Holiday Sale!

 If you haven't gotten your copy of The Tyrant King, now's your chance. Or, if you're considering giving e-books for Christmas--or loading up a Kindle for a loved one with great books--you can pick up The Tyrant King and The Wild Queen for only 99 cents EACH! Now through December 31, 2013.

Grab a copy today!

Krystal’s peaceful life as queen of Fayterra is shattered when a stranger arrives with a connection to Jareth that threatens to change everything. Soon her loved ones are threatened, her people are under attack, and Krystal must face a devastating loss.

As the future becomes bleaker and the mystery continues to unravel, Krystal’s enemies will learn just how far she will go to defend the people she loves.

 The Tyrant King links:
Amazon
Smashwords 
Nook

 In the exciting prequel to The Peasant Queen, Roweena is the crown princess of Norvallen, a tiny kingdom with only one thing of value—the Healer’s Grove. The trees in this small section of forest are enchanted, giving a sap that can be mixed into potions or salves to heal almost any wound.

Lucien, the young king of neighboring Demarde, comes to Roweena’s father seeking an alliance, but comes away with a marriage contract for young Roweena’s hand. Furious and stubborn, this untamed beauty vows he will never conquer her. But the contract purposely gives her time to come to terms with her fate.

Roweena’s home is attacked and her parents are murdered. The Healer’s Grove is also attacked—burned to the ground. With nothing more than her horse and the clothes on her back, Roweena goes to the only person she knows can help her--Lucien.


The Wild Queen links:

Amazon
Smashwords
Nook

Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

Likely not, but I can never resist a Pinky and the Brain reference.

Bryan is supposed to come home today. If you've been watching me on Facebook, you'll know he's been gone 125 days. That's a really long time. I know other people do this separation thing for many reasons, and many longer than what I've endured, but for me this is huge.

So is the realization that I'm kind of nervous. I mean, seriously nervous. About my husband coming home.

Why? I love him. If anything this separation has intensified those feelings. I can't wait to have him back. Can't even tell you how great it will be to have parental back up. And I also know in the long run that everything will work out but I can't stop being nervous.

What the heck? Is this common? We're all familiar with the scenes of families greeting returning troops. Hugs. Smiles. Kisses. Tears of joy. I don't see anyone being apprehensive. At. All.

Maybe they hide it well. Maybe I'm just a nutball.

But if you stop and think about us being apart, maybe I can help you understand. He's been living on his own for 4 months. Eating alone. Sleeping alone. Our patterns have been disrupted. And though I tried spreading out and sleeping in the middle of our king sized bed I always gravitated to my side, so I gave it up and let the cat sleep on Bryan's side. (Inigo has since moved to sleeping across my feet--seriously bedtime is such a joke. I have a king sized bed and me, the dog, and the cat are all curled up on my side)

Life has gone on for us at home, too. School started. The girls' classes started. Seminary. We have new patterns, patterns that don't include Dad. He's going to come home and we're all going to have to readjust, re-adapt. Change. It's not just a matter of adding his dishes to the dirties, or his laundry schedule to ours, or setting him a place at the table. And no, it's also not a complete upheaval of our lives. But it's an adjustment. A change. And we're all going to have to deal with it. Probably in different ways and in different times. There are 7 of us after all.

Then there's the other stuff. The couple-y stuff. I haven't been kissed romantically in 125 days. I haven't been held. And for him it's the same. Nobody's just held his hand because she wants to. Nobody's kissed his cheek because it's there. (And that's all the detail you're getting on a PG rated blog)

So, I'm nervous. I know it will all work out but I'm still nervous. Excited, but full of anxiety too.

How I Both Won and Lost NaNoWriMo

I wrote 62,700 words from November 1 to November 30, 2013. I wrote almost every day, save Sundays, whether it was just a couple dozen words or a few thousand. I started at the beginning and worked my way through.

And still I lost.

But I won at the same time.

First I want to explain the way I lost. You see, I actually set a goal to write *2* books in November for a total of 100,000 words. I set up an alter ego on the NaNoWriMo site and uploaded that book’s progress separately from the book I worked on under my own name.

I failed. I didn’t make it. I didn’t even finish either book. During the month I switched from one to the other as the mood struck. Both stories deal with difficult topics but are otherwise nothing alike. Yet as long as I wrote consistently I was able to keep each story straight and it was awesome. Those first two weeks I burned through the pages.

Then I started slacking off. Doctor appointments for the kids, calls from the school to bring medications or whatnot, pretty much anything started interfering with my writing time. But the plan I had was solid. I could still catch up. I could still make my goal.

Until I just couldn’t anymore. So I still have two rough drafts to finish and it’s December. I had other plans for December, not the least of which was publishing my little Christmas short story and offering my books for sale for the holidays.

Now I’m going to tell you how I won. I wrote 62,700 words in November. That’s a personal best. I’ve never written that much in a single 30 day period. Never. I’ve hardly written anything since my husband went up north in August for work. I mean, a few thousand words maybe in 3 months but nothing to write (ooh, punny) home about.

But the actual words aren’t why I’m counting the victory. I reopened the vault within, refocused my creative energies, and actually made progress on *3* novels—not just the 2 NaNo books.

And all that great stuff that I plan to unleash on my poor unsuspecting characters is waiting in the wings for me to do just that. And I have 3 weeks before the kids get out of school. That’s 7 hours a day x 5 days a week x 3 weeks = 105 hours that are just mine. Sure, kids will get sick or injured, or forget something and responding to it will throw off my groove. My husband is expected home during that time and yeah, that’s going to mean less writing time.

But just think of what I can accomplish with even 80 hours. I’m going to continue the process that I started in November. I’m going to complete those novels.

And then I’ll look at them in January and probably red pen a couple hundred pages. But at least I’ll have something to edit, right?

I keep Doing This--Confessions, Again

I have something to tell you, and right now only one other person knows what this something is. Once this post goes live, then everyone with an interest in my writing can learn what I'm doing. What I've done.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo (You know, National Novel Writing Month). Which isn't really much of a revelation. The confession comes more in how I'm doing NaNo this year and not that I'm doing it. You see, as October ticked along without me being able to complete The Lost Princess (I know, and I'm more profoundly sorry for that than I can express right now) I began to question whether I should do NaNo at all, or if I should concentrate on finishing the book everyone's waiting for instead.

The very last week of October, when I'd intended to just sprint write the rough draft and clean it up later, I realized the story had stopped speaking to me. Again. I've never had such a hard time writing anything in my life, not even the ghost writing project I did a while back. I felt cast adrift. How in the name of anything can I finish a story when I can't get a grasp on any of what should happen? By that time I had almost 30k words done in different sections with huge gaps in between. I needed things to fill in the gaps. I'd even skip around to different sections to write what would come to me, but I still couldn't finish the book.

That was a low point for me because I feel like I'm always announcing a launch date and then having to go back and amend it. I'm going to get this story our for Halloween. Well, maybe next Halloween. I'm going to launch this romance short story for Valentine's. Well.... You get the idea.

Back to NaNo. I hadn't done it in four years, and so many ideas were swirling in my head it's no wonder I couldn't nail down the details of The Lost Princess. So I made a decision that really ended up being twofold--to do NaNo, to get something out of my head and also to prove to myself that I can still finish a book for goodness sake!

So I started Birthright on Nov 1. If you're my NaNo buddy you know I've only got 8k words so far but when you consider that's the fruit of the first two days of November it's pretty cool. I'm happy with that. What's truly amazing is what happened after I started writing Birthright. And also where that confession comes in.

The night of Nov 1 I chatted with my sister in law, Mel, who is in a similar spot writing-wise. What started as a chat turned into a full-blown brainstorming session where she helped me work out some of the kinks in TLP and I (hopefully) helped her with her blocks. I got up Saturday morning and added 2500 words to The Lost Princess--vital words that tied the huge front section to the beginning of the sagging middle section. Just like that--bam! The story revitalized. The next thing I have to write is about a death and that will give me a great deal of fodder for the next few thousand words.

But here's the confession part. I'm doing two NaNo projects. Yes, you read that right. I also set up a pseudonym account on the website and I'm writing ANOTHER 50k word book this month. Actually, at the rate I'm going I fully expect to have at least one, if not both, NaNo projects done before the third week of November. Definitely before Thanksgiving since the kids and I have some great plans for that extended weekend.

What makes me think I can do it? Honestly I don't know what happened between Halloween night and November 1st but something did, something incredible. Since I got up that Friday morning I have written 22,278 words in three different projects. And I'm going strong, focusing on the one story that speaks loudest and then going on to the next one.

I don't know why I'm sharing this. Partly to apologize for TLP being late, again, but also in part for some accountability. If I can remain strong and focused then I may have one project done by the end of this week alone. Right now it's practically writing itself, and there's no end in sight to the inspiration I'm getting. I sort of stalled out on the other one but I don't expect that to last, since the next scene I'm writing is going to be one of those intense, life altering scenes that have to happen to our main characters.

I also promise to keep you posted. They may not be long updates, but at least I can share with you my progress and when I finish each book. The floodgates have opened and I've got to get back to work.

The Poodle Skirt: What it should teach me about writing, Pt 2

You all should remember this poodle skirt from yesterday's post. Here it is if you want to read it again: Poodle Skirt

All caught up now? Great.

Most of you can already see where this is going, but I have to get it out anyway. I've shared with you the utter dread and torture and agony that was the making of said skirt, and I told you why I did it. Not for the joy of it. Not for accolations.

But because I love my daughter.

When you love someone it sometimes means you sacrifice. Not your soul, not your self-worth, not your ideals or your morals, but you do sacrifice. The time and energy I sacrificed weren't for this stupid skirt--it was for my daughter. My 12-yr-old, smarter-than-me, slightly snarky, occasionally disobedient, stubborn, talented daughter.

Friday, in my post-skirt recovery, I realized that if I was willing to sacrifice so much to do a project I hated, why was I so hesitant in my writing--which is something I love? I used to think I was good with deadlines, that they made me work harder so I could meet them. But somewhere along the way, after seeing self-imposed deadline after deadline slide by, I realized that's not the case. So it wasn't that I had basically only one day to make the skirt.

Is it because I like to sew? Not particularly, and I'm not particularly skilled at it. But I do love to create things, and sewing just enables an aspect of that. But I got no pleasure from creating this skirt, so that's not it either.

Basically it came down to my girl. I did it for her. Only for her. Not for me. Not for the satisfaction of doing it but because I didn't want to see her disappointed if it was something I could actually do for her.

So if it's the person who matters most to me, what about the people who are waiting for my next book?

I'm not talking about nameless, faceless fans who I adore but in a distant non-stalkerish way. I'm talking about the kids who have reached out to me to say how much they love my series and can't wait to see what I do next. I'm talking about the little girls who've received my books as gifts and read them over and over. The ones I know by name. The ones I love.

And what about my writing career in general? My publishing goals? My plans for the future? Surprisingly, little of that really has to do with me. I don't want fame and fortune (though a little fortune would be nice, let's be honest) or to be on numerous bestseller lists. I've told you before I like being invisible. (you may now ask if I like it so much why use my real name to publish--and that plays into the part that's really about me, the part where I have to stand for what I say and my goals to improve with each project)

And then there's the fact that I write for my kids. There's so much I want them to learn and so much I want them to know, but one of the biggest things is that each of us needs to be able to follow our dreams. If what you're doing isn't what you love, then why are you doing it? I want them to pursue their dreams, to make success out of them. And how can I properly teach that if I don't live the example of it? Because the failure comparison of do it because I didn't just doesn't cut it.

Lastly, there's the most spiritual and personal reason why I write and publish. Because I know with absolute certainty that it's my calling in life. It's my part in God's plan. I have two callings--mother and writer--in that order. And I love God, so the progression goes that I should be willing to sacrifice to fulfill my part in His plan.

But, yeah, that's a lot of self-imposed guilt there and I'm only human. I'm going to backslide sometimes, make mistakes, and have to own them. Like right now. I don't care if the world never knows my name. But someday I'm going to have to answer for the things I did and did not do, and I feel there should definitely be more effort on my part in that regard.

I want to be able to say that I tried my best. Right now, this is not my best. Not my very best.

I know I get hung up on my first drafts, wanting them to be perfect and needing as little revision as possible. My new goal is to just finish the dang things. Become a fantastic RE-writer. Stop letting my doubts dictate my actions. Write for 5 hrs a day. The kids are in school, what's stopping me but me? So what if I chuck 95% of it later. That's 5% more than I'm doing now. It's still progress.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

It's high time I start applying what I know, push through my personal issues, and just write. Because of the love.

The Poodle Skirt: What it should teach me about writing, Pt 1

This is a poodle skirt. And you say, "Yes, I know it's a poodle skirt, but what's your point?"

My point? I hate this skirt. Loathe it. Detest it. It's seriously the only thing I hate more than...I don't even know--anything.

 "Wow," you say, "that's a lot of emotion about a stupid skirt."

And I agree. Completely.

If you're a long-time follower then you know that I have made some interesting comparisons to aspects of my life and how they relate to my writing. Bear with me because I'm about to do it again.

You see, last Friday was our school's Homecoming. And my daughter, who is part of the band/marching band, told me Tuesday that they had decided everyone needed a poodle skirt for the parade Friday.

Tuesday. She told me Tuesday. Afternoon. On our way out of town for a dentist appointment.

So I grumbled. And I griped. Why couldn't they have come to this conclusion a week ago? A month ago? It's not like nobody knew when Homecoming was, or that they would be in the parade. And I admit it--I'd hoped her ineligibility status might prevent her from marching in the parade. That way I wouldn't have to drop everything and make a skirt she'll probably only wear once. But no such luck.

I scoured the fabric selections at Walmart Tuesday afternoon because it's the only place with fabric and picked out a sweet floral print because they didn't have decent prices on any solid colored fabric. And because I know my daughter I knew I'd have to make an underskirt to shield her legs from the netting because she'd gripe about it being scratchy. Yeah, I know.

Wednesday I had a full schedule and couldn't do anything about it, but I did manage to make the poodle applique. But I started on the skirt first thing Thursday. I measured. I cut. I dug out more fabric. I measured and cut some more.

I found that the pretty floral print I'd bought at the store wouldn't work for the skirt. I hadn't bought enough fabric, which is a mistake I hardly ever make. Usually I have tons leftover. So I dug into my reserves and found the solid red pictured above. I probably still have enough of that leftover to make a tablecloth for my 8-seater dining room table. The underskirt? Easy--an old sheet. The netting? Less easy--I hate working with netting or tulle but I managed it.

Then I started to piece it all together and sew. I put in movies to listen to in order to break up the monotony. Occasionally I got up and ate or got more water or went to the bathroom or changed out the movies. But mostly I sewed. And sewed. And sewed.

The skirt was almost complete by the time my daughter got home from school. Mind you, I've made skirts before. Usually I do a simple elastic waist and hem it up. Really, really basic. The last one I made my youngest took me about 15 min start to finish. This skirt?

Oh. My. Goodness. It had a waistband. It has a zipper. I don't have a zipper the right length. I measured and cut for the size up from my daughter's size and the waist was tiny. TINY. My daughter is 12 and does not have a tiny waist. When she tried it on it was easily 3 inches too small. After all that work?

I grumbled a bit louder. I fantasized about going down to the school and yelling at the adults in charge of the band and the parade stuff. Details like this need to be worked out well in advance, not 3 days before.

My waistband solution? I ran a seam deeper into the top of the skirt, measured her, cut off the top of the skirt so there was a bigger opening, and measured again.

And still botched it. Now it was too big. Slid right off her not-quite-yet-hips and puddled on the floor. By this time I was fed up with the whole project, but no way was I going to put this much time and effort into the dang skirt and give up there. Safety pins. Yes, the skirt is still too big for her and if it ever fits it will likely be too short. I ran up to town and while the girls were in their drama class I bought a zipper. That night I came home and sewed it in. I'm not fast with zippers so it took until after they'd gone to bed.

But, finally, late Thursday night, the poodle skirt was done. And I LOATHED IT. In fact, I'm still considering burning it.

Because I hate that stupid, awkward poodle skirt.

But I love my daughter.

*Part 2, how this relates to writing, will be up tomorrow.

What is Wrong with Me?

Sometimes I just don't know what to make of myself. Seriously. I have conversations in my head, play out what the characters would say to one another in any given scene, run the plot down over and over to come up with the right pacing and everything.

Then I sit at my computer. And. Do. Nothing.

I open my documents and set myself up to write. I scroll to where I stopped last time and click the cursor into position.

But I don't write.

The act of putting these thoughts on screen (paper) freezes me.

WHY?!

I've published 3 books. It's not like I can't come up with the words. I'm not stuck in an endless cycle of writer's block or anything. So why can't I just write. the. words?

It's driving me absolutely crazy. I'm too embarrassed to admit the days I have wasted while the kids have been at school, not counting the days one or more has been home sick or the days I've had the truck in the shop. I mean perfect writing days where I have nothing else to do but spend hours in front of my computer.

Not writing.

Right now I'm looking at the clock at the bottom of my screen and the kids will be home in about an hour. After that I'm on the go until they snuggle into bed around 9. By then I'm so wiped I'm good for about 30 min and I slip into bed myself. With the goal and the desire to get up and write in the morning.

But I won't. Because all this time has passed and I haven't.

Is it self doubt? Am I frozen by the idea of trying to top my previous works? I don't think so. It doesn't enter into conscious thought, at least.

Mel, I may need a boot to the head. :/