Back in the Writing Saddle

Two weeks ago was Thanksgiving... and now I'm eating healthier, getting more sleep, and have dropped coffee for the more beneficial green tea. Moroccan mint is my current favorite -- it is seriously good and my kids like it, too, although they always have a bit of sugar in theirs.
:-)

Real life is kicking me in the teeth as usual... drowning in school projects, Christmas preparations, shopping, and a bake sale at school to benefit the Beacon Hill Elementary library -- had to do that! They definitely need more money to buy more books! I also started volunteering in my 6-year-old's class once a week, and the girls are having their first cheerleading competition this weekend, so I have been chasing their little cheering butts to and from practice every night.

BUT... I am revising. I am working on Emerald Cave again. I have had enough of my hiatus and am back in the saddle again. The revising is going well... there are so many little things to change on each page, it's taking forever, but I already know when this pass is done I will go through it again. This time I'll print it in a different font, closer together, and read through it for the *POW* factor. I know there are areas where the narrative drags, where I have more tell than show, but it's okay. Another pass is just another pass. It's all good.

I'm also reading again. I had taken a break from that, too, for months and months. But last week I read the entire Hunger Games trilogy, which is just so amazing. I cannot wait for the movie to come out!! Once I finished Mockingjay, I moved on to my self-declared "SwankFest" -- my very close friend Denise Grover Swank went out on her own this year and self-published four of her titles she's been working on for the last few years, and since July has sold over 15,000 books!!

You can find her on Amazon, of course, both in paperback and Kindle. I started with HERE -- her YA which is just amazing. I couldn't put it down, literally. I was reading and making pancakes for my starving children. Read two pages... flip the pancake... read another two pages... flip the pancake...

Next up I will read CHOSEN, then HUNTED, and then 28-AND-A-HALF WISHES. I've been riding through life alongside Denise for the past several years. We know each other because we adopted our daughters from China at the same time, and have stayed friends as we each explored our writing side. She's made it happen her way and is achieving levels of success I know she deserves. She works her butt off and it shows!

Whether I decide to brave the waters of the self-published world or shine up my query and try the traditional route, it doesn't matter, because my books will be out there, too, someday. Although, with the last name of "Moyer" they will be frighteningly close to those certain vampire books. *oh my!*

The good news is, my Christmas shopping was done last week, the bulk of our Christmas letters were mailed on December 2, and so once this cheerleading competition is behind us, we can have a relaxing winter break.

Oh, except for the rest of these revisions that need to be looked over, and then the next read-through... and I wanted to get going on the rough draft of book 2 in my Emerald Cave series, The Curse of the Paisley Clan.... hmmm.....
I might need to rethink that whole no-coffee idea.

Peace.