My First Attempt at a Youtube Video

When I published Unbreakable Love, someone suggested that I make a Youtube video to let people know about it.  Well, it wasn't a completely crazy idea and I have learned how to do a lot of new things with the publication of my first book so I thought, why not?  Six takes and lots of cat scratches later(don't ask) we threw an introductory video together.I even sang Silent Night in German.   Below is a link if you want to check it out...and since this is my last post before Christmas.....Merry Christmas to all my friends, family and anyone else who is willing to put up with me.  Have a great holiday!!!See you next year.

link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yLVgnvmIBk

10 Similarities between having a baby and publishing a book

Unbreakable Love has been out now for several weeks, not a long time, but long enough that I can say I have experienced the publishing of a book. Lately, I have been thinking about how the journey of publishing a book is so much like the creation and culmination of having a baby. Now, for those of you that think I am comparing the importance of a book over a baby, not even.  I just thought the similarities were funny in an ironic sort of way.  Here's my top ten reasons why:

1.When either the baby or the book are conceived, it is work, but the fun kind of work.

2. With both a book and a baby, the possible outcomes are endless, leaving you daydreaming about what you hope will be an amazing end product.

3. For both baby and book, it takes months, that feel like years, to finish the creative process.

4. Both a book and a baby make you apprehension, especially near the end of the project when we realize you have to live what you've created.

5. Both keep you up at night and give you strange dreams wondering if you've miss something in preparation, or made the right choice to create in the first place.

6 Both change your circle of friends as you find yourself searching out people you can relate to, that are going through the same things or maybe that you can learn from.

7.  Both disrupt the flow of the house as all the energy of the family channels into the upcoming event that will change everything.

8.  Both are painful to push out at the end and for most of us we just want drugs to make it all go away.

9.  With both the birth of a child and the publishing of a book, when that new little creation is handed to you and you see the final product, that little piece of you, you are overwhelmed and amazed and smitten.

10.  Several months after your little creation is part of your life, you wake up one day and look in mirror at your neglected hair and sleep deprived eyes and realized the care of your little creation is so much bigger than you bargained for, yet somehow you know, with enough time behind you, you'd do it all over again.

Author Boutique

Today I had the privilage of hanging out with other Arizona authors.  What a diverse and intelligent group of people. They were kind of funny too. My favorite was the guy who walked around with a mischevious smile and wore the sweatshirt that said "Be careful or you'll end up as character in my next book."  I've got to get me one of those shirts, but in pink with bling on it. You can never have enough bling.  I sat next to Chelsea Fine and was able to sneek a peak at ANEW, her first book in her Archers of Avalon series. I took a copy home and can't wait to read the rest of it. All in all, it was a good time and I learned from each person I met, authors and customers.  Just as an aside, I  am also so excited about the reviews that have come in on Amazon.  When I read them, I was smiling big time. Hope you have a good week.  Thanks for checking in.

Thanksgiving Week

Hi friends,

Here we are and it is finally the week of Thanksgiving.  I already have my Christmas tree up, yes I said my Christmas tree.  Now, I know someone out there is going to cry, what about Thanksgiving, have you forgotten it?  The answer is, any holiday with lots of starchy food and pie cannot be forgotten,no matter how many Christmas decorations I put up.  Instead, I find nibbling on turkey and stuffed potatoes beneath the soft twinkly lights of an enormous Christmas Tree only enhances the Thanksgiving experience.  After all, Thanksgiving is all about what we have been blessed with and Christmas is about getting blessed with more.  Funny how the retailers have done that to us.  Still, I love Christmas and all its sparkle and joy and I feel no shame in making it last as long as posssible.This week I am also excited because Unbreakable Love goes live.  I have had a handful of copies for the last week or so, but now anyone can get their hands on my book, although I guess that is the ideas. My publisher tells me books will be in stock in two days on Amazon.  Yea h!!! So, if you stumble across this blog and end up reading Unbreakable Love over the holidays, I hope you enjoy it.  Most of all, I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving.  I hope your holiday week is filled with good things no matter how you choose to celebrate.  I know mine will be as long as I have good friends and my family around me.

Cover Reveal!!!

Here it is, the final cover for Unbreakble Love. I'm so excited. I just got off the phone with my publisher and she has ordered the first set of books as of today.  This week, they will be sent out first to reviewers and then on November 21, the book goes live, available on Amazon!!!!  Walking through the publishing process has been a truly remarkable experience and now finally, I can share this endearing story with you.   I am both nervous and excited to find out who your favorite character was.  Who do you connect best with? Is it Jennie, the girl next door that doesn't even know her life is in danger.  Maybe, you'll fall in love with Nate, her protector.  He is gorgeous, and although sometimes inperfect, he always comes through in the end.  My favorite character is Celeste, Nate's stern but loyal supervisor. Maybe I relate to her maternal role, but most likely, I'm just drawn to her because she loves junk food and can easily be bribed wiht cookies.  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing the story and I look forward to hearing from you.  

My tech support

I want to tell you about my support staff.  They include my webpage  and blog designer, my twitter specialist and my all around tech support guy who does everything else that I have no idea how to do myself. Who is this highly trained and brilliant staff.?  My amazing family.  My husband, Mr. Multi-talented and super smart has worked tirelessly to help me get ready for the publishing of my first book by creating and teaching me how to manage my webpage and blog, and for his time and patience, I am so grateful.  He is the half of me that I never knew I was missing and I would be lost without him.  Then there is my two equally as brilliant sons who manuver their way around the computer and internet like it's child's play.  I am shamefully envious of their talent and learn from them constantly.  I also want to mention my daugter.  Even though she only eight years old, she is a tough editor and quick to find inconsistancies in my work.  I would love to post a picture of this crew, but I also have to be careful and respect their privacy.  This is the internet after all. So next time you see my blog or web page you'll know how lucky I am.  I hope your family is as cool as mine.  Thanks for visiting.

UNBREAKABLE LOVE IS ALMOST HERE!

This has been a busy week.  We are within a couple weeks of the first copies of Ubreakable Love hitting the bookshelfs, or digital bookshelves more accurately.  I am so excited for you to meet Nate and Jenny, Celeste and everyone else that makes this an amazing love story.  My editor and I are choosing the finishing touches on the cover and then I will do a cover reveal both on the blog and on twitter. I hope you like it.  I can't wait to share it with you. 

The charms of a small town

I love small towns!  This is our cabin nestled in a quiet neighborhood of a town with the grand population of 3,000 give or take a few people.  For the last few days I have been here, writing and eating.  I dont' know why but it seems like all we do is eat when we go to the cabin.  We made pizza, we roasted Starbursts....yes I said starbursts.  It is delicous, but I digress-again. Like most small towns, this unnamed town is the most charming place on earth.  Not that I have anything against big cities.  Big cities offer tons to do and see but nowhere but a small town can you go into the store and make friends with the clerk that is helping you out. For example, one day I went into buy some paint from the local hardware store.  Of course in small towns everything is smaller.  It's like someone took home depot and turned it into a shrinky dink and then placed on the main road with the other six miniture businesses.  So I give the guy behind the counter my paint chip and while he's mixing the paint, we start to chat.  Before long, he confesses that he is color blind.  Now remember this is the guy mixing my paint.  I also learned that he's our neighbor and dutifully feeds all the feral cats in the neighborhood, among other tidbits about his life.  All this while my paint(who knows what color it will end up) is mixing.  Only in a small town, where trust is given out like candy on Halloween and strangers become friends in one conversation.  Let's face it, people in small towns are their own kind of quirky and wonderful at the same time, but who are we to talk. Up there in the White Mountains they call us folks that live in the big cities.....wait for it....citiets(city-ets) you know, like idiots, but with a c.  It''s all right, I still love them.  Just a sidenote, I worked on my second book like crazy up there. Shackled, is moving along and I am so excited to share it with you. 

Hi ya'll,

Yes, that is a cat, my Aria to be specific, in a stroller.  Let me tell you, she is quite a conversion piece. When we bought the pet stroller my husband told us with one roll of his eyes that we (my kids and I) were crazy. Aria loves to go on walks so much that she will sit, without it zipped up, for hours. Who's crazy now.  OK, we still are, but it is so fun to watch her little radar ears and her big owl-like eyes with every new sight and sound.  I don't recommend this for all cat owners, only those who have a dog-like cat like Aria.  Hope you enjoy.  I'd love to hear about your amazing cat or doggie.

Nate and Jenny

Let me confess to you.  I am a new blogger, unviolated by experience, and clueless in my own right.  That being said, I wrote the book, Unbreakable Love(as I mentioned in my first blog) and now, suddenly I am a blogger and worse than that I am a bloggee, running around reading other people's blogs.  Is blogee even a word?  What am I saying, this is the internet, we make up words whenever we want.  I digress.  The point is, I think I am starting to get the hang of this blogging thing and I know what I want to write about tonight. I want to tell you about the main characters in my upcoming book. Nate and Jenny are their names.  For the past year, these two people have been floating around in my head and now, even before the book is in print, I want to tell you a little about them.
Nate is a guardian angel with a serious inability to follow the rules.  He's not rebellious, he's pragmatic, sometimes accomplishing his mission despite the rules.Oh and by the way, he's surfer gorgeous, complete with subleached hair and tan skin.  I figured if I get to create an angel, why not!  Nate is the book character that you can't help but fall in love with.  He is the one, that you lay awake at night and think about, because even when he makes mistakes, he's still worth the trouble. 
Jenny, the girl he is sent to protect, (I don't want to give too much away because their is all kinds of surprises in this story) is the girl next door.  She has long chestnut brown  hair, repleat with ringlets and is a sweetheart.  Her life is stable, with a loving family and a quick witted best friend named Marissa.  The only betrayal or intense heartache Jennie has ever experienced was when her first love, Jace, cheated on her, destroying her trust in the opposite sex.  When Nate comes into her life, she  is wounded and fiercely protective of her vulnerable heart. 
Now that I have told you a little about Nate and Jenny, what do you think will happen next?   I want to tell you, I really do, but what would be the fun in that.  Maybe next time I'll tell you about Celeste.  Just learningf about her will want to make you go out and buy some junk food.  Until next time...  

Alice in Wonderland

A couple days ago I was gleefully jumping from blog to blog reading all kinds of book reviews by bloggers and I was struck by a thought.  OK, I was struck was several thougthts, but I'm only going to focus on one. Anyway, while I was roving the internet, I suddenly realized that for the first time in my life I might have some idea how Alice, who went to Wonderland, might have felt when jumping down the rabbit hole.  Let me explain.  With every click of the mouse(not the cheshire cat, but still an influential animal in this story) I would find myself in some new, colorful and strange world.  Much like Alice, I often felt out of place, wondering why everything looked so disproportionate to real life.  She had small doors to contend with, I couldn't figure out how to sign up for something(get in the door I wanted) She came across strange new people,( like the cat or the queen) I came across new ideas that really made me think about the way someone else sees life.  Also, much like Alice, when I landed on my feet, sometimes I would want to stay and play awhile while at other times, I felt a strong urge to run the other way.  The thing I found consistantly, that I'm almost sure Alice felt through her adventures in Wonderland was a sense of wonderment.  I also felt that sense of wonderment as I soaked up the vastness that is the internet blogger community and all the newness that comes with it. So why did Alice jump in the rabbit hole? I've always wondered. She had to know it was going to be a little scary down there.  The only reason I can think of, she was up for an adventure, and so am I everytime I explore that crazy World Wide Web.  Do you agree with my assesment? I'd love to hear from you. 

Diving In

Have you ever stood looking down at the water in a pool.  Maybe it's hot outside and the water looks crystal clear, refreshing even, but still you hesitate.  Maybe you wonder, is the water going to be cold?  Would it be worth getting all wet and having to redo your hair?  This is how I felt when, several weeks ago after an editor looked at some of my work and encouraged me to publish it.  That work was a YA novel that I have been working on late at night after the noisy ones go to bed.  The Book is called Unbreakable Love, and the thought of putting it out there was terrifying and exciting, but mostly terrifying.  After wrestling with the decision whether or not to publish, I jumped!  Now, I am hoping that by starting this blog you will come along with me on this journey--no matter how cold the water turns out to be.  I'll keep you up to date on what I am experiencing as I learn about the publishing world first hand, and we'll chat about other stuff too.  My publisher is awesome.  She makes me part of most of the decisions.  for example, I got to pick out my font and whether or not new chapter's start on the right hand or left. Anyway, just know this amazing story of Nate and Jenny is coming your way soon and I can't wait to share it with you.  Please feel free to ask me questions.  I would love to hear from you.