Twilight's Herald

Twilight's Herald

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Aileen Travers thought she had it all figured out. Part private investigator, part fixer to the supernatural community, she was slowly building a reputation as the go-to vampire in Columbus. If you had a supernatural problem and nowhere to turn, she was the girl for you. The best part—no one had tried to kill her in weeks.

Aileen’s peaceful existence comes crashing down around her when an unwilling visit to the police station results in her picking up a stalker—or two. Now, Aileen is dodging suspicious looking portals while evading kidnapping attempts.

Looks like Aileen has a new client. Herself.

Available June 10

Aileen 5 Small Teaser

Edits are still ongoing in Aileen 5, but here is a small teaser of what's coming.

“Don’t die, Aileen. You’re a source of endless entertainment for the flock.” Natalia sprang into the air, winging her way back to the rest.

I scowled at her retreating back. “What does that mean?”

She lifted a hand over her shoulder in a wave.

“Natalia? You and your sisters aren’t sitting around watching me, are you?”

No answer.

Damn it. They were.

“We’ll revisit this conversation at a later time,” I muttered under my breath as I stood, facing the woods. For now, I had a stalker to deter.

News

I'm pretty excited to announce that Shadow's Messenger is now available in print for all those who prefer the physical feeling of a book in your hands while you read. It's the first of my books that I've turned into a print edition so it's been quite a learning experience so far.

Being a big fan of ebooks for the convenience they provide and having bought ebooks pretty exclusively for a few years now, I didn't expect to get as excited as I did to receive a physical copy of my book. After all, it's not as if it hasn't already been published. People have read it, commented on it. A sequel has even been written and is currently in edits. You'd think my ability to get excited would have dried up and this would be pretty routine. Not so.

There's something about holding a physical representation of all your hard work that changes the game. The moment I pulled it out of its package and saw its glossy cover a thrill shot through me, causing me to dance around my house chanting 'it's so pretty, it's so pretty.' I may have had a Golem moment where I stroked the cover while saying, "Precious. My precious." Thankfully no one was around to see it.

This isn't the only exciting news in my world, but I will have to wait to tell you for a week or so. Check back later this month for an update. 

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The beginning stages.....again

It's official. I've started laying out the plot for the sequel to Aileen's still unnamed book. It'll be the first sequel I've written so I'm a little nervous. Hopefully, it'll be easier because the world and characters are already established. Either way, I'm hoping that extensively outlining the plot will make the writing itself a breeze or at least not an uphill battle from start to finish.

It feels like I learn something new with every book, whether that's how to fix the pacing issues to the importance of a good outline BEFORE I start writing. For Aileen's first book, I spent several weeks fleshing out the story. It seemed to make the writing go easier. Instead of sitting and staring at the computers for hours trying to figure out what happens next, I could just let the words flow because I already had a road map of where the characters needed to go and how they would get there. An unintended benefit for this method was that the rewrites were nowhere near as extensive as they were for previous books. It cut down on the writing and editing process from start to finish.

That said, this beginning stage is both exciting and frustrating. On one hand I get to let my mind wander down uncharted roads that lead to fantastical ideas. On the other hand, it can be tedious and there are days/weeks where it feels like no idea is germinating anywhere in my brain. It's enough to make someone want to tear their hair out. :-)

Let's hope I still have hair at the end of this.

Welcome To The New Year

I can't believe it, but 2016 is here and has been for ten days.Where did the last year go? Somehow it sped past and was gone before I realized it. To be fair, last year was incredibly busy on both the personal and writing front.  I had a lot to be grateful for last year. The biggest accomplishment on the writing side is that I finished not one, but two books (I finished the second book's first draft on Christmas Day).

Right now I'm in the process of putting final touches to the first before sending to a copy editor. I forgot how much extra work is involved when readying a book for publishing. After sending to the editor, I'll need to make any changes they suggest, then either design a cover or reach out to a graphic designer to do that part for me.

The part I hate the most, though, is drafting the blurb for the book. It's one of those jobs I would love to farm out to someone because I'm never quite satisfied with what I create. What it is about coming up with two to three paragraphs that creates such frustration, I don't know. Especially when I just got finished writing a full length novel. It's the part I dread the most. At this point I've rewritten this blurb at least four times. I'm still not happy with it :-|.

Sigh, time to stop whining and take another crack at it. Hopefully, I'll finish that part today.

Christmas is near o_o

It's the week of Christmas, and I am not ready. Not at all. My house is a disaster area. My decorations aren't up yet. My Christmas shopping is only half done. Usually, I'm a little more prepared than this but this month has been hectic and the holidays have managed to creep up on me faster than expected.

For instance, last week I was in Colorado partly for work and partly for pleasure. As a result, I lost a week to the madness. I managed to get some presents while there so it wasn't a complete bust in terms of Xmas preparation. As a side note: Denver is awesome. We went to the Denver Festivus, a beer festival, in an old hangar which doubled as a museum. They had all local beers and even I, who usually doesn't care for beer, found a few I like. We also went hiking at Red Rocks which has an amphitheater built into the side of the the rocks. Pictures are below if you're interested.

Now though, Christmas with all the impending madness is around the corner and I am slightly freaking out. In addition to the usual amount of family, I have friends in town so I will be pretty busy. This is both good and bad. Good because I get to hang out with some people I rarely see anymore. Bad because I am so close to being done with this book that I can practically taste it, and I just can't physically find the time to write the ending. Grr. I just need two days of steady writing time. Two! I think I could finish if I had just that much time, but I have so many impending plans that I don't know if  I'll swing it.

Wish me luck. For now, enjoy the photos while I try to carve some writing time into my schedule.

The end is near...

Of the current book I'm writing, anyway. I'm entering the end game and gearing up for the final confrontation between my characters. It's gets my adrenaline going to be this close, but at the same time I still have several weeks of writing left.

I'm about three quarters of the way through and have officially entered the stage of just wanting to be done. My brain is so fried that I don't even care whether what I'm writing makes sense. At this point, I've promised myself that all flaws and bad sentences will be caught and polished away in the editing and re-writing phase. All I can think is 'the end is in sight. Must get there as fast as possible before my brain deflates.'

So to give my brain a break and also entertain others, here is a photo of my cat. She's found a new toy. It's called tissue paper.

Enjoy.

To my frustration, I've discovered that taking a good photo of a black cat inside is nearly impossible. Her fur makes all her features just blend together until all you can see is a blob. I refuse to give up though, hence the photo :-|