A visual telling of PARANORMAL KEEPERS

I've been a visual junkie my whole life. As a teen I would buy the biggest magazines available and spending hours pouring over every page, marveling at the ridiculously good looking models inside, wondering what their stories may be. I seriously don't think I ever read any of the articles. The walls in my bedroom were plastered with Benetton ads and gorgeous models to feed my constant day-dreams into the mysterious lives of others. They're what inspired my first full-length novel somewhere around sixth or seventh grade. I also got into photography later in life, taking online courses on the craft before starting up my own independent business. And my favorite part about vacations has always been the opportunity to just take in the different scenery.

So it wasn't too surprising when I became a Pinterest addict. I'll go to the site with a certain purpose in mind, and end up spending hours looking through pictures. While it really is the biggest suckage of free time, there are days when it can actually be inspiring. I first started boards of each of my novels after they were completed, but for the first time I'm creating one as the story is being written.

Paranormal Keepers is flowing like gangbusters as I charge through National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). My characters are living in such an exciting world with witches, zombies, ghosts, and just about every other paranormal creature you can think of. And creating its corresponding Pinterest board has been extra fun because I get to bring out my inner goth side with dark, sometimes twisted images. To celebrate the success of Paranormal Keepers (without going into detail on the plot as there will still be major tweaking to be done before it's released), I give you a little visual preview of the current work in progress. To my fellow visual junkies, you're welcome.

 

Want more? Check out the entire board here.

My "Pretend" Friends

As an indie author, I spend a lot of time alone in my "office", promoting myself online. Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and the biggest evil time sucker, Twitter. When I first signed up for Twitter last year, I didn't get it and almost walked away without giving it another thought.

Boy, am I glad I didn't.

To my total astonishment, I have met so many amazing, good people from networking on there. So many of them are other writers, who you would think would be competition, but the community of authors is strong and extremely supportive. And they're not just acquaintances, but people I have worked with and leaned on for help and advice. Actual friends. I feel more of a connection to some of the people on there than I do to some of my "real life" friends. So many of them have made an important impact on my life. And I really want to meet all of them in person, even though my husband is convinced most of them are serial killers in real life (which would actually make for really good writing material).

While some of my new compadres may be a lot harder to visit as they don't live in the same country (Emma Meade, I vow to come to Ireland one day!), I've kept plans in the back of my mind to meet up with many of them. Some live in areas I already visit on a regular basis because I have family there; like Texas, Florida and California. Some live in really awesome locations that have already made my "to visit" list; like Alaska and Colorado. And some live in New York, where I hope to go in early December for a third time.

But I recently signed up to attend a writer's convention in Madison, Wisconsin where I may have the opportunity to meet three of these new buddies!

While there are many ups and downs to being an author, this is certainly one of the major ups. Now I just worry because I'm so excited to meet these friends that I'll come off as being a complete psycho. Which is probably debatable. Regardless, I think my life has been enriched by so many of these people, and I'm forever grateful for their friendship.

Even if we never get the chance to actually meet in person.

Celebrate the Small Things Hop

One of my new blogging friends, the fabulous Vikki of VikLit (I totally love that I have more friends overseas now), came up with this blog hop idea to celebrate small accomplishments and share them with others! Since I just posted an update the fourth novel I'm working on and how well all of that is falling together, I will post about a different accomplishment - a real presence in social networking!

As of today, I have nearly 1,800 followers on Twitter. On Facebook I've almost hit 600 likes, on Goodreads I have almost 600 friends, 600 followers on Tumblr and 300 followers on Pinterest. YIKES! (Don't think I missed the fact that I just posted 600 three times in a row - my freaky mind is going to town on that one, wondering what it could possibly mean!) That's a lot of people. And a lot of work.

As most indie authors know, getting our name out there to promote our books can feel like a full time job in itself. Sometimes it hardly leaves any time for actual writing. I remember when I first started out on Twitter and wondered how on earth all these people gained thousands of followers. I remember being thrilled when I hit 100. Yes it has made me a bit of a social flake (I can't ever go very long without checking notifications on these sites) and yes I hardly get a fraction of the sleep I once used to get, but I really feel like I'm starting to get noticed and my book sales are steadily increasing.

So this Friday, I celebrate all my hard work and lost hours to the Internet. What small thing do YOU have to celebrate?