Friday, February 29, 2008

Interviewed by Marsha

I just thought I would mention the interview Marsha Ward did with me over on her blog. If anyone's interested, it's at www.marshaward.blogspot.com. It's kind of exciting seeing this interview pop up at the same time my newest reviews about my new novel are starting to hit the internet. Below are the links to the first two reviews on Freefall. So far, they're all good. :)

AML review

Meridian review

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

They're here!!!

Yes, after weeks of waiting anxiously, my copies of my newest novel finally arrived on my doorstep. Ironically, the package was delivered when I wasn't at home. A friend had just started work yesterday and I had offered to watch her son so that she wouldn't have to deal with getting both herself and her four-year-old out the door during her first week. With this in mind, I spent the first part of the day at my friend's house.

I would love to say that this bit of service kept me from thinking about the impending arrival of my books, but I admit I had a few moments when I wondered if the UPS driver would think to put my package in a plastic bag to protect it from the falling rain. Thankfully, I have a very efficient UPS delivery man and my box was sitting on my front step in a large plastic bag when I got home.

I pulled the package inside, ripped away the wet plastic and rushed to my desk to grab a pair of scissors.... No scissors. Two pairs are usually in my pencil holder on my desktop, but both were missing. I pulled open my top desk drawer to find my third pair, the pair that I keep hidden from the rest of the family. Nothing.

Refusing to get annoyed at my children for borrowing my scissors and not returning them AGAIN, I pulled open my husband's desk drawer to borrow his. Again, nothing. Now, at this point I am wondering how I can have a family with six people in it and have four pairs of scissors disappear in a matter of a day or two. The only scissors I could find were the three pairs I had purchased at Costco a week before, all still safely guarded behind the thick plastic packaging. Of course, they didn't do me any good because I couldn't open them without... you guessed it... scissors!

Still too excited about my books to get annoyed at my children, I went into the kitchen for the kitchen scissors only to discover that they too were not where they were supposed to be. I did a quick search of the kitchen counters and finally gave up. Instead I ran up to my bedroom and found the last pair of hidden scissors.

Still wondering who in my family is hording the scissors, I opened up the package and pulled out my newest creation. The cover looked even better than I had imagined, and I am looking forward to stealing a few minutes (or hours) in the next few days to read my book and see how it turned out.

I just hope everyone else doesn't have this much trouble getting to a copy of my book!

Friday, February 22, 2008

My books are coming...

...next week. My impatient self couldn't take it anymore. I had to call my editor about a question on my next book and I broke down and asked the receptionist if she could find out if my author copies of Freefall had been shipped yet. Thankfully, all of the people who work at my publisher are wonderful to me, and she managed to find out that the books were shipped out and are due to arrive around the 26th.

If nothing else, this buys my husband a brief reprieve of listening to me say, "I want to read my book!" Okay, I'll probably still be saying it, but at least I won't run to the window every time I hear a delivery truck outside.

I know this may seem odd to some people, but I really look forward to reading my finished novels. Even though I read each of my books dozens of times during editing, I always love the moment when I have the actual book in my hands and I can see what ended up on the pages. The transition from rough draft to finished product is often so subtle that I sometimes forget how the latest version played out, especially since the editing was finished months ago and I've long moved on to other projects.

Now if I can only wait until Tuesday....

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Freefall Reviewed

I received an exciting e-mail today from my publisher that contained my first review on my latest book, Freefall. I braced myself as I started reading. Obviously I love my novel, but I'm always a bit nervous to see what reviewers think I could have done better. So far I have been extremely fortunate to have positive reviews on all of my books. Of course, some have been better than others.

As I began reading this latest review which posted yesterday on AML's website (http://www.forums.mormonletters.org/yaf_postst319_Abramson-Freefall.aspx), I was thrilled to see that it was entirely positive. Excited by the reception my novel had received, I e-mailed it to my husband. His response was almost immediate, and extremely humorous. He wrote back something along the lines of "Sure you're a good author and everything, but he didn't answer the really tough questions like will she make me dinner or will she ever find her desk under the mount of paper."

Maybe making dinner isn't my strong point, and yes my desk had been buried for the entire four months of swim season, so I could hardly do anything but laugh. Admittedly, I had spent several hours over the weekend clearing off my desk, and I fully acknowledge that my husband does his fair share of cooking and then some. My response was simply, "Hey, I can see my desk. As for dinner...." Is it too much to hope that he'll be willing to cook dinner tonight...again?

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Freefall is out...I think.

Aside from the thrill of getting a call from an editor saying that a novel is being accepted for publication, the best part of being an author is receiving fan mail. Finding out that someone enjoyed one of my books as much as I did always gives me a boost and definitely makes up for the long weeks and months of writing and editing that take place to create a novel.

The thing that has struck me this week is the fact that I am beginning to get e-mails about my newest book, Freefall, and I have yet to even see a copy of it. This isn't a new occurance, but I find humor in the situation just the same. One would think that the author would be one of the first people to see a new publication, but that simply isn't the case in my genre. The books ship out to the stores to get them on the shelves about a week before my author copies are sent to me. The fact that I live on the opposite side of the country from my publisher adds to the number of days I have to wait to see my latest creation.

So now I play the waiting game, each afternoon hoping that the UPS truck will drive down my street and deliver the package that I am waiting for. In the meantime, I'll keep my fingers crossed that people in the West are reading my book and enjoying what I've written as much as I enjoyed writing it.