Ramble on...

Yeah, I know I've used that title before, but I'm thinking of making it my standard "brain dump" post title. Lately I've relegated this blog to mostly writing news, since I have none of that I'll just ramble on about life in general.

So it's Spring! Or is it? Connecticut can't really decide. Tuesday it was 75 and sunny. Today it is 46 and rainy. Hooray. Allergies abound nonetheless. And as we head into Spring I can definitely feel the season of change upon us. School is winding down, for both the kids and Matthew. While it's an easy transition for homeschooling, because we're running out of materiel, and thereby having shorter school days. Things get busier for Matthew as he amps up for finals, papers, ect. Add on top of that the never-ending job hunt.

On that front I can honestly say things are going well! He has an interview Monday morning, as well as a few other options that we're working on. Instead of feeling nervous and scared, we're mostly feeling hopeful and excited. Though, there is a small amount of nervousness some days, as well. For the most part I'm excited at the prospect of moving. We've been happy here, but we've never exactly fallen in love with Connecticut either. As far as moving, we don't know where yet. At this point I'd settle for anything in a Southerly direction. But we'll have to wait and see!

Elijah is on track to wrap up school by the end of May. It looks like May, as always, will be a hectic month for us. We will have both kids' birthdays, Matthew's graduation (though he's not walking, I'm sure we'll celebrate in some way) and Elijah "graduating" second grade! And then Summer! Though, this summer will be a bit of a transition for us. We'll probably be moving toward the end of the summer, and staying put here in CT instead of making a trip down South like we usually do. Boo on no vacation, but it is what it is.

Sophia? Well, she's busy being two-going-on-three-going-on-sixteen! She wears us out. She makes us laugh, she makes us frustrated. I wouldn' have it any other way. She's being a lot more participatory in school, which is both fun and a pain in the butt, let me tell you. I'm really looking forward to the fall when she will officially start preschool with us! I'm also looking forward to moving and hopefully getting the kids in their own bedrooms. They get a long great most of the time, but I think they're both ready for their own space.

As for me, I've been staying plenty busy. Writing has been pushed aside for a little while, though I still manage to scribble out a paragraph or two when I have the time. It looks like I will be on track to publish the third and final book of my series in the fall. I'm not rushing it. Both London Escape and Finding Sanctuary are selling well at the moment. I've had lots of promo days, and afterwards I usually see my sales jump for a few days. It's exciting. Last week both my books were ranked in the top 100,000 kindle books. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound that great at all! But most self-pubbed books linger in obscurity in the 500,000 range, with nary a download. So any sales are good sales in my opinion!

Is that all? Oh yeah, so I've been on a bit of a hair kick, if you haven't already seen the pics on my family blog. After many failed attempts at styling my own hair in some cute up-dos, I decided my long, thick hair was hopeless, so I randomly attacked it with the scissors. The end result was not so bad!

(Pics for my mom and grandma, who probably want to see!)

Lots of layers and waves!

Did I say I layered it to take out some of the bulk? FAIL! I have so much hair.

Aaaand that's all for now!

My rules of writing...

I know, I know, I'm trying to break this awful blog slump I've been in. You're going to have to suffer through some lame rambling posts for a while.

Wait...that's all I ever write!

Anyway...here they are, my rules of writing.

1.) Write when you're feeling inspired.

2.) Write the kind of book you enjoy reading.

3.) Not feeling inspired? WRITE ANYWAY!

4.) Write even if it sucks. You can edit out suck later.

5.) Eventually someone will tell your book sucks anyway, despite your best intentions to edit the suck out of it. Tell them to suck it.

6.) Discouraged? Shut up and write anyway!

Yeah, that sounds about right. Errr...write!

Pop quiz...

Out of a three book series, which is the hardest to write?

A.) The first
B.) The second
C.) The third and final
D.) ALL OF THE ABOVE


Hmmm???

Answer D!!!

It's not writer's block, I swear. I've just lost my writer mojo. Or maybe I never had any to begin with.

Where am I? Where are you?

I'm on hiatus. Well, not really. I think I really, really needed a break from writerly stuff after the last push to get FS out. Even after it was out, I kept re-reading and fixing things. I think I found a few missing words and fixed those. Ah, that makes me rage. I hate mistakes. I hope everyone who reads the book, and notices a little something off here and there realizes that I literally proofread it fifty times. Alas, sometimes perfection is out of my reach.

Anyway, so after this past weekend, and finally approving my print copy, I told Matthew I was going to take a week of from writing stuff (aside from begging people for reviews) he agreed that this was a good idea. I'm sure this will totally surprise you (NOT!) but I get really neurotic and insane when it comes to my writing, especially in the final throes of publishing.

So I took my week off. Well, not really. Instead I got SICK AGAIN! So I've been nursing a cold/cough combo once again. Make that a forced hiatus from writing then.

Hopefully I'll be back to 100% soon. And by this weekend. BECAUSE IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!

In other news, the books are both doing well. I'm actually selling a few copies of LE outright, which makes me happy. The list of people on Goodreads who have marked it as "to-read" is growing longer. Actually I just caught this little tidbit from someone who is reading it now. "Well, I am hooked. It's good, people. I think I may be coming out of my reading slump!" I love it. And yes, I totally stalk everyone on Goodreads. No shame.

My brain just exploded...

Well, sort of.

In case you missed it, and I'm pretty sure you didn't, or did you? My second book finally came out yesterday. Of course, to add to my impatience, which has been growing since last October, Amazon spent sixteen bloody hours getting it up! I think was around two pm (I had submitted my files at ten the night before, and it's only supposed to take twelve hours) that it finally popped up on Amazon. After that I started spamming Facebook a little obnoxiously. (Sorry) And then sat back to bask in the glow of my minor success. Relatively minor, anyway.

But that's not the real story. For as excited I was to release Finding Sanctuery, it was a bit overshadowed by London Escape's stellar performance on the freebie charts. (Yes, I know it's free, free sells, blah blah blah) You can't minimilize these numbers. My total downloads for yesterday were a little over six hundred. It's free again today and we're already up to almost eight hundred (including the six hundred from yesterday.) So let me check my spreadsheet and crunch the numbers real quick...


That brings my grand total downloads (real sales and freebies, USA, UK and other places) to a whopping 2,826.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's all I can say. Still not famous. Still not really published. But still pretty happy with where I am right now. People are reading my book. As far as I know they are liking it. Haven't had a negative review. (YET!)

I can't complain. EXCEPT Finding Sanctuary has only sold eleven copies so far! So go buy it!

T-minus whatever...

Have I ever mentioned how much I strongly dislike waiting? Okay, I'll say it. I HATE waiting.

Last night I submitted my files for the final publishing of my SECOND novel. I'm still waiting on my paperback proof copy to ship, so I can approve it for sale. But in the meantime, the kindle version should be out sometime today. Yup, love the vagueness. Amazon says it could take up to twelve hours for it to appear on their website. It was under review all night, so hopefully this means it will go up SOON!

In the meantime London Escape is free today and tomorrow to celebrate the big release of book two!

And I have plenty of things to keep me distracted from refreshing my Amazon author page over and over. School to teach, laundry to wash, floors to sweep and mop. Ah the glamorous life of an author!

It's coming...

So I finally had to stray from my song title thing, but I think we can all agree that was getting old. Plus, I have news. Real news! My book is coming out! TOMORROW! Yes that definitely requires all caps!

It's seems like I've been waiting such a long time for this, as the book was technically finished late last summer, but I've been sidetracked by a lot of different things.

I'm actually a lot more nervous about this release than I was London Escape. By the time that was published, it had been "out there" so much more. Finding Sanctuary has been kept a little more under wraps. Only myself and two other people, my beta readers, have even read it. And of course there's that fear of not living up to expectations, and we all know the trickiest book to like is always the middle of a trilogy.

This book is not filler. It's different than LE though. It's a little slower paced, though plenty of things happen. Somehow I feel like you will get to know the characters better this time around, especially Kit and Jason. I hope everyone loves it, loves them, the way that I do. I hope you're excited for this next chapter in Kit's story. I know I am!

Last year when I released my first book, Facebook played a huge part in my sales. So don't be surprised if you see me totally spamming for the rest of the week. And feel free to spam for me!

So, lovely readers, what are you most excited to see happen in the second book?