2014 Goal Update

_MG_6667It’s been a while since I checked in on the 2014 forecast for me and my writing. I meant this as a monthly check-in type of deal and thought maybe I should get back on that.  So, months after my last update, let’s see where I am.

So first, the overall goals I’d set – with where I am now.

  1. I’ve challenged myself to write 600,000 words in 2014. (258,159 C as of 6/8/14 9:53PM)
  2. I will finish books 4 & 5 of the Dominion Falls series and submit by February 8th  – I did submit on 2/17/14 & both books were accepted/contracted. Releases in August’14 and January’15.
  3. I will fine-tune and perfect Leap (Hidden Senses #.5) for publication.  It goes to my editor on July 1st, then to the proofreader.
  4. I will build my audience and work harder at promotion. I am not doing enough with this. Need to get out more.
  5. I will find focus (see below), and figure out how to USE it. I am working on this. Some days I do great, others not so much. Call me a work in progress.

And for my list of projects. Items in RED are done. Items in ORANGE are in progress (or progress notes). Items in BLUE are new. Some of the new items are in blue with the progress I’ve made in orange.

  1. Runaway Train (Dominion Falls 5) – 113k
  2. Stalled Independence (Lake Point #3) – 35k
  3. Katherine’s Story (Dominion Falls Prequel) – 48k – Named finally. Independent Brake
  4. Into a Mirror Darkly (Morgana Chronicles 1) – 100k (~10k done)
  5. Witch Way (Lake Point #4) – 30k (1k done)
  6. A Thorough Thanksgiving (Lake Point #5) – 30k
  7. The Tribe (The Tribe #1) – 85k
  8. The Wolf (The Tribe #2) – 85k (24395 done)
  9. Natural Selection – 40k (6921 done)
  10. Hybrid – unknown…going to do as “Chapters” not full length novel.
  11. The Dead Past (Dominion Falls 6-temporary name) – 100k
  12. The Chief (The Tribe #3) – 85k
  13. The Raven (The Tribe #4) – 85k
  14. Escaping Humanity (Co-authoring w/ Mary Terrani) – 100k (22k done)

I’m quite certain at this point that I’m forgetting something. I do know that not on the list, but completed is setting an editing schedule with my editor. I’ve also come up with an idea for a new series, but it has to go on hold while I work my way through that crazy list up there. 

Overall, I’m happy with my progress. Despite some crazy real life stuff and my typical propensity for distraction, I’ve almost reached the halfway point on my insane 600k goal. I have plenty of stories that are in progress or just need editing. I have ideas ready for next years holidays series, and my brain has not imploded yet. So yay me. 🙂

Seriously, though. I expect items to be added to my list now that I’ve managed to check a few off. First, I need to finish Witch Way, The Wolf, & The Chief before I can seriously contemplate what to add to the list. Once I read the “There’s more red than black/orange” point, I know I have to start thinking toward the future.

So one last goal right now is to adjust and add to all my goals next month, and get The Wolf and Witch Way completed.

(P.S. Having that editing schedule set means a crap ton of books this year, people…seriously, it’s cah-razy).

Secret Cravings Winter Wonderland Blog Hop

 STAY TUNED FOR GIVEAWAY DETAILS BELOW…MINE & SCP’S!!!

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Welcome to the Secret Cravings Winter Wonderland Blog Hop & Scavenger Hunt! There’s some amazing prizes in store for the readers!!

Details on that are further below. First, I also want to mention that in a few weeks is the anniversary of my first published book, and the birth of the wonderful, gritty town of Dominion Falls. When the world met my amnesiac with the eidetic memory, Jane Doe…and my (anti)hero, brothel and saloon owner, Cole Mitchell.

ChangingTracks_MEDDerailedCover_MEDDarkTerritory_MED

 

So in honor of Dominion Falls’ birthday, I’m giving away your choice of the complete series in ebook format…or a signed print copy of one of my books!!  

All you have to do is comment below.  Since I love my secondary characters and try to make them as deep as my hero and heroine…I’d love for you to tell me about your favorite secondary character – book or TV.

*giveaway ends 1/30/14 @11:59PM. 

Now, for Secret Cravings Publishing’s Scavenger Hunt!!

In order to be included in the giveaway for the amazing prizes (like: an IPAD 2, a Kindle Fire HDX, $50 GC and $25 GC), here’s my letter back, now go back to the Secret Cravings Blog and find the badges at ALL the participating sites.  Once you have them all, you’ll email them in to be entered in the grand prize giveaway!

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Tuesday Tales – Loose – Kat’s Story

KatThe prompt this week is Loose.

This week I’m sticking with Kat’s story…just a little while after last weeks.  For those that have read my Dominion Falls series, you’ll recognize a couple of characters here.  Cole is my hero in those stories, and in Derailed we learn he and Kat shared a past…but not just yet, Katherine is just 15 in this scene…although as he points out – 15 isn’t so young in 1861…

A sharp whistle pulled Katherine out of her own thoughts, and she tugged the reins on instinct. The moment she realized the culprit behind the whistle was Cole Mitchell, she wished she hadn’t stopped. The man always left her flustered and beside herself. When she’d first started to notice boys, both Cole and her sisters fiancé, David, had captured her imaginings.

Nowadays David was long gone, but in recent months Cole had begun to speak directly to her on regular occasions. It infuriated her mother, and gave Katherine a disturbing, secret little thrill. Rumors of how well-pleased Cole’s women of ill-repute were kept flew fast and easy in a camp like this.

Ashamed that such thoughts should dare to cross her mind, Katherine tried to again reclaim her wits as Cole stopped just near her right foot. “May I assist you in some way, Mr. Mitchell?”

“Fine looking horse ya got there.” Cole’s lip curved into a knowing smirk. “You enjoying your bribe?”

Heat rushed to her cheeks and she narrowed her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“Blizzard. She’s a bribe with a hell of a price tag. You did know that, didn’t ya?”

“Blizzard?”

“The horse. That was her name when I was training her. Why, what did ya name her?” He chuckled. “Let me guess. Somethin’ real pretty like Snowy or Princess.”

Her short, angry huffs of breath formed into steam in the cold air and she lifted her chin to hide the way she had to blink back her tears. Rather than tell him what she’d named the horse she spoke through her clenched jaw. “You trained her?”

“Of course. Who else is gonna train a horse in this camp? Especially a wild one like this beast was.” He rubbed the horses flank and nodded. “I knew she was going to you, though, so I kept a little wild in her. I think ya got some wild in you that ain’t been unleashed yet.”

“I think you’re speaking far too inappropriately.”

“Fifteen is the right age. Can’t tell ya how many women find themselves then. Got three girls now that are near-sixteen. Besides, your parents are marrying you off at fifteen. Guess it ain’t so inappropriate after all.”

“I am not a whore, nor will I be.” She drew up straight, trying to process what he’d said. “And my parents aren’t marrying me off so young.”

“It ain’t so young. And yeah, they are.” He shrugged. “What do ya think the horse is for?”

Katherine pondered the quiet conversation she’d witnessed back at the house. The timing of Powder’s arrival didn’t make her a gift for birthday or Christmas. The talk of going to Denver permanently, and the courting she’d been forced to take part in when they did visit.

“So your Pa didn’t tell you yet.” Cole clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Such a shame too. Gonna waste your whole life on a marriage of convenience.”

“What do you know of marriage anyhow?” Katherine tried to put venom into her tone, but instead it trembled dangerously close to tears. “My parents marriage is good.”

“I know more’n you’d think, and your parents eloped. Heard from your Pa himself, they liked each other. You got a guy you like, Kathy?”

“My name is Katherine.”

“I like Kathy. Suits ya better.”

On Katherine’s left a door slammed open. Her sister, Martha, stormed into the street. Her light brown hair had begun to gray already after the stresses of the past two years. It flew out of her bun in unruly strands as she rushed toward Katherine and Cole. “Cole Mitchell, you get on away from her! Katherine Marie Daugherty, what do you think you’re doing speaking to the likes of him?”

“This is all your fault, Martha.” Katherine spat the words before she could think too hard on what she was saying. “And I have always spoken to Mr. Mitchell, it’s polite.”

“Katherine! How is it my fault you’re speaking with a man that keeps loose women. You know he only wants to make you one. I’ve heard him saying it.” Martha narrowed her eyes at the man who only grinned in response.

“I’d bet anything he’s said such things because you can hear them and you are impossible.” Katherine swung out of her saddle and dropped right down onto the frozen street to meet her older sister’s angry stance with one of her own. “All of this is your fault. The horse, the arranged marriage. All because you couldn’t keep your legs together around a damned red man.”

“Katherine!” Martha’s jaw dropped, and Cole’s laughter rang through the street, drawing more attention their way. “You’d best watch your—”

“I will not! You are the cause for my whole life changing.” Tears burned at the back of Katherine’s eyes as the full weight of what Cole had suggested hit her. To be married off to a virtual stranger, to lose even more of the life she loved here in Dominion Falls. “Because of you, everything is changing. Don’t you dare tell me to be silent because it’s all your fault. You left a good man to be a whore to a red man—”

Katherine’s cheek stung seconds before she registered Martha had slapped her. She clasped her hand over the sore cheek and stared at Martha.

“Hey now.” Cole stepped out from under Powder’s neck and positioned himself in front of Katherine. “Don’t go beatin’ your sister for bein’ honest.”

“I’ll have you know,” Martha began. “That she is a child. She shouldn’t be saying such things when she knows nothing about them.”

“She’s no child. Your parents are gonna have her wed before the end of the year if they can, just so she don’t mix with riff raff. And she’s got a point. Wouldna happened if you hadn’t taken up with an Injun.”

“Lewis is emancipated.” Martha all but hissed, her hand twitching like she was going to slap him too. “Practically white.”

“Only with his paint on, Martha. Ain’t no way he’s ever gonna be one of us.”

Katherine backed up, but bumped into Powder. Married by the end of the year? That was barely over two months away. It couldn’t be. She spun and gripped the pommel to lift herself back into the saddle. Before she got far, she was lifted the rest of the way and Cole slapped Powder’s flank over Martha’s protests.

Without time for even a nod of gratitude in Cole’s direction, Katherine leaned over and let Powder race her out of town toward the small settlement of homes starting to sprout up north of town. She didn’t dare go too far for fear of Indians, but she would run until she found somewhere to hole up and think.

She couldn’t get married. Not now. Not in Denver.

She’d barely begun to live.

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Tuesday Tales – Picture Prompt

TT-horseThe prompt this week is a choice of pictures and I chose The one right over there<<<.

I’m leaving behind my Valentine’s story, Deep Fried Sweethearts. The story is complete and I’ll be cleaning it up in coming weeks to be sent to my editor.

This week I’m starting with an as yet untitled prequel for one of the characters in my Dominion Falls series.  Katherine Daugherty was a firecracker of a character that entered the scene in book 2 and became my heroines best friend, but her history intrigued a few readers and myself, and so I’m preparing a short prologue told in a 3-or-4 part series of minuets starting with this scene when she is 15.

There was a knock on her door, and Katherine’s father stepped into the room. His thinning red hair shimmered in the sunlight, and the grin he wore was contagious. “Are you ready, Katherine?”

“Of course I am.” Katherine leapt from her bed with an enthusiasm that would have disappointed her mother thoroughly. She knew her father wouldn’t mind, he had been the one teasing her mercilessly for weeks over her surprise. She smoothed out the full width of her skirts and spun. “Am I dressed appropriately?”

“Hmm.” He took her hand and spun her as if they were about to begin a waltz. “You might be a little fancy, but that is the norm for us, is it not?”

“It is anymore.” Katherine agreed. Since her sisters embarrassing turn a pregnancy out of wedlock to an Indian, and their subsequent secret marriage while she was engaged to the delightful Mr. Schaffer; Katherine’s mother had become far more obsessed with asserting their position in Dominion Falls.

The result had been a new wardrobe and frequent trips to Denver which left Katherine utterly bored with society and the proper young gentlemen her mother had been encouraging her to get acquainted with. At fifteen Katherine might be the age to consider proper marriage, but the thought had never appealed to her. Perhaps it was growing up her whole life among miners, but she thought there might be more fun life than being a proper wife.

“I certainly didn’t mean to upset you.” Her father chucked his finger under her chin. “This is supposed to be a surprise, not a funeral.”

“Sorry. So long as my surprise isn’t us moving to Denver, I’m certain I’ll love it.”

For a moment her father’s smile seemed to falter, but the moment was so brief she dismissed it as her overactive imagination. He held out his arm to her. “You will have to close your eyes, but I’ll let you get all the way down the stairs first.”

“The surprise requires me to close my eyes?” She couldn’t stop her excited little hop to grab his arm. “That means it’s definitely a big one. What have you gotten for me, father?”

“Something that has set your mother’s mind that I spoil you too much.”

Katherine giggled at his wink and stepped down the steps with him as if light as a feather. At least her excitement kept her from what her mother described as unladylike stomping down the stairs, heaven forbid she raced as she once had when she was small. “She never complained when I was a child.”

“Life was different then, you know that. This mining camp and our business has grown to such that we can’t be who we were then.”

“I don’t see why not. People liked us then. Now they look at me different.”

At the bottom of the stairs, he paused. A small frown tugged his smile away. “How so? The men aren’t…”

When her father’s voice trailed off, Katherine raised her eyebrows. “The men aren’t what, Father? I just mean they look at me like they do mother. My old friends, the men that used to be real nice all treat me like I think I’m better than them.”

“Oh.” His shoulders sagged and he exhaled a breath so big she wondered if he’d been holding it. “I see. Well, that’s of no consequence at the moment. You just keep being you and they’ll see you haven’t changed, Katherine.”

“Easier said than done. Now what about my surprise?” She hopped up on her toes and bounced. “Can I see it now? Can I?”

“Close your eyes.” Her father’s warm chuckle filled the hallway even as she obliged him and his visage disappeared behind her eyelids. His warm grasp on her arm guided her down the hallway.

“How far are you going to take me? You’re torturing me this way.” Katherine tried to put just enough whine into her voice and puff out her lip just enough to get a clue. All she got in response was more laughter.

“You aren’t being tortured. You’re just impatient. We’re almost there. Hold on. We should stop here for a moment.” When her father stopped her, there was a small bustling of petticoats nearby before a cloak was draped over her shoulders.

“My cloak? My surprise is outside?” The typically cold winter of Dominion Falls had hit as early as it ever did. Snow blanketed most of the town, and all of their yard and the surrounding woods in a beautiful coat of white.

“Very astute of you. Here we go.” The door opened with a blast of cool air and her father guided her outside.

The cold tickled her nose and she willingly leaned against him when he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.  A whinny caught her ears on a blast of wind and without permission she opened her eyes.  Not that it mattered she’d beat him to the punch, she’d been left speechless by what she found.

Off at the far end of the yard a brilliant white horse and clean as the snow shook its head out.  Her father whistled in her ear and the horse whinnied in response before it started to run toward them.

“I’d tell you that you can open your eyes now, but I see you have. What do you think, Katherine? You were complaining about the brown being too old for you.”

“I—I just—oh, she’s beautiful father! Is she really mine?” Katherine burst from her father’s hold to run toward the fence that bordered the paddock. The horse slowed down near by and ambled toward her and the carrot she dug out of the bag her father held out to her. “I thought you said we didn’t need another horse.”

“I did, but I saw this one for sale in Pueblo. She was wild as the day is long, but I thought what would be better for you? I’ve had her fully broken and trained for you, with just a little bit of wild left.”

She grinned when the horse took the carrot from her hand. With a small sigh she rubbed her hand along the velvet nose. “I’ll call her Powder.”

“A fitting name.”

“Thank you.” Katherine spun and clasped her father in the tightest hug she possibly could. “She’s the most beautiful horse ever.”

“You’re welcome.” He squeezed her shoulder when they parted. “Why don’t you take a few minutes to get to know her? You and I can go for a ride after dinner.”

“Okay.” She smiled bright even as she caught sight of her mother on the porch.  When her father moved to join her mother, she turned back to Powder. She fed Powder another carrot and spoke low. “There are no presents without reason, Powder. I just don’t know what you mean.”

She glanced at the porch and the quiet debate going on between her parents. Her mother’s triumphant nod of her head before she headed back inside didn’t ease Katherine’s concern.  Even worse was the painful attempt at a bright smile her father made before he waved and followed her mother.

“I guess hoping you are just because the brown is getting old is too much to ask, isn’t it, Powder?”

The horse nudged her almost off the fence as it tried to get into the bag of carrots.

“You aren’t helpful. Not at all.” Kat chuckled and dug out another horse to feed to the horse. “But you are beautiful. And mine.”

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Hump Day Hook 46 – Dark Territory

DarkTerritory_MEDAnother Hump Day Hook!

Another week of [amazon_link id=”B00FE1AVOU” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Dark Territory[/amazon_link].

Since I was MIA during the release of [amazon_link id=”B00FE1AVOU” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Dark Territory (The Dominion Falls Series book 3)[/amazon_link], what with my kid being in the hospital and life falling into general disarray and chaos…I have yet to have had a GIVEAWAY.

So today I’m having a giveaway!!  1 lucky commenter will win their choice of one of my Dominion Falls series books – or if they have them all, one of my others (I just had a horror short released in an anthology, too).

The giveaway will end on Friday night, October 18th at 11PM.

Now onto the hook.  Jane sees her brother again for the first time since her near-death by hanging. She reveals the depth of her pain:

“What is it?” Slowly he sank into the chair beside her again.

I remember everything about that day.

“You said that.”

Every time I close my eyes, it happens again. The nightmares are much more than nightmares. I remember it, over and over again. Have you ever had a nightmare in which you could not scream?

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Did you like this sample?  You can pick up the whole series now!!

Changing Tracks




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Derailed





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Dark Territory





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Hump Day Hook asks authors to post one paragraph of one of their stories, whether a WIP, one contracted, or already published.  Please visit and comment on the participants – you might just stumble on the next great read for your library!  To see more participants, click on the HDH banner below:

Hump Day Hook 44 – Dark Territory

DarkTerritory_MEDBack to Hump Day Hook!

Past couple of weeks have been a bit out of sorts for me, but I’m back…and with Dark Territory  again with a switch…this time it has been released and my first reader email raving about my Jane and my Cole have left me in such a very good mood.

Cole and Graham have been maneuvering, bribing, and coercing to keep Jane’s non-death under wraps. Rusty has written an article on the “new” librarian in town:

The article was cut and dry from what he could tell. Her credentials were listed, and Rusty said she’d been a librarian out east. 

Mail-order bride, brought out West by Cole Mitchell.

“What?”

That was all it took to send Graham reeling again. The man was literally purple when he fell back on his ass, pointing at Cole.

“That little son of a bi—”

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Hump Day Hook asks authors to post one paragraph of one of their stories, whether a WIP, one contracted, or already published.  Please visit and comment on the participants – you might just stumble on the next great read for your library!  To see more participants, click on the HDH banner below: