Nine months later...

Yes, about nine months have passed since I started my blog. It was my return foray into the digital world prior to publishing my first novel. If you go back to that first blog post, you'll get a sense of where I started. We're nearly 60 blog posts in at this point, which is an average of about 1.5/week. Pretty good, considering that I don't post every day or even every week. Sometimes, I'm just too busy writing, editing, promoting or doing my other job (the one where they call me 'mom').

So, after nine months and three novels, I thought it was time to do another update. Oddly enough, it was about 6 months ago when I did the last update.

First, I took a marketing class last fall, which anyone who follows my blog, Twitter or Facebook pages might remember. My professor was great - very supportive and fully embraced my desire to create a marketing plan for my writing. Did you know that self-published authors are responsible for all their own marketing? Either you do it yourself or you pay someone else to do it. One way or another, you have to understand your intentions, and the marketing plan required as part of my grade was a huge help in not only giving me marketing goals, but also giving me publication goals.

With that said, six months ago, when the only book I'd published was Back to December, I had one novel under my belt and one book complete in my Ward Sisters series. I was in process on Ward Sisters Book 2, Only One. Since then, Only One went live on December 21, 2013 (and had a HUGE revision between the update and publication time). Book 3, Right Here Waiting, went live this past Monday, March 17, 2014. I've learned so much in the past year, past nine months, past six months, past four months. It's run the gamut from improving my storytelling skills to finding new ways to guerrilla market my books. So, let's get to the update of future plans. Rather than give you detailed word counts like I did before, I'm going for the overview here.

Ward Sisters Series

Book 4, This Year's Love, was my NaNoWriMo project. It stars oncology nurse Annie Ward, Emily's younger sister, and park ranger Josh Ricker, Em's ex-boyfriend. My muse is refusing to speak about it for the moment, but suffice to say that I know she will talk before it needs to be completed. I'm planning for a June 2014 publication, probably at the end of the month.

Book 4.5, Buying the Cow. I'm still not sold on the title, but until I find an alternative, that's the Work In Progress (WIP) name. This story centers around  Rob's former makeup artist Reggie Reynolds, and reporter Eddie Besson, Josh Ricker's best friend from childhood. It will pick up right where Book 4 leaves off. I hadn't been sure before if it would be book 3.5 or 4.5. Now, I've decided and it follows Josh and Annie's story, is almost a continuation of that from two other points of view (POV), but it will expand into a separate story, too. Probably an early fall release, around late September/early October 2014.

Book 5, Just Realized. This story focuses on Realtor Nina Jacobs and Army Sergeant Owen Nichols. Nina appeared briefly in Back to December and she played an important role in Only One. She's also Charlie Ward's best friend and Meghan Miles' cousin. For anyone who wanted a Happily Ever After (HEA) for Nina, this will be where you hear it. We meet Owen in Right Here Waiting. He's one of two soldiers who Captain Neil Murphy considers to be his best friends in the service. Their story is mostly written and I expect that it will be published sometime in late 2014 or early 2015, depending on how quickly Book 4.5 comes together and how other things gel. I'm currently planning for February 6, 2015, but it might come earlier.

Book 6, Think of Me. Bodyguard and former FBI agent, Noah Adams gets his turn, along with Mary Cate Neely, Liam's twin sister. My marketing plan didn't include this book's release date, but I'd come up with a schedule that had a new book in the series every 4 months. If we push Book 5 ahead, this will get pushed ahead. If not, we're looking at August, 2015, which will be 2 years post-Back to December publication. I'd like to get it out sooner.

Book 6.5 Tell Me What it Takes. This one focuses on Dr. Aaron Wallace, who you'll meet in This Year's Love along with his high school flame (and Liam's ex), pharmaceutical rep Ally Carmichael. Again, depending upon everything else, this might come earlier, but expect it by Christmas 2015.

Book 7, Better Be Home Soon. Right now, this story has three POV and involved Charlie (Ward) and Dan Williams, as well as Neil Murphy's Army buddy, Jack Armstrong. That could change as time progresses. For now, while I'd love to get this book out sooner, it looks like we're at March 2016 for a current date on the schedule as it stands. The thing with this schedule is that it was originally generated when I was still writing/editing Only One, and between late last fall and now, I've changed a lot about how I approach my work. Suffice to say, I can't see it taking longer than two years from now to get this part of the series wrapped up, but it could always happen sooner. I'll keep you posted.

Deacon Security and Vega Brothers

As part of the process of finishing Right Here Waiting, I met two new characters whose stories I wanted to write. Rather than folding them directly into the Ward Sisters Series, I'm going to given them an offshoot series. It will be called Vega Brothers and for now, will include Meghan Miles' college best friend, Carlos Johnson-Vega and his older brother (and Meg's ex), Nico Vega. I imagine as I delve into their story, I'll find more characters who want to be heard, but for now, this will be a two-book minimum series.

I was musing recently and realized that a lot of potential existed to explore the men of Deacon Security. This is the company that guards Rob Deacon and his family, the security firm started by Rob's brother, Rick, when he became his younger brother's bodyguard. I'm currently writing a transition story, called Even Now, that will bridge between Ward Sisters and Deacon Security. The idea is that Rick's company, which is based in Minneapolis, will branch out to the East Coast when Rob permanently relocates his home base. They'll need a whole new crop of talent, and some of those guys will come from the men that Neil Murphy and Owen Nichols led in the Army. So, the series will still visit our Ward Sisters friends, but we won't focus on them specifically. I'm envisioning, so far, three stories beyond Even Now, so at least 4 books. But given the focus of the series, there is always a possibility that more could follow.

Warwick, Maine

The book I'd originally thought I would publish first will be part of this new series. It will be completely unrelated to Ward Sisters. I have a first-person, New Adult-oriented novel that's basically complete and needs to be edited, which I will use as a prequel for this series. The current title is Closer to Fine, so we'll see if that survives the editing stage, because this one will get a little bit of an overhaul. It's an existing story I wrote that I'm folding into this series. I'm hoping to have that ready in the next couple months. Then, in late summer, I'll be revealing more about the first regular book in the series, called The Piece I Don't Need. That will likely release between Book 4.5 and Book 5 of Ward Sisters, tentatively in November. After that, I have at least 5 other books planned or in process, I'll Be, In Another Life, Beneath the Stars and two that are thus far untitled, plus a shorter story that might make it into that set.


So, you can see I have a LOT of things coming down the pike. I'm getting quicker with my drafts - for Back to December, I wrote a first draft and went through 5 revisions (and Laurie edited 5 versions) before publication. Only One had as many versions (or more, possibly), but it only got the full editing treatment for 4 of them. With Right Here Waiting, I'd learned so much from the first two processes that it only went through 2 edits with my editor - one for content, the other for the nitty-gritty stuff, like grammar, missed punctuation, typos, etc. But I sought beta readers this last time around (super readers who review like my editor, for content and if they see technical errors, they can mention them), and I liked how the new process improved the flow for me and for everyone else. I anticipate more of that in the future and hopefully, it will streamline things so that I can get more out quicker.

That's the update on where things are currently at and where they're headed in the future. Thanks for continuing to take this ride with me!

One of those (good) days...

Writers always have good days and bad. Today, I haven't written much yet on my current Work In Progress (WIP). We had dental appointments mid-morning, and so instead of writing, I finished reading Jill Shalvis' latest book, Once in a Lifetime. Then, I got involved with responding to an email from my critique partner/mentor/editor, Laurie. The thing is, when I'm involved in these activities, they seem completely irrelevant to the process, and yet, today, they were anything but.

On route to the dentist, I was thinking about another of the stories in the Ward Sisters Series and had an epiphany. Not just about my current WIP, This Year's Love, but about my writing in general. Over the course of the past year, I've grown and changed, improved my skills, yes, but also found my voice strengthening. Last month, while completing Right Here Waiting, I had a breakthrough in my editing/storytelling when I realized the 10k I'd recently written wasn't going to make it to the final manuscript. Instead of feeling frustrated, I was elated! I'd come to the same conclusion I would have after Laurie read the manuscript, but I did it on my own, before she'd ever seen the material. It was emotionally akin to my son reading his little numbers book to me earlier and saying, "I'm learning!"

The process taught me to see that not everything I write has to make it into the final manuscript, but that doesn't mean some of those details aren't important. Like I just said to Laurie, if I don't write it, I can't decide which bits make it in, which bits will be glossed over and which bits will be ignored. I'd decided I didn't think I needed to write the history of the main characters into This Year's Love the way I have in the past. But for one, that might not be the best way to approach the story. And for another, even if the reader doesn't need to know the details, I do.

When I meet a character for the first time or as a secondary character in another story, I don't know everything about them. It's no different for me than it is when I meet new friends or acquaintances. The longer I know someone, the more I learn about them, the clearer the picture in my head. My characters are no different. So, whether or not I structure This Year's Love in any way similar to the last two stories I wrote or I take a completely different approach, I still need to write their histories, separately and together. Then, when I edit, I can decide if things are necessary for the reader to know and in how much detail. Why is this so exciting to me? Because now, when I write a story, any story, I'll automatically want to learn the history of a character, even if it's only for my information, and for someone like me, that means I've streamlined my process.

It's so funny that I've come to this conclusion, because I wrote a post early in my blogging about my sophomore year English teacher, who I resented at the time, but whose assignment to do a dossier on the characters of Oliver Twist informed my writing. Now, I'm realizing that process of putting together a 'file' - in my head and, more importantly, in writing - about a character is what helps me shape the story I'm telling. And none of it is pointless, even if I don't use it. The exercise serves many purposes, some of which help me be a better writer/editor, and some of which help create the story.

So, trip to the dentist, helpful and made my teeth sparkle. Reading another author's work? Seems completely relevant, right? Well, sure. Every writer is a reader. And in this case, I love Jill Shalvis' work. But more importantly, the last book in the Lucky Harbor series, Always On My Mind, was a friends-to-lovers story. This Year's Love is also one of those stories. And in Once in a Lifetime, we catch up a little with the previous characters, post HEA (Happily Ever After). They're doing great, but it cemented my conviction that I wanted This Year's Love to be different from your typical friends-to-lovers with a HEA ending. What happens after the HEA? What if the road to becoming more than friends was easy, but the 'after' was the hard part? That's what this story will be, and I'm very glad that I took this route. I'm really excited to get back to it with a new perspective in my head. As a writer, I enjoy generating ideas. But as a reader, I want those ideas to be interesting to other readers. That's the only reason to pick up a book, right? If it will engage you in some way? And what better way to engage the readers than to tell a story that's been told, but in a new way?

Which leads me to the third activity of the day, emailing my writing guru. We talk, back and forth, about our work, writing in general, life, how our stories are progressing, how sales are going, you name it. Any one of our emails could run the gamut. And sometimes, while I'm writing to her, I end up actually writing what is a plot/character development email to myself. I did that today on This Year's Love. Score one for character development! Other times, I'm writing to her and, though I do want to share what I'm typing with her, I'm also talking to myself. I had another one of those moments today. While sharing my excitement about the epiphany I detailed above, I came to the conclusion that my 4-month window between books in the series might be more than I need, now that my writing has evolved. And that sparked an exciting idea in my head.

So, I don't want to get too excited about this prospect, because I have a long way to go to finish This Year's Love for its late-June publication, and I have no idea what might happen with that. But, as of now, I'm thrilled to reveal that I'm planning a pre-quel story for my second series, Warwick, Maine. It'll be set in my college years of the 90's. The story will be a New Adult-genre narrative and will tie into the Warwick series by introducing some of the characters who'll appear later, in their older versions. The manuscript first draft is complete - it's a story I wrote previously that will be worked into the Warwick series - so provided I don't have a hard time with This Year's Love, it's reasonable to anticipate finishing this story for publication long before the November launch of Warwick. Current plans have me hoping for a mid-May release (between books 3 and 4 of Ward Sisters), but I might push it out to July (between 4 and 4.5 of Ward Sisters) if that seems more reasonable. Stay tuned. The current story title is Closer to Fine. Unlike most of my work, it's written in first-person, so it'll be an interesting adventure to bring it to life for my readers!

Back to work! Thanks for listening to me ramble today, and I can't wait to share more stories with all of you!