The Paranormal in my Real Life

So, two days from now I will be having another ultrasound.  Currently, for those of you who know NOTHING about me (and really how dare you? I jest in case sarcasm isn’t my strongest suit right now.) I am 32 weeks pregnant. 

 

As I’ve talked of in other places, I do have Gestational Diabetes, which makes the end of every pregnancy a little tricky.  Before anyone worries about this too much, I do everything they say to do to handle it and my first two children are healthy, beautiful boys.

 

I tell you this not to talk about my pregnancy—actually I’m finding with the third pregnancy that my desire to talk about it almost zilch—but as a means to explain to you why I have ultrasounds every two weeks. 

 

I don’t think there could be anything more amazing, but let’s also face it, bizarre than watching my quickly growing third son on the Ultrasound machine.  The first thing they do is find the heartbeat.  I hold my breath until it shows, although I have every reason to believe the heartbeat is fine as I feel him jumping around inside of me like my internal organs are his playground. 

 

Every week, somehow, my body knows exactly how to grow the baby, how much weight to put on him, which one of his organs should develop and which ones will come in the next few weeks until ultimately we reach the end of gestation where only the lungs wait for fulfillment. 

 

If women didn’t do this every day, we would call it science fiction. 

 

Last week, Her Wolf released from Liquid Silver Books.  I didn’t have to have any ultrasounds to make sure it was healthy nor did I experience any labor pains.  But I have to admit, I worry about it—all of the time.  Do people like it?  Is anyone reading it?  Did I take good enough care of it when it was just mine to make? 

 

Hopefully, both my works in progress will continue to grow as they have been and some day I can tell baby number 3 about how he helped me publish my first novel. 

 

Best to all of you. 

 

RR

Her Wolf: The Westervelt Wolves Book 1 Releases

Well, it has finally happened.  The day I have been so anxiously awaiting and also nervously chewing my fingernails about has arrived.  Her Wolf: The Westervelt Wolves Book 1 releases today.  For the record, this is my very first book release ever. Up until now, it's just been a dream--something I thought and dreamt about--but didn't really believe could happen except now it is here.  

For the record, it is available today from Liquid Silver Books

From day one, I have received so much support both from the publisher and also from all of my friends and family, some of which I have never met face-to-face but without who's support I would not be doing this now.  (Ahem..Sandi, Annie, J. Hali, and Rae as well as too many others to name)  

So please let me say, thank you.  A million thank yous.  

Now let's talk about Her Wolf.   

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ashlee Morrison has a secret obsession—with a dark and mysterious male. The only problem is that he’s a wolf and she’s becoming convinced that she’s insane for thinking about him. But Ashlee’s wolf is no ordinary canine, he is Tristan Kane, third son in the royal family of the Westervelt Wolf pack. 

Trapped in his wolf form by his evil father’s men, he has desperately sought a way out of predicament and is shocked to find that the beautiful, sad red head who has come to the wolf cage cannot only hear him, but awakens in him the knowledge that she is his mate, the other half of his soul who he has sought for thirty years. 

Ashlee is unaware that she is half wolf-shifter but agrees to accompany Tristan back to his pack to seek answers to her past and understand her future. But as Tristan and Ashlee grow closer, familial betrayals will threaten to destroy the fragile love they have started to build. 
With the odds stacked against them, Ashlee and Tristan will either embrace their love to save the Westervelt Wolves or be lost forever to despair.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is an excerpt from Her Wolf:

“Do you think there are monsters, Ash?” 

Ashlee hadn’t known what to say. Something about her mother’s tone had made her more nervous than the monster movie with the chainsaw-wielding psycho killer. What was it? Thinking with her adult mind and not that of her younger self, Ashlee realized her mother had sounded anxious. Fourteen years later, Ashlee couldn’t remember ever hearing Victoria sound quite like that again. Summer had interrupted then; she was never satisfied until she had every answer she needed. 

“Do you, Mom? Do you believe?” 

Ashlee thought she knew what her mom would say. It was the job of grownups to reassure you, to tell you that nothing scary was real. 

“I do believe, girls. Some of the things that go bump in the night are real and we must always be on guard for them. But don’t worry, nothing will ever harm you here while I am with you.” 

The memory, like dust in the sky, floated out of her mind and Ashlee was back in the present with her decision already made for her. Why wasn’t it possible that Tristan could speak to her, even if he was a wolf? It wasn’t any more unreasonable than anything else. People believed in ghosts and no one called them crazy. Hell, she’d had a friend whose mother attended conferences about aliens. Declaring herself a lunatic hadn’t worked out so well, maybe it was time to try a different approach.

Just for tonight, she would believe. 

Tristan was a talking wolf and she was going to save him from the men who were out to get him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope I've given you enough of a taste that you are now interested in reading Her Wolf and the subsequent Westervelt Wolf books to follow.  

Thank you, everyone, for your love and support.  This day couldn't have happened without you.  

Rebecca Royce.  

Also, Happy Fourth Birthday, my darling. Mommy loves you more than you'll ever know.  Daddy and I can't believe how grown up you are.  

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

It really is.

 

Below is an example of what my day is like while I am waiting to hear back on a submission.

 

Rebecca wakes up in the morning and runs to the bathroom (Too much information?) I’m 30 weeks pregnant with our third child, what can I say?  The children get up and my amazing husband and I somehow tag team them into eating breakfast, getting dressed, and out the door so, at the moment (at least until the end of August) my older son can go to camp.  I come home and stick on my computer.

 

Okay, I’ll pause here and admit for the sake of admitting to anxiety that sometimes I get the computer on before this moment. Sometimes, I get it on when I first get up.  I cannot tell a lie. But let’s say it’s one of those days when I don’t and this is the point where it comes on.

 

I check my e-mail. If I’m lucky there is a note there from my amazing CP and some friends in addition to the bill reminders and the things some of the online stores think I should be buying from them.  I check my groups and I sigh.  Why the sigh, Rebecca, you might ask? 

 

Because I am waiting on submissions. 

 

Now, I can’t complain.  Not at all.  I just sent out the query letters.  It could be months until I hear and that would still be reasonable. 

 

But that doesn’t mean that I won’t check my e-mail another fifty times that day on the off chance that somehow the person reading the submissions read at lightening speed.

 

I can’t imagine being the editor in charge of deciding whose work gets signed and who’s doesn’t.  It would be rough for me and the acquisition editors I have worked with have been amazing.  So I don’t blame them when I’m sitting there hitting renew on the webbrowser and holding my breath. 

 

Its my own anxiety, I know that.  I had a writer advise me to just keep writing and forget about it. I assure you I am.  I have a work in progress moving right along and two more stewing in my brain.  I have other things I could be submitting.  But none of that is going to erase the need to keep checking that lingers in the side of my brain where I know I’m still waiting to hear. 

 

Is this just me? What do you do when you’re waiting?  

 

On another note, next Monday, August 3^rd, 2009 my first book will be released. It is called Her Wolf: The Westervelt Wolves Book 1.  Here is my amazing cover.

 

Liquid Silver Books took a chance on me when they signed me to my first contract last winter. I will be eternally grateful for the chance.  Now, I guess I get to wait to see what people think of my writing which I have to admit feels a little bit like opening my diary for the world to see. But that’s okay, it’s always been my dream. 

 

So we’ll need to see which I find harder: waiting on submissions or waiting to see what people think. 

 

Anyone out there with experience in this want to tell me which will be harder??