A Book For Autumn Sundays

This book released back in February, but it takes place in autumn, and I think it's the perfect snuggle-up-with-a-coffee binge read for a day like today. 

College Town began as a writing exercise: a way to keep my writing "muscles" engaged and responsive while I slogged through Lord Have Mercy. It quickly grew legs, and became not one, but two writing challenges I was excited to meet: a present-tense narrative, and a standalone novel, one not limited by the actions, storylines, and style of books that came before it. I ended up enjoying the heck out of it. In fact, upon reflection, it's my favorite project of 2024. 

Aside from loving Lawson and Tommy, which I do, College Town gave me the chance to step outside the comforting, if limiting boxes of my ongoing series, and proved to me that I can write standalones. It was a necessary creative push, one that's given me the confidence to push some more. 

I've made (purposefully) vague mentions in some recent posts about taking a step back, and reimagining what my writing future looks like. I am doing just that, and waiting to hear back (fingers crossed) about some work opportunities. I'm not currently working on an original project, but I don't see myself ever not writing; hopefully, I'll have the time and energy to still write for myself on weekends or holidays in the near future. But as to what I'll be writing...well, let's just say that spending six months to a year on a massive book like Lord Have Mercy is not a wise investment financially. Maybe somewhere down the line my series will enjoy renewed interest and a renaissance of sorts, but for now, I'm enjoying Instagramming, blogging, reading, and sharing books with you all. It would be fun to explore smaller, self-contained standalones when I get back to sharing my writing. The new format is still in flux, but I'm definitely not going anywhere, and I'm really hoping I can use my writing in new and exciting ways. (And hopefully some that are good for my wallet, too!)

College Town, and it's novella follow-up, A Cure for Recovery, are available now at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo for all your fall afternoon reading needs!  

#ReadingLife: Released

Indie Author Alert: my latest read was Released by Julie Embleton, and it's book two in her Turning Moon series. It's a fated mates wolf shifter romance, between Michael, a wolf who fled his pack because of the crushing guilt he carries thanks to what happened in book one, Bound, and Genna, a human living with guilt of her own. Two burdened souls destined for one another, faced with a villain who is truly evil, and a twist at the end that I didn't see coming. You will need to read book one first, and last I checked, it's free to download for Kindle! 

This book left me ruminating on something. Obviously, fiction is fiction, and we read it with the understanding that unlikely and fantastic things will unfold between the pages. But even with the wildest and most imaginative stories, readers still demand a certain level of realism: they want characters to feel like authentic humans with authentic reactions to all big reveals and plot twists. 

But...do they? Do they really? Because how adaptable is the average person? How trusting of strangers? How accepting of the shocking and the unexplained? 

In Released, when Genna learns that Michael is a werewolf, and witnesses him shift from wolf to human, she freaks out. Rightfully so. Her doubt and panic over realizing the supernatural forces of storybooks are real and now a part of her life sends her into more than one tailspin, and I appreciated the reality of that. Because I believe that, though we all love a vampire, or a werewolf, or even a human killer/criminal, like an outlaw biker or a mafia don, in fiction, if we met or fell in love with one in real life, we would freak out, too. In fiction, that process often gets expedited or glossed over; the heroine adapts quickly and sometimes even effortlessly, and while readers might like that, might enjoy that head-first fall into the unknown, it isn't realism. 

Something I've noticed in the response to my own work: characters who begin on the outside of a closed system - be it club or supernatural pack - are the ones least liked by readers. If a woman takes a beat or two to come to terms with her new normal, she gets picked apart. Characters like Ava, in Dartmoor, don't ever have those attacks of conscience with regard to the club's illegal or even murderous activity because she was born into the club, and it's the only normal she's ever known. This streamlines that drama in a pleasing way: we dive, instead, straight into the drama of her romance, her struggles with the bad guys, etc. But characters like Emmie, like Sam, like Whitney have to work through that "holy crap, these guys are scary!" stage, and it pushes the character, and the audience, further outside the inner workings of the club by necessity. 

It comes back to - as ever - perspective. Characters inside the system will view it differently and react to it differently than those outside of it. Props to Julie for giving Genna that realistic struggle. 

NaNo Starts Now

 

If you're a writer, or have a writer in your life, you've likely heard of NaNoWriMo, or, my preference, NaNo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it takes place in November, during which the goal is to write a complete novel (or 50,000 words of a long-form novel) in the span of thirty days. That breaks down to roughly 1,700 words a day, which sounds like a lot, I'm sure, for new writers, but which is a pretty typical daily wordcount for anyone who writes for a living. When I'm working on a project, I give myself a daily minimum of 2,000 words, and try to shoot for 2,500-3,000. 

There's as many ways to participate in NaNo as there are reasons for doing it. You can keep track of your word count progress by yourself, or in a group of writing friends, or by signing up with one of the websites that helps keep you on track. It can be a social thing, or a solo one. It can be a fun way for a new author to stick with a project for the first time, or a chance for an established author to try and knock out something new in a concentrated format. 

I've only participated "officially" once, when I started writing Walking Wounded on 11/1/16, and ended up with a 60,000 word complete novel by the end of the month. But I usually manage 50,000 on whichever WIP I have going. This is the first time since 2012 that I haven't been working on anything in November. It feels strange! 

There's been lots of talk in author circles about the inconvenience of NaNo falling in November, when holiday prep is ramping up, and finals are looming for students, and life seems to get much busier as the nights draw down sooner and sooner. There are summer NaNos for this reason; really, you could pick any month to challenge yourself to 50,000, but for the social butterflies, there's much more support - and commiseration - in November. 

Anyone out there participating this year? As I mentioned, I'm not, for maybe the first time ever. Given that Lord Have Mercy is more than 460,000 words, I'll say that counts for nine NaNos. Ha! And I'm also stepping back to focus on finding more reliable work. Good luck to everyone tackling the challenge!