Well, Where Have I Been???

And I was doing so well! I actually had a weekly post up for several months in a row and then life happened.

First, I accidentally got an almost full-time job as a medical assistant. Seeing as how I spent two-plus years of my life attending classes for this, not to mention getting certified in the field as well as in phlebotomy, getting a job as a medical assistant seemed like a good idea. But it sure takes up a lot of time.

Then there was the whole book thing. After lots and lots of discussion, coaching, advising, and more discussion with friends, with writers experienced at this, with my hubby, with anyone walking down the street willing to listen to a somewhat neurotic writer, I finally decided to self-publish my work. Hence, the picture at the top of this post. It's currently available as an e-book at Amazon. I soon hope to have it available in print, as well. Anyone who doesn't think self-publishing a book for the first time is not a lot of effort or doesn't take very long has clearly never tried it. Or is about twenty times more technically-minded than I am. I have hope for my own learning curve the next time around, and if not, there's always hubby.

That said, most writers I know who are self-publishing their work follow a fairly grueling schedule when it comes to output. Terri Reid puts these things out about every three or four months. I opted for every six months. Since I write ghost stories for the most part, releasing one around Halloween seemed like a good idea. And six months from that is April or thereabouts. I am currently trying not to panic.

At any event, thank you to everyone who has stopped by. This is an unusual post for me: most of the time I try to throw something paranormal into this space and hope to do so for next week's edition. So happy you came by to read this, though, and hope to see you next week with something more in line with a blog titled "Ubiquitous Ghosts"!

Thank You, Peggy!

Thank God for fellow author Peggy Tibbetts (Letters from Juniper, Pvt. Liberty Striker). Those of us on this blog know who she is, and I was lucky enough to get her to review Saving Jake for me. Then I got even luckier when she read my next manuscript. She actually liked it, even though it needed all kinds of work, and offered to publish it at Sisterhood Publications, her current literary home. I was astonished. At the time I was in the depths of the I-have-no-talent and writing-is-just-a-pipe-dream nightmare I seem to subject myself to on a fairly routine basis. I don't know why, but this particular bout was the worst I've suffered in years. Enter Peggy.

She took the time to do an in-depth critique of my manuscript. (I admit it: I didn't look at it for weeks because I was terrified to find out what she really thought of it. I'm a coward!) And when I finally got past all of my own angst, I took her words to heart and made all sorts of corrections and revisions to get a final draft.

And then I flew in the face of all logic and decided to try self-publishing this thing myself on Amazon. Insane, or what? I had a legitimate offer from a fellow writer and here I was turning it down. One reason is that my fiction and Peggy's are not exactly cut from the same bolt of cloth. We both write YA and that's about it. I went onto the Sisterhood Publications website and was awed by the subject matter they house. They call it "edgy" fiction and it certainly is. Anyone who has read Pvt. Liberty Striker will know exactly what I mean.

Like Peggy, I will glean subject matter from current headlines, but then I go away and fabricate a ghost story out of it. My work reflects the way I see the world. I like to think it's scary when I need it to be, but it is not edgy. Not like the work I saw at Sisterhood. So I decided to give e-books a try independently. And Peggy, being the very gracious lady she is, gave me a huge hug by e-mail and wished me the best. (Talk about your class acts.)

So I hope to launch my newest novel very soon. The title is Haunted, it is a ghost story/murder mystery, and I hope people who read it will like it. I followed a lot of Peggy's suggestions and stubbornly left other areas untouched, but the book is all the stronger for her input, that's for sure. My goal is to upload it some time next week, just in time for the Halloween season, but life has gotten in the way yet again and I might be a bit delayed. But I learned something else from Peggy: don't give up (ya big wimp). Yes, the little aside is mine, but it was probably on her mind, too!

So thank you, Peggy. Let's see what happens next.