writing goals

9 posts

Anniversary Post 2015 – Book Stats

This is a very belated post, but pretend I posted this a month ago for the calendar year 2015.        Books Published: 8 (4 in 2015 – The Dragon’s Tongue (novel), A Fairy King and A Fairy Promise (novellas), and Heroes and Other Stories (a print edition of Heroes, Street Fox, and Color, which were all previously published))Books in Progress: 2 (Book 3 in A Long-Forgotten Song (tentatively titled The Beginning of Wisdom), and Book 4, as yet untitled) Books Backburnered: 2 (Erdemen Honor 4, as yet untitled, plus a new standalone) Short Stories Published: 4 (none in 2015) Short Stories in Progress: 2 Blog […]

On Being a Mom and an Entrepreneur

A sweet friend on Google+ recently wrote this blog post: Why I’m Scared to be a Mom and an Entrepreneur. If you are a working mom, or a self-employed mom, or a creative mom, or probably any mom at all, parts of that will resonate with you. I wrote my first two books (The King’s Sword and A Cold Wind) before CutiePants was born, but I published them after she was born. I didn’t think of myself as an “AUTHOR” yet, with capital letters and everything. I was just someone who wrote a book or two. That’s actually still how […]

Anniversary Post! Book Stats – 2014 – And Other Musings

This is a very belated post, but pretend I posted this in 2014. I’d originally planned to publish it on Nov 2, the second anniversary of publishing my first book, The King’s Sword. However, it proved to be immensely annoying to try to track my production and writing from some random date. Instead, I’m going by calendar year 2014. This skips a bit of the end of 2013, but oh well. Books Published: 4 (2 in 2014 – Honor’s Heir and Things Unseen) Books in Progress: 2 (The Dragon’s Tongue, Book 2 in A Long-Forgotten Song, and Book 3, as yet untitled) Books Backburnered: […]

Guest Post: Deciding What’s Important

I’m hosting guest authors through most of April and May, as I am swamped with Awesome Con DC and welcoming Baby Boy Brightley into the world. This guest post was written by LJ Cohen, the author of The Between and Future Tense.  Deciding What’s Important I came to writing relatively late in my life, after a successful 25 year career as a physical therapist. It’s not that I had never written before. Even during my health care career, I wrote, though most of my work was non-fiction, including research papers and text book chapters. However, I did find time for […]

Things Unseen: A Long-Forgotten Song (Book 1)

It’s done! Things Unseen (A Long-Forgotten Song) is out! Things Unseen is the first book in my new dark, urban, Christian fantasy series. You can read an excerpt here, as well as find purchase links for ebooks and paperbacks. I’d also VERY much appreciate any reviews of Things Unseen if you have a chance! Check out the fantastic cover art! I love it! I even had the full digital painting made into posters in preparation for Awesome Con DC this weekend. I’m thrilled with the cover designer and look forward to working with him on the rest of the books in […]

Frustration, Doubts, and Failure

I wrote this post over a month ago, and I’ve only just now gotten up the courage to publish it. What’s different now? Well… Things Unseen, the first book in the A Long-Forgotten Song series is almost done (I’m working on the final copy edits and formatting), and the third book in Erdemen Honor (which still needs a title) is not done but is still POSSIBLY on track to be published by Awesome Con DC in April. Basically, I was so discouraged that I didn’t even want to admit how discouraged I was. Sad, right? My sales are still excruciatingly […]

Writing Goals 2014

One of the things I’ve realized about my writing is that it’s easy for me to write and edit and write and edit and write and edit some more and then rethink everything and lose confidence and…. never actually finish a piece. There are a few reasons for that: lack of planning (I tend toward pantsing, as in writing by the seat of my pants, even though planning would probably work better for me), lack of focused time to really dive into my work and figure out where I am and what needs to be done, and most of all, […]

Anniversary Post! Book Stats – 2013

On the first anniversary of publishing my first book, The King’s Sword, I thought it would be appropriate to post some statistics. It’s a bit scary to share book stats like this, but here goes: Books Published: 2 – The King’s Sword and A Cold Wind Books in Progress: 4 – A Long-Forgotten Song (publication in March 2014 – preorder here!), the as-yet-untitled sequel to A Long-Forgotten Song (publication in April/May 2014), Book 3 in the Erdemen Honor series (also untitled, publication in March 2014?), and Book 4 in the Erdemen Honor series (publication TBD) Books Backburnered: 2 Short Stories […]

Writing Lessons from Martial Arts

Some of you know that I’m a martial artist. I’ve been training in martial arts for over 19 years as of this writing. I started in taekwondo when I was 12 and earned my first black belt in the now-defunct International Taekwondo Council (ITC). I trained for about two years in a Japanese Karate Association (JKA) Shotokan karate school before heading to college at 17, where I trained for a year in judo. When I transferred colleges, I ended up in a Chidokwan karate (basically Shotokan + escrima sticks + street-style self-defense) university club, where I trained for two years […]