You haven't lived until...

...you've taken a laptop into a PumpItUp! or SkyZone or other indoor playground and tried to write a novel.  The screaming, oh the screaming, and the random ball flying precariously close to the laptop.  Goodness. And yes, indoor playgrounds are a thing.  At least they are in AZ where it gets to 120F in the summer (45C or so for everywhere other than the US). It's 70F right now (22C or so), so that's obviously not an issue, but they offer discounts when school is not in session. My boys love it, so why not? Perhaps it will tire them out...

So why am I here?  I'm trying to make a big push and finish Earthquake and get going on Rarity. I need to work on the cover for earthquake and none of my ideas are going to look very good with my limited photoshop skills (yes, I make my own covers). So I'll be trying to brainstorm that. I want the lightning circle again, but I'm having a hard time integrating that with my earthquake pictures from photoshop. I'll work on it more once Earthquake goes to my beta readers.  And try not to cry when I get too frustrated.

I've heard a lot from family and friends this holiday season.  It's been humbling, for sure.  Family who I'd never considered telling about my writing have found out about it from other family members. And they've read my stuff.  We're talking baby boomers here.  I've received a lot of compliments from them, which is great.  And I like the advice (mostly). And rest assured for my stepdad's cousin, there will be fewer visits to the dressmaker for Lora in Rarity.  In fact, she may not get there at all! At least half the book will take place outside of Glimmen. And I will rectify the lack of page numbers in my paperbacks.  It's something I never noticed. I own my books in paperback, but I've never looked through them other than to see how the map of Ydris looked.  That's pronounced EE-driss, btw.

Anyway, enough tangents.  I need to keep a lookout for flying balls and write some more. I hope you all had a merry Christmas, happy chanukah, happy kwanzaa, or other holiday (or no holiday... just a great weekend), and I wish you the best for a safe, happy, and healthy 2018!!

Fear not!

Hello readers!

Thank you so much for your patience.  Rest assured, I am still here and working hard on Sara's adventure and will be continuing with Lora's as soon as I send Earthquake out to beta readers. I am editing the first 50,000 words of Earthquake right now. Don't even get me started on book covered. Photoshop is not easy for me, and Earthquake is going to be at the edge of (or beyond) my meager skills.

This fall.... I bit off way more than I could chew.  I didn't have time for anything! And since writing is my "hobby," it got pushed to the back burner. Here in AZ, winter is our busiest season in medicine because of all of our winter visitors (aka snowbirds). But my hours at the clinic don't change much, just the busy-ness of my days! I mean, I used to have time to write over lunch...  I have 2 weeks left in the semester at the university where I also teach. I'm behind grading for them too.  Fall sports are over-- did I mention my two boys were in five sports???? Never again! My husband was coaching every single one, so I usually needed to wrangle one kid while the other was playing whatever sport while also trying not to fall too far behind grading papers. I have had a doctor's or dentist's appointment every single Friday (my day off... ha!) since September began. I think I kinda gave up and buried my head in the sand a bit.  What does that mean for the future?

Well.... I'm trying to figure out how to organize to where I'll have time for everything.  I know I have disappointed some of my loyal fans by being 3+ months late with Earthquake and however late I will be with Rarity. As I said before, I appreciate your continued patience. I am only teaching one class this spring.  Nothing is changing at my clinic. I have no appointments other than getting my hair cut/colored and my eyebrows waxed for the foreseeable future. I refuse to not have time! Or be so overwhelmed and tired that I can't be bothered to "work" even on my fun job (er... hobby).

So that's it.  That's what's been going on.  Thanks for listening to me vent and whine. Excited for what I'm reading. Hopefully not too many big changes to be made and I can get more books out to you soon :)

I have enough room for one...

... maybe 2 secondary character point of view chapters left in Earthquake. I don't want to have too many. I've had 2 so far. They're characters that we know, but don't know super well.  They were not the same POV's as in the short story anthologies published prior to Wildfire. Secondary characters are basically anyone but Sara. We know her story. I hope.

Anyway.... does anyone have a preference as to whose POV I use? Any favorites? Yes? No? If I use your suggestion(s), I'll mention you in my acknowledgements... Hopefully it'll get me out of this darn writer's block!!!!!!!!!!!

Did I mention?

In order for the way I want the Program series to work, I have to change the POV.  I was really struggling with how to do it.  Do I just wait until the moment and do it? Do I do it a few times before I make the big change?

Well, I consulted a group of writers I chat with. A lot of them questioned why it needed to happen.  It does, trust me. Sara doesn't die-- I'm not pulling a Divergent and killing my main character (sorry if that's a spoiler to you), but someone else needs to talk for awhile. Anyway, the ultimate consensus was that it would make the most sense if I had a few chapters here and there in Earthquake with more in the next book and a huge chunk in the final book.  Yes, I think it's going to take 4 books to finish.

I wrote the first secondary character POV chapter a while ago.  It was really hard to write because I'd never written that character before.  For those of you who don't know, Wildfire was initially a short story from Sara's POV. It ended right after she gets to Montana. Then there were 3 other short stories. These were published in anthologies by Horrified Press's YA imprint Sinister Saints. The books are only available in hardcover.  3 of them can be purchased on amazon (and lulu.com) and the other only from lulu.com. There are links to all of them on my website as well as my amazon and goodreads author pages. The second book is Luke's POV and the third is Sean's.  The fourth is a prequel, and it's from Jake's POV. The three short stories that made Wildfire are slightly different than originally published due to further edits and the POV's reverted to Sara. This is why I felt comfortable writing the other POV's.

So whose POV's are they? Not telling.  The first is a semi-new character.  He's got a tiny part in the beginning of Wildfire and is mentioned throughout. The other I'm currently trying to write.  The character is being stubborn, so I might have to abandon that and try from another character. The whole book is being stubborn.  I had this 20k word surge and I had thought that the rest would fall in line like that.  Silly me! I'm getting to the good part of Earthquake.  I think I mentioned the beginning is fairly slow paced. I am writing. I appreciate your patience.

Now I'm going to go see patients.  You know, my whole doctoring day job. I'd so much rather be writing!!!

Editing and writing

I am nearing the end of writing Earthquake. I just edited a big chunk of it. I have some beta readers lined up.  Looking good!

Angst

I read a review of a YA book somewhere where the reviewer complained that the MC was too angsty. I never thought that was possible.  I mean, they're teenagers. It's all drama all the time, right? Well, I read a book today (I've had strep throat and have been doing more reading than writing this week), and I was about ready to give up on the MC about a third of the way through.  But I decided to stick with it because I liked the idea of the story. I'm glad I did.  It ended up pretty darn good, and I'm now waiting for book number 2.  So, there you have it.  Maybe too much angst.

I bring this up because the ad-pro's are fighting.  And whining. And doing all kinds of attention-grabby things right now.  Is it over the top? Yes.  Is there a purpose? Also, yes. I'm also 2/3 or more of the way through the book so I'm not trying to world build. But yes. There's a method to the madness.

Since I'm feeling better, I plan on writing more tomorrow.  After my son's birthday party. I was productive today and set up my online classrooms at the university where I teach. So unless I get sick again (a real possibility since I am a physician, exposed to two germ-infested schools through my sons, and exposed to germ-infested university students), there's not a lot stopping me between now and... whenever Earthquake is done. It's coming easily when I write. I am still faster than GRRM.  Thank you for your patience.

Words of Power

I've had a couple of questions from readers about these.  I had never planned on opening this can of worms.  I didn't want to create another language. It's so complex, and then I have to keep such careful track for continuity and all that. Well, today I started creating some words of power.  Sometimes you have to make these drastic changes because the characters demand it. Will I be creating a language in its entirety? Heck no!! But there will be some of these in Earthquake.

For those of you over 18

Check out Average by Quinn Clarke. She is my alter ego, since I can't be writing 18+ stuff for my under 18 audience. In this novella, I poke fun at the most popular cliches in erotica and romance. It's $2.99 on kindle, free on KU, and $6.99 in paperback.

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B074MLM5HK

https://www.facebook.com/quinnclarkeauthor/

Excerpt from Earthquake, as promised

This is a first draft. I haven't gone through it with spellcheck or anything. I hope you enjoy.

“Lightning is an advanced air skill that takes manipulation of air using earth or water for friction and fire as an accelerant. Meteorology and atmospheric sciences use air and water in the manipulation of the weather. Air mages often pair with earth mages to attack air pollution, just as water and earth mages often pair for other types of environmental damage containment,” Professor Fuentes added.  “These are topics for late this year and in your future studies, as well as for advanced students.”

Professor Tehranchi made eye contact with me and I sank down in my chair. “Miss Lake, please come down here.”

I heard a few groans from the other ad-pro’s as I stood up. I hated being the center of attention. This was not how I wanted the afternoon to begin.

“Miss Lake is an air mage,” Tehranchi continued as I stood next to him. “She is one of the strongest lightning wielders that I’ve ever seen, in fact.”

This was news to me, and I tried hard to keep my face neutral.  It almost sounded like Tehranchi, who was by all accounts an ogre, was complimenting me.

Professor Fuentes chuckled. “You’re embarrassing Sara,” he chided.  “But we’d love for her to give a little demonstration.” He raised his eyebrows at me and I suppressed a grin.

“What exactly would you like me to show them?” I asked.

“I know you’ve filled this lecture hall with lightning,” Professor Fuentes told me while projecting to the class, “but since it’s full of people, I thought you could make a few lightning spheres.  Maybe basketball sized. Professor Tehranchi can keep them aloft.”

Keeping them aloft would be easy. I’d never made that many small spheres at the same time before, but there was a first time for everything.  Heck, it’d taken me four tries to light the New Mexico desert on fire. I’d start small and go from there.

I’d progressed from needing to start them in the palm of my hand and grow them from a spark.  Looking past Professor Fuentes to Tehranchi, I raised an eyebrow at him just as a basketball sized lightning sphere popped into existence in front of me.  I sent it out over the ad-pro’s and held it aloft with my own air.  I felt air tendrils try to take it away, but I surrounded my sphere and kept control.  Confident that I could do it again, I did the same thing.  And then I made two at the same time. And four more.  I figured eight was enough to let Tehranchi know I wasn’t the scared little incompetent girl I had been in January.

“Tired?” he asked, a little drollness in his tone.  I could hardly believe it.

“Nope,” I replied with a grin. I wasn’t.  I felt great.  “But I think you want to start lecturing again.” I winked the spheres out, nodded to them both, and retook my seat.

Clearing his throat, Tehranchi gestured to me.  “Sara is sixteen years old and in the adolescent program,” he said. “She is not available to tutor remedial students even though she is in my advanced air class, and,” he shot me a glare with a hint of mirth, “evidently she’s been holding back.”

Copyright 2017 Andrea Irving, Colindrea Press

:)

Earthquake

It's going to be longer than I thought, I think.  I'm at 34,000 words now (122 pages). Chapter 16. I thought it'd be shorter than Wildfire by a longshot. Wildfire was 70k words or so. I thought Earthquake would peter out around 50k words.  I'm thinking it's going to be closer to 70k. Not a bad thing. The pace is a lot slower, that's for sure. There's a lot of normal teenage life so far, which Sara has missed out on. They're back in Montana and school has started.  It's going better and worse than they could have hoped!

I'd be farther along if fewer RH books had been coming out over the last few weeks. No end in sight through the end of September. It takes a lot of willpower to get my nose out of a book and my fingers onto my laptop keys. Thank you for your patience. I still write faster than GRRM.

It's still going great

I never know how long my novels are going to be.  50k words at a minimum is what is "recommended," whatever that means.  In this day and age, it's not as important.  At about 250 words per page, that's 200 pages. I'm nowhere near that in Earthquake, but I've made a huge dent in what I wanted to get done. The plot is rolling on, and we've got a new person's POV in chapter 12. Hmmm, I wonder who it could be? He's chattier than I thought he'd be, that's for sure! There will be more supporting character POV chapters going forward, as well.

I've also gotten the final edits from beta readers for my smutty novella. I finished the covers for that today, as well as finalized my pen name. As soon as I do my own final edits and final read-through, I'll be uploading that. You'll be able to find it if you search for my publisher's name, if you're interested.

I spent some time looking at more images for Earthquake and Rarity, too. Photoshop is... fun? I'm not an artistic person.  Obviously my covers are very basic.  Earthquake is going to tax my limits.  I may have to alter a stock photo for Rarity. It depends on what I end up choosing.  I try not to do too much, since I know that is not where my talents lie.

I spent way too much time on shutterstock today. Or maybe not...

I hope your summers are going great!!

6000 words later...

I'm sitting in my office at the clinic where I work, so I thought I'd post an update. I'm about to hit 6000 words (250 words/page) since I said I was buckling down and writing.  I think it'd be more, but I hit a snag last night and it was painful to get through.  It should edit fine later, and I'm excited to be past it. I've written a thousand words in between patients today, which I think it because we're finally hitting the part in the story where the plot takes off and it reels you in and gets good. I hope.

So I just wanted you to know that while Earthquake will be late coming out, it shouldn't be too late.

I'm sitting down to write right now!

I am behind schedule.  I think writers are almost always behind schedule.

I went out of the country on vacation. Part of our vacation was spent in a lake cottage.  I assumed (ha!) that I'd be able to chill and write.  I got maybe 1000 words out. Everyone wanted to be social, and it's very hard to concentrate and write when people are trying to carry on a conversation with you.  How dare they, right?! I got a bit more done on the way home on our layover.  My 12 hour layover that turned into 16 1/2 hours. After a long day of seeing the historic sights in Philly (what we had planned for such a long layover), I was exhausted. I wrote some variation or other of "Sean is a dick" 3 times in as many paragraphs.  I conceded to my fatigue, and turned off my laptop.

Interesting things that happened:

On our way to our destination, we flew over Kalispell, MT. I got to see exactly where the Montana School is. My husband just shook his head at me. My 7-year-old was not impressed. My 4-year-old was asleep. But I was excited. Glacier National Park is just gorgeous. From the air anyway. I've never been there in real life.

I get to write off a lot of this trip on my taxes.  Part of Book 3 or 4 in The Program will take place in Philadelphia. That was my son's input. He was excited that I was taking his opinion into consideration. He hopes you like his choice when those books are written.

I ate my weight in poutine.  The 7lbs I gained... Well, I know where they came from, and I'm not sad about how they came to be.

I love paddle boards.  So relaxing. Man do they work out your core! All that balancing.  Same with kayaks.  My thighs burned. I think these activities are why I only gained 7lbs.

They make Olympic (and Paralympic) medals at the mint in Canada. They also make Star Wars and Avengers coins there, too. I saw a coil of gold ribbon that was worth like a million dollars.

We rode on a regional train, 2 subways, a bus, a car, someone else's car, the SkyTrain, and 2 airplanes all in one day.

I prefer Cheezies to Cheetos, Smarties to Rockets, and Canadian Smarties are just meh. I love Jujubes. I wish they sold Alexander Keith's in the US; I'll have a Kiltlifter instead though and be usually as happy drinking it.

Fidget spinners were on sale for $3.99 Canadian at GT.  My 7-year-old's mind was blown when we told him that was half what he'd spent on the glow in the dark one he got at home.

Tim Horton's jelly donuts are excellent.  There are lots of Dunkin Donuts in Philly. AZ does not have many donut places at all.

OK, I'll stop.  Thank you for your patience. I'll just get back to writing....

I'm still here, I swear!

Apologies for not posting in so long.  I haven't been up to much. I did crank out a 21k word smutty novella that I may publish under a nom de plume at some point. Sadly, I read a lot of that genre, and it's pretty repetitive. I'm poking fun at a lot of the more common themes you see nowadays. We'll see how my editors like it. I've never written anything like it before (maybe some steamy fanfic like 15 years ago), and I'm not sure how the humor will come across. We shall see. If there's interest, I'll post the pen name.  Once I finalize it. I'd rather my students, patients, and family members not read something of that nature. I'd never be able to look anyone in the eye again!!!

I did just write about 2000 words in Earthquake tonight. I'll be writing more tomorrow. I haven't been super inspired, so I've been going through a bit of writer's block.  I'm hoping that's done because I'd love to be finished writing Earthquake before I go on vacation with my family next month. The current plan (and it was the old plan before I started to feel ambitious) is to get Earthquake published by the end of August. I'm hoping to have at least half of Rarity written by then to put me on track to publish it by February at the latest. I know this will disappoint some of you, and I am sorry for that. Since I don't write full time, it comes in fits and starts when I can fit it into my real life.

Speaking of real life, I'm performing in a ballet recital this weekend. So other than tomorrow and maybe Friday morning, I'll be a dancing fool.  Here's to hoping I'm productive when I can be!!

Happy Mother's Day!

To all my readers who are moms or have moms or know a mom! This includes fur babies.

I've been hard at work this weekend. I do have two sons, aged 7 and 4, so this weekend has been pretty much all about me. They've mostly left me alone, which I'm always appreciative of.  But that doesn't mean they haven't snuggled up to me making me only able to type with one hand. Very, very slowly. So I've been able to write about 60 pages, which I'm sure you're all thrilled about 😄

Until next time.

The final tally

Almost 3 chapters for each. They're both moving along nicely. So excited!

You might be interested to know

I'm at the annual continuing medical education conference that I go to. I'm required to have 20 hours per year in order to maintain my medical license. I go to the same one every year. It's very good. This year, I've learned all kinds of cool stuff about diabetes (there's always more to learn about this), Parkinson's Disease, concussions, menopause, thyroid disease, and several other things. And it's not even the end of the 2nd day!

I've also written about 3000 words. Maybe 2000 in Earthquake and 1000 in Rarity. My chapters are usually around 1500 words, to give you an idea of how long that is. Common was about 55,000 words total, and Wildfire was around 80,000. It doesn't sound like a ton, but it is.  Every word brings me closer to the end of the book.

I've finally gotten over the "start of the book" hump in Rarity, so I think it'll be a little bit easier to write from here on out. The middle of the book is usually easy to write. There's always writer's block, of course, but the middle is usually pretty smooth sailing. The end is.... I'm not great with endings, as you know.  I find it easy to get there, but difficult to get them exactly the way that I want. I'm not surprised by the "it just ends" reviews I've gotten. But the beginning... It's so hard. It has to get you interested. It has to make sense. It has to set up the rest of the book: the characters, the tone, the pace, the plot... You know that in Rarity that it's going to start with the midwinter ball.  I've known this for a couple years.  But how did Catty and Lora get there? Did the craziness happen right away? Was it mellow? Who's in the scene? How long is the scene going to be? Well.... Now I know. At least partly.

I've also been scouring Shutterstock, which is where I've been getting my cover photos. I have the image for Earthquake that I want to manipulate.  It will have the same lightning circle overlay as Wildfire. I've been talking to the photographer who took the cover photo for Common. We may or may not come to an agreement about more photos with the same model for Rarity and other Lora Fletcher books. I'm excited either way. The cover is usually the last thing I do, but I'm a planner. I like to have everything just so from the get go.

I'll send out another update on Sunday hopefully.

School's out for summer...

At least, it is at the university where I teach!

And you know what this means?

Oh yes.

More time to write!! ::happy dance::

Tomorrow night, I head out of town for a conference. What do I do for 9-10 hours a day at this conference? Well.....

I write.

I do pay attention.  If the speaker is good, I'll stop writing.  If a subject is interesting, I'll pay attention tot he speaker.  But many of the topics are very dry, so....

I write.

That is all.

It's been awhile...

I just looked and it has been nearly a month since my last post. Apologies for that. I am still here.  It's the end of the semester and the powers that be have deigned that half the semester's points must derive from assignments due with only a couple weeks left in the semester. Or something.

My students both love and hate when I grade essays. I am a hard grader, but I give a lot of feedback. They know it's coming when they find out that I write, but some of them still haven't figured out the simple things. Like spellcheck. I definitely give credit where it's due though.

In a week and a half, I will be done teaching until the fall. I'll be at my annual CME conference. I will get a ton of writing done.  Plus there's the summer.  The snow birds go back north. My clinic gets slower. The boys play fewer sports.  More time for writing.

On that note... I'm off!

You know you've hit the big time when...

...you discover your book offered for free, illegal download on a well known pirating website.

I am not rich. I am an indy author. I write because I love it and the voices in my head insist that I share their weirdness with the world. The small amount of money I have made from Wildfire and Common isn't going toward my mortgage or anything. It has paid for ISBN's (they are the numbers that identify a book and they are not cheap), photoshop membership, shutterstock membership (you like the covers? I made them myself using stock photos I purchased the rights to and made fancy in photoshop), my un-fabulous website, and a few other little things. My laptop is old and dying, so I am using the royalties to buy a new one. Get the picture?

I am not trying to get rich off my writing.  But to find my work offered for illegal download? I work long hard hours to bring you works with reviews that are titled, "MEH." I am being ripped off by folks who won't fork over $2.99 for an ebook or the monthly KU membership subscription.  I am now offering a formal apology to all the musicians I illegally downloaded from in the late 1990's before Napster was converted from free to fee.

It sucks.

The worst thing about it? There was a forum post on the website where several people were giving virtual high fives to the OP who uploaded my blood, sweat, and tears.

I'm currently trying to get the book removed, but time will tell.

On a happier note, I did get some writing done last week.  My brother will be happy to know that Lora is back in action. Wildfire fans will also be excited to hear that Sara is also whispering in my ear again. Yay.

I love fan mail!

That is all.

First review by a blogger!

If you're interested in reading it, here it is: http://shootingstarsreviews.blogspot.com/

I have been really excited about the reception Common is getting.  It has largely been positive. The majority of complaints have been that it ends abruptly, and it does.  But if it seemed super finished, why bother getting the next one! ;) but yeah. I am definitely aware of that, and they should be more finished in the future as the plot gets more exciting. The interest Common is generating is also putting Wildfire in the spotlight a lot more. It is also getting mostly positive reviews. I'm so excited people are reading and enjoying my work.

I also got my first fan mail. Super cool! Very sweet you took time out of your day to let me know what you enjoyed in the books.

Next week is my boys' spring break (and spring break at the university where I teach), so I will be spending some time writing. We're also painting the interior of our house, so hopefully that won't take up all my "free" time. I never have enough time for everything!!!

I was going to add something else, and I have totally spaced it.  Well, I'll post again if it pops into my head. If it doesn't, it probably wasn't that important anyway!

Writing again

After a couple weeks of no writing and just stalking my author pages, FB page, and Amazon's various marketplaces, I have started writing again.

I've made some progress on Earthquake and even Rarity, which surprises me because usually the last thing I want to look at after ending a project is more of that project. I also have been plotting out a series about aliens.  It's early stages for that. I mean, I have more Lora and Sara to write!  Don't want to involve Leah just yet...

I was reading to my son some of what I've written. He did not like Common, but he is excited to tell his daddy what my rankings are for it. He was surprised to see the sheer volume of plots and stories that I have on my laptop. Not all ideas become stories and not all stories are finished. I've never finished a series before, so I have a bit of an uphill battle. It's funny to see non-writers realize this.

Anyway.... I read the new Jaymin Eve/Jane Washington collaboration, Trickery, and I loved it. They're both talented writers. I've also been reading Siobhan Davis, Rachel E. Carter, and Jojo Bonsu. I haven't been really disappointed by a book in awhile, which makes it hard to put them down and write my own!

Speaking of distractions. The Cubs are playing in Surprise tomorrow. I will be there cheering them on, as always.  Go Cubbies!

Overwhelmed again!

It's always a crapshoot, according to other indie authors I've spoken to, when you upload a book. It could be ignored. It could do OK. Or it could totally take off.  I always wanted other people to read what I wrote because I enjoyed reading what other people wrote, if that makes sense.  I'm hypercritical of myself, so it never occurred to me that people would actually buy my stories and like them. I'm not sure why.

Then I uploaded Wildfire.  I get royalties from it, which is super cool.  Not a lot, but enough that it has paid for the shutterstock photos, part of my photoshop subscription, part of my website upkeep, my web domain, and part of my ISBN numbers. Yes, I do my own covers. It's an even more humbling experience than writing. I'm not artistic. Anyway, people have read it and they like it! I don't have a ton of reviews yet, but the ones I do have are positive. I redid my search terms recently and it kind of took off.  For me, anyway. It hangs out in the 100-200's in the Amazon.com rankings for its genre. Except for on amazon.de, where it's at a solid #30. Awesome!

Well, then I uploaded Common.  I anticipated a similar response to Wildfire.  The books have a different voice. Common is slower paced and not quite as "racy." I figured I'd get a lot of, "Is there a plot?" comments when I got them. Well maybe they're coming because Common took off like crazy. It gotten as high as #26 in its genre on Amazon.com and is currently in the 60's-80's (#30 on amazon.de... Yay Germans! Danke shon! Darn blogger won't make an umlaut...). It's currently ranked higher (at least for the next hour) than Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. ROFL at that one. I have also finished paying for everything I've spent bringing these books to my readers, which is amazing! Which means I might be able to get fancy with the covers for Earthquake (The Program #2) and Rarity (I think that's what Lora Fletcher #2 will be called, but don't quote me on it).

So.... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!! All of you strangers who have read my books and are seeming to like them are phenomenal.

Map issue resolved

I love how Amazon has people working on such trivial matters at 4:45 in the morning!

Anyway, the corrected content has been uploaded and should go live sometime today. Thank you so much for making Common #26 in the teen fantasy category in spite of this! It's always daunting to click that upload button.  No matter how many times you review something or how many people edit for you, it seems like there's always something that gets missed. I found like 15 errors in Wildfire when I read it on my phone (yes, I read my own work because when you read in a different format it changes your whole perspective), but this error in Common had me totally freaking out. I may not have the most readers (yet), but I don't want to disappoint anyone. Thank you again for your patience.

Map issue

There appears to be an issue with the map. Trying to resolve it with Amazon right now.  Thank you for your patience!!

Common is live!

It's available on Kindle and KU now! Createspace (paperback on Amazon) is still in process. If you have a KU subscription, it's free with that. If you do not have KU, it's $2.99 on Kindle and will be $11.78 as a paperback. The weird price was not my idea!! Amazon sets the prices based on the length of the book and its content.  Since Common is set in a fantasy world, it has a map, so that makes publishing a tad more complex.

Thank you so, so, so much for making this my best day yet for sales and KU pages read. I am overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity!!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WVVPSF3/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487809862&sr=1-1&keywords=andrea+irving

I have a cover!

Well, for the kindle version anyway. Still working on the paperback version, which is always more difficult. And I'm still in the midst of edits.  But I figured I'd share. Enjoy!

MIA

Sorry I've been a little (a lot) MIA for the past month. My goal is to try and update this every couple weeks at a minimum, and I'm falling well short of that :(

I'm on a second edit of Book 1 in the Lora Fletcher Chronicles. I'm now 99.999999999999% sure it will be called Common. Things can always change.  I'm not great with titles, so... I'd be further along with this, but the new semester hit me harder than I expected.  Plus both my boys are doing 2 sports and wow is that taking up a lot of time! A round of applause to my husband because the brunt of that is falling on him. I'm really blessed to have him in my life. He contributes way more than I do to our everyday needs and continues to support me in my goals and dreams on top of all the chaos I bring to our lives. Anyway, I have a cover photo for this which I really like. It's sitting down and using Photoshop now to make it into an actual cover that is getting to me. I'm not great at Photoshop, but meh. You do what you gotta do.

I've made a little bit of progress on Book 2 of The Program. I'm still pretty sure it's going to be called Earthquake. The majority of the progress, I think, will come at the end of April. And then into the summer. I don't think I am going to teach over the summer, but you never know. If I don't, I will have more time for writing and editing.

Thank you for your continued support. I've about broken even on my costs to publish Wildfire, which is pretty darn exciting, considering I have had zero advertising. Advertising costs money, so I rely a lot on word of mouth, Amazon and Goodreads reviews, and people scrolling down and checking out what other people have viewed and bought after they read other YA fantasy books. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Until next time...