The Paperback Is Here, But I Am Not

Since I only announced when the Kindle edition of CAMP NEVER released, I wanted to quickly jump in and say that the paperback is now available on Amazon! You can find it here. I won't be sticking around to do the usual things that come with a book release. This is the time that I should be promoting my new book on a regular basis, but I won't be. I'm taking a break from blogging, Twitter, and other media related to my author life. Because... A) I want to focus on drafting for a little while. The completed, unpublished manuscripts I have right now aren't appealing to me, and I want to draft two or three new manuscripts...

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The Book That Fought Me

CAMP NEVER is finally out in the world! Well, the Kindle version. You can find it here. I'm having issues with the paperback version, which is par for the course for this book. Here's a simplified timeline of my fight with Camp Never: Drafted the manuscript a few years ago. (It's actually a complete blank slate rewrite of an older story.) Made revisions after several rounds with critique partners, beta readers, reading the MS aloud, and printing it out and reading it. Formatted manuscript for both e-book and print. Waited until last minute to test e-book because life is crazy right now. Found formatting errors in e-book. Corrected...

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Cover Reveal for CAMP NEVER

I know I just posted about my upcoming release, but I didn't want to wait any longer to reveal the cover! Just like my last two books, this cover was created by the amazingly skilled Steven Novak of Novak Illustration. If you're in need of a cover designer, I super highly recommend him! And now, here's the cover for CAMP NEVER... (You can click on it for a larger size.) What's the book about? Here's the back cover summary: Typer Stockton should not spend her summer at Camp Caspar. Camp Caspar is a “behavior camp,” full of delinquents....

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Excited.

Happy New Year! Not sure if it's still cool to say that this late in January, but I haven't posted in a couple of months, so I feel the need to wish you all a happy one. I have hope that it will turn out to be a good year. One big thing happening for me in 2016 is a new book release. I have another contemporary middle grade book coming out, called CAMP NEVER. It will be released in February (exact date to be announced soon.) I'm pretty excited. (Trivia: The title of this post, Excited, follows the same theme as the chapter titles...

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Middle Grade of the Past #3: Have You Seen Hyacinth Macaw?

Here's the third post in my series called Middle Grade of the Past, where I review a children's book from anytime between 1950 and 1985. Today's Middle Grade of the Past #3 is: Have You Seen Hyacinth Macaw? by Patricia Reilly Giff, published in 1981. Here's the cover of the copy I have: Back Cover Summary: With a memo book full of notes, junior detective Abby Jones and her pal Potsie piece together confusing clues and soon they are trying to unravel more than one mystery. Squeezing through windows, sneaking onto subways, and slithering...

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What To Do With THAT Project

I have a question for my fellow writers and creative people: If I asked you about THAT project of yours, which one comes to mind? For me, THAT project is a tricky one, because it's one that I don't know what to do with. It's one that I care about, and one that I enjoyed drafting, but now that it's complete, it doesn't belong anywhere. All of my other completed manuscripts (16 total) have fallen into one of the following categories: 1) Hey, this might turn into something pretty great after exchanging with five or six critique partners and completing ten rounds of revisions. I'll plan to publish it. 2) Heck no, this is...

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Recommendation: Indie Author Survival Guide

I can't remember how much I've shared about the very beginning of my self-publishing journey, but here's a short version of the story, in case I haven't shared it before: I decided I wanted to be an indie author in late 2013, after spending much of the year considering my options. I chose this route intentionally, because my health issues affect my ability to work, and being my own boss is the best solution for my situation. However, even though I knew that the traditional, big publisher path wasn't for me, I wasn't completely sure...

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