I decided to enter the Amazon UK Storytelling Contest, which posed a couple of issues. First, all entries have to be previously unpublished. Second, the deadline is May 19, 2017. I literally had five weeks from when I decided to enter to write a new book. (Yes, I'm a crazy person.) That has meant the following: little sleep, cranky Callie, feverish writing pace, editing until I want to die, and poor nutrition. Also, my husband has been pulling double parenting duty to give me time to write. And my little ones are thoroughly tired of hearing me say, "Just a minute, Mommy's working."
But I see the light at the end of the tunnel! My book is just about done with its final revision! I will be publishing it as part of the Storytelling Contest on May 17th.
It's a junior reads fantasy novel, rather than my usual YA fantasy. It's shorter, simpler, and meant for young readers. And I hope that my condensed time frame didn't harm the story. Please let me know what you think! I'll be posting the first few chapters on this blog over the next little while, but the book will be available for purchase in a couple of days. For now, here's the amazing cover done by Rybread Studio:
I've done it again! I've completely neglected this blog, and I apologize profusely. Really. I'm quite embarrassed. Things have been rather hectic for me lately, but that's not really an excuse. I mean, how hard is it to give updates on how my writing's going? Not hard. And now it's been seven months since my last entry. SEVEN. So...yeah...
Okay! Let's get down to business!
I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. My kids are running amok, and I'm pretty sure I've permanently lost what was left of my sanity. But I love my family to pieces! We recently sold our house and bought a new one. We don't yet live in the new one because the previous owners needed to rent back from us for a few months. So...we've been staying with my in-laws. It's actually not too bad, but I'm eager to get into my own place again.
"Fire Sower" is doing quite well. I've been getting very positive feedback, and some good constructive criticism as well. I always appreciate hearing what people think, especially when it helps me to be a better writer. I do have plans for writing a sequel, but it has been temporarily put on hold while I do a shorter project. That project is just about done (I'll be posting about that separately) so then I'll be working on the next "Fire Sower" book again! I'm thinking it will be ready to go the end of this year. Maybe. Probably. I'll let you know once I get going on it again.
In the meantime, don't give up on this blog! I'll keep posting...just not consistently. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter, because I'm much better about keeping those up to date.
