Sale Ends Thursday

Teagan's Story: Her Battle With Epilepsy is only on sale through the end of March. April starts Friday and it will return to it's normal price. Get it now for only 99 cents at either Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Blog Award

My blog has been awarded. Thank you, Deborah!

I'm completely new at this, so bear with me. I was awarded this award because Deborah thinks my blog has style. Who would have thought? Me... stylish! Now, I have to list seven interesting things about myself and award seven blogs that I think have style.

1. I used to stay up way past my curfew writing. I'd hide under the covers with a notebook, pen, and flashlight. It got hot under there!

2. I am married and we have five daughters. Yes, you read that right, FIVE girls. Can't wait until they're all teenagers and we're PMSing together! My husband is stoked about that too. He keeps talking about building a man cave, but I don't have any more bedrooms to give him.

3. I have also had six miscarriages. My unofficial diagnosis? Those are my boys.

4. We're a semi-crunchy family. I use cloth diapers, breastfeed, babywear, practice natural childbirth, and co-sleep. I do not homeschool.

5. I am scared of bees. Ridiculously scared. I literally run in the house screaming when one even flies remotely close to me. And by remotely, I mean within 20 feet.

6. I am a very picky eater. Seriously... no fruit, no raw veggies, no ethnic food. I'm a steak and potatoes girl.

7. I am a chocoholic. But, not fancy chocolate. Hershey's chocolate is the best. No nuts, no dark, just plain old milk chocolate. Chocolate frosting out of the can is pretty awesome too.

Did you find those interesting? I was sitting here all evening trying to think about what my blog readers would find interesting. Not everyone shares the same interests, but hopefully, I peaked some curiosity.

Now, to pass on the love. Obviously, there are many blogs out there that I like, here are just a few:

Ya-aholic

Courtney Rene

Kicked, Cornered, Bitten & Chased

C.J. Duggan

The Cozy Corner Reading Room

In Between Writing and Reading

Absconditas

Thanks again, Deborah!

Questions for Writers #2

Do you tease a work in progress on your website or blog? Why or why not? If you do and someone criticizes it, do you scratch it completely?

It's something I've been thinking about doing, but I'm extra sensitive about the stuff I'm working on. If it's already published, there's not much I can do, and if it got to that stage then somebody out there liked it enough for me to go ahead with it. But, if I put something new out there and it gets shot down - then I might scratch the whole thing.

So, I'm curious - what do other authors do?

Spotlight

Katie Klein does spotlights on her blog and today is MY day! Yay!! Go check it out.

My First Interview

There's a new newsletter being published in my neighborhood. In going through my ridiculously neglected email inbox, I came across an email sent out to a neighborhood email list that I'm on asking for stories or interesting people to write about for a new publication. Why I didn't immediately jump at this is beyond me. Sometimes I guess I just flake on things.

I emailed her back thinking it was probably too late, but she responded and told me she would forward on my information. When I didn't hear anything for over three weeks, I figured I wasn't interesting enough to make it into the newsletter.

But, then the email came. I was like a kid at Christmas! I called my husband and told him they wanted to to do an article about me. She wanted me to call her, which freaked me out a little, I'm shy and I don't always say the right things when I'm put on the spot. I sucked it up and called her. We had a nice chat and hopefully I came across somewhat sane.

She told me she would have the photographer get a hold of me to come take a picture and the article would be in the next newsletter. The photographer came the next day. I scrubbed the house - and myself, because, well - I looked like a worn out mom. My oldest daughter picked out something a little cooler than Jockey lounge wear. She even did my make-up. I figure there was no way she was going to have me embarrassing her.

The photographer took a few pictures of me sitting at our breakfast bar in front of my laptop. In a couple shots, I held my Kindle.

I'm very excited and scared out of my mind. Once this goes out, people will know that I write and while this is a very good thing, it's kind of scary because my books are like my babies. I created them. I brought them to life. When someone doesn't like them, it makes me sad. The ones that I have published aren't edgy YA, but I do write edgy YA, and once I publish some of those, I wonder how some of these neighbors will react.

I believe this publication is online, so when it's out... y'all will know!

Busy

I've had a lot of personal stuff going on here the past week. I've been slacking on my goal and book promoting. Hopefully, I'll figure out what's going on soon and get back to some sense of normal. It's also spring break here, so the kids have been home all day and that makes it more difficult to find the time to do anything.

Couple of updates:

The little girl I asked you to pray for, she's doing wonderful!

I put my second book, Teagan's Story: Her Battle With Epilepsy on sale for 99 cents!! Not sure how long I'll leave it at that price, so go check it out.

Asking For Prayers

Many of you know my third book is about a girl with a heart condition. My family has had a lot of experience in this area. Not only have myself and my daughter gone through heart surgery, but many of my relatives have some sort of heart problem. So, this book hits close to home.

Today, however, a friend's one-year-old little girl, Natalie, is in the PICU. She has a congenital heart defect and is battling pneumonia and RSV. She's been there for about a week and there hasn't been any improvement. Please keep Natalie and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Thank you.

Talia

Finally

It's official, I have joined the eReader population. After much debate, lots of research, shopping, and agonizing... I have a Kindle.

It was between a Kindle and Nook for the most part. The nice people dressed in blue at Best Buy said they were really the only two they'd recommend. The guy seemed to be pushing me into a Nook. But, my husband said if I was going to buy a Nook, I might as well buy an iPad. And believe me, I'd like an iPad. However, they are more expensive and what I really wanted it for was JUST to read books. Not get email, not surf the internet, not even read magazines. Just books.

I also considered that the kind of books I might most likely be reading would be from indie authors. There are SO many books out there I want to read from self-publishing authors and many of those are on Amazon. I know this means I can't borrow books from the library, I'm okay with that. I even bought a cover that has a light right inside of it, so I can read in bed.

I have one more library books to read and then it's Kindle time!

Questions for Writers

What do you do when you have a bunch of story ideas in your head?

Do you grab one and run with it?

Do you jot all your ideas down?

What happens if you're working on one story and another one is pestering you to be written? Do you stop and write it? Or do you continue on with the current one?

If you write a bunch of them, do you find it hard to keep in character?

I have at least 5 really good ideas in my head right now. But, I can't seem to concentrate on just one. I keep flipping between them, writing whatever is coming to me at the moment. It's exhilarating at times, confusing at other times. I'm excited by all of these new possible books, I find myself wishing I could write faster or that there was more time in the day. Maybe one day, one or the other will happen :)

A Trip to the Library

I'm majorly behind on books, I guess that's what having five kids will do to you. Yesterday, I decided to go to the library and see if I could find some of the books on my 'to read' list. Unfortunately, I didn't find a lot. None of the semi-new ones were there, so I had to get even older on my list. This, of course, reminded me why I don't usually bother with the library. They never have what I want. I'd much rather go to the bookstore. But, I'm trying to do my part in the family and save some money.

What did I end up getting? Crank, Maximum Ride School's Out Forever, The Dead and the Gone, and Vampire Academy. See... old.

What did I do yesterday? Read all of Crank. I wasn't sure I'd like the book. I knew I would like the storyline, but I wasn't too sure about the poetry part. When I started reading, the words grabbed me and I was hooked. I found myself frustrated at times trying to figure out which way the page was to be read, but I got through it. I have mixed feelings about the book, but I think that's normal now because I see it from two perspectives - the teen and the mom. I'm not real good at reviews, so I'll just say that I'm glad I read it even though I really don't like how it was written.

I started The Dead and the Gone. I recently read Life As We Knew It, so I know a lot about this book already. We'll see if I like it as much.

After these four books are read, I think it'll be back to the bookstore. I don't think I want to deal much with the library.

Word Count

Word Counts ~ Novel vs Novella ~ YA vs Fiction ~ Word Counts

There are so many sites out there with information on how many words a novel should be or a novella or a young adult book, but what about a young adult novella?

Here's the dilemma - I have a young adult book that is currently 35,000 words. Once I'm finished, it should be closer to 40,000. The story is fine the way it is. I think it flows well. If I have to get it to 40,000-50,000 to be considered a good young adult length, I'll have to add fluff. And well, too much fluff, is just that - FLUFF! I don't want to put a whole bunch of nothing in my book just to get it to the right word count.

What do do? What to do? Does it matter? Does it really matter if a book is a little shorter than normal? Would some of you rather read a book with more fluff just so that it's the proper length? Mmmm... decisions.