by Sarah | Apr 4, 2018 | All About Me, Blogging Life, Books, Changing Tracks, Escaping Humanity, General, Holiday, I'm A Writer, Masked Hearts, Publishing Credits, Redefining Perfect, Secret Cravings Publishing, The Tribe, Wordy Wednesday, Writing
On February 8, 2013 my very first novel was published.
At the time I was contracted with the fabulous small publishing company, Secret Cravings Publishing. Very excited, and a very unseasoned author.
Thankfully, through SCP I had some great mentors, supporters, and fellow authors braving the waters.
The past 5 years have been a whirlwind of ups and downs. I spent time writing thousands upon thousands of words, and spent months upon months unable to write a word. I’ve had months with sales beyond belief and months where I didn’t sell a single book. I branched out into self-publishing with a few small gambits, but then my publisher closed their doors and I had to dive in full-force.
Some days it’s truly hard to believe that it’s been five years. How much my life has changed. How much my goals have changed. How much I’ve first lost, and then re-found my love for this world.
These days I’m keeping crazy-busy in my personal life, but also in writing. I pulled all 6 of my original Dominion Falls Series books, the first books I published, last year. I’ve revised, revamped, and added words to the books. Now I’m re-publishing them. Getting back to my roots, and sending these books back out into the world, with a new little novella added on for good measure.
The next book in The Tribe series, which will be book 5 “The Child” is written and with the editor, due for release in July.
My best friend & co-author, Mary Terrani, and I finally released our book to the world, Escaping Humanity (The Exceptionals 1). We are in the middle of book 2, looking forward to a release at the end of the year, first of next. We’re also working with a fabulous artist to turn the book into a graphic novel.
I’m working to try to create a new cover for Masked Hearts so that I can re-release it in September.
I have notebooks with plans for new books, new series, more books in my existing series.
I went to my first conference as a signing author recently, and did well, and had so much fun.
I’m excited to continue doing what I love, and bring more stories into the world. I’ve had to revamp my views on my publishing career, what I want to do, and where I want to go with it. I’d become too sensitive to the numbers and to the “you should” and “you shouldn’t” voices and lost my way.
I feel good coming home to my characters again. I hope you’ll come on in and pull up an armchair, grab a book and join me. Get lost in one of my worlds for a while. They are fun, dangerous, mysterious, romantic, sweet, and spicy. You’ll be able to find something for your personal taste with me.
by Sarah | Apr 2, 2018 | All About Kennedy, All About Learning, All of Us, Redefining Perfect
Back in August, I announced that we were withdrawing Kennedy from traditional school, and enrolling her in online school.
We were all excited by the change, but we waited, and waited a little longer, until the activities of life settled down. In September, we officially withdrew her and started her in the online courses.
We were excited to start, but starting mid-semester was rough, and it took us several weeks to figure out how this online school stuff worked.
We got into a groove, but over time K admitted that the classes were harder. She missed the ability to just ask her teacher and get an immediate answer without having to wait for a reply. She missed her friends. She missed traditional school.
Not surprisingly this was mere weeks after we started.
I told her we hadn’t given the school a chance, and we would finish out the semester and see where we were.
For a little while we found our groove. Things moved at a good pace, Kennedy’s grades went up finally.
But then I got a new job, and Kennedy still wanted to return to the traditional brick & mortar school.
We talked about it at length. We decided to return her to traditional school.
Though she is unique, and a bit of a freebird, she is also a social butterfly. She missed her friends, and missed the ways of traditional schooling…and, I think, missed the “easier” classes.
And so, Kennedy is back in brick and mortar. She’s doing well, and really glad to be back with her friends. Plus, I don’t have to worry about leaving her at home while I’m at work.
Online schooling didn’t work for us, but I have a good friend it does work for. It was a rally good experiment, if sometimes frustrating. I’m glad we tried.
by Sarah | Apr 1, 2018 | All About Me, Blogging Life, Redefining Perfect
Gratitude is a funny thing. So often I have so much to be grateful for, but all I can see are the negatives. To try to curb this oddly innate response, I’m trying to start each week with some gratitude for what I have, or what has happened in previous days, or this year in general.
- My new job – which I love, and will expound more on in a later post.
- That I found Oola. (See above)
- That my husband and I were wise enough to not dive into a loan we could afford, but would have strapped us, for a car we both were crazy about. (Major will power needed to walk out that door, and major growth)
- That in about 6 weeks I will have one credit card paid off, and a nice chunk in savings.
- For hot tea. My new addiction. Yum.
- For a son that sends me random gifts that truly are marvelous and meaningful.
- For an artistic daughter that stretches to break her own artistic boundaries.
- For tweens that actually still want to snuggle and talk.
- The coming spring, shown by the daffodils blooming despite the recent snow.
- Books. Writing them. Reading them. It’s all pleasure.
More in coming weeks, because as I said, I would like for this to become a daily habit. Busting through my tendency toward the negative thought stream. 🙂 Sarcasm has its place, but it’s taken up too much of a residence lately.
by Sarah | Feb 5, 2018 | All of Us, Blogging Life, Book Reviews, Redefining Perfect
This starts as a bi-partisan, scathing a look at the current political system. Much is revelatory and truthful, mixed with Leary’s usual wit and sarcasm. Nothing is really more funny than our current political climate, albeit scary.
What I liked best is that it didn’t lampoon, more deconstructed the current situations we face. And Leary doesn’t appear to be afraid to say the truth, or how he perceives the truth. I found myself smiling a lot, not quite laughing out loud as much. It’s not easy to condense his train of thought.
The latter part of the book switched more to his usual comedy, offering personal yet some incredible situations that come from stardom. These kinds of tidbits are often comedy gold. There were only a few missteps in his narrative, but he’s also changed a bit since his previous book. Changed massively since his standup days when I first heard him.
Good follow up to his previous book, which I recommend reading before starting this one.
*Disclaimer: My hubby Erik wrote this review. This book was more up his alley than mine.
Disclaimer 2: I got this book courtesy of the awesome Blogging for Books site. All opinions are my own, or in this case, my husbands.
by Sarah | Dec 27, 2017 | All About Me, All of Us, I'm A Reader, Redefining Perfect, Wordy Wednesday
Thanks to Goodreads…I have this handy images to share (although I had to paste it together through screen captures because they don’t make a widgets…but still…it’s awesome).
I read 157 books this year!!
On February 8, 2013 my very first novel was published.
