This Week's Odds and Ends

Being sick is tough. I know, I know--you're saying, "But you work from home! You get the best of both worlds!"

Okay.

Sure.

Not really.

While I may still be able to get some work done (if I have the energy to walk the five feet from my bed to my desk), I don't get sick pay. I don't get to get away from my workspace. And the whole all-day PJ thing? I wear those everyday anyway (we call them lounge pants here, not PJs). So anyway, I'm better now, which means I have a TON of stuff to catch up on.

And Then There's the Bad News...

So, as my illness was giving me one more swift kick before it left, I get an email. Kindle Scout is shutting down, effective today for new projects. Way to give us a heads up, Amazon. This is reminiscent of when Write On closed down. There's no real explanation, there's not much anyone who used the service can do. I'm assuming Amazon was simply tired of wasting time and money on something that maybe gave them ten books a year to publish. What I'm wondering now is whether their imprints (Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, 47North, Topple, etc.) will ramp up the number of submissions they consider--I'm guessing that's going to be a big fat NO. 

One little bright spot in all of this--I no longer have to agonize about which manuscript I wanted to submit to Kindle Scout. I'm not sure why the publishing industry (notably Amazon's giant footprint in the industry) seems to be closing in on indie authors and working to shut them out, but I'm sure most of us will still survive. 

Off to Camp

Camp NaNoWriMo is in full swing. I've been working on my project, but of course I keep forgetting update my word count on the site, so it looks like I'm slacking off. I know that I can hit my goal of 25k before the end of the month, so I'm not worried. If I could get a full 50k out of it, I'd be jumping for joy. 


Oh, and if you're interested (and haven't read it yet), you can download Unfolding Life for free during the month of April to help celebrate National Poetry Month. Happy reading!

Now Accepting Requests for Early Reviewers

Are you interested in getting your hands on Haunting Melody a couple weeks early? If you can't wait to get your copy, you can join my Review Crew. For those who have already read Melody of Love and left a review, you have a spot waiting for you once you fill out the form (see below).

For those who haven't read it yet, don't worry! Even if you haven't read the first book in the miniseries, there are still spots available for you. For everyone that's accepted, you'll be receiving a PDF copy of the book, and I would love it if you leave your honest review within two weeks of the book's release, which should be the first week in October.

How do you get in on this great deal? Just fill out this form. I can't wait to share Haunting Melody with everyone!

A Valentine from Me to You

I told you I had a freebie coming up. And here it is:



Synopsis:
Lindley Neil is perfectly happy working as a photographer's assistant in her small, Midwestern town. As her boss Lexi LaPort starts getting bigger and better gigs, Lindley gets to follow Lexi around to L.A. and New York to photograph movie stars and models. What she didn't expect was to fall in love. Twice.
With a movie star and a prominent journalist vying for her affection, Lindley also knows that her job with Lexi won't last forever. Lindley has to choose her own path, even though it means she has to break someone's heart. Will it end up being be her own?

Get your ebook copy now through February 14 to enjoy it for FREE! Happy Valentine's Day!

February Has Arrived

Why does my calendar feature a photo of a blobbish, heart-shaped donut? Because it's February, of course! No longer does the idea of candy hearts and pounds of chocolate given to me by a loved one rule my thoughts--as much as I would love to have someone show their undying love for me, I'd rather have it on a random day instead of when Hallmark tells them to shower me with gifts. Or any day at all. Ya know. Anywhoo...

Turning the calendar page makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I'm no longer wallowing my heart and brain in the terror that has been dubbed Singles Awareness Day (see above; I've finally become enlightened instead of a bitter shell of a human about Feb. 14). Sad because every flip of the calendar page tells me I didn't do enough personally and professionally. It's the audible Homer Simpson "D'Oh!" when you realize you haven't moved an inch from where you were in January. The productivity gurus all tell you it's about small steps. What about microscopic ones? What about those that are invisible to the naked eye? A basket of my microscopic steps towards goals of any kind still isn't really visible. Especially to me.

But I'm not stopping, even if I have virtually nothing to show for the previous weeks.  I could throw out that whole the journey, not the destination stuff, but no. I'll spare you. I want to arrive at that golden destination, look around, say, "Eh, not bad," and go about finding a new destination. That's the goal for me. Multiple figurative and literal destinations. Maybe February will be the stepping stone I'm looking for. Let's get to it.

**PS: I've got a fun freebie coming up next week; I'll post more about that later. Be prepared with your Kindle/Kindle app in hand. ;-)

July is Buzzing

This is going to be a very busy week! First of all, Unfolding Life will be FREE on Amazon July 6-8. That means if you haven't picked up a copy yet, you have plenty of time to get it. And if poetry isn't your thing, you can always pick up my Kindle Worlds romance novella The Callaways: Melody of Love for just $1.99.

Now that the shameless promotions are out of the way, let's talk about my July session of Camp NaNoWriMo. It's not going well. Yes, the month starts with a holiday, but since I laid around and watched a The Twilight Zone marathon for half the day, I have no excuse for having less than a thousand words (as of writing this post). I need to get back to business on that. My problem? I think I'm getting too caught up in the historical details of my work. The novel/serial/project (whatever label you want to use) is set in October 1942, so I worry I don't have enough historical details. Then I go looking for some and get lost in all of the research. I'm easily fascinated, especially with all the 1940s era YouTube videos I found.



But, no matter how much history fascinates me, I have to get writing. I'll save the details for the revision draft, otherwise it may never get written. So it's back to doing what I do best. Are you working on anything exciting this week?

The Secret Project Revealed: Are You Ready for a Little ❤ Romance ❤?

I can finally reveal the secret project I've been working on for the past month. I wrote a novella for Kindle Worlds. My contribution is Melody of Love and it belongs to The Callaways World based on the romance series by Barbara Freethy.



You don't have to have read The Callaways series to enjoy my novella--though if you like a little suspense with your romance, I definitely recommend reading them. All you have to know is this: Sean Callaway is a musician and owns Ashbury Studios. The ground floor is a music studio, and the top floor is a dance studio where the love of his life Jessica runs the dance studio. And that's where my novella takes place.

The process frayed a few of my nerves, but it's finally completed. I'm so excited that it was published tonight, because if it was kicked back to me again for some tiny little oversight I was about ready to give up. I actually had a pretty good rant about Kindle Worlds ready to go if I didn't end up publishing it... but it's best if we forget all that and just celebrate another completed project.

And a little heads up: I wasn't sure this would be published today, so I scheduled the ebook version of Unfolding Life to be available for free tomorrow. Sorry in advance for all of the promo social media posts for both books coming up. 😉

Go and Buy a Book

...because that's what Read Tuesday is all about! Dec. 9 celebrates writers and readers by giving plenty of discounts on ebooks and print books. If you want to see all the great deals available (including Unfolding Life *wink*) you can browse the Read Tuesday catalogs. There are different sections for Kindle deals, frees books and discount codes for print books. Most of these authors are indie authors, so go out and support them, and pick up a few gifts while you're at it.

In other writing news, I'm on schedule to finish the first draft (finally!) of In Another Life. I know I talk about this one a lot, but by the end of the week it will finally be moving on to the first round of revisions. Because I'm so pumped to publish in 2015 (this article inspired me a bit), I'm hoping I can get this one out there as soon as possible. You know why? SPOILER ALERT: It's going to be a trilogy. Stay tuned.

So what's next? Tackling the pages in the official red revision binder with my red pen. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's torture. We'll see how the next session goes. ;-)

Get Unfolding LIfe Now--For FREE!

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I have a little surprise for you. This is a one day only opportunity, folks. Today (4/25/14) my haiku collection Unfolding Life will be available on Amazon for free! If you have resisted so far, now you have no excuse to pick up a copy. I really do appreciate my readers and fans, so this is for you.

I also appreciate my reviewers... so if you pick up a free copy today, I would love to hear what you think about it!

Back To Business

I'm through with whining and sulking. Since this is technically a holiday week (all of you with regular 9-5's know that you're mind probably isn't 100% into your work today through Wednesday) I'm relaxing a little on finding that elusive job outside of the home office, but I'm still actively looking at freelance gigs. I went back to my standard sources, such as Guru. The only problem with that website is that it has changed so much since the last time I accepted a freelance project there. I'm sure that I can still find a job without paying the membership fee, but with only 10 bids a month I'm going to have to be careful about what I choose to bid on.

I'm also looking for new opportunities, but I don't seem to be finding that many. The reason is that after working as a freelancer for nearly four years now, I know what I decent, wage-earning rate per article looks like. And 90% of the job offers out there are well below that rate. If I get desperate, I know I'll want to take them, but I'm not sure that is time well spent, even if it does keep food in my mouth for another week. I'm not really in the habit of encouraging these people to pay so low. That's the #1 reason these people can still get their work produced at super low rates--somebody is always willing to take them.

After all of this, I'm still working on getting down the backlog of books I have to read and writing reviews for all of them. If I got paid to write book reviews (besides being paid in free books, which I'm not complaining about!) I think I would be in heaven. Anyone know of any paying review gigs? I've also done product reviews for a variety of websites, so I'm pretty familiar with the general format. Anyway... I can only hope that kind of a project comes my way.

And of course, since I want to fill my time with as much to do as possible, I'm digging out one of the novels and diving back in. This is the one that I have been working on for about 10 years now, off and on. I got off track dozens of times with this one because of research. I get buried in facts and figures and can't tunnel my way back out. This time I'm going to just lay the story out and put the facts in later, as needed. Maybe that will get everything back on track to produce something worthwhile.

Contest for Writer/Readers

If you're a writer, then I think it's safe to assume that you're a reader too. I know I love to read sometimes more than I love to write! But for those that are strapped for cash or just looking to get some new books for free, there is a contest going on at Writer... Interrupted. This contest is book giveaway and all you have to do is sign up for the Writer... Interrupted newsletter. This will automatically give you 5 entries into the contest. Easy as pie. There are also a number of other ways to earn additional entries, which you can check out at the Contest Page. Good luck!!