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Posts Tagged ‘keeper of his soul’

The Past Year and New Things

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 30, 2017| 25 Comments »

I haven’t been around social media much….

This past year, especially since October, has really been awful for me. My mom went to the emergency room early in October and was admitted to the hospital. They finally determined they would have to take part of her colon out, and when they got in there, they found they would have to take out her ENTIRE colon. She now has an ileostomy rather than a colostomy. Then, two days before she was to go to a nursing home for rehab, she fell and broke her ankle in two places…at the hospital. She also has a lot of stuff going on in her esophagus and stomach she’s having to take meds for.

Since then, her health has gone downhill. The long incision in her stomach from the surgery came open, and now it’s having to heal from the inside out. She has now developed MRSA (antibiotic resistant staph) where she had surgery on her ankle. She’s still in the nursing home, and her mind is slipping really bad. First, I made them check her for a UTI to see if that was causing the dementia. She did have one, and when she went on antibiotics, she was herself for two whole days. Then it was back to the craziness. It could be the MRSA or other infections causing the dementia. It came on way too fast to be Alzheimer’s. She was really smart and self-sufficient before all this happened. I have noticed a slight improvement the past couple of days, so maybe the antibiotic she’s on now is helping her. Fingers crossed. But as bad as she is, I don’t think she’ll ever be able to stay by herself. So there are some hard decisions to be made. The most likely scenario is that she’ll stay in the nursing home since everyone works and can’t stay with her. I’ve been up there pretty much every night since this all happened, and I see that being my future for quite some time.

So, new things. I’ve tossed this back and forth for awhile, and some of you have seen me post about it. But I think, for 2018, I’m truly going to focus on my other pen name. I’m tired of not making at least a part-time living on my writing. And it looks like Lauralynn just isn’t going to do it in the foreseeable future. I never market the other pen name, but it’s time to start. I’m going to concentrate all my efforts on that name for awhile and see where that goes. The genres are very different. My other name writes sweet romance and mysteries. I’m probably going to add a sweet historical romance and possibly a sweet older woman, younger man romance to the mix. We’ll see. I just think when something’s not working, I need to try something else. I’m not going to retire Lauralynn. If I get a good idea for a story that won’t fit the other name, I’ll probably write it under Lauralynn. I’m just so disappointed that Keeper of His Soul did so badly in sales. I felt sure this would be a book that would take off, but it just didn’t.

So I’m really going to try to be more organized next year and work hard to market my books in a non-spamming way. All that while taking care of Mom. Wish me luck or prayers, whichever one you do. I’m going to need them!

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What I’m Up To

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 30, 2017| 7 Comments »

From Keeper of His Soul

No, I don’t mean that I’m up to no good. LOL. Just what I’ve been doing.

I FINALLY finished Keeper of His Soul. I figured while I was on vacation, I would just bite the bullet and do it. I’ve been struggling with the last chapter or so because the ending I had in mind was kind of lame. It would have been a satisfying HEA, but it didn’t feel right. But the ending finally came to me, and it kind of threw me. I was like “do I really want to do this?” But I had to. Now for all you romance lovers out there, don’t worry. It has a HEA…sort of. It wasn’t all rainbows and roses, but it had to come with some pain. I don’t see how it could have ended differently. It just wasn’t possible. I’ll see what my beta readers think, but I can’t change it too much. The pain had to be there. The characters had already been through too much, and for it to end up as a perfect HEA wouldn’t have worked for me.

The next project will be under my other pen name. I have to make some hard decisions soon, and the biggest decision is whether or not to stop writing under Lauralynn Elliott. There’s a lot of competition in the paranormal romance genre, so it’s hard to get noticed. I have a few hard-core fans, but they can only buy so many books. My other pen name writes cozy mysteries, sweet romances, and soon, I hope, a historical romance. First, I have to finish the trilogy, then the historical. This all comes down to the business side of things. If I can’t make a decent living under Lauralynn, I HAVE to focus on the other pen name. Neither is selling well, but the other one sells a bit better, and I RARELY post anything on FB or do anything else to promote that name. Yet is still sells better than Lauralynn, although sales have picked up a tiny bit lately. But not enough. So, if Keeper of His Soul doesn’t do well, Lauralynn might die off for awhile. Not on social media because I would miss everyone. But as far as anything pertaining to writing.

So here’s the deal. When I release Keeper of His Soul, I need your help to spread the word. Word of Mouth is the best advertising. And, by the way, Soul of a Vampire, the book to which Keeper is a sequel, is in an anthology that’s FREE right now. Yep…free (except on Amazon, but not for lack of trying). So pop over to your favorite retailer and grab your free (or .99 on Amazon) copy of Paranormally Yours.

Amazon (It’s still .99 on Amazon since they still haven’t lowered it. Be sure to go there and click the link to report a lower price.) Update: It’s now free on Amazon!

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Or you can search it on your Apple device in iBooks!

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Back on Track?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 8, 2016| 10 Comments »

signature-pen

So am I back on track now? Time will tell.

Saturday, I sat down and wrote 2120 words. That’s the most I’d written on Keeper of His Soul in a really long time. This book has been the bane of my existence lately. Not because I don’t love the story; I really do. But for some reason, I’ve been afraid of it. I’ve been experiencing really bad “page fright”.

Here’s what I think is going on. I wanted this book to be a novel since it’s a sequel to Soul of a Vampire, which IS a novel. So then when the story moves a little too fast, I panic because it won’t be long enough. But what I need to do is let each story be what it will be. Some are meant to be novels, some are meant to be shorter. When I first talked to Susan Bischoff about this story, she even said she thought it would make a better novella than a novel. But I wanted it to be longer. When I try to force a story to be longer, though, I end up with words I don’t really need. I tend to write lean. I write short and to the point. I like things to move fast. That’s the way I like to read, too. So that’s why I do better with novellas most of the time.

Right now, this book is at about 35,000 words. It’s getting close to the last scene of the story. So it’s going to be a long novella or a very short novel. (There’s a lot of controversy about what’s considered a novel. I say 50,000 words. I’ve been to conferences where they say 40,000.) At this point, I’m going to stop worrying about it. I just need it to be long enough to warrant making a paperback. At about 35,000 is where I kind of draw that line. I know some people will do shorter paperbacks. I’ll just see how it goes. At least I worked on it a lot Saturday and again at lunch today. I’m kind of back on the horse.

I hope all of you are doing well and are enjoying this holiday season. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s is like one big fun time for me. Maybe it’s all the Christmas movies. And the food. Yeah, the food. 🙂

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Late ROW80 Update 8/16/2016

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 16, 2016| 9 Comments »

I almost didn’t check in this time, but after the post on the ROW80 site that Eden Mabee wrote, I felt like I need to get back to this. This is a community. We are here to help each other. So I’m late, but I’m here.

Since my husband’s hospital stay and the subsequent financial situation, I’ve been nearly paralyzed with fear of the near future. Would he have another incident? Would he be able to go back to work before we started having to choose which bills to pay and which to let go? Would things ever get back to normal? Or would there be a new normal for us? I just couldn’t write during this time. I just didn’t want to. I had no motivation.

So…he went back to work last night. He called me this morning (he wasn’t home yet when I left for work) and said they had a busy night, but everything went fine. He has a fairly physical job, so I was a little concerned. I’m hoping things will be okay, at least for a long time. We have to live with the fact that he’ll always have heart problems. It’s hereditary; it has nothing to do with his habits. I’ll just pray that God will continue to take care of us.

I had just started the Dave Ramsey plan when all this happened. The first baby step is to get $1000 in an emergency fund as soon as possible. I had just saved $130 when hubby went into the hospital. Oddly enough, I didn’t have to touch the $130. We had some unexpected help from a couple of people. Plus, some people made food for us, so we didn’t have to buy many groceries. The strange thing is, we were able to actually make a budget that balanced out. Even with less money coming in, it somehow worked. I’m convinced God’s hand was in this. So I’m going to really work on staying on the budget and doing the baby steps. After we accumulate the $1000 emergency fund, the next step is to start attacking our debt. There will be less eating out, no unnecessary expenditures, and things WILL get sold on eBay.

The good news is that I’ve been writing again. My WIP is called Keeper of His Soul, a sequel to Soul of a Vampire. I’m a little concerned that it’s going to end up a novella instead of a novel, but I’m going to stop trying to force a book to be longer than it wants to be. So we’ll see what happens. It’s going in a totally different direction than I originally had planned. So that’s getting interesting.

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ROW80 Update 12/9/15

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 9, 2015| 9 Comments »

Look, it’s me doing two updates in a row! Wow! 🙂

I just finished writing over 1000 words on my WIP at lunch. I wrote a couple of really good scenes. If I can keep this up, I think I’ll get my writing mojo back. I need to get back in my rhythm because I have big plans for next year. Of course, they might seem small to you if you’re a very prolific writer, but for someone who works full time plus edits for clients, I think plans for three books next year is pretty good.

I need to start posting on my blog more. I used to post frequently and got lots of comments. I only got two comments on my last ROW80 post, and neither of them were from fellow ROW80ers. 😦 I just feel like if a person posts more and tries to make the posts more interesting, there will be more comments. I really miss interacting with people on my blog. Facebook is different. Blogs are like one’s own personal space. It’s like home, you know? I’m going to try to do better!

I don’t usually do this, but I’m going to share a little snippet from my WIP, Keeper of His Soul (sequel to Soul of a Vampire) Keep in mind, Jan is a witch, so it isn’t as stupid as it seems for her to get out of her car. LOL

Suddenly, the rider shot ahead then turned so he was across the road. She slammed on her brakes, and her seatbelt snapped tight across her chest. She gasped at the sudden pressure then took in a deep breath as the belt relaxed.
Jan watched warily as the rider dismounted the bike and came toward her car. She opened the door and stepped out quickly, feeling that she would have a better advantage if she stood her ground instead of cowering in the car.
As the leather clad rider came closer, she felt something…familiar. But, no, she couldn’t possibly know this man. He stopped in front of her but remained silent. In the darkness, she could only make out long hair and a large, muscular build. The sense of familiarity still nagged at her mind.
Then he spoke. “I found you.”
His voice was barely above a whisper, and a chill went down her spine. She wasn’t sure it was fear. Maybe partly, but also something else.
“Who..who are you?”
Ignoring her question, he said, “I’ve been searching for you.”
He stepped closer, and Jan found herself unable to move. She was mesmerized by his voice, his masculine scent, and now that she could see them, his dark eyes. He moved even closer, until their bodies were almost touching. Then she knew. It was him, the one she’d been searching for.
“How did you find me?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“You called to me.”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
Still looking into her eyes, he said, “Jude.”
“I have something that belongs to you, Jude.”

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