Hotter than the sun

I considered titling this entry "Damn! I'm good", but my older son has a saying that better suits the moment. He occasionally likes to joke that he's "the hottest thing since the sun". He has a comic way of draw it out that never fails to make me smile.

I'm tweaking a couple of query letters and readying the first five pages of my manuscript. I've decided to e-mail one agent on Monday, everyone else wants hard copies and that's got to wait until payday. Additionally, researching agents and tailoring letters to suit them takes work. These days they're pretty sensitive to anything that looks like a mass mailing.

Today I've had some concentrated time to work so I've made the most of it. I've had a little time to scan my manuscript up to the halfway point and, all concerns about the first part moving too slowly aside, I had had one of those rare moments of feeling good about my work.

I'm kicking around the next book--have been for a while actually. I think there's another book in the cult the villain came from (the Willow's Blood Coven) if not the characters. And while I know there's a lot of conflicting advice concerning sequels, but I really don't really have any desire to write anything else at the moment.

The plot is already half-formed and I need to do study up on cults a little more, but as I'm drawn to that kind of reading, it won't take long. I've long been fascinated by counter-culture groups and cults (probably the latent flower child in me). Consequently they've appeared in every book I've written so far. But I've never actually centered a book around one. They were always in the backdrop. I think it's time.