Going Crazy

So I took a few days off work and got the fabulous news that my book, Smuggled Rose, is out in print. And Amazon is carrying it, although it says it will take a few weeks to get the books in and deliver. I'm hoping they are just exaggerating. And I got my box of five Author's copies that I can put on my bookshelf. I'll probably just end up giving them away, but they are nice to look at for the moment. It's very surreal.

And really interesting because I sent the Amazon link to a relative and they wrote back: "Thanks for the link. Who is this Amy Corwin?" Well, uh, that would be me. Duh. This isn't the first time that I've noticed that most people have no idea what I'm saying to them, 90% of the time. They stand there with smiles on their faces and say, "Oh, that's so cool…" But ask them twenty minutes later what I said and it's like I never existed, much less said anything.

Maybe other people have experienced the same thing. Maybe that's why folks at work who call me all in a tizzy about something are so thrilled when I keep my mouth shut and just listen. By the time they finish talking, more often than not, they've figured out the problem they called me about while they were talking. And then they thank me. Hey—no problem. All I had to do was listen. Although if they don't figure it out, then I actually do have to do some work and resolve the issue which generally stinks (and is why I needed to take a few days off so that my nervous rash would go away).

Anyway—while I was lolling around not working, I went way off track and wrote a short story. A crime story. And started a second crime story. I've found I like to write short stories. I like just writing about that one moment when the world shifts for a character. Of course, I just swooped through the web and found that most publishers of short crime fiction close down during the month of October and don't accept submissions, but that just gives me time to polish and think about where to submit it. And worry about it and decide it's horrible. That's the bad part.

An intelligent author who just had a traditional Regency come out in paperback might also worry about things like: What the heck was she thinking to write a crime story? Well, I do read a lot of them. And I like them. And I'm particularly fond of those Florida Crime stories and funny crime stories like Dave Barry wrote (you know—the one they made a movie out of with Tim Allen). And I just read a great Geezer Noir collection of short stories that were really a riot. So I have a new goal: to one day get a short story included in one of those anthology collections.

I love anthologies.

So onward and upward. In November, I'm going to join National Novel Writing Month again because I'm going back to traditional Regencies. I have a half-baked idea for a novel about a lady Poetess and a Critic. No murder or mayhem, unfortunately, but I'm going to try to crank out 50,000 words in November and see if I can't get another Regency historical published.

Who knows? I may get lucky!