Tuesday, October 23, 2012

New Author On Board!

Today is a totally awesome day for my publishing company, Cressen Books LLC.  We've signed on a new author!!!!  Her name is Jessica L. Padilla and she'll be writing in the paranormal genre.  We are so excited to be working with her and I look forward to sharing progress updates as we move towards publication of her first novel in the series.

Here are links to her social media and internet sites:

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Author's Website

Also, check out our website and see the new addition of Meet Our Authors tab.  There, you can see pics of our authors and follow the links to their individual author bio pages.  And, we have the announcement up on the homepage about Jessica joining us.

So, exciting times here at Cressen Books!  Make sure you Like us on Facebook so you can keep up with progress, updates, and announcements!  Now it's off to celebrate!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Tough Decisions Have To Be Made

For the past 4-5 years, I have been working diligently to create stories in The L & L Mysteries series.  I absolutely love the characters, Leyla and Lucien, and really enjoy getting inside their heads as they deal with various situations, some fun, some hokey, and some dangerous.  These two characters have become a huge part of my life and I look forward to continuing to develop them and their relationship through future mysteries and investigations.

When I first began this series, I envisioned it going on indefinitely.  I didn't really have a set number of books I wanted to write in the series and felt that I would just go with the flow.  Then, as the fifth book began to take shape, I realized something: Leyla and Lucien were maturing but their investigations were not. 

So, I decided that The L & L Mysteries would consist of 5 books.  Then, I would create a new, more mature "detective" series set during their college years.  I still like that idea and have already begun drafting the first book in this new, more mature series.

But something was still bothering me.  As anyone who has been following this blog has seen, over the past several posts I've mentioned beginning final edits on the fourth book in The L & L Mysteries, Dangerous Moves.  I had talked about cover design and the difficulty I was having in figuring out what design I wanted to go with.  I'd also talked about trying to get through rewrites and edits of the first chapter.

Well, today I had an epiphany.  When the Muse and I sat down to go over the rewrites I'd done in the first chapter, we kept struggling with the process.  Almost every sentence we went over felt forced or unnatural.  And it suddenly dawned on me.....I was having major issues with the entire book.  But why?  So, we set aside our work and began talking about why I was having trouble with this particular book.  And the answer suddenly came to me: I was actually trying to rewrite one of the earlier books but was using a different angle this time.

It finally made sense to me why this book bothered me so much.  So, I made the tough decision to completely remove Dangerous Moves from The L & L Mysteries line up and have decided that there will only be 4 books in this series now before I move on to the newer, more mature series.

It was not an easy decision to make which is probably why it's been bugging me for the last several weeks/months.  I love Leyla and Lucien and they had some great interactions in this particular book.  But, I also realize that it's not fair or enjoyable for my readers to pick up a book and suddenly feel as though they've been cheated because the core plot of the story was similar to another book I'd already published in the series.  So, I am stopping work immediately on Dangerous Moves and moving on to the final book of this particular series.

I do have a title for the final book and a cover concept is already brewing inside my little brain.  So, from here on out, you will here me talk more and more about the final editing stages for The L & L Mysteries #4, The Butterfly Connection!  I'm really excited about this book and the intriguing mystery that Leyla and Lucien find themselves investigating.  And I believe that readers will start to see a definite maturing aspect in the friends' relationship and partnership, as well as the type of case they will be investigating.  And this should lend itself for a nice transition into the new "detective" series I'll begin writing that follows Leyla and Lucien into college.

So, with that out there now, I'll probably be working some over the weekend to have the first chapter ready for final edits with the Muse hopefully by Monday or Wednesday of next week!  If you've read this far into the post, thank you for taking the time and showing the interest.  I really appreciate it!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe weekend and hopefully I'll have more updates to post soon!

Sunday, October 14, 2012

The Return of the Wayward Author

Happy Sunday, all!  I know it's been quite a while since I last posted and I apologize for that.  I've been pretty busy lately with the publishing company side of things.  Which means, the author in me has been MIA for far too long.

Hopefully I will be changing that this week, though.  My game plan, as of today, is to finish editing the first chapter of Dangerous Moves with the Muse and moving on to final edits of chapter 2 of that book.  I also hope to do some writing on Book One in the Galactic Dynasty series I'm co-authoring with the Muse.  And, if my writing flow is cooperating, I may even get back to writing on some of the other projects I've got open.  Yep, I can definitely feel the words wanting to flow from my fingers to the keyboard, so I hope that means that this week will bring my author side back into action!

For those who are wondering just what I've been up to these last few weeks, here's a quick breakdown:

Finished redesigning and uploading the new website for Cressen Books LLC;

Finished content and technical editing on a super-secret project that I hope to soon make a public announcement about;

Worked with the wonderful Rachel Stark, our intern from Shepherd University, on her novel in progress and got to see an amazing cover design for her novel (it totally rocks and I hope to have a cover reveal on the blog here soon);

Rachel has also been helping us edit the Muse's upcoming novel, Naked Lady Dreams;

And I just finished a two week Sparky-ism Campaign on Facebook to help promote the Muse's novel, The Drill Sergeant's Women.

Whew, yeah, a lot going on that has kept me busy and away from my story writing for a while now.  But, as I said earlier, that will hopefully change this week!  Besides, everything I've been doing the last few weeks has actually been a lot of fun and has given me a much needed break from writing that I didn't realize I needed until I was already waist-deep in these other projects!

So, writing this week, some editing, and maybe even some work on the cover design for Dangerous Moves.  Should be a busy but fun and productive week all around!

And, on a closing note, tomorrow October 15, is my birthday....yay!!!  I have already been told what my b-day present is and have even ordered them (yeah, that's actually plural).  But, I want to wait until they get delivered to tell you all what the present is because I want to actually post pics of these beauties!  I'm so excited, I can barely contain myself!!  Unfortunately, I still have to wait another 2 or 3 weeks before they can be delivered....sigh.  But, I know they are going to be well worth the wait!

Anywho...have a wonderful week and I'll try to post again soon!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The 4AM Munchies...

Yes, you read that title right.  Thanks to my newfound love of all things Photoshop, my brain decided it wanted to do some graphic decorating.  So, instead of dreaming about my characters in various plot scenarios, I laid awake for more time than was necessary, thinking of ways to bring a fresh new look to Cressen Books website and ways to create the book cover for Dangerous Moves.  And thanks to all that brain power going towards decorating instead of sleeping, I think I may have figured out what to do with both the website and the book cover.

And that brought me to the realization that I was laying in bed at 3:30 in the freakin' morning, my stomach growling from all of those calories I'd burned while thinking about Photoshop projects.  At the same time, a crazy storm was blowing through, lightening flashing, thunder rolling, and rain gushing down, which made it next to impossible for me to go back to sleep.  So, my Muse being the most amazing man alive, happened to be up at the same time as me but for different reasons (he's usually up this early).  And, bless him, he offered to make me breakfast.

So, I found myself eating a delicious meal of biscuits and spicy sausage-gravy at 4AM.  Not a norm for me, who usually doesn't rise before 8AM, but my tummy didn't care about the time; it just cared about the food.  Now it's happily digesting the scrumptious breakfast and I will probably begin work in Photoshop in the next few minutes.

Has anyone else ever had this happen to them?  It happens to me occasionally, but usually I'm able to sleep straight through.  I'm a pretty sound sleeper (i.e., WW3 could be happening outside my house and I probably wouldn't notice), but sometimes my brain has other things in mind.  Oh well, at least now I have some new ideas to try out!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Can My Brain Get A Reboot?

So, long time, no post but that doesn't mean I wasn't busy.  After my root canal, I had more complications and it's taken this long just to get over the initial procedure, which was over 2 weeks ago.  And during that time, my brain seemed to shut down where writing was concerned.  Instead of pushing the envelope, so to speak, I said 'okay, what can I do that doesn't require creative thinking?' and the answer was....Editing.

On that note, I spent about a week and a half going over my Muse's novel, The Drill Sergeant's Women, and making much needed technical tweaks to it.  I will readily admit that I am embarrassed that we published it in such a state of grammar errors, but I have remedied that and am now waiting for him to approve all the tweaks.  Then, I can upload the clean and polished version to Kindle, Nook, and CreateSpace and have it ready for readers everywhere.  And that is when the Teaser Campaign will commence.  So, if you want to get sneak peeks at what's inside The Drill Sergeant's Women, head on over to Cressen Books LLC's facebook page and like us to receive your dose of Sparky!

Okay, so now you all know what I've been up to these past few weeks.  And as the title of this post states, I believe I'm in serious need of a brain reboot.  If any of you have any suggestions on how I can go about rebooting my brain to get the creative writing flow going again, I am all ears!  I believe the desire is there, I just need to get the actual words flowing again.  Of course, it also helps when I don't have other distractions going on, which I think I may have resolved by getting the editing done and (finally) getting over the root canal drama.

On that note, wish me luck as I begin a new week and hopefully, the magic will return to my fingertips once more!

Monday, September 10, 2012

Interns, Root Canals, and Work

Good morning, all!  It's been a little while since I've updated this, so here goes.  A lot has been happening over the last few weeks.  Cressen Books LLC has an intern working for us this semester from Shepherdstown University.  And she's already proving invaluable, giving feedback into the edits of the Muses novel and showing us what she's capable of when writing her own novel.  We're excited to be working with Rachel this semester and hope that she comes away with a great experience (and maybe even a published novel) by the end of the semester.

As for root canals...they are evil!  I had to have one done last week and was so excited to finally be pain free.  I was envisioning gnawing on big juicy steaks again without it hurting.  But, as is my typical luck, I began feeling pain again in the same area yesterday and was up for several hours last night with it.  I think what's happened is the nerve is inflamed and hasn't had a chance to recover yet and I keep eating on that side and putting pressure there.  So, it's a motrin regiment on top of already taking antibiotics for me and hopefully I won't have to have the dentist poke around some more in that area.  I actually love my dentist and her staff is fantastic...but I'm ready to move on and not have to see her again until my next routine cleaning (six months from now).  Oh well.  We'll see how cooperative the tooth/nerve will be over the next day or two.

And work...it's been quite chaotic over the last couple of weeks and I have yet to settle back into my normal routine (whatever that was).  I know I originally posted that I would be keeping track of my word count on the sidebar of this blog for the 2-3 stories I was working on.  Well, the 2-3 stories grew to 5 stories.  So, to clean things up a bit, I've moved the word count bars for each story to it's own page here on this blog.  So, if you're interested, definitely flip over to that page from time to time to see how the books are coming along.  And maybe, if I'm lucky, I might actually be able to come up with titles and synopses for these books so you have a better idea of what I'm actually working on!  Or at least I'll have a better idea of what I'm working on.  Whatevs.

Speaking of work, I guess I should really get back to it.  I hope everyone has a great week and I'll pop back on again when I have the chance!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Writing, Editing, and Diet Cherry Pepsi

Good morning, all!  It's Hump Day!! lol

Okay, so I know I've been suspiciously quiet for the last couple of weeks (well, those of you that really know me, silence is more the norm, but that's another story).  Anywho, I've been up to my arse in edits and writing and dental work, so things have been a bit busy (crazy) and I've finally found a few moments to post some updates.

First, writing: Galactic Dynasty's first book is coming along sloooowly.  It has taken me forever to get a good feel for the beginning of this book, especially since it's written from the perspective of an alien species and is taking place about 600 years in the past.  That might sound a little strange, but now that I've got a feel for it, it's going to be AWESOME!!

As for the new YA concepts I'm working on, both the paranormal and the contemporary, I'm making progress with those but am letting the words flow as they come. 

Speaking of words, I actually managed to get time to do nothing but write yesterday (go me) and had set a goal of 4000 words to be written by the end of the day.  I am either super-creative or on crack, but I managed to write 4660 instead...woohoo! *throws confetti*  So, after accomplishing that minor miracle, I had a snack plate and watched Wristcutters: A Love Story with the Muse.  If you have never seen this movie and like strange, unique concepts about the afterlife, definitely check it out!

Now, editing: I am currently doing technical and content edits for the Muse's upcoming novel (still don't have a release date).  Or, maybe I should say, was doing edits.  As I got closer to the end, he and I both realized that his story wasn't as complete as we first thought.  The characters were apparently knocking on the inside of his skull and saying 'um, hello, we're not finished talking yet'.  So, long story short, he will be adding more to the story and the release date may or may not be any time soon.  But that's the beauty of publishing your own works: you get the creative freedom to step back and say 'hey, this isn't ready' and not panic after saying that because you have mega-huge deadlines to meet.

With all that spewed out, I will probably be turning my editing attention back to Dangerous Moves, the 4th book in The L & L Mysteries series.  I really want to get this one out by December, if possible, because I love the storyline and want to share it with the world.  In my very biased opinion, I think the series just keeps getting better with each new release.  But, I dare you to prove me wrong on that!  Go on...I double dog dare you.....okay, okay, I Triple Dog Dare You!  (Kudos to any who can tell me what movie that comes from!)

So, what's with the Diet Cherry Pepsi, you've been wondering...  Most all authors will tell you that they have a certain beverage that really gets their creative juices flowing.  For some, it's coffee, some it's tea.  For me, I like my coffee in the morning and my tea at night.  But for the hours of about 11 to 7, I am a Diet Cherry Pepsi girl.  Just something about the flavors and fizziness that push my brain to continue to be creative, even when I just want to throw up my hands and say 'I'm done'!

And, of course, the worse thing that can happen is having an author run out of their creative juice beverage.  The rest of our bodies may continue to function properly, but if we run out of our go juice, then our creative part of our brain malfunctions and refuses to spit out even one crumb of sparkle or genius.  So, guess what?  This happened to me yesterday.  Yes, I managed to get some major writing in during my morning coffee phase, thank god.  But when the afternoon hit, forget it, I had nothing.  I tried to force something to come out and it wasn't pretty.  So, I made a special trip into town (which is about 30 minutes away for me, so yes it truly is a special trip into town), where I found the creative gods smiling down on me: 4 cases of Diet Cherry Pepsi for $11.  I quickly snatched up those 4 cases, rushed back home, and wrote another 2000 words!  So, lesson is: do not let an author get dangerously low on their creative juice beverage!

Alright, I believe that's all I've got for now.  I need coffee and then I will probably do some more writing today.  I hope everyone's well and I'll try not to be so long in writing my next post...tata!