It's Finally Here

I'm excited to announce Of Bone and Ruin - Book Two in the Dragon Ridden Chronicles is now up on Amazon. This book has been a long time coming so I'm excited that it's finally here. It was never my intention to wait so long between publishing Dragon Ridden and its sequel. Somehow time got away from me and before I knew it several years had passed. I promise not to wait so long to release the next book in the series. I hope you have as much fun with Tate and the crew as I did.

An ancient discovery has been made close to the city of Aurelia—one that promises wealth and power equal only to the dangerous secrets lying at its heart.

With three powerful groups vying for control of the discovery’s unlimited potential, it will take a delicate touch not to tip the scales toward war. Something Tate Fisher, a newly accepted dragon-ridden with a bit of a memory problem, has never been known for possessing.

Tate must learn to navigate the undercurrents of this society if she wants her friends and empire to come out the other side in one piece. Because these secrets involve Tate, and they don’t intend to let her go so easily.

Click here for a sample and to learn more.

Mother's Day and Chapter Four

To all the mother's out there, I wanted to wish you a happy Mother's Day. I hope you have a wonderful day spent with your families. For the rest of us, I hope you took a moment to tell your mother and grandmother how much they've meant to you over the years.

In other news, chapter four is ready and posted. Enjoy!

Shifting Seas - Chapter Four

Shifting Seas Chapter Three

Next chapter is up on the blog. Click on the link below for a look.

Shifting Seas - Chapter Three

Shifting Seas Short Story

I've been working on a side project for a couple of weeks now. It started as a challenge to myself and grew from there. Since it has been so long since I published Dragon-Ridden, I wanted to write a short story set in the Dragon-Ridden world that featured a side character from the first book. For whatever reason, Jost and how he first met Tate got stuck in my head. It led to all sorts of questions about Jost and his crew that I hadn't considered before.

The more I thought about doing a short story with Jost as the main character, the more excited I became. One of my favorite things about today's era of publishing is how authors have begun to explore the worlds they've created through short stories or extra scenes from other characters points of view. I'm not going to lie, there are a few authors that I cyber stalk under the hope they will post one of these shorts to their blogs or Facebook feeds. I've wanted to do something similar in my own series for a while now.

Surprisingly, it was a lot more difficult to write a short story from Jost's POV than I thought it would be. I'm still trying to figure out how that could be considering that the short story I wrote is less than a quarter of the length of a full book. It took me way longer to write this than I had first allotted. 

For the next couple weeks, I will release a chapter a week through the blog. At the end, I will create a page on my website that people can go to read the full book. I hope you enjoy Jost and his adventures as much as I have. To read the first chapter, click on the link below.

Shifting Seas - Chapter One


Happy Reading!

Odds and Ends

For the most part, I am happy being an independent author, and I am grateful that I started writing at a time when the opportunities for indies have never been better. There are many benefits to being an indie. For me, a big part of the reason I gravitated to this route is because I enjoy having the ultimate control over my books. No one is going to put more effort than me in ensuring that I'm putting out the best product possible. That being said, there are times in the publishing process where I would give my right arm for the ability to off load the book onto a team who would take care of the necessary tasks so I can get back to the business of writing.

For example, finding a title. That might seem like an easy thing to do. After all, it's only a few words. Wrong. That's so far from the truth. For whatever reason, it seems that the fewer words there are, the harder it is to find the right ones.

For Dragon 2, I spent a whole afternoon coming up with names and then crossing them out. Every time I thought I had something, friends and families pointed out a flaw. Cue the frustration. Then when I did find a name I liked, I sat on it for several weeks because there was just something about it that didn't feel right. When all was said and done, it took me over a month to come up with just a few words.

The second part, the one I hate even more than finding a title and the part I'm at now, is writing the book blurb. The piece that is supposed to convince a reader to take a chance on you and the manuscript that you've put months/years of work into. Since publication, I've rewritten Pathfinder's blurb four times, and I still don't feel like I came up with the best option.

It would be so nice to tell someone 'here, you do it.' Time is the ultimate resource for a writer. Especially one who has a full time job and would like some semblance of a social life. There never seems to be enough of it. That being said, when I am able to find a name or write a blurb I like, I feel like I could take on the world. It's a catch 22. I'd like someone to take the task off my plate, but I feel so accomplished when I succeed.

Snippet Saturday

Because someone asked so nicely for a snippet I decided to release a short passage from the second book in the dragon series. Happy reading on this beautiful saturday.

Why is it that everyone we run into in this city wants to pick a fight with us?”

Night didn’t answer, remaining focused on the potential enemies.

“I think it’s your lack of charming personality,” Dewdrop told Tate seriously. “You’re like sandpaper. You just rub people the wrong way.”

“I take offense to that. I am very charming.”

“Umi.”

“She was a deluded, love sick fool intent on betraying her people and destroying a peace treaty. It would have been more worrisome if she had found me charming, because it would mean I was the kind of charming that appealed to traitors and cowards.”

“The Red Lady.”

“Psychotic doesn’t count.”

“Lucius.”

“Hey,” Tate said with outrage. “Lucius found me very charming.”

Dewdrop gave her a get real look. “He knocked you unconscious and threw you in a cell.”

“But he didn’t kill me.”

“I’m sure if you’d given it time he would have.”

Hello 2017

2016 was a good year for me. I released two books, both of which doubled the goals I set for them. My real world job is going great and I'm dating an amazing person. As great as 2016 was, I'm hoping 2017 will be even better.

I have a lot of goals for 2017 so it's already shaping up to be a very busy year. I'm hoping to publish three books and a novella. Just typing those words has me stressing out about being behind.

To give you an idea of what I'm facing, here's a glimpse at what's coming this year.

Pathfinder's Way will be out on audio book on Jan. 18. I'm also planning a print version of this book sometime in January.

Midnight's Emissary, the sequel to Shadow's Messenger, will be published on Feb. 7 in both print and ebook.

Dragon-Ridden 2 is already written and I'm working on the second draft. A novella set in the Dragon world featuring the character of Jost has been plotted out. Both of these are looking at a summer release.

I'm also intending to write and release the sequel to Pathfinder's Way in late fall. This is the item I'm really worried about. The story for Shea tends to be a lot more complicated than the other worlds. Pathfinder's took me three years to write. Trying to cut that time down to six months for a first draft is giving me nightmares. Granted, I took an extended break in the middle of writing the first book, because I got so stuck that I couldn't figure out how to end it. Hopefully, I've learned from that experience and can stay on task this time.

I also need to move my website and blog to a different platform as the functionality in my current platform is not as robust as I would wish. I meant to get it done before the first but it just wasn't happening with all the other things on my plate.

I'm also contemplating attending a writer's conference in May. I'm waiting to hear back about my travel schedule for my real world job before I register.

That's it. That's my road map to making 2017 even better than 2016. It's going to be busy and stressful, but I think worth it at the end.

Knowing when to push through

Sometimes writing is knowing when to quit. By that I mean, knowing when your creative mind just can't put words on paper. Any words that you manage to tear out of you just end up going into the trash before your next writing day.

The other side of writing is knowing when to push yourself to stay with it. Sometimes you find that you do your best work when you're tearing the words out of you one by one, sentence by sentence. It's hard, boy is it hard, but at the end of the day you look back and are amazed by what you created even if you cursed every moment you spent fighting with the muse.

Knowing which is which can be difficult and something I struggle with even today. Am I just being lazy? Or is my mind truly not capable of producing a coherent thought?

Today was one of those days. Where every moment was agony and I questioned whether I should just throw in the towel. There's always tomorrow, after all. This time I was triumphant in defeating the muse. Whether any of those pages will be worth keeping, I won't know until tomorrow when I sit down to battle the muse once again. For now, I'm just grateful I could advance the story in some small way.

The Middle

Photo taken while fishing

I've been a little absent of late due to travel for work and pleasure, but that doesn't mean I haven't been writing. I have. Every spare moment I can. The sequel for Dragon-Ridden is progressing, and I am well into the mid section of the book.

This is the part where I always get a little nervous. Do I have too much plot left to wade through? Too little? Does the plot make sense? Hm, I want to add this and this and this, but I don't know if it makes sense with the current story. The list goes on and on. Sometimes the indecision and second guessing can slow things to a grinding halt. I've found it works best if I ignore my inner doubter and just plunge on, trusting that everything can be fixed in the rewrite.

Right now, I'm eyeing how much I've written and how much of my plan I still have left to write while trying to determine if maybe the story needs to be simplified. Or not. Every book is different, which makes it difficult to decide if I am trying to cram too much story into one book. Sometimes scenes go quick and sometimes they drag on. As is the case in a certain scene in the first half of the book. Other times scenes you didn't account for pop up to further complicate matters.

I feel like I've got a beast by the tail and am trying to wrestle it into submission while blindfolded with one hand behind my back. That's always a difficult and slightly uncomfortable place to be.

Alas, it is time to put words on paper and hope they make some sort of sense. Wish me luck.

First Stage Complete

Whew. I did it. I've managed to finish outlining the plot for the next book. It only took running out of ink for my sharpy, using up the last of my note cards and covering my entire magnetic wall with those cards to do it.

I've got a map now. All that's left is to start writing. I'm starting to get excited for the new story. The ideas are buzzing around my head like busy little bees, and the characters are starting to come to life again. I love this part of the process. There are so many possibilities.

I'll let the plot simmer for a few days  to see if I want to change anything, but I've got a good feeling about the direction it's heading. This next book will feature Tate and her friends and will be released after the sequel to Shadow's Messenger. I'm hoping also to create a short story in her world featuring Jost to reintroduce readers to the gang as it's been awhile since I released the first book in the series. That's only if I have time though. So many books to write; so little time.