Another FREE eBook - 11:11 Anna's Awakening

How's the weekend going for you?

If you're stuck inside because of the cold or rain, or just because you enjoy hanging out at home to relax the week away, I hope you're enjoying your day.

If you are relaxing, are you in the mood to read a book? If so, I have a short story available for you, and it's FREE!

Beginning today Nov. 10 through Monday Nov. 12, the eBook of 11:11 Anna's Awakening will be available for free, so if you don't yet have a copy, make sure to take advantage of this offer before it ends.

Get your copy here

If you're curious, here's an idea of what the story is about:

Everyone deals with grief in their own way.  Death can bring families closer together; sometimes it can tear them apart. Only time can heal the wounds to build stronger relationships and while some relationships survive, sadly, others do not. This is the story of two parents who suffer a great loss and attempt to build a new relationship with the memory of their loved one between them. But as they both work through their grief, their relationship is threatened by many things…fear, anger, selfishness, even greed. As husband and wife tend to their needs to survive the numbing loss, one of them must become acutely aware of these threats in order to change their fate.    

A few facts about this story: 11:11 comes from the idea of what it might mean to see a particular number again and again, which is what occurs to my character, Anna, while she's dealing with the loss of her child along with a fractured marriage. This is a story where I thought I knew what was going to happen to the protagonist, but she surprised me and ultimately, the ending did as well. It's stories like this, and characters who determine their own fate above what I believe I have in store for them, that continue to make writing such an enjoyable calling.

I hope you take the opportunity to obtain your free copy and if you do and you enjoy the story, please remember to leave a review on Amazon. Every single review helps immensely.

Thanks & enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

      

The top 3 things I’ll focus on this November

I’m a self-proclaimed klutz and it’s not uncommon for me to wind up with bruises and no memory of how I got them. My husband just shakes his head when he hears me exclaim after stubbing a toe or running my leg into the corner of a table or slamming my arm into a door frame. Actual falling, fortunately, isn’t usual for me but I have to stay on guard to avoid completely tripping and landing flat on my face or back. 

I enjoy this time of year when “falling back” has nothing to do with my inability to walk a straight line or avoid hitting a solid object. When falling back gives me the opportunity to sleep in, even though I’m getting up at the normal time, and when it allows the day to move just a bit slower each time I realize it’s not as late as I think it is.

Gaining that extra hour is just one more bonus to this, my favorite time of year, along with fuzzy socks, hot drinks, cozy blankets while watching movies and the beautiful array of colors outside as the trees shed their summer coats.

Today I’m using the extra hour to soak in what a good month October was, as I review what I have mapped out for the month of November. As noted in my last post, October was going well, both with my writing and my personal life, and the trend continued with a high word count the last full week of the month and fun times celebrating Halloween.

To keep up with the trend, I expect good things from the month of November. So far, the month has begun with another book event of my own at the annex of a local church. This was a first for me as far as venues go, so I wasn’t sure what to expect and while it worked out a bit differently than other events, I enjoyed what turned in to a type of round table discussion. I answered questions and discussed my books and my writing life, but each of the ladies who attended also added to the discussion as it pertained to their lives, their pets or their work history, whether they were currently working or living on retirement. One of those in attendance was formerly employed by the sheriff’s office, is now currently working as an investigator for the state and also has rescue dogs, so she and I had quite a lot to chat about. Another brought her little dog to the event, and for awhile that small dog stole the show with how adorable it was. I feel good about the fact that as I continue to hold book events, I can still be pleasantly surprised by how the events turn out. There really are no dull moments when it comes to this writing life and because I’m starting out the month with a grateful journal, I’ll place that in the number one spot.

I’ve decided that the rest of November I will focus on three things: writing, health/wellness and family. I had thought of entering NaNoWriMo this year but after some reflection on what that would mean for me, I decided this year was not a good time to join. NaNoWriMo requires 50,000 words to win and I’m about three-quarters of the way through my fifth Jorja mystery, so I won’t need 50,000 words to complete the novel. Also, I think NaNoWriMo is better suited to jumping in head first on a new novel and I can’t justify setting aside my current WIP just to join the challenge. I’ll continue to write as I have been, knowing that I should be able to look forward to a completed first draft by the end of November. Hooray!

Instead of joining the NaNoWriMo challenge, I decided to join two other challenges that will focus on health and wellness. The first will focus on a new fitness routine and tips that I can use throughout the month, which is much needed when holiday foods can cause havoc on the scale and I’d prefer to enjoy holiday gatherings without counting calories. The other challenge involves making time for some soul care and includes keeping a gratitude journal, meditation, prayer and fasting. After all the fixings of a turkey dinner at the end of the month, I’m sure I’ll be more than ready for some fasting.

Those two challenges won’t take much from me or require too much of my time during the day, but each will benefit me greatly during this season and while I continue to focus on taking care of myself while I also keep up with my weekly word count.

Last, but certainly not least, I look forward to time spent with family. Each day is a good opportunity to make memories, which is something I’ll take advantage of when I can and continue to be grateful for. It’s also what I’ll end this post on so that I can add it to today’s grateful list.

Have a great day and a great(ful) week!

Happy Halloween - here's a treat for you!

Happy Halloween!

How do you celebrate the holiday? With young children running house to house for handfuls of candy? Or with your friends at a festive costume party? Maybe you binge watch scary movies? Or maybe you don't celebrate the holiday at all. Whatever you do, I hope it's been a good week either way.

If you do enjoy Halloween, and you also enjoy ghost stories, here's a treat for you. The eBook edition of 1313 Psycho Path will be available for FREE today and tomorrow ONLY. If you don't have a copy yet, make sure to take advantage and get your copy today.

Grab your free eBook here

Have a great day and a faBOOlous Halloween!

October is a mixed bag, filled with fun

A river walk in October is my kind of treat

The month of October has become a mixed-bag for me but thankfully, it’s a mixture that hasn’t made me feel overwhelmed, and hasn’t affected my word count.  

On the writing side of life, I’ve enjoyed having more time to write and being able to reach my daily word count on a regular basis. This might sound corny but it makes each day feel complete.    Much of my summer and also September involved completing and promoting my non-fiction book, time spent away on vacation, author conferences and webinars, marketing and promotion, and admin duties a mile long. I’m happy to step away from the more “serious” side of the business so that I can focus most of my time on the “creative” side for a bit.

And on that note, I’m still trying to decide whether I should join NaNoWriMo this year. Today I had the thought that if I’m making my daily word count anyway, it won’t hurt to join, and it will help me stay on task through the holidays. 

If I decide to join NaNoWriMo, I’ll be posting on my blog to help with accountability.

Get your copy here

Speaking of holidays, Halloween is coming…duh…but I would be remiss to remind you I have a short ghost story out. 1313 Psycho Path is a quick read, apparently a bit scary to some (I’ve been told), and at .99 cents for the eBook (or free if you have Kindle Unlimited) and $5.50 for the paperback (free shipping if you are an Amazon prime member), it’s less than a large latte at the coffee shop. 

Or you can read it my way, with a paperback in one hand and a Pumpkin Spice latte    in the other. Yup, I’m one of those.

Okay, just had to get that dash of promotion out of the way.

One last note about my writing life: I received a memory on Facebook of my very first book signing after No Mother of Mine was published. To anyone who has been following me since the beginning, it has been six years since that day!

Moving on to the personal side of life, I’ve been able to spend some quality time with family, including out-of-town relatives who ventured to our neck of the woods for a visit. Due to the beautiful weather we’re still having (although it was gloomy today), I’ve been able to take Jozee out regularly for walks that we can both enjoy, especially with all of the beautiful falls colors.

Jozee loves a good walk

There were a few tasks around the house we had to tackle, since the weather will be changing soon…putting outside furniture away or under cover, burning branches that had been piled up and put on hold due to the burn ban, cleaning out gutters, recaulking the windows…those sorts of chores. It always feels good to play the responsible homeowner.

As noted by a "younger" person,
it's a true life save button!

I didn’t mean to, but I also spent some time organizing a file cabinet in my office. It was an author-related task, mind you, because I realized I had file folders full of records and documents I used for my PI business that I no longer need. That file space could now be better utilized for all of my writing materials I’ve accumulated over the years. Why am I sharing this? Because I thought it was hilarious when I found these floppy discs in a batch of documents I still had from when I first became a licensed PI. I don’t know what’s more interesting: the fact that these discs were very old (from the late 1990’s) or the fact that I still had them! I have repeatedly been called a packrat, and I have been working on it the past few years, but it’s going to take me some time to get through everything. J

Overall, October has been a “fun” month, with fall colors, family, finding plenty of time to write, freeing up space, finally tackling necessary homeowner tasks and, of course, my favorite: the fur babies.

Carry on, read on and enjoy the rest of October!

Reading tires Booker out

Productive writer = happy author

My blog has a new look! What do you think?

Giving my blog a facelift has been an item on my never-ending to-do list for quite some time, but I just kept putting it off. I finally put an afternoon aside and got to work, changing the tag line, adding tabs for readers and writers, and changing the whole look and feel of the blog. I personally like it and I hope you do too.

Booker has had a habit of sleeping on my desk since I got him -
and he takes up a lot more room now that he's 6 months!

Honestly, I’ve been down with a head cold for almost two weeks, but I’m happy to note that I’ve been quite productive. Not only did I keep up with my daily word count and give my blog a new look, I completed admin tasks necessary due to the merging of my paperback and eBook publishing distributors, promoted my latest book with an online book promotion, scheduled a book signing for next month, took part in an online webinar relating to author platform and also took part in an all-day online writer’s conference.

And now, with everything I’ve learned in a short-period of time, my head is swimming…I mean, seriously swimming and waterlogged with information. Due to that fact, I feel the need to organize, catalog, decipher, chart out, map out and make sense of all the tidbits of details circulating through my author-mind.

That tends to happen whenever I attend a writer’s conference like the one earlier last month or take part in an all-day online conference, as I did yesterday. The bulk of what I learned from the conference yesterday was mainly about marketing, and this is in addition to the author platform webinar, as well as a book launch webinar only a week before that.

I don’t believe I’m signed up for any additional webinars or conferences, so now is probably a good time to take a step back to evaluate what I’ve learned and figure out how I can utilize certain marketing steps that will benefit me the most. And just going through the notes I have now from the conferences, there’s plenty of information for me to create to-do lists that will last me through the end of this year. However, in order to stick with my business plan, much of what I’ve learned will be focused on after the first of the year.

There’s the acknowledgement that I should take a step back, along with the fact that I’ve had good momentum with my own writing, specifically number 5 of the mystery series, and I would like to keep it up without getting bogged down with too many to-do lists when it comes to marketing or platform building. I have to also consider time away due to upcoming holidays and other events, one of which is NaNoWriMo if I decide to join this year, not to mention “me” time for self-care so that I can hopefully avoid getting sick again. Besides that, at some point I have to figure out when to get on my editor’s schedule; if I reserve a spot too soon, I won’t be ready when my time comes up; if I wait too long, she won’t have any spots open when I’m ready for her services. It’s a dilemma that can be avoided with some planning, which is why my business plan is important. If I continue to follow it, the plan is meant to help me stay on task with a schedule so that I can set and meet deadlines.

So I’ll continue to work on my series, as I attempt to complete the current tasks on my business plan, while I also put together marketing to-do lists for the coming year based on what I’ve recently learned. Each will tick off a box for my creative self, my business side and the student in me and each will give me much to look forward to.

But right now, I’m going to take advantage of some “me” time and enjoy a nice quiet evening with my family and a few zombies (I’m a Walking Dead fan J).

Have a great week!

Free eBook promo ends tomorrow!

Just sharing this promotion again in case anyone who follows this blog may have missed it...

The eBook version of Note to My Author Self is available for FREE but only through tomorrow. Grab your copy here, share this post with others who you think might want their own copy, and don't forget to leave a review on Amazon. Authors really only want two things... readers who enjoy reading their books and readers who are willing to leave a review about their books.

During the next few months, I plan to promote additional books so keep a lookout if you're interested.

I hope you are enjoying your first few days of October. I can definitely feel the chill in the air as we continue to move into fall. Until next time, stay warm and keep on reading!

Interested in a free eBook? Grab a copy while you can!

Just popping in to say hello and to let you know about a promotion currently running on my latest book, Note to My Author Self.

The eBook version of the book is currently available for free on Amazon and will be free for the next few days!

For those who enjoy reading paperbacks versus digital (I understand...that's how I roll too), I would love to accommodate you but if you can make some time for an eBook, this is a fairly short read so wouldn't take too much screen time.

Grab your free copy here before the promotion ends later this week!