The House Poet

Hi all!  I haven't had a lot of time to write lately, but I do have some exciting news!  Remember how I was writing a book? Well, I took a break for it for a while because something wasn't quite right about it. After talking to my dad a few weeks ago, he mentioned writing a series and it was as though lightning struck my brain. I realized that my book works better as two books and the first one is all done! :D It's about 60,000 words right now and I am still in the process of editing and adding some scenes to help the continuity. The second book is about a quarter of the way done and I'm putting that one on the back burner for now so I can focus on revising the first one. :)  I am so pumped about this and I feel so much better about my book! It makes more sense now and I think it will flow better. I've found a few agents I'd like to send it to, however it won't be ready for a little while. I'm hoping to start sending it out after January, maybe ear...

Dear readers, how is this week treating you? The fact that we've been having sunshine and warm days over here has been quite nice after all the rain and cold temps we've had! Now that my kiddos aren't sick, their energy levels seem higher than usual. I think spring fever is starting to blaze! ;)  I am working on a couple new projects. I still want to finish my fantasy novel WIP as soon as possible, but I haven't been able to get in the zone for it lately. It might be because I need to find the time to settle back into my world and characters. Hopefully that can happen soon. When my kids were napping, I used to work on my WIP during that time, but now that they don't nap anymore, it's so much harder to work on things.  But, I've been having fun with a new fantasy piece that I'd like to turn into either a super long story or novella. I love the characters so far and really like how I wrote the beginning. I'm definitely excited to see where this ...

I have decided to take a wee break from my novel. For some reason, I find that I have more ideas and such when I take a few weeks off from writing it. The break helps new ideas come to my mind and I can work on other projects. When I come to a point where I feel that my writing is stilted or forced, then I know it's time to sit back and recharge those creative batteries. Which got me thinking today about self-publishing, of all things. I don't necessarily want to self-publish the novel I am currently working on, but would it be fun and educational to self-publish another novel I have in the works? My father self-published a book this year with Create Space on Amazon, and spoke to me today about how he is feeling somewhat discouraged. Self-publishing sounds like a wonderful idea, and it is, but how does an author make money from it? You must have the time to market your book, which is a lot of work, and the time to edit and revise. Then getting word out about your book an...