Happy Birthday to Me!

For those of you who do not have a holiday birthday, here is something you might not know about those of us that do: we have a love/hate relationship with our birthdays. I mean, on the one hand, it's my birthday! On the other hand, everyone is tired, nursing an eggnog hangover, engrossed in playing with new gadgets, or oblivious to everything but the holidays sales.

In my younger, more immature days, I loathed my birthday.Luckily, now that I am thirty-something (when did that happen?), I am pleased to say that I have a much more adult relationship with my birthday. Partially, this is because of expectations-- I no longer care about gifts or parties nearly as much as I used to. However, a big part of this is that I have such an appreciation of how blessed I am every day that any birthday shenanigans are icing on the proverbial cake.

However, there is something I really want for my birthday this year (well, every day), and that is people to read my writing. So as a birthday present to myself, I am getting my books out there for today at discounts up to 100% off:

• Max and Menna is available on Kindle for free for today only
• Don't Wake Up, my new novel that published last month, is available for Kindle at $2.99, a 25% discount 
• Listening In, one of the short stories from my short story collection, is available for free on Smashwords

 So, if Santa brought you a Kindle, might I suggest one of the above as a first purchase? Already read one (or more) of my books? Amazon reviews are EXCELLENT birthday presents as well :)

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays. Wishing you all peace, joy, relaxation, and blessings in the New Year.

Guest Posting

So I am hanging out over at Jessica Bell's blog today, talking about the questions that drive me to write literary fiction. Give it a look? http://thealliterativeallomorph.blogspot.com/

Don't Wake Up Launch

Happy November!

And a happy day to me. November 1 marks the *official* launch of Don't Wake Up, though the book has been available on Amazon long enough to garner a few reviews.

Speaking of reviews, author Tia Bach, who's talent amazes me, posted a review on her blog this week that made me giddy! You can read the whole thing here.  But here is a snippet of her thoughts:

I'm sure some readers will have a difficult time with the uncertainty of the ending and general sadness of the novel, but I found it compelling, raw, and intensely honest. I love character-driven pieces, especially ones that I think about long after the last page. 


I hope you agree with her assessment! Don't Wake Up is now available through multiple retailers, including Amazon.

More to come, but I hope all is well as everyone begins to move towards the holidays.

Write by Wednesday-- an Updated Query

Another big thanks to Matt over at The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment for his feedback and comments on my current query. I've done some playing with it, and revised my "two paragraph synopsis" of Don't Wake Up below. What do you think, more interesting?

Gillian has always encompassed the vast space between pretty and ugly. In fact, from her appearance, to her small town upbringing, to her simple administrative job, there is nothing remarkable about her, a fact that she is painfully aware of. To her and everyone around her, she is simply a plain woman, living a plain life… until her husband Ricky experiences a mysterious fall and ends up in a coma. As doctors and nurses rush to assure her that Ricky will recover well, Gillian thinks of the years of cold silence and manipulation that have overshadowed their marriage, and her life.

As this coma persists, Gillian realizes that she dreams of the house to herself, and hopes Ricky does not wake up. Nonetheless, his eyes open to reveal a man who claims to remember nothing of his former self. Gillian, convinced that this is only a furthering of the manipulations that have filled most of her life, seeks to test this new Ricky. She invents a family they never had, and fills his head with stories of an imaginary life. Ricky becomes a father, and an orphan, eagerly accepting magazine-clipped photos and an urn filled with cigarette ash as evidence of his once-happy life. But, as Ricky persists in his assertion that he remembers nothing of their real past, Gillian begins to question how far she can go in punishing a man for sins he cannot remember committing.

  

Despite an MBA in marketing and a BA in Creative writing, one book under my belt, having worked for small presses before, etc., etc., I find summing up a literary fiction premise (and likely any novel) in two paragraphs to be a Herculean task. For you writers out there, want to share your quick overviews of your books?