Let the Blogging Begin!

Hi everyone! I have to admit, while telling stories and writing for my characters is my passion, I’ve never done much blogging. However, I’ve got so much going on right now that I thought this might be a good place to gather my thoughts and let my readers know what new things I’m working on. As this is my first post, its bound to be a bit long, but if you’re interested (and maybe want to know why it takes so long for each book to come out), read on!

As most of you know, I am a completely independent author, creating and managing every aspect of this series all by myself since its inception. I have degrees in teaching and library science, so while the editing, formatting, and publishing side of things is daunting, I was confident that I could handle it. It is A LOT of work, but I think I am doing a pretty good job so far 😉 I’ve also always been fairly artistic, and creating my own cover art is fun to work on when I’m not writing. As far as writing goes…

 I am happy to report that I have been working hard on writing Book 9 and am 40K words in (about 1/3 done). I have had the outline for this projected 12 book series planned out in my head from almost the very beginning. Yes, 12. I’ve heard some readers say that they always assumed it would only be 9 books. Having 3 trilogies of 3 books each sounds neat and complete, but the story in my head really requires 4…so, 12 books it is! I even have a notebook full of snippets for a spin-off series after the main books are finished, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, Lol. I wasn’t sure I would ever really get to write them all – it’s quite an ambitious endeavor, but here I am on book 9! It is exciting to see it all coming together so nicely and I can’t wait to share the entire story with you all!

I’ve also been dividing up the most recent release, Book 8: Bewitching Werewolves, into parts so that it can be published as 3 novellas for Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited Library. For those of you who don’t know, the first 2 trilogies have been broken up and released as a series of 21 episodic novellas for KU. Eventually, the 3rd trilogy will join them, so they need separate formatting, ISBN #’s, and cover art to make that happen.

Another project that I am VERY excited about, is the recording of the entire series for audiobook!!! I know that many readers prefer audio format, so they can listen while busy with other things, or just fully immerse themselves in hearing the story read to them. I have always wanted to give you that, but I am very particular about keeping control of my story and giving you the best possible experience, so I didn’t want to rush it.

I was a drama club kid, singer, and aspiring actress in my youth, and I have been acting out scenes and speaking dialogue aloud for these characters for the past 20 years. (My family is used to it; my neighbors probably think I am crazy, talking to myself and swinging swords around.) No one else could capture the inflections and tell the story the way that I envision it, and voice actors would hate me for micro-managing, so I really wanted to narrate it myself. I finally have a home studio set up and have been recording and bringing these characters to life for audio. I am still learning the technical side of things, but so far I have been VERY pleased with the results. I can’t wait to share it with all of you!

I have also been busy contacting reviewers and making plans for the very exciting announcement of a surprise I have in store for my readers in the next few weeks! I’ll be telling you more about that in the near future – stay tuned!

On top of all that, I have been attending signings at local bookstores and various events. So, yeah, my plate has been very full. So what do I do? I start a blog…

I love hearing from readers! Want to dish about the characters, tell me what you love about the story, complain about what you hate, or just say hi? Drop me a comment!

I’m not sure how often I’ll be posting, but that’s all for now. Back to work I go…