Blue Amber is “processing” at B&N and “in review” at Amazon and in meatgrinder hell at Smashwords.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mom keeps playing in my mind. This scene in particular. (The embedding at YouTube is disabled.)

It’s the “yer doing it wrong!” scene. Jack takes the kids to school and learns — from everyone — that he’s … yanno.

I like Blue Amber. A lot. But I wonder if I’m doing it wrong. This is the last novella leading up to Bleeder, the first novel I actually wrote in the Apocalypto series. It’s romantic in that it’s the story of how Mallory and Edmund, the heroine and hero of Bleeder, meet.

But in this story, Mallory is 13 and Edmund is 16. There’s no hot sex.

That’s all in Bleeder. And luckily, Bleeder is about ready to go.

Until then, here comes Blue Amber, a young adult paranormal fantasy in the middle of a paranormal romance series. Am I doing it wrong?

Blue Amber is having its final edit pass as we speak! I’m so happy with this story, but I’m a little nervous about how readers will respond.

It’s not a full novel. It’s a novella. And it’s  YA paranormal romance, the story of how the hero and heroine of Bleeder meet.

Don’t worry, I’m getting over novella-itis. Bleeder is over 85K words!  Plus, Bleeder — being a chalice’s story — has a lot of sex scenes love scenes — sex scenes and love scenes. Sigh.

A word about pricing. Hero Material is now 2.99 and Spiderwork is 3.99 — but the 2-pack is 4.59, equivalent to 2.30 per book. (Amazon has it at 4.95, but that’s a typo and as soon as the kdp lets me in, I’ll fix the price.) B&N is so much quicker for making changes.

Blue Amber is going to be 99 cents for the first week or two, so get it while it’s cheap!

Jennifer at Book Noise has a great review of Hero Material (Space Junque) that I just saw this morning.

Book Noise is a wonderful site. The reviews are complex and thoughtful — a great addition to your review blog roll!

hahahahaha

As I always say and never quite remember: It always takes longer than I think it will.

First, the bad news: it’s going to be another chunk of time. Maybe a week. Or so. I have to work at my day job this week (funny how those bills have a way of wanting to be paid) so that might put me back too.

Blue Amber was written and ready to go well over a year ago, but something happened on the way. That’s what happened –> that beautiful cover! Curse you Robin Ludwig, aka @IntenseWhisper!! Doesn’t that cover deserve more than a 10K word novelette?

The guy on the cover is Edmund, great-grandson of Jake, the guy on the cover of Hero Material.

Factoid that might be the answer to a contest question sometime: Edmund is named after Edmund in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

The good news: a blast of focusing insight and energy hit me today. This time, I may finish sooner than I think!

UPDATE: Blue Amber grew to over 20,000 words and has been assimilated as the opening section of Fureburd. To avoid confusion, it is no longer available as a stand-alone story.

Here’s how to put a .prc file on your Kindle:

Save the .prc file to your computer. Then attach the usb cable from the Kindle to your laptop, then wait for the directory window to come up. The page on your Kindle will change, but you don’t have to pay attention to that.

Open the “open folder to view files” folder, then open the documents folder.

Then copy and paste the .prc file from your computer into the Kindle’s directory. Then you can close all the folders and detach your Kindle from the computer. On the Kindle, the regular menu will reappear.

Voilà! the file will be in your Kindle’s menu.

I’m going to write more this weekend about why I changed Space Junque to Hero Material, but Tara at 25 Hour Books gets it just right.

Today is Spiderwork’s banner ad day at Red Adept — and she’s featured a nice excerpt.

Debra at Two Ends of the Pen is giving away a triple treat of all three ebooks in author J.C. Phelps’ Alex Stanton Chronicles. Woohoo!