THE YEAR IN REVIEW & LOOKING FORWARD TO 2015

THE YEAR IN REVIEW & LOOKING FORWARD TO 2015

 

Happy New Year everyone. I'm back from vacation. At the end of every year you look back over everything that happened and you make goals for the next year. At least I do, when it comes to writing anyway. When it comes to my life Jesus take the wheel. But I digress. Despite some setbacks and unforeseen things, 2014 was pretty good to me as I continued on the road towards being a professional author.

January- I was blessed to sign with an agent, Nikki Terpilowski of Holloway Literary Agency. In a day and age where getting picked up by an agent is still a hard thing to do, I remain ever so grateful.

April- I complete the second novel in my Demi-God Daughters series, Goddess by Chance.

August- I complete my fifth novel, my first mob romance, Dirty Little Secrets.

November- Goddess by Chance is released by Evernight Publishing.

December- Dirty Little Secrets is sold to Samhain Publishing and expected to release Summer 2015.

So looking back over 2014, things were pretty darn good. I wrote 2 novels and both those novels have homes. I signed with an agent at the beginning of the year and by the end she had me a book deal. Yes 2014 was good to me in the pursuit of my dreams and I hope 2015 continues to be even better.

MY 2015 GOALS

1. To finish my second mob romance, Devious Little Lies and find a publishing home for it.
2. To start and complete my third Demi-god Daughters novel, Goddess by Surrender and find it a home at Evernight Publishing with the others in my series.
3. To finish Siren's Embrace, the second in my Mermaids of Astaeria series that has yet to find a publishing home. But I'm passionate about this story and this series and even if it does not find a traditional publishing home I will self publish it myself.
4. And if I'm really, super ambitious maybe I can start on the 1st novel in an edgy, contemporary romance series called Fated.

That's a lot in addition to keeping up my grades in nursing school so I can graduate, studying to pass my boards, looking for a job and hoping Mr. Right will finally decide to show up. It's a lot, but when you have a passion you have to put in the work to make sure that it goes somewhere and I intend to do just that.

 I hope you all have an awesome year. What are you looking forward to in 2015? Let me know.



IN THE WORKS

IN THE WORKS

 

 

 

      It's been a while since I blogged. Life has a habit of getting in the way. But now that I'm back (so to speak) I thought I'd give a quick update as to what has been going on with me writing wise.

 

 

      My second round of revisions for my upcoming paranormal mermaid fantasy romance are in the hands of my agent. Currently waiting to see if another round is required before the big submission process to publishers. I'm on pins and needles.

 

 

    I'm hard at work on the second urban fantasy romance novel in my Demi-God Daughters series, GODDESS BY CHANCE. I'm about 15 chapters in and currently wondering if this book will be longer than the previous Demi-God Daughter book as I have not yet reached the first major arc of the story. I'll keep writing and see what happens.

 

 

     And also I'm working on another story and (drum roll please) I'm actually writing it on my laptop. Shocking yes. If you've read any of my previous blog posts you know that I predominately write in longhand using journals. So me creating a story on my laptop is completely out of the norm and quite surprising to me. The new story is tentatively titled DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS and it is not in the fantasy romance realm from which I usually write.

 

      After starting to read some romantic suspense novels, I decided I'd like to try and do something different than the genres I usually write in. The start of the novel was born from one simple sentence replaying over and over in my mind: "Last time I checked, it was my name on the door." Yep that pretty much started it. I don't know how the story will end up as I do not even have any of my usual few small planning tools I use per novel. This one will really come from the seat of my pants.

 

 

    So far I'm about 10K into DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS and I'm really enjoying writing it. Again, no idea how long it will be or what will ultimately happen at the end but I'm excited to see where it goes and even more excited my muse is speaking to me as I stare at the computer screen. I will share with you the current tagline I'm trying to keep in mind: Ava Nicole Hill's carefully ordered world is about to be turned upside down and she is powerless to stop it.

 

 

    In addition to trying to balance two novels at once, I also have purchased three writing resources I'm trying to find time to read: Showing & Telling; Bullies, Bastards & Bitches; and The Writer's Guide to Character Traits. I don't know about you but I believe a writer should never stop learning or trying to improve their craft. Do you have any resources you can't live without? Are you working on one or more projects? Drop me a line. I'd love to know.