HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE WHO FOLLOWS SOMETHING NEBULOUS WITHIN! HOPE TO SEE YOU IN THE COMING YEAR!

2012

Looking Back... Looking Forward

I keep a journal--have bins filled with them--and once in a while I do like to look back to see where I've been, and how things have progressed. It's to help me see how I was, back, say five or ten years ago. It helps ground myself so that I'm not getting myself crazy about how I want things to go along more swiftly and be more successful than I am.

In 2007 I was getting small things published in a small quarterly called "Weeds Corner". Ruth Brookshire was the editor and owner of the little magazine out of Indiana. She accepted my very first poem which saw the light of printing ink. After that, she accepted everything I sent her, and I was paid a few dollars for it. It wasn't much, but my words were getting out there and being read.

I was working on my (eventually self-published), book Spell of the Black Unicorn. I didn't know what I would do with it, since I was getting rejection letters from everyone I sent it out to. I did what I swore I would not do. I self-published it. I didn't want to do this, but I had turned 50 and by God or high water I was going to damn well have a book published before I got too old to enjoy the thrill of doing so. I found a relatively cheep deal for this and I had to do all the formatting, but they were very helpful. I chose to go with Infinity Publishers. I payed my $400. and within a few short months I had a solid paperback book with my own designed cover and my own words inside and out. I sold a few dozen copies, had two book signings and had a ball. I still have about a dozen copies left in a box...

And here I am, 2011, my second in the series vampire novel is out now. I'm not exactly rolling in dough. Not rolling very much, actually, but it takes time to get the word out to people who don't know about your book. Promoting a book is not easy. Especially when you have no money to help things along the way. But, at least I didn't have to self-publish these last two books. And I'm not saying I may not ever try to do something in Smashwords, or some such. I'm just saying right now I'm okay with doing things this way.

The thing about getting the second book out is that you've made contacts with people on the first book, and now--because they loved the first one--they are willing to help promote it on their sites and with their efforts and so forth, other people eventually learn about both. It's like a tiny snowball, rolling down a hill. I think.

And I've also published an older short story--which never saw printers ink back about 9-10 years ago when I tried to get it into the pages of a magazine. But I re-wrote it and it was taken and now it is out there with a bunch of other writer's works.

I'm now working on a novella, and hope to get it written by spring and see if I can't send it to the same publishers (Dark Moon), as they take the shorter works. They only take horror fiction.

After that I hope to get the third book in the Sabrina Strong Series into the capable hands of my editor at Copperhill Media, and meanwhile I hope to begin a mystery series. I don't want to lean on just the one sort of genre. I'd like to stretch my writing abilities. I know I have a couple of stories in me and they have to be told in their specific genre.

I write this with the realization that only a few short years ago I had no book published, and now I have 3. I have to pat myself on the back, but I also have to kick myself and work on those things I hope to publish next year.

Thanksgiving 2011

First book in the Sabrina Strong Series

Second book in the Sabrina Strong Series--soon to be released!

This blog was started by me early in 2010, and it was before I knew I was going to get Vampire Ascending published. I had tried with one publisher, but the editor seemed to be wanting to push a romance angle. I didn't write the book as a romance. Fortunately, I had another publisher who was interested in my book, and I had to wait until I was finished wrangling with the first publisher, before I could go with Copperhill Media.

Well, here I am, another year is nearly gone by. I'm about to get the second book in the series out and I'm being told this book is even better. I'm encouraged by this, because I felt it was my best work. I'm hopeful that once I get this thing out there you--readers/fans--will have read the first book, Vampire Ascending, because you'll want to start with the first book, as the second one follows it close behind, and lots of things happen and you really don't want to miss any of it.

For those of you who don't know, I've struggled with sending my book manuscripts out for years. More than three decades have passed since I've begun writing. And I was never able to get even a toe into a door. I was so desperate that I self-published my first fantasy book, "Spell of the Black Unicorn", as I felt that this would be my only way to see anything of mine in print. It wasn't something I wanted to do, at first, but after getting rejections for it, time and time again, and seeing that many authors were being admitted into this exclusive club, plus I had turned 50, all weighted in on my decision.

Spell of the Black Unicorn, my self-published light fantasy

I even did the front cover, since I am an artist as well. I thought it came out rather nicely. My aim was to make it look whimsical. It is a light fantasy for adults. If you are interested you might check it out at Amazon. Both books can be found there. Also, you may click the covers on the right side of my post to go to either book's site.

Anyway, I'm looking back on a year that had some excitement in it, and I've made lots of friends here on the blogs and I'm still learning things. I'm attempting to get my name/works out into anthologies. I'm hoping to gain new readers, of course.

It all takes time, and I get a little frustrated at how much work it is and I feel it's still too much of an up-hill battle.

But I have to remind myself where I was two years ago. I've got a second book in a series coming out. I hope to work on a new mystery series, as my next two books for the Sabrina Strong series are written. They are nearly finished, and I just feel that I need to do something different.

I'd also like to try to get a faster Internet and try my hand at placing a few works as an Indie. But, again, I'm thinking too far ahead. I feel like a racehorse waiting for the gate to kick open. I want to go!

Well, thanks for stopping in on my little chat. I hope it wasn't too boring. I simply wanted to look back and think about how far I've come, and remind many of you that you can get published, somehow, now. Back in the day, there was no such thing as Smashwords or other ways of getting your books published other than going through the grueling task of contacting an agent and waiting forever for a rejection letter. I'm done with those. I know of a couple of people who were going that route and now have self-published, because they want control over their work. It's a thought, isn't it?

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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I'm Still Here

I've got so many blogs, it's a little difficult to keep up. But hey, I'm here now, and for those of you who do not check out my other blogs, this is the cover for my new book about to come out.

I know. Creepy. Right?

My publisher tells me that they are going to send me the edits this week. Hope so. I so want to get things going here. I've already been contacting other blogs for host spots. And if you follow Lorelei's Muse, you'll be better able to learn when these events/interviews take place and might be able to win a book.

And on Tuesdays at Lorelei's Muse, I have been putting up "Teaser Tuesdays" portions of the book, to give you little tastes of what you can find inside.

As I write this today, I've been getting caught up on my blogger buds, and I've been working on the third book, as well as a short story. The short story I've taken a scene from my third book and written a short story and hope to send it off soon to (also hopefully) be published. I have not tried to publish anything short in a long while. And definitely have not had anything that would fit the bill (these places are often themed), and so I never considered it. But we shall see if I can find publication in an ezine.

Now that Halloween is over with, and a lot of people out there are doing the NaNo thing, I've got a relaxing time to concentrate on what I need to. Soon, it will be the edits. As soon as these are done, the eBook will come out shortly there after. It might be a spell before the paperback is out as well.

Last year at about this time, the first book was about to come out. Vampire Ascending arrived on Dec.3rd. I was so ecstatic about it. I'm equally excited about my second book. I've been told by my publisher that as good as they thought the first one was, this one is even better. But it should be. Or at least you hope as an author that you've become a better writer and each book does become a little better.

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