Conferences, Vacations and a SNEAK PEEK!

Visiting the Grand Canyon

May has been an awesome month. In fact, it's been 'Spoil Brenda Month'. Started out with a three day trip/one day writing conference with my BFF (where I won a door prize and a Kindle!), continued with Mother's Day, and then a 5 night vacation to Las Vegas with my hubby was just the icing on the cake. Not only that, but my latest YA not-so-urban fantasy manuscript "SKIN" is polished, and ready to go, and now in the hands of a couple of fabulous agents for review. Yay!  Let the obsessive email checking begin...

I've also gotten back to writing an adult contemporary manuscript I'm working on...thanks to the inspirational workshops at the Ontario Writers Conference, and the ongoing writerly banter I've had with several writer friends. I'm about 21,000 words in. Hoping to at least have the first draft completed by the end of July, in anticipation of WriteOnCon a wonderful online conference that happens in August. If you've not heard of it, check out the conference details out here. This will be my third year at WriteOnCon...can't wait! Last year I even got a couple unexpected of partial/full requests by agents, just by posting in the forums.

Vegas and the Grand Canyon were AMAZING. Cannot believe we actually went there. So worth it to have a little anniversary getaway by ourselves! Hubby and I had an awesome time. Pic above is me trying not to look nervous by the 2000 foot cliff.

I'm really excited about my new manuscript (SKIN)!  Selkies and secrets on the red sands of PEI...sound interesting?  I thought I'd leave you with a little taste. :) Enjoy!

The roads are red. I know everyone said that they would be red, but I just didn’t think they would look like this. Pinkish, orange-ish red, like sunsets. They’re weird in a pretty kind of way.

I’m sitting in the back seat of the van, mushed between five million suitcases and my very annoying little brother somewhere on Prince Edward Island. I seriously want this trip to be over, but unlike the hundreds of thousands of tourists who’ve crossed that awful bridge this summer, I don’t want to be on this island at all.

We’re moving here. It’s August and we are crammed into this crappy van and we’ve been driving for three freakin’ days to get here. It’s hot. Our air conditioning is dying a slow and painful death, and I can’t wait to get out on those long stretches of red beach just to get away from the van from hell.