July Updates

This week has gone by slowly. I've slowed down time, actually. I'm not sure how I've done this, but it might have something to do with my not having to go into work, and I get a lot done in one day. I'm certainly not sitting and relaxing much.

Hope everyone had a good July 4th celebration, or whatever you do. We stay home. We don't like crowds, and it's very quiet here, and we grilled a couple of steaks. Been a while since we've done that with the cost of such things, but once in a while we treat ourselves. Besides, my husband's birthday is on Monday. He's told me he's turning 50 (again). I said if he was turning fifty again, then I should too.

I do feel MUCH better this summer than I did last. I was struggling with my weight, up until I began the Atkins diet. I've now lost 17 pounds! And I'm within 11 pounds of my goal weight (125). I have so much energy it's alarming. In fact, yesterday I worked on digging up a flower bed, moving large rocks and flagstone around--I began this around 7-ish in the morning, took a 45 minute break for lunch, and was back at it for another two hours. I built my little waterfall with the large flagstone, but that was as far as I got in getting this area ready. I later will put down brick for a walk way. I've wanted to do this for a long, long time. There used to be old railroad ties in the area where I've worked, and we pulled these rotting ties out, back in the spring. Now, this is my project, and I'm doing this by myself. The only thing my husband did was haul away the dirt in the mini cart hooked to the large mower he uses out at the park. Later that night I still had energy to cut up a chicken and fry it for Dennis' birthday meal (he doesn't know if he's going to take the 7th off or not--gets behind in the mowing out there in the park).

My raspberries have come on strong. One day this week I sprayed myself down with repellent, and went out and picked what might have been two quarts. Yum!

I've watched all the Harry Potter movies first to last. Now, I really need to work on my book. My beta reader, Jennifer Weydert now has a different job, and it's at the university. She's been able to find a little time to work on my 5th book. Hopefully, she'll continue to be able to find the time. But she claims that she loves this series, and can't really put it down.

As for the fourth book, Vampire Caprice, is now on Smashwords, if anyone is interested. Since my publisher quit the business, I've gone Indie, and I'm sorry, but I simply don't have the money to put out a soft-bound book for this. If I could, believe me, I'd do a hell of a lot better job than was done with that third one. I was actually happy that he quit, since he didn't give my third book his complete attention. My suspicion was that he was too busy publishing and promoting his own book. So, this was why he was so quick to allow me to use the book covers for all three books--he felt guilty.

Anyway, I'm working on the 8th book, working on the plot. I know when not to write much down into the main document, because I don't have a good grasp of the plot. I've had a few revelations, however--and have the plot twist--but I need the meat of it, and what sort of clues to drop and how. This is going to be a sort of Western, but it will still have fantasy elements. Maybe it's a little bit of Harry Potter, too, since I use a train ride in this from one place to another in Drakulya's realm. Oh, and she is back on Black Veil to help find Princess Aljhambra, who has been abducted by one of Drakulya's off-spring, Hawk--who HATES vampires. She's told they've threatened to kill her if Drakulya doesn't comply with their wishes. Which is to stop invading a neighboring country and taking humans. But Joha, Drakula's son, claims he is not doing this!

So, at the end of my first week off, I've got a pretty good start of getting things that need doing done. The outdoor work will get done, but I need a day off in between. I'll be posting once in a while in here, and when I can, checking out what everyone else is doing out there. In the meantime, I hope you're all fine and don't mind me while I'm in my writing cave.

A Bit of This 'n' That

Merry Christmas to all my pretties!

 I wanted to give you some up-dates what's been happening with me, and my husband and my writing.
This has been a heck of a year! I went Indie, as you may know. That was a busy summer! I got all three of my Sabrina Strong books out as an Indie with the help of my friend/formatter, John Gill (Carole's husband). He was also instrumental in helping me get "The Cat Whisperer" formatted for both Amazon and Smashwords, as well as helping me with the cover.

I finished my husband's afghan. I never realized it, but I've never made him his own before. I've made others just to go over couches, but this one is his.

As you know we had to give up the kittens so that they would go to a good home. This is a picture of Peewee, the smallest kitten in the 5 that were born under the porch steps in the fall. She was so small, she snuggled in between her two bigger brothers, and hid. I was the first one to see her, small as a mouse, but there. I had been very worried about her. Well, here she is. A healthy little kitty, now 2 and a half pounds of spunk! I'm so happy my sister has her, she's delighted I must say, and I'm very happy that this little bundle has given her such pleasure.

This is Peewee ("Sadie") the smallest kitten
in the group of 5 kittens we had to raise and then
give to shelter, but my sister has this one!

I've been told the gray kitten went to her sister-in-law, and that was good news. I hope to hear what happened to the others. But I'm sure they'll all get great homes.

While I sit and look out the window at the melting snow, we are under a winter storm warning for tonight, and so I'm getting this post up just in case I can't do this tomorrow. Christmas has snuck up on me! I didn't have much time to get cards out and forgot to get more stamps, so I just didn't do it.

I am still working on getting the fourth Sabrina Strong book done, with the help of friend and author, Shelly Arkon.

I am currently working on another WIP. As a matter of fact I've almost got 50k words done with it. If I had pushed it, I would have gotten that much done within the 30 days usually set aside for NANOWRIMO. I'm about 4 days over it, but that's okay, as this is a new achievement. And it's nowhere finished at all. Anyway, in case you aren't familiar with what I'm working on, this is something I had written many years ago, and I've decided to dust it off and breath new life into it. I've renamed it "Dhampire Legacy". I've got plans for the cover and two co-workers have agreed to give me a hand in making the cover. I'm not going to reveal any more about that right now, but I will when things begin to move along toward making it and then I'll have a big reveal. But that's a long way away. Next year at some point.

This year I have done what I said I'd do: enjoy life. I did not push myself too much. I went for walks, I crocheted in the afternoons, and read something after dinner before going to bed. And the naps in the afternoon have been wonderful!

I wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas and we'll see you in the new year! I'll be lurking around my other blogs and usual places in the next few days as well!

The Long and Winding Road to Publishing

You have a ticket to write and want to be a paperback writer.

Okay. Yeah, I stole those words from the titles of songs by my favorite composers in the whole wide world. Please don't sue me!

While my husband and I were driving the hour or so it took to get to the White Pines State Park, last week, we played the old Beatles tunes, and I just automatically revised them for a possible post--this one--I thought I might do later on. But I was planning on using more titles. . . but thought I shouldn't push my luck.

So, here I am, as you know. I'm between books--waiting for second one to come out to bolster the sales of the first one. I hope that works. And have the third one done in first through 5th draft. (I kept on rewriting the first chapters while I waited for brilliance to shine on me for the rest of it--which, of course, it did and felt like a mule kicked me--er, that's a whole other story)

Meanwhile I've been in contact with another author and we sort of went back and forth about self-publishing some sort of work that might help sales of my first book. This is what she did, she told me, and it worked really well for sagging sales of her first book. She suggested I look into doing the same for my book. She made suggestions; Amazon, Barns & Nobel and Smashwords. All free for the work of formatting by you, and downloading and the whole wad. I wonder what sort of cover I'll be able to find. The whole idea I'd be in absolute control over every part of this has me somewhat ecstatic, but I may have to get a faster Internet connection before I do this. Well, all in good time.

I went to Smashwords first to see their site and how things work there. I was glad to see that they've updated just this year to accommodate Open Office users. I'm still checking things out. It looks rather easy and affordable--nothing--so that I could just get something out there without putting money up for it. I see that a lot of authors out there are doing things this way, some exclusively, and some as a side venture to help bolster sales.

You see, I've done the self-publishing thing before, so I know that you have to do the formatting--been there done that. But it cost me, and I'm just not sure I want to do that any more. The cost of going with a self-publisher who does all the work for you can get up there, and once you get all your friends and neighbors to buy it, the sales just drop out of sight. Spell of the Black Unicorn is somewhere at #10,000,000 something on Amazon right now. It has nothing to do with how good or bad it is, it's mearly that I have no way of advertizing it, I have no platform, and at the time, I didn't have a presence like I do with my vampire novels. Plus, it's not in ebook format, thus the $17.95 price probably puts people off, and I have no control over that at all.

When I went into writing my Vampire Ascending, it turned out I had a bit too much going on, it was way too long. I had to cut something from it. It was, I realized, a book unto itself, what I did cut out. I had thought of doing something with it. It would have Sabrina and Dante in this, and be a murder mystery. Yes, I thought last night, I could easily find the bits an pieces, and then work on patching them together. It would probably take me all summer, but maybe I could do this. I'm still in the "can I, do I want to" stage.

Also, I'd have to figure out if Dante is who he is in Vampire Ascending, or a little further up the development line character-wise. I'm thinking I could play with ideas for a while before I decide one way or another.

My working title is "The Werewolf and the Windego". Whatever a Windego is, my hope is that it will gnaw at you and you'll have to read to find out.

I'm playing with the idea of whether I want to bring Vasyl into this. I'm not sure. Do I want to put him in here as Sabrina's lover? I could do that. As a matter of fact I've got some scene or two that were rather hot, that I took out of second book. Hmmm.  Vasyl as Sabrina's vampire lover with a few hot scenes thrown in for good measure?What do you think?