Wednesday, October 29, 2014

A Witchy Sale!


This is basically like the perfect Halloween read, and you can grab it for the price of a fast food burrito! Woot! Right now it's available on Amazon, but I'm sure B&N will match it soon.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Why The Hell Am I Running?

When I finished all my crazy deadlines and tours and conferences and junk, the first thing I did was make new goals. I'm gonna go running so I can be less fat! I'm going to have a clean house for once! I'm going to learn new things! Because that's what you're supposed to do, right?

Heaven forbid we ever stop running ourselves into the ground for one second.

A couple weeks ago I was at the gym, walking around the track in preparation to do my run. It felt like I was about to torture myself. I had been adding a lap every time I went and was near two miles running—I just didn't want to run that day. Okay, I never want to run. Even when I was doing it consistently I hated it.

So why was I doing it? Because that's what I've been told I should do. If I want to be thin and healthy I need to sweat and count calories and somehow all of this is supposed to make me happy. Except it wasn't, and I wasn't losing weight either because I have been so dang high strung all year that my body is still not sure how to cope with the copious amounts of stress I put it through. And you know what? Running was stressful, too. Running made me think I needed to be more than I was, and guilty because I didn't actually WANT to be more.

That's when I decided not to run that day. Or after that, unless I wanted to.

I still go to the gym, but I walk the track while jamming out to Kpop. And I enjoy it. And I smile. And I kinda wish they offered Kpop dance classes because I'd so take that. Feeling happy and relaxed while moving for an hour? That is what I need. I realized I don't need to buy into the thin=happy crap they constantly feed us. I move because it reduces my anxiety—that's what I need in my life. Not something that's more stressful.

I don't know why we (women especially) seem to think we have to run ourselves into the ground to be proven Of Worth, but I have felt that many times in my life. I have to be an amazing parent who doesn't ruin her children's lives with her imperfection (impossible), I have to be a bestselling author because there is not other kind of author (not true), I have to have a pristine house (yeah right), and of course I must be a model while doing all this (I totally am that).

Where did all these expectations come from? Who is imposing them on me? Society? Myself? I have no idea. All I know is I'm tired of them. I didn't think I was buying into them, but in a way I was. I was certainly buying into the idea that if I wasn't 150% productive at all times I was a lazy piece of crap and it was all my fault I wasn't successful. I was running much faster than I was able, and it got me a load of stress and burn out.

I'm learning how to slow down again—which is surprisingly hard. My body is forcing me to, since my mental health is not good and I can literally only handle so much in a day before I start to shut down. But I've been doing crazy things like being 0% productive in a day…even a week. Doing not much more than consuming lots of TV and video games. I get all guilty-feeling still about this at times, but I'm getting over it. I'm reminding myself I have no deadlines, no contracts—I'm not actually slacking at all. I'm on vacation.

I'm allowed to walk instead of run.

I'm allowed to sit and do nothing if I want.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

SNOW LIKE ASHES Tour!

One of my oldest writing friends has a really awesome book coming out today. Maybe you've heard of it? SNOW LIKE ASHES!

If you love fantasy and are interested in a world I call "Avatar: The Last Airbender meets Disney," then you should pick up SNOW LIKE ASHES and read it. Sara is a fabulous writer, and it has been such a pleasure to know her and read her work for the last five years. This day is long overdue, and I can't wait to celebrate with her. Because she will be here on tour! And I will be signing with her (along with J.R. Johansson, Michelle Argyle, and Bree Despain)!

If you want to celebrate with us as well, please check out the following events in Salt Lake City and Denver. Sara will also be traveling much of country, so check out the graphic and see if she's coming to a city near you!



Monday, October 13, 2014

When You Just Don't Know What's Next

NOTE: I have emailed the winner of my exclusive newsletter contest—thanks to all who entered to win a copy of Relax or Trust me! And if you want access more exclusive contests, please sign up for my newsletter here.

Okay, business out of the way, on to the post!

I went to an indie publishing conference this weekend called IndieRecon Live! I decided a few months back to go, though I was a little on the fence as to if I could handle it mentally with how burned out I've been.

Well, I'm super glad I went.

Not only did I learn a lot about my weaknesses in indie publishing (marketing, oh, marketing, how badly I fail at you), but it was surprisingly comforting and exciting to be around other authors who indie publish and other writers who are choosing this as their path. Sometimes at traditional-oriented writing conferences, it's felt like indie publishing is shoved into the corner and people don't take it seriously. But here? Oh, it was serious and it was awesome. It helped me, as a hybrid author, connect with the indie side of my career in a new way and feel even better about it.

I got to listen to people who do this and have seen amazing success with it. While I still don't know if I can attain that kind of success, I do feel like I have tools now that I can maybe implement and see improvement. I also just feel happy I made the choice to share my work, and know it's okay to try stuff and fail at it and try something else.

But through all of this, I found I'm still a little broken, too. In one class, the presenter asked, "What is your dream right now?" I thought and thought, and I was concerned to find that I did not have an answer.

I've had an answer to that question since I was a little girl. There was always something I wanted and something I was reaching for. So as I sat in that class with a complete blank—and even now I still have no answer—I wondered what this all meant for me.

What happens when a dreamer stops having a dream?

Well, it's a little sad. And a lot confusing. And very much worrying. I don't really know what to make of it. All I can think to do is wait, and hope something comes in the quiet moments I'm trying to give myself. When it does, I also hope I have the courage to try when trying is just so dang hard.

For now, I guess I'll focus on the few things I do know—that FISH OUT OF WATER is coming out in February and I need to finish the I'm A Ninja series. Maybe the rest will just work itself out and I'll have some kind of answer by the time those two books are published? I hope so. Otherwise I really don't know what I'll do with myself.


Monday, October 6, 2014

Spacey Squared

Ever since I decided I was on a break, it's like my brain completely shut down. It packed its bags, put up the "On Vacation Do Not Disturb" sign, and has drifted off into a blissful state of refusing to work properly.

I have forgotten to answer emails from important people. I keep forgetting I have to fix something on a certain book and must review the PDF. The books I'm supposed to read for blurb completely slip my mind. Today I realized it was NOT the 13th but the 6th. Last week I forgot to pick up my kids from early out day. It's really quite hilarious just how much my brain is throwing out.

I'm not sure what this is. Maybe it's stemming from my extreme desire to not work right now. Like, I think of working and there is only gnashing of teeth and wailing. So maybe my mind is blocking stuff out so I can keep pretending I have zero to do, when in reality I still have a couple things on the plate but a lot less than before.

Hopefully it'll wane quickly, because I do need to find some kind of balance. I've so loved being a not writer, but I know at some point it'll be time to get back to work. Not just the writing part but all the business parts of it as well. Might need my brain for all that stuff.

This is a lesson for me, though, as embarrassing as some of my forgetfulness flubs have been (like today when I thought my friend's book was coming out tomorrow but it's next week). Or maybe it's a re-learned concept.

I can't do this to myself, this insane pushing I've done this year. I wanted to say I gave this author thing my 100% effort—I think so I could be sure it wasn't my fault if my books failed. Authors get a lot of the blame, you know, even though the vast majority of what makes a book successful is entirely out of an author's hands. Publishers make it feel like your fault. Reviews do, too. You keep hearing that if you, as an author, could just SELL MORE BOOKS—then you wouldn't be rejected, you'd get more books deals, you'd get more marketing, whatever. (This might actually be true, but I have not yet achieved the quota that qualifies me as "selling more books.")

While you try to tell yourself it's not true, I think we all internalize that a little. We think it's our fault for not selling more books. Even after I came to realize that it's a publisher's responsibility to use the rights they purchased to the best they can—and not at all on me—I still felt like it was maybe my fault. So I tried very hard with the means I had. I attended the conference I could and traveled on my tiny budget. I published many books and tried to get them out there to build a backlist. I held giveaways and did the social media thing. All the doing, because maybe just maybe it was my fault and that would all change it.

…but it didn't, not really. I still sell at the same steady, slow pace. I have lovely readers who are kind but I'm still an author people don't know well. None of my effort has earned me favor with, well, anyone in publishing. It's still just hard. I'm bummed that' it's been three years since I sold in the US and sometimes wish I had the money to move to the UK where they kinda like me a little more.

But sad story aside, all that trying at least taught me once again that I can try myself into the ground and it won't make it so I'm in control of how my books are received. That is still true past querying, alas. I'm super good at trying—I think a lot of writers are—and I see other authors who are even better at trying, and sometimes it frustrates me that all the trying doesn't get the equivalent results. I'm really glad that I still tried though, oddly enough, because now I can let go again and be okay with my lack of control. I know it's not my fault. It's been out of my hands all along no matter how much it feels like people tell me differently. Really all I can do now, as every writer should know, is write another story and another. That's the only thing we can control, and it's probably why we like the writing part so much.

So I will continue to be my spacey-on-vacation-brain self for now. Without writing but still thinking of stories and dreaming and remembering how to hope. When I come back, I hope my brain will come too! We'll have lots of worlds to explore together.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

The Power Of Saying Yes To Yourself

You will hear everywhere that you have to be tough to be a writer, and I've talked many times about how that's not quite true. I am not a tough person. I still cry at rejections and I can't handle reading negative reviews. Not because I'm a wuss, but because I'm a human being with feelings and junk.

But I have found that there's something you have to stay strong on—you have to keep saying YES to yourself.

It's really easy to stop doing that when the whole industry seems to be saying no all the time. Before you know it, your mind starts rejecting ideas before you can even make them into stories and then books.

I've seen this happen to me over the years. I get an idea, I start to kinda like it, and then instead of holding on to that excitement/love/passion I begin to ask questions like:

Well, is it marketable?
Is it hooky? Is it like other things out there?
Is it on trend or not trendy enough? Should I make it more on trend?

Usually I will then start rejecting myself. No, it's not marketable enough. It probably won't sell because it's not "high concept." People say they want "new and different" but really they just want "the same thing but with a tiny twist," so this idea is too weird.

The story, in my head, is bound to fail before I even start developing the plot sometimes! It's so sad, but I don't think it's uncommon. It's a side effect of being told NO so much—we just forget that we can still say YES regardless of all the rejection we've faced up to that point.

It's like that relationship advice: Don't bring your past relationship's problems to your current relationship.

Books work a lot like that. It's super easy to take past baggage into the next project, but really there should be a reset button. Every book is a fresh start. Every story has unknown potential. You can't base a project's possible success or failure on your past works, and yet we seem to do this constantly. You can't keep saying no to yourself and expect to get a positive result. You have to say YES. You have to believe in yourself even though it feels impossible or even down right silly at times.

I'm mostly saying all this to remind myself, because for a long while I've been telling myself my books won't sell because of this or that. I've been telling myself I probably won't ever sell a novel again in the US just because it hasn't happened for three years. I think perhaps as a defense mechanism so I won't be disappointed and so I don't try to control something I can't.

But there's a fine line between being realistic and being a downer in publishing. I think I've been more on the downer side than I thought. And maybe believing in myself won't change how things go for me, but I think it will change my attitude about my career and publishing if I stop being so negative and let myself believe in the things I used to hope for.

I'm trying to say YES to my imagination and creativity more. I think it's helping me be less afraid, to be stronger in a way, to be happier. I'll deal with the rejections when they come, but I've decided my mind needs to be a place where "YES, you can do/write/dream that" is the default reply.