Who Likes Free Stuff?

I think we can all agree that I suck at marketing.  So I'm just going to do this the Oprah way.

Everyone gets free stuff!!!

My audiobook for "The Angel & Her Gun" is finished and ACX has sent me a crap ton(24) of free copies to distribute to whomever I choose.  And guess what, readers... if you send me an email, at katecauthor(at)gmail, then I will send you one.  I will do this until they run the heck out.

Here is a synopsis of the short story(it's about an hour long):

Samora is a gunslinger in the Wild West, but she doesn't just carry a gun. She also carries the cross ring that designates her as an angelic agent, sent from God himself to battle over mortal souls on earth with the demons who seek to win their ages long battle.She has two problems: her propensity for getting screwed over by conniving mortals and her love for Gideon -a fallen angel on the wrong side of the law.

Be warned, there is some PG-13 material enclosed.

On a ROW80 note, I've been plugging away at Terris.  It's not fast, but it's happening and that keeps me in my happy place.  I've written about 3 chapters per character at this point.  There will be a small lull this week and next, as my sister is out visiting from Wyoming.  Hopefully, I will still be writing, but with family around, I don't want to make any promises I can't keep.

That's all for now! Happy Reading!

Being a Super Genius is Tough, but I Manage.

I don't want to be all full of myself today, readers, but I can't help it.  I'm a genius.  When it comes to scheduling, anyway.
For the past few weeks, since I started my new job, I've had serious issues scheduling time to write.  Like, I had none.  Not even a minute.  I get up, get the kids ready, work, pick the kids up, work some more, hang with the kids, eat dinner, get the kids ready for bed, and hang with the hubby, then go to bed myself.  That's it.  If (and that's a big if) I had any free time at night, I was so exhausted, I just had nothing to put in.  Zero inspiration.
It was really a drag, pretty much.  I mean, if you wanted, day after day, to write but you had no time, it would make you depressed, too.
Then one day I was sitting in the car eating my lunch and I had a zing of inspiration!  I had like a 45-1 hour window of eating time that I was using to read/eat.  But now, I write instead!

It's fantastic and it makes me so happy!  Yay!  It's not a lot of time, but it's some.  And it means I can keep writing.  I was honestly about to give up.

In other good news, Compis the audiobook is finished.  As soon as ACX is done reviewing it, that is.  We're knee deep in Aeris right now and it is sounding great. :)

One final gift from me.  I ran across this randomly yesterday and I wanted to share it with you, because it's so cute.  It made my day.  (In case you're not a Kdrama addict like me, the guy is Lee Min Ho, probably one of the most famous stars in Kdramaland.)

Enjoy and Happy Reading!

Don't Tell Grandma

I was AFK this weekend, as we all drove down to my grandparents' house to meet up with my sister who was visiting from Seattle.  Let me tell you, a great time was had by all.  I haven't seen my sister since Christmas, so this was a happy homecoming.

But while we were at my grandparents', sitting around chit-chatting, my grandma came up to me and said, "I know about your books."

And for about a minute I was thinking, "Oh boy.  Is Grandma hitting that age where I have to worry about her memory?  She did send me that 'cute kitty' video link in an email twice."
I mean, of course she knows about my books.  She gets to read the freaking rough draft before anyone else does.

Then she smiled at me and winked and suddenly, I knew that she meant those books.  You know the ones that I'm talking about, right?

Oh yeah...

So it turns out that some BIGMOUTH in my family spilled the beans about my extracurricular writing activities.  That's right.  Someone told my grandma about the sexytime stories I made sure to write about under a whole different name so she would never ever find out.  And she found it highly amusing.

Ah well.  I guess we're never as sneaky as we think we are.  Either that or my family has the busiest grapevine on the planet.  (Probably true.)

So anyway, I didn't get my update in, so this will count as my ROW for Wed.

Thursday was a good day, but it was the only one.  I got about 3 hours of work done and a little more on Friday before I left.  So yay!  Been writing Zyander, because, well, his voice is the strongest in my head right now.  I've been listening to the audiobook (which BTW sounds AWESOME!) and it brought me back to all the emotional hardships that he's been through and how strong a leader it's made him.  Fun stuff.

So let's hope I get more done this week.

Happy Reading!

Gettin' my ROW on...

If you're a writer in the know then you know that this week the last round of the year for ROW80 starts.  Round of Words in 80 days is a self-created goal of some sort that you as a writer make for yourself.  I've been mulling this over for several days, folks and I can't seem to come to a personal goal.

My Word of the Year this year is FEARLESS and I think I've lived up to my goal so far.  Audiobooks, news blogging, I even started a new job.  But unfortunately, some of those things interfere with my writing time. (Mostly the new job)  I'm lucky if I have an hour a day right now.

If it were just a matter of getting up earlier, I could do it.  Getting up at 5 in the morning is no problem for me.  I did it every day when I was writing Aeris.  The problem here?  My kids get up at 5!

So, should I be getting up at 4 then?  Goodness me!

So, I think my goal has to be this:

WRITE EVERY DAY.

I'm gonna try my best.  I'll keep that doc file open and whenever I have a free moment, where my kids are sleeping or my hubby is distracted, and I'll put some words in it.  

Terris might not get finished as quickly as I want it to, but at least I'll make progress, right?  And it's halfway done, so that's good also.

Yeah, so I guess I've made my goal.

Happy reading!

PS- Don't forget to head on over to Cuddlebuggery.com and check out my latest Buzz Worthy News!

Discovery

I may have mentioned this before (once or twice), but I'm kind of a big reader.  Don't believe me?  Well, you can go to goodreads and check out my profile.  That will tell you better than I can that I'm an official bibliophile—or as my husband likes to say, book addict.

I was reading a friend's blog the other day and she gave us a list of her favorite books and how she'd discovered them.  Which got me thinking about MY favorite books.  I thought I'd share them with you here.

Before I do, though, I just want to say that in some cases, it's not so much a favorite book as it is a favorite author.

Anyway, on to the list, which I shall try to pare down as much as possible.

1) No list like this can take place without Pride & Prejudice.  Oh, boy, I'm going to start out my pretentious list with a classic, I can hear the groans already.  Actually, the first time I tried to read Jane Austen was in high school.  I hated her book (no it wasn't an assignment, I'm one of those weird book geeks that tries out classics on my own) and put it down for about 4 years.  It was too wordy, too descriptive and I was an action girl at that point, loving on Anne McCaffrey.  Then, for whatever reason, I picked up Emma a few years later and I was hooked.  I laughed out loud and proceeded to read every other Jane Austen book I could get my hands on.  I bought all of them.  I can't remember at what point I read P&P, but the fact that Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth for "the liveliness" of her mind sends me into spasms every time.  Yes, I am a romantic.

2) A Game of Thrones.  I'm not sure if this is my favorite book of the series or not, I'm pretty fond of book 3 as well, but this was the beginning of my LOVE for George.  (Oh, George, how I heart you!!!)  I heard about this book from my friend Jeff, who said to me, "He is the best fantasy writer of all time."  As a self-named fantasy freak, I was skeptical, to say the least.  But winter break was coming up, so I grabbed all the books that were out at the time (the first three) and went home for Christmas.  I honestly don't know if I would have caught on to George's genius if I hadn't gotten sick and been bedridden for literally a week straight.  I DEVOURED those books.  I laughed, and cried and raged and by the end I knew that when it comes to character development, George has everyone else beat.

3) A lot of my book discoveries are random library events.  I go to the new books section, pick up something that interests me by title, cover, or synopsis.  Poisonwood Bible was one of these.  How could I resist anything with bible in the title, I ask you.  This book was transporting!  Kingsolver's prose is among the best in the world, in my opinion.  Each of her character voices in this book was so different that I could picture their voices and faces in my mind during each chapter.  I loved this book so much that as soon as I finished it, I picked it right back up and read it through again.  Amazing!  Oh, and I discovered her before Oprah ever did.

4)  I adore thought-provoking sci-fi.  I love to mull over social issues related through far away galaxies and fought among fast moving space ships.  So it is no wonder that I love Orson Scott Card.  Everyone always quotes Ender's Game at me.  My former boss, who was my introduction to Card, certainly did.  But for me, it was Speaker for the Dead that really resonated with me.  The questions that book asks about what is alien, what is good or bad, are good intentions really worth anything, is there such a thing as doing the wrong thing for the right reason... still stump me to this day.

5)  I'll keep this list down to five for today.  I might talk about my other favorites later.  The most recent addition to my list is Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor.  Talk about another writer whose prose is mindbogglingly good.  When I read her work, my heart twists with envy and admiration, because I know I'll never be able to write like that.  I was turned on to Taylor by my favorite reviewer in the whole world, Kat Kennedy.  She has been responsible for quite a few of the wonderful books I've discovered lately.  The first story in this book blew me away.  Then there was the second, then the third.  Honestly, I felt drained and starstruck from her talent after I read this book.

So those are my top five (For now.  The list is constantly changing!).  What are your favorite books?  How did you discover them?

In a quick ROW80 update, I want to say that this week wasn't as good as last week.  It wasn't bad at all, I still got quite a bit written.  I paused Zyander's story to play some catch up with Nikka.  She and Zyander intersect quite a bit in the first part of the book, so I wanted to make sure her chapters were going to meet up with Zyan at the appropriate time.
Can I just say again how much more complex writing a book with 3 main characters is than writing a book with one?  I've done both several times now, and I now understand why most YA writers don't do it.  It's tough, people!  Writers who have more than one character in your books, how greatly I admire you.  George, who has like 30 main characters... I don't know how he does it!!!

That is all for my week.  Good luck to all my ROW friends.  And Happy Reading!

I am Invincible!

Well, no, not really.  This is more like me:

I don't get it.  I try so hard to be tough, but in the end, I have a knot in my stomach and the blazing cheeks of someone who'd just gotten told off.

Have you ever met a meany in real life?  They're rare, in my personal experience.  I have to be careful in my descriptions here, because I don't want to make it seem like I'm picked on or that my minor experience is somehow more tragic than someone who has really been bullied.

I can stick with the word meany, though.  Meanies like to be above the rules.  Meanies like to be in charge.  Meanies are vindictive and boy did I run into one on Friday.
I won't go into details, but if you don't know me, let me assure you... I'm not the type of girl who enjoys public confrontation.  In fact, I will pretty much do anything to avoid it.  But when a meanie went out of his way to ruin my day on Friday, I found myself wanting to never go back to that place again.  I wanted to change my whole routine to avoid him, because I suspect, having been given a rather large dose of his vindictiveness, he will go out of his way to make my day hell again.

Sometimes, I wish I was invincible.

It made me think about this book I'm reading right now called, "To Name the Wind."  I've heard a whole lot of good things about Patrick Rothfuss, and I greatly admire his sense of humor... but his book is so dark!  So dark that I wish I could find more evidence of the humor in it.
In any case, I read about this main character and how he comes up against his own meanie.  And like me, he absolutely refuses to back down.  Except that he can't avoid the guy, he sees him everyday.  And so a vicious cycle ensues where the MC and the meanie have a throwdown every freaking day and the meanie basically makes his life a living hell, because he's rich and powerful and has a flipping lot of connections.
And I just get so exasperated with MC, because I end up feeling like he's just an idiot!  Why poke the bear over and over again.  I mean, I get the impulse and the guy is basically the world's worst human being... but you aren't gonna win!
Should he give up, then?  Should the meanie be allowed to triumph?  It's such an interesting question to try and answer in a book.  I'm not sure this is the right book in which to answer it, but there it is.

How do you deal with meanies, when you come across them?  Do you rise above?  Do you ignore them?  Do you avoid them?  I think I'll definitely be avoiding next time around, because I don't enjoy feeling shaken and weak afterward.

On a lighter note, I decided to join up with Camp Nano, which is pretty much basically ROW80 on a different website and without blogs.  But you can pick a word goal and you have cabin mates to cheer you on, and you get to see a nice little chart that shows where you're at and how far it is to reach your goal, which is always nice.

It did help, as I got a few thousand words written last week.  Yay for me.  Little C. has some kind of cold that has led him to not sleeping, so boo for that.  Seriously can't wait till cold and flu season is OVER!!!

That's all for me.  Hope all my fellow ROWers are doing well and meeting their goals!
Happy Reading!

Eeny Meeny Miney Moe...

Sorry, there was no official end of ROW80 posting last week.  Because my family celebrates holidays on days other than holidays.  So last weekend we did Easter Egg hunts with the kidlets and had a generally fabulous time with the family.  Little C. was a sight to behold.  He may be 18mths old, but that kid totally gets the idea of stashing loot in a basket. hahaha

So, how was my last ROW80 round?  Not great, honestly.  It could have been much worse, so for that I am thankful.  But MAN ALIVE did I get railroaded by the sick.  And just when Little C. started sleeping, too.  I'm much more hopeful that I'll get some major words out next round.  It will be warmer out and the cold and flu season will be nearing its end.

In case you were wondering about ME, I'm going to be just fine.  Got to the doctors just in time to figure out that I'd completely recovered from my own malady.  Isn't that just the way of it?  Like trying to take a twitchy car into the mechanic but your car won't reproduce the symptoms.

I probably got around 10,000 words written, total.  This is not a personal best for me, but it's better than nothing.  I'm not going to set a word goal for next round, but my goal is to be finished with part one of Terris.  That's about 30,000 words.  That means I'd have to do 10,000 words a MONTH, not per 3 months.

Instead, my goal this time around will be to write one hour a day.  In an hour I can write anywhere from 1,000-1,600 words, depending on my writing flow.

Will I make it?  I don't know.  Stay tuned to find out!  :)

Onward towards today's topic.  A week or so back I got a lovely fan letter from a reader of my Angelic Agents stories who wanted to know if there would be any new stories out soon.  Oh boy.

That really got me thinking about how my writing has gone thus far.  How do I decide what comes next?  How do I decide to do YA fantasy, or Western Fantasy Romance or Contemporary Romance or...

I'm a woman of eclectic tastes—in both my reading and writing.  So how do I choose what gets written first?

Well, I could go by what's popular.  I could say to myself... you know, those vampire books seem to be what everyone wants.  I should write a vampire book.  More likely, I should write a vampire, dystopian, New Adult book, if I really want to appeal to the majority of what's out there.  I should write more fan fiction about vampires and humans sexing it up.  I should write sci-fi about missile silos doubling as mass habitation(Hugh Howey's Wool, if you didn't catch the reference).

But I don't write what's popular.  I probably should, but it's hard to write well when you're just following a trend and not your heart or the spirit of your creativity.  Now if you have a brilliant story idea that also happens to be a popular trend (Angelfall comes to mind), then you've got it made.

I could also write what gets the most reviews.  Thus far that's my Five Tribes series.  But I don't write what I get the most ratings or reviews for.

I could go by downloads.  The Angel & Her Gun (permanently free) gets the most downloads hands down.  But downloads aren't an indication of READERSHIP.  Unless someone decides to READ that short story and tell someone else, or review it or email me... I have no idea if they actually read it or not.  I know that I don't read a significant portion of my freebies.  Some I'll start and discard, others I just forget about.  Sad, but true.

I honestly go by reader feedback.  What do my readers want more of?  So far, they seem to want more of The Five Tribes.  At least, if I go by the emails.  So, when the readers ask, I listen.

If you like something else, like The Angel & Her Gun then tell everyone you know to read it and email me.  It is free, after all.  It's not like it costs them anything.  If I get enough feedback saying that is what my readers want, then I'll break out my magic Wonder Woman notebook and get cracking!

And now, I'm off!  Happy Reading!

Who knew John Mayer was a guru?

I've been going through some schtuffs this week.  Not like family emergency stuff, but just, wow that really sucked and it wasn't what I was expecting stuff.  It got me down, down, down.
To be honest, I couldn't let it go, either.  I thought about it over and over and over until I was like a self-perpetuating machine of depression, unable to pull myself out, but also wholly cognizant of the fact that I was really just doing it to myself.
Sometimes, we kind of forget to let go of things.

Cut to my gym time.  My husband bought me a membership at a gym.  (No, he's not an asshat, it's what I asked for.)  It's the only really baby free time I get during the day.  2 hours to work out and read my kindle.  lalala  I love it.
I also do yoga twice a week, because I have hamstrings like tightrope wires.  Really, I'm probably the least flexible person you know.  Even the eighty year old woman in the class who stands next to me is like, "Girl, you are a hot mess!"  While she touches her toes to her ears.
So there I am, doing my shavasana (corpse pose) at the end of class, where you lie down on the ground and like meditate and let go of schtuffs.  Except I wasn't letting go, I was dwelling.  I was holding on TIGHT to my "Woe is me" feelings and being all sad and stuff.
Then the teacher does something she rarely does.  She says to us, "I have a reading for today."

This is what she reads:
"Someday, everything will make perfect sense. So for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears, be strong and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason."

Which, when I looked it up online, is attributed to John Mayer?  Who knew. 
All I know is that it broke me down, hardcore.  There I was in yoga class, suddenly crying my eyes out, unable to stop.  It was a singular moment in my life.  
Thankfully, I'm not one of those loud, sobbing, crying people and I was able to pull myself together before everyone in the class got to see my UGLY FACE.

Still, it brought me back to myself.  It was my reminder to STFU and listen to what I'm supposed to listen to, instead of getting all caught up in my own ego.

So, that was my week.  

For you ROWers, I got a couple thousand words written.  Not as much as I usually do, because Little C. was sick the first half of the week, and I was sick (thanks to the little germ factories living at my house) the last half of the week.  Still feeling like crap, but I'm trying to MAKE myself get better because MAN ALIVE, my house is a disaster and let's face it, no one knows where the washer and dryer are except me.

Happy Reading!

Title Troubles...

Hello readers and fellow ROWers,

I hope this week has been a productive one for you.  It has for me!  I wrote about... 5,000 words?  Yay!  This whole Little C. sleeping through the night stuff is really working for me, won't lie.  I also did a heap of edits this week and will continue to do some storyline tweaking for Terris.  I just had an EPIPHANY this week for Nikka's storyline.  There was something that has been nagging me about the end of her storyline, something that has bothered me for a while, and I just figured out the answer.  So great to feel like I got rid of an issue before it came up and I'd written 15,000 words *cough* Zyander *cough* for it.

But all that good news can't come without a price.  Guys, I am having some titling troubles.  This has happened before, sadly enough.  The Angel & Her Gun is still not a title I'm happy with, but I couldn't think of anything better.  Even now, when I hear it I think... spy book.  Am I right?  Thankfully the angel in question does at least carry a gun (colt .44), but man alive, it was hard enough coming up with that one.

I have two book titles nagging at me.  I have the final book of the Five Tribes series to come up with, and the title of the side project.  The first one doesn't have to be chosen for quite a while.  (Another 3 years, though hopefully sooner)  I don't want to tell you why I'm having trouble with that title, because I don't want to be spoilery, but I can tell you that it won't be Sanguis.  I mean, you would think it would be, but nope.  Just like Compis, it's not going to be named after a tribe.

The second is like a novella type thingy and I picked a title, which has "bored" in it.  The Bored <word>.  My sister immediately put the kabosh on the word bored, though.  Her contention is that putting the word bored in the title will make people think the STORY is boring.  Which made me go...huh?  I mean, if I said BORING in the title I could see her point, but boring is different than bored, right?

Seeking opinions, readers.  Because if this title doesn't work, I'm stumped!  I told her I will release it as The Untitled Work.

I wasn't this uncertain before.  It was never hard for me to come up with a title.  In fact, most of the time I had the title picked before most of the book was written.  But lately, I've lost my titling confidence.  I've lost my mojo.

I need to get it back, somehow.  In the meantime, I'll be here, trying to think of titles.

Happy Reading!