Happy New Year and Hello 2021!

Happy New Year, lovelies! It's 2021!

With how chaotic and terrible 2020 was, I'm glad to have that year behind me. While I know 2021 isn't going to be perfect given everything currently happening, I still have the hope that things will get better. We'll make progress toward eradicating coronavirus and we'll heal as a society.

This year, I want to take steps toward more of my personal and professional goals. I tend to reach too high and become upset when I can't achieve what I planned on doing every year. This time I'm going to be reasonable with myself. My surgery may be over and I may be recovering on schedule, but I still have to pace myself.

Near the beginning of December, one of my recent story ideas popped back into my mind and I decided that maybe I should go with it. The story doesn't need a whole lot of research, planning, storyboarding, or mapping. It's a simple steamy forbidden romance standalone novel. I came up with character names and outlined (most of) it, so I'm hoping to make that my first book of 2021.

Other than that book, I have a few other ideas in the works. I don't want to go into too many details as these books are in the very beginning stages and may not be ready to write this year, but I will hopefully have more information to share about these upcoming projects soon.

Ultimately, I just want to take my time and write what I can when I can with no pressure to meet any major deadlines. My goal is to publish at least 3 books, but maybe more depending on how things go. Wish me luck!

I promise to keep you all updated with the latest news whenever it's available! Take care!

My life has changed, and I'm changing with it.

I've written and rewritten this post a few times. Not because it was terrible, but because things kept changing and I didn't want to leave anything out. Hopefully, the third time is the charm.

---

At the end of last year, I spent a great deal of time coming up with my plans and goals for 2019. They were reasonable, manageable, and reachable.

But 2019 had an agenda of its own.

Due to some setbacks with the online business my husband and I own, I had to give up my part-time employment for a new full-time job. I was concerned about how it would affect my writing, but somehow managed to squeeze in words on lunch breaks and other spare moments. Since my writing time was reduced, I had to push my next release back. Not once, not twice, but multiple times until I couldn't push it back any further. Because of the timeline of the story, and subsequently the series, publishing it in 2019 wasn't going to be possible anymore.

This, of course, was beyond frustrating to me. The excitement for this year faded and I was suddenly back to the drawing board. What should I write next? I played around with a few ideas, wrote part of a couple of them, but nothing was sticking. For some reason, I was unable to invest my energy into these stories. They were all good ideas, some that I loved dearly, but I wasn't ready for them. Or maybe they weren't ready for me, I still haven't figured that out yet.

I sat down and wrote up a list of every idea I have come up with over the last few years. There are currently 25 ideas on this list (and I'm pretty sure I'm missing several). I'd look over it and consider each idea, each series, and ponder over what it would take to complete the story or stories. Do I have enough of the story figured out? Or do I have to spend a lot of time plotting and developing characters before I can even get started? Most of the ideas are part of a series and would require some world building and character connecting before I could even begin. Some have such a vague premise that it would take months to flesh out.

It seemed hopeless until I thought about a more recent idea. A standalone. One that has a much different feel than my other stories, but is still a romance.

I started a word document, wrote the title and character names, then began to write a rough outline of what happens. In the midst of this, I discovered a few things I would need to research. It felt a bit daunting at first, but I looked something up and realized that it won't be as difficult as my brain tried to tell me it would be. Then every night I would think about the way the story would progress and eventually came up with a great ending to the story, which made me feel more positive about moving forward with this story.

While I've been facing some setbacks, at least I've been able to come up with a new plan. As far as the rest of 2019 goes, that's still up in the air for a number of reasons, but I'm working on it. One day at a time.

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Thank you for reading this post! I would love to hear from you. Have you had changes in 2019 that you weren't anticipating? What have you been able to do to overcome them?

You Have To Have A Plan

You wrote a book. Congrats! Now what?

When you look at all the tasks that are necessary to publish your book, it might seem overwhelming as a newbie. It doesn't have to be, though! There's a short list of basics that are fairly easy to do.

In the following paragraphs, I'll go over these basics. I'm skipping the writing and editing process since everyone's pace varies. Instead I'll be focusing on what you need to do once you have a finished manuscript. Bear in mind that these are just basic guidelines and some may not even apply to you or you may do them in a different order.

Before anything else, have all your profiles set up.

This is your website/blog, Twitter, and Facebook page primarily. Also consider Instagram and Pinterest as both are great tools for authors. You'll need these available when people are seeking out you and your books. Get a like or a follow and they'll see future posts about your releases.

Then you'll need to consider is your cover. There are a lot of cover designers out there with several price ranges for custom and premade covers. Your cover will be the first thing potential readers will see before they even read your blurb, so it needs to intrigue them enough to click to find out more.

Once you have a cover, you'll want to do some sort of cover reveal. This you can do through a book tour company or on your own. If you choose to do it on your own, make sure you get several fellow readers and writers to share it as well on their blogs or social media. This is a good start in generating buzz about the book.

Before you reveal your cover, you need to have a few things ready to share with it: the blurb (synopsis), release date, and a link (either to the book on Goodreads or Amazon). It's best to have a preorder link because you're more likely to get readers to buy your book when they see the cover versus hoping they still remember your book in a month or two when it releases. However, if you'd prefer to publish without a preorder, definitely have the Goodreads link so people are able to at least add it to their Goodreads shelf.

The timing of cover reveal to release date is up to you. Traditionally published authors can have a longer time (three to four months), but for self-published books it's best to have shorter times. This helps keep the buzz alive if the reader knows it's coming in a month or two.

When you pick your release date, make sure you have your final manuscript formatted and ready to go. This is especially critical if you choose to put your book up for preorder. Amazon is very strict about preorders. Once you set it, you are required to have the final manuscript uploaded within a certain number of days before the scheduled release date. If you delay this or cancel the preorder, you will lose preorder privileges on Amazon for a year. So definitely be ready to avoid this.

As far as marketing and getting reviews of your book goes, there are several options out there. Blog Tour companies, PR companies, Goodreads groups, Facebook groups, and NetGalley for starters. There are a lot of great groups on Goodreads and Facebook specifically for promo, and some authors (if you're already friends with them) will allow other authors to post in their group about a new release or to request ARC readers. When you're new you may have to invest a little bit of money to get your name and book noticed, but the investment is small and will help you in the long run.

You can even contact bloggers directly yourself, but be sure to thoroughly read their review policy to know they read your genre and are accepting new books for review. Some may not be accepting reviews, so check to see if they're able to host you for an interview or guest post.

Once you're closer to release, you can start scheduling posts on your blog and social media. It's easy to schedule on a blog and Facebook page, but if you need to schedule for Twitter you'll need to use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. These multi-profile platforms are great for planning ahead and you can use them for multiple social media accounts all in one place. Personally, I have trouble posting daily, so scheduling posts is a useful option that you should definitely take advantage of.

On release day try to stay active online. Like posts you get tagged in about your release and leave a thank you on blogs that host you. Share your release in groups that allow open promo. And try not to get stressed over sales or average ratings. You did something amazing: Published a book! Be proud of your accomplishment.

And that's about it! 

At least, until the next book. *wink wink* Hope the advice helps you with your self-publishing plan!

Pacing Yourself

One of the biggest things I've learned from my writing career is to learn how to pace myself.

Everyone works at different speeds and has different circumstances, and even those things change over time. For some they are working at a comfortable and manageable pace, but for others it can be stressful and even overwhelming.

If you fall into the latter category, it might be a good time to step back and consider why this is happening. Has it been happening for years or months? Was it happening when you started your career or did it change over time?

Try to pinpoint the moment or maybe the month it began. Did you decide to take on more work? Double your daily word count? Accept more responsibility like beta reading? Or did you have a real life change like marriage or divorce or having a baby?

It doesn't have to be anything big necessarily, even small changes to our routine can throw off our pace. Usually we can find a way to adapt, but maybe we were unable to go back to the way things used to be. It's not uncommon for people to expect things to fall into place. However, that's not always how life works.

Take for example the daily word count. When I was writing after publishing my debut novel under my real name, I set easy to reach goals for myself. If I wanted to publish by a certain time, I had to determine how many words I could reasonably handle to write daily or every other day to reach that goal. For my last two full-length books, I had a personal aim of 500-1000 words per writing session with the ultimate goal of at least 15,000 words per month. It worked out well for me back then. It doesn't now.

What changed?

My life did. I went from a single go-getter author to a girlfriend, then fiancee, and now wife. Of course I don't regret falling in love, but it did interrupt the pace I had prior.

I fell out of my routine because of my new life with my now husband. Attempts were made to write off and on, but the time I had available was more and more limited. Eventually I was so out of practice that when I did have time to sit and write, my skills were beginning to slip into old habits of poor structure and stilted dialogue. It became extremely frustrating and caused me to dread sitting down to write because even if I could somehow manage to write 500 words, they would likely be deleted the following day. Since I wasn't able to keep a steady flow of words going, I couldn't have a steady release rate of actual books either, which added to my initial frustration.

In recent months I've had to step back and evaluate what I want and how I can achieve it. And the most necessary thing for me was to learn how to pace myself. Can I write 500 words a day? Maybe, but I don't force it if it's not happening. I give myself a pat on the back for getting 100 new words because those are 100 more than yesterday and I'm extremely proud of that fact. I've also taken a look at other aspects to my writing career: social media, author bio, ebook content, etc. There have been things I've put off for weeks/months/years that I can set aside a block of time to accomplish. They may not be words for a book, but they are still necessary parts of the whole picture as an author.

The same can be done for you. Can't write 1000 words a day like you used to? Aim a bit lower for a week with 500 per day, or do 800 a day on weekdays and take weekends off to regroup. Figure out the pace you can handle right now and work your way up to more at a later date. Have you been slacking on your social media accounts? Take half an hour once a week to schedule posts for the following week.

It's all about learning what you can and can't do at this moment, and also how to adjust your routine and free time to accomplish your goals easier. It may take some time to figure it all out, but it's worth it to prevent burnout or even possibly quitting entirely. Take a moment to consider where you're at and what you can manage right now.

Today may be a 100 word day, tomorrow could be 500, but no matter what, take care of you. Being stressed and overwhelmed isn't a good combination and can inhibit productivity.

Pace yourself. Take your time. Learning to adapt to changes can help your career be the success you want it to be.

Unexpected + The Works In Progress + The Authorteers + Where I've Been + The Latest News + more

Hello lovelies!

It's been a while, hasn't it? That's partly due to the fact that there hasn't been much going on... no new book published or on it's way around the corner, no other news of any sort. But... there are things in development, and I thought that it would be a good idea to tell everyone about them all in one post.

Unexpected

I finished the first draft of Unexpected! *cue high fives*

I've done a quick spelling/grammar check on it AND went through all the parts I marked to go back on (certain paragraphs that needed adjustment, scenes that needed expanding, etc). I also wrote a short list of scenes to add on that I missed and took care of those as well. Now I need to dive into revisions. I'm hoping I can get through the revisions within the next couple weeks so that I can send it off to betas and stay on track with my self-imposed deadlines.

My amazing cover artist, Marie Landry, is currently working on the cover for me. My original cover photo ended up getting used by another author right before I was going to use it, so I had to scrap that idea and start fresh with a new photo. The cover reveal should happen early June, along with the official release date! Get excited! I know I am.

The works in progress...

I had originally been hoping to have the third book in the Resist series (titled Forever) out sometime this summer. Unfortunately, Unexpected took me longer to write than originally anticipated. I do, however, have the book pretty much completely plotted out. It's just a matter of sitting down to write it now.

I have about, I don't know, five or six other story ideas brewing in my head right about now. One is sticking out more than the others, so I started writing the first chapter last night. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that I can focus on either this one (currently untitled) or Forever so that I can have another novel published in the fall. Then (fingers crossed again) I can have enough time to write my winter novella, Warm Me Up, and publish that in winter.

Cross your fingers with me, folks! I want to get at least one more book published by the end of 2015.

The awesomeness of The Authorteers...

Have you had a chance to check out the author blog I joined? It's called The Authorteers and I've joined forces with authors Molli Moran, Marie Landry, and Jessica Sankiewicz. We'll be sharing all sorts of fun teasers and news about our books, plus discussing lots of different writing topics.

You should check out The Authorteers Reader Group on Facebook! We share and talk about fun things--reading and writing and more. Plus, we'll be sharing some stuff on there related to our upcoming books before we share it elsewhere. So, you don't want to miss that!

Where I've been around the internet...

I've taken part in eight posts on The Authorteers so far:

• My official author interview
• Discussion post on Plotting Vs. Pantsing
• Top Ten Tuesday -- see three of my favorite books
• Why I wrote 3 short stories before my first novel
• Discussion post on how I come up with my book titles 
• Dream Cast for the Resist Series picked by me 
• My three most anticipated spring & summer reads
• Discussion post on writing outside your comfort zone (the untitled book from above is one of the story ideas mentioned in this discussion post *wink wink*)

I was also on a couple blogs recently:

• Guest post on Romances and the Happily Ever After on Ramblings From This Chick
• Excerpt from one of my favorite scenes in Longing and why on A Soul Unsung
• Five minutes with me on Karen's Book Haven

The latest news...

Here All Along is now available for FREE everywhere! So if you haven't had the chance to read my first published story, you have no excuse not to now. ;)

| Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords |

Also... I'll be attending the Glass City Author Event on October 8th 2016! It's about a year and a half away, but I'm super excited. I'm really hoping to get several of my books made into paperback (Resist and Longing for starters, and any other book 20,000 words or longer that I publish between now and then) and a bunch of really awesome swag (including magnets and bookmarks) to put out on the table.

Tickets will go on sale in June, so I'll be sure to post a link to that in case anyone is interested in going. I can't wait to meet everyone!!

Don't forget about my newsletter and Facebook group...

As you may or may not know, I have a newsletter and a Facebook group. The newsletters aren't frequent (I'm pretty sure the last one I sent was when Longing was published in January), and most likely will only be sent when there's something important to say regarding an upcoming release or another newsworthy item needs to be shared. With regard to the Facebook group, it was originally a street team, but I decided I'd rather make it more laid back. So I changed it to a reader/fan group instead. It'll still be basically the same thing, only you aren't expected help with promo. All I want is to share some teasers, news, and maybe have some fun giveaways.


That's all for now, I hope you all have a lovely week!

Meet Devlin Pierce from RESIST and LONGING

Hello lovelies!

I'm participating in a blog hop where authors interview characters from one of their books. The lovely Marie Landry interviewed River from her Angel Island series. You can read her post here.

As for me, I've decided to interview the always charming and extraordinarily handsome Devlin Pierce. I expected an interesting conversation, little did I know what it would entail...

Devlin asks to meet in a hotel bar. I'm sitting on a bar stool, waiting for the bartender to bring me a martini. He brings it over right when Devlin walks up. After shaking my hand and ordering his drink, we start.

Lilly: Can you tell us your full name?

Devlin: My full name is Devlin Harrison Pierce.

Lilly: Are you a fictional or historical character?

Devlin chuckles as the bartender hands him his scotch. He swirls the drink for a moment before answering.

Devlin: Even though at times it seems like I'm not, I'm quite real, Lilly.

I attempt to keep my cool when he leans forward as he speaks to me, his voice devastatingly sexy. I let out a light cough and take a sip of my martini.

Lilly: So, when and where is your story set?

Devlin: It takes place near Cleveland, Ohio, present day. Morris Enterprises, the company I work for, is actually in Cleveland, but I live outside of it in one of the suburbs.

Lilly: What should we know about you?

He smirks, takes a drink of his scotch, then sets it down.

Devlin: That's a loaded question, but I'll answer as truthfully as I can. I'm twenty-four years old and I used to live in Florida before I moved up here. There isn't really much to know about my life before now. It was...monotonous. Sure, I have some great memories, but ever since I became an adult it feels like something is missing. I've reached that point where I'm starting to ask the bigger questions.

Lilly: What kind of questions?

Devlin: What do I want from life? Do I want to be where I am now in ten years or do I want to be somewhere else? You know, working 24/7 shouldn't be what life is all about. I want--no, I need something more. More fulfilling. I'm trying to find the balance between it all--find true happiness and something worth living for. Or maybe even someone.

He raises an eyebrow, biting back a smile.

Lilly: What's the main conflict of your story? What's going on with you?

Devlin: Well, once I started asking the important questions, I knew I needed to remap my future. Once I started to take those steps to get to where I needed to be, there was one last piece of the puzzle. The girl.

Lilly: Ah, yes. The girl.

Devlin nods resolutely.

Devlin: It's been two months since I saw her last, but I can't stop thinking about her. I'm struggling to figure out how to get all these pieces to fit together. Not to mention, trying to keep myself together in the process without losing the girl.

Lilly: Then what are your personal goals?

Devlin: To change my previous goals into something worthwhile. Most of the men I know that are in their twenties generally focus on the same goals--getting money and getting all the girls they can. They're focused on the game and have no destination in mind. I have one destination in mind now.

Lilly: I think I know what it is.

Devlin: Well, it's not just about the girl. To be honest, I haven't had a serious girlfriend since high school. I know that sounds bad, but I spent years either focused on school or work that my love life was pretty much nonexistent. It makes me wonder if I'm ready for this, whether she'll even believe it.

He touches a hand to his heart.

Devlin: Deep down, I know I am. I can only hope that I'll be able to prove it to her.

I smile, my heart fluttering wildly.

Lilly: I hope that you do.

Devlin: Thank you, Lilly.

Lilly: When will we be able to find out what happens next in your story?

Devlin: You'll be able to see what happens after Resist ended in the sequel, Longing. It will be published on January 27th 2015. The cover for Longing will be revealed tomorrow, December 9th.

Resist (Resist #1)

Allegra Maxwell is sick of the monotony of life. It's all work and no play, and right now she wants to play. She shows up at her company's yearly meeting with one goal in mind: have a one night stand with a stranger. What she doesn't count on is Devlin Pierce walking through the door.

When Allegra first met Devlin, she knew he would be nothing but trouble. After he proved her theory true last year, she made a vow to avoid him at all costs. He's the last person she wants to see, and he knows it. He refuses to leave her alone though. As much as she tries to fight it, the pull he has on her is undeniable. Her ability to resist him proves impossible when Devlin makes her an offer she can't refuse.

One night. That's all he asks. That's all she wants. Or is it?

*Resist is a 21,000 word erotica novella, and the first of a three book series*

| Add Resist on Goodreads |

Buy Resist for only 99¢:

| Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo |

Longing (Resist #2)

It's been two months since Allegra walked out of Devlin's hotel room. Well, two months and five days, but she's not counting. She needs to move on, but before she can, Devlin shows up again...as her new coworker.

Seeing him at work every day is enough to make her lose her mind. Allegra tries to stay away from Devlin, knowing the effect he has on her, but she can't. The more she's around him, the more she's tempted to have something more with him. After everything that's happened in the past, it's a slippery slope that may land her in a place she never wants to revisit. Something is happening to her heart, though. A longing is building up that isn't one-sided...and doesn't feel temporary.

He wants her. She wants a forever. Is it possible to have it all?

*Longing is a full-length erotica novel, and the sequel to Resist*

| Add Longing on Goodreads |