Pitch Wars - #PimpMyBio

I'll probably fluff this out from time to time. I have been mostly focused on getting my entry ready for Pitch Wars. As a result, I hadn't thought about participating in PimpMyBio. But here goes --

Who am I?

I am a mom of two, a 13-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son. I work full-time outside of the house as an attorney. I have degrees in law, of course, and multiple degrees in business.

Our household is a British-American one. More specifically, I am American and my husband is a citizen of the United Kingdom. As a result, our children are dual citizens. I met my husband while attending the University of Sheffield, while I was studying for one of my law degrees. During that time in addition to doing my best to be a hardworking law student, I traveled throughout England and Scotland (Wales, I didn't get to - a disappointment). I also traveled to France (a bus ride through from Calais), Germany (Munich - gorgeous city), Italy (Rome and Milan), and Belgium (Brussels and Bruges). Some of my best memories are of driving through the Highlands in Scotland. Yes, I did endager a bunch of people by trying to learn to drive on the other side of the road. It was also districtating passing by such beautiful landscape and having to keep my focus on the road.

I don't know if this makes me unique in any way, as a Pitch Wars hopeful, but I am a self-published indie author. Although I know some authors look down upon self-published authors, I have no regrets about self-publishing. It has allowed me an incredible freedom to write whatever I want without worrying about publisher preferences or thoughts as to what might sell. So, I hope my status as an Indie isn't held against me. However, it is what it is and I don't want to get into that debate, nor am I going to justify why I chose this path (at least not beyond the freedom issue). Suffice it to say that I respect each person's choice of path as the one best suited for him or her and I hope others will treat me the same. I have noted a handful of other indie authors participating as well, so that does give me comfort.


Why PitchWars?

I came upon PitchWars for the first time last year when the results were being announced. Even though I had no hat in the ring, I watched the preannouncement shows. It rose my curiosity and inspired me to dive in and learn more. As a result, last year, I decided that should I have a manuscript ready in time for the next PitchWars, and not long before PitchWars, I might enter. It was "might" because, in addition to my concern about being accepted as an Indie, I would also need to have a manuscript ready in a closely-timed fashion. There was no way that I could write a book months in advance and sit on it. I would suspect other hopefuls might not want to sit on a manuscript for long without querying to agents.

That being said, if my book is selected for PW, I am committed to being patient and to seeing the process through - wherever it leads. Moreover, I know the odds for getting selected are high, so I would consider myself very fortunate to be able to work with an experienced author and to learn how to be better. I am a firm believer that we can always learn more and improve no matter how far we have come and how much experience we have. For me, I have no illusions that I am the best - not by far. I know I have weaknesses and I work hard to find the means to address them and improve. I am always seeking for my next book to be better than the last, and I am always seeking ways to learn new techniques. So, I would be very grateful and honored, if I am chosen. If not, of course, I will go on and may very well participate again next year.

Why I Write?


As to the big question of why I write - that is a hard one to answer. There is just no one answer to that. One reason is that I have always loved books. I was that kid (many, many years ago) that read the whole book as soon as it was handed out in class. I was that kid that stayed up late to finish a book. I am that adult who has read The Mists of Avalon multiple times - including while studying for the bar exam (as a reward to keep me going).

Also, I write because I want to create. I find it rewarding and also stress relieving to immerse myself into a character and his or her story. It is also amazing when someone enjoys the story and reports that back to me.

What do I Read?

I have read books from or about: classic English Literature, Fydor Dostoyevsky, Ian Fleming, legal thrillers, romance novels (not anymore but in the past probably 60-100), Nancy Drew, fantasy, and non-fiction topics of interest. I also really love finding really old books to peruse. I once found a book from the early 1900s in a Catholic College's library (in the basement) about ghosts, demons, etc. (a shocking find) that included some really interesting views. I think I might go back someday and get that book and use it as inspiration for some fantasy tale - but I digress.

My interests as a reader is directly correlated to my writing style. I like to write my books the way I like the books I read to be. I am very interested in a character's thoughts and motivations for doing things - much more so that what the room the individual is in looks like. That might be why I enjoyed Fydor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment so much.

If the story interests me, I can be very forgiving of my pet peeves appearing in a book if I love the story. One example is that I loved a particular fantasy series, but I didn't like the over-description that was in that book. If it needed to be described to understand the story, it was good, but I really didn't need two pages of description of the contents of a house to understand that it was cluttered. That being said, I would never post any negative review of that book to reflect that I felt the description was more than I liked. I feel that you can't please everyone and I can't expect a book to match all of my tastes perfectly. So, if an author has hooked me with a clever story and likable characters, I'm generally all in. By the way, I love that author that I used as an example without providing the name  and will read anything she writes.

How do I create? 

I first start with an idea for a character and a challenging situation for that character to be in. Once I feel like I know the character well, I start putting him or her in the situation.

I don't outline. I am a panster. If I were to outline, I would die - I mean it. (No, not really, but I don't think I can write that way). As I write, I generally know where the character is going. However, I don't necessarily know the specific points in the journey along the way, although I usually have a general sense of the ending. The order in which I write that journey also varies, although I usually start with the beginning. I write the scenes as I know them. They may be in the beginning, the middle, or the end. Sometimes when I am about halfway through, and the ending becomes clear to me, I stop and write the ending. Then I write the middle with a clear eye as to how the story is ending. Sometimes, I stop and go back and scrap an idea and write a new one, or sometimes I add a step in the journey.

It is really exciting to me when my characters surprise me. I also like to add layers to the story and hidden messages. I would really like my books (most of them at least) to have something in them that causes people to think and that inspires discussions.

I also tend to write more mature MCs in my middle grade in the sense of intelligence. Not to brag - but I tend to use my own children as models. They are bright and very interested in intellectual discussion. So, I find it hard to think of children, intellect-wise, as other than little adults. That being said, as a Mom, I cannot include certain topics in my book and I abhor violence and gore. If something aggressive is needed, I tend to try to include just enough that the point is made. After all, I can't offer sanitized books to today's kids. They would find those boring. At the same time, if someone wrote me a review and said that I freaked his or her kid out with my writing, I would feel bad. It's just the way I am.

My favorite MC is the quirky kid who just doesn't fit in for some reason or another. Those kids, to me, are hereos.

The Beauty and The Book Contest

I have entered the cover of Janetta and the Book Thief into a book cover contest at www.beautyandbook.com.  The book with the most votes in each category will be displayed at the Frankfurt Book Festival for voting for overall best cover.  Please consider heading over to the site and voting for Janetta and the Book Thief.  Just enter "Janetta" in the search box to display the book's page and voting link.

A Few Words About Janetta and The Book Thief (maybe more than a few)

Although this post is about Janetta and the Book Thief, my newest book, I am first taking a few moments to address my delay in posting.

I love writing stories and experimenting to build my skills. I find writing stories to be not only a fun and rewarding past-time but a truly therapeutic endeavor. As of late, I have had little time to spend with my writing because family situations have required all of my time. However, I am first and foremost above everything else - a mom. So, as I'm sure is the case with other moms, my Mom duties had to come first.

As to Janetta, I have two topics I would like to cover in this post. First, I wanted to talk about the inspiration for the book.

Admittedly, I first came up with the character, a girl who loves to read books so much that she would rather do that than socialize. After conceiving of Janetta, I developed the reason for why she was that way and then weaved the significance of that into the story. Ultimately, it's not solely her personality that makes her like books more than people, but it is because of her past history of having been bullied. I see her as a person who finds books to be a refuge from the bullying problem she has experienced. In reading, she can take herself to other places and other circumstances and use it as an escape.

For those adults among us who were bullied as a child, we all know how that impacts a person. It leaves lifelong scars that affect how we trust others and how sociable we are. Janetta has nervous emotions that make her a little hesitant of others but it also gives her great understanding and empathy for others who have been bullied. In this book, she gets an opportunity to meet another person with a similar experience to hers and to use that understanding and empathy to make things right for that person. She gets to be a hero.

Please note that I intentionally did not provide the details of how bullying may have occurred in fairy land. In fact, none of the fairies in this book actually engaged in any intentional bullying. However, they unwittingly participated when if they had asked questions they would have realized what they were doing was not right. They also made assumptions that continued to effect an exclusion of the bullied fairy.

So, fairy land - just like the real world - is not a perfect place. Somewhere back in this fairy's history he was bullied and excluded. These experiences led to him pulling away from others even more until he was outside of all groups and all alone. He is fortunate to have someone like Janetta, with empathy and understanding, help the fairies see what is going on. It changes his life and provides him with a group of supportive friends. However, having a group of supportive friends doesn't on its own address the bullying issue just as it doesn't in the real world. I may decide to address that bullying in a later book. However, I haven't decided that yet.

The second topic is that I have had some struggles with how best to format the Ebook version. Books without images inside tend to be more versatile and less likely to have formatting problems from platform to platform if they are kept simple and created as flowing text. Unfortunately, with images, formatting is much more difficult and can yield more unexpected results.

I initially thought that a fixed format was the best way to form this book. However, although it looked good on my screen, the format didn't carry over well into Epub or Mobi formats.  One such problem was the overlapping of images over some of the text. I kept trying to overcome the format problems, but I just couldn't figure out how to do that. I would fix one issue, and then another would come up. Nothing seemed to work.

I almost reached a point where I could have decided to either give up and pull the ebook format for Janetta, making it no longer available for sale, or pay someone to format the ebook format. However, I decided to give it one last try with flowing text instead of using a fixed format. After many different attempts, I finally found the solution - at I hope so. It turned out to be a lot simpler than I would have thought.  What I did was to anchor the images as if they were characters.

Hopefully, my solution will turn out to work well, and my formatting problems are over. Regardless, it will not be perfect because the text will end earlier than I like on a given page. However, that is a small issue in comparison with the other problems that I have had.

If you happen to read the ebook and see a formatting problem that affects readability, please feel free to reach out to me. When you do, please describe the problem and what device you were using to read the book. I would be most appreciative if you do as it would give me a chance to fix the problem.

Loch Ness Monster is Missing

As I am sure others did, I read today how the Loch Ness Monster hasn't been spotted in eight months. That, understandably, has many people worried.

If you've never been to Loch Ness, it's a must-have-experience to take a boat ride out onto the loch and look for Nessie. Hopefully, Nessie, if she exists, is just taking a little break and will be back.

I am a Nessie fan and fondly remember my visit to Loch Ness many years ago. From the boat, it's easy to see how Loch Ness gets its reputation. The water is only clear at its very surface where it ripples. Just below the surface, the water is so filled with peat that it looks black - dark and mysterious. As you stare across the water's surface, it's easy to imagine the ripples are evidence of a log-shaped being swimming just below the surface.

I've been so inspired by Nessie that in my fantasy book series for children - The Emaleen Andarsan - Emaleen meets a creature named Zidmon who is very similar to Nessie (is the creature, in fact, Nessie?). The creature travels all the way from its normal home in Scotland to the St. Lawrence River, just to meet Emaleen. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to claim that the creature in my book is Nessie but the book was ironically released in August 2016 - a little over 8 months ago.  Perhaps Nessie heard the story and decided to check the St. Lawrence River out.

Book 3 of the series is due out in a couple of weeks. During this book, Nessie has theoretically returned to Scotland as she doesn't make an appearance in this book. Later on, the creature might make an appearance in the Adirondacks in New York for book 4 but I'll make sure he returns to Scotland.

Baking Times

The day has come. My twelve-year-old daughter is now cooking and baking.

The day before yesterday she made banana bread that she had learned to make at school. She needed some help, but she accomplished the majority of it on her own. It was a proud moment for her when the banana bread came out of the oven. :)

The recipe was likely different than the one my mother used. My mother probably didn't use whole wheat flour or yogurt in her batter. But one bite of my daughter's banana bread brought back memories of the bread my mom had made. Along with that, I had a brief moment of joy as I remembered my mother whose loss I feel almost every day.

I had told my daughter about my mom's banana bread. I think it made her a little nervous that hers might not be as good. But I assured her that would not be the case. If held onto any doubts, when she saw the expression on my face as I enjoyed the first bite, they should have disappeared. And, I can't wait until she makes it again.


Today, we have a snow day - yeah for snow days! She has made me a banana strawberry smoothie. This, too, she learned to make at school. Like the banana bread, it was very tasty. 

My daughter wants to find other recipes to try. I'm so proud of her and her interest in making food. These skills will serve her well in life. I also look forward to trying out her creations. :)

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Footnote -

1. I have never made banana bread. I've often bought bananas for that purpose and then waited for them to soften. Unfortunately, I've always missed that window between the bananas being too hard and the bananas being mushy.

2. I have begun to teach her as well, but the school experience has encouraged her to try things on her own.

(Although these footnotes are numbered, you won't find the footnote numbers in the body. I don't know how to do that in this program. So these are general comments.)

The Peerless Seer's War

Although publication is still some months off, I am making progress on The Peerless Seer's War, the third book in The Emaleen Andarsan Series.

• The cover artist is working on the cover. She has submitted some draft designs that I am very excited about. I just can't wait to reveal the cover!

• I am also close to finishing my revising of the draft. When I do, it will go to my editor. Once the draft is with my editor, I will pick up work on book 4 (no title yet). I said "pick up" because I've already started it. I can't help it.

I also have some exciting events coming up that I hope to announce soon.

Book Sales Bingo

Well, it's not quite Bingo, unless it's the "coverall" game. 😃

Here's how I play -- Amazon shows me my weekly book sales of the paperbacks by geography (the ebooks don't show on this tracking). The page displays a map of the United States that's divided up into 100 sales regions. The regions in which I have book sales are shaded - the darker the shade, the more books sold. Of course, I like to see dark shades because that means lots of readers and I want to reach a lot of people with my books. After all, it's most fun when you have readers to interact with. But what I'm most focused on at the moment (more than darker shades) is filling the map in so that there's at least 1 book in each region.

As of now, I have 44 regions of the 100 covered. Although it may seem silly, I'll be extremely happy when all 100 regions are shaded.

Some of the regions are small, and others are quite large. I don't generally mind how big the region is that gets shaded in. But right now the regions labeled Denver and Albuquerque seem to be laughing at me. They are so much bigger than the other regions and they are blank. I'm going to have to do something about that. Anyone from these places? Hehe!

When I fill all of the regions in maybe I'll yell Bingo! 😂

Book 3 (The Peerless Seer's War) Includes an Ohio Location - Why?

In the first and second books in The Emaleen Andarsan Series, Emaleen has lived in locations in New York State.You might guess that I live in New York State and if you did, you are correct.

In the third book, Emaleen relocates temporarily to a hidden location outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Why would I choose this location, you might ask? I did so for two different reasons. One is that when I was very young, I lived in a small rural area outside this city and I have fond memories of that time. The other reason is that when I review my sales by geography, this city appears as one of my biggest markets (after my hometown area). In that I used to live just outside this city and readers are located there, it seems destined for me to include a location from this area in the book.

Just thinking about Cincinnati also brings back many memories. I recall my days as a tomboy there. I would climb trees and wade in a nearby creek with my pant legs rolled up. I would pull clay out of the creek bed and mold it into figures. (Sound familiar? It would if you've read The Peerless Seer.😊) I also recall walking down the country road in the middle of a summer heat wave when the pavement would bubble up. Silly me - I used to pop the bubbles with my toes because I was barefoot, of course. But I don't recommend popping hot, bubbling pavement with your toes. It was a wonder that I didn't burn them.

My fondest memory, though, is of attending Cincinnati Reds games with my brother and my father in the mid-1970s, especially 1976. We used to sit up high in the stadium behind the outfield - often right behind Cesar Geronimo. It was the time of The Big Red Machine.

My favorite player was Pete Rose. Now, I know some of you might only remember Pete Rose for the mistakes that he made later on his in his baseball career. But I remember a different Pete Rose. I remember him as "Charlie Hustle" - the nickname Pete Rose earned for showing all of us that if you want something bad enough, and you are willing to work as hard as it takes to achieve it, that dreams can come true. Pete Rose was known for his success arising more from his hard work, dedication, and refusal to give up than from natural talent, although I fully believe he had amazing talent, too.

I was just as impressed and inspired by such dedication and hard work to achieve then as I am as an adult now. I am a firm believer of these notions and I am personally dedicated to working to be the best writer that I can be. I hope also to inspire others to work hard to make their dreams come true.

 Here are photos of my bat with an engraved Pete Rose autograph. I received this at a game on "Bat Day."

Empowering Girls

One of the reasons that I am writing the Emaleen Andarsan Series is to empower girls (while at the same time not alienating boys - Emaleen is a tomboy). Specifically, I wanted a storyline in which a female protagonist is destined to be the most powerful of her kind in a world of magic. Also, I wanted her to be able to change her world for the betterment of others.

At the same time, I wanted to make the story realistic. The magic system I chose requires the caster to do more than just point a wand and speak some magic words. A seer (which is what the magic people in the series are called) must learn the science behind the magic because the seer must actively manipulate the forces that are required to make the "magic" happen. Seers can learn these rules from family members, books, or experimenting.

Further, the story is real in terms of what Emaleen must learn to become a good leader. She must understand the viewpoints of those who are to follow her and she must learn how to make good decisions that take those views into account. She must also learn to inspire others to follow her.  However, there are times when she won't know what to do right away and she and those who help her will flounder a little. But over the course of the story, she will develop her internal strength, people skills, and leadership qualities as she starts to take charge of her own destiny.

It's also not just Emaleen who will be an example of a strong female role model. She has a sidekick with some interesting and unique abilities - and they aren't magic.

I am also interested in the dynamics of the different forms of power, and the way in which a society is organized so that there are rules and order. This story, thus, concerns the effects of a society in which there are no rules and no organized authority. In Emaleen's world, the seers think they are free because they have no rules and no one to tell them what they can and can't do. But the reality is the lack of a system makes them not free. Rather, it allows evil forces to grow and prosper at the expense of all of the other seers.

As I write this, I have the luxury of knowing where this story is going - beyond the books that have been released, and beyond the one that is in editing right now. I am doing my best to write this post in such a way as to keep from giving away the details of the story. But it is killing me (figuratively, of course). There are two more books to draft, and I can't wait to get them underway. As the story is moving on and getting closer and closer to the ultimate conflict that is to come, I feel incredible pressure to get the work moving. I can't wait to have all of the books released and have an opportunity to discuss them with readers.

Universal Links

Now that the Emaleen Andarsan Series e-books are back to being widely distributed, to assist readers to find the books at their favorite e-book retailers, I will be using universal links in my advertising and informational posts. Clicking on the universal link will provide a clickable list of an e-book's page at retailers that are selling the books.

The link for The Peerless Seer is:

https://www.books2read.com/u/bWKlRM

The link for The Peerless Seer's Gambit is:

https://www.books2read.com/u/4AgXRA

Each link shows the enabled stores thus far. Additional links to be added when they are ready.

My First Mom Post

When I started this blog, I had intended to include some posts about being a mom. However, all of my posts thus far have been about my indie writing journey. So, here's my first mom post.

This one is on dealing with tweens and back talk. It's so annoying when it happens and it's so tempting to get mad. But I read somewhere that the best thing you can do is to refrain from engaging. The only thing you'll do if you do engage is to start a fight. Instead, the advice is to have a preplanned phrase that points out that the talk is not respectful without doing so directly. I use the question, "Can you say that to me in a better way?" I also use, "When you are calm and can speak to me politely, I will be able to listen to you."

My understanding is that this technique calls attention to the behavior and serves as a reminder to the child to modify the behavior. The theory is that the self-reflection that it causes results in teaching more than a direct scolding statement from an adult would. It forces the child to notice the conduct and then to make a decision to change it.

The first time I tried this, the result was wonderful. My daughter stopped and thought for a moment and then phrased her statement more politely, both in terms and in tone. I have used it many times since and it still seems to work. I hope that either it continues to work or that eventually it's not needed anymore.

Leaving Kindle Select

Recently, I tried an experiment. I removed my books from a wide selling platform (Amazon, BN.com, IBook, etc.) and opted to publish in Kindle Select. For those of you who don't know, this is an opt-in program for books published through Amazon Kindle. Only those books opted into the Kindle Select program are available on Kindle Unlimited  ("KU") and can be borrowed through the Kindle Online Library ("KOLL").

I was attracted by the idea that people could read my books for free under their fixed priced, monthly KU subscriptions. As a mom, I love using the subscription service for providing reading material for my kids. It's convenient and it helps budget my children's reading appetite. I had hoped that by participating in Kindle Select, I could offer the same benefits to parents of kids who want to read my books.

I really wish I could stay, but certain aspects of the program force my hand. The first troubling feature is that in order to participate, I have to make my ebooks exclusive to Amazon. This means that only readers with Kindle readers can read the ebooks. So, by having my books on Kindle Unlimited, I am excluding readers with other ebook reading preferences.

This same exclusivity requirement does not apply to other traditionally published authors, such as J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Collins, whose books you will find on KU as well as other ebook platforms. I would image the reason for this is that these authors have the market power to negotiate better deals. I get that - it's business. So, this is just an observation. And, if I am so lucky as to have that market power in the future or Amazon drops its exclusivity requirement, my decision then might be different than the one I am making today.

Another problem revolves around the fact that the author compensation is based upon page reads. In that my books are longer, the pay read for a full book read isn't too bad, even though it amounts to half a cent per page. To provide a level playing field between books, Amazon uses an algorithm to calculate the number of pages upon which to base its pay by page read compensation. I don't know exactly how they do that but the premise is that the books are somehow equated by a uniform margin size, font size, etc. But in any event, a full page read for my books resulted in what I thought was a fairly acceptable compensation rate for each book.

However, I perceived a potential problem in just how the page reads are calculated. Amazon keeps track of the last page that a reader gets to, watches the reading rate speed, and appears to have all sorts of ways to disqualify page reads. Much of that is all related to trying to prevent people from gaming the system and getting paid unfairly, and I respect and appreciate that. If it were just that, it would be fine (apart from the exclusivity problem).

The problem is related to doubts that I started to have as to whether I was getting credit for pages that people were legitimately reading. I started noticing on various author forums that authors were concerned that their page reads were going down significantly. Many were claiming that there is some bug in the new page flip feature that is preventing pages read from being counted. Authors were stating that they were seeing days with just one page read for the entire day or days with low page reads and how that didn't make sense. At the same time, they were stating that their sales rank had gone up with no sales, such that it seemed that the books were being borrowed through KU. Some were saying that their sales ranks were moving around but they weren't getting any sales or page reads during that time.  I saw something similar in my data for a time.

Investigating it further, I learned from other authors that the sales rank can go up when someone borrows the book from KU or the KOLL. The thought was that people may have opened the books but not actually sat down to read them but that they would presumably see the page reads later. I was told I should wait a few days and see if the reads start to show up later.

 I spent hours researching the internet to see if there was an explanation. But then I was wasting time that I should be using to write the next book. So, I reached out to Amazon and asked if there was a problem. The email I received in response provided assurances that there was nothing wrong. The email further stated that the page flip feature was just a navigational tool that was not designed for reading and thus they don't count the pages read. Nevertheless, the email stated, they were monitoring page flip usage data and don't believe it is being used to read books.

That explanation seemed to make sense - at least until I used my new 7 inch Kindle Fire and noticed the page flip feature. It's a pretty neat feature and makes the Kindle seem more dynamic than just a text screen with no bells and whistles. It has two modes for the page flip. In one mode, 9 text screens are displayed on one page. It was very clear to me that reading a book that way would be impossible for most and uncomfortable at best for the remainder.

But the other mode is almost a full-screen display.  And, although I am very nearsighted, with astigmatism that is not corrected by my contact lenses, and my optometrist would love it if I would get reading glasses, I noticed that I could very easily read a book page in this mode. This display mode also didn't alert me to the fact that it was only navigational and should not be used to read the book. In fact, it seemed to me that the swiping mechanism was more responsive to my touch. So, it seemed easier to turn the pages in that mode. Maybe that's not the case and it's just me but that was my impression. I also noted how easy it is to flip between the two. When I was out of the mode and swiped to turn a page, I would occasionally bring up the page flip mode in this almost full-screen display. It seemed like one might read a book being in the regular mode and then page flip and vice versa very easily.

Whether or not readers are reading in page flip or there is or is not some bug in the program, at the end of the day, my 90 day trial period did not provide me enough benefit to outweigh the exclusivity requirement and the constant worries over whether I am getting paid for page reads or not along with the time I am wasting on such worries. So, I am opting out for now. Should KDP Select no longer require exclusivity and I can feel confident that everything works correctly, I may reconsider in the future. But for now, it's not for me.

So, I am going "wide" again. I will post an update when I've done so.

Unknown Indie Writer's Prayer

May my inspiration be limitless
May my typos be few
May my consistency be flawless
May my pace be just right, too.


May potential readers find me
May they read my books to the end
May they post good reviews for others to see
May each recommend my books to a friend.


Most of all, let me find great joy
Along this path, I have chosen for me
Let me write amazing books that others enjoy
And finally, let me be all that I can be.

Last Hour of 2016

With determination, I wrote (or tried to write) through much of the day on New Year's Eve. I had a self-imposed goal to meet. It was to finish the first draft of the third book in my series before the end of the year. I hadn't yet finished because I had been having trouble finishing that 'last chapter.' I wanted it just so, and nothing I wrote was making me happy. But with the deadline in sight, it all finally clicked.

It was in the last hour of 2016 that I met my goal of finishing the draft. In fact, it was about 10 minutes after 11pm. When midnight came, my celebratory mood was enhanced. I had faced some adversity in my writing (me against me) and had faced it down and won! Even more satisfying is that what that I was pleased with the results. And, better still - Meeting my goal enhanced my celebratory feelings for the New Year!

Bring on the New Year and more writing! Happy New Year!