Upcoming Changes

Dear Readers, thank you so much to those who have responded to my poll about what would best help keep up with reading my blog. I still have it open, so, if you have a moment, could you please let me know either by using the poll or leaving me a comment? Thank you so much!

I’m either a little late considering my Upcoming at The Lily Cafe post was last month or a little early since my next one will be next month after the two week break I’ll be taking starting at the end of June.

Maybe I should call this Breaking News instead?

My kids have a fascination with breaking news. (This is a brief aside, I promise, so feel free to skip) Here in Southern California, we get a lot of breaks in the usual daily programming provided by local channels for things like car chases and fires, all of which my husband and I pause things for so we know what’s going on in our general area. Well, our kids have developed a fascination, too, and found this cute little playground building game on their tablets that they now call breaking news. They’ll build their playground, set the camera on a character, set up the tablet on the coffee table, and lean back while announcing they’re watching breaking news.

Anyways.

I’ve done some hard thinking about what I want to do over the next year, which will impact my blog.

Some time ago, I had this dream I woke up from and thought it might make an interesting story one day. Some time after that, I finally wrote out a very quick, very simple summary and told it I would see it in a year or so, after I finished writing Sisters of String and Glass. But I was in the kitchen one day, probably preparing food for my kids (we’ll assume they were watching breaking news of their variety), when the first sentence just popped in my head, and my main character was introduced to me. Since then, it’s been a quiet obsession at the back of my head.

My childhood dream was to be a published author. Back then, that meant traditional publisher in one of the Big 5. After self-publishing started and indie publishers started to get a foothold, things changed. I always kind of thought I’d try for traditional publishing one day, when I have the right story. This story in my head has decided it’s the right story.

What does this mean?

I’m taking a random, haphazard approach to my blog. Some weeks I might post more than others, and some I’ll probably vanish for a bit. I’ll still be posting book reviews and Sisters of String and Glass (because the story I have in mind will likely cut certain parts of me, so I’ll need it to stay sane), but, based on a reader suggestion, will be posting shorter parts of it 5 days a week instead of just Fridays starting next week. Otherwise everything else will come and go based on how wrapped up I am in This Story (we’ll start calling it This Story because it’s still untitled). Because I anticipate things will be all over the place, I’m trying to put other changes into place to help any reader who wants to keep up with reading my posts, hence the polls I’ve been putting up.

But, once I’m done with the first draft, I anticipate things going back to normal. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably be looking for some beta and sensitivity readers, so will be posting some snippets so anyone can see if it’s the kind of book they’d like to beta read.

For now, though, This Story is stuck in my head. I need to get back to writing it before it drives me insane. Because it has. And it will continue to do so.

Someone please hold onto my last marble for me so I can reclaim it later on.

P.S. I’ll also be starting to take down the individual Queen of the Garden of Girls posts, but the whole story is now available here.