Love, Loss, and Letters

Happy September, everyone! I'm so glad we've finally reached this day. Today's the day my younger kids went back to school. Woohoo! We had a great summer, but I'm definitely ready for them to get out of my hair and on schedule again.

I want to touch base on a few topics today to sort of jump start my new writing season.

First, as many of you know, my mother was battling lung cancer this time last year. For 9 months, I drove my mother to doctor appointments, chemo treatments, blood transfusions, radiation treatments, and test after test, after test. Unfortunately after all of this, on May 24th this year, Mom lost her battle with cancer.

Even though all of her treatments took me away from you, my readers, I will never regret spending that time with her in those last months. There were struggles, frustrations, and her demands weighed heavy on me, but some of those days we laughed, had long conversations, and smiled our way along the path we'd been put on. Even now, writing this, it brings tears to my eyes, but I'll never regret a moment of those 9 months.

After Mom's passing and her memorial, I took the summer to just be: Be with my kids, be with my husband, and be by myself. I needed that time to recuperate my sense of ME. The hubby and I took several weekend trips away and then we took the younger girls to St. Augustine, Florida for a week. We all had a great time and it was much needed. My middle daughter got her driver's license & a job. Tim & I both ended up with some new tattoos. Oh, and I found out my youngest will be in braces soon. Eek! Two in braces at once. Boo!

I'm going to round this off with the "Letters" portion of the title. WRITING! I'm jumping back into my writing immediately. I'm going to jump off with the book I was working on before all this began. It's the first book in a new series that I've been looking forward to finishing. After that I have several book ideas waiting in the wings. Of course there will be another Liz Baker book, but I also have two other unrelated books in the planning stages. Depending on how long the next two books take me to complete, we may have several releases to look forward to in the next year. Yay!

As part of the writing side of my life, I'm getting my newsletter revamped and ready to get back into rotation. As an incentive for my beloved subscribers, there will now be a giveaway at the bottom of every newsletter that goes out. Every time one goes out, someone will win an Amazon gift card. The only rule to winning is you have to be a subscriber. Winners will be picked at random & I'll keep track of who wins so everyone gets a chance. The dollar amount of the gift cards will vary from $5 to $25.

If you aren't already signed up, head on over and get busy:  Newsletter Sign Up

More later, but right now hop on over and hit up that newsletter link. A new one will be going out soon.  :)

Love Hurts

CMSeter on SXC

Authors love their books, almost as much as they love their children. Our books are our babies, in a sense. But sometimes the love we hold for our stories, characters, books can hurt when other people don't love our work as much as we do.

Reviews are a part of being a writer. You're going to have people who love your work and happily tell the world about it. And then you'll have the people who for some odd reason think your work belongs in the recycle bin.

Reviews are opinions, plain and simple.  Everyone has an opinion and we're not always going to agree. Opposing opinions are what makes the world go 'round. What do you do when someone disagrees with you in the real world? Do you scream and holler and cry? Or do you try your hardest to respect their opinion, yet hold true to your own beliefs?

I would hope that you'd understand that others have opinions they feel as strongly about as you do.  The goal as a writer is to take the good with the bad, while staying true to yourself and your characters.  Keep writing, moving forward, taking on the world with your unique style and gusto. And always remember that the world would be a very boring place if we were all the same.

How do I handle bad reviews?
I bitch and moan to one author friend and my sister. I might even tell my husband if it's really, really bad.  And after a day or two of being pissed and talking it out with my peeps, I move on. I jump back into whatever it was I was working on when the notion to check my books' reviews hit me and ruined my mood. I talk to my characters, especially Liz Baker (she has great insights), and then I get back to work.

So what if Sue Pissy Pants hates my writing and thinks anything I would ever write will be utter trash.  "Hey, you, don't read it if you don't like it!" Even the bests of the bests have haters.  It's up to us, as authors, to let the haters be haters without allowing them to distract us for too long.

Sure, it's hard to look past someone telling the world they hate you and everything you stand for, even though they know nothing about you personally.  But stand tall, be brave, pull those thorns from you heart, and get back to work.  You must be doing something right, after all, to garner that much attention from a complete stranger.

Have a great day & keep writing!