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Category Archives: The Holidays

Spring Has Sprung!

At the risk of jinxing myself, I’m gonna go with the notion that spring is definitely here and we can kiss all the snow goodbye! (Thank God! The white stuff is pretty, but I hate driving in it!) With the month of April, I have another resolution to add to the list. I’m happy to report that since the beginning of the year, I’ve stuck to all of my resolutions, adding a new one each month. So far I’m exercising 5 days a week, I’ve given up fried foods and baked desserts and now I’ll be giving up all fast food barring sandwich places. That’s not to say I won’t get a salad and a baked potato at Wendy’s if that’s my only option, because I don’t think that’s a no no, but no more burgers or burritos and such. April is birthday month for us around the house for myself, my husband and my oldest daughter, so we’ll see how hard it is to stick to the no baked desserts resolution!

I have to say March was a weird month for me. I saw a lot of success from the Pretty Witches giveaway and I published Mercy for the Damned, so the business of being a writer went very well. Creatively, I finished up my Push fanfic, but did little else in the world of writing. I’ve been working on my upcoming book and let me tell you, I can’t remember the last time I was in such a wishy washy mood!

I’m supposed to be working on Let Sleeping Ghosts Lie, a paranormal mystery/ghosty book similar to The Touch. But instead, I’ve been inundated with all manner of other plot ideas, each vying for a spot at my next book. I’ve even gone so far as to do some major plotting on several of these ideas, hoping one of them would pull forward as the clear winner with the hopes of starting it this month.

Well, I’ll tell you, the end of March came and I found myself no closer to picking what project to begin. Each idea has merit, but none of them were grabbing hold in just that right way that tells me it’s the next one to focus on. So, instead of writing a new book, I’ll be dusting off Moonsong, the first book I wrote about two years ago. My writing has evolved quite a bit since then, and it needs a bit of work to get it whipped into shape for publication, but that’s what I’ll be working on next. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready to go by month’s end. That means a jump start on working on the sequel to Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down or letting my other book ideas fight to the death with chopsticks to see what book comes after that, but we’ll see where we are when I come to the other side of this one.

New Year, New Logo, New Resolutions

So I’ve had this thing for a while, sort of an inside joke about me having a robot brain at work, and my husband James came up with this logo. Isn’t it cute?

I don’t, as a rule, set New Year’s resolutions because they seem destined to fail. At the same time I am in favor of making some lifestyle changes this year and I was inspired by Mike Saxton’s success at sticking to his resolutions from last year. So, being a planner and a maker of lists, I made a new list this year of resolutions I’d like to make, so that by the end of the year, I’ve affected real change. Instead of doing them all at once, because I know I don’t have the willpower to stick to that much change, I’ll pick a new one once a month and keep adding to it cumulatively.

Then some of them are just general resolutions I’d like to incorporate into my life. Like do something I want to do each day. So many times we do things we have to do, I want to take the time to do something I want to do every day, even if it’s a small thing. I’m hoping that helps me de-stress a little from the deadlines I put on myself coupled with my stressful job. Deadlines like… I’d like to publish 4 more books in 2012.

My resolution for the month of January? Exercise 5 days a week. I’ve been doing a fairly good job of this for the past few weeks, but it’ll be good to formalize it into a solid goal.

What about you guys? What are your resolutions for the New Year?

Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down is now available online!

The first book of my new vampire series is now available for sale on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com! It’s out as an e-book for $3.99 but you don’t have to have a Kindle or Nook to read it, they have free downloadable apps so you can read it on your PC, or even your phone. It’ll be available in print as well in a couple of weeks through Amazon.

I wrote this one during November for NaNoWriMo and I’m super happy about how it came out and how the characters evolved. You know me and taking breaks are non-mixy things, so I’m currently working on the outline for Mercy for the Damned, due out next spring. My Vampire Diaries fanfic idea fell flat after I got the first chapter done, so I’ve decided to put that on hold and wait for better inspiration while I continue to work on Mercy and the Push fanfic (which doesn’t have many readers, but I’m loving the characters there!).

In the meantime, Happy Holidays to everyone who celebrates them, and don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon to those of you who don’t. ;)

Happy Turkey Week!

Wouldn’t it be great if we could take the whole week off for Thanksgiving like my kids do from school now? I could laze around, drinking cocoa, wrapping X-mas presents, watching cheesy Hallmark movies on TV, getting to some writing when I felt like it… on second thought, that’s not such a hot idea after all. For whatever reason, I need the stress of a deadline to help me produce, and so far so good this month, it’s Day 21 of NaNoWriMo and I’m up to about 62,000 words of my new vampire novel, Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down.

I just finished the final update of my Vampire Diaries Fanfic, Dark Side of the Moon and that always gets me to thinking about starting something new. I can’t wait to start the next one, but it’ll have to wait a few weeks I think until the novel is edited and ready to go. I might even take a break and get to some reading I’ve been looking forward to (Got Storm Chaser by Mark R. Hunter already downloaded to my Nook and ready to go!) before I start the next book in The Fallen series.

I’m looking forward to some turkey with family and friends this week. I always make the same delicious recipe with lemons, rosemary and dijon mustard. (I know it sounds a little weird, but it makes the best gravy!) I’ve just about got my holiday shopping done too except for some online purchases, how about you guys? Are you going to brave the Black Friday deals or settle in with some cocoa and hit the online sales?

Happy Valentines Day!

So the new book is still going well, I’m up to 22,857 words so far and things are progressing nicely.  The only thing is I keep going back and forth on the main character’s name.  I had him at first as Rand Cooper and I was happy with that when it was set in the south.  When I changed the location to California I switched it to Nick and now I can’t decide which I like better!

I finally wrapped up my fanfic Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down!  It came in at a whopping 47 chapters!  I’m sad to see it go, it really turned into an epic tale, but at the same time I’m happy to move on to something new!  I’ll probably be starting up the next fic in a week or two so I can get a little more done on the book before I start.

Something strange came to my attention on fanfic.net the other day, I found out that someone had literally copied and pasted my work, added a bit to the end and called it their own!  I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but come on!  I reported her and sent her a note demanding that she take it down immediately which she did.  She had the nerve to tell me that she thought she had my permission! 

Pretty much her inquiry went:  Hey are you gong to complete this story? Because I think it is a base for a lot of good branches and if you wont complete it, others can gladly.
Anyways LOVE your writing…..

my reponse: I really hope to get back to this one at some point, but I keep running out of time! as always, so many projects, so little time to write!

So… where exactly did it say she could copy my work and not give me credit?  I wouldn’t have cared if she took the basic concept and rewritten it, lord knows I don’t own the market on crossover ideas, but damn… it was disconcerting to see my work under someone else’s name.  She even changed the POV from third person to 1st when she started writing without batting an eye.  Strange…

So, how is your week going?

Happy Christmas!

For all of you that celebrate it, I hope you have a great time with family and friends. 

We are watching all sorts of movies and taking a little break from writing over here.  Although at present we’re watching The Crazies, not exactly a holiday flick but I do love me some Timothy Olyphant.  It was either that or Hitman again, both are Olyphantastic! 

Now on to the Scrooged marathon on AMC.  Perhaps we’ll go to the actual movie theater today and see True Grit or Tron.  I dunno though, I always thought it was pretty evil to make theater employees work on xmas when everybody and their mother has the day off. 

Anyway, Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones and see you next year!