Happy Birthday, Candy Girl!!!

Today is a very special day. No, not because of the high five for book four in 2014. Even better! Candy Girl a.k.a Agent M a.k.a Thunderkitten a.k.a Marvelous Miranda is celebrating her birthday!!!!

We "met" a little over a year ago and have never spoken except online, but she's still my BFF. After Sally, Miranda is the first person to know what's happening in my RL. She's always willing to give me pep talks (even the tough love ones). Creative and quirky, Candy Girl shows me things I would never see on my own. There's no way to express how blessed I feel to know her.

Used is her "baby" too because she found the guy's picture and took it in a completely different direction than I would have. The consensus is the cover is smoking hot. Aces, CG!!!

More proof of Miranda's awesomeness is the thank you she got in Emilia Winters's new romance Electric. Yep, everyone cool loves Candy Girl.

This week has been great and it's only Tuesday! Used is out. Miranda is celebrating her sweet birthday. Pooh is showing real signs of improvement after only a week on the new medicine. Roo is out of school. With the little man on summer break, I'm also on vacation since I'm his teacher. More time to write!

With Sally and Miranda's help, I made my deadlines for both Damaged and the Dragon and Used. Planning to stay in my writing groove, I've already begun working on Damaged and the Bulldog and my side project of Blue Awakening (yes, I've said that before). My goal is to release twenty books by the two-year anniversary of the first book I published. I seriously doubt I'll make two more books before the end of July, but one can dream.

With so many great books coming out in June, Miranda will keep her Kindle busy. Just this week, there are new books from Emilia, S.N. Garza (my girl Stephanie), Amity Cross, and Jo Wylde.

Speaking of awesome authors, I will publish the interview with Sera Bright this week. Yep, I'm finally getting caught up. I do think there's a Deadly Dee review I need to post too, but that's for another day.

Candy Girl deserves the best birthday imaginable. She's a great friend, co-blogger, beta reader, illustrator, BBA Whisperer (makes those whiners wet themselves), and all around awesome chick. I hope everyone enjoys the songs on this week's post. They're two of Miranda's favorites. :)

Everybody Wants You

Oh, boy, it's been awhile since I blogged, but things have been hectic.

Last month, my family marked the twenty-first year since Freckles joined our Lord in Heaven. March is always a difficult month for us and my son Pooh's worsening health made this year even trickier. I'm actually typing this blog from the hospital where he's been since Wednesday.

I've also been struggling with writing the last month for obvious reasons. And not so obvious ones. Nick from Damaged and the Dragon was giving me fits. The guy felt like a stranger, yet I needed to get into his head. Finally, he opened up to me and I was able to get into a writing groove. I'm still expecting to finish both Dragon and Used this month.

After hitting the best ranking of my short career, Gator continues to sell better than I expected from a standalone novella. There are so many unknown factors about why one book gains attention and another book never does. Whenever new indies get frdustrated, I tell them I published nine books before one sold well. If you love writing, don't give up.

Once again I'm running behind, but I still have high hopes for 2014's publishing schedule. My goal is to finish the open Angela series (Gigi, Vivi, and Blue) this year. I have over a dozen ideas for Bijou alone, so I need to prioritize what I'll focus on in the future.

This last week, Miranda worked her sweet ass off designing a teaser for Dragon. I just have no talent for marketing. If it was left to me, I would take a picture and stick words next to it. Bam! Done! Candy Girl is a godsend when visuals are needed. She's also helping design the cover for Used.

The last week hasn't been all stress and work. I also enjoyed lots of laughs at the expense of the asshats. Namely Mel from STGRB. In a nutshell, she accused me of creating a rival hate site plus she thinks I'm Miranda. I won't go into the specifics. Let's just say she's obsessed and clueless.

Mel learned the truth the hard way and now has egg all over her face. All last week, she kept mocking how I didn't respond to her allegations. Why would I remain silent if I was innocent of her lies?

After years of working and living around jayholes, I've learned sometimes silence is golden. When I was young, I thought I needed the last word to win. The reality is silence or carefully worded non-answers hurt idiots more. Why? With time, they will bury themselves in their lies and paranoia. It's all about the slow sell.

So I refrained from rolling my eyes publicly at Mel and she doubled down on her dumb. Works for me. I support the jerks in the indie publishing world attacking each other rather than readers.

This is the first year I've done taxes since I've had substantial sales to report. Eek! People kept warning me to squirrel away money for taxes, but I didn't listen. It wasn't awful, but a little startling nonetheless. Squirreling for next year is my new hobby.

Well, I better get back to Dragon and Used if I ever plan to publish them this month.