Oh, Christmas. Why are you always so busy?

Christmas and the summer are the two busiest times of my life.  I'm sure I'm not alone in this.  Anyway, that, along with some surgery and birthday stuff, is the reason for my couple weeks absence.  But again, I have good news!  Call it an early Christmas present, if you will.

ACX just sent me another couple dozen coupons for Audible books.  So if you have an Audible account and you like full length novels, I have Compis available for FREE for whoever is interested.  Like "The Angel and Her Gun" these are only available for a limited time.  So while they last, shoot me an email at katecauthor (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll send you a coupon code.  The audiobook is normally about $18, so this is a great deal!

I'm really excited to have Em Eldridge as my narrator and I hope you all enjoy her, too.  She is an amazing talent!

Other than that, I'm still plugging away.  I've got some final editing stuff to finish up this week and then I'm back on board with Terris.  I've been writing some exciting stuff on that front.  Oh, the yummy goodness with Luka's storyline is what's got me going lately.  I think you may be surprised at some of the events in his timeline in this book.  A definite change from Aeris.

Anyway, Happy Reading!

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!

Still Obsessing...

You know how when a relationship ends you still can't stop thinking about it.  You start obsessing about what went wrong, and how much it hurt.

Goodreads, I can't get over you.  I think about you and it still hurts.  I don't know why we can't work things out?  Can't you reconsider?

You know, when I first opened my author account, some of my author friends were like, "You're not still going to review books, are you? You're going to make yourself a target."  I laughed and told myself it wouldn't matter.  After all, I was a reader first.  I'd already been a member of goodreads for 3 years before I added the author part.

And you know, mostly, it's been a good experience.  My readers have been fantastic.  They send me little messages and comment on my blog posts.  I've had a couple of weird experiences where author's have friended me over my reviews or commented on them and it made me feel uncomfortable, but that's about it.  On the other hand, I had author friends who wrote a book and subsequently deleted all their reviews.

And until Goodreads new policy, I've never considered what I review or how I review.  Now I find myself hesitating to discuss what I read.  Especially if it's in a genre I write myself.

Why? Well, now that my reviews aren't safe from any little bit of attention, it places me at risk.  If I want to maintain my author status on Goodreads, and keep my author account, then I need to make sure none of my reviews are questioned.

You may be thinking, "That seems a bit dramatic, Kate." And you're right.  It does!  But until now, there was never any fear of the dramatic.  Goodreads just left the users reviews alone (unless the content was extremely bad).  But now the rules are so vague and arbitrary, I'm suffering nerves whenever I post.  

Here is an example, just to put things in my perspective.  I read a LOT of YA.  It's always been my favorite age range for reading and writing.  I also review a LOT of YA.  Sometimes I'm not really that impressed by the content I read and I may give the book a review accordingly.

Well, what if an author doesn't like my review?  What if they go snooping around my account and see that I'm an author, too, one who writes in the same genre?  What if they decide that the only reason I reviewed the way I did was because I wanted to eliminate the competition?

You might pipe up here and say, "But Kate, as long as your review CONTENT speaks only of the book, you'll be fine."  Well, no, because as Goodreads has made evident, the content of the review is also in the INTENT of the reviewer.  If they arbitrarily decide that my review is unduly influenced by the fact that I'm a competing author in the same genre, then my review WOULD be about the author, and not the book itself.  Do you see?

"But, Kate," you might say, "You've been a member of Goodreads since 2008! Surely, Goodreads would take the time to look at your reviews and your record and see that you're a reviewer in good standing before they delete your reviews and put your account under notice."

Uh, well, there are people who've been on there for YEARS and Goodreads didn't give a DAMN about their loyalty and their overall review record.  They were summarily deleted.

I hate to say this, but Goodreads isn't a safe space for me anymore, as a reader.  And so, I won't be reviewing YA books with stars anymore.  I will still put an overall review in place, but since stars are what seems to trigger authors, I will be leaving them out.  If that gets me into trouble, then I will most likely not be reviewing YA books any more either.

That is where it stands right now, and I'm so sad about it.  But they made the rules and I just want to keep hanging out with my Goodreads friends.

Other, happier news:
The Angel & Her Gun and The Lost Flame will soon be up in audiobook form, as well.
I've been working on the outline for the second half of Terris and I'm very pleased.  I had outlines made before I started this book, but things have changed (as they always do for me, hahaha) and so the outlines had to change accordingly.
I'll have another Buzz Worthy News segment up tomorrow, so head on over to Cuddlebuggery.com and check it out!
Have a great day, and happy reading!

Good News

Hey all,
Sorry for my slightly ranty post previously.  It just sets off my "fairness" radar when Gooreads would just DELETE hours of effort on the part of readers and without any warning.  How is that respect for users who have used the site for YEARS?  Not cool.  Decidedly not.

However, let's move past that now.  Let's pretend such things don't exist for the moment.
I have some great news!  Well, lots of great news, actually.  Firstly, part one of Terris is done!

It's been a long time in coming, I know.  Apologies to all my fans and thanks to their patience.  :)  Let's hope the rest of it goes fast!

Announcement number two: The first fifteen minutes of Compis' audiobook is done!  There will be a lot more good news on that front.  The audio is amazing, I'm so happy with it.

And third announcement: I will be the Cuddlebuggery.com Buzz Worthy News correspondent starting tomorrow.  This week's news was a lot of fun to write, so I hope you'll hop on over and enjoy.

That's all for now.  But enjoy the fact that Terris has 75,000 words written.  I know I will be.

Happy Reading!

The Switch-Up

I used the almost title of one of my books for today's post because I have that itchy skin feeling again.  Do you ever get that, readers?  Like if you don't do something new or different or fundamentally life changing you will have the sudden urge to scratch a layer of skin off until a whole new you emerges underneath?

I am going through some life changes.  Perhaps they might seem minor to others.  My son just started his first year of school.  My youngest turned two and officially left babyhood behind.  I'm making some changes in routine and job and well, LIFE I guess.  It's exhilarating and terrifying, which is pretty much life in general around here.

But mostly, I've just been thinking about how life changes your plans all by itself.  When I remember Aeris, for instance, and all the work I did on Zyander's story that I had to then go back and RE-FREAKING-WRITE and I almost have a heart attack when I think about it.  Then there is my still-in-progress audiobook.  *sigh*  That has actually ended up for the better, too, but when my first contract fell through, I was pretty bummed about it.  Thankfully, I already had another voice actor I was pretty excited about and when that went through, I felt like all was smooth sailing again.

So, yeah, changes come whether you bring them or not.  Learning to roll with each change is my big work in progress.

As far as the writing front goes, yeah, I have three of my stories under contract for audiobooks now and I'm pretty pleased with who I've got for what.  I am three, count them, THREE chapters away from being done altogether with part one.  One chapter for Nikka, one for Zyander, and one for Luka—who made a little change in his storyline that necessitated adding a chapter.  I have really been kicking butt in the past week.

I have learned not to take that for granted, however, so on that front, I've decided to join up with ROW80 again.  This summer I was way too busy to continue with it, but I love supporting the other authors and being a part of all the mental creativity.  Maybe it will help me to get Terris finished once and for all.

I hope all the changes in your lives of late have been good ones!  Happy Reading!

Heck Yeah!

Well, guys, I don't want to brag here, but I am seriously kicking ass.  My kid is sleeping. I'm getting good sleep (for once!  Seriously, I'm so paranoid right now that something is going to happen to ruin my wordcount that I'm constantly crossing my fingers.) and my creativity and output are at an all-time high.

I'm writing two, sometimes three times a day and the results are showing.  I finished up another side project, and started a new one, which is great.  My main focus has been Terris, though.  I'm almost finished with part one of Zyander's story and almost halfway through part one of Nikkas.

At this rate, I will more than make my goal of finishing all of part one and will hopefully be a significant amount of finished on the rest of the book.  And boy am I excited, because part two of this book is where stuff gets crazy!  Seriously, the second half of Terris sets up what goes on for the rest of the series.
It's a lot of pressure, frankly, but it's also really exciting!  When this book is finished, it's all downhill from here(in a good way).  Which makes me take a few deep breaths and tell myself to be CALM!!!

The audiobook is coming along.  I have my voice actor, and Compis should be ready in a couple of months, hopefully.  I've never done this before, but I'm hopeful.

That's all for my ROW80 update.  We'll see how things are going next week, but hopefully, they are still going well.  :)

Hope all of my fellow authors are doing well.  I'll have to check around and see.
Happy Reading!

Total Extreme Intense Ultimate Maximum

Some days you need a change.  You need to take all that stuff in your life and give it a makeover.  But it can't just be... let's make some changes here or there, lalalala.  No, this time, you need to go FREAKING SUPERSONIC ON THAT STUFF!

That's what I feel like today.  February in Cali is like a DREAM (Yes, I know it's March now, stay with me here).  It's like the weather forgets it's supposed to be winter and starts warming up everything.  The daffodils come up, so do the early irises, those little blue bells I don't know the name of, and the grass gets all green again.  The orchard trees around where I live fill to bursting with pink and white blossoms.  This is the time where my spring fever kicks into gear and I just start feeling like I'm going to BURST out of my skin if I don't get stuff picked up and organized!

It's not just cleaning, either.  My writing starts to feel old hat, and I'm just DYING to imbue it with some new zing, or a plot twist or KILL OFF A CHARACTER.  (Don't worry, I didn't this time.  But let's just say that last year there was some sadness.)

It's the time of year that I have to fight the plot bunnies the hardest.  I fritter them away and beg them to stay in their little notebook and stop plaguing me with imaginative visions of plotlines.

So this year, I'm trying my best to harness that spring fever energy while I have it.  I'm gonna try to bump up my chapter count and push forward on all my projects.

I got more writing on Nikka done last week, but not as much as I wanted.  My children sabotaged that a bit with their horrid naptimes.  Hopefully, Terris' wordcount will be on the rise this week, as well.

In the meantime, thanks to my WOTY, FEARLESS, I did something else I hadn't contemplated before.  I posted The Five Tribes series and one of my side projects on ACX to get them potentially made into audiobooks.  I'm not as proactive about it as some of my fellow authors.  I just put up some quick profiles and thought, "Eh, let's see what happens."  Well, what happened is I got an audition.

So that's cool!  If you are a fan of the series and interested in giving feedback on auditions, shoot me an email at: katecauthor(at)gmail(dot)com.  I want to make sure I pick someone who seems to match the voices of my characters.

That's all for this week!  Happy Reading!