Category: Fiction

Coronavirus is on our minds constantly right now. I’m not going to write about it, because I don’t have anything groundbreaking to add that hasn’t already been covered ad nauseam.

Honestly, I’m at a loss for words. Each morning I wake up wondering what kind of world I will be stumbling into. I drink my coffee and try to avoid the news on my laptop, but the worldwide impact is impossible to ignore.

We need to stay informed and support one another, but most of all, we need to do our best to keep on living. We need to take care of ourselves, which means we should find healthy escapes that remove us from the vortex of uncertainty—even if that’s only for a half-hour.

Continue reading “Coronavirus Escape: Here’s a Free Copy of Beneath the Satin Gloves” →

Rejection has become a regular practice for me. I’ve been learning how to breathe through it—inhale, exhale—then send another query email into the void. Rejection is something we all face and it is certainly not a life practice reserved for artists.

For writers, rejection happens constantly—externally and internally. I have sent 37 query emails into the void this past year:

• Emails 1-3: Sent to 3 agents who liked my pitch at a writer’s conference. We did the whole “speed dating” pitch session. (Fun stuff…not!) They all passed.
• Email 4: Sent to an indie publisher who I built up a relationship with over time. She was very supportive, but she passed.
• Emails 5-6: Sent to 2 local publishers. Thought I had a fighting chance since my novel, Virasana, is an urban fantasy novel set in a dystopian Portland. Nope, cue crickets.
• Emails 7-37: Sent cold emails to agents who represented books in my genre bucket. More crickets, peppered by a handful of automated rejection emails which you can enjoy throughout this post.

For shits and giggles, I committed to the rejection cliche of 100 query attempts. I dipped my toe in the rejection waters last August-October during and after my first writing conference. I was discouraged, so I let things rest. In March, I fired up the rejection engine again and started sending more emails.

Continue reading “The Regular Practice of Rejection” →

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.” Albert Camus’ words came to mind as I prepared my third novel, Everything’s Not Bigger, for its rerelease as a paperback edition. (In case you’ve been waiting around since the ebook published WAY back in 2012, today you can finally grab a print copy.)

Fiction is just as real as non-fiction in so many aspects. What makes fiction impactful are the real moments and people we infuse into each story. Even when I wrote my historical fiction novels, Nola Fran Evie and Beneath the Satin Gloves, I brought in life experiences to make the stories more authentic.

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Excited to share the rerelease of “my firstborn” as a paperback edition. I wrote Beneath the Satin Gloves in 2012, a time when I didn’t know squat about writing fiction. Because I knew I could do better with my work, a few years ago I re-edited and rereleased my first book. Flash forward to present day, I’m overjoyed to finally bring Beneath the Satin Gloves into print.

As many of you know, I have been painstakingly turning my three ebooks into paperback editions since last summer. Last month I rereleased Nola Fran Evie in print. Just last week the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League shared the book with their 11,000+ Facebook fans, which was a starstruck experience for me. I dedicated the novel to the AAGPBL, so it was wonderful to connect with their organization and their fans.

Although my books have been out for a while, they didn’t seem real until now. Paperback editions of novels are truly an unbeatable reading experience. Holding each book in my hands has been a special moment for me, especially when I held my baby…my oldest…Beneath the Satin Gloves.

There are many WWII stories of brave women who fought to protect peace, freedom, love, and the continuation of the human race. But, we don’t hear them enough. I wanted to do my small part in celebrating these women when I wrote Beneath the Satin Gloves.

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Holding a book in your hands is an unmatched feeling. The pages are filled with letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that collaborate tirelessly until they become an entire story.

Holding a book that you wrote in your hands is sort of an out-of-body experience. The weight of the story becomes scary real. You think to yourself: No matter what I do with the rest of my life, here is something I made from nothing. And, it will always be a part of me.

It’s a bit jarring to think about, but last night I realized I’ve been writing fiction for a decade. Throughout that time I self-published three books. In ebook format, they never felt quite real. I knew it was because my books weren’t in print.

I started working hard to reach my goal of turning all three of my books into paperbacks last summer. Silly me thought it would be easy, but it took a lot of time and tinkering. I suppose the paperback release timing was all copasetic as I round out my decade of fiction.

I’m happy to say that Nola Fran Evie is finally available in print. If you so desire, you can hold this story in your hands too.

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