderful ideas I had yesterday have gone with the wind. I couldn't get to the part they needed to happen with enough time to integrate the fabulous new ideas. :( Maybe I'll find them in the re-read.

I'm ready to finish the thriller and my sequel to Rebellion on Piza 7. Blood Traitors will be wonderful as soon as it's finished.

Here's an excerpt from Blood Traitors:

Eagerness and gladness warred with hopelessness and sadness. She couldn’t identify it all. When she tried to delve deeper, the scene shifted. She saw the lights of planets and stars whirling past as if she were in a roller coaster at night. She only had given impressions until she felt Daniel-Jirel’s angry outburst.
“Who would dare! This is The Martilian Royal Ship Marathon. Identify yourself immediately and stand down!” His tone held authority and power but it was lost on whoever was attacking the ship.
He was concentrating on keeping the ship from going into a tail spin from the last blast. The only answer the other ship gave was another blast. This time Savannah saw it on the obsidian screen. He maneuvered the ship and the blast missed.
He again tried to contact the attacking ship. “My readings indicate your ship and crew are from my home world and therefore know the consequences of firing on any royal ship. You will be sentenced to death if you continue as I have clearly identified myself. STAND DOWN!”

Saturday

It's Saturday. Still looking for housing. I've made a couple of art contacts, which makes me feel good. I have an interview for an online internship for a writer's agent. Wish me luck! It will teach me the ins and the outs of writing a query letter and what agents are really looking for. This agent is a real sweetheart. My only complaint has been she doesn't write her blog very often. I know it's because she doesn't have time to do that but I like her refreshing attitude. Maybe, if I get the job, she'll be able to spend a little more time on her encouraging blog writing.

I can't even began to measure the value of the experience of working with an agent. Yippee!

I need my own home soon so I can get on with things. Right now, watching the kids so my friend who has graciously let us stay in her home could get a break. She's in Houston to see the terra-cotta warriors. A much needed break, I'm sure.

Well, it's back to work for me. I'll be posting passages from my works in progress onto my website very soon. I was going to do it earlier but obviously, life interfered. I will let everyone know when I get it to go.

Thriller

I'm pleased with my thriller so far, although I will always feel like I've missed an error or something. It's superb. Hopefully, all the changes will make it stronger and I will end with a bang.

A lot of my time and energy has been taken up with house hunting. In the last couple years, all the work I'd done to build up credit has been undone by loss of jobs - again. It is making it hard to find a job. Very boring and very frustrating.

On top of that, my Isaac has been sick. I think he overheated. He seems better today. Fortunately, I've still been able to do some writing. I'm determined to have an agent for my thriller by the end of the year which means I had better get my *** in gear. I'm about 42k words into this so, half way there.

edits

I sent in one small paragraph from Winds of Fire for editing re commas, etc. I also said that I know theres a problem with it so feel free to comment. Boy, did I get comments! It's great! I knew it wasn't right and having constructive criticism really helps. It's pretty fantastic. :) i like it much better now, and I'm going through the rest of the manuscript to apply the comments to the rest of the WIP.

I'm so jazzed to have my laptop back! I need to print out the WIPs I'm working on now and do a paper edit to make sure there are no other problems/inconsistencies and other grammar issues. I'm putting together the art CD. Wish me luck there as well :)

I'm on a roll, but my word count is in the negatives :( I erased over 800 words yesterday and I've only made up a few hundred in the edit corrections. major bummer. But, the story is better and that is the most important. can I get a whoo-hoo!

catching up

Sorry its been so long! I've been searching for housing, but the biggest thing is my laptops AC cord went kupooie. i finally set up my other computer, but its in a section of house that has lots of kids or no kids. With lots of kids, I can hardly think. With no kids, I have to worry about where they are. Now that school's started, I have had more time, but its been spent looking on craigs list and driving around looking at apartments.

So here we are! I've sent in a submission on my books and I've an invitation to submit a portfolio for my painting work. I'm excited. The submission is why I have my laptop back (an editor asks you to resubmit something, you do it!) and now I'll have a little more freedom.

Also, my laptop went out right after I'd gotten together some research I needed to finish the romantic thriller I'm working on. Now, I'll have to go back through it and try and remember where I was going. This time, I'll make notes! Or something.

I've also been gathering information to peddle my wares regarding Rebellion on Piza 7 here in Texas. I lost my copy of my book, so I need to order another one, then I'll go to more places. I was able to get the distributers phone number that handles places like Wal Mart. Yeah! As soon as I have a place to live here in San Antonio, I will be ordering that book. In the meantime, I'm going to keep on writing.