Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 6

Surprising Revelations (about the way I view my writing)

So I have been making myself go through the Marriage by Obligation Series since discovering the errors in Secret Admirer. I have Anyone But the Marquess coming out next month, and I want to make sure the series fits it. I’ve been blabbing on and on about burnout on this blog, so I doubt anyone is shocked to learn that I wrote all of these books while at the low points of my burnout phase. Those books were like pulling teeth the entire time I wrote them. I loved the stories, but I hated the process of writing them. I don’t even know how to explain how I was able to write while feeling that way. It was not easy. I spent a lot of time walking just to cope.

Anyway, to my surprise, these books don’t sound (to me) like someone who was going through burnout while writing them. As I listened to them, it was as if the past couple of years never happened. How I managed to pull that off is anyone’s guess. Maybe those walks helped clear my head enough to do an effective job.

I’m relieved. I put off listening to those books for so long because I dreaded how they would sound as I listened to them. I only listened to them because I wanted to make sure I had the right consistency elements in Anyone But the Marquess. I’m also moving forward with more books in this series, so I wanted to refresh my memory on what happened with characters like Lord Dayton and Oscar because they will be getting their own romances in this series. Usually, I cap my Regency series off at Book 5, but this time, I’m going to keep going because of the love potion angle. This angle was brought up a lot in Anyone But the Marquess. I have not yet decided whether the love potion should work or not. This is fiction, so anything is possible. I don’t like restricting myself to “reality” too much. It might be fun for Oscar to prove he can do it. But only time will tell how that subplot plays out in this series.

Another surprising thing I discovered is that it is possible to get one’s enthusiasm back for writing after going through years of burnout. I honestly thought I was done when I finished Worth the Risk. I know some people reached out wanting Felix’s romance, and I had one person who told me she wanted another historical western. At the time, I could not make myself write anything, even though I wanted to write the books they were looking forward to reading. I ended up reaching a point where I had to step away from writing because I couldn’t write anything else, no matter how hard I tried. I was completely out of “gas” in my creative tank. The break I took did help.

But when I think back on that time in my life, I believe my burnout boiled down to what outside influences I was listening to. There is so much doom-and-gloom messaging going on all over the place. It’s on social media, it’s on TV, it’s on the radio, it’s on billboards, etc. All around me, it feels like I’m being assaulted with too much, “This is the end of the country, and when the US crashes, the rest of the world is going with it,” messages. It doesn’t even matter what political affiliation you have. Both sides have this “if so-and-so gets into office, we’re all doomed” mantra. I didn’t realize it at the time, but listening to the news did do me no favors. Also, listening to negative messages about how the environment and the food are killing all of us didn’t help, either. I get why this anxiety-producing content exists. This type of content gets clicks, and clicks means more ads, and more ads mean more money for the platforms that have this content. I can’t even hang out with my friends without some of the “if this happens, we’re doomed” messages creeping into conversations, too. It is all over the place. A person has to make an effort to detox from all of it.

I think all of the fear-based content stressed me out, and I think that the stress punched my creativity in the gut so hard that I ended up not being able to write anymore. I decided to listen to music instead. I decided to spend my relaxation time playing Mario Party games (don’t judge me, but I love Mario) and I watched a lot of comedies. I did watch other content, but these were about improving my financial situation and getting healthier. And, of course, I kept walking. It has made a world of difference. For one, my dry eye cleared up. Who knew my dry eye was related to the “doom and gloom” stress? I am floored, but dry eye has not been a problem for months. And I have my creativity back in full force. I won’t say this happened overnight, but things were so much better in just one month. So I learned that you have to be careful about what you listen to and what you watch. These things really have an impact on your health, creativity, and emotional state.

I have learned my lesson. I’m not participating in the whole “the world is going to collapse” thing anymore. I’ve decided even if things are as bad as people are saying, I can’t change things by worrying about them. All worrying does is prevents me from writing books that I love.

A final thing that surprises me is that I realized if I enjoy listening to my own book, it doesn’t matter how much money that book brought me. I love the story, and that’s all that ultimately matters. (Now, I am looking into investing because I believe that is a good buffer for not making much money with writing income, but that’s a rabbit hole I won’t go down in this post.) Suffice it to say that writing for passion means that you can look back on your books and be content with them. To me, that’s a good reason to embrace the passion side of writing.

The Season of My Discontent

It all started when I decided to listen to the audio version of Secret Admirer.

I only got two chapters in when I cringed. Then I got to the scene after the dinner party where Lord Quinton upset everything, and I started making notes on what changes to make and where. Several inconsistency issues popped up because I had trouble deciding whether to give Lord Wright a son or a daughter. I even had my editing team look for words like “son”. I don’t think any of us thought to look for “heir”, but sure enough, “heir” slipped into the story, and worse, the sentences surrounding it contradicted why Amelia thought Grant wanted to get married in The Earl’s Jilted Bride. But there were more inconsistencies. Like Felix and Oscar being reckless with money when it was their father in Midnight Wedding. There were just too many little things that ruined the book, and the series, for me.

And to be honest, it was very embarrassing. I spent three days going through the book by listening to it. I cleaned it up as much as I could then swapped the old version on the retailers except for Radish. (Radish doesn’t allow episode changes after one week of putting the “episode” up.) I verified the changes took on Google Play in the audiobook. I haven’t checked the samples for the ebook, but I used the same file on ebook that I did for the audio. Anyway, if you have the book, I believe retailers will let you upload the updated version. (I am not a huge tech person, so I am not sure how to do it on different retailers. On Google Play for audio, if you bring up the book, it will ask if you want the updated version, and I just clicked on “Yes”.)

I knew my burnout was bad, but I didn’t realize it was so bad that I got that sloppy. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to just not write if you are in burnout so badly that you would rather poke your eye out with a fork than write another book. In minor burnout, you can still manage okay. You just take longer breaks and lower word count. But if you are in a really bad spot, the best thing to do is to not write at all. I know that is hard to do. I spent about 4-5 years in minor burnout because I was the main income provider for my family. I felt like I couldn’t stop. You don’t make money if you’re not writing and publishing books. I eventually had to slow down until I could not write anymore. If you keep going, can you get out of burnout by maintaining the momentum you’ve built up to make your business work? I don’t know. Maybe you can. All I know is that I couldn’t. So that’s why I recommend stopping until you get your creative flow is back.

2. Some book covers are a pain.

Yet again, I was not happy with The Hero Least Likely cover. After some help, I have come up with this:

I can only hope this is the last time I change this cover. Sometimes I do my own covers. Sometimes I hire out for it. At other times, I buy premade covers. Sometimes the first attempt is perfect. Sometimes multiple revisions still leave me banging my head against the wall. This is one of those covers. I can’t even imagine how much money I’ve spent over the years on covers.

A couple of cover artists I used to use are no longer doing them. Two of them seemed to have fallen off of the map. There’s no track of them anywhere. I hope they’re still alive and okay, but a part of me is worried they aren’t.

For premade covers, I like Period Images https://www.periodimages.com and The Book Cover Designer https://thebookcoverdesigner.com.

To aid in making my own covers, I like to use Bookbrush https://bookbrush.com. It comes with a “remove background” feature that makes it easy to get the couple into a new background.

3. I’ve come to admit writing book descriptions is not my strength.

And quite frankly, I’m tired of trying to write ones that sound decent. For people who are able to write book descriptions that pop, you have my admiration. It is HARD to do. I am done writing these. From now on, I am hiring others to do this valuable service for me. I know some authors consider it a waste of money, but it’s a total waste of my time to spend days revising descriptions only to find out the best I can do is “meh”. Also, I hate writing them anyway. Why keep tormenting myself?

For book descriptions, I use Best Page Forward. I have used them in the past a few times. Looking back, I wish I had used them for all of my books. I’ll be using them for each one now. https://learn.bestpageforward.net/book-description/

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I am not affiliated with any of the places I linked to. I only share them in case someone is looking for a place to help with covers or book descriptions. These are sites I get a lot of value from.

Tagalong Bride is Now Available!

Finally, after all this time, I have a historical western book to share.

I know, I know. It’s about time, Ruth. It was rough getting my brain in writing mode while slogging my way out of burnout. I can’t be 100% sure, but I suspect that all of the walking I did, especially at the zoo which provided inspiration for the scenery to go with my books, helped to get me over the slump. So lesson learned: take care of physical health and allow for relaxation time in order to keep things going. It always seems like you will lose precious word count if you step away from writing, but I’m learning that’s not so. (A lot of people in the writing community would have you believe if you’re not writing every single day, you’re not a real writer.)

Here is the book’s description:

Lucas Reid is desperate. He needs money, and he needs it fast. Wealthy heiress Gail Patterson isn’t the most attractive lady in Pennsylvania, but she is available. Putting on a pretense of loving her, Lucas proposes marriage, and she says yes.

Now it is his wedding day, and Lucas realizes that the hardest obstacle of his life has begun. He is going to have to make it seem like this marriage of convenience is one that will be full of passion–a passion he does not feel for his new wife. As he is struggling to decide how he is going to consummate the union, word comes from Arizona that his sister has been abducted by a group of bandits.

At first, he thinks this is the perfect excuse to delay things with his wife, but Gail is not the quiet and timid wallflower he thought he married. She is going to Arizona with him. And this is going to change everything about their marriage.

This is a historical, sexy western romantic comedy that features a virgin hero and heroine who’ve never traveled out West before. They will come across an inept deputy who wishes he was a hero, a group of bandits, and a scorpion that knows when to show up at just the right moment.

If this sounds like your kind of book, here is where you can find it:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Google Play (ebook)

Google Play (audiobook)

Smashwords

Everand

Radish

Finished my 100th Romance Tonight!

My 100th Romance!

If I had champagne, this would be the night I’d open the bottle and drink a glass. But alas, I don’t drink alcohol. (It inhibits weight loss.) But I did have a couple of pieces of dark chocolate earlier, so that counts as a celebration treat.

This moment marks a goal I set for myself back in 2012. I think I had reached my initial goal of 20 romances at the time, or I was close to it. That was over ten years, and it’s hard to remember exactly when I set my goal for 100 romances. At first, I set the goal to 50, but then I thought, “Why put the bar that low? Aim high. Who knows? You might reach it.”

And tonight, I did. Now, I set the goal for romances because that is the genre I love writing most. As most of you know, I’ve done other genres, and while I have enjoyed them, the romances have first place in my heart. It’s been a wild ride. In 2007, I had no idea when I picked up a half-finished story that I had started back in college, I had started something that was going to last for over a decade. I kept thinking I would write a couple of romances, grow tired of it, and return to my Raz fantasy series. But one romance story led to another one and then another. Around 2011, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to run out of romance ideas. So then I made the goal of writing 100 of them. My husband promised me an engraved award with my name and the goal on it when I reached this goal, so I’ll have to upload the picture of the award when it comes in.

I honestly wondered if this moment would ever come. That burnout phase I went through was so awful. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to write another book or even finish the ones I had started. I went from burnout into depression over the burnout, and that only made things worse. I’m relieved to say that I’m no longer in those two states. Lesson learned: if you get tired and need a break, take it. Better to take a breather than to keep pushing through the exhaustion. So anyway, this book represents the ability to travel the ups and downs of being a writer and still come out with a passion for storytelling. When I look at this book, I don’t think of how I made a business out of writing books. I think of how important writing is to me and how much those of you who read and enjoy my books mean to me. If it weren’t for you, I would have given up about ten years ago, and I never would have reached the goal. So thank you for helping me stay motivated.

This book will be out in October, which, coincidentally, is also my birth month. I didn’t plan things out that way, but I think it’s pretty neat that two will go together. It gives reaching the goal an even more special meaning.

The Frustration of Having a Child with Special Needs

This post is really on behalf of my 19-year-old son who is deaf and just right under the threshold for qualifying for state assistance for autistic adults. He definitely is not like a regular deaf person. A friend of mine has two autistic sons, one whom, unfortunately, is no longer with us, and I notice traits in her high-functioning autistic son that is also in mine.

Now to get to the subject of this post…

The frustration that stems from having a child with special needs is how other people react to that child. Yes, there are certainly things that are challenging in learning what works and what doesn’t for the child as the child grows up. But other people don’t realize this particular child is not like other children, and they will make judgment calls about the child, and they will also come up to the parent to criticize their parenting techniques. So really, it’s other people who expect every child and adult to be “normal” that frustrates me the most.

To be fair, most people are understanding when you explain why the child/adult didn’t act in accordance with what is socially acceptable. And really, if someone sees a person with an obvious special need, they will show a huge amount of patience and compassion. For example, when my mother-in-law was visiting last year, a lot of people showed a tremendous amount of patience when we wheeled her around town. So if people can see the special need, they do give the parent and the child a lot of grace.

Unfortunately, being deaf is one of those disabilities that people can’t see. This has caused quite a few unpleasant encounters for me and for him over the years. The most recent one happened this weekend. We were at a family-friendly place where they have train rides. There are no barriers that come down to stop someone from crossing the tracks whenever the train comes through a certain pathway. (They have barriers in another section of the place, but they don’t in this specific spot where the incident occurred.) My son and I were leaving a certain exhibit when the train was coming. I could hear the train coming and the bell dinging. My son, however, didn’t hear these things. He was too far ahead of me for me to run after him in time to pull him back. (If I were to run after him, I would have ended up on the tracks by the time the train was crossing the path, and that would have made a bad situation worse.) I couldn’t call out to him, of course. He wouldn’t have heard me. So all I could do was watch. I could see he was walking fast enough to avoid the train, so I wasn’t worried about him. But I knew people would get mad at him for “ignoring” the train’s whistles. And sure enough, there was a bit of a commotion. I was too far to hear what was being said. All I know is that the man running the train gave him the middle finger.

My son had no idea what he did wrong, and my husband and I ended up explaining why the man was angry at him. I mean, I get it. I know why. But I heard the whistle. I knew the train was coming. All I could do was warn my son to stop and look up and down the train tracks in the future. If I had thought this was going to happen, I would have warned him in advance. The problem is that I can’t warn him about every single event that will pop up because I never know when these events will happen. All I can do is deal with these things as they come. What I would love (but won’t happen) is for people to stop assuming that everyone can hear. That way, if someone shows no sign that they don’t hear a train whistle, it’s because they don’t hear it, not because they are ignoring it.

I do realize that even parents of children who have special needs that are visible face challenges. That friend I mentioned earlier got grief from a nurse in a hospital because her low-functioning autistic son would not be quiet. I knew this son. Yes, he was an adult, but he could not sit still and be quiet. He needed to constantly move around, and a lot of times, he would make sounds. He didn’t do this to be annoying. He wasn’t trying to upset people. This is just how he was. And even though the nurse could tell he was different, she didn’t give my friend grace. He is the one who, unfortunately, passed away.

As frustrating as it is for me to watch the way my son is treated when these things pop up, and as frustrating as it is to deal with people’s criticisms over how I parent, it must be even more frustrating for my son. He lives in a world without the subtle cues those of us who hear get while we grow up. He deals with a perspective of someone who is just under that autism line. He does not experience life the same way most people do, and he never will. I realize people will make their judgments without taking into consideration that there might be some special needs going on with him. He does get frustrated that people expect him to hear when he can’t. I just tell him that he should take into consideration that they don’t know he can’t hear so he should let them know. Not everyone will take the time to read the message on his phone or on a piece of paper, but for those who will take the time, it has helped. It’s not perfect. In a perfect world, people would stop and realize they don’t know all the facts so they don’t jump to conclusions.

Spots from the Zoo that Inspire the Settings in My Books

My favorite place to visit is the Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. I average a trip there once a week. It’s a relaxing place to walk, and the exhibits are so much fun to see. I suppose it was only a matter of time before some of the exhibits would influence my writing. I thought it would be fun to share some pictures that provided me the settings for which I planned my books.

But first, I want to share two pictures of owls that are in the desert dome of the zoo. I couldn’t resist. I am in the process of writing Anyone But the Marquess where the statue of an owl plays a role in the course of the story.

 

I don’t want to spoil how the owl plays a role in this particular story. But let’s just say that Guy Milton (Lord Quinton) has a panic attack over an owl statue in this book. If you read Midnight Wedding, you know why.

So anyway, I saw a couple of owls and decided to take these pictures in honor of Guy.

 

Alright, now for the setting part of this post…

The reason I decided to set Tagalong Bride in Arizona was because of the Desert Dome at the zoo. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how varied the terrain in Arizona is, and I picked a location that is full of trees, rather than the desert environment that inspired me at the dome. I’ll be rectifying this situation in Book 2 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series, The Hero Least Likely.

 

Here are some pictures from the Desert Dome that inspired the creation of this series:

and

Another exhibit at the zoo that I fell in love with is for the sea lions, and the setting is the Northwest Pacific. After walking through this exhibit for a year and a half, I finally decided I had to write a book that took place in this setting. That is how The Wilderness Bride was born.

I took a story idea I had a couple of years ago and placed the heroine and hero in Oregon. Here are some pictures from this exhibit at the zoo:

and

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Every time I go to the zoo, I go through these exhibits and think of different scenes that might make up the stories as I’m writing them. It makes writing even more enjoyable.

Doing a Little Tweaking to My Books

I’m talking about my current works in progress, and the changes I’m making are minor.

I adjusted the text that I used in the covers in my Love Under Desert Skies Series.

I think I finally got the look that will work. *fingers crossed*

 

I used BookBrush on these. If any author is looking for a cover creator program that will remove a background from a model, let you try out different fonts that are royalty free, and is pretty easy to use, I would recommend checking it out. It doesn’t change a person’s hair color or dress color. But it does enough stuff that makes it worth me having a subscription to it.

Usually, I will buy a pre-made cover on Period Images and use BookBrush to add the text. (I did this for The Earl’s Jilted Bride, Worth the Risk, and Anyone But the Marquess.)

 

Sometimes I go to The Book Cover Designer. Now, in this case, you purchase the cover and tell the cover artist what to use for the text. I did this on Secret Admirer and Midnight Wedding.

 

There are times I do go direct with a cover artist. Unfortunately, some no longer to be in business. I did some searching. One’s LLC is now dissolved. Another doesn’t seem to be active. The website and blog are gone. There are only three that seem to still be around. This is why I try to stick with pre-made covers or do them myself. If I ever want to add to a series, it’s easier to keep the “look” of the series if I did the books myself. Otherwise, I have to get as close to the “look” as possible.

Okay, so this wasn’t supposed to be a post on my covers. Let’s get to the other tweak.

I modified a couple of parts in Anyone But the Marquess. Due out October!

I was going to use a subplot that I thought would play out well for the main plot, but it fell apart 3/4s of the way into this story. I was going to have Lydia experience a falling out with her two friends, Rachel and Carol. Then she was supposed to become friends with the main character, Elizabeth. And somehow, Elizabeth was supposed to help bridge the gap between the friends. But the story never went in that direction, and to make it go there would have felt wrong to the flow of the story. I spent last weekend revising this subplot so that it’s no longer there. Now I’m back on track with where I need to be. The story is better now because of it.

I made changes to the personality of one of the characters in The Hero Least Likely.

I don’t want to say too much about this one since Tagalong Bride isn’t out yet. Let’s just say that I had a couple of people read over Tagalong Bride, and one of them really did not like a particular secondary character. Since I am bringing the full cast of characters into The Hero Least Likely, I need to work on the character that she didn’t like. Thankfully, I wasn’t too far into this one. I just got three chapters in.

Last weekend and partly into the beginning of last week, I rewrote key parts of this one. It took more time than I expected. I figured it would be easier since I wasn’t far into the story, but it took me longer to decide who this character needed to be in order to be more likeable. I know the character now, so this story is where it needs to be. I like this direction much better.

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So anyway, those are the tweaks I’ve made. I’m hoping that everything in these stories will go smoothly now.

AI Can Do Some Good Things, But I Think It’s Best to Leave the Writing to the Author

I know I’ve done posts about AI in the past. If you’re bored of this topic, please disregard this post.

Artificial Intelligence is going to be disruptive in many ways, and one of the ways it is going to be disruptive is in the writing industry. Don’t get me wrong. AI has a good side. For example, I am grateful to the advancement of technology to create digitally narrated books because when an author has almost 100 books published, it’s not easy to pay a human narrator to do all of them. I also think technology will be helpful in successfully translating books to different languages. One thing that would be fun is to see technology advance to the point where authors can make “movies” or a “tv series” off of their books. AI would be beneficial in all of this. There are some exciting uses of AI.

But I don’t like the idea of using AI to write the actual stories. Maybe it’s my age. I’ll be 50 in October. (That sounds older than I actually feel. I feel like I’m 32.) I still think AI might be helpful in brainstorming when stuck in a book, and it can probably be helpful with creating book descriptions. I tried to do that a couple of years ago, but I ended up just talking to writer friends instead. The almost ‘half a century old’ girl in me prefers the old fashioned way, I guess. And that part of me thinks a human being is best suited to create and write the book. I realize a lot of writers argue that they create the idea for the story but let AI do the writing for them. Then they go through and clean things up. In my thinking, if you’re having to go through and clean it up anyway, then you might as well write the first draft yourself. But I know that sitting down and writing the first draft does takes considerable time to do. It’s not something you can spit out in a few seconds like AI can. So there is the time factor to consider. It’s easier to edit something than it is to create it.

And I wonder if this makes me a dinosaur in the writing arena. I know what happened to the dinosaurs. They became extinct. Maybe AI will get so good that the books will be on par with what a human writer can do. Maybe, in some cases, AI will be even better. It’s hard to say when the technology is still new. But there is one thing AI will never do, and that’s create a something that comes from the heart.

There’s something to be said for having a human being create the story. When a human being is writing the story, there is an intimate connection between the characters and the storyteller. The writer is with those characters every step of the way. The writer feels everything the characters do. (At least they do if they’re doing it right.) There’s magic in that. And I believe that magic reaches out and connects the author with the readers. I can’t explain it, but there seems to be a bond that develops between an author and the reader through the story. When I communicate with readers who enjoy my vision for my work, I feel like I’m with a friend. Is that corny? Probably. But I love that connection. It’s one of the best things about being an author. I don’t see how that same kind of connection can happen when AI gets involved in the writing process.

Also, AI takes away the joy of creating new stories. I’m here because I want to write. I’ve been through burnout, and yes, it really is hard to write when you’re in that phase. But once you push through that phase, the creativity flows again. In going through burnout, I learned you need to take breaks, do non-writing stuff you love, go at a pace that fits your lifestyle, and set boundaries with others (and yourself) so that you don’t end up exhausted. I wonder if a lot of authors who are using AI to write their books are doing it because they’re in burnout, and they have to keep paying the bills with their writing income. AI doing the writing is a shortcut, and shortcuts are convenient. Treating writing like a business does put pressure on the author to produce content. It’s not like writing for a hobby where you can write when the muse shows up. Sometimes that muse takes a vacation, and there’s no telling when the muse will come back. In a business, you write whether you feel “inspired” or not.

I am all for treating writing like a business. I would like to make money at this as much as anyone else, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of not writing my books. Books are as valuable for emotional reasons as they are for financial reasons. There’s nothing better about being a writer than escaping into the world you created. I love my writing days again. During burnout, I lost that joy. When you have that joy back, you no longer take it for granted. AI can’t give you that kind of joy. AI might produce a book, but there will be something missing.

I’ll end this post with a final note. We don’t need to make “six figures” a year to make it with our writing. If we lower our expenses and learn to manage our money well, we can easily do it on less than the golden “six figures” that gets lauded all over the writing community. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to take inventory of how much you actually need to make in order to pay your bills and have about 10-20% to save aside. Obviously, you need an emergency fund. Three to six months is the general advice. Some even say to set aside a year’s worth of expenses. This also depends on whether someone else is bringing in some money into the household, if there are any dependents (children or elderly parents), or if there’s something else you need to pay for, such as medical bills. Oh, and don’t forget taxes. You have no option but to pay that bill. Sit down and create a plan to address how much money you need each month in order to check all of those boxes. My guess is that a good majority of people don’t need “six figures”. I know I don’t. That’s good news. It means we don’t have to feel so rushed to get books out all the time. That takes the pressure off from being tempted to let AI do the writing for us. I think what readers value most is the connection with their favorite authors. It’s a slow growth strategy, but it’s one that will last.

I recently came across this neat tool from author Joe Solari. It helps you factor in writing expenses and how much you need to write in order to make a profit. I thought it was a neat tool so wanted to pass it along since I am wrapping this post up with a talk about money.

If interested, check out The Author Capital Planner

Two Fake Accounts of Scammers Pretending to be Me Were Found on Facebook

Thanks to an author who contacted me last night, I became aware of two scammers on Facebook who are pretending to be me. I have a huge favor to ask of those of you who are on FB. Will you please report these as fake accounts?

Here are the fake accounts:

https://www.facebook.com/ruthnordin01

and

https://www.facebook.com/gaddafi.sele.5

Apparently, these scammers are sending messages on FB and trying to use my name to phish for personal information and/or purchase marketing services. The author who told me about this didn’t let the scam go far, which is a relief. I would hate for anyone to be duped into doing something that is not in their best interest.

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I have created a FB account to help counteract this nonsense.

Now, I have decided to go ahead and create a FB account to help counteract this. I remember years ago that an author had the hardest time getting a fake account removed. She had to get on FB, too. So I am trying to stop these scammers, too.

I have not been on FB for years, so I wasn’t able to create a username. My profile doesn’t have a neat username after the “.com/” part. It has a series of numbers and symbols. But this one is my legitimate profile.

I used a newer picture of myself for the profile picture.

I am with my husband and kids, but I focused in on my face. So look for the short person on the right with the black hat.

And I used this cover photo:

If you see those two things, you know you’re on the right profile.

I’m not too happy with that cover photo, but it’s the best I could come up with on short notice.

I wanted something to quickly help let you know you can trust the profile, and to do that, I had to use pictures I have never used before on any social media platform.

Here is the link to my legitimate profile page:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562385772267

I feel so out of touch with how FB works. I’m not sure if they will allow self-promotion, but I will use this profile to let people know about my books. I don’t have much of an exciting life personally. My books and the characters are real interesting parts.

If you want to friend me on FB, please send me an invite. I’m afraid to extend an invite right now since these scammers have already gathered quite a few “friends”. Once this all settles down, I’ll start extending invites myself.

I hope that all makes sense. I’m writing this late for me. I should have been in bed two hours ago. But I wanted to alert everyone on what’s happening before the scammers are able to reach anyone else.

The Marriage by Obligation Series will be More Than Five Books Long (And it’s all due to a fight two brothers had.)

Today I wrote a scene that, quite frankly, surprised me. I didn’t see it coming until I was writing it. (This often happens when I’m writing because the story evolves as I’m creating it.)

Remember Felix and Oscar from Midnight Wedding (Marriage by Obligation Series: Book 2)?

They got into a fight today. This happened in Chapter 20 of Anyone But the Marquess. (I’m over 3/4 of the way into this book now, so the fight shows up later in the book.) However, now that I see how things have been going between Felix and Oscar throughout this book, I suppose the fight was to be expected.

Usually, these two will have a difference of opinion and let it go, but they didn’t do that today. Today Felix told Oscar that Oscar can’t keep doing his lab experiments in the townhouse. To be fair to Felix, Oscar did just admit that some of his chemical solutions have the potential to explode.

Oscar was really upset that Felix doesn’t want the lab in the townhouse. He accused Felix of using him to fix things so he doesn’t have to pay a servant to do the handyman work. (Oscar did serve as the handyman in Midnight Wedding.) Oscar also accused Felix of not seeing the value in his experiments. The specific thing Oscar is currently trying to create is a love potion. (So you can see why Felix is skeptical about it.) I’d been wanting to feature a character who was working on a love potion since about 2012, and I’m happy I can finally address this now.

Anyway…

This fight came at the perfect time. I was struggling with what to do about Oscar. I was afraid that I was going to be stuck with making Oscar a bachelor forever. But now I don’t have to. Oscar is so mad at Felix that he has decided to pack his things and leave. He’s also taking the lab with him.

I can’t end the series with things hanging in the air like this. I had been debating whether to wrap this series up with Anyone But the Marquess or to let it continue. I typically don’t write more than 4 or 5 books in a series, but this one needs to go on. Oscar’s book will be next in the series. I only have a vague idea of what to do for him, but it will involve some kind of scandal because that is the only way a lady is going to marry him since he’s so messy. Also, Oscar isn’t interest in marrying anyone, either. So a scandal is the only way this romance is going to happen.

I’m sending Oscar to Lord Dayton’s residence. Lord Dayton is a character I introduced toward the end of The Earl’s Jilted Bride. He’s Lord Wright’s friend who likes to put on different disguises, and he uses these disguises to do the work others pay him to do. I brought Lord Dayton into Anyone But the Marquess in order to set the stage for his romance, which is later in this series. He might be a good character for Oscar to try the love potion on. (The attempt will fail, but we’ll end up giving Lord Dayton a wife out of it somehow.)

These are the books currently in this series:

I’m hoping to get Anyone But the Marquess out in October. *fingers crossed*

I am thinking there will be three more books to this series. I don’t have titles for those yet, but I do have two covers in the waiting. I’ll keep you updated as I figure out more.