I'M ALWAYS JUST THE AUTHOR

A few weeks after I published my first book, Virgin Voyage, I came to a realization that really stung, but in a way made so much sense. The story I had practically lived, and loved like a child, would never bring me reading pleasure like it did others.

In the first few weeks after publication I truly can not tell you how many times I read the book. I had this urge to see if it was a pleasurable, enjoyable read. I wanted to enjoy it (or hate it) the same way a stranger who purchased it would.

There were short periods of time where I could blank my world out and get caught up in Mari and Graham's, but my world always came crashing back in. (And I'm not talking about  my kids bother me or the phone ringing or someone knocking on the door)  You see, I can never not be the author of Virgin Voyage. I will always read it with a critical eye. 'Should I have done this, or written that, or left that out. Or will my readers enjoy this or that better.' Truthfully I just wanted to live in Mari
and Graham's finished world for fourteen chapters. I guess you could say that I was craving the ability to just be a reader to my book.

I couldn't help how I felt. I knew I shouldn't feel that way but I did. It almost felt like a betrayal to the characters. I created them, I loved them, I nurtured them,  I put them to paper and I enjoyed it thoroughly. But I couldn't experience them as they were meant to be enjoyed.

And then my first reviews started to come in. Not only on Amazon, but through people contacting me personally to tell me how much they loved the book. All of a sudden, everything I've mentioned above didn't seem to matter anymore. Friends, family and strangers were reading my book the way I wanted to, and I realized something, the whole reason I wrote the book in the first place was so people could live it, love it and enjoy it.  Low and behold, they actually were!!!!  I never betrayed Mari and Graham, I gave them a happy life, in more ways than one.

I know I will most likely have the same feelings about future books, but now I will know how to handle it - just sit back and wait, someone will enjoy it and tell me they did, and then
the world inside that book will be complete.

DON'T FORGET TO VISIT MY BUY PAGE AT THE TOP OR CLICK ON THE FIRST LINK IN THE LEFT HAND COLUMN TO GET YOUR COPY OF VIRGIN VOYAGE OR ALASKAN AMBUSH TODAY!!!

ALASKAN AMBUSH - EXCERPT CHAPTER 3

      It was seven a.m. on his first day of vacation when the phone rang, waking Alex from a deep sleep. Dreams had troubled him until about four o'clock. After that, he had finally slept well.
      "Hello," he answered sleepily
      "Alex, its Pearl"   
      "Why are you calling so early, is everything okay?"
      "Everything is fine Alex, I'm calling to let you know that Jason can't take the eleven o'clock today. His wife's flight from Orlando was cancelled because of severe thunderstorms and his babysitter is sick so he has to stay with the kiddos until the missus gets home."
      "Okay Pearl, Thanks for letting me know."
       Alex hung up the phone and got out of bed. If he was going to work after all, he really should shower and shave. Yes, he had showered the previous night, but he woke up covered in sweat more than once because of dreams of Olivia. And then suddenly he remembered, the eleven o'clock flight that he was going to do for Jason was the Olivia Mannon flight. Where the hell was his brain? He didn’t want to admit that it had been in his pants for the last forty-eight hours, along with thoughts of loving her. He absolutely had to find someone to cover for him - after the shower.

______________________________________________________________

      Turning the water off, Alex stepped out of the shower, not even bothering to dry off. He just wrapped the towel around his lean waist and walked, dripping, to the phone in his bedroom to dial Pearls number. He waited impatiently for her to answer.
      Damn he was cold. Taking the towel from his waist, he started to dry himself off. As he was running the towel through his hair, Pearl finally answered.
      “Howdy”
      “Hey Pearl. I need you to call Mark and have him take that eleven o'clock for me,” Alex said desperately.
      “I wondered when you would remember it was Olivia’s flight,” she laughed. I already called Mark. His son’s birthday is today and he can’t be there until the afternoon shift.”
      “Damn Pearl, you’ve got to help me out here. Can’t you baby-sit Jason’s kids for him or something?” he asked
      “No can do kiddo. I have commitments! I guess you will just have to take a deep breath and take it yourself. What’s the worst that could happen? She doesn’t bite does she?
      “She does more than bite, Pearl. That’s what I’m afraid of.” He sighed loudly as he threw the towel across the room. What in the hell would he do now?
      “Hey Alex,” Pearl said tentatively
      “What?” he asked grumpily.
      “I hope this is the Olivia.”
      “Why?” he asked surprised. His groin reacted to the image of Olivia walking along the docks, his docks, in his town.
      “You’ve been pining for her all this time. You need to set things straight and get on with your life...with or without her.”
      Alex didn’t want to hear that, especially now when she might be arriving in town any minute. “Pearl, if it is her, I’m doomed.”
      He quickly hung up the phone and went to shave. He had a lot of mental preparation to do for the flight. He was going to be a nervous wreck and he couldn’t let it affect his flying. Why him? Why now?
      By the time Alex was dressed and on his way to the office, he had convinced himself that this passenger was not going to be Olivia Mannon from Nevada. He put pictures of a sweet old grandma named Olivia into his mind and urged them to stay there all morning.

DON'T FORGET TO VISIT MY BUY PAGE AT THE TOP OR CLICK ON THE FIRST LINK IN THE LEFT HAND COLUMN TO GET YOUR COPY OF VIRGIN VOYAGE OR ALASKAN AMBUSH TODAY!!!

VIRGIN VOYAGE KINDLE UPDATE

For any of you who have the kindle copy of Virgin Voyage, you can get a free update with corrections made and better formatting. Just go to Amazon.com and click on Your Account and then go down to manage kindle and then find your purchase of Virgin Voyage and it will say update available. Just download it for free to your kindle. :)

ALASKAN AMBUSH EXCERPT- CHAPTER 2

          The third box was a jumble of many different things, of more recent memories. On second glance, they were all memories involving Olivia; ticket stubs from their first movie, a program from a symphony at the University, a stuffed animal she had given him, restaurant receipts, a t-shirt with an obscene slogan that she got him for his birthday, a picture of them together at his college graduation, a crystal bear she’d given him for an anniversary, the packet of information he’d requested on how to become a park ranger because he thought he’d finally found a job he could love and succeed at, and the ring he’d been planning to give to her.

          Before he could propose, she'd called the relationship off, and his parents' vacation home in Oregon had become his escape for a year before he moved to Alaska to help Pearl in her time of need, and to accept his inheritance.
          He quickly closed the box and taped it shut so it could be moved to the garage as soon as possible. He left out only the crystal bear, the picture and the ring.
          The delicate crystal was carried over to the entertainment center and put front and center on an empty shelf. “I miss you Olivia,” he whispered before walking back to the couch. He still missed her so much, but he could not chance seeing her again, he couldn’t risk the pain. Could he?
          He sat for a while staring at the picture of them together. The desert sun glinted off of her dark hair. She looked like an angel. Her green eyes were sparkling with happiness and her smile was big and bright. She was absolutely stunning. Alex remembered what had happened next like it was only moments ago. She'd turned to him with love shining in her eyes. “I’m so proud of you!” she’d said. Too bad she hadn’t always been. Toward the end of their relationship there had been more disappointment than anything.
          Alex set the picture aside, opened the ring box and smiled. It was a beautiful old ring. His grandmother had given it to him when he told her he wanted to marry Olivia. Grandma Lily had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer and knew she didn’t have long to live, so she took both rings off of her finger then and there and put them in his palm, wrapping his fingers tightly around them. "I love Olivia and I want her to have these," she'd said. "Your grandfather and I both do. You two remind me of him and I when we were young."
          When Olivia broke things off, he vowed to never use the rings, he would pass them down to his kids instead, if he ever had any.
He took the picture and rings and put them in his night stand drawer before fixing a quick lunch and heading to the Living Doll. He needed to fly. 

DON'T FORGET TO VISIT MY BUY PAGE AT THE TOP OR CLICK ON THE FIRST LINK IN THE LEFT HAND COLUMN TO GET YOUR COPY OF VIRGIN VOYAGE OR ALASKAN AMBUSH TODAY!!!

VIRGIN VOYAGE AVAILABLE

Virgin Voyage is available again in paperback!!!  It was temporarily pulled to fix some problems.  The kindle version has been fixed and the formatting updated.  I hope you enjoy them both.  If you would like to purchase them, look above and click on my buy page.  Thanks for all of your patience and support!!! :)

IMPERFECTION (AS A WRITER AND A HUMAN BEING)

So, over the last week I've been struggling with something that i just had to share as I think a lot of people struggle with it. IMPERFECTION. I have learned to live with it in my house, with physical limitations and five kids there is no way I am ever going to keep my house perfect. I get it. I really do. I've accepted it (for the most part). There will always be a dish not washed, clothes not washed/folded, toys not put away and dirt tracked through the house. (Unless of course I hire a maid to live in and follow the kids around with her cleaning supplies. Hmmm, wish I could afford that!)

My most recent struggle with imperfection came last week with my book Virgin Voyage. I finally got down to doing more than just skimming and reading my favorite parts. I was absolutely mortified to see that somehow my group of five people missed 15 mistakes in the Proof (me being one of them :/). Things like know instead of known, child instead of children, improper indents that were made while formatting the book for publication, stray punctuation, improper punctuation. Really really mortified!!! (Not to mention the formatting issues of my Kindle copy that DID NOT show up on the preview I did before publication)

I had people tell me that I should just forget it and move on 15 mistakes in 312 pages wasn't bad. I had them tell me to just apologize and move on. I tried, I really did. But I just couldn't ignore it or move on. It haunted me, awake and asleep. I had something that I loved so much, that was flawed, out and about and people were reading it. After a few days, I just couldn't take it anymore I had to do something about it. So I did.

I had been told that you couldn't re submit it once published but I did some research and found out that in fact you could. So this weekend I re uploaded my work for both the paperback and kindle versions. (I had a perfect copy already so I'm thinking that I uploaded the wrong copy or they used one of the previous copies I had uploaded when trying to make formatting perfect) I learned that if you upload a version and it needs corrections, to completely close out your browser and reopen it before uploading a new copy. So, anyway, I uploaded and republished my book without mistakes. The preview of the Kindle showed it being perfect so if I notice on the actual Kindle that it isn't i'm going to be one upset mama. I ok'd the proof of the book this morning and am very happy with how it turned out.

I can not tell you how much better I feel now that I know that the product out there is as close to perfect as I could get it. A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Much of the depression I had been feeling is gone. (read my blog from Friday about my Depression). It is amazing how something can bother you so much, but when you really sit down and think about it, the solution is easy. Do whatever you have in your power to fix it. My book was off the market for awhile and that could have hurt sales (haha not really with me, because no one has reviewed my book yet so I don't have an abundance of sales although my free weekend was amazing!) and it was a lot of work to make sure everything was perfect. But the peace of mind I now have is indescribable. I wouldn't change it for the world. I don't feel like a pretender anymore, I feel like a real author!!!

If you want something to be perfect, then do whatever you have to do to make it that way, whether it be the first time or the tenth. If you are not satisfied, try try try again until it is. Don't settle for second best just because it is easier!