Laugh and other projects..

Laugh has been uploaded onto Amazon and I'm waiting for it to start appearing on the other e-libraries through smashwords.

I've have an outline for some other stories but will be working on book three as well.

Here's to a wonderful 2014

Book 2 and book 3....

It's been slow going for the second book but it's moving along a lot this weekend.  Even with the edits, it's fitting back together.  I've actually got about half way through the outline for book three as well.  I'm not sure if this is going to be a 3 or 6 part series now.  I have also been working on my romance series (of course under a pen name) but I want to get this one done before anything else.

I know book two should have been out months and months ago but I'm trying to get this done as soon as possible but I need to make sure that the quality is there.

Thank you

I just wanted to thank everyone that has purchased my book.  It's slow going and I really want to get the second book out there as soon as possible but this one is doing good.  I received enough so I could surprise my wonderful husband with concert tickets to his favorite band.  I made the huge mistake of always missing the chance for us to go see our favorite comedian, George Carlin, I don't want that to happen in this case.  Many changes coming at work and in my writing but things are looking up and positive no matter what people say to me.

Things happen for a reason in life and I'm beyond grateful to everyone that's been reading my writing if you enjoyed it or not.  If it were possible I would write for hours on end but reality is that I must work and I love the job I have.  I love the people that I've been meeting and enjoying the challenges that have been put in front of me.  Even with everything, still have a family trip in the works and enjoying the look on my daughter's face as she's doing the planning.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone :-)

Working on book two along with dolls, everyone has been sick and it's finally come to me.  I'm so ready to get back to work tomorrow though.  I'll definitely be taking my lunch time to work on my writing and then night time for my dolls though.  I have been having increased sales of book one on Amazon ever since they added on France and Spain so fingers crossed that continues.

My friend that does my editing for me suggested expanding the series.  I'm still debating over it.  It would definitely change things up so that book two and three aren't as long as they were outlined to be and I might just be able to expand on different things that I had taken out because of how long things were getting.  So I'm re-outline different things but book two still needs to cover specific things so it's still working but it's definitely an idea to have things expand out a little more.  This is something that I have always doodled, dreamed, and wrote little things here and there about so who knows.  I checked into having covers professionally done and I'm just not at that point just yet.  If revenues increase enough, then maybe I will be until then, it'll just have to be my photographs that I play around with.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas and New Year's....  Looking forward to a wonderful 2012 :-)

Coming along...

After making 24 dolls for a wonderful woman down in Georgia, I have only 4 more to make for my friend and family member.  I started working on the re-write for book two.  Because of how much keeps happening, I gave myself a Feb. 14th deadline.  I know it sounds weird to use Valentine's day for a deadline but it would be the best gift I could ever give to myself.

I finish a few pages and like the flow of it so far.  Fingers crossed that my friend will like it when she has to read through it again.  I could get so much more done when I wasn't working but I am beyond happy that I'm working.  It's great learning new things and feeling that sense of accomplishment when I understand and get something.  I miss being able to go to the book store and just sit and write but like it or not, it's a hobby and not a full time job.  Maybe one day, but right now it's fun creating the worlds and writing about the different characters that I've been dreaming up for so many years.

Book Two....

I've been slowly working on book two whenever I can.  I am beyond grateful that my friend did the editing for me cause I can see what she was talking about with a lot of things in the story.  I think I was so excited for my characters to get to the action that I didn't lead up to it well enough and they deserve better than that.  It's hard between working and everything else to find the time but it's still a nice escape when I have the time.

I did have to introduce myself for work and I put down the information about my writing since it is something that I am very proud of.  Even though book one I didn't have someone to help with editing and there were a lot of things I had to correct, it was still great to finish and put my story and characters out there for others to read about.  I even had someone call and ask about self-publishing.  Not everyone can get a publishing deal so this really is great for us little people that just want to share the ideas and stories that we have.

I did have something awesome happen recently... the page that I made for my dammit/darnit dolls got a comment and someone in Georgia put in an order for 24 dolls.  Now I don't use a sewing machine so you can imagine how much sewing I have ahead of me but it's all good.  The extra money is going to be nice with the holidays coming up.

Been awhile...

It's been awhile since I posted.  I started a new job (yay me) but it has made it a little bit harder to work on my writing.  But the important thing is that I have a job and able to help my family more.  Although I love my writing, it's not something that's going to pay the bills each month :-(

I did have a great friend edit book two and after mulling over everything, I have decided to re-write about 13 of the chapters(the book has 24 chapters total so it's over half the book) so it's going to be a work in progress kind of thing.  It's kind of heart wrenching opening a file and seeing so much red but it's something I didn't have for book one so it's all good.  The important thing is that she was able to catch a lot of simple errors and some of the story structure issues as well.

Formspring...

I thought this was a pretty cool site so I wanted to share it with anyone that reads my blog.

Keeping ahead....

I've been trying to do at least a chapter a day so that I could hopefully be done before the deadline that I gave myself.  Not to mention that I had a few days this week that I didn't get much writing done since I was spending time with my family.  It's been a great week and I've had some really good writing days too.  Reading some other author's blogs, I don't feel so bad when it feels like I'm fighting with the characters and the scenes that they are in.

Hoping to get done chapter 10 and into chapter 11 tonight.  I want to re-read what I wrote to make sure the pages I did earlier are keepers or not.  Fingers crossed that they are :-)

Writing some more....

I've gotten done about 21 pages so far today.  I love days when I can just keep writing even though my hands and wrists keep acting up.  I'm hoping to get done a little bit more before the rain moved in since I'm doing everything outside today.  I figure since I'm writing about being outside and everything that it would be even better to write about it while I'm actually outside LOL.

I've had a few more sales through Amazon and Barnes & Nobles so I'm hoping things will pick up more when I get book two out there.

I do have another project that I want to work on as soon as these are done. It was something I start while taking a fiction writing course.  It was one of those exercises where you pull the different aspects out of a hat so to speak.  It was a really simple assignment but I really like what it developed into.  I'm not sure if it would be considered a young adult novel just yet but we'll see where it goes when I have the time to really look at it.  I at least have the beginning done and then a bunch of it outlined so should be interesting :-)

Laugh...

I'm coming along with book two really nicely.  I've decided to write about a chapter or two and then before starting the next time I sit down I re-read what I wrote and do a little editing as I go along.  I figure at least it won't be as much when I do the full re-read.  I am sticking with my deadline for myself to have the writing done by July 22nd and then hopefully the editing done the following week.  Hopefully sales will increase eventually but until then I won't be able to go to the bookstore to write :-(  Instead, I'll be set up in the back of my husband's truck while Mackenzie rides her bike or under a tree while she's swimming at Crystal Lake.  The only down fall will be that I won't have access to the internet if I have to do any word look ups and such.  I'll have to figure out something for those occasions or maybe get really lucky that someone has an unsecured network in the area :-)

Kindle Edition

Now available on the Kindle :-)

Link to Barnes & Nobles

It is finally on the Barnes and Nobles site for Nook Book format :-)

Available on CreateSpace

I got in the proof and checked everything out.  So the printed version is now available through the link below.  It takes alittle longer to get it on Amazon.com but that's okay.  I'm so excited that the new cover came out so great.  I'll post some pictures later on tonight.   :-)





https://www.createspace.com/3619244

Proof came in...

So the proof for the print copy of my book came in so my husband is going to read through it and see if he finds anything.  I don't want to order another proof until he's gone through the whole thing.  He's found a couple of errors which kind of sucks but they are pretty simple so I've been correcting them on the ebook version as they're found.

I've gotten done a little more on the second book.  It's been a hectic week with all the weather and my daughter learning to ride her new bike.  Next week, I'll be back on schedule of writing as much as I can.  I'm know I have one person doing a review on my book and I'm hoping more people will too.  My husband said that it's a fast read and that he's really getting into it to the point he had to force himself to stop so he could get ready for work.  I don't know if the fast read is a compliment but the other part made me happy.  I think as soon as I have the other book out that I might put Live for free and then charge for the second book.  We'll see what happens.

Sales....

I got a few sales on smashwords and I'm still waiting for my proof so that I can distribute on amazon.  I did send out some query letters to see with this new version if anyone is willing to pick it up.  I had one already email back for the manuscript and the outlines for the other two books.  So fingers crossed that maybe that will go somewhere but I know how hard it is to really get a traditional publishing contract and such.

I got a little further on book two.  I'm really trying to push it out so that I can start editing maybe by the end out july or so.  Plus there are some other story ideas that I've been thinking about.  One with a world where magic or being magical is against the law, guess you could say that it's almost going with the idea of what happened during the time governments were looking for witches.  Another does a twist on the old folk tale of gypsies coming to take bad children away (yes, kind of on the dark side but the idea just floated in one night and I thought that I might be able to do something with it).  All the other ideas really stem from stories or fairy tales that I read before and basically does a what if A, B, or C happened instead.

We'll see what happens, I want this series done first no matter what.  I love the characters in this story, they've really helped me in some of my worst times so I want to give them my full attention.  I had a friend ask if I would expand it past three books and I told her no.  Everything should fit into the three especially considering it used to all be in a 621 pages book.  Everyone will be where they need and want to be by the end of the books.

Available...

Well, I'm still in the process of everything being approved and added to the distribution lists for the different eBook stores but my book is available directly from SmashWords.com.  I'll attached the link below.  I was able to keep my original cover idea on here but the one that is in print had to have a different cover since I couldn't format the pictures how they wanted them.  It's all good though cause both covers look great.

Thank you in advance for anyone that decides to purchase and read the book.  Good or bad, I would love to hear people's reviews of it.  I'm working on book two now so I'm hoping that it'll be available by the end of the year and then the third by this time next year or sooner depending on how everything goes :-)

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61676

Submitting...

Well, after a lot of work, I have submitted my book and I am waiting to hear back for the review.  I already had to fix something once so hopefully I've got it all set right now.  Something tells me that the site I'm using for the print version is going to be done a lot faster than the site for the eBook version.

Everything that I had originally down for the second book I ended up junking.  I started over yesterday with a new beginning that I think flows a little bit better plus puts some time between the end of Live and the beginning of Laugh so that Sarah has time to adjust and just take over her new found life.  With how things are going, it maybe done by the time all the reviews and resubmitting is done LOL.

Bright day even with the rain...

It's been a wonderful morning.  I've been able to get through another 20 pages of editing.  I was scared for a little bit because I was bouncing back and forth between present and past tense but it seems to be settling down now.  I've only had to expand on a few things which is awesome to say the least.  I've decided not to give myself any more deadlines since the just stress me out and make it harder to get anything done.

I've been taking different nature pictures to alter as covers.  I am hoping that I'll be able to get a few today now that it's really raining good.  I figured the water will help be a bit reflective.  Hopefully it'll make for some really good pictures.  I have so many ideas of for the direction of this series and a different one that I started before.  We'll see what happens.  I wish I could just write everything out and not have to go back and edit but I know that that's not possible.  Oh well... everything will come together eventually.

Editing .....

I'm still working on the editing.  I ended up re-writing more and moving things around so it is really slow going.  It'll be worth it in the end though :-)

Trying to stay positive but it does start to get harder with things others have been saying.  I know it's not normal for self-published books to take off but I really am hoping that it will.  I'm really tempted to pull an all nightier and just push it through but with my health always bouncing back and forth I don't want to take that risk either.  Plus I think I would make more mistakes so it would be counter productive.

Editing, editing, and.... oh more editing...

I really do have a greater appreciation for the people that edit books.  It is beyond nerve-racking.  There are so many stupid errors that I made and doing the spell/grammar check really is not enough I have found but I figured it wouldn't be.  I keep adding things as I re-read too just to clarify different things and highlight others.

I hope all the mom's had a great mother's day.  Both my daughter and husband gave me cards in the morning.  She made a little plastic flower with lifesavers in the center.  She said it was because mom's are lifesavers.  I thought it was so cute.  And then to top it off, she went out with her grammy and got me flowers.  She even remembered how much I love purple roses.

Well back to editing... how some people sit there and can do this day in and day out is beyond me.  It's a mixture of frustration that I made the mistakes in the first place but relief that I'm finding them before I submit it.  :-)

Cover....

Cover completed...

I finished the cover for Live, so I'll post that today.  I'm still going through the editing.  I have read many different self-published books and have found errors so I'm being really careful to go through everything really well.  I don't want to have a bunch of errors in there.  I'm really getting excited to be able to submit it really soon.

Ending is...

DONE!!  After a night of no sleep, I finally have the ending done on the first book.  I'm beyond excited and happy and very proud.  Now for the hard part.... editing.  Like I mentioned before, I don't want to submit something that had typos or really stupid mistakes.  Thankfully, I has a few people that have offered to read through it for me too so at least there will be other eyes looking at everything.

The light at the end of the tunnel is almost here for this one.  I did start book two also.  It's going to be really great when it's done.  I can't wait :-)

Continuing....

So I have just about all I want to put into the first book done.  I've been doing some editing off and on since I'm finding it easier to go back and re-read to create what I want to happen next.  After reading other self-published books, I definitely want to make sure that the editing is good.  There's nothing more annoying than to read through a story and pick up on typos and spelling errors.  I don't want that to be in my finally product.

I'll probably submit it and then upload it to the copyright site to get the copyright all set as well.  I so hope everyone will like it.  Not everyone is going to relate to the characters but they've been great to have around to keep my sanity during this time.