Summertime Adventures

I keep falling off the grid as far as my blog is concerned.
Life, you know! Vacation, family visiting, and sunshine, oh my!

I finally took a week off work to take my  youngest on a vacation with my brother and his wife. Fun week full of wineries and sight-seeing. I learned a lot about wine tasting. I even rode a bike for the first time in years, which prompted me to get a friend to help me pull mine out of the weeds and get it ready to ride. More adventures for the summer.

That same friend also brought me a small barbecue. I've missed having one but just never found the time or inclination to get one. I've had it two days and have already put it to good use. With the long weekend coming...that little barbecue will see a lot of action. Less take-out and more cooking!

I've also become motivated to work on The Painted Lady (Book 4 of my Wild Blue Mysteries) and dust off my original novella Murder on Manitou in order to republish it one day soon. Working on both of those have become my mission for the summer.

With summer half over, I have a lot of work to do!
My first Gilda Wright novel (originally Can't Keep a Brunette Down) has been republished by Books We Love Ltd as DEAD WITHOUT HONOR and is available on Amazon as well as other sites.
Hardheaded Brunette will be published later this summer as DEAD WITHOUT GLORY.
Life is Better Brunette will come out this fall as DEAD WITHOUT PRIDE.

Stay tuned for upcoming events and news!

                      

Gratitude to a Writing Group by Diane Bator

April 2016 will mark my 9th year as a member of the Headwaters Writers' Guild. I can honestly say I owe my writing career to the amazing members of this group.

When I first joined the group, I had already been writing for many years, but always afraid to publish the things I wrote. I never believed I was good enough. The members of this group were as gracious with their praise as they were their criticisms. At each meeting, I gained strength and belief that I did have a little bit of talent and worked hard to stitch together the things I wrote to create my first novel The Bookstore Lady, which I shopped around to several publishers. In 2010, I won a writing contest sponsored by Wynterblue Publishing. From there, my writing career sprouted fledgling wings.

It wasn't until I met a lady in an online critique group that I was introduced to my current agent, Dawn Dowdle at Blue Ridge Literary Agency. Dawn sold my first book to Books We Love, Ltd and my first series, Wild Blue Mysteries, was born. What a great celebration to hold that first book in my hands and be able to share it with the rest of the group. That was quickly followed by two more books with two more on the way.

Then in 2013 I submitted a second book to my agent. In no time, we'd secured a contract from Gemma Halliday Publishing for my Gilda Wright Mystery series. As I write this, I am awaiting the release of the third book in this series on April 11, 2016.

  

I am also in the process of writing an entire new book based on Gemma Halliday's Danger Cove series. For the first time ever, one of my main characters is an English Sheepdog found by protagonist Laken Miller. Should be a fun ride!

Thank you to all of my great friends here at the HWG! Without your love and support, I wouldn't have all these great stories to share with the world. What an amazing group we have!! 

The Bookstore Lady is now available!

I am proud to report The Bookstore Lady is now live at Smashwords and All Romance eBooks. It will be live at Amazon, B&N and Kobo and will filter over to Sony and the iBookstore from there! You can find the links and more info at:  http://networkedblogs.com/N783T

So what's next?
Off to the editing cave to work on Four Possessions for my agent and The Mystery Lady, the second book in the Wild Blue Mysteries series for Books We Love!

Looking forward to more good news in the future!
Diane