A lot of bumps in the road this year, so I will not be at any craft/vendor shows. However, depending on how quickly the people editing my books get through my stories, I will have three books out next year. (I'm still working on ideas for the covers, and finishing up the third book... and there's a good chance that this story isn't done because I have a lot of notes in my manuscript about what should happen if I continue the story. With all of that in mind, I do plan to publish the three books next year.) I am also trying to work on a few other stories because their voices have been getting louder: my two third person stories, and two older stories that need gaps filled, and one that needs an ending. With all that being said, I am sorry for being absent for so long, but I am still writing... and picked up a part-time job, all while still putting being a mom first, and dealing with, well, life in general. So if I am absent here again (which I probably will be), know that I am still doing my best to get my stories out. To be honest, writing isn't really an option for me. It brings me solace and happiness. I will of course post here when the stories are closer to being books!
It all started with a dream...
My Stories
I write adventures for those in search of a good story. My novels fall in the Fantasy genre, but many people consider them Sci-fi too. Each story is written with what I look for when I read a book: action, adventure, twists and turns, love, heroes, vicious enemies, fighting (weapons and hand to hand combat). I write because I want to share the stories that are inside of me. I hope you enjoy the adventures as much as I love writing them!
Widget
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Gift of the Moon Chapter 1
I just posted the first chapter for the "Gift from the Moon" if you would like to read it you can follow the link here or you can click on the tab above that has the title (it's next to the FAQ). I hope you enjoy the new adventure!
Friday, October 28, 2022
Thursday, September 29, 2022
Title of my new story
This is the title of my new story!! (It will be two books.) I spent the better part of Tuesday and several hours over the weekend formatting the text and the cover art. The proof books are supposed to arrive on Saturday. If both books look good, I will definitely be bringing them to the RHS Christmas Bazaar on June 5th from 9am-3pm in Rochester, MI. I will post the covers next month, as well as the story blurb.
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Two new books
Two exciting things I wanted to share with you:
First, I sent two books to Copyright yesterday morning!! One has a word count of 91,427 and the other is 96,778. For reference, "The Hobbit" is 95,356 words. I am hoping to have both of these books published by November. I realize this news seems trivial when you think about all the books being published these days, but if I don't share it, then it doesn't receive the proud feeling that it deserves.
Two, I will be selling my books at the RHS Holiday Bazaar Craft show in Rochester, Mi. on November 5th, 9am-3pm. (Which is why am I hoping to have the new books published by November.)
Aside from that awesome news, I am also hopeful to have at least one more book at Copyright next spring. I have a trilogy that is nearing the final stages, as well as another story that I wrote in 3rd person. This will be the first time I've published in 3rd person, and is my second time writing in 3rd person. I still have a few other stories that I have been picking away at, but these are what I have been spending most of my time on.
Over the next couple of months, I shall share the title and cover for my new books (which I already have figured out)! I really only have the tedious stuff left: formatting, waiting (lots of waiting at this stage), and hoping/making my covers look good on paperback... oh, and writing the blurbs...
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Here's what I've been working on
A glimpse into my writer world/brain: I am posting a picture of 3 manuscripts of 3 of my stories that I have been spending the most time on, and most importantly, they are almost finished! To give context to word count "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is 76,944 words. "The Hobbit" is 95,356 words. I work in 10 point font to save on paper when I print it off, which means to give page numbers would be inaccurate.
Sunday, December 26, 2021
I hope this finds you well. I have been been spending most of time writing. I have two good size projects almost completed. One just has a few more touchups and needs a cover which will then be ready to sell. The other is still growing with more details being added with each time I re-read it. Along with these two, I have my newest story that I need to build a bridge between to parts near the middle of the book and some more details to expand on, but it is complete as far as a beginning, middle, and end go. This one is written in third person (my second time writing third person, so... it may not be as close to done as I think it is, but I won't know until I'm ready to allow someone else to read it).
This year has been a long year with lots of ups and downs, which I am certain it's safe to say, I'm not the only one. I hope this past year has found you with more good moments than not. Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that I have not stopped writing (quite the opposite honestly), nor do I have any plans to stop. I have so many stories I'm trying to complete so that I may share them with you, and more ideas floating around in my head for new adventures.
Also, I have received a wonderful review on "Adventure's Spirit". If you're curious about it you can read it here, or check out the condensed version on Amazon.
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Working on...
The pic below is my fat baby! 😍 I finally have both copies of my manuscript for Story 20 back, and am re-reading it and fixing the errors. I love this story so much!! (I mean, I love all the work I've published, but this one is my favorite!) Being able to read a story a lot and always looking forward to reading it again is a very good sign! This book is at the beginning of the publishing it stage, but I wanted to share because I am so excited!
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
I'm still writing
Just to let you know, if you haven't checked out "The Shadow Dragon: Orbs of Fire", it is free. It is doing really well as a free book so I decided to keep it that way for awhile longer.
Here is what else is going on my Writer's World:
My daughter is taking a look at my book that is closest to being ready to publish. I decided to let her because she loves editing. She just finished Advanced Language Arts. And will be in Honors Language Arts in the fall. Her teacher was quite impressed with her writing skills and she tested really well on the PSAT. She told me she enjoys catching errors when she reads things. (sounds like a future editor to me) Plus, it never hurts two have another set of eyes, especially when they belong to someone who is bluntly honest with me.
I have another book that I'm waiting on the edits for. This is my long one. It is 230,957 words. If I double spaced it and used 12 point font using Times New Roman (which is how you figure out the approx. length it will be in book format) it is over 900 pages. Making it my longest book so far. The Shadow Dragon series would be longer, but I did not write that one in one go. I had no idea there would be a third book until I my son had me listen to "Demons" by Imagine Dragons - 3 years later. Anyways, this is probably my favorite book I've ever written. Don't get me wrong, I love all my stories (I wouldn't publish a book if I didn't love the story), but this one might just take the number one spot. I still have to make the decision whether or not to chop it up though. As a reader, I personally don't like multiple books - I don't care if it has a cliff hanger ending or not. I don't want to reach for another book, I just want to turn the page. However, as a writer, there's the cost of the book to the reader and how much I will make off it (all the blah blah stuff that I don't want to care about). I know that it's easy for a reader to say about an ebook, that there's no reason it should cost more than a couple of bucks. But as a writer, I put in hours and hours, at all times of day, everyday of the week. I poured my heart and soul into it. And let's not forget all the ebook stores skim a bit off the top. To be honest though, if money wasn't a necessity for food, housing, medical - if money was just about buying things to have more stuff - I'd make all my books free, because I just want to write books for people to read. So back to my dilemma: One long book or "cheaper" multiple books? I think that a bigger book is hard for people to want to buy, especially because I am in independent writer. They don't know me, and they don't know if they'll like my writing, and therefore they don't really want to take that chance. In the end, I may have to chop it up so you don't have pay much for one book. Or I might just take a risk and see if people will take a chance on me. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait until the time comes to send it to copyright. If you'd like to leave a comment of your opinion/what you prefer, please feel free to do so!
I am also finishing up another story. I am mad at my writing at the moment, so I put it aside because it makes my brain mush when I try to work on it. It doesn't help that I changed an event earlier in the story, so I am at a critical point where that change was a big part of the story, and then I also have the issue of the scene is so much cooler in my head than what I wrote. Plus, frustration is a horrible writing blocker for me. This story is complete in that it has an ending and there is nothing to bridge together, I just have to improve the section I am at.
I also am working on a new story (in third person) which is very close to the end. I finished a huge chunk of it before my other stories over took my brain. A huge chunk = 96,000 words. A novel, I believe, is at least 60,000words. So 96,000 and still not at the end is a great start! I had intended to write this story were the main characters just had run-ins with each other for most of the book, but they disagreed and, at least for the male protagonist, it was love at first sight. There's not much I can do when they have made up their minds... besides, who am I to intervene when it comes to love.
And one last thing that is going on in my writer's world. For the last week or so, I have a clear picture of a male protagonist who is giving me very limited details about his story. This makes it super hard to start writing. Beside this fact, I like him very much. So expect to hear about yet another story that I have written.
Hope you are enjoying your day!
Friday, April 30, 2021
"The Shadow Dragon: Orbs of Fire" free this weekend (4/30 - 5/3)
It's my birthday this weekend so I decided to make a book free. I love celebrating my birthday - another year I survived- and I am very happy to have survived this past year. "The Shadow Dragon: Orbs of Fire" will be free at iBooks, Barnes&Nobles, Kobo, and Smashwords. I couldn't make it free at Amazon so I apologize that it is not free there (the cheapest it would allow was 2.99 and it would take up to 72 hours). Smashwords, however, does have it available for Kindle. (There are links to the right for each site.)
So enjoy a book this weekend on me. And if you like it I would very much appreciate if you could rate/review it. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Saturday, December 26, 2020
Update
Oh my, its been a long time since I wrote on here. 2020 has been such a struggle, it had even prevented me from writing for a while. A key stealer of my writing has been stress/anxiety, which I know has been the same for a lot of people. I hope all of you are healthy and finding happiness in life despite everything.
Update on my works in progress:
I have been making a lot of forward progress on Story 20 over the last month or so. I am re-reading it so I can tidy up the end. It is currently 208,000 words long. My editors are going to take a look at it and figure out the best thing to do. I want to keep it one story, but realistically, that's kind of crazy. So we shall see. This book still needs a title and cover art, but I'm not all that concerned about either of those things with this book, especially if it stays one book.
I am still waiting for my latest edited manuscript, but I know it will arrive eventually. I do have a title for this book, but not a cover. I had an idea, but I can't seem to make it work the way I want to, so I keep hoping something else will come to mind. Or I figure out how to do my idea. I've still have some time though since once I get the manuscript back, I have to attend to their critiques and the oopsies that I made, and then re-read it at least one more time before I will send it to copyright.
My friend gave me back my third person story (Story 15) and said she loved it and had no problems with the way it was written, minus the usual grammar problems I struggle with. So I will continue to work on that one, once I have the opportunity.
I have the second book for Rise of Ansea next to my bed. It too is nearly complete, just needs a few more details.
Story 17 is patiently waiting for me to go over the edits and input from two people who took a look at it for me. I have cover art for this book almost done. So I just have to keep writing to figure out if that book is going to be extended or if its going to be two books. (This is a book that I was almost done with when a new person decided to join the story and now it's not almost done.) I don't know how much more this new person is going to add to the story. Once I can invest the time to figure that out, then I can decide on a title and that will be almost done, again.
Never a dull moment here, especially not in my head/writer's world. Not gonna lie, I've missed all this chaos. The other chaos, where I am just staring at my stories and shaking my head because I'm too full of other negative crap that I can't do anything about, is horrible.
Monday, July 13, 2020
July 13, 2020
Sunday, June 14, 2020
Page 99: "The Shadow Dragon: Orbs of Fire"
“Put me down!” I snarled at him.
Or if you want to read the book here's the links to where it is sold:
Amazon
Apple(iBooks)
Barnes&Nobles
Rakuten Kobo
Smashwords
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Page 99 Test: Heart of the Emperor
Here is page 99 from the paperback of "Heart of the Emperor":
And if you'd like to buy the book here are the links where you can find it:
Amazon
Apple(iBooks)
Barnes&Nobles
Rakuten Kobo
Smashwords
Friday, May 22, 2020
Page 99 Test: "Solace: Lost"
I went back and forth as to whether or not to post the sequel books page 99, but I decided that if I was the reader this would intrigue me. So, here is the excerpt from page 99 and 100 of the paperback version of "Solace: Lost":
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Page 99: "Solace"
Below is page 99 from the paperback, of "Solace: Uncharted Territory":
Or if you'd just like to jump into the story, here are the links to the e-stores that sell it:
Amazon
Apple(iBooks)
Barnes&Nobles
Kobo
Smashwords
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Page 99
Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Reviewwere instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature.
I'm always trying to figure out a passage from my books to post. I open a book thinking I'll post my favorite part (which is a failed endeavor because each book as many favorite parts) and I end up reading more than I meant to with nothing to post. I'm not saying I agree with Ford, but I figured I might as well post page 99 because it gives a glimpse that you cannot get from the blurb on the back. So for the next few weeks, starting tomorrow, I will be posting page 99 from each of my books. I hope you enjoy!
Friday, May 1, 2020
An attempt at characters from "Heart of the Emperor"
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
My attempt at character drawing "Solace"
So here's my attempt at drawing Karissa. It's not perfect (obviously), but it was fun - and challenging - to attempt. I am limited on art supplies so I worked with what I had. Just know that I am really struggling with drawing the men from my stories, more so than the woman (not that they are perfect). Part of the reason I get so frustrated is because I have a picture of the lead men of my stories in my head as I'm writing, and I cannot reproduce it onto the paper. Whereas with the lead women, they are a little less defined image in my mind, and I think it's because I see the story from their eyes, so I'm not looking at them often enough and this allows me to be less irritated with the final product.
And here's one I did of Jack and Karissa. I only outlined Karissa's skin in this one so that her face wouldn't get lost in the color of her skin. I went back and forth on whether or not to color her skin, but then I messed up her mouth while I was inking it, I put whiteout over it so I could try again (this would have changed the color of the ink around her mouth, making her look horrible) which made the decision for me.
And one more. This next one is from Solace: Lost.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Free unit next Thursday (4/9)
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/solace-uncharted-territory
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/152083
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Books for $2.99
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Still writing... :)
Finish re-reading/revising Story 10 (which is 172,000 words), and it's safe to say it's going to get a bit longer... as expected. However, if feels really close to done.
And Story 20 is finally a completed first draft which is 188,000 words (which translates into approximately 775 book pages.) So now I'm putting both of those aside for a bit before I dive back into them.
I picked up Story 3 which is 157,000 words. This is actually the second book I started. (It's called story 3 because the sequel to Taken was Story two when I started this. I was at story five or six when I realized that I was titling them wrong. A story and it's sequels are still the same story. Luckily, I had forgotten to give a story a # cause I already had a title for it. So it sits in Story 2's slot.) Anyways. It seems to me that it was finished in a sense, but I there was more I wanted to write so the story wasn't done. I haven't looked at this story in quite a while so hopefully, i can bring it to a close and have it in my "ready for the editors so I can publish" pile.
I hope you're reading, writing, drawing, making music, listening to music, or whatever art soothes your soul. Stay safe and take care! 😊
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Artwork of Sonia
Friday, March 6, 2020
Just an update
I printed off Story 10, because this usually helps me look at the story with fresh eyes. So far, there have only been a few detail changes with wording and what have you. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the 173,500word story, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm almost to the parts that I have recently added/edited(heavily) so my happiness with this story could take a severe turn (I'm hoping not). This story has a title, but not a cover. One out of two isn't bad.
I'm also working on Story 20. It was supposed to have come to end already. Only when I got to what I thought was going to be the end, one of the "not nice" people in the story decide that it wasn't the end. Which means the story is still growing. I can kind of see where it's going, but things keep coming up - I'm not complaining, just informing. (Have I mentioned that I love writing.) So this story is currently 175,289words and growing.
I can hear the echo of voices from a couple of other stories, but I hope they don't get louder just yet. 😉
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
A post on "What, Why, How"
Also, I am still working on Story 20 in my free time. It's at 166,000 words, I am no longer sure how close to done it is, because as usual, more things have presented themselves and there's a few things I have to go back and clarify. And of course there are other voices in my head getting louder: Story 15, Story 18, and story 25. I want to get back to Story 17, Story 10, and Rise of Ansea Book 2 so I can officially begin the process to publishing them. A busy real world life and a demand in my writer's world seems to be an ongoing and vicious cycle, which I am navigating the best I can. If only there were more hours in the day, or I could function on less hours of sleep.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Character interview - Nick(from Project 21)
https://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/2020/02/22/dirty-dozen-character-interview-nicodemus-etalo-sci-fi/
I hope you enjoy the read!
Friday, January 31, 2020
Update: As of January 31st
I've been obsessed with Story 20. When I opened it was at 90,000 words. I added 20,000 words, but ended up deleting 10,000 of them because it took me so long to realize I had taken the story down the wrong path. Ugh. Now it's at 145,000 with the ending almost completed. However, as I'm re-reading it, I've realized I need to add another chapter near the beginning and another about a quarter of the way through - not to add more words, but to write a better picture. I love the beginning of this story, and I want to get it out, but it just keeps growing. I'm not really changing anything which normally means the section is done, but as I keep reading I feel as though I should go back and write more, something that doesn't happen very often when I actually like what's there. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love writing?)
Story 17 was being read by a friend to make sure that it was a story worth working on. And she loved it. A few grammatical things (no surprise there), but she had no advice for the story itself. This story had seemed completed the last time I read it, except that someone unexpected appeared near the end and now I have to write more. I'm not sure if it will be another book or I will just extend the book. However with the people in story 20 being so loud and clear, I haven't had the opportunity to work on this story since my friend gave it back to me. Also, exciting news about Story 17, is that I have the base for the cover finished. It's not quite right, but maybe after I come up with the title it will all fall into place!
Story 10 has a title, and is mostly finished! It was finished until I realized what the title was and now there is a little bit more that needs to be written. So once Story 20 has calmed down, I am going to re-read and polish up Story 10. I have not come up with a cover for this story yet, no surprise there, but having a title and mostly completed book I am hopeful that cover will make itself known when I re-read it.
I've also mostly completed Story 25. I had been interrupted a lot while writing the ending so I'm not going to say its done, especially when in the back of my mind I don't think it is. But it's pretty exciting to think that the skeleton of it is complete. This story is lacking title and cover, but it will eventually come to me.
"Rise of Ansea" book 2 does have a title and the story is finished in that it has a beginning, middle, and end is written. However it's really not long enough. My mom read it and said she'd like to see more of Rot and Havoc, and I'd like to write more about a newer character, so as soon as I can focus on that I will have that story completed as well! And believe it or not, I do have the cover idea figured out, I just have to make it happen!
And for those of you who may be wondering: whatever happened to The Huntsman's Daughter. I have re-read it (made a lot of corrections), and now I just need time to go in and fix things. I do love this story and I very much want it available for you to read again, but not in the state that it is at the moment. If you didn't know this was my attempt at a true adult (Romance) story, which made it more difficult to find people to edit and get feedback for - since I don't know a lot of people who read this genre. So I am sorry about the issues on this one.
So that's what's going on in my writer's world. My "real life" world is rather busy too, which makes for an interesting life. One which I will not complain about, because I keep writing and am blessed to have three amazing kids.
If you enjoy my books, and would like to help me out, please rate and/or review my books, and encourage others to take a chance on me. Thank you so much for reading my stories because I really do love writing them!