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 | Sep 5, 2016 | Books, The Tribe, Tuesday Tales, Writing
Welcome back to Tuesday Tales! This weeks prompt is Spider.
I’m right about knee deep in the fourth book in The Tribe series, The Child, I’m doing this next scene from it as well.
Velli is all dressed up with somewhere to go…her own wedding. A past of crap happening at every turn has her nervous…but she’s ready, willing, and oh-so-able to finally wed her mate, Kane.
Her good friend Noelle pops into the room to check on her…and here we go:
A soft knock pulled her from her musings. Noelle poked her head around the door. Her bright smile lifted Velli’s spirits quicker than her voice. “I figured you’d wait to get dressed. You look beautiful. What’s wrong?”
“Damn perceptive Fae.” Velli hugged her friend gently. “I’m fine. Just anxious for the wedding to start.”
“No cold feet?”
“Not even a toe. For either of us.”
“Oh, I have no doubt that Wolf is ready, willing, and able, to drag you down that aisle if even a toe gets cold.” Noelle laughed. She touched Velli’s forehead. “So why so dark and stormy. You’re going to give yourself wrinkles.”
“Age old habit of going over the worst case scenario in everything.” Velli sighed. “It’ll pass soon as I’m down there and walking.”
“I suppose that’s more than fair if we take into account your long and horror-storied history.” Noelle took Velli’s hands in hers. “So let’s distract at least for a few minutes. Where are Johnny and Kai? I thought they’d come.”
“They were going to, but then thought better of it. Kai is still mad at me, for one thing.” Velli didn’t care if Kai was mad she’d created a clone for the Raven who was now her son Tam—only to immediately destroy all information and tools used to create him. The circumstances called for it. “Plus, John wanted to be respectful of Derek’s need for some space.”
“John is a good man. Kai is a good person in there. She’ll get over what happened. New mates should be happier, I know from experience.” Noelle chuckled.
“Well to be fair, I wasn’t exactly flowers and sunshine in my new-mate status so I suppose I can’t fault her for having issues—her own guilt being one of them. However,” Velli paused mid-sentence as a spider dropped right between them to hover.
An old superstition reared its head at the sight of the creature. There were a few bad luck omens for wedding days, a black spider being one of them.
Velli held out her hand, but wrapped it in a protective layer of water before she allowed the black widow to touch her hand. “Well, look what we have here.”
“Don’t freak out, please.”
The spider crawled along Velli’s protected hand. “Why would I?”
“It’s a bad omen, isn’t it? You’re already nervous, I don’t want you to freak out.”
“You’d think I would, wouldn’t you? However…” Velli carried the creature to the window. As it crawled onto the siding, she smiled. “We need to put this supposed omen into perspective.”
“Meaning?”
“There are a couple other bad omens for weddings. A black dog and a crow. Considering my mate is one massive black dog, and my newest child is the reincarnation of a big-ass Raven…I think omens are overrated in my case.”
Noelle laughed right along with her. “I guess when you put it that way, you have a point.”
“When there are so many other things to worry about, omens seem like the least of my problems. I’ve sent her on her way, and I’m all right.” Velli turned to her friend. “Not more or less nervous than before.”
“Are you sure?” Noelle drew close again. “I can soothe the savage beast if you want. I have a good repertoire of songs.”
Velli smiled at the offer. Her friend being a Siren did have its advantages. She could literally sing a person to sleep, to laugh, to be silent, whatever the situation called for. “I appreciate it, but you’ll never entirely soothe the beast of my past. I’ll be fine. Kane is my mate already, this is just formality. My nerves are little more than—well, nerves.”
Noelle kissed her cheek. “Good. Do you want me to stay? You still have twenty minutes before your mother comes to fuss a final time, along with your father to lead you to the ceremony. I can stay.”
“No, you need to go with your mate. I’ll be fine. Between the silence and the fussing, I honestly don’t know which is worse.” Velli winked. “I’ll take silence for now.”
“All right. I’ll see you at the circle.”
“You bet your ass you will.”
*~*
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by Sarah | Aug 29, 2016 | Books, General, Goals, Writing
Well I said the second job might kill me and I was nearly right. I’ve had to quit due to my really horrible feet requiring more surgery (in just about 2 months now!). What that means is that I am finally getting on a roll toward these crazy lofty goals. In the past couple of weeks things have picked up steam. I released The Chief, the third in The Tribe series. I finally finished Red Zone and it’s been through edits. I’m revising the second to last existing Dominion Falls book, and working on The Child (The Tribe 5).
So things are going a little wacky crazy here in a good way for a change. 2016 may turn around yet.
For a brief period of time I lost my precious notebook with pages of notes for all the series, the 40+ planned books, and ideas for character names…but fortunately it turned up right as I was about to throw in the towel and cry my eyes out. And of course it was right in a place I looked 20 times. So with that stress gone I got on the ball and worked hard this week.
Onto the update!
First, my overall goals for the year…
- I’ve challenged myself to write 600,000 words in 2016. (at 317,514 as of 8/29/16. Finally crossed halfway, but way behind.)
- I will build my audience and work harder at promotion. (This is going GREAT. Had a couple of real surges due to some promo opportunities I got in on. Excited for it to continue!)
- I will regain my focus. (Really kicking off now. The younger kids are back in school, and while I’ve picked up more hours at the bank, I still have free days for work. Past two weeks have been stellar.)
- I will face my demon/salvation – the one story I’m afraid of. (Nope, not even a little bit yet)
- I will decide by July if I will return to Lake Point in 2017. (So…it’s past July…and I’m still not 100% sure. I know I am doing some revisit/recap stories of the existing books…and have story ideas for more books, but haven’t figured out when I will return to this lovely town.)
- I will prep all the things for print. ALL. The. Things. (Tribe and Wolf are in print. The Chief is giving me fits, which I hope to fix soon. Next is The Raven. I’m still working on others on the side.)
- I will update my author website. (Haven’t gotten much further, and need to add pages for The Chief and The Raven, among others. Again, slow going…but I’m getting there.).
And next is my list of projects. The list seems small without all the Lake Point books of the past on it, but I’m sure it will change and grow over the year. The books in ORANGE are current works-in-progress. The books in BLUE are new to the game.
- Into a Mirror Darkly (Morgana Chronicles 1) – 100k (~10k done)
- Dust Raiser (Dominion Falls 6) – 100k (Title Change!!)
- Dead Man’s Switch (Dominion Falls 7) – 100k
- Red Zone (Dominion Falls 5.5) – 40k (DONE 8/10/16)
- The Raven (The Tribe #4) – 85k (DONE 5/15/16)
- The Child (The Tribe #5) – 85k (~7k done)
- The Seer (The Tribe #6) – 85k
- Auld Lang Syne 1 (Lake Point 12.5 ~ Revisiting Year 1)
- Auld Lang Syne 2 (Lake Point 12.6 ~ Revisiting Year 2)
- Untitled Project (Hand Delivered Book 1) ~ 40k
- Escaping Humanity (Co-authoring w/ Mary Terrani) – 100k (60k done)
- Masked Hearts – Create new cover and re-release this one last SCP book (Plan to work on this in September)
- Fall (Hidden Senses #1) ~30k
2016 has definitely been a struggle and a half for me. I am glad to see things picking up, and look forward to much more. I have plans to make some more money on the side to make up for my lost job, but I don’t expect those things to take too many hours out of my week. I still plan to meet the lofty goals I set for myself, and can’t wait to continue to tackle them all!
Now, off I go to editing. I have a book due to release on October 4th.
by Sarah | Aug 22, 2016 | Books, The Tribe, Tuesday Tales, Writing
Welcome back to Tuesday Tales! This weeks prompt is Fans.
As I’ve just begun the fourth book in The Tribe series, I thought I’d weave this weeks prompt into my first chapter.
This is book 5 in the series. Kane and Velli have been through quite a lot in this series, and aren’t even actually married yet (though they are mated). This books begins with them heading home (to the reservation in Canada) after helping a friend in the states.
Though they’ve had a chaotic time at the sanctuary, they’ve not forgotten about the organization that seems hell-bent on getting to Velli…or the Hunters they employ to do so.
So, here ya go:
A sudden cold burst of air hit Velli in the face. She startled out of her half-asleep state to regain her bearings. “What the hell are you doing, Kane? Turn those fans off.”
“Shh. Don’t wake the kids.” Kane’s voice remained hush but tense as all get-out.
Velli wiped her eyes and tried to re-orient herself. They were still in the SUV, but according to the GPS in the dash, they were nowhere near home. She glanced into the back, relieved to see all the kids still dozed.
Their friend Derek also slept, sprawled in the seat next to Tam. For the three days they’d remained at the sanctuary to be sure Tam remained at the utmost of health the young clone hadn’t slept a wink. He’d been too curious about everything.
Soon as they’d begun to drive, Tam had drifted off. Kimi and Aidan weren’t far behind. At Aidan’s slightly increased growth rate he’d been sleeping more, and when he woke to feed ate for a long time, mixing solid food along with brief hits of breast milk.
Velli sighed in relief. “They’re all still asleep. What was that all about? And why aren’t we home? We’ve been on the road long enough we should be a lot closer.”
“We’re being followed.” Kane’s words were enough to snap her attention back to him. His hands clenched the steering wheel so tight she worried over the normally sturdy device. “For about an hour.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. That’s why I waited to wake you. Thought maybe your paranoia passed onto me somewhere along the line.” He tapped the GPS to pull the view out. The circuitous route it showed had to have taken an hour at least. The twists and turns he’d employed in random areas and over various highways looked like a bowl of noodle soup.
“They’ve been following us that long?” Velli turned in her eat again. In the distance, maybe twenty yards back, two dim lights shone back. “Fuck.”
“Think it’s your old friends?”
“Well it sure isn’t your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.”
“Hunters, then.”
“Most likely. I’m not sure why they’re staying back. If they’ve been following us this long, their orders are beyond me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Unless I’ve done just what they wanted.”
Velli didn’t need to ask to see where his thoughts were heading. “If they were waiting for backup it would already be here.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Stop the crazy train, head south and stick on the route.”
“Are you making us switch off?”
Velli paused at the suggestion. She still had safe houses scattered across the country. While she’d liquidated some, instinct had her keep several. After a moment’s contemplation, she shook her head. “No. Just draw them away from home.”
Kane grabbed her wrist when she reached for her seatbelt. “What’re you doing?”
“I have a theory, no we have a theory. No better time to test it then in the now.” She twisted her arm free enough to half-climb over the seat. She put a sound-blocking bubble around Derek’s head before she used the same water to splash him right in the face.
The man jerked away so violently he nearly kicked Velli in the face. She caught his leg in time, grinning as he came to. With her finger at her mouth in a hushing motion, she dropped the bubble. Derek’s brow furrowed as he leaned forward. “What was that for?”
“You snore.”
“Shut up.”
“No. Just use a little magic, will you?” She leaned closer. “We’re being followed. I wonder if you can sense them with your magic.”
“Why would I be able to?” Through his doubt came a curious tickle of magic.
“Don’t disturb the kids,” Kane muttered.
“Right, sorry.” Derek reined it in. His features remained tense with concentration. After several tense, silent minutes, his brows rose. “Well, what have we here?”
“So you can sense them.” Velli glanced at Kane. “The question is, can you disable them? They’re insanely powerful, and fast, but they follow orders. I’ve found them resistant to most forms of magic, but are their implants immune?”
*~*
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by Sarah | Jun 17, 2016 | Books, General, Goals, Writing
June has been up and down for me. I made some major progress, but then crashed and burned when once again real life took a bite out of me.
The Wolf was released and is picking up in sales for it and The Tribe. I’m a hair away from finishing Red Zone, and made myself a list of all planned books (totaling 40, for the record).
So, when the real world stops getting its rocks off by kicking me in the teeth, I’m doing pretty well. I just wish I had a lot more time for writing. This second job is going to kill me…but the bills must be paid. ~sigh~
Onto the update!
First, my overall goals for the year…
- I’ve challenged myself to write 600,000 words in 2016. (at 229,644 as of 6/16/16. Not a huge leap from last check-in, but it’s only been 2 weeks, so I’m not disappointed.)
- I will build my audience and work harder at promotion. (This is going GREAT. Been talking with my publicist guru and she’s gotten me many new reviews, and given me great ideas on how to build. My sales are slowly starting to be impacting by the efforts.)
- I will regain my focus. (Getting better. Kids out of school and here all the time is throwing me off. Still, doing my best.)
- I will face my demon/salvation – the one story I’m afraid of. (Nope, not even a little bit yet)
- I will decide by July if I will return to Lake Point in 2017. (Still not a clue)
- I will prep all the things for print. ALL. The. Things. (Tribe and Wolf are in print. The Chief is next. I’m working on a few other things on the side when I can.)
- I will update my author website. (Just started. It’ll be slow going, but I have pages up for The Tribe series, which are my front runners right now. As I go, I’ll be adding all the books again).
And next is my list of projects. The list seems small without all the Lake Point books of the past on it, but I’m sure it will change and grow over the year. The books in ORANGE are current works-in-progress. The books in BLUE are new to the game.
- Into a Mirror Darkly (Morgana Chronicles 1) – 100k (~10k done)
- Dust Raiser (Dominion Falls 6) – 100k (Title Change!!)
- Dead Man’s Switch (Dominion Falls 7) – 100k
- Red Zone (Dominion Falls 5.5) – 40k (~32.5k done)
- The Raven (The Tribe #4) – 85k (DONE 5/15/16)
- The Child (The Tribe #5) – 85k
- Auld Lang Syne (Lake Point 12.5 ~ Revisiting Old Stories)
- Untitled Project (Hand Delivered Book 1) ~ 40k
- Escaping Humanity (Co-authoring w/ Mary Terrani) – 100k (60k done)
- Masked Hearts – Create new cover and re-release this one last SCP book (Plan to work on this in July)
- Fall (Hidden Senses #1) ~30k
Definitely still a big struggle this year. By making a list of all my books really has helped me find some more focus. Now if, like I said, real life would stop kicking me in the teeth I might get more accomplished. I have two more Tribe books scheduled for release in the coming months. I have more planned, and I have plans to release the re-vamped Dominion Falls series as well as getting some new books in that series on the way, and another series planned, not to mention the Lake Point series.
Many plans, but still struggling to find the time to get it all done. But I will. One way or another.
by Sarah | May 25, 2016 | Books, Challenge, General, Goals, Writing
How is it that it’s already May? My last update was in February…and then March was the month of sheer, utter hell around these parts. The bad sh*t kept happening. So there was little-no writing of any kind. By April I was working two jobs, and working too many hours at them…
Around Mid-April I started to get my ducks in a row finally. Then this week I set about really putting my big girl panties on and getting back down to business.
Through all of the chaos of my home life…I still managed to accomplish some good things like an ebook/print release in March (one sure shining spot), a few book tours that got me a bunch of lovely reviews, and another release coming up in about two weeks. Plus, this week I’ve actually gotten some words on the page again!
So, let’s see where I am in the goals I’d set. I hardly remember what I said, so this is going to be a journey to get through these for me. 🙂
First, my overall goals for the year…
- I’ve challenged myself to write 600,000 words in 2016. (at 212,324 as of 5/24/16. Running behind, but catching up.)
- I will build my audience and work harder at promotion. (This is going GREAT. Been talking with my publicist guru and she’s gotten me many new reviews, and given me great ideas on how to build. My sales are slowly starting to be impacting by the efforts.)
- I will regain my focus. (Struggling here. I lost my mojo–and the practices I’d put in place to keep on track. I’m re-establishing several of them now and trying to get back into the game.)
- I will face my demon/salvation – the one story I’m afraid of. (Nope, not even a little bit yet)
- I will decide by July if I will return to Lake Point in 2017. (Still not a clue)
- I will prep all the things for print. ALL. The. Things. (Tribe is done, I have The Wolf all set, and it’s onto the next. This is going on! I have a LOT of books to get through yet, but I have my print-formatting basis down. Loving it.)
And next is my list of projects. The list seems small without all the Lake Point books of the past on it, but I’m sure it will change and grow over the year. The books in ORANGE are current works-in-progress. The books in BLUE are new to the game.
- Into a Mirror Darkly (Morgana Chronicles 1) – 100k (~10k done)
- Switchback (Dominion Falls 6) – 100k
- Dead Man’s Switch (Dominion Falls 7) – 100k
- Red Zone (Dominion Falls 5.5) – 40k (~18k done)
- The Raven (The Tribe #4) – 85k (DONE 5/15/16)
- The Child (The Tribe #5) – 85k
- Auld Lang Syne (Lake Point 12.5 ~ Revisiting Old Stories)
- Untitled Project (Hand Delivered Book 1) ~ 40k
- Escaping Humanity (Co-authoring w/ Mary Terrani) – 100k (60k done)
- Masked Hearts – Create new cover and re-release this one last SCP book (Plan to work on this this week)
- Fall (Hidden Senses #1) ~30k
Clearly this year has been a struggle for me. I’m really determined to make sure the worst has passed. There will be days I don’t write, depending on editing, formatting, and the slew of other tasks I have to complete, but if I stay on target and write some every day, and keep my editing deadlines instead of pushing them back–I could see everything on my lists accomplished.
Now if only I could find those elusive EXTRA hours to add to my day. Any clue where to find those?
On February 8, 2013 my very first novel was published.