Interview on The Author's Show and Book Release for "Makeup Your Mind"

So many great things have been happening in the past few weeks I hardly know where to begin!

Let’s start at the shortest update about the longest string of words I’ve put together in a long, long time. NaNoWriMo. I won!

At 50,169 words I validated my “novel” on November 22, 2017. It felt great getting this win for multiple reasons.

First, I found the beginnings of the next Shaw McLeary Mystery, Missing Miles.

Second, I had a CRAZY BUSY month and still managed to pull out a win (more on that in a minute…).

And, finally, this is the first time I’ve won in seven years. Holy crap that’s far too long! I’ve taken part in the challenge 4 times over those 7 years (2012, ’14, ’15, ’16) but this is my first real win since 2010.

Which leads me into other intertwined updates of course…

One of the main things I did over the past couple months, aside from NaNo, was some marketing and promotion for my recently released book 30 Chapters in 30 Days: Write a 50,000 word novel without feeling blocked.

First, I shared some of my personal and professional advice with the readers of the NaNo blog in my article: NaNo Prep: How to Write Believable Characters (and Push Your Word Count!).

With that article looming out there, plus a book telling people how to make it through the challenge of NaNoWriMo I kinda figured I should get through it this year as well. I mean, practice what you preach, right?

Right!

In the spirit of that, I also took part in another internet radio interview. As mentioned in the title, my interview giving even more detail and info on 30 Chapters went live on The Author’s Show TODAY!

I’m going to do my best to create a link to the interview so you all can come back and listen anytime you like but the first broadcast of the show is a brief 24 hours and then, poof, it’s gone off their website.

Listen to my Author’s Show interview here until November 30, 2017, just click on my name in the gray box.

What a crazy experience that interview turned out to be behind the scenes. And you know I’m all about the brutal honesty over here, especially about myself, so here’s the tea.

I nearly fucked up this entire thing.

Okay, that could be a bit over-dramatic but not much. The day I was supposed to talk there were timing issues (in AZ we don’t do DST but at the time of scheduling neither of us realized the clocks would flip). All of that was my fault for lack of preparation. Ugh. What I will blame on myself, but still hold a grudge against technology for, were my issues with Skype.

When I thought I was calling Don, my interviewer, I tried about ten times and Skype kept kicking me off/out and forcing me to log back in. I rebooted multiple times but my laptop is a dinosaur and takes FORever to do anything.

I was already 30 minutes “late” and panicked because I had a chiropractor appointment right after our interview. One more reboot and Skype seemed to finally want to work. But it was already too late. I had to jam.

I called from my cell and left Don a rambling, probably incoherent message about how sorry I was. As I pulled up to my chiro, I picked up the message he left while I was driving.

The one that said I was a full hour EARLY. Like I said, DST.

After all the confusion we managed to reschedule (bless him!), and on that day I tested Skype minutes before the interview (Matt is my hero!).

Don called, we chatted, I was prepared AF and feel like it was one of the better interviews I’ve ever done. Talking about that book while in the throes of NaNo reminded me I needed to open her up and take my own advice for how to get through the challenge.

It worked!

I have so many chapters that will be cut when I edit but it helped me better see the characters and where they were going. It also helped me step away from caring if my novel was perfect. And, not gonna lie, it felt great to rack up another NaNo win!

So, of course, because I didn’t have enough going on already, in the midst of NaNo I also listed my latest, book 3, in the California Dreamin’ Series, Makeup Your Mind for preorder on Amazon.

Click the title in that last paragraph, or right here to pick up your copy today!

My nail art at the beginning of this post is my nod to the book cover:

And I’m soooooo excited to get this one out there. Cherry Davis might be my favorite character I’ve written since Perth. She’s spunky, sexy, and self-sufficient. She’s a young retail whore living and working in the mid-nineties in coastal Cali.

I’m in love with her. Seriously. I might need to see a therapist.

But, regardless, her story officially hits the digital shelves tomorrow November 30, 2017 and I couldn’t be more excited!

It has been a fun, frustrating, but overall totally satisfying career month.

I’d love (LOVE!!!!!) you forever if you’ve already read either 30 Chapters or Makeup Your Mind if you’d be so kind as to review them on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews don’t really count for an author until there are at least 25 so please tell your friends, share the book love, share your opinion (even if you hated them both, I literally don’t care just review!).

Thanks!

And now, look out December, I’m coming in hot for a vacation. After the month I’ve worked, it feels like I’ve earned a week off.

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

Tiny Little Victories

So, I’m having one of those days today where everything seems to take more effort than it should.

You know the kind, where you pick up a pen, drop it, pick it up again, drop it again, and it rolls out of reach under the sofa. Then, by the time you retrieve it (with the end of the broom handle you had to retrieve from wherever it lives), you forgot what you wanted to write anyway.

Yeah.

But then I went out to pick up groceries and the gal at the deli counter called me Miss!

Miss!!!

I haven’t been a Miss in ages.

I’ve been firmly living in Ma’am land for at least the last six or seven years now. But today, after the morning of internal chaos forcing me to be gangly and awkward, I became a Miss again.

If only for that one moment, leaving the house today was totally worth it.

And I’m sure that was a big part of why I was a disaster this morning – I didn’t want to leave the house for errands.

Because yesterday I clocked in another 3,000+ words in my new manuscript and I was feeling particularly ready to write this morning. But then there’s that pesky thing called life where I won’t write too much without food.

And if you know me you know I’m not one of those writers who lives on coffee and cigarettes. Bleh. Even in the days when I was a smoker and drank coffee non-stop there was always, always, food in my life.

I eat, like, five times a day. So grocery shopping was a necessary evil because all that consumption leads to an empty fridge eventually.

But, if I waited, ordered a pizza, ate panko crumbs on peanut butter just to survive (the last 2 things in the house, seriously), and gone shopping tomorrow, I may never have been a Miss.

And now I’m back home, ready to blow out another huge word day, but I can’t seem to force myself to work on this new book. 

Because I'm a Miss! And it’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted a blog. After the morning I had, it felt like the right time to catch you all up on the doings around here.

I’ve had a super busy spring / it’s-already-summer-in-Phoenix.

At least this post isn’t three months since my last blog (like my last blog post was), but it has been two solid months of living life, seeing people, doing stuff, typing words.

I’m also getting back into nail art and picked up some supplies to make designs that are more fun and artsy. Which is good because I’d been wearing tan nude nails every week for somewhere near four months.

Over it, time for fun again!

Doing something to my nails (on the regular) started back in junior high school. I’d use markers, polish, whatever I could get my hands on to put color and design on the tips of my fingers. I even used my ballpoint pen to dot flowers onto my pinky finger.

And I didn’t care what color I used as long as there was some color at the ends of my hands. When I was a kid it wasn’t “cool” to use black, navy blue or other colors considered freaky.

I used them.

Because they’re colors. I mean, why was red or pink okay but not black? Why did wearing black nail polish make people think of me as a certain type of person? That shit just never made sense to me and I’d think about it while I slathered shiny blue polish on every other fingernail.

These days I’m trying brushes, sponges, vinyl decals, creating my own decals, acrylic painting, and stamping to get some fun designs going on. And it’s so relaxing to sit and paint for a couple hours without the need for climbing a ladder.

Tiny little canvases. I love it.

Aside from nail art, I released a book, the 2^nd in my California Dreamin’ Series: Alternate Plans. I won’t go into great detail on the book here. You can click on the title and read all about it over on Amazon if you’re so inclined.

Already read it? Then while you’re over there checking out the link, please leave me a review!

Reviews are the lifeblood of authors on Amazon and I’d be forever grateful for your honest feedback. All reviews are awesome because they help me write better books the next time. So, go, review one of my books right now!

Thanks 😍

In the midst of work and life, Matt and I even managed to take an extended vacation for the first time in almost a year. We started out with friends in Temecula, California on a wine weekend of debauchery, madness, and so much fun.

From there we drove up the coast to San Francisco, back down to Big Sur (as far as possible due to the coastal highway being washed out), inland to Paso Robles, back out to the coast (just below the closure), and wound down the entire coast to San Diego before driving home.

It was freaking awesome!

It had been ages since we took a long road trip and it was so much fun to get out, take pictures, reconnect, see the beach. Can’t wait to do it again. Soon.

But, for now, I’ll be finalizing the next book release slated for September (30 Chapters in 30 Days, a writer’s inspiration for getting big word count down in a month or less), and working on this new California Dreamin’ Series book.

And something tells me my main character (who is 44 this year) will get to experience the joys of being called a Miss for the first time in years.

Then again, maybe I’ll just keep that little joy all for myself.

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.