Love & Sales!

Quiz: in the month before you get married, what should you do?

a) Refrain from adding any big projects 

    to the to-do list

b) Focus on staying calm and serene

c) Buy a house and move in, 

    serenity be damned!

If you guessed C, you're on my page :)

Yes, things were busy enough with the wedding coming up at the end of the month. But then, because my fiancé and I had too much free time on our hands (haha), we decided to get serious about buying a house. 

We looked for a whirlwind week (the market in northern VA is CRAZY btw), put in a couple of offers, and snagged a contract! It's this cute house in a neighborhood that will be fabulous for my long daily walks, and I'm over the moon. Our first house! It's been terrifying and thrilling as we've plunged along. Fingers crossed that everything works out :)

Between the wedding and the house, I'm full of happy excitement this month - and I want to share it with you! So ...

For the rest of April, the Nook and Kindle ebooks of Torched are only 99 cents!

Thanks to everyone who's celebrated or will celebrate the wedding and the house purchase with me, online or in person :) If you've dragged your heels on getting a copy of Torched, there's never going to be a better time - and if you know anyone who might be interested in a great deal on a fab ebook, please let them know about the sale. It goes only until the end of April, after which the price reverts to normal ($3.99).

And hey, if you want to get me a wedding present, telling people about Torched would be a great one! As an indie writer, I'd really appreciate it. 

My sister keeps telling me to put more things on my registry, so help me out: if you've been through the whole registry thing, what do you wish you'd asked for? And what should I get for the new house?? Besides lots of bookshelves, of course :)

Hugs, everyone!!

Indie Giveaway!

Yay! The lovely and talented Clare Davidson has organized a giveaway extravaganza starring eleven fab indie authors (including yours truly!) and their books. Free books FTW!

There are TWO great prizes:

1. A set of 11 ebooks, one from each of the featured authors.
2. 3 signed paperbacks and a $20 Amazon gift voucher.

The giveaway is open from midnight GMT on February 25th until 11:59pm GMT on March 11th and there's loads of ways to gain entries.

First, check out the authors and their books: 

Sky Song, by Sharon Sant: An unknown past. An unwanted destiny. A fight for survival. 

Dominant Race, by Elisa Nuckle: Lilia, a genetically altered human called a modified, and her allies must choose: help a tyrannical government in the business of killing their kind, or defend someone in the business of killing everyone else? 

Earth Angel, by Ruth Ellen Parlour: Earth Angels of Eardecia, fighting against their chosen destiny, discover a secret the God’s never told and use it against their sworn enemy. 

Graveyard Shift, by Angela Roquet: Lana Harvey is a reaper, and a lousy one at that, but when Grim promotes her to a high risk assignment, all hell breaks loose... 

Blood Roses, by Jason Graves: Madeline and Marissa Owen are identical twins who, with their paper-white skin, look a lot like vampires… well, sometimes, looks can be not at all deceiving. 

Sciron, by David Rashleigh: History, mystery, ghosts and a touch of romance in a Lancashire town. 

Storm Dancer, by Rayne Hall: Dahoud saves to fight the woman he loves from the evil inside him. 

The Priest, by Monica La Porta: Love doesn’t look at skin color/social status/gender. Society can’t restrain our hearts. 

The Violet Fox, by Clare Marshall: The Violet Fox is Cinderella meets Robin Hood with a dash of The Little Mermaid. 

Torched, by Andrea Lynn Colt: When cheerleader Rose Whitfield is framed for arson, she sets out to clear her name and take prime suspect Paxton down hard--not necessarily in that order. 

Trinity, by Clare Davidson: Three unlikely companions set out to restore a trinity of gods, which was destroyed a millennium ago. 

And now for the giveaways! Both are open internationally.  Go forth and win!

Giveaway one: A fantastic haul of 11 ebooks

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway two: 3 signed paperbacks and a $20 Amazon gift voucher 

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Remember, you only have until March 11 to enter. Good luck!

Taking Your Time

It's easy to get caught up in the metrics or writing. The numbers: how many books you write in a year, how many words you churned out last month, how many chapters you edited yesterday. It's easy to see numbers as progress, and lack of numbers as lack of progress. I feel lame if my word count for the day is negative because I wound up cutting two chapters, even if it strengthened the narrative.

But books aren't about numbers. There's no "right" or "wrong" word count, there's no "right" or "wrong" span of months that a book "should" take to complete. You don't win prizes for speed of writing.

Except, of course, that you do. Writing isn't about numbers, but publishing is. Both traditional- and self-publishing judge books on numbers, and particularly in self-publishing, you're rewarded for keeping those numbers high. You make more money with three books out than with one, no matter the quality. A certain self-published author has hit it big recently, and when you look at what she did, she released seven books in a year. SEVEN. She built momentum, putting out books so often, and it snowballed into success. Let's not discuss whether you like her books or not; clearly a lot of people did, and clearly she's doing fabulously. Numbers. It's hard to ignore them.

This year I plan to write and publish three books, the first of which is Wavecrossed, my selkie YA. Wavecrossed has gotten great feedback from my beta readers so far, and I'm really pleased. I figured I'd do a week or so of revision, then slip on my publisher hat and get the book out there in mid-March before diving into the sequel.

It was part of a plan to challenge myself--to not get hung up on perfection. Because you can spend months chasing perfection, which is both subjective and unreachable, when your time would be better spent on new projects. So I'd planned to get Wavecrossed as fabulous as possible in the time I had allotted, publish in mid-March even if it wasn't perfect, and then move on to the sequel.

But oh, you guys, I love this book. I love these characters. The protagonist is prickly and brave and desperate, and I've fallen hard for her associates too. And although the book is in pretty good shape and I think I could publish in March and hold my head up just fine ...

I want to take my time.

Not rush, not sacrifice the layering of details and emotions and description for expediency. This is tricky work, and it's hard to tell whether you're making progress, because those dang numbers don't budge a whole lot during this stage of revision. But this is where you get to take a story from serviceable to art (or try).

What I'd forgotten in my crazy-fast scheduling is that books require time. Yes, you can write a book in a month and then publish the next month, but to really take it to the next level you need time away from the words to see them clearly so you can edit and kill your darlings. You need to give beta readers time to tell you what could be improved.

So I reorganized my plan for this year. I still plan to publish three books, but I won't publish Wavecrossed until early June, and I've revamped my schedule so that instead of working frantically on one book until it's published, I have time away, time when my editor or beta readers are tearing it apart. During that time away, I'll be writing the next book. That way, the books can breathe, and I can revise and polish them with fresh eyes.

In this new publishing world where speed-to-market feels like it matters more than dedication to craft, it's hard to delay without feeling antsy. But if an author spends all that effort creating awesome characters, they deserve enough time to make them really shine. One of my biggest reading disappointments is when I find a book that could have been forever-shelf great, if only it had gone through another couple rounds of revision.

So if there's one thing I am trying to remind myself of as an author, it's to take my time.

~~ Want to be alerted when Wavecrossed is published? Join Team Colt ~~

2013 Goals!

Happy New Year!

In 2012, I did a few things I'd previously thought were impossible for me. I parted ways with my agent and self-published a book! I wrote 20k in less than a week! I finished an 80k-word draft in two months!

So I'm excited to see what I can accomplish in 2013, what I can push myself to achieve. I only have a few goals, but they're big ones.

On the life front, I'll get married!

That's in April, so I might be a bit crazy this spring :) I want to enjoy the planning, but not let it take over my life. At the end of my wedding day, all that will matter is that I married my best friend, surrounded by people we love. Also, that there was cheese!

On the health front, I'll get to my goal weight ... and stay there.

It's not just about weight here for me, it's about switching to healthier eating habits (I don't think you realize how many giant blocks of cheese I go through in a month), staying active on a consistent basis, and strength training so that I can lift things heavier than my cat (I'm only exaggerating a bit here).

On the writing front: I plan to write and publish three novels in 2013.

I'm almost hesitant to share that goal, because believe me, I KNOW how ambitious it is. I don't know for sure that I can do it. All sorts of things could derail this goal! But I think it's within reach. Maybe. It depends on my ability to write and revise on my planned schedule, and it doesn't allow for things like, I don't know, needing to rewrite a book entirely--which has certainly happened before!

But all plans change with circumstances, and my back-up plan if I should need one is simple: do what is needed to make the books as fabulous as possible. If they need more edits than I'd thought, more edits is what they get. If they need to be scrapped entirely because what I'd thought was brilliant is just not working, so be it. I won't ever publish a book I'm not 100% proud of. So if my ambitious pub schedule gets delayed, that's alright. The important thing is to work my tail off, keep my motivation and momentum high, and to pick myself up and keep going if/when I hit a bump.

When I was in middle school, I remember a motivational slogan on the wall of my English classroom. It read: Reach for the stars--you'll at least hit the ceiling. It's stuck with me ever since. Every writer I know shoots high, and that is what I want to do in 2013.

This year, I want to hit my ceiling and smash though it. I want to break all the records I've ever set. I want to be fearless.

In fact, that's my word for the year: FEARLESS. I will not fear failure; I will not fear sales, or any lack thereof; I will not fear my own limits, which I will surely reach. I will not fear bad reviews, or the inevitable people who don't like a character I love intensely.

I might not succeed at embodying that word every day, but I plan to try!

Havarti's 2013 goal: fear no boxes!

What's your biggest goal for 2013? Do you have a word for the year?

So Long, 2012

I am currently in the midst of a 20,000-word sprint to finish the rough draft of Wavecrossed (I've logged two 5k-word days, and now need two more (I have to finish on Saturday)), but I wanted to take a moment to look back before we launch ourselves into a new year.

For me, 2012 was pretty eventful! I started out the year in such a different space than I ended it, creatively. For the first six months of 2012, I was waiting on my agent, waiting on editor responses, just ... waiting. There were veritable oceans of waiting, and no shore in sight. It felt like my whole career was on hold.

Then in July, I made the decision to pull Torched from submission and self-publish. This was a huge step for me, and I approached it with some amount of trepidation. I was excited, but it was new territory in publishing-land for me. But (with the advice and support of my wonderful friends and family--thank you!) I settled on my course, parted ways with my agent, and didn't look back. And I'm so glad I did.

This might not be the best course for everyone, but for me? I am so happy. Self-publishing Torched changed my whole outlook on writing and publishing. It was huge amounts of fun for me to design the cover and the interior of the print book, and to agonize over things like font choice and the back-flap copy.

And, of course, I've been so thrilled with the reception. Reviews have been wonderful, sales happy-making, and every time I realize that I actually did this, put my book out into the world, I am pretty damn proud of myself. For someone as introverted and sensitive to criticism as I can be, this was a big, bold step.

But even more than that--I'm no longer waiting. I'm in control, finally. I can set my own publication schedule--one based not on someone else's timetable, but solely on when the book is ready. That alone has super-charged my motivation, and my joy in writing. I am barreling ahead, and the momentum is exhilarating.

I never would have expected that this year would take such interesting turns, but am really grateful it did. So I'd like to offer a toast:

To 2012, and to life's surprises. Cheers, everyone!

~~~~~

To wave goodbye to the year, I'm having a "So Long, 2012" sale! The Kindle and Nook ebooks of Torched (normally $3.99) are only $2.99 until January 1. If you know someone who might love Torched, now's the time to introduce them to the book!

Also, as a reminder, the best gift for an author is to review their book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Nudge, nudge! Thanks again to everyone who's left a review--they really do help self-published authors like me.

So Far in December ...

1. I've bought some gifts. Gone to some parties. Also ...

2. I have been hissed at by an angry bat.

A first and, I hope, a last! I was on a weekend writing retreat near Front Royal, VA, and the bat was quietly sleeping on a window cross-beam of the house the group was renting. He looked sort of like a knot in the wood (he was like 20 feet up). I stared at him for like two hours one afternoon as we writers chatted, until finally I voiced my concern that the knot in the wood might be a bat. Chaos ensued.

How does a group of writers handle a bat in the house? Well, one of us hid in the closet (you know who you are!). One of us (not me) very calmly phoned the owner of the house, who told us he couldn't send his handyman over until tomorrow, and then Animal Control, who told us they had no one to send either.

Gulp.

Once we determined that help was decidedly not on its way and that the sun would go down soon, making it imperative that we get the bat outside before night fell and we were stuck in a house in which only a single bedroom was actually closed off entirely from the rest of the house (not a design I'm a fan of, btw!), we created a complicated Plan.

In this Plan, someone (me) would nudge the bat off its perch with stalks of decorative bamboo, and then the others would try to shoo the bat out the opened doors, and perhaps throw blueberries through the doors in an effort to fool the bat into thinking the berries were bugs and that he/she should chase them outside. This was an excellent plan. No laughing!

Snowflake PJs make the best
bat-fighting gear.

Blueberries were distributed, doors were opened, and the decorative bamboo was retrieved from the ludicrously large vase in the corner of the room.

After putting on gloves, a hoodie and my pajama pants over my yoga pants in case the bat decided to attack me, I stood on a table by the windows and attempted to launch the bamboo sticks harpoon-like at the bat. However, my terrible hand-eye coordination is why I played soccer in high school instead of, say, softball, so the bat stayed asleep.

We taped two of the bamboo stalks together, and determined that this new weapon was, in fact, long enough to reach the bat directly. We took our places. Braced for Bat Attack.

I raised the bamboo and nudged.

The bat ignored me, so deep in slumber was he. I got more insistent, poking him rudely until he finally raised (well, he was upside-down, but you get the picture) his little furry head, opened one wing, and hissed! There was also this horrifying clicking sound, but yes. The hissing! I cowered by the window, weak-kneed, but the bat didn't actually fly off the wall, so after a moment I had to keep poking him.

This was pretty terrifying, because the bat kept hissing and clicking, but finally he launched himself off of the wooden beam, wings outspread. Cue everyone ducking for cover, totally forgetting about the blueberries-as-bugs plan. Instead of flying at us, though, the bat landed on the carpet and lay there. One of us (not me; I was still cowering on my table by the window) had the presence of mind to throw a blanket over the bat. Success!

We started moving everything off the carpet so we could drag it and the bat outside, but just then a nice man from the sheriff's department arrived - the Animal Control people had found someone to send after all!

He told us we'd done exactly the right thing (we did not exactly paint the picture of me whacking the bat with a bamboo stick though, just said we threw a blanket over him). He then put on big leather gloves, carefully picked up the bat in his blanket and, with very little fanfare, walked outside.

The bat flew free, thankfully unharmed by my assault on its nap. After seeing the nice Sheriff's Department guy off we rescued the writer in the closet, celebrated with a stiff glass of spiked cider, and agreed to name the bat Bart.

Merry Batmas, Bart!

Anyway. What else happened this month?

3. Nope, nothing's gonna top the bat story for me.

Happy holidays, everyone :)

Thankful

Happy November! I've been offline a lot this month, since I'm participating in NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, that means I'm trying to write 50,000 words during the month of November - a lot more than I usually manage! But I'm hoping to have Wavecrossed, my selkie book, ready for publication early next year, and I've got a lot of work to do. I'm loving it, though, and can't wait to share it with you all.

Despite the frantic pace, I wanted to take a moment to say how thankful I am. Around Thanksgiving I'll be visiting with my family and my fiance's family, and celebrating all the loved ones in my life. I'm so grateful for them, and to live in the USA (and I'm really grateful the election is over and all those campaign ads are gone!), and for all the wonderful things I've been blessed with in this life.

I'm also immensely thankful on the writing and publishing front. 

First of all, I'm so thankful for all the people who've bought Torched! That one's a gimme, obviously :) Kindle sales per day tripled from October to November, astonishingly. I'm still doing double-takes!

I'm thankful for everyone who's supported me--tweeting, blogging, and otherwise spreading the word. THANK YOU. The best way for new readers to find indie authors like me is word of mouth, and I appreciate every bit of it.

I'm also thankful for amazing reviews! I've loved Torched from the moment I wrote chapter one and threw Rose into her predicament, but it's been so wonderful seeing the reaction from other people. Strangers like my book, and that's something that warms my heart :)

Here are a few snippets from some of the fabulous blogs that have reviewed Torched so far:

The Bookish Babes said: "With its well-developed, funny, and engaging characters, surprisingly sweet romance, and a mystery that doesn't wrap up until the very end, Torched is a book that delivers the much-loved elements of a great YA story."

Danny at Bewitched Bookworms said: "It was fun, it had twists, turns and two characters that were just sizzling with chemistry!"

Candace's Book Blog said: "Seriously, this is one of the best contemporaries I've read this year. Ever, even. It was so, so good!"

The Starry-Eyed Revue called Torched "... fun and sexy and perfect for fans of Miranda Kenneally's Catching Jordan/Hundred Oaks series. This sweet contemporary romance is being hailed across the blogosphere and with good reason."

Reading any of these reviews, or one of the many more on Amazon or Goodreads, makes me smile so hard it hurts. I'm so thankful to be an writer in this day and age, when someone like me can publish a book and reach readers without the benefit of a traditional publishing contract.

Readers, you're making my dreams a reality. I'm so thankful for all of you!