It's FINALLY Here!!

Bitter Angel is LIVE! This is such an exciting day, and I want to thank all the people who backed me, supported me, lent me their shoulders to cry on. I appreciate all of you so so much.

So, without further ado...

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Goodreads Summary

Torn between two realities.
A choice that will mean life or death.
But she won’t know anything… until she wakes up.

College sophomore, Lila Spencer lived Friday night twice. She doesn’t know how or why, just that she did. As if she split in half and went in two different directions.

Out clubbing with her friends, Heather and Nilah, the girls rock it out and party hard. What begins as an innocent night will lead to a deadly fight for their lives, and Lila might be their only chance for survival.

In bed with her boyfriend, Jay, Lila is safe and warm as she drifts to sleep in the arms of the man she loves. Until she is sucked into a horrifying nightmare of her friends' deaths.

As the sunlight warms her face on Saturday morning, the two scenarios collide. But there can be only one outcome. Will she wake up in her warm bed with Jay by her side, devastated and grieving for her friends? Or was she there to save them?

The answer is just the beginning.

I'm Goin' Indie!

This will not come as a surprise to most of you. For those of you who don’t know, I am currently working on my fourth novel. My third has been finished for way too long. I admit, though, I have not done much querying. My original plan was to query in January. Through a long, thought-out process (talking to 3 friends), I have come the elegant conclusion (I pretty much screamed like a little girl) that in May, I will be joining the ranks of all the amazing and talented Indie authors I have had the privilege to cross paths with and/or befriend.

It’s been such an amazing journey, buying my first Nook (now Kindle), experiencing indie books for the first time, and falling in love! Then this birthing into the social networking world. Truth is, I’m sure I could spend the next few years querying and querying and querying. Maybe I wouldn’t end up with a Kathryn Stockett (The Help) story, but I’m sure I could get published if I worked hard enough. I just don’t want to. I have no drive to spend years doing this when all these other beautiful people are having such great success and – Shocker – HAVING FUN!

Not that traditional publishing would not be fun. What it really comes down to is I feel like the Indie world is where I fit. I’m looking forward to a year of finding a decent-sized space to squeeze my giant writer butt into. And I must admit, the idea of being the cute little arm candy was not appealing. I want my own whip and my own fedora! WhooTsh!

I hope you all will welcome me and enjoy my stories when you get to read them.

*runs and hides*

Just kidding. That is all any writer ever really dreams of: people loving their stories and routing for their characters.

And I’M ECSTATIC to share them with you!

My first novel is BITTER ANGEL(Goodreads link). I don’t have an exact date set yet, but it will be out sometime in May. There’s no cover yet (winks AllieB), but there is a summary. Please check it out!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE! It’s going to be a great one ;)

Once a loser

Me and my current manuscript

Always a loser, right?

When I was a kid, I was never a loser. I was always beautiful. Always successful. Always great. Always a winner. Because my momma said so. Those other kids be damned.

Now that I’m an adult, I have to bandage my own boo-boos, make my own insurance calls, clean up my own messes… Okay, who am I kidding? I always did that. Either way, I have no one now but my little ole self to stare down in the mirror. Chin up, shoulders back, head high, you’re a winner. A winner, I tell ya!

Not according to NaNo…

And I wasn’t just any kind of loser this year. I was a giant, roley-poley one. But I was no couch potato, I assure you. With a nearly full-time piano teaching job, teaching my pre-K music class, and taking care of a toddler, my life is pretty full. Then add on the reading, piano practicing, and writing requirements, and my life is an old stuffed suitcase popping apart at the seams. It’s overwhelming. Not that anyone else’s life isn’t. I know we (speaking mostly to you women ;) are constantly overwhelmed with the duties of life, whether you work and raise kids, or just do the kiddo-raising, it’s hard. Like really freaking hard! To have to add to that is just insanity, right?

Me and my current life

I don’t care. I see all you beautiful author people, having your babies, maybe working regular jobs, and making it happen. I know I’ll get there, too. I’ve just come to realize that this year isn’t my WINNER year. For NaNo, that is. Maybe next year, when my kiddo is in pre-school, I’ll have some longer chunks of time. The important things to me right now are: raising my son, making sure he’s happy, making sure our relationship is strong, teaching my kids and doing a darn good job of it. Anything extra has to be relegated to the bottom of the pile. For now. I am content with knowing that this won’t always be my life. My son will grow up, he’ll go to school, maybe (hopefully) I’ll be able to teach a little less, free up some more time. I know my shining moment will come, and someday I plan on earning that NaNo WINNER badge. But not this year, and I’m absolutely fine with that.

But now that I am a loser, I do have one beef with NaNo. I admit, before this year, I never actively participated in NaNo. I only heard about it a couple years ago, and had just finished a novel that March, and was not in the position to start a new one in November with my son being a baby at the time. But now that I’ve participated, I’m wondering – who the hell thought to have it in November?! Seriously!

During the mid-point of holiday/cold and flu season? Really?!

I know this wasn’t an issue for so many of you, because I’ve seen around the blogosphere there are a LOT of WINNERS out there, and GO YOU!! But, seriously, NaNo people, you could’ve picked a way better month. Like January. Everyone hates January. The post-holiday blues. That cranky winter thing that keeps us inside. Many great reasons to have it in January. Or February. Or March. But during the middle of the holiday season? Okay. I’m done.

To all of you NaNo WINNERS, CONGRATS! I am so proud of you. Right now, I’m just damn proud of myself that I’m writing consistently and not falling apart, lol.

That’s my life.

The matterings of life

Today is my birthday.

I am 32.
Wait. (Papers rustling.)
Oh, right. (chuckles.)
I read the Birth Certificate wrong.
Ahem... I'm 25.

Anyway, it's my birthday, and I don't know what you do for your birthday, but every year is different for me. For the past few years, I've enjoyed my once-a-year club crawl while only feeling a smidge older than the usual 18-21 crowd, shaking what my momma gave me, and drinking till I puked just to prove I could. And, yes, I always regretted it in the morning. This year, not so much. And not because I feel older. I'm not sure "older" will ever enter my feelings file. I think I'll always feel like a twenty-three year old with the delightfully obnoxious immaturity of a tween.

This year, I'm doing the quiet thing. Where the friends gather, we hover in a tight circle around the cake, my eyes tear as I breathe in their love for me, and just before the candle inferno becomes a billowing tuft of smoke, I make the wish.

This wish is usually selfish, a me wish. And even though - you may have noticed - I tend toward the emotional, I can still be pretty selfish. I've long ago given up trying to change myself, and I'm okay with it. If you're a writer, too, then you understand what a lonely process it can be. Stuffing yourself away for hours, sometimes days at a time, neglecting what really matters in our lives - the people. And, I guess, even if no other life lessons have bit me in the butt, I'm starting to realize just how BIG this one is.

I've always been a family girl. Growing up in a gargantuan family is no easy feat. It's noisy, messy, unorganized, but crazy fun and, hopefully, so full of love you don't know what to do with it all. I've known this forever, but it doesn't mean that I appreciate it all the time. But, for some stupid life-questioning reason, the "older" I get, the more I begin to think that though my life is full of all these crazy wonderful possibilities, opportunities, goals, and dreams, it's all truly about the people. I can think deep thoughts for the rest of my life, wonder endlessly about my purpose, write ten thousand books, read ten times as many, but if  I don't have the people, all of those pretty thoughts, goals, and dreams become null and void.

So, tonight I'll enjoy my rump-shaking hiatus, make my me wish, but most importantly, soak up the blinks of time I get to spend with ones I love. And in honor of my Rockin' Awesome B-Day, and since I've been reading the ever-deep and profound Mr. Nepo, I'm including another quote from Awakening:

Singing from the peak isn't quite the same as whispering in the center of a circle that has carried you ashore. Honest friends are doorways to our souls, and loving friends are the grasses that soften the world. It is no mistake that the German root of the word friendship means "place of high safety"... There can be no greater or simpler ambition than to be a friend.