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My Not-So-Overnight Success

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Image courtesy of Pixabay & anaterate When many people first hear about a book, they often think the writing and publication happened overnight--an overnight success. I started writing  The Watchers of Moniah   several years ago, but, with all three books of the trilogy coming out in a three month period, it might appear that it truly did happen in very little time. It did not. I got the idea for the story in the 1990s. It's cliché, but the idea came from a dream. I didn't start writing the story until several years later. In 2007, I joined a local writing group. I'd written 50k words at that point. The typical novel runs 70-80k, but in the fantasy genre books often run 90-100k words. Thanks to the motivation of meeting with other writers, I completed the book in 2008. It was a whopping 103k words. I went through several edits and got feedback from beta readers, my writing group, and agents and editors at conferences. Beta readers and my fellow writers loved it. Agents
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When Life Gets In the Way

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Do you have those days when you wonder if you'll manage to get anything useful done? Or is just me? Last week, my Wednesday-Saturday gave me this feeling of too many errands, not enough time, leaving me to ponder whether 2021 wants to outdo 2020. Luckily for me, one positive surfaced in those few days. My publisher sent me the cover art for THE WATCHERS IN EXILE. It's beautiful, isn't it? Many thanks to Jake Clark of J Caleb Design for once again providing an amazing cover for my book. Here's the front cover: Thank goodness for blessings, no matter how simple they may be. I needed it more than anything because I wasn't managing to get any real writing done. Not because I couldn't think of what to write. No, that wasn't it. I couldn't find the time to write. If you've read any articles or books about writing, you'll know they abound with advice, but almost all of them include this one: No matter how many words you write, you should write each day
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2nd Chance Drawing of the Book Launch Prize

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Wow! January 2021 is here, and there's so much going on. I'm looking forward to meeting several of you tomorrow night during my Virtual Book Discussion event with Fiction Addiction. It's Jan. 5 at 6 pm EST, and if you haven't registered, you can do so here . If you subscribe to my newsletter, you know I celebrated the launch of THE WATCHERS OF MONIAH with a Book Launch prize giveaway. On Dec. 18, I spun  a wheel with all of my newsletter subscribers' names on it to award the prizes. Unfortunately, I was unable to connect with the grand prize winner or the third place winner, so I'm spinning the wheel again. Check it out in the video below to see if you won! As mentioned in the video, I'll be participating in a Virtual Author Event with Fiction Addiction on Tuesday, Jan. 5 at 6 pm EST. Registration is free, but you must sign up   to participate. I'll be talking about the book, giraffes, and answering your questions.
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Finding the Positives in a Tough Year

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  Image courtesy of Gerd Altmann at Pixabay.com Can you believe it? The end of 2020 is almost here! What an odd year it has been, too. As we prepare to turn the calendar page to a new year, I hope you will take some time to reflect on the positives of the past year. I know, I know, it's a year where everyone on social media has focused on the negatives. We did have more than our fair share of negatives, but what about the positives? I challenge you to find at least five positives from 2020. 1. My leading positive would be signing with Chris Kennedy and New Mythology Press. Thanks to that experience, I finally realized a lifelong dream of getting THE WATCHERS OF MONIAH published. I can't hate 2020 when something that big happened. And the next two books will be released in early 2021! How cool is that? 2. Closely related to the first one would be that I attended one conference prior to the Covid-19 shutdowns. In early March, Falstaff Publishing ran the SAGA conference as schedu
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