Author Struggles

Happy December!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  I believe we ate way too much food, but I guess that's expected around this time of year!

Just a head's up, this is kind of a rambling post.  So, bear with me.

For the last couple of years, I've found myself struggling with my writing.  My characters seem to want to take weeks' long breaks and finding the magic that is normally there for me has been difficult, putting it mildly.  I've tried taking sabbaticals, I've tried forcing the words to come out, I've tried turning my focus to other creative outlets (sewing, crocheting, cross-stitching, paint-by-numbers), but not much has been working.  In essence, I believe all I was doing was finding new ways to distract myself from the core problem... where has my love for words gone?

In fact, for the last few months, I've been concerned that the joy and awesomeness of writing just isn't with me anymore.  I don't lay awake at night mulling over scenes in my head.  I don't seek out my computer to get my jumbled thoughts out or else I'll implode.  In a lot of ways, writing has become a chore lately and I don't like that.

I've been trying to figure out how to get myself out of whatever this funk is.  I've tried keeping a writing journal, using writing prompts, even going back to writing my thoughts on the various books I've been reading.  Not so much a full-on book reviews like I used to do on a book review blog I had, but more my thoughts on whether I liked it or not and why.

None of these things have seemed to help much, but last night I lay awake for almost three hours while my current characters (Commander Vorsky, Rosa, and Daemos in particular) decided to act out a couple of different scenes that will be coming up in the manuscript I'm writing.  I was tired and wanted to sleep, but they were determined.  And since this is the first time in about a year since this has happened, I let them have at it.  I'm glad I did, as I feel as though I might actually be seeing a light at the end of this dark chasm of struggle I've been dealing with.

Sorry for the ramblings, but I felt I needed to get this out into the electronic world.  Maybe there's someone who visits this blog and has been having the same struggles as me.  I just want to leave this post with encouraging words of don't give up hope just yet.  I've loved writing for as long as I can remember and that love doesn't go away.  It just sometimes takes a vacation, usually when you least expect it.  But it will come back and when it does, be prepared. 

I'm off now to finish up the latest chapter so I can give it to my co-author for his input and suggested changes.  And hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll have the passionate spark once more to move forward with this particular manuscript so I can see it through to the end!

Moving Forward!

With the release of Prophecy Revealed, I've taken a few weeks to chill and get my brain properly motivated to get back to work.  Basically, this means I did a lot of playing computer games and reading books not written by me so I could get my mind right again.  Btw, if you're a big fan of the paranormal genre and haven't checked out J. R. Ward or Karen Marie Moning, please do so ASAP!  These two ladies are at the top of most kick-arse awesome writers and I would highly recommend their books to anyone, especially the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J. R. Ward and the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.  Phenomenal writing that makes me strive as a writer to want to be like them!

Anywho, now that I've given myself a few weeks to recoup, I'll be picking up where I left off with Vagar (Galactic Dynasty #2) and I will also begin writing the next book in The Soul of Arial series.  It's tentatively titled Two Worlds, but that is subject to change between now and publication.  I'm extremely excited about both of these projects and will be sharing updates as I go along.  I already have a progress bar for Vagar (you can find that on the right side of the blog) and I'll set up a progress bar for Two Worlds within the next couple of weeks.  This way, everyone can check in occasionally to see how far along I am on the writing of these two manuscripts!

I hope everyone has gotten off to a wonderful start for the New Year and I look forward to sharing more awesomeness in the coming weeks and months!  Now, off to pour more coffee and head to the writing cave!  Have a great week and happy reading!

The Writing Flow is Back!

Well, since my last rambling, I have managed to write the first draft for Chapter 3 of Book 2 in the Galactic Dynasty series.  I really need to come up with a name for this book soon so I can stop calling it Book 2. 

Anyway, after I ranted and raved that I had these other story ideas trying to take over in my head, I realized that they weren't developed enough for me to tackle writing them.  I still have things to mull over like what directions to take and how exactly I want to lay things out.  So, they are on the back burner, still brewing.

And because I finally came to that realization, it allowed me to put my focus back where it needed to be once more.  So, yesterday morning, a little over 3200 words escaped my fingertips to complete the first draft of Chapter 3.  And after getting feedback from my co-author and Muse, I will be making adjustments and adding some more to Chapter 3 today to help flesh it out a bit more!

I'm so excited to finally be able to continue this story as I am absolutely in love with this series we're writing!  Who knows?  Maybe someday we'll figure out a way to turn it into a sci-fi TV series or movie! lol  It could happen! :)

In a nutshell, that's what's been happening here in the writing cave the last couple of days.  I'll try to come up for air again soon and post another update.  Until then, Happy Reading or Writing or whatever else you enjoy doing!

Starward....And Beyond

Good morning all!  You've probably noticed the silence here over the last week or two and I promise I have a good reason for that. 

Final edits have begun on Starward (Galactic Dynasty #1) and the first four chapters had to have some major additions and re-writes.  So, my fingers have been glued to my keyboard trying to make those happen.  And let me just say that the additions and re-writes were well worth it! 

So, we're now into the second part of the book and things are shaping up nicely. We should have Starward completely edited and ready for publication within.....hopefully.....the next month or so. *crosses fingers*  I'll know more as things progress and will definitely keep everyone posted.

And speaking of Starward, a lot of discussions have been taking place between me and the co-author, E. M. Lohr, (who is also my Muse and my wonderful hubby) about overall series direction and how we want to see the subsequent books play out.  Which has actually led me to begin writing the first draft of Book 2 in the Galactic Dynasty series.  We don't have a title for the book yet...that probably won't come until we've written at least half of the first draft.  But, it has started and I'm extremely excited to see how the characters are going to continue to tell their story!

Edits have also begun on Prophecy Revealed (The Soul of Arial #1).  Did any of you see something strange in that sentence?  Yep, the book that was originally titled The Soul of Arial has gone through some structural changes.  An overall series concept revealed itself to me about three weeks ago and I've been working on fitting the book into this new concept.  Here's how I sort of see it playing out: The Soul of Arial will actually encompass 5-6 books total spanning three very different realms that Arial has to travel through to reach her ultimate destination. 

I know that probably didn't reveal a whole lot about the series, but I'd rather not reveal a lot right now.  Things are still in the works, but as Prophecy Revealed comes closer to being complete and ready to publish, I'll be sharing a lot more about this particular series with you.

Have I forgotten anything???  Probably, but these two particular pieces of information were the most important that I wanted to share at the moment.  I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys the return of Spring!  I know I'm looking forward to seeing things in bloom again!

Adios for now!

New Projects

With the official release of The Butterfly Connection (The L & L Mysteries #4), I can finally put that series behind me and begin working on the many other writing projects that have been waiting in the wings for the last couple of years.

The first project being Starward (Galactic Dynasty #1) which I'm co-authoring with my Muse.  I'm really looking forward to escaping into a much different genre, this one being sci-fi/adventure for mature readers.

It feels strange, though, having gone from writing for a much younger age group to writing for those that are in their late teens and above.  The transition is challenging, but I like that because it forces me to develop and expand my writing skills even more.  One thing hasn't changed, though.  The characters are alive and well in my mind and are clamoring to tell their parts of the story!  And I'm excited to tell it for them. :)

While I'm in the process of completing Starward, I will probably be working on a couple of other series that I've been kicking around for the last few years.  The Soul of Arial is one of them and is only about half-written.  But I'm really excited about this book as well because I feel that it is so different from what's already out there in the Fantasy genre.  This book in particular is definitely for mature audiences and again is a challenge to write, but a good challenge.

And right now, I'm currently doing research for an epic fantasy/adventure series that I've got brewing in the back of my mind.  The research is fascinating and I can see so many different ways to weave in what I've learned so far to make the story really come alive.

But, as a whole, you'll probably be seeing update posts regarding Starward for the next few weeks or months.  That is where my focus is going to be primarily.

So, I'm off to do some more massaging and tweaking of the manuscript!  I hope everyone is having a great week so far.  And, make sure you pop by Cressen Books' website to read the first chapter of The Butterfly Connection as well as check out the other books that are available!  There's some awesome stuff out there!

The Leaning Tower of Books

I love books!  I've been a voracious reader since I was 9 and was first introduced to The Nancy Drew Casefiles series (I still have 117 books out of this series...just couldn't bare to part with them).  I wanted to be Nancy Drew and travel to all the places she did, solving mysteries and catching the bad guys.  I even remember one time telling my mom to call me Nancy instead of Wendy (I was big into playing Pretend at that age and who better to pretend to be than Nancy Drew?). 

Anyway, as I got older, I slowly branched out into the paranormal realm (vampires and ghosts mainly with the occasional witch thrown in).  And then my last couple of years of high school, I was introduced to Fantasy with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

Then life hit and threw me some major curve balls which caused me to stop reading for quite a while - about 10 years or more, to be honest.  It also caused me to stop writing for the same amount of time.  Some things in life are hard to get past and they tend to take away your enjoyment in things that you once were completely immersed in.

So, with that void of books and writing in my life, I completely lost touch with the literary world and a lot of things had changed (for the better, I believe).  When I was a teen, there wasn't really such a thing as Young Adult books.  Everything was lumped into Children (or if you had a progressive bookstore in your town, they called the section Teens).  But the books at that time were pretty generic and not very mature.  And I was on a very mature reading level back then.  So, most books (with a few rare exceptions) were boring to me and I ended up reading more adult books (Robert Jordan, Dean Koontz, and a freakin' ton of romance novels).

So, imagine my pleasant surprise when the Twilight series and the Harry Potter series came out and I actually picked them up to read.  I couldn't believe how amazingly different these books were from the books I'd read as a kid and as a teen!  These two series alone broke the non-reading spell I was under and over the past few years, I have begun to devour books again like I used to.

The difference this time is that I feel I've truly branched out in my reading interests.  Whereas I typically stuck with mysteries, vampires, ghosts, some fantasy, and a ton of romance (especially Regency Romance), I now find myself reading so many new and intriguing subgenres in both the Young Adult and the Adult realms.  Dystopians, Psychological Thrillers, Zombies, Werewolves, Contemporaries, Historical Fictions.....and the list goes on and on. 

And now there are Indie Authors, Self-Published Authors, and Traditional Authors all turning up the notch and raising the bar for all these different genres.  And with the creation of the ebook, books are so much easier to come by (and relatively cheaper too).  But, I will admit that even though I have almost 400 books on my Kindle and Nook apps combined, I still much prefer to have either paperback or hardback. :)

Which brings me to why I titled this post the way I did: According to my calculations, I currently have almost 300 books on my TBR pile that I actually own but have yet to get around to reading.  I'm working on that pile and trying very hard not to add more to it, but it seems that I have a slight book buying addiction.  Even if I manage to not actually spend money on books, I still find myself occasionally going onto Amazon and finding Free books to download, which then sit on the pile for way longer than they should because really I was just trying appease the urge to own more books.  Sigh.  It's a vicious cycle but one that I am determined to someday break.

And the reason I'm rambling on about all of this is to let you all know that at the end of each month, I'll be posting an update that shows which books I read from the TBR pile that month and what, if any, books got added to the TBR pile.  Maybe someday I'll have the pile completely reduced to 0 but I highly doubt it.  My goal right now is to try and concentrate on some of the books that were added to the pile more than 6 months ago.  We'll see how well that goes. :)

Do you have a Leaning Tower of Books?

If so, how many books make up that Tower and how do you go about reducing the number?

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments, so please feel free to leave me something below and have a wonderful weekend!



When Will I Write Again?

Wow, it has been a crazy few months and things don't look to be slowing down any.  Especially with the holidays approaching, I've been trying to figure out just when I can get back to my writing.

As some of you may know, my Muse and I own a publishing company.  So, aside from writing, I wear many other hats including editing, cover design, website maintenance, etc.  And this year, we've taken on an intern from Shepherd University who has been an absolute joy to work with these last few months.  Her enthusiasm and insight has helped us branch out even more with our business and has given us ideas of how we want to proceed in the future with many different things.

And most of you probably remember me announcing that we have signed on a new author, Jessica L. Padilla, who will be writing in the Paranormal genre.  So, exciting times to be had by us here and more exciting times to come as we may sign Rachel Stark, our intern, on as an author (she's still contemplating what she wants to do and we don't want to pressure her and will respect any decision she comes to as we want to see her do what's best for her).  We are also in talks with another potential author but that's still the early stages, so we won't know anything at this time.  But I'll definitely post when we know something for sure there.

With all of this going on, I also managed to get our books in paperback out on Amazon.com and soon it will be time to start a "Christmas" marketing campaign.  So many things to juggle where the business is concerned and I worry at times that I'm going to drop the ball somewhere.  I mean, the Muse is a huge help with the business, but he works full-time for the federal government, which leaves me handling the business alone most days.  I don't mind because I absolutely love what I do and I love working with all the different aspects of a publishing company.  But it can get overwhelming at times for just one person to handle.

So, that brings me to the title of this post: When will I write again?  I've got The Butterfly Connection waiting to get it's final edits so I can publish it and finish out The L & L Mysteries series.  I've got Galactic Dynasty waiting for me to write more on it.  And I've got a ton of other stories and ideas that keep grappling for my attention.  But there's only so much time in the day and these other pieces have needed my complete focus these last few weeks.

I'm extremely happy that the business seems to be picking up, so please don't think I'm complaining about that.  It's really wonderful and exciting!  In the case of my writing, I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to restructure my days so I can at least get some writing done each day and not feel as though I've completely abandoned my own aspirations to be a writer.  I have so many stories to tell that I don't want to push them to the back burner permanently.

So, I'm out of here for now to figure out how to make time for writing and to hopefully get back into the wonderful flow of words!

Fall Time!

I love the fall...the changing of the leaves, the crisp, cool mornings.  Such a beautiful time of year that really gets my creative juices flowing.  My Muse and I take more walks outside, which gives me many flashes of inspiration for scenes and interactions I'm writing.  Fall is just my favorite time of year!

I also enjoy the idea of curling up on the couch with a good book, glancing up occasionally to see the colorful foliage outside, the sun glinting off leaves of orange and red and yellow.  Sipping on coffee or tea or hot chocolate and getting lost in other worlds.

Then there are the puzzle evenings with my Muse.  We choose a 750 or 1000 piece puzzle and work together to make all the pieces fit.  We usually have music going in the background while we sometimes chat, sometimes remain quiet as we stare intently at the section of the puzzle we're working on.  And whether it takes us an evening or several evenings, we eventually snap every last piece into place and grin like little kids at each other when we're done.

And let's not forget the awesome food!  My Muse is the cook and boy is he talented!!  Everything from homemade New England clam chowder to vegetable-beef soup to very spicy chili and all other assortments of extremely yummy food get put in front of me and I promise, I devour every delicious bite.  It's a wonder I don't turn into a blimp by the time Winter sets in...lol.

So, yeah, I love the Fall and am so glad that it's finally here.  Now if only I could get it to stay until Spring....