Realms of the Raven - Erotic Romance Author Maura Anderson

Only forty minutes until 2008 is history and we enter 2009 here on the West Coast of the United States.

I have to admit that 2008 has been a challenge in many ways. There have been a lot of crises and issues mixed in with a lot of good things as well. Right now that appears to be continuing with the high point of my new Ellora’s Cave contract and the low of the impending heavy rumors of layoffs at my day job.

I’d really like things to settle down a little and even out, just for my ability to cope with life.

For 2009, I’d like to invoke:

Prosperity
Creativity
Security
Success

We’ll see what happens but here’s hoping it’s an even better year than 2008.

Happy New Year everyone!

I just signed a contract for Escape to Me (formerly Raven’s White Hart) with Ellora’s Cave Publishing! I’m really excited.

I don’t have a release date yet - they have to receive my contract and I need to work with my editor but I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.

You can read more about Escape to Me here.

Babes in Toyland II has been nominated for a CAPA award for Erotic Anthology!!

The winners won’t be announced until Valentine’s Day but I’m so jazzed just to be a part of a nominated anthology!

You can read more about my contribution, Gift of the Holly King, here.

We went to run errands today and were in the midst of trying (without much success) to get the Mazda 3 out of the snow when our neighbor came driving down the snowy, slushy road on a little bobcat (I think). He very kindly scraped the worst of the snow and slush off the road so we could get out.

When we were coming home several hours later, we were all braced for the possibility of not even making it down the road but discovered the wonderful man had not only cleared the road but had cleared one whole half of our driveway.

I gave him some money to pay for gas (we have a private road and he’s been doing the work but I KNOW it takes gas at least) but I may have to bake him some cookies or something. That was SO nice of him to do.

We made it up the driveway and near the house - YAY.

On the bad side, our danged phone lines got water in them somewhere and we’ve been having mostly non-connectivity since we got home Saturday. Mr. Maura is trying to track down what circuit is bad but we don’t have it figured out yet. So be patient if you email me.

We arrived home today from several days away on a family holiday gathering to find that yet MORE snow had fallen while we were gone. Things were okay until we got onto our road - where a neighbor had managed to plow the road a bit but when we tried to turn up our road we discovered a very important thing.

Mazda 3s are NOT good snowplows.

We had about 19 inches of snow in the driveway (which Mr. Maura had dug out only 2 days earlier) and we barely managed to get off the road before we came to a rather complete halt.

We gave up, hiked up through almost knee deep snow to the house and got some hot food, then went to dig a path down to the car to bring in the stuff from the car. Being as how it was dark, cold and trees were dripping on us, we decided to wait until tomorrow to rescue the car.

Here are some more pictures of the snow to enjoy…..

Another collection of snow photos from our house.

These were taken yesterday:

These are from this morning:

Just an update that it’s still snowing here in Puget Sound. I think I just heard that the average December snowfall is 1.9 inches and we’ve had over 10 inches already and there are still ten days left in December!

It’s easily the most snow I have seen in the thirteen years I’ve lived in this area.

As of mid-afternoon, we had 9.5 inches on the table on the back deck. It’s been snowing steadily all day though, so I bet there’s more now.

Mr. Maura has been planning to go to work tomorrow but I think he’d have to put chains on the car just to get out of the driveway so I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to get there, best intentions aside.

Thankfully I’m on vacation for two weeks so at least I don’t have to feel guilty when I can’t get there. There’s no way I’d even be willing to try.

So I find myself in a quandry. I love my Friday Flash efforts and I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas and even sales from them. But I also have full stories I owe and producing a Friday Flash each week takes time and creative energy I could otherwise apply to full stories that I owe editors and publishers. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to at least cut back.

I put a poll up and I’ll leave it open until at least after New Year’s. Keep in mind that I need to do SOMETHING but I’m trying to gauge your interest in the flashes. So tell me what your first choice would be….

(Editing this post to make it a sticky for a while)

Today was day 2 of not being able/willing to go to work. No school at all and our supposed little bit of snow turned into a lot more. This might sound like a Good Thing for writing but not really - I’ve been trying to work on my day job from home (it’s awful and so overloaded I can’t get in most of the time) and my squirrelly seven year old is chattering at me. A. Lot.

Mind you this is the Washington coast. We don’t get that much snow and we’ve got a LOT of hills, mountains, and such. That doesn’t bode well for icy driving conditions. You can click on any of the thumbnails below to see bigger pictures.

Jennifer Ray from Wild on Books has read Giving Thanks and given it 4.5 bookmarks and says (in part):

I have a number of friends who are gay, so reading a story about a man who finally comes out to his family was something that really struck a chord for me. Sure, GIVING THANKS may be a work of fiction, but it had an undeniable chord of truth in it. For many gay men and women, coming out to the people closest to them is unbelievably frightening.

and

This man is all about doing whatever the man he loves needs. Wow. Would that we all had someone like this in our life, eh?

But that isn’t all the story has to offer. The happy ending Maura Anderson delivers in this brief but emotionally rich story involves more than just the two lovers.

Bravo to Maura Anderson for delivering a story that so poignantly depicts a major event in a gay man’s life in such an honest way, but still finding the happy ever after these two princes deserve together.

You can read the entire review on the Wild on Books site!

You can read more about Giving Thanks on my website.