Alexa Jacobs's Blog, page 6
May 2, 2016
Fly Away
I celebrated a birthday in April, and as one does I got a little reflective on my life. At my still (relatively) young age, I already have friends who are no longer here, so I’m grateful for each day that I get. This year, I do have a lot to celebrate. Exactly one year ago I was writing the chapters that would be Rising Ridge, and I can count on one hand how many people knew about it. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for keeping that information to themselves until I was ready to share with the world some seven months later.
This morning I completed an interview that will be made public sometime in June, and one of the questions was about my road to publishing. What was it like? I will save my answer for the interview, but leave you with the idea that any overnight success story is really twenty years in the making.
It takes a lot of work, and dedication. There is a lot that goes on here, and after an entire lifetime of being a stay at home mom, my family is scrambling a bit because I have a job that takes me away for the first time ever. My oldest son recently went away with his youth group for the weekend. When he came back, he told me what a great time he had but I had neglected to pack him anything to sleep on. No sleeping bag, no blanket. Mom of the year, right here.
I know it’s a small thing, but it’s something that former me would not have done. Today I will spend the day trying to find my desk, after I write this blog (one day late), and catch up with all the paperwork of our lives. My to do list, no doubt, will be longer at the end of the day than it is right now. I haven’t had breakfast, because we have no food. Why? Rising Ridge hit the top five downloads last week and the attention that it got was A M A Z I N G. I spent the better part of my five day work week trying to keep up with the flurry of activity on my social media. I followed this by attending a workshop put on by a panel of award winning novelists who were so kind as to share their advice on writing and publishing. At no point did I actually get to the grocery store. There was a panicked text to my husband this morning when I realized there was no milk for my tea.
But there was, at least, tea.
I’m in a bit of a mood today because I am anxiously awaiting notes from my editor on The Dreamer. Our deadline is this week and it’s going to take the mother of all miracles to make it. My kids need to be in three places at once this evening, and I have to stop what I am doing to drive across town to replace a pair of uniform socks because there are team pictures and the small child who lives with me can remember everything when it’s my fault but claims ignorance when it comes to what he did with his own socks.
Former me is struggling. But, it’s all for the greater good. I feel like a kid does, in those first few very hard pushes on the pedals when they are starting to ride their bike. Particularly when they have to go up hill. Sometimes, your foot slips and you scrape the back of your leg with the force you were exerting and it hurts like hell. Any one of my personal friends will tell you that I had an interesting experience with Facebook last week, and it was a scrape that hurt like hell.
But, I keep going. I put my foot back on the pedal and I will stand to give myself the energy I need to get up this hill. I will remember the sleeping bag for the next trip, I will find the desk, I will buy the milk, and I will drive across town to get the socks. Somewhere in here, I will make a deadline. I hope.
There will be more scrapes, I am sure of it.
But, I am closer. Closer to that kid who gets to take her hands off the handle and throw them out into the air. I am closer to that kid who can stop pedaling for a minute and feel the wind on her face. I am closer to flying free.
Something that former me is totally cool with.
April 15, 2016
Reader Appreciation Week!
Recently I attended a workshop where the guest speaker was the lovely Barbara Vey. If you don’t already know Barbara, her story is kind of an amazing one. She stumbled upon the world of reading and writers at one of the most trying times of her life, and has since emerged with renewed strength and passion.
How did she accomplish creating a whole new life for herself? She walked through the door. She welcomed opportunity. She went with the flow. And more than any of this, she is an incredibly kind person who attacks the world of books with a reader’s spirit.
Though I cannot attend this year, I do want to celebrate such a worthy event! I’ve marked Rising Ridge on Kindle free this week in honor Barbara, and her commitment to joining writers and readers all over the world.
So… have an adventure with Olivia. Ache over Dean. Be silly with Elle. Cheer on Connor. Fall in love with Rohan. Wish you were Anna, if only for a minute sitting on a little dock down by a pond.
If you enjoy your time in Rising Ridge, please consider leaving a review on Amazon!
April 1, 2016
Career Opportunities
Can you believe that’s a song title? An odd little gem from The Clash. While the lyrics are weird, the title works well.
As I sit here on the eve of my birthday, I do so in my *almost* completely remodeled office. My most favorite gift from my most favorite guy. I’m not one to be too quick to commit when it comes to where my stuff lives in my house. One thing I have learned about moving 10 times (YES TEN) in the last two decades is that each home demands its own attention. Your utensil drawer is the first one on the left of your refrigerator in one house, so naturally that’s where you put it in the next. After six months you’re standing in the middle of your kitchen reorganizing all your cabinets because when you went to grab a spoon you thought they would be better in the island in this house. So that’s where the spoons and all their little friends will go from now on.
When we moved here, I didn’t buy furniture for the office. I set up two folding tables for my desk and lined the walls with shelves. I wanted to see what evolved. What evolved was our life as this house sees it. It’s loud, it’s busy, and it requires a shocking amount of glue dots. I have stock piles of plastic ware because we have parties and I’d rather spend time with my guests instead of in front of the sink washing dishes. We have craft supplies because we have a child who is constantly inventing things, and we want to see where his little brain takes him. I’ve gotten rid of things, as the years are slipping by too quickly with the child who is now taller than me and is no longer interested in the curious discoveries of a monkey named George. We have wires and ropes, camping gear and motherboards because I am married to the most outdoorsy geek on the face of the planet. This is my life in the here and now.
But then….
I did something brave. I dusted off a 20 year old Han Solo folder and pulled out 46 pages that were the bones of Rising Ridge. I created a whole new world as I sat at these two folding tables in the middle of my busy, busy life.
I’ve spent the last several months working on The Dreamer. And with it, comes career opportunity. Torrid Books has signed on to publish it, and I am so very excited to be working with them to bring Claire, Max, Tilney and Pilot into the world.
Over the next few month there will be changes, plans, and movement. Stay tuned!!
In the meantime, seems like this house is making room for one more personality. The writer. I am so excited to see what’s behind that proverbial door of opportunity.
March 1, 2016
Have love, will travel
Perhaps it was the magic of the Leap Year. This month has been small, but mighty.
The internet is a pretty amazing place. I should know, I have spent the last 29 days being “virtually” everywhere.
I feel exhausted as I sit here in my fluffy pink flannel PJs at my desk. Though my poor, underused Fitbit has logged no steps, I have put some serious miles on my keyboard as we traveled from cyber spot to cyber spot. All in the name of love for two crazy kids in a small town called Rising Ridge.
First thing’s first: Huge thanks to YA Bound Book Tours (my full tour here.) They were the magic behind the curtain. The hooked me up with 15 different bloggers, who shared Rising Ridge with the masses. We shared favorite excerpts, playlists, and well….opinions! My particular favorite was Jen over at The Cubicle Escapee.
I love her Oh dear, I’m in love with a romance novel quip. What really made my day was her connection to Olivia’s lack of direction. We all suffer from a bit of wanderlust and I poured all of mine into Olivia. It thrills me that other people feel as lost as I do as Olivia does sometimes. Especially when our path lay clearly right in front of our damned faces.
Additionally, this month was #authorlifemonth on my Instagram. Umm..hello….so much fun! Not only to share my own day to day not so inspirational moments, but to get to see those same moments from other writers! Surprise, your desk looks as awesomely chaotic as mine. Thanks to them, I now have a ton of new writer friends and a list of books to read a mile long.
Never forget Twitter…my favorite spot to share my rants about life in under 140 characters pearls of wisdom. This one snagged a tweet of the week from the Maryland Romance Writers.
I’m bursting into March with a Book Blitz (more blog stops!) to wrap up my Kindle Unlimited days for Rising Ridge. It’s been fun Kindle Readers, but it’s time for Nook to have its turn!
And also…The Dreamer. SO MUCH GOING ON!!! I will leave you with this quote from one of my Beta Readers as I gave him only the first 16 chapters to see what his thoughts would be as he stood on the edge of Madness with the character:
“I’m angry that you left me here…”
I will leave you with the words of my favorite doctor:
Allons-y my friends, Allons-y.
February 7, 2016
#Instamusic
Today’s challenge: Writer music. Rather than just offering a song, I thought I would offer a whole world. I prepared a monthly blog for March, but will release it early in honor of Day seven #authorlifemonth Enjoy!
As a reader, one thinks that characters are just simply made up words on a page. You can make them anything you want them to be, or mold them into the shape you have for them. This is only true on page one. Just like in life, as the pages pass, as their days pass, they become who they were meant to be. They grow, they learn, they love, they hurt. They become. By the end of the book, these are not people that I’ve created, these are people who are real. They’ve created their lives through their own experiences. These are people that I spend my time with, and I am as much of an audience member to their world as you are.
The songs were chosen by the characters. When you step into their shoes, this is the soundtrack of their lives.
And the Radio Played…
Want to know the who, the what, the where of each song?
(Spoilers…)
Reveal Here…
February 1, 2016
Telling the World
As my world begins to turn its magical shade of sparkling white (make that record breaking sparkling white here on the East Coast) , we are reminded that Mother Nature is still, very much in charge. While I have never been a fan of cold, icy weather, I do enjoy big snow events because it’s forced quality time with the people around you. At the end of January, more than 30″ of snow fell within a 24 hour period. Work was closed, school was canceled, and we were snowed in for the better part of a week. In that week, my family and I watched movies, played games, and got hours of time together that we would have never otherwise gotten. We also banded together with our neighbors, and for several days, spent hours outside sledding, throwing snowballs, and building caves within the massive piles of snow. There was even a luge built, and it’s already gone down as one of the best events in neighborhood history.
Still, I was a sneaky little worker bee and was able to get several balls rolling in the calm before the storm, and I am very excited about it all.
A local children’s magician I know always ends his shows with the same riddle for the children to ponder in their little brains.
This institution is the biggest lending institution in the world, and it doesn’t charge any money for its services, what is it?
The public library.
As a reader, my library card is one of the most actively used cards in my wallet. As a mother, I rely on programs that the library provides to show my children that there is quite a good deal of fun to be had as they learn new and interesting things about the world around them.
As a writer, one of my main objectives this month was to get Rising Ridge on the shelves at my local library. I am thrilled to have accomplished that goal, and equally as thrilled to share that I have been accepted in several other counties in my area. I look forward to expanding the availability over the next several months, and hope to reach readers through the extraordinary power of the biggest lending institutions in the world.
I’ll be the first to say it….. come check me out!
December 31, 2015
Funky New Year
For my whole life, the holidays meant gathering after gathering with friends and family. Christmas Eve here, Christmas Day there, birthday parties shoved in for the December babies of my life, and gathering round to watch the ball drop with some awesome friends on New Year’s Eve. This year, we’ve even had the added bonus of having my husband’s parents in town for a visit, a rare treat as they live several States away. We are busy. We are blessed.
I am already looking forward to the months ahead, so many exciting things planned. My life is changing so quickly that I can hardly keep up, but baby, I’ve got my running shoes on!
The Good:
I’ve just wrapped up a really great contest over at Goodreads where several hundred folks entered to win some signed editions of Rising Ridge. I felt like a total boss standing in line at the Post Office with my small stack of books wrapped up for the winners. Congrats to them, and happy reading!
I am teaming up with the folks over at YA Bound Book Tours and will be heading out on a virtual tour for the week before Valentine’s Day! I am looking forward to visiting various Book Bloggers and chatting with them about Rising Ridge. Keep an eye out for some really fun additions to the book, so you can dive deeper into the story that played out in my mind while I was writing the book.
I have figured out Twitter! Sort of! At least, I have figured out how to link my Instagram account to my Twitter page, so you can follow me through my daily crazy life if you so choose to do! I continue my battle with Facebook and the ever constant issue of “reached posts”, the loophole to the Business Page. Though my personal account remains private (insert a picture of your cute kid here, complain a bit about the hormones of a budding teenager and you’ve read my page. You’re not missing much.) I find that I have to share my own posts just to have them seen. So yeah…Twitter if you have it. It’s a way more direct platform for me.
The Better:
I have just passed the half way point on my first draft of The Dreamer. Let me tell you my friends, it is getting hot…literally. I have lost two very precious weeks of writing to the holidays. Time with my family that I do not regret, but I cannot wait to open that file back up and get back into the locked closet where I’ve left our poor Claire!
The Best:
Reviews are coming in! A review is so very important to Authors, especially to first timers! When you’re shopping along the bookshelves and you’re wondering if you’re going to like a book, the first thing you do is read the reviews. Everyone has been so very kind, and I am loving hearing what you’re favorite moments of the book are! One reviewer recently said that she would love to read more from the people of Rising Ridge. Funny thing is, I wonder about them. A couple of them in particular. Maybe the will come back round for a visit one day.
Happy New Year!
December 1, 2015
Release Me
So many possibilities for today’s blog title, but I went with the most direct!
Rising Ridge is officially for sale today! I have to admit, I might have looked it up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble once or twice, or 65 times. Who’s counting?
I am so excited to bring this story to life, and introduce readers to these characters who have all but become real people in my world. I hope that you fall in love with them, as I have.
Rising Ridge paperbacks can be found at a variety of online retailers, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The E-book version is part of Amazon’s exclusive KDP Select program, which means you can borrow it from the Amazon lending library, or get it for free if you are part of the Kindle Unlimited Program!
Can’t get better than FREE!
Check out Rising Ridge today! Just in time for the holiday season, it makes that perfect little gift to complete your shopping needs!
Visit Amazon Today
Visit Barnes & Noble Today
Happy Shopping!
November 23, 2015
Rising Ridge Launch Party
It’s the start of a whole new chapter of my life, and my friends and family took pause to celebrate.
We have officially launched Rising Ridge, and I could have not asked for better people to join me as I prepare to introduce my work to the world.
It was a lovely event, I was able to share with my guests some insights about the book and its characters. We had a fun Q &A, and some great door prizes that were actual items featured in the book!
Of course, the best part of the afternoon was to be with the people who have been my cheerleaders and supporters!
Rising Ridge will hit the stands on December 1, and I could not have asked for a better kick off to the big day!
Fancy
It’s the start of a whole new chapter of my life, and my friends and family took pause to celebrate.
We have officially launched Rising Ridge, and I could have not asked for better people to join me as I prepare to introduce my work to the world.
It was a lovely event, I was able to share with my guests some insights about the book and its characters. We had a fun Q &A, and some great door prizes that were actual items featured in the book!
Of course, the best part of the afternoon was to be with the people who have been my cheerleaders and supporters!
Rising Ridge will hit the stands on December 1, and I could not have asked for a better kick off to the big day!
