High Five for Book Four

Micah is finally done and on sale. Book number four for the year! Only...nine more to go. Why did I have to go and poop on my celebration?

Now, I'm all about finishing Vivi#2. She's a scrappy character who started as a sidekick. Originally, I was writing an urban fantasy about her sister Nola arriving in a city full of hostile males of their species. Vivi was supposed to join her after traveling around the country. When I started Vivi, I had no idea she would be as funny as she turned out.

Soon, her plot-line and romance with Hoyt were the length of a book. That's how Vivi became the star and poor Nola fell by the wayside.

Nola might one day get her series back after I've finished the three urban fantasy series I have now. Yet, I hoped to start several new series next year and none of them are Nola's. It's sad to leave a character behind, but I only have so much time to write.

I am excited to give my Hell Girl series a try. The idea of a woman who "falls" into hell came to me in a dream. I tried starting the book a few times, but it never felt right. Good thing too because I really didn't need more open series this year.

Blue's series will be the first one I finish. The idea of Blue was something I played with years ago in a non-paranormal book. Last fall, I suddenly had this image of her on a bridge ready to jump. Just like the old Blue except this time paranormal forces were at work. With nothing else plot-wise, I started writing and published it in November.

Sometimes, books come to me quickly and they write themselves like with Blue. Other times, like with Nola and Hell Girl, years might pass without any progress. All writers work differently and I often work differently from myself on any given day.

On Indie Angie, I'm changing my M.O. a little. Instead of interviewing an author with a new book out, I'm talking with a funny charming author I met on Goodreads. Julio is frigging hilarious and his answers are wild. Just formatting the interview has sent me into hysterics.

Another busy week ahead of me. No idea on Vivi#2 cover or blurb. Need to pick a zombie interview to post. I have a half dozen to choose from because of a recent surge in interest. Besides posting Julio's interview on Indie Angie, I need to do a few shout outs for Kristen Middleton (zombie and paranormal author). Even swamped, I find writing and blogging hella fun.

Lovely All Around

Last week, I whined about how I might never finish editing Micah. Well, I did finish and I gave it to Mustang Sally. Finally, I sent it to Marvelous Miranda. Now, I am free to obsess about another project. YAH! Micah should be published next week, giving me the two books I hoped to have published this month.

It's been a great week. I woke up today to find both Damaged books with Amazon rankings under a 1000! It's been a long year where I was happy for 15 sales a month. Now, to have a taste of success along with amazing fans, I want to enjoy every minute. Enough bragging, but it was a really awesome week.

My goal for August is to publish two more books. Ain't No Queen is the second Vivi book and I think I could complete the rough draft by early next week. Fingers crossed.

The second book is Blue Awakening. Need to light a fire under my ass on that one. If I can get those two done quickly, I will have given Angela love and can focus on Bijou.

The plan is to write the next three Damaged books back to back. My only distraction will be editing and proofing Scattered - the third Christian romantic fantasy for Dakota. Gigi is moving to the backburner. Along with the Shadow Sisters and the fourth Angelic Redemption book, Gigi will be my focus in Nov and Dec. Easy peasy, right?

This week for my Indie Angie interview, I showcased a New Adult romance author named Anne Whitney. While I haven't read The Art of Love yet, she seems super sweet and professional. For Where Zombies Come to Read, I interviewed H.E. Goodhue. I hadn't heard of his writing before, but he's already published two books in his Zombie Youth series. Interesting guy.

The BBA Whisperer Update was full of lame losers last week. One spammer has turned into a full-fledged BBA, so she'll get more love. A few other minor dipshits will get the shout out too. I wasn't able to focus on writing a mocklight for Krazy Monkey Ass this week. Maybe I'll get around to her next week. Probably not since school will start and I have a ton of appointments coming up. She'll get her chance eventually. For Bijou, I wrote a Q&A blog. For Dakota, I posted a cover reveal for Micah. Really awesome productive week.

I have a great family, amazing friends, and awesome fans. I'm doing what I love. Just a wickedly wonderful week. Hope everyone is having the same. Until next time, keep on truckin!

Coming Down From a Publishing High

Thursday is upon me and the week has been weird. I always go through a down period once I publish a book. After Damaged and the Beast, I also had to worry about sales and reviews (you know, because I actually had sales and reviews).

Well, Damaged and the Knight has sold well in its first few days and been received positively by fans of Beast. Even a few readers who didn't like the first book enjoyed Knight. My goal is obviously to improve with every one I write.

On Saturday, it'll be a year since I published Blood Tide. During that time, I tried new writing techniques such as first person POV. This was something I didn't love in the past, but the key seems to be to avoid starting every sentence with "I."

Genre-wise, I tried my hand at young adult, horror, fantasy, and romance. I learned how releasing too many series at one time will put an author behind on sequels. Mostly, I accepted how I need to settle down and focus on a few ideas, instead of writing every a-ha that pops into my head.

This year, I made many great friends - readers and authors alike. I've joined the readers' rights movement. I also learned how to blog. This one was the most difficult. When a blogger starts out, no one is really reading their stuff and it feels pretentious to write to nobody.

Eventually, I realized I would have more fun blogging if I blogged about other authors. Indie Angie stopped being my personal blog and became a showcase for indie authors. Even though I fall behind on my five blogs, I also have periods when it's all I do with my days. Best of all, after months of blogging, I feel less dorky writing my personal stuff down.

I'm currently working on Blue Awakening and it's a sad book in the beginning. I'm surprised by how quickly I jumped back into Blue's head and her world. On the days I have trouble with Blue, I work on Gigi and Vivi. The former is maybe a fourth complete while the latter is over half. My biggest goal is publishing Micah this month. I'd like to build the Dakota brand.

I plan to write a multi-part blog about branding as an indie author. I've learned a ton about this concept over the last year. Hadn't really thought about it when I first published, so I used my name for all seven of my books in different genres. Now, having worked as Bijou, I see the benefit of pen names and branding.

I also need to finish my "Why I Read Negative Reviews" series for the Indie Angie blog. It's been months since my last post and I need to light a fire under my ass.

This week, I planned to write a "Be the Best BBA You Can Be" post for the Whisperer blog. I wanted to profile Krazy Monkey Ass, yet publishing Knight distracted me.

I will write up the Weekly Whiny Whiner Update. Right now, it looks like we'll have Mary Lame back in the mocklight. Other recent raging asshats have passed their expiration date, so we'll skip them. Besides, Lame messed with my girl Grim and that shit is never cool. Still, wouldn't it be great if we could get through the week with only Mary Lame to mock?

I want to thank Miranda again for all of her support over the last few months. She not only beta reads my books and helps me run the BBA Whisperer group and blog. Miranda also gives me plenty of pep talks and advice. She's still my Sweet Chick from the Netherlands.

I'll finish off this post with more happy dancing to celebrate Knight's release!

La La Goes Coo Coo

Damaged and the Knight is finally published. Like always when I release a new book, I’m feeling a little nutter butter. I worry over formatting issues and typos. I worry people will hate it. I worry everyone will love it then I'll never be able to write anything as good. I just worry about a lot of random shit. Nutter butter becomes my middle name.

A day or two later, my brain latches onto new projects. I’ve already started working on Micah’s cover. The blurb is completely up in the air. I’m in the process of a final edit before sending it to beta readers.

Ideally, I’ll finish the edit this week and release the book by the one year anniversary of the release of The Rogue Hunter (now The Fallen). Double ideally, it wouldn’t take a year to publish the second book in a series.

The poor Shadow Sisters won’t have their sequel done until late autumn or early winter. The Sires will be my end of the year fun write.

Blue Awakening is my main writing project right now because I need to publish the book by August. Unlike the sequels for Gigi and Vivi, I've barely begun Blue#2. I wrote the first book in three weeks. Of course, the first book asked many questions. The second book must answer them. A tad harder obviously.

Where I live, school begins on the first of August. Poor Roo and Pooh will head back to school soon. Pooh might be ready to go back, but I sense drama is on the way for Roo. I don’t blame him. Fourth grade is tough. At the very least, the smell level is worse.

Today was just nuts. I woke up with a single purpose – finish and publish Knight. I felt relaxed enough then my Denny’s buddy Bill showed up and we talked for a while. Normally, this would be a happy thing except suddenly it was nearly eleven and I hadn’t gotten as much done as I planned.

Stress!!! So much stress that lunch tasted weird and I blamed the food. Arnie tasted the chicken/ potato/ broccoli skillet and figured it was just me. The Build Your Own Burger tasted better, but I still didn’t enjoy it. I know! How is that even possible?

Miranda pep talked me until I settled down. Once I was home, I craved physical activity (get your minds out of the gutter), so I mowed the front yard.

When Tigger came out to take over, I took a shower. Oh, and I locked the screen door. Twenty minutes later, I realized the annoying noise was him knocking. Poor Tigger.

So today La La was at her nuttiest. Yes, I’m talking about myself in the third person. I’m that fucking nutty. How nutty? Mel Gibson Sugar Tits level of crazy!

Tomorrow, La La will work harder and be less wacky chick, more professional author. Yeah, we’ll see how that works out.