Archive for My Books

My Books

Crossed Wires

Pottery & Peril is now published. The paperback is available at Amazon now, as well. It has expanded distribution, but it may take time to get out through the various systems.

It turned out that the crossed wires about the cover were entirely on my end. I did a search within my e-mail for the last message from my cover designer so I could contact them about it, and I found the cover. That they sent me in August. Yikes.

I’ve had this sort of thing happen before, where I didn’t get something I was expecting, searched the sender’s name and found it, but when I went back to the in box and looked around the date, it wasn’t there. I don’t know if this was the case this time or if I just somehow missed it entirely and have been fretting over it for more than a month without realizing it was all under control.

So, anyway, paperback and e-book are now available.

Meanwhile, I should finish draft one of book 6 next week. I guess I need to get on the cover designer’s schedule, even if I don’t have a firm title yet.

Then I’ll be taking most of October off to enjoy fall. I’ll be doing some brainstorming work and developing ideas, but I won’t be writing a draft. I hope to get to a lot of admin (including in box clean-out) and promo work, as well, and I want to do a good house reset and some gardening, as I’m creating some new flowerbeds to move all the plants that have to be divided to. That will be in between jaunts to look at fall colors and a mini vacation I’ve been planning since this summer, and it was always too hot to take. I think my brain needs a refresh and a break, and this time of year is glorious around here. I have a list of fall activities I want to do.

I was going to start with a big hike this Saturday, but when I looked at the sign-up form, I decided I might not be ready for it yet. It’s close to 8 miles, 4 hours, rated as “very strenuous” and only for those with a high degree of fitness, trekking poles recommended. I should probably work up to that. This weekend is a big festival downtown, so I may do that instead, just walk around and see what’s going on. Then I need to find some moderate hikes so I can get in shape for a big one.

My Books

The Countdown Begins

We’re down to under a week before the release of Pottery & Peril, book 5 in the Tales of Rydding Village series. I thought that since I’d actually planned in advance this time, I’d get a lot more promotion done and have my ducks in a row, but I thought wrong. It seems that the next book made its presence known and I got sidetracked by writing it. Next thing I know, it’s almost time for release, and I have a choir retreat this weekend that’s eating up all my time.

Maybe I shouldn’t plan a book launch for the week after the choir retreat in the future.

I suppose it’s a good thing that the next book started coming to me. At first, I thought it was just the first few scenes, but the more I wrote, the more ideas kept coming. I did pause to do some outlining, but when I got back to writing the outline fell by the wayside because I kept coming up with more ideas. Now I’m about halfway done with the first draft.

This book focuses on one new character and one character who showed up in Weaving & Wyverns.

I have the last two books somewhat planned, but I don’t know how many books will come along the way. I just came up with a vague idea for book 7 this week. It helps that there’s a different main couple in each book, so I feel like I’m writing something entirely new, even as I’m still in the familiar setting and checking back in with the old characters. It’s a nice mix of fresh and familiar, and that seems to help with the burnout I tend to get around book seven in a series. I also enjoy playing with various tropes to see if I can find ways to make them work for me. For instance, in Weaving & Wyverns, I sort of did a secret baby, as well as a second-chance love. I’ve always rolled my eyes at the secret baby, but I ended up coming up with a plot where it made sense (and is it a secret baby if the baby is a teenager?). The new book is sort of enemies to lovers, though in this case they never hate each other. They’re just on opposite sides of an issue and they can’t both get what they want. If one of them succeeds, the other fails.

I don’t yet know what will happen with the paperback of Pottery & Peril. There seem to have been some wires crossed with the cover designer because I don’t have the cover yet, though I ordered it and sent the specs, and now I realize I never got an acknowledgment of them receiving that info. I need to check in with them and see what’s up.

My Books

Pottery & Peril is Coming!

Pottery & Peril coverThe fifth Tales of Rydding Village book, Pottery & Peril, is now available for pre-order at the major online retailers. There will be a paperback, but you can’t set those up for pre-order. You can get all the info on the book’s page.

Our main romance in this one involves two newcomers to the village, so I did something different and started with these new characters when they’re outside the village, showing how they get there. So don’t worry if you start reading and have no idea who any of these people are. They’ll get to familiar ground and meet our regular characters soon enough.

This is essentially the “Halloween” book of the series. It takes place in late fall, around the transition to winter. I call it “Wintereve” in this world, but it has a lot in common with celebrations of Halloween and Samhain (in Celtic cultures). Making up festivals and figuring out how to celebrate them is one of my favorite things about writing this series. I do some research about folklore and traditions, then mix and match and make up my own. They almost all seem to involve a bonfire. That’s accurate to the way a lot of real-world festivals go, but also I love a bonfire or campfire. There’s a campfire ring in my back yard that I hope to use this year, if I can dig it out of the raspberry bushes that took over that part of the yard. If not, I’ve got a mini firepit that I can set up. There’s something magical to me about a fire at night, with the smell, the sight of the flames, and the warmth contrasting with the coolness of the evening.

There is a bit of spookiness in this one, but it’s more atmosphere than anything even approaching real horror. More like a ghost story than truly scary.

This is the book I took a pottery class for so I could better understand the process and how it feels. I hope I conveyed that accurately in the book.

I’m already at work on the next book. In fact, I started writing it yesterday. I don’t have it fully outlined yet, but the opening scenes came to me, so I wrote them down. I’m hoping to get it released sometime this winter, since it takes place around Midwinter (yes, another festival).

Publicity, My Books

Public Appearance

This weekend I’ll be shifting into “author” mode for the first time in years as I do my first public author event since before the pandemic, the Rocktown Author Festival at the library in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

My work has two key modes. In writer mode, I sit at home in sweatpants, shorts, or other comfy clothes, no makeup, hair in a ponytail or messy bun, and write. I tend to get reclusive when I’m in my book cave. My words are saved for the book rather than for socializing. Author mode is when I go out in public as an author to meet with readers, speak, do booksignings, etc. That involves dressing up, wearing makeup, doing my hair, and being all bubbly and outgoing. I’ve had a few virtual “author mode” events during this time when I appeared on camera, but I haven’t been out in the world that way.

This is also my first author event in this area. I used to be a regular at science fiction conventions, writing conferences, and library events in Texas, but they don’t know me at all here, so I was pleased that I was selected for this festival. Maybe I’ll meet people who’ll get me on the list for other events. One nice thing about starting over in a new place is that no one will have seen my “author” clothes so I don’t have to buy anything new to avoid repeating an outfit with the same audience. I still haven’t decided exactly what to wear because the weather is being crazy and the forecast keeps changing, so I don’t know if I’ll need spring/summer clothes or cold-weather clothes, and I don’t know if the library will be overly heated or air conditioned when it doesn’t need it. I don’t have a lot of cold-weather “author” clothes because most of the conventions I went to were in the summer/early fall and my books from big publishers all had warm-weather release dates, so my booksignings tended to be in May, June, and July.

I’ve had to dig around to find where I put my promo materials when I moved, and I may have to get some new pens, as any that I was using to sign books are now more than six years old. I’d almost forgotten what preparation I had to do for an event. There’s no speaking involved in this, so I don’t have to prepare a talk. It’s mostly a book fair situation, where I’ll be selling and signing books. I’m set up so I can take credit card payments on my phone. I need to make a checklist of anything else I need to do.

I’ve had mixed results with this kind of thing in the past. I’ve had times when I sold out of books and had a constant stream of people wanting autographs. And I’ve had times when I sat there for hours with nobody coming by. I figure at the very least I’ll meet some other local authors and librarians. I have a couple of slices of chocolate cheesecake in the freezer, so I’m ready to either celebrate or console myself afterward.

If you’re in the western Virginia area, stop by sometime between 10 and 3 on Saturday. You don’t even have to buy books. You can bring something for me to sign and just chat.

My Books

Pre-order Weaving & Wyverns

Weaving & Wyverns, the fourth book in the Tales of Rydding Village series, is now available for pre-order, and will be released October 16. It’s available at most of the major online booksellers. You can get links, as well as a universal book link for any other booksellers that might be available, on the book’s page.

There will be a paperback, but they don’t allow pre-orders on those, so that will be going live later.

Audible hasn’t yet decided about continuing the series. I guess they’re still not sure how well the first two books are doing, so if you want audio, you might want to request it from them.

I have more books planned. Right now, I have ideas for at least four more stories in that setting, but more keep coming up. I have a lot of fun playing in this world, and it helps that there are new main characters in each book, so it’s both familiar and new. I get to return to my old friends and make new friends by creating new characters. That keeps me from getting bored or burned out. I’m hoping to start mixing in some other books while continuing this series.

My current plan is to have the next book released sometime next summer. I’m trying to be better about sticking to a plan and working farther ahead. It will help that I shouldn’t be moving next year. After moving twice in the past two years, I’m finally settled.

After the book’s been released and everyone has had time to read it, I have some fun details about the inspiration behind it to share.

In other news, the Cozy the Day Away Sale is back this weekend, and I’ve put Tea and Empathy and Interview with a Dead Editor on sale. If you’re an Enchanted, Inc. (or maybe Rebel Mechanics) person and haven’t tried these series, this is your chance. The sale is on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 11-12. When it goes live, you’ll be able to find it here.

 

My Books, Life

The Abandoned Garden

I may have vastly underestimated what a garden that had been abandoned for years would be like when I wrote Tea and Empathy. I’m facing the same thing, and it’s absolutely crazy.

From what I understand, the person who used to live in this house had done a lot of work on the yard, planting a lot of trees and flowers. Then he had some kind of mental health issues and stopped maintaining the house and yard, becoming a hoarder, so the house and yard were full of junk. Then he abandoned the house entirely. A few years later, the people I bought it from bought it, cleared out the junk and restored and remodeled the house. They took down some trees that were too close to the house and must have cut down everything in the lawn because it was just about bare when I looked at the place, with only a few daffodils coming up around the shrubs and trees that were left.

A winter-bare back yard, up a steeply sloping hill. There is some grass barely growing, and a lot of bare trees.
The yard the day I looked at the house and decided to buy it.

I first saw the house in late March, then started moving in early April. And then the lawn exploded. So much stuff sprang up. A lot of it was weeds, but a lot of it was good plants, and the trick has been telling the difference. I figure that any of the good stuff that’s survived on its own all this time is a good plant to keep around because it means I won’t have to baby it. I’ve tried using the identification feature on my phone, with mixed results. There are some things I know it’s right about, some things I know it’s wrong about, and different photos of the same plant will be identified as different things. Then there are things I thought it was wrong about that it turns out to be right about.

There are masses of daylilies all over the front, side, and back yard, in huge clumps. I understand they need to be divided and spread out more at the end of the growing season. These have been on their own for a long time and seem to be doing okay, so I don’t know if I’ll bother doing anything to them.

A yard that's a sea of green, full of trees and plants. There are a few pops of color, like clumps of orange daylilies.
The yard this morning. It’s a bit overwhelming.

There are hostas everywhere, a number of varieties, up under trees and in flowerbeds. There’s a big lilac bush, a couple of dogwood trees of a variety that keeps blooms for a long time, and a huge redbud tree. There’s a mass of spirea that the bees and butterflies are loving. There’s a bunch of plants that may be milkweed. Whatever it is, the bees and butterflies are all over it. I’m generally keeping anything the bees and butterflies like.

One thing the phone may have been right about, after all, is this ugly, thorny thing I was sure was a weed but that the phone said was raspberry plants. I found some back against the fence that may not have been cut down that are producing berries. I met someone who knew the man who used to live here, and she said he did grow raspberries. But they’ve spread. They’re all over both the front and back yards. I’d pondered leaving them alone until the fall and then transplanting them to a better place, but there’s a whole thicket farther up the hill, and that should be enough raspberries. I don’t want them all over the yard because they’re thorny and ugly. And, to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of raspberries. They have gritty little seeds and not a lot of flavor (though that may be because I’ve only had supermarket raspberries. I don’t know what these will be like). I doubt I’ll get enough for jam, but we’ll see.

There are some plants that I know are invasive. They’re the first things local gardeners warn me about. One is a plant called garlic mustard, and it’s all over the yard. Pulling it up is a massive undertaking. I got the plants from last year that were going to seed, and now I have to get this year’s plants before they can go to seed. The trick is that they look similar to other plants that are growing in the yard, so I have to be careful what I pull, and there’s so much of it that it leaves the ground bare when I dig them all up. I’m throwing wildflower seeds into the bare spots.

Then there’s something called tree of heaven, which is apparently very invasive, very aggressive, and even spreads a substance that’s toxic to other plants, plus it’s the host plant for the spotted lanternfly, another invasive species that’s a threat to the local grape growers at the wineries. There must have been a big one growing here that got cut down because another was trying to grow from the stump. I normally try to avoid much use of chemicals in gardening, but this is one where you cut it down and then poison the heck out of it. I’ve been cutting these down and pulling up seedlings when I find them.

I’ve got a lot of something that’s either catalpa or an invasive called princess tree. Either way, they’re very fast-growing because there was nothing there in late March and now they’re taller than I am. I’m killing the ones close to the house because I don’t want trees right against the house.

The previous owner didn’t leave any herbs that I’ve found. The raspberries seem to be the only edible plants (well, supposedly you can cook and eat the garlic mustard, but I’m not going to try, and there are some wild strawberries, but apparently they’re not edible). So that’s different from Elwyn’s garden.

Unfortunately for me, the garden isn’t at all related to my work and earns me no money, unlike Elwyn, so I’m fitting in that work around my writing work. I’m spending about an hour a day pulling weeds and cutting things back. Right now, I’m just trying to keep it from being an eyesore. I may have to wait until next spring to actually plan what I want to do with the lot. I’m hoping to keep it mostly natural with ground cover and flowers instead of grass. And preferably fewer weeds.

My Books, Life

Life Meets Art Again

I’ve mentioned before that my life seems to be reflecting my books. After creating my idealized small town in my mystery series, I ended up moving to a town that has a lot in common with the one I created. After writing about a woman stumbling into a hidden village, I moved to a town tucked into a valley.

The trend has continued. I wrote about Elwyn moving into an abandoned cottage with an overgrown abandoned garden. Well, the house I bought (which is somewhat cottage-like) had been abandoned for years before the person I bought it from bought it at auction and restored it. The yard had been very carefully landscaped by the former resident, but it’s been allowed to run wild, so I’m having to gradually dig out all the weeds to find the good plants. I don’t think I wrote nearly enough work to get the garden back under control in the books. In my case, it mostly seems to be flowering plants and trees, not herbs. I haven’t run across any herbs. I have one tree that might be a fruit tree, but I’m not sure, and there are some plants my phone’s photo identification software tells me are raspberries, but I’m really doubtful.

And then there’s the fact that I seem to have moved next door to one of my characters. I’ve been re-reading a book I’ve been working on off and on for years, preparing to do another round of revisions. And then I realized that one of the secondary characters who appears later in the book, a character I created when I still lived in Texas, has the same rather unusual name as my next-door neighbor for the house I just moved into. Then the other evening when I ran into this neighbor and was chatting, I realized that the neighbor actually looks a lot like I imagine this character to look. She even has a similar personality. It’s eerie. I’m going to have to rename the character. The description on its own is common enough that I don’t think anyone would read the book and think I was writing about my neighbor (she’s well-known in town), but with the name, it would make it a bit creepy.

With the town, it’s clear in my writing that this was something I was looking for, even if it was unconscious at the time, and I found what I wanted. I had no idea how crazy the yard was going to be because the person who restored the house had cut everything back, and it was late winter when I looked at the house. The yard didn’t explode until after I moved in. But moving next door to a character I wrote years ago, with the same name, is a little unsettling. Now I’m going to have to try not to think about the character when I see my neighbor. Changing the name should help.

My Books

20 Years of Enchanted, Inc.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of the first Enchanted, Inc. book. I think yesterday is actually the anniversary of the first time I saw it in a bookstore. The big books may have strict “don’t open this box until this date” policies, but with books like mine, no one cares when it goes on the shelf. I remember stopping by a bookstore on the Sunday before the book’s Tuesday release date and being surprised to find it there on the New Releases table at a Borders (yes, the book is so old that it was sold at Borders).

But then when I went around to area bookstores on the actual release date, when it was supposed to be on shelves, it wasn’t at half the stores I went to. I don’t know if there was a delay in unboxing the books and getting them on the shelves, since the Monday of that week was a holiday, or if they just didn’t plan to stock the book at all in those stores. It was a huge emotional roller coaster as I drove around to bookstores. When I found it in a store, I’d chat with the staff and sign their copies and leave the store feeling like a famous author. When I didn’t, I’d slink out, hoping no one noticed me. It tells you something about how much turnover my wardrobe gets that I still have the top I bought for those release day visits hanging in my closet. Hey, it was cute, and it’s fairly classic, so I don’t think it’s out of style. If it ever gets warm here this summer, I’ll have to wear it.

I guess because it was shelved early in some places, I was already getting e-mail from readers who wanted more books, which was exciting. I was also getting “I heard about this book but I can’t find it in stores” e-mails, which was encouraging that people wanted it, but frustrating that people who wanted it couldn’t find it, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I just had to tell people to ask for it, and the stores could order it (and maybe if people were asking for it, they might get copies to put on the shelf).

The book wasn’t considered a particular success. It got great reviews and had really good sell-through, but it wasn’t a bestseller. Still, it just keeps plugging along and is still in print all these years later, when some of the books the publisher actually pushed at that time have gone out of print. They did do a little more promo with the next book and they bought two more books (the first contract was for two books), so it did well enough to get that. The book launched that phase of my career and brought me a lot of recognition. The book has been published around the world. I have translations in Dutch, German, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, and Indonesian (or some language from that area — not sure exactly). It’s been optioned for film by Universal Studios and had a screenplay written by the same writer who wrote I, Tonya and Hope Floats, but the movie never got made and the option lapsed. There was a team including a writer who worked on Angel as showrunner trying to get networks interested in a series, with no bites. More recently, it was optioned by Disney+ for a streaming series, but they let the option lapse. Really, my whole experience with this book has been a roller coaster, with lots of exciting highs followed by letdowns, but it just keeps plugging as more people continue to discover that universe and those characters.

Thanks to all who’ve been with me along the way, whether you found these books (and me) back in 2005 and have been following my work since then or whether you just found me recently. It’s the readers who keep me writing (literally, because if people weren’t buying books, I’d have to quit writing and get a real job).

I wonder what the next twenty years will bring.

My Books

New Book Release

Clouds & Curses book cover. A bluish background with ornate designsI made an executive decision yesterday and decided to just launch Clouds & Curses, Tales of Rydding Village book 3, instead of trying to do a fancy preorder campaign. I had all these ideas of what I could do, but with everything else that’s going on, I had a feeling none of it would get done, so I might as well get the book out into the world. People could discover and buy it, and I could promote it when I got a chance. If I delayed so I could set up pre-orders and do a big launch, there was a real chance that I might not get around to promoting while I move to and set up the new house, but the book wouldn’t be available to sell. This way, I can get it out there before things get crazy.

The seller agreed to the repairs I asked for based on the inspection (mostly things that came from the updates they made to the house, not things that come with an 80-year-old house), so things are moving ahead. I could be in possession of the house as early as next weekend, depending on when they get things fixed and when they set a closing date. That means I need to start packing. I saved the good boxes from the last move, and since the new house is so close (a 5-minute drive, 20-minute walk), I’m going to just make multiple trips — fill the boxes, load up my car, drive over, unload boxes, bring them back, repeat. I have a room that won’t have any furniture going in it yet (it’s going to be an exercise/craft/storage room that can double as a guest room with an inflatable bed) where I can stash stuff to get it out of the way for when movers bring in the furniture.

I’m also going to have to make decisions about blinds/curtains and get a washer and dryer, since those don’t come with the house.

But back to the book … this is the one that I’ve said was in part a mash-up of situations from Persuasion, Sense & Sensibility, Hope Floats, and a dash of Wuthering Heights. That’s the new romantic plot. We also continue with our other characters and delve deeper into the mystery of what’s going on in the village. It’s longer than the other books in this series have been.

I’m planning more books, but I don’t know when I’ll get to writing the next one. I have research to do, as well as plotting (I’ve started doing character development), and life is going to be crazy for probably a month or two as I upend my life for the second time in a year, and then I’ll have a lot of work to do to get settled in. It’ll be just the right time to be working on landscaping and maybe planting a garden. I’m having a really hard time focusing right now.

The book is currently (as of the time I’m posting this) available at Amazon (e-book and paperback) and Apple, and as I get more links I’m adding them to the book’s page, so keep an eye on that to find it at the place you like to get your books.

My Books

In the Cold

I somehow lucked out and managed to move north and into the mountains in time for the coldest winter in fifteen years. The temperatures have been below average for almost the entire month. There’s been snow on the ground for nearly three weeks. This week it was below freezing all week, with temperatures in the single digits overnight.

It hasn’t been too bad, aside from the fact that I live in a basement where the cold comes up through the floor. I’ve dealt with that by covering as much of the floor as possible. I don’t want to buy carpets for a place that’s meant to be only temporary, so I’ve used things like exercise mats, beach towels, and the big moving blanket my mover left with me. The walls are more than a foot thick, and they’ve put new windows outside the original wood-framed windows, so the place is pretty well insulated. The weak spot is the back door, which is the original 100-year-old door with a window in it. I resorted to “redneck weatherproofing” there, stuffing plastic bags into the gaps around the door and stacking the cushions from the patio furniture against the door to block the drafts, as well as putting a second layer of curtains over the window. That seems to have worked pretty well.

I’ve spent the week bundled up in warm clothes under an electric blanket, so I was pretty comfortable. There was also baking (since the oven helps warm the house while producing something to eat). I did not try to venture out because I don’t have the clothes for this. My coats and sweaters are fine, but I need to get better pants or find a good base layer. I got some snow boots last week that should help keep my feet warm, but I haven’t tested them yet. I’d rather endure this for a few weeks than have 105-degree temperatures for a month and around 100 for another couple of months.

Much of the snow is gone from my front yard, aside from the places where it got piled up by the snow plow, but the back yard is still totally covered in snow. It looks like a different world depending on which window I look out. I got the fun experience of shoveling snow last week. It took a lot of effort to dig my car out enough to move it from behind the wall of snow left by the plow.

But it’s going above freezing this weekend, and I’m hoping to get outside a bit more. I like cool weather, I just am not crazy about freezing weather. We had a reasonably warm day last Friday, and I went out to the Frontier Culture museum to go walking. There was snow on the ground, but the paths were clear. It was fun walking around looking at the snow without being too cold.

The other thing I did this week was update my website. I’ve added some photo galleries to the pages for the Rydding Village books, with some visuals of my inspiration for the village and some looks at the crafts mentioned in the books. I got to see a wood-fired brick bread oven in action, and I put the photos on my site. Maybe that will help you visualize the things happening in the books.

Tea and Empathy

Bread and Burglary