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Patience is not my strong suit but the process of selling what I write has taught me a lot of things about myself as well as about my community.

I kept working and writing and made the choice to put my NY stuff in the forefront of my efforts but it was hard for me not to keep at the pace I’d had before, which had been pretty nonstop. But I knew burnout would overtake me if I wasn’t careful.

Patience, planning and perseverance were my buzzwords last year. There were times when I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. I wanted it soooo bad but it wasn’t happening on my schedule and really, it was about letting go and trusting myself.

It comes full circle I think when as an author you realize you have to let go and trust your writing. Not that I’m a special snowflake and my words are perfect. But my voice is my voice and it’s my style and I need to believe in it and realize finding an editor who wanted to work with me, for who I was and what I really wrote was very important. It’s why I loved writing for Ellora’s Cave and why I adore writing for Samhain.

So I gave myself lots of pep talks and tried to pretend I wasn’t even thinking about all the pitches my agent had out.

I went to Romantic Times in Houston and lemme tell you, what an experience it was! Being around all those authors charged me up. Meeting readers who knew who I was and read my books was priceless. I talked books for a week with people who loved them as much as me. And while I was in line for one of the dinners, Megan Hart and I began to plot a book together.

I came home with a renewed attitude and hope that things would break for me soon.

Soon turned out to be months but in October I got an email from my agent to me and the other authors in the Vegas anthology. Spice wanted a second one from us. It was a relief to have that sale, it kept me believing I could do it.

But it wasn’t mine. Not mine alone. I wanted my own sale, my own book.

And it came just two weeks later when I got the call. The call. Berkley wanted to buy what was then called Battlefront and is now Undercover and a second book from me. Berkley. My dream house. I sat on my stairs and I cried. It happened. Just when I needed it most, it happened.

And then I dried my tears and sold two more books within a few months, one of them that idea Megan and I hatched up in line at RT as a matter of fact. Things were finally moving and all that waiting and working was beginning to pay off.

But the real work was waiting for me just around the corner.