I'm Turning Into Rogue!

Yes, you heard me right. I'm turning into Rogue off X-Men, and not because I absorb the life energy of anyone I touch. Yeah, definitely a no on that one.  It's because I'm going gray!  ACKKKKK! I know, right.

And there's only one spot I see all these gray hairs coming in: right in the middle of my bangs along my cowlick.  If it keeps up like this, I'll have nothing but white bangs to go with the rest of my hair dark, which honestly, I think would look kind of cool.  So, if I MUST go gray, I guess it's best it's happening the awesome Rogue way!

Since I've been married to my hubby going on twelve years now, I suppose I can't blame him for turning me gray. Ergo, I'm blaming the kiddo!  If she wasn't so stinkin' cute, I might have strangled her a couple times by now. She'll be three next month and she's quite a little ball of personality.

The child can't keep a secret. She told Grandma what she was getting for Christmas, and she told her daddy what he was getting for his birthday. I'm definitely going to have to watch my P's and Q's around her because she tells her baby-sitter (aka, my mother-in-law) EVERYTHING. Last week, she told Grandma she got a new puzzle. It came in a box and some guy brought it to the house. Took Grandma a while to figure out the "guy" was the UPS man, and he was delivering her birthday present, which YES, I gave to her early. I know, I have no willpower.

But anyway, it still has me freaked out. The only thing worse than your mother knowing every little thing you do is for your mother-in-law to know every little thing you do. So if I'm going to be lazy and watch a marathon run of The Lying Game on Netflicks all evening long (kind of like what I did all of last week), you-know-who is probably going to tattle on me.

So, that's my new life these days! Living with a kid who talks WAY too much.

On the the book end of my life, I'm still writing here and there. And reading on my RITA books. I haven't gotten into a Rita-read story that totally rocks the casbah yet, but I'm not quite halfway through the pile yet, so there's still hope that one will WOW me.

And now that I had to go and use the "casbah" cliche, I totally have The Clash song pounding through me head.  So...in a Happy Monday to you, I'm going to share the ack-I-can't-get-that-song-out-of-my-head moment with you. A little blast from the 80s!  Enjoy.

Writing a Better Book than the Last One

Marie Rose Dufour got me to thinking about this after I read her Tuesday post. So...thanks a lot, Marie!

The first book I ever published continues to be my bestseller.  I have no idea why.

Is it the best book I ever wrote? Yeesh, I hope not. To think I peeked there and have been going downhill ever since is depressing.

But I couldn't tell you which of my other stories would be better. Seems like the "one I just finished" is always the best because it's freshest in my mind.  But if your stories are like your babies, then you really can't have a favorite; they're all special in their own way. And to me, they are.

So it's very hard to watch one of my books get more attention than the others, especially the first one.  I see it succeed, and I get to thinking, "I did it once, I can do it again." Then, I don't do it again.  And hmm.  What went wrong?

Beats me.

So my new mission in life is to publish a NEW story that will sell more copies than The Stillburrow Crush.

Still don't know how to do this yet, but...I have a few ideas.

-A rocking book cover.

-Affordable price (seems like 99 out of the top 100 books in the bestselling list on Amazon is $2.99 or cheaper)

-Great story, of course.

-A blurb that pulls you in and make you want to start reading NOW!

-Getting the word out about it.

-Writing something that readers are currently buying like crazy.

Can you think up any other factor that makes a book SELL?

Writing just for the pleasure of writing remains number one priority to me! Selling really is secondary--REALLY! I'll keep creating stories, no matter what. But beside all that, this will be a new side goal for me.  Do you ever make side-goals for yourself?

Another one of my side goals is to write a book that will sell in an actual real-life book store some day. 

Well, that's all I have to talk about today.  Have a good Friday!

My Late Monday Post

Well, I was going to write up a post yesterday, but with a day off work and all, I just got too lazy! Plus, I don't have anything really, super exciting to say.

We've gotten through first round edits for Addicted to Ansley, and it's release date is less than two months away, so I guess that's sort of exciting!

But I haven't heard anything new about my New Adult story, so I'm still not a hundred percent positive what it's title will be yet. Not so exciting. 

I'm reading bunches and bunches lately, but had to take a time out from my 2013 reading resolution list because I signed up to read books for the RWA Rita and those showed up last week. All the Rita books I received are written by authors I've never read before so it'll a total surprise to me what each book is going to be like.

I've also been coming up with a lot of story ideas lately too (and thank you to everyone who assured me I wasn't an idea thief)! So I've been trying to jot those down before I forget them.

And I've decided one thing I need to work on in my writing is my purple prose. But it's sooo hard to do.  Authors are supposed to be creative, right, so naturally we want to come up with a creative way to say something, and before we know, we get carried away (well, I do, anyway) and we start saying things like "his uncontrollable emotions frothed to the surface."

Frothed?

My mom read that and was like, "huh?" Well, it's like this. I've seen emotions 'bubbling,' so why can't they froth?

Sometimes, my frilly description gets a little out of control and it makes my readers lose a little of the true meaning of what I want to say. It turns into a a bunch of pretty words that just confuse everyone: aka-purple prose.

They say Hemingway was a master at using simple words to make deep, meaningful descriptions. He never got caught up in purple prose. Maybe I should read Old Man and the Sea again to beef up on my internal  purple prose eater.

What's something you need to work on in your life?

OH!  And one last thing: Lisa at A Tasty Book Tours is setting up a book tour for A Fallow Heart. Yep, I'm finally having someone else set up a tour for me!! If anyone wants to participate, here's the link: http://tastybooktours.blogspot.com/2013/01/now-booking.html