BOOK SALE!

Feet of Clay and Midnight's Sonata are on sale for $.99. I meant to blog when the price first changed, but the past few days have been insane.

I work from home and just started another job. They still do not have my direct deposit set up straight. My bank has an app to deposit checks, but they can't be over a certain amount. I don't like driving to the ATM as late as I get off work and it takes away from my writing time. I have another checking account linked to my main bank, and deposit my check using their app.

I've been making these pretty awesome milkshakes with Tiramisu gelato, Bailey's, and Kahlua. I haven't put a dent in the Kahlua bottle because it's bigger than I am, but I'm running low on Baileys. Head over to Costco because I need groceries. Find out Costco has $4000 booze. I'm a much cheaper date. Grab a bottle of Baileys bigger than I am, find new food stuff that I am really excited about and go to check out. I have no idea what the Pin is on the debit card for my other checking and it takes several days to transfer to the account with the pin I know. Get told I cannot run that card as credit because of the type of card it is. And on top of it, she made me fish out my license and prove I am over 21, even though I'm WAY over 21.

Made sad panda face and went to Target. Found out boxed water is a thing. No idea if someone is waiting for Jesus to come turn that into boxed wine, but why??? Also, one can buy jarred pork fat. Maybe it's my southern showing, but I thought everyone had a canister on the stove with a strainer that you pour your bacon fat in after you cook to save it for later. It looked like coconut oil and I know I would have been really upset if I grabbed it thinking it was and brought it home and tried to make fat bombs with it.

ANYWAY, Yeah. Feet of Clay and Midnight's Sonata are both $.99 pretty much everywhere if the changes have gone through on all the sites. Special Agent Mauve is permafree. I need to go in and make Flash Permafree on Amazon, I just haven't had the time.

I've hired a PA and she's been awesome and hosted a few take overs for me. I've given away a few ARC's for Feet of Clay and hope to start getting feedback soon. When I write, I pretty much sit here thinking it's garbage, then I do my rewrites like, this isn't so bad, then I edit like OMG THIS IS TOTAL GARBAGE but then I hit publish and put it into the wind and try to promote it because maybe someone out there will like it.

Flooding in Louisiana

I have not posted about the flooding in Louisiana because I'm still trying to process it. When I woke up that morning, my phone had an alert that we were under a flash flood warning. I didn't even think about it because we get those frequently and there was no hurricane warning. There was also no evacuation warning because, again, no hurricane.

I work from home, and I did what I always do. I drank my greens smoothie, brought my laptop downstairs, and logged into my training session for my new job. I let them know the weather was a little rough and I may lose power. The power lines on my street are above ground and sometimes we lose power for a week during bad weather.

On my fifteen minute break, I logged in to Facebook. My mother had posted photos and her entire street was under water and creeping towards her house. My parents have occupied that house for 33 years. In that time, the water had never gotten that high. It didn't flood during hurricane Katrina, nor did the water get that close to the house.

Two hours later, I am on my lunch break. I check Facebook again. I have friends posting that they had to leave because water is coming into their houses. They left to go stay with family members who are dry and don't have water in the front of their house.

The next morning, I have another flash flood warning on my phone. I find out my parents had to flee their house in the night to higher ground until a family member could pick them up. My grandmother is okay, but she also lives close to me and I haven't flooded. I check Facebook again and all of my friends who do rescue work are desperately trying to find someone with a dry home to keep their fosters so they can get to at least one of the shelters that is open. One of them is running low on pet food and can't get out to get more. At least one of my friends has water up to the ceiling in her house.

AT&T cell towers are now under water. No one with AT&T can call or send texts unless they have a model cell phone that allows Wi-Fi calling and they are near a router. I cannot call my parents at all because they have older phones. The people that do have cell service are sharing photos and videos. There are streets that are totally underwater with just roofs visible. Local fishermen got together and pulled people off roofs and out of cars in their fishing boats and bateaus. They have since been named "The Cajun Navy". Videos of them pulling people and animals out of the water, out of cars, and off roofs have been shared multiple times on my Facebook.

I did not flood and I never lost power, but almost everyone I knew did. When I leave my house and talk to other people, I feel guilty meeting weary eyes when they ask how I made out after telling me they lost everything, to tell them I was okay in the flooding. The flood water is slowly going away, but people here are not okay. I know people with ten people staying at their house who need food. My rescue friends are overloaded with lost pets and need pet food. A lot of the people who flooded are not in flood zones and have not flooded since they have been alive, and do not have flood insurance. People have to get tetanus shots to go back inside their houses because there is foul water pooling on their floors and no one can start putting the drywall that they had to rip out back in for weeks because of toxic mold.

I'd like to address a few things I've seen in the news or other people post. I've seen this on twitter, facebook, etc. Why isn't Hilary there? Why isn't Obama there? Because they were asked to wait. Officers and firemen are tied up with rescue and dealing with traffic accidents on the roads that are actually open. That is where they need to be. Unless a politician is going to be here going around ripping out drywall, pulling people off roofs, etc, they don't need to be here tying up resources. Yes, Trump came anyway. No, he didn't donate to any of the disaster relief programs that are here. He donated to Tony Perkin's church. Tony Perkin's used to preach that disasters like this were sent to punish gay people. Until his house flooded in this flood.

I would also like to talk about some of the ignorant things I've read from people who don't live here who have been saying we should have learned our lesson and left after Katrina and should get no relief. I would also like to address the man who said he didn't want his tax dollars coming here because we should have known better. THIS WAS NOT A HURRICANE. This was 3-4 days of epic rain. Louisiana is not wetlands. The majority of people who flooded are not in flood zones because this is a 500 year flood. It's now being called a 1000 year flood. And to the guy who doesn't want his tax dollars coming here, I'll gladly send you some of mine so that you can go to school and learn geography, flood plains, and basic science

Feet of Clay release date

Feet of Clay finally has a blurb, an ebook cover, and a paperback cover. And a release date finally. I'm shooting for 8/9 on all major retail outlets. This couldn't have been made possible without the help of a dear friend who stepped in and saved me while I was having a nervous break down and giving myself blurb related diabetes. I still don't know what category I'm actually going to put this book in. I've had several people suggest dark romance to me, but in this one, it's the girl, not the guy who is dark, mysterious and brooding and has all the issues. The guy does too, but we know what is going on in his head.

My dear friend who wrote the blurb was reading and chatting with me while he read it. He sent me a message "Is this THAT kind of story?" I told him it wasn't and broke the plot down for him since he asked and his response was just "Woah". He only got a little over 100 pages into it before he had to take a break because he said it got too intense, which is kind of what I was going for. Will be doing a bit of promoting and I finally got a PA who will be helping me, then it will be released.

Feet of Clay

As I have posted in previous blogs, the blurb for Feet of Clay is giving me fits. I retreated into a blanket fort and edited for 2 months because I didn't want to write it.

I now HAVE to write it. I had been staring at this word doc with a half written blurb that I hated for two days. I had to go grocery shopping and went hungry, so I left with junk food. I get back home and I'm sitting there staring at the word doc, dipping mini kitkats into a tub of frosting, and hating life.

I send my friend a facebook message so he can talk me down. He tells me, "How about I write your blurb and you buy me a copy of the new Harry Potter book?" Now, this seems like a mutually beneficial arrangement to me.

I email him a final copy and finally slow down with the giving myself blurb related diabetes. He starts reading and send me a message, "Is this THAT kind of story?" I reply to him that it's not, I just started it when I was a wee babby writer so it seems that way at first. So he asks me what it is, indeed about. So I break it down. His response was "Woah."

When I wake up this morning, I have a blurb based on what I've told him thus far and the first 100 pages. He had to take a break from reading because the story was too intense. But I like his blurb so far. I just need to get input if people would buy it based on the blurb. It says what the story is about without giving away the surprises, twists, and too much detail

Max has never had a student quite like Taylor. He's been teaching for a long time and knows potential on the rare occasions he sees it. However, Taylor's personal life has convinced many people in their small town she's not worth the effort. Max sees things differently, though. As he struggles to reach the girl, though, he makes an error in judgment that changes everything, and Taylor disappears.

Five years later, Taylor returns, and Max sees it as an attempt to make amends for the past. However, Taylor doesn't seem to remember what happened, and as a relationship forms between the unlikely pair, Max worries that telling her the truth will cause irreparable damage to both of them. How much does Taylor actually know? And how much is Max willing to deny the past for the sake of an illusory present?

Southern editing and Feet of Clay

I've been in a funk for over a month. There is a date in June that is a very hard day for me. Feet of Clay has been finished for two months now and all I've needed to do is write the blurb. Rather than write it, I've been in a blanket fort with Netflix editing. I thought I was going to be able to come out last month, then that day in June happened and I've hated everything I've written, so I've still been editing.

I've gone through Midnight's Sonata again and I'm giving Feet of Clay one last go through, then I think I may finally write the blurb and send it off.

I live in Louisiana and have my entire life. There are things about me that are very southern and things that are not. Most of the time, when I call people at work, certain parishes with thick southern accents can't understand me and keep asking if I'm from California or New York. I dislike sweet tea and like my tea bitter like my soul. There are people who think I am rude because I go straight for "wow, you're a stupid twunt" instead of "bless your heart". I'm a vegetarian democrat living in the south. But there are also things you can never take away from me that I got from here. I actually prefer the heat and humidity to cold weather. You can pry my Community coffee, grits, and Tony's from my cold dead heads.

How this effects my writing? Only a small portion of my work takes place in Louisiana. Very little actually. One chapter in Midnight's Sonata. Feet of Clay takes place in a fictional small town that could be anywhere. The more I edit, the more I have to check my southern and sit here thinking, fix it, Jesus.

There's several scenes in Feet of Clay where they go grocery shopping. Shopping carts are called buggies here. I had to fix that. I was also sitting here wailing one night around midnight screaming "Whyyyy does every character in my novels live in a house with a porch???" I grew up in a house with a front and back porch, but now I live in a townhouse and all I have is a door step. Every time there is a hurricane here and we lose power for what seems like forever, I bring the contents of my freezer to my parents house and they grill my tofu and the contents of their freezer on a propane grill and we all pig out on the back porch and eat all the food before it goes bad. It's just what you do when there's a hurricane.

The next novel up for me after I've submitted Feet of Clay is going to be a fantasy novel. I have ideas for a horror and a strange sci-fi. Since I've been in a mood for over a month, I haven't been sleeping well and have been lucid dreaming. If I think it will work for a story, I get out of bed when they wake me up, type it into this note pad file, and try to go back to sleep

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Special Agent Mauve now permafree

Special Agent Mauve-Origins is now permafree on Amazon and available for free on Smashwords, ibook, and many other sites.

I'm working on part two right now and there's an evil cat in it, based off several resident felines. It's a little ironic that I take a break from editing Feet of Clay to write this and one of these jerks knocks the Q off my keyboard and I can't find the key to put it back on.

I type on a USB keyboard and there is still one on my laptop keyboard, but switching between the two is awkward. I'm also realizing how much I previously undervalued that letter. As I sit here lamenting my lack of the Q key, one of the resident weirdos is just sitting behind me licking my back. He's probably going to weird out in a few minutes and go leaping across the room. This cat previously hated my guts, but he got into a fight with one of the other cats and I had to take him to the vet to get an abscess on his leg drained. He had to stay in the bathroom for a week and after a week of watching me use the toilet and shower, he now likes me. He's lived here 10 years and has hated me up until we bonded in the bathroom.

Special Agent Mauve part two will be coming out shortly. Feet of Clay is done aside from writing the blurb. I have been putting off writing the blurb for a month now because the thought makes me feel squirrely. I've been editing in my blanket fort so I don't have to do it. Sometimes there is ice cream and Netflix. Sometimes I suck my thumb and curl into the fetal position when I think about the blurb.

Next up, once I get over my blurb issues is a fantasy novel and I got the idea for a horror novel when I couldn't sleep. Because really, who wants to stick to one genre? I know the entire plot for the fantasy novel, since it's been in my head so long, but just the general idea for the horror. The rest will probably come to me at 3am when I'm trying to sleep, like always