A new 45-day challenge

For those who are not familiar with it - for several years now there has been a social network called the Boundless Living Challenge, which emphasizes 45 days to a goal. I have participated in a few that have changed my life. Some of my goals were literal, some more ethereal, but the changes that occurred in those 45 days were astronomical. To say I am not the same person I was 4 years ago when they began would be as true as I can put it.

So, I am starting my own 45-day challenge today. While I have been publishing my works for a few years now, I have never felt as proud of what I do as I do now. I love my books and everyone who reads them gives me amazing accolades. So, I have set myself a goal.

And what is that goal?

Between now and July 31st, I will have sold over 1000 copies of my books, print and electronic combined. How will I do that? The how is up to the universe! I will follow any direction that seems right and let the universe take care of the rest!

I am excited, energized, scared, terrified and thrilled to be starting this challenge. Who wants to read an amazing book? I have a few!

Check out my author page at Amazon.com~! Please Like the books and if you buy I would really appreciate it if you leave a review there as well!

Thanks so much for your support and encouragement:)

Even editors make mistakes. Authors even worse sometimes.

Edit: After much thinking, ruminating, and biting of fingernails, I read a tweet by Catherine Russell @darkness6601 after I asked what others thought I should do. She said "Do what's right for the integrity of your book". Well to keep the integrity, I needed to change Il Amore Perfetto to L'Amore Perfetto. Otherwise, it just was not right to me. I submitted the changes and they should be live within 12 hours.

Once again, Thanks Paolo for bringing this to my attention!

Former Post:

There are a lot of complaints against books that are published without being "edited". True, there are some ghastly books, but the fact is, even with editors getting their hands on a book, it does not mean it will come out perfectly clean.

Want proof? Open any book by any publisher. I can almost guarantee you will find at least one if not more issues that were not caught by an editor.

Now, this is not to degrade editing. Editors do a great job! Can't live through a book-writing process without an editor! But, even they can overlook something.

Why am I writing this? My book Il Amore Perfetto - well, I was just told of a rather HUGE issue with it. This is basically a "too late now" now that it has been published kind of issue, though if I take it to print, I will surely fix it.

What is the issue? In Italian, nouns are either masculine or feminine.

My Italian professor, Signorina Friga would yell at me for an hour probably for the mistake I made. It is so simple, I completely overlooked it. Again, what is the issue? Amore is feminine, not masculine. This is something the average English-speaking person would not know, but I find it a rather embarrassing blunder - and its mine, all mine.

So the title of the book and dating agency should be L'Amore Perfetto. *palm to face*

Scusate il mio italiano. E 'male.

It's a woman?

Creating the characters for a story is an incredible journey. Sometimes the character itself comes to me and I can just stick a name that fits the personality. Today, I went around it differently.

I had a story idea that was amusing me and started penning down ideas for it. While I could see some of the storyline, the main character was cloudy to me. Then I started looking up  baby-name sites. After two hours of searching and not finding, an idea came to me. I had to google it to get the correct spelling but suddenly I had a name. Within fifteen minutes, my character had a bio, a basic background, and a sarcastic sense of humor.

I feel like I gave birth to a 25-year-old with no patience!

Ah the joys of author-hood...

a word or three about fanfiction

There are a lot of people out there who look down on, make fun of, and bluntly disregard fanfiction and fanfiction authors. That is incredibly silly in my opinion.

Sure there are some bad authors on fanfiction sites - but there are some incredibly bad authors who have been published by brick&mortar publishing  houses as well.

The thing is - fanfiction actually has a tremendous amount of good authors, some are budding writers who are using it to fine-tune their writing styles, some are just using it as a stress-reliever.

As a fanfiction writer myself, I will tell you that what you get from writing fanfiction is immeasurable. Even though I had been published previously, I was still afraid to get my stuff "out there". I am no longer afraid of that. The hundreds and hundreds of positive reviews I received from my fanfics firmed my opinion of my writing - I know there is an audience out there for my sense of humor and my writing style. Plus, I found a niche I never would have imagined myself in.

So next time you consider turning your nose up at fanfiction... think twice. You might find your niche where you did not expect it. And you are sure to find some amazing stories about your favorite characters!

Visit: The Writer's Coffee Shop Library, where authors can post fanfics AND original stories (of any rating). Plus, they have a publishing company - so if you want to get published by an actual house... this might be the place to go.

Fanfiction.net This site has a tremendous amount of authors/stories, but it does crack down on anything adult-rated. Every once in awhile they scour through and delete stories because of that.

I know there are many out there, but those are the two I have had the most dealings with as far as posting and reading stories.

Take a chance - go check out fanfics by authors you have never heard of - you might be pleasantly surprised. If you want to write, what is easier than posting work under a pseudonym that nobody will know you by?

Come on... do it. I dare ya!

Indie author network

I am happy to say I am now a member of the Independent Author Network. This is an amazing group of authors and I am happy to be one of them.

In years past publishing your own work was looked down upon - seen as "oh so you could not get a real publisher". Thankfully that seems to be changing with the likes of Kindle and Nook as well as the proliferation of POD publishers. I have used both CreateSpace and iUniverse for print and have to say - I have had more luck with CreateSpace at getting my books sold. Maybe it has to do with its tie to Amazon? I don't know. Plus, CreateSpace is free!

But I do know that there are some amazing writers who are publishing independently. Check out all the amazing 535+ authors at the Independent Author Network. You will be glad you did!

The Ever-growing pile...

I suppose other writers are like I am - an avid reader. I've been reading since before I could actually read. Yes, I had one of those mothers who would read a book to me, the Original Winnie the Pooh as a matter of fact and I would follow along as she did.

Since that time, I have read voraciously. For six years I worked at a bookstore and let me tell you - most of my paycheck went to my book addiction.

Now I find myself in the wonderful arena of being a published author. My time is taken up with marketing my books, writing new stuff, editing, writing on my blog, as well as helping some friends of mine who are starting to self-publish.

Does that mean I buy fewer books? NO! I buy more than I ever have before - but the problem is I don't have the time to read them all. At least I don't have to buy more bookshelves. Thanks to the wonder that is Kindle and Nook, all those books are taking up space on my Samsung Tablet.

But that doesn't mean that I am free of the guilt that comes from a library full of books I haven't read. Every time I look at my Tablet, I can practically see all the books glaring at me, waiting for me to do what I promised when I bought them - read.

As much as I miss reading like I used to, right now I must admit I am having the time of my life writing, editing, marketing, and writing some more.

Don't worry little electronic books - I will get to you yet! If for no other reason... sometimes I need to rest my brain while still getting something worthwhile into it. And I do not do TV. The wonderful world of books has too much going for it.

Go on... pick up a book. You know you want to;)

Need to make more time

Some say time is finite, some say it is a fallacy - that time was created by humans but does not truly exist.

I don't know that I subscribe to either thought, but I do know that I never seem to have enough time to read all the stuff I want to read. My Tablet is backed up with Nook and Kindle books I want to read and review, my bookshelves are overloaded with books I love that I would like to re-read. And yet, I don't have time for them.

There is a truism that you have to make time for the stuff you truly believe in, so I guess I will need to add to my lists - "Read for an hour a day"

Erg. Speaking of lists, I need to go write mine for today. I need a list writer. I do the list pretty well once written, but writing it? That is like planning my day and I truly enjoy living an unplanned life.

*sigh* Where was I? Oh yes, back to writing...