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WOW!

I find that I tend to shy away from a lot of self-promotion. It feels…awkward. I’ve never been great at direct sales. Let’s face it, that’s what self-promotion is geared towards.

As an author, you must make yourself available in some fashion. The internet is awesome for this because you can interact with readers, other authors, professionals who provide various services, EVERYONE, via digital communication, and you don’t have to crawl out of your introvert shell.

But you have to be out there. I think most of us struggle with it. Some do not – they seem right at home. I’m not there yet.

I’m more comfortable talking with other writers about craft issues, or better ways to do things, or any of the number of concerns we have to handle as part of being in business. I like to help people. You have a problem? Tell me! I’ll be Googling a solution within minutes! I love finding solutions.

I would be great at a museum help desk. I was a docent for over a year at Historic London Town.

Londontown

It was fabulous, and I would totally do such a thing again. You know, when I retire, and my to-do list isn’t burying me. (I was a docent before I had kids. LOL, tells you something.)

So, anyway…I would rather be helping others than promoting myself.

But I am really excited about something that happened, and it will seem sort of self-promote-y – but I want to share.

I’m a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I serve on the Board of Directors as the Newsletter Editor, and the IPAL Liaison (that’s the professional group within RMFW for independently published authors). I love it. It takes time from my schedule, but the organization is fantastic, and I like giving back to a group that I get a lot from. I have a fabulous critique group, a wonderful group of beta readers/critique partners – those things are invaluable.

Indies are still the new guy on the block in the world of publishing. We don’t still have the new car smell, but we’re still shiny. Two years ago, RMFW recognized the movement of indies as professionals and created IPAL. It’s an amazing group of authors.

What we also created was an Independent Writer of the Year award. We’ve always had a Writer of the Year, but it was for traditionally published authors only. The IWOTY is only for indie authors. It’s a great step in upping our professional status.

I am thrilled to share that I am a finalist for the first ever IWOTY award. Along with my amazing colleagues Sue Duff and Nathan Lowell. I am humbled to be in a grouping with the two of them.

This is a huge deal. Not just for me (and I am personally thrilled) but for all of our indies. For so long, we’ve had to battle the stigma of being ‘not quite professional’. The Selection Committee for our IWOTY nominees worked really hard to look at all the indies who’d submitted credentials, and we have really talented authors in our indie pool.

So that’s it. I wanted to share, because it’s truly an honor, and every time I think about it, I just can’t believe it.

Tomorrow, May 5th (other than being the day that Revenge of the Fifth follows May The Fourth Be With You) is the one year anniversary of my first time hitting the ‘Publish’ button. I’ve put out three full-length novels, a novella, and a serial novel under two names. I have more novels than I probably ought to on the various burners right now.

While I’m not exactly where I want to be (Having won The Bet with My Beloved, and in possession of a pair of tickets to the annual Jane Austen Ball with appropriate costumes), I’m getting there.

It’s a great time to be a writer, and an even greater time to be an indie writer. Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past year, and to my colleagues in RMFW for nominating me for this honor.

Now, back to the grind. Tally Ho!

 

Knowing your rights…from KrisWrites.com

I follow Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog. She is a font of information. What I enjoy most are her Business Musings. She’s been in the business a long time, and I really like reading her take on things.

This one…wowsa.

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That’s all I got. You. Need. To. Read. This. If you are creating intellectual property, this is worth the time to read, re-read, and go through her links.

It’s a whole new world out there, and we the creators need to understand it. The times of someone taking care of us or “looking out for our best interests” is, in my opinion, over. WE must take care of ourselves, and manage and shepherd our interests.

This is a good place to start.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (CONTRACTS/DEALBREAKERS)

Link to KKR’s entire blog post.

You’re welcome.

(Another Kris, to inspire you along)

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Spring Showers, April….

Well, it’s not flowers. I did have flowers, and all three of my juvenile trees were budding and flowering, but…as per the bipolar Colorado weather, it snowed.

A lot.

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I can only hope my poor trees and flowers make it. The pic above represents an A.M. situation. I’ve shoveled at least 2.5 feet at this point. I. Am. Tired. Still wouldn’t live anywhere else. Except maybe Key West. For a couple of months in the winter. On a boat.

I digress.

Spring is also the time we clean, organize, and generally clear out, readying for all that comes with summer. Or at least, we attempt it. I’ve got a lot of attempts under my belt.

Last month, I reorganized my basement. My Beloved got a quiet room with a door for his office. The Darling Children also got their own office, also with a door. Everyone has space to go and work, and be quiet. Well, maybe not so much the DCs.

I got the loft. The loft has been where our main desktop sat for the last ten years. It’s also the place where things got dumped, shoved, and stored when we didn’t know what else to do with it.

I spent a good month working on my loft, now my Office of Awesome. It has all the decor I love – I don’t care if anyone else doesn’t like it. I do, and that’s what matters. It’s my favorite place to be in the house now, other than my bed. And my front room with the Christmas tree up.

Lisa Office

Sounds great, right? It is, and it isn’t. Now, the rest of the house needs to be organized. I got the main level done – a heroic effort was put in by all of us to clear out the debris that no one used or loved anymore. When I look around, there is so much less clutter.

That leaves only one place.

*cue the Jaws tune*

My closet and dressers. Dear lord, I am a terrible clothes collector. Ter-Ri-Ble. I have gone through the closet, and the dressers loom, waiting for some attention.

Once done with my room, the entire house will have been addressed, in some fashion. The work is never done, but it’s cleared out in a way that it hasn’t been in years. You all know how it is – kids, work, second work (writing), house stuff – the clearing out and paring down gets pushed waaayyy down the list.

But I’m making the effort. After forty-five years, I am finally becoming more organized than I have ever been in my life. It allows me to live cleaner. I don’t mean that in a food sense, but in the sense that less crap means less clutter in my mental real estate. I find I can focus better, and am more productive, both with writing, and all the other things I need to get done.

Except today. I managed to shovel snow, and shower. And feed people. That was it. But generally, in the last month, this is what I’ve found – and I didn’t plan on it, I wasn’t aiming for it. But by clearing out the physical clutter, my mental clutter went down too.

There’s a lot of mental clutter in the world. Good lord, just go hang on Facebook for five minutes – it’s tough not to get distracted. I’m working on that too – and I’ll be honest, with my physical setting feeling less like it’s in disarray, I don’t feel the need to get all involved in other people’s social media. Unless it’s positive.

So the snow has been good for one thing, other than substituting for my workout today. It’s allowed me to think about the changes I’ve made, and how said changes are affecting me.

Now that it’s spring, take some time, and see what clutter you can toss. See what you don’t really need – if you read Marie Kondo’s book, she recommends tossing anything that doesn’t give you joy. JOY. That’s a strong word. I’ll tell you, it was hard for me. But I would look at something and think, Does this bring joy? If I had any hesitation, into the Toss pile it went. And I don’t miss it. We hang onto crap, worrying that we might miss/need it.

We don’t. Not usually.

Be brave. Be strong. Be HONEST. What brings you joy? If you’re sitting there, glancing at something that doesn’t, get up now, and go make a Toss pile. Then go tackle a small area that’s been driving you mad, and bag it up. Put it in the car, even.

And get rid of it.

You’ll feel better.

Happy spring!

StarFest 2016

My Starfest 2016 Schedule!

So see the clicky linky above? Click it! You know you want to! CLICK IT! I’m so excited about this. For the first time ever, I’m attending a Con not just as a fan (although you can be sure I checked the schedule for things I want to go see), but as a panelist.

Starfest is an established sci-fi convention here in Denver. It’s one of the first conventions I went to. I always have a lot of fun. It’s not huge, not like Dragon Con, or Denver Comic Con, but I like going to a smaller convention. I like being able to take the time to talk to people. Starfest is where I met one of my favorite writers, who also happens to be local. (Mario Acevedo, in case you were wondering.) We talked about steampunk, both the costuming aspect, as well as whether or not to write it. It was fantastic, and a wonderful way to put one’s toe into the world of conventions.

It’s also family friendly. As my kids get older, we’ve started to introduce them to cons. One loves it, one is rather ‘meh’ about it. I’m good with that. A fifty percent ratio isn’t bad. I appreciate it when the cons do things to include and involve the kids. It’s good business, too. All us older nerdy folk are going to keep getting old. Start ’em young, and you build an attendee for life.

The ‘nerd culture’ has been in the spotlight over the past couple of years. I’ve seen some of my favorite cons explode from an attendance standpoint, as more people come to see what all the fuss is about. A lot of them keep on coming.

Why?

Because cons rock. Seriously. They do. I love to costume, and I love love love talking costume with other people who love to costume. #1 thing I’ve learned? Costume for comfort. Do your housecleaning in your costume. If you can’t get your work done, mod your costume. I am not joking. Nothing sucks worse than planning to be out, on your feet, probably sweating, for ten hours, with a costume that is not comfy, not movable/breathable, or one that you’re constantly futzing with. LOL, I’ve learned this the hard way.

If there is a movie, TV show, pop culture thing, book-anything that has a fandom – you can find a con where your fellow fans will be. Trust me on this one. I have a friend who loves Korean pop. He goes to panels about that exact topic at one of the cons I attend. I didn’t even know it was a thing, but it is.

I’m a fan of so many things-Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who, Supernatural, All Things Joss Whedon With Special Love To Firefly/Serenity, steampunk crossover for ANYTHING-you get the point. I have costumes that fit into all but two of the above listed fandoms. Cons are a great place to dress up, show off the thing you geek out over, meet like-minded folk, meet authors, learn new craft skills (I went to a panel, and then every panel thereafter from a presenter at Anomaly Con who gave up so much knowledge on steampunk costuming that I use to this day…she was brilliant) and have fun.

So if you’re looking for something to do, come by. It’s an easygoing convention. There’s plenty to do – in addition to the fan traks at Starfest, they also have Horrorfest, and ComicFest. My little guy wants to go to Horrorfest so bad. He’s already a HUGE horror fan. (As in, his Halloween costume last year was Jeff the Killer. I was sure a visit from CPS was heading my way.) But he’s only 9, so we’re easing into the horror.

Plus, I’m working this weekend. Come see me.

Review of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”

I am not a movie reviewer. Let’s sort that out right up front. However, I read my friend Mark’s review on his SoWizard site (you should definitely check he and his colleagues out), and after I saw it this weekend, I was compelled to respond.

I AM, however, a lifelong Jane Austen fan. As in, I LOVE HER. I know all her books, and only Northanger Abbey doesn’t get five stars from me. (All the NA fans, ease up. It’s just the one where the heroine bothers me. It gets four to four-and-a-half. I had a hard time identifying with her, even as a teenager.) I am also someone who loves the movie adaptations, even though they often lack any real “action” (or anything at all, other than snobbish accents, according to my Dear Husband. He’s not a fan). Jane Austen wrote about small worlds, and lives that were part of a narrow, understood path. They were complex in their relationships but small on a global level. Fans of Jane Austen are good with that. We love that, actually.

So it stands to reason that someone who is not necessarily a JA fan will be put off by the general tone of a JA based movie, even one that has zombies at the heart of all conflict. As I said commenting on Mark’s review, I like the quiet story line of a Jane Austen.

With that, let’s get to the review.

I loved the book. Loved it. I loved what Seth did with the story. I’m not a purist, most of the time. I can totally get behind an adaptation if it’s clever and well done. I felt like he did that. I also like the intro in the movie of the History of England, 1700 to 1800. I like that sort of vintage cartooning, so for me, it worked.

When it came to the movie, I was disappointed. They took Mr. Darcy and gave him a story arc that was supposed to create tension. However, there was already tension. Mr. Darcy in the movie had governmental muscle behind him in the quest for zombies. He didn’t need that to bring tension to the relationship between he and Elizabeth. His suspicions-that are revealed later-create enough tension as it is. Both in his thoughts and actions. I thought it was unnecessary. It would have worked to use the tension written into the story. Darcy would have still been the dour, unpleasant, rude man that he’s been since creation, insulting our heroine and drawing our ire. This is probably my biggest complaint.

I loved the Bennett sisters. LOVED them. That scene in the assembly-every one of them is a powerhouse, and that’s true to the book. It’s one of the changes that was made in the adaptation that I liked. Every one of those young women went in with katana drawn and ass-kicking on her mind. That was fantastic.

One thing that I missed was the relationship between Lizzy and Jane. It was not shown to the depth that it ought to have been. More like skipping a rock across a pond than what it really was. That was…sad. Because that relationship is important. I wish they’d gone deeper.

That leads, however, to the portrayal of Wickham. That, in my opinion, was fabulous. I loved that change. I wholeheartedly approve. I thought it brought a really interesting plot arc in that added, rather than detracted from the story. And the fact that Jane and Lizzy walk right into that arc for love (you’ll see what I mean) shows that the relationships within the Bennett family are there.

Let’s not forget Mr. Collins. Holy hell. I laughed at him nearly every time he was on screen. Oh, you Doctor, you! Matt Smith made him. I think he’s my favorite adaptation of Mr. Collins. He wasn’t the greasy, slimy one we’ve seen before. He was cheerful and a complete social climber, and eternally optimistic and convinced of his own fabulousness. I thought it was a perfect way to play him.

Darcy, in the end, made me weepy. I adored his letter, as I always have, and how he eventually speaks for himself. It was well done.

So where does that leave me, rating the movie? I give it four stars. Why? Because even though there are things I didn’t like, or didn’t understand the need for, I felt they captured the essence of the time. Which is both the world that Jane Austen created, as well as a time when people would have thought it was the end of times. The coming of Revelation, for those who are spiritual. I was thinking about it after the movie, when I was musing on the loss of seeing more of Jane and Lizzy. It’s a hard balance to walk when you feel your world teeters on the edge of ending.

The ending was fantastic. Sit and watch the credits. I was really pleased with it, and if it means what I think it does, I’m good.

But if you’re not a Jane Austen fan, I do think it might fall a bit flat. I often think that with many book-to-movie adaptations. Even as those making the movie want it to stand alone, and entice new fans, they’re also making it for the current fans. It’s a tough road to keep to. I say that as a reader who’s read most of the books that are made into movies.

I will admit that I have a teensy bit more of a bias, because Jane Austen is probably my top choice for an author’s works to take on a desert island with me. I re-read them now, and still love them as much as the first time. So I am a bit harder on the adaptations.

I liked this one, though. It’s not perfect. But it did a great job in bringing that book to to life. As Mark mentioned, the love story takes over. In the original P&P, that’s true. Because it’s the point. I think it’s true for P&P&Z as well. Even in the midst of an apocalypse, love will take over. We’re human. It’s how we’re made.

Even in the midst of a Potter’s Field with hands clutching at your ankles.

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Ode To The Faithful Snow Broom

I sit in the middle of Snowpocalypse 2016…In Colorado, that is.

We only got about fourteen inches. Which, from a Colorado perspective, isn’t all that much. Honestly. It’s a bit more than normal, but…it’s manageable.

To my great surprise, the school district actually closed today. That hardly ever never ever happens. Our school district goes to school in all sorts of weather. Almost like the postal service. I read a post from a friend of a friend of the Superintendent where he said he didn’t like to close schools because of all the kids who get help with meals.

Bless him. I can handle less snow days for that reason alone.

Regardless, here I sit, taking a break from work, with kids and husband home. That’s not a normal Tuesday for me. I’m usually sitting alone, in the quiet, with the occasional nudge from one of the furry kiddos.

They’re home, and it’s still snowing. The weather reports said that it was supposed to stop by now, but the almost sideways fine, sticky snow is still coming down. That’s all well and good. I don’t mind snow. We’ll have school tomorrow, and since I don’t have to go far, it won’t be too horrid.

Except for one thing.

I have to backtrack a little on this one. Back to 2009, when my Dear Husband first went away on deployment. He was gone for almost nine months. Fall, winter, and a lot of spring.  Yay me. Because Colorado gets snow eight months a year on average. So, guess who was stuck with the three car driveway, and the looooooong sidewalk out front?

That’s right, the person who despises shoveling snow. Keep the comments about why I live in Colorado to yourself.

So after yet another snow event that took hours out of my time, and my kids were smaller then, less able to be without direct supervision, I went to the Home Depot, and looked for a solution.

It seems simple, yet it’s not. We have a three-car garage. We also have three cars, and all three park in the garage. There’s no real work space, or anywhere for us to park various lawn and outdoor tools. Dear Husband is good at creating storage, so he’s managed to fit the things he needs, but the lawn mowers (yes, we used to have four, don’t ask!) and any potential snow removal thing would have to live outside.

I’m not putting a $400 snow blower outside. SO…impasse. I ended up with this beauty.

shopping

$99 bucks, and it hangs on a hook. Well, it did.

That brings us back to the current Snowpocalypse. Dear Husband waited for the wind to quit whistling past the house, and went out to begin the clearing process. He got almost all the way through it – was on the sidewalks – when our dear Toro, the electric snow shovel of light….DIED.

It just stopped. Dear Husband is pretty handy, so he took a look at it. It’s not a complex machine. There seems to be nothing wrong with it. Yet there it sits, dead.

Does it know? I haven’t been vocal until now, but I’ve finally negotiated with Dear Husband. I will be getting a snow blower. One that is independent of any cords, and big, and capable of clearing my never-ending walkways and driveway quickly and efficiently, with no backbreaking work for me slaving over a freezing shovel handle.

The snow blower will get a place to live, a place to reside, and I’ll even let the lawn mower (we’re down to one, like normal people) come in out of the elements. Until recently, though, the Toro Broom was the only thing that stood between me and quality time on the heating pad. There was no snow blower in my future.

So RIP, my dear Toro Broom. You’ve saved me – on the mornings when we had to go to school, on the one crazy morning when I had to get myself and both kids to a taekwondo tournament, when I was the last one to shovel one snowy day and risked a nasty-gram from the HOA, and in general when it chooses to snow the moment Dear Husband leaves.

You’ve earned your rest.

Just please…no more snow. I haven’t gotten the snow blower yet.

 

Being an indie and the Goblin King…

I feel like I’ve been all over the place lately with the blog. Kind of like life. Anyway, today I wanted to talk about being an indie author. Let me say straight away, I like being indie. I like knowing that both success and failure sits right in my lap. I’ll admit I much prefer the success part rather than the failure part.

Be that as it may, I like being the place where the buck stops. Why is this important? Well, I’ve had to do some overhauling on my writing, and writing plans. I have had to look at what I want to do, and what will work with the goals I have for 2016. Suffice to say, in order to spare you all a long, boring diatribe, the two don’t always meet.

That’s the awesome thing about being indie. At the end of last year, I looked at where I was, and I won’t lie to you all. It wasn’t where I wanted to be. So I did some reading, and tried to look at other avenues, and then I looked at me-to see where I might have done something differently or better.

That is never fun.

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But there are things I can change. So I’m doing it. Because I think I need to, and when something isn’t working the way you want, you need to make changes. Not that you have to hop like a mad rabbit from one plan to the next in a frantic race to find the right way. But you need to make a plan, and stick to it, and when you see, after a respectable amount of time, that’s not working, it’s okay to change.

As an indie, I can do that. I don’t have to run it by an agent, an editor, or a publisher. Now, Lisa, some may say, Perhaps they would have kept you from making a mistake in the first place.

Fair enough.

But let me counter, my friend. I have friends who have all those wonderful people working with and for them. They are also in a state of looking over what worked, and what didn’t. Some have fared better than I, some worse. So I’m not sure that having those people working with you guarantees anything.

2015 was a great learning year for me. I figured out what I absolutely must keep up with, and what I need to shift or change. That’s valuable.

It’s not easy, and requires I work every day on some aspect of my career. It’s a lot to keep up with. Some days, I slack horribly. Learning to work through that has been a piece of the process along with everything else. But I’m improving and that is a positive to celebrate.

So there you have it. I’m in the midst of reorg-and while it’s a bit chaotic, it’s a good thing. See the Seth Godin quote above. It’s so true!

While I’ve been doing this, I went online on Monday, and read that David Bowie, the Goblin King, Major Tom-had left us. I cried. I cried off and on all day. I’ve loved him since I was ten years old. He was the first artist I saw in concert. We were in the fourth row-All the Ziggy fans were up there-talk about an eye opener!

It brought home the fact that time, for us, is finite. That we must not hesitate, must move forward, take the chance, and Carpe Diem.

I read an amazing, amazing tweet about him:

If you’re ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.

Aren’t we all lucky as hell? Be like Bowie, take charge, and sally forth!

Rest in peace, Goblin King.

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Holy Joseph, It’s A Newsletter!

For 2016, one of my writing goals was to get my Newsletter in order, and send it out. I have a nice mailing list. I put some work into it in 2015, and it’s respectable. If you’re on it, THANK YOU! If you’re NOT – well, I’ll make it easy.

Here’s the link: http://bit.ly/1NE9IiJ

While I am a lover of the technology, it usually takes me some time to figure out how to use it all. A mailing list and what you’re supposed to do with it is no different. It’s taken me longer than I thought because I’ve been slowly working out my organization on how to work effectively at home.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Anyway, I have my Newsletter done. It’s good. I like it. If I got it, I wouldn’t roll my eyes. I’d open it. We’ll see how it does.

But I’m pleased, and I’ll tell you, if you’re just starting out, try MailChimp. There are other services out there, but this one is not overly difficult, and it’s free, initially. Once you hit a certain number of subscribers, it becomes a paid service, which is appropriate. The service walks you through each step, one at a time.

I had a couple of steps I needed to complete before I sent it out. I’m waiting on the last one now. But the rest is done! Once I get this last bit from the third party, I’m ready to roll!

I’m excited.

With that, I’m off. I’d love, however, to hear how some of you have managed your mailing list. Have you used MailChimp? If so, do you like it? If not, what are you using?

Cheers!

Book Review: The Glass Wall series by Madison Adler & Carmen Caine

I wanted to start the year off with a book recommendation. I was with family a great deal of the holidays, and had more down time to read than usual. I read a number of new books, but as I always do, I re-read some of my favorites.

One of them is a series called The Glass Wall. Madison Adler and Carmen Caine are the authors. There are four books in the series – The Glass Wall, The Brotherhood of the Snake, The Inner Circle, and The Egg. There’s also a short called Behind The Mirror – and it’s worth reading. Gives great background information.

I loved every single one of them. It’s young adult, and it’s paranormal. I’d even call it a romance, although that’s not the main point. As with many of the YA series I read, the romance is mixed up with everything else going on in the story.

Sydney is the heroine of the series – a seventeen year-old who is headed for yet another foster home. There’s no whitewashing the truth she deals with in regards to her mom. Mom is a character you want to throw something at the few times she turns up on the page.

The difference with this foster home is that she really likes her foster parents. They are both very likable and engaging. I love that her foster mom is an Ebay queen. I won’t spoil it for you.

The relationships develop well, and it’s not merely the romance I’m referring to. There’s a scene at Christmas with all the kids that will make you weepy.

The language is a little formal at times, but if you’ve read my Sisters Of The Curse series, you’ll know that doesn’t bother me one bit. I like formal. My favorite books are Jane Austen. To me, the formality is appropriate with the characters using it.

Here’s the breakdown – Sydney gets to her foster home, and learns that she has a smokin’ hot neighbor named Rafael. He’s got some weird parents. Then she meets Jareth, another smokin hot guy who is also the Big Deal in the music scene. Jareth hangs around, being snarky (my favorite kind of guy) and you get the sense there’s a chance for romance with both of these guys.

Then Sydney learns that they are Fae, and their hotness quotient shoots off the scale. She’s appealing to them because she is part and parcel of Fate in the Fae world.

I love how the author manages to show all these world-ending issues (and they are there in all four books) along with the normal crap one has to deal with as a teenager.

I read through these books like a shot, and the instant the last two in the series were available, I got them. I think one of them was the first pre-order I bought.

If you like YA, with a hint of dystopian, and the always present chance at romance, this is a series for you. I can safely say that as I read it again, and loved it as much as I did the first time around.

For the record, I’d love to have a Jareth lurking about my local Starbucks.

The Glass Wall series on Amazon

2016, and Looking Back on 2015

It’s the last ten days of the year as of today. That sounds so final. I’ve been busy with all the things I need to have done with the holidays approaching, and haven’t been as good on sticking to my desired schedule. However, I have been looking over what I’ve accomplished this year, and then to what I want to get done next year.

It doesn’t hurt that I did a podcast with a fellow RMFW member today and we talked about it.

So here’s my Year In Review

3 Novels
1 Novella
1 Serial novel, in six parts, which equals a novel

One of my novels, and two parts of the serial are in a box set, which I’ve found helpful. I love working with other authors.

It doesn’t look like as much as I’d like. I have another novel that I am working through, but there’s a lot of stopping and starting, because I haven’t found the groove I want for it yet. Lordamercy, I wish it would come on and hurry up! I’m waiting!

But all in all, I’m pretty pleased with my output.

So what have I learned this year? Well, marketing is something you need to be doing research on regularly. I don’t think that you have to change your plans with each new technique, but I do think you need to be aware of the ways other authors are doing well, and what’s been a struggle for them. Not that everyone will find success the same way. I’ve learned a lot, however, from reading what has and has not worked for others.

My marketing this year was rather hit or miss. I have been on a strict budget, most of which has gone to my cover art. I plan to have a somewhat bigger budget next year, so that I can work on my marketing plan all year.

I’m going to keep my books in Select, and my pen name is wide. I like being able to see the differences.

I’m shifting genres next year. I have a trilogy planned, and then a five book series, and all of them are paranormal romance. I love reading and writing it, so that’s my focus for the next year.

I’m going to change the spacing of publication. I’ve read a number of blogs and articles on this, and I think I’m going to release them closer together. So that means writing ahead. I’d like to be FAR ahead, but I’m not there yet. I think I need to be, though. We’ll see.

Once I get Catrin’s Grimoire published, I feel good that I’m finishing the story arc in a satisfying place. That feels good – all the things I introduced in Thea’s Tale will be tied into a fairly neat bow.

What have I learned? You have to know your genre, and you have to study what genre your work fits into. Then, you need to study your genre tropes, and follow them! You’re not being original or awesome by flouting them. There are exceptions to every rule, but I believe more in the idea that people read in a certain genre because they know and enjoy the expectations of the genre. It’s your job to give them a rewarding and interesting read that meets their expectations. Within reason. We all know you can’t make everyone happy.

I like shorts. I didn’t think that I did, but I wrote the serial novel, and then my last novel for the year was around 60,000 words. I also enjoyed writing the novella. Learning this was a news flash to me. I like reading longer novels, but in reading a number of shorter novels to see how others were structuring their work, I found that I enjoyed the quicker read.

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? LOL

So you have my year in a nutshell, and the basic premise for my 2016. What are your goals? What do you want to do next year? I’m going to play with my marketing more, and see what happens. I’m going to have more fun with my writing. It’s not any easier than when I put out my first work, but I’m learning more that allows me to enjoy it to a greater degree.

Which is awesome.

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My wish for all of you in the immediate future is for a wonderful holiday, however you celebrate, and a fantastic New Year! Be safe!

And when in doubt, go skiing.

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