After birthday, recounting

Thanks, guys, for the literally *hundreds* of personal messages, Twitter greetings and Facebook posts for my birthday. I can't hope to catch up, but you've made my birthday pretty damn awesome - thank you for that!

We went into London and had lunch at the very excellent Veeraswamy, which is fast becoming one of my favourite "expensive" restaurants. It's one of those places where I at times like to blow a royalty payment (or three). Yeah, that's about all the "conspicuous consumption" I indulge in.

The buzz from my birthday, invariably, gives way to introspection, as 5 May is my mother's birthday, and the day I prefer to remember her at. November is already depressing as hell - I don't need to remember her death (of course I do, usually during the last two weeks).

Anyway. In the night of 4-5 May, Storm Moon Press sent me the acceptance for "Counterpunch", my boxing novel. I have very high hopes for this small gem of a start-up publisher. People there bent over backwards to accommodate my every whim, including cover, marketing, editing, and one of the touchiest subjects: British versus American English.

Before I submitted the novel to them, I approached a number of other editors informally and asked "Will you make me rewrite my London-based novel full of British characters to American English?" (The concern comes from the fact that British characters rewritten to speak American to my brain sound like they are doing "funny accents" - I can't help it).

I received a mix of answers (and thanks, guys, to listening to my concerns, much appreciated), but one press said "hell no". Then Storm Moon Press also showed me their royalties and contract.

To whit: royalties are a multiple of what I've been making of my writing at other places. And after several long exchanges with the people behind the press, I was convinced of their sense and business acumen. No "First Right of Refusal Clause", no nonsense. The contract is more than fair to both sides. Also - "Counterpunch" is perfect at that place, because basically, it's part of a world, and that world, ideally, will be placed at one publisher - those people, if all's going well.

So, I'm saying all this because I'm basically eating my hat here (NOM, NOM). I always cautioned other writers not to sign up with publishers that have been in the business less than 5 years (Dreamspinner is just celebrating its fourth birthday, with lots of good offers, BTW). HOWEVER, I'm personally making an exception in this case, and am genuinely excited about working with SMP. I know that's one of the phrases that people use in press releases, but based on what I know and my gut instinct, the SMP people have something excellent there and it's great to be part of it.

Depending how things are going, there should be more books, but it's too early to tell. And I'm in great company. Rachel Haimowitz has just signed her second book, Crescendo, sequel to Counterpoint, with Storm Moon Press. Another of my friends has submitted her novel there, too.

I'm also coming back up from the crash after Counterpunch, slowly getting back on my feet. I've been writing short pieces of story that didn't make it into the finished novel, and currently write a little, but it's all playing. Story ideas are springing up like mushrooms after the rain, and I struggle to make up my mind what to write next. (Yeah, normal people rest, I just keep working. It's what I do best. That way, my life makes sense and my reality tallies up.)

There are some related stories that need to be written, two of those are in search of a plot, others have no plot but are very poignant. I have some excellent characters there.

Possibly the sanest thing right now is write 2-3 more short stories to cleanse the palate, package the whole thing, then put out a short story anthology. My brain baulks at the idea of yet another novel. Novels are such a commitment, I'm not immediately ready for another whole novel, not right away.

This year, I'll also start on the "Lion of Kent" sequel, and most likely, I won't have to do it alone, as I'd feared (it's a novel).

So, lots of things lined up. The main aim is to get some releases for 2012 lined up. I hope "Iron Cross" will be one of them.