My sense of humor wants to step in and answer that question with – nothing!
But of course no one releases 20 novels (and 7 nonfiction, 2 short stories, 4 collections, and 5 multi-author bundles (with 4 more coming over the next 4 months) without having learned something. Gulp. I hope!
And that’s the number or releases I have with Rare Find now out!
To go along with those 20 releases, here are 20 things I’ve learned from the last 3 years:
- The books that come out smooth and easy, are never the ones you are under a deadline for.
- That books that are time pressed, have minds of their own and somehow gave the keys to the story to the dratted characters – so no wonder they are always late!
- Editors work for writers not the other way around – but not one of them read that memo!
- Each book is like starting at the beginning of the career journey all over again.
- New releases NEVER get any easier.
- A new release day lines up perfectly with Murphy’s law – every dratted time!
- Finished covers look wonderful until it’s time to upload them for the public to see, then you’re sure they are too dark, too light, wrong font, wrong images, just wrong…everything!
- The more I try to fit the story I’m writing to the story I thought I was writing the further apart the two seem to be.
- That no matter what I’m writing, one third in I want to be writing something else!
- After 3 years of writing/publishing the books in my heart, I still can’t easily define what genres they are!
- No matter who you tell, only another writer understands that being full time employed in this job does NOT mean sitting around all day drinking lemonade and counting my money!
- After 20 novels I still think my stories are crap and one day someone will expose me for the fraud I often think I am – and that feeling always amplifies before a new release. Lol.
- No matter how well I do one month, there’s that sense that it won’t last and I should be looking for a ‘real’ job.
- Every time I start to check out ‘real’ jobs, I get hit with incredible story ideas to keep me on my path!
- I am a storyteller not a writer. And I DO need an editor – or 2 or 3 or 4…. Of course I learned that the hard way.
- One of the greatest joys in this world are the other writers who walk this crazy journey with me.
- There is no joy like the joy I get when I read the emails from my fans!
- There’s no pain like when you have to do major surgery on a book, sometimes completely deleting a half book.
- There’s great joy to when you manage to replace that deleted half book with something, bigger, better and stronger.
- There’s no feeling like reading your own finished book and finding yourself crying – because it’s just that good. lol
I have to tell you, I bawled with Rare Find. And that caught me by surprise! If you don’t have your copy yet, it’s just been released and available now at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
When people need help or are injured, they call out for their friends and family. When an animal needs help or is injured, it calls out for…anyone…that can help them…
One person hears them…
Tabitha is determined to bury her aching heart in the service of her animals at Exotic Landscape. Until she’s yanked out of her cozy retreat to help someone in need…and she gets more than she bargained for.
Detective Ronin Chandler understands secrets. He’s got a few of his own. But when the woman he loves gets into trouble – the kind that stretches even his belief system – he struggles to understand…and to help…before he loses her. Maybe forever.