September has been a busy month. It was back to school, with a whole new sea of faces and names to learn. This, of course, means that my time to even think about Liz, Patrick and the crew shrunk tremendously. But it also means that I return to my more “normal” schedule. When I drive to school, I listen to movie scores. This frees up my mind to think about where I left off writing the night before. It gives me a chance to work out a scene. Then once I pull onto campus, I hit the pause button in my brain and switch to teacher mode. But once I get into my car at the end of the day, I un-pause and can continue mentally writing.
This is the first time that I “disclosed” that I also write during the introduction of myself on the first day of school. Some students had read it. Some had heard that I had written a few books. The ones that had read it had questions and comments of their own. Such as “When’s the second one coming out in paperback?!” or “Oh my God, it’s my life!” or “I’ve told my friends and family that they have to read it!”
To answer the first question – I’m working on it. It takes a few proofs to get the setting right on the print version. So, if you are waiting for a hard copy of “Winter Solstice”, I haven’t forgotten about it. It’s on my radar and in the works.
As for the second comment, every time I hear it, I smile. To me, it means that people can relate to it. I know it’s not literally their life. But much of it, of Liz, it accessible and others connect to her. That is a huge compliment and warms my heart.
The third comment makes me happy. It means that people like it enough to tell others. That’s awesome! Since I’m an independent author, I need all the help I can get in spreading the word. There’s a point in the first weeks of school during my Stats class where I teach them how to link their calculators together to get the data from someone else. I jokingly refer it to infecting each other’s calculator. I say this because it starts off with my calculator having the data. One student links to my calculator, now two calculators have the data. Now two more people can get it the data for a total of four in the room. Those four link up to four more and in a matter of minutes the whole class of 34 have the data, instead of all 34 waiting to download from my lone calculator. There’s many lessons that can be tied to this — spread of disease, exponential growth, etc. But it makes a real-world point. So, we laugh at infecting each other’s calculators and spreading our data like a disease. But the rapid spread of things can be good or bad, depending on what it is. Data – good. News – good. Disease – bad. A good book – GREAT!
“Back to School” night was last week. During Open House, one student came in with her mom and told me she’d finished Winter Solstice and now had to get Wintering since “it was mirroring her life!” She made me laugh with the comments (or rather exclamations) she made about the book and certain characters. One parent came in who had read Falling. She shared it with her sister and cousin and told me they all loved it. I love that it crosses age barriers. It’s YA fiction. But it’s YA fiction that isn’t just for young adults. Adults can enjoy it just as much.
So, now that you’re back to school… or out of summer mode… Please tell your friends and family to read Falling, Winter Solstice and Wintering. Help me spread the word!
Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing. I’ll finish Springing (Book #4) and get to work on Book #5. Springing is getting closer to being completed. I’m excited. I hope you will be too!
PS – If you haven’t posted a review of the books, please do so! You can post them here and/or on Amazon!
