Now, it is difficult for me to imagine my life not as a writer. I know I published my first book on Amazon on July 12, 2013. That means tomorrow will be eight months since the first book went live. I self-published before then, and by self-publish, I mean WE did the printing and the binding and the CD pressing for electronic copies. It was grueling and quite a huge amount of work for very little return. I tentatively put An Insider’s Guide to the General Hospital Weekend up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing to be available on Kindle and them thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if…” and not long afterward, the three other books I had already written, Leaving Kentucky in the Broad Daylight, Energy Magic, and CUSP went up. Those were the pre-existing books and as of today, I now have twenty-one books published in eight months and a couple of months later, expanded into print books as well. I am grateful that writing is now my full time job. As a journalist for ABC daytime drama from 1999 until 2012, I always wrote in high volume, but books have always been my calling.
I am excited to announce that three new books have been released within the past month.
Rose of Avalon released on March 27 and I have to confess, is my favorite book of all that I have written. It flowed beautiful as I wrote it and it was kind to me; a story that basically told itself. It is the second in the series called Seven Sisters of Avalon and involves stories from immediately after Arthurian times with the classic fairy tales. It is available in both Kindle format and print, as is the first book in the series, The Daughters of Avalon. You can find the print books by looking in the sidebar to the right.
Next came an unexpected pleasure which was Where the Daffodils Grow. This was a story that had been banging around in my head literally since high school when the dinosaurs roamed and the earth was cooling. It felt great to get it out. It is a little darker than most of my fiction, but still a pleasure to write. It is a novelette length story that really grabbed my heart about an abused woman who finds her exit strategy, but then has to reconcile the drastic action she takes as a result to ultimately come into her own empowerment.
Today, I (finally) released Spiritual Birth and let me tell you, I feel as though I gave birth myself all over again. I taught childbirth classes from 1980 – 1997 and still act as a childbirth consultant. I also worked in the home birth field and as a doula in hospital births in addition to having six births of my own. I wanted to write this book for quite some time and finally did it, but researching public domain birth photos is quite a process and by the time I finished the book, it felt like eleven months instead of eleven days. I am proud of it, but I believe it took the most out of me of any of the books I have written except maybe Leaving Kentucky in the Broad Daylight, which was a tremendously emotional journey that involved a lot of purging of really old hurts and feelings.
I am taking a few months’ break from the Avalon series, although story ideas are buzzing all through my head about the next six (yes, six) books in that series. I have not heard a WORD about Rose since its release even though many of the books have sold. I have NO CLUE whether anyone even liked it besides me! Instead, I am going to focus on writing more novelettes. I have a slew of story ideas batting around in there, plus I invested in several books of writing prompts and every time I crack one open, I feel like my head will explode from story ideas. After that, I expect to wander back into Avalon again.
For non-fiction, I have the When I Die, Just Bury Me at the Walmart book, which is about the low expectations women set for themselves and how they turn themselves into martyrs, then resent it. Bio-Universal Tarot is over half-way done and will come out eventually. I have to work on it and walk away, work on it and walk away. I am still mulling my mother’s book of poetry, but I get depressed for a few days every time I touch it and I want my writing to feel good. I Aim to Misbehave is the sequel to Leaving Kentucky about my life after I went to Guam up until the now. There are some amazing stories to tell, but there are some I have not yet worked out in my own head as to how to tell them, so I have to sneak up on them eventually. I have another book brewing called 50 Rituals to Change Your Life, which is fairly self-explanatory. I don’t see any non-fiction beyond those, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in there.
For now, I am going to actually take a weekend off and absolutely misbehave like crazy. I usually write for a minimum of twelve hours a day, but I intend to watch movies, read, soak in the hot tub, have breakfast with an amazing friend, sleep, and get as loaded as I can possibly get on occasion.There has been a lot of stress and I feel like I need a break.
I hope each and every one of you reading this does even one thing this weekend that is purely an act of enjoyment for yourself. Give yourself that gift from me if you won’t give it from yourself. The Goddess says, “All acts of love and pleasure are mine.” Go find some bliss and rub it all over you like sunshine on a warm day. Let the Goddess flood you with joy and give you exquisite happiness.