Now You Can See Gets a Brand New Cover

Hello everyone!

I'm so happy to announce during the last week of Poetry Month that Now You Can See has a brand new cover. I put it off for far too long because I wanted to actually draw something for my covers. Ultimately I decided that I didn't want to wait around to get a drawing tablet and looked for one.

Here's what the original cover looked like:

And here's the new cover:

. . . . .

. . . .

. . .

. .

.

I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out. It has the right feel to it that I wanted to create.

Something I want to do in the near future is to publish more of my poetry, but I need to get my old laptop back up and running. I had 5 books planned out, including Now You Can See, but I can't remember which poems belong to which collection. I've also been writing poems off and on over the last few years that aren't included with those. Plus, I found my original poetry notebook where I would write everything on my mind out in a solid paragraph that I would turn into actual poems later. There are quite a few that I never made into poems that could very easily be created now.

Once I have my mud together, I'll definitely let you know when more poetry is coming!

First Quarter Update 2022

It's the end of the first quarter of 2022!

Keep reading to find out how things went during the first three months of this year!

-----

The very beginning of the year was a little slow for me, especially when it came to writing and revising. January was not the month for motivation, that's for sure! February got better and I was able to get a move on with revisions on both my upcoming novella release as well as briefly getting back to revising If Only We.

Revisions on the novella are going very well! I've read through half of the story to see what needs to be adjusted and have been implementing those changes as well as removing unnecessary words, dialogue, and scenes, and replacing them with something better. April will be crunch time to finish revisions!

Something else I've been able to do is figure out all of the books that will be in the series as well as their basic plots and characters. If all goes well this year, I should also have the second book in this series written and published by the fall. Fingers crossed, you know.

However, revisions on If Only We are inching along at a snail's pace. I have a lot of plans for 2022 and 2022 as well as several deadlines. Because of this, I have a feeling that I may not be able to follow through on republishing it this year. There is still a chance that I'll be able to relaunch the book this year, but I'm thinking it would be smarter to wait given how many projects need to be handled at the current moment. We'll see how things go, though. I'll probably know for sure by the end of the second quarter.

I'm super excited to let you know that these revisions are happening on schedule and should allow me to meet my deadlines and goals for the year! Once I have the novella completely revised and in the hands of my editor, I'll be announcing everything: the title, series name, release date, and the cover reveal. I'm beyond excited to finally be publishing something new again.

-----

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

Happy New Year! Hello 2022!

Hello and Happy New Year to you!

At the beginning of 2021, I didn't have much in the way of definitive plans when it came to writing and publishing under this name. Partway through the year I set some small goals but had trouble meeting them at the times I wanted to. In an update post, I shared my plans for the rest of 2021 as well as 2022.

So, what did I end up accomplishing in 2021?

One thing I finally accomplished was finalizing the new covers for my two fiction books, If Only We and Not Until Tonight. I also managed to reformat Not Until Tonight (with some minor changes with grammar issues and errors found post-publishing) and started to revise If Only We. I also did some writing under my pen name and while it wasn't as much as I wanted to, I still feel like I've made progress on something.

As far as the non-writerly-type goals, I was able to learn German daily with Duolingo (I had to use a few streak freezes, but I made up for it by doing extra practice). Also, I upped my original Goodreads Reading Challenge goal from 27 to 36 and ended up reading even more books.

Last year my word of the year was MINDFUL. I'm not sure how much I put the word into practice, but I feel I did take some time to be more in tune with myself. I didn't end up writing in a journal daily. However, I did write some new poems that expressed my inner thoughts and feelings, so I think there's something in that.

Enough about 2021... Let's get into 2022, shall we?

First and foremost, this will be the year I publish something new. I have a novella that I wrote a couple of years ago that just needs to be revised and edited. I also have ideas for at least 2 more books set in that town. Whether I can get to those this year is up in the air (as I currently have 2 novellas I'm writing under my pen name and a huge project that I'm in charge of), but I would like to at least get the first novella out there. I'm also considering getting back to sharing poetry again. I will also be finishing my revisions on If Only We and republishing on its anniversary.

When it comes to my other goals, I'll be aiming to read 27 books this year again (which will likely be upped to 37 if I'm a fast reader like last year). One thing I want to do differently with my reading is to get caught up on a bunch of books I've been meaning to get to for the longest time. I went through my Kindle and Nook apps and wrote down a bunch of books on pieces of paper. These books are ones I was super excited for or ones that everyone recommends or books that have been made into movies or those books that you've clicked on multiple times to purchase only to find out that you already own it. I'll also continue to read new books along the way, too, but this way I can catch up on that pesky mountain high TBR by a little bit.

My word of the year for 2022 is...

I looked back at a post on my old book blog where I shared my word of the year plus a bunch of accompanying words. When I was reading them off, the word RESET was the one that popped out for me. 2021 was one of those years where a lot of my plans fell to the wayside for one reason or another and I had to press pause on fulfilling some of my goals. While I dabbled away at some smaller steps toward bigger goals in the last quarter, I hadn't fully restarted. So, 2022 is my reset year, the one where I finally kick myself into gear to reach goals I've set to the side for too long.

Sometimes new years have a way of starting off strong and then finishing with little to show for it, but I'm not going to let this year be another one of those years. I'm determined to set aside time to accomplish as many goals as I possibly can and to not let anything stand in my way.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have an amazing new year!