Pippa's Journal - Half Term Hiatus

It's half term in the UK, which generally means my writing schedule stalls, and I actually wrote this blog post a week ago. How's that for time travel! If anything earthshattering happens, I'll have updated this post.
So where am I?

Action!

My scifi romance short has been accepted into the Tales from the SFR Brigade anthology! I'm so stoked! This now means I'll have one novel and a short story out this year, almost doubling my backlist.

I'm waiting to hear on my scifi romance novella Tethered. Against my principles, Tethered is now out with two publishers - I dislike making simultaneous submissions. But Entangled's slinky new submission process, with a turnaround time of just 30 days compared to the previous 6 months was just too tempting. Entangled and Samhain were my two top picks for this novella, and now they both have it. Eeek!

My scifi short Flaming Angel (for an inhouse anthology call) is up on Critique Circle - so far it's had some constructive and positive feedback. If you're on CC and would be interested in critting it, let me know your CC username and I'll add you to my private queue. I'm Happarose on there if you want to look me up. I also have a cyberpunk short on the go. Nothing like multiple projects to keep me busy!

My anthology sub already has a sequel in the writing, and fingers crossed for something novel length. I have plans to be pitching a novel to an agent next year.

Happenings

From March I'm running a new Cover Love feature on my blog, inviting authors, reviewers, readers, editors etc. to share their five favourite covers in the spec fic/romance genre, and why they love them. The first goes up on the 7th March. So far I have book nerd and reviewer Katheryn Rodzianko, and authors Misa Buckley, Jessica E Subject and Chantal Halpin taking part. If you'd like to participate, you can find details about the feature on my blog here on my new Author Promo page. I'm especially interested in scifi romance books, but any spec fic and/or romance titles are welcome for inclusion. You can also check out what kind of guest posts I love to have on my blog, download the two options for interviews that I have, and check the calendar for open dates.

Bookshelf 

Because my TBR pile has now reached epic proportions and I'm just not reading like I used to, I'm designating one day a week as Read Only to try and clear the backlog. Some titles on the pile are:

The Skinner, The Voyage of the Sable Keech and Zero Point - Neal Asher
Downside Girls and Queen of Nowhere - Jaine Fenn
Skies of Fire - Zoe Archer
Ghost Planet - Sharon Lynn Fisher
Time Thief - Anna Hackett
A Feast of Souls - Hailey Edwards
MetalMark - Ella Drake
and countless more!

It's hard to chose which to begin with when so many have sat waiting on my Kindle or bedside cabinet for far too long, but second up is the soon to be released Tin Cat (4th March) by Misa Buckley. I had the privilege of beta reading this but I'm looking forward to the final version.

Ping Pong

Please send good thoughts and warm wishes to co-blogger Sharon, who could do with them right now. Hugs!
Laurie, thanks for the virtual applause for Keir's SFR Galaxy Award and the SFR Brigade Presents feature. I know the latter is a bit scrappy right now and I'll get tidying the system up in March, but I'm glad to see so many Brigaders taking part and enjoying it.