S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 26

Sunday Update – February 20, 2022

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

First of all, thank you to anyone who purchased one of my new releases this week. I know I sold a few because rankings appeared on my two books on Amazon, but I am not checking sales, so I have no idea how many there were. I'm sure a few of you picked them up, and I'm forever grateful.

It was a busy week for me, prepping my website, blog, and newsletter for the publication of two books. I think everything is good now. I uploaded the books with only one major hiccup. I forgot to tell Smashwords NOT to distribute it to a bunch of stores because I reach those stores through a different distributor. Oops. There were double copies of my books on several stores for a few days. I don't think anyone bought the phantom copies, but if they did, oh well. Maybe I'll get paid for it, maybe I won't. It's my own fault, and I just have to live with it.

Consequently, I will not be uploading my books to Smashwords anymore. I don't like the fact that you have to publish the book THEN go back and tell it NOT to distribute to certain stores. That option should be off by default, and it should be a part of the publishing process, not an afterthought. This is not a problem on Draft2Digital where it's the last step in the publishing process. I will now wait for Smashwords and Draft2Digital to merge so that this never happens to me again.

In other news, I'm very happy with my transition over to Gutenberg on this blog. The classic editor was slowing my site down, and I was getting annoyed with the unresponsiveness. Now the site is zippy and fast, and I'm used to the block editor. Only took me a week! But I already use it over on SFR Station, so I had some experience already.

In biking news, I biked over 60 miles on the Peloton this week. I did two ~25 mile sessions on the bike, Monday and Wednesday. I was on the bike for about 100 minutes each time. I've been working on endurance biking with steady cadences. It was fun and I'm glad I did it. I plan to do it again in two weeks. I basically load up my iPad with stuff to watch and then just watch TV and ride. It works out well for me.

Writing is now picking up again. I'm working on the next Kimura Sisters novella and I strongly suspect I'll be done with it in the next few weeks. I'm ironing things out as I go and getting to know Myra. It's fun! I'm enjoying the whole process.

Today, I'm driving down to the beach house for a few days by myself. I'm feeling cooped up and burned out from having to take care of everyone and everything around here. So I'm going to get some quiet time and to wait for the Peloton bike to arrive there. :) Of course.

I had another day this month where I uploaded photos to my Instagram Stories document what I did.

There were lots of walkies with Lulu.

My pickled eggs turned out nice! Love the color.

I also made a really delicious quinoa vegetable soup from Cookie and Kate.

I worked on my temperature blanket while watching Grey's Anatomy.

Got some writing done.

And spent Friday evening with my family at my cousin's house.

It was a great week! I hope you all have a fabulous week. Stay safe and healthy.

The post Sunday Update – February 20, 2022 appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

A Fortunate Accident Is Now Available!

Lots of good news this week! A Fortunate Accident, the second book of the Amagi Series, is now available for sale.

I really enjoyed working on this book. It gave me a lot of room to explore a few things about this series that I've been thinking about a lot — a dysfunctional family and relationship network, Skylar's past and insecurities, and Rio, of course. Rio is my baby of the whole series. Lol. You may think that the characters are my focus, but I do a lot of daydreaming about this crazy planet and the creatures that inhabit it. It's been fun to write about them again.

I won't be working on the next Amagi Series book until late summer, so enjoy this one! Hopefully it'll keep you satisfied until the next book is written and released.

An impending lawsuit. A dangerous job. A love from her past…

Life is starting to make sense for Skylar Kawabata. She can finally see a path forward with her ship, her crew, her family, and her new suitors. Walking that path, though, is the hard part.

Skylar's mother is threatening to sue her for the ownership of the Amagi, and it leaves Skylar teetering on the edge of a cliff. She must get all her evidence in order and keep her mother's consort from harassing her crew or worse. Funds are tight, so it's a blessing she's been offered a new job in the jungles of Rio. It will be lucrative… only if she can arrive there in one piece.

When her previous flame, Kalvin, shows up out of the blue, the tenuous balance in her network disintegrates. Kalvin is a high-flying rogue pilot and his presence, while exciting, throws a wrench in Skylar's carefully crafted plans. And now that they're in the jungle together, she'll need to figure out how Kalvin will fit into her life. Will he brave both the terrifying creatures of Rio and Skylar's broken past, or will he disappear just like he did when they first met?

The pressure of holding everything together is too great, and when Skylar cracks, her confidence in her own memories is at stake. Can she hold her new job and network together long enough to fight for the Amagi? Or will she lose everything she has, including her life, to the jungles of Rio?

A Fortunate Accident is the second book in The Amagi science fiction romance series. If you like capable heroines, insanely hot men, and thrilling world-building, then you’ll go crazy for S. J. Pajonas’s daring action-adventure.

Purchase A Fortunate Accident Today!

I hope you enjoy this book in the Amagi Series! More to come in the future!

The post A Fortunate Accident Is Now Available! appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

The Nogiku Series Has Been Completely Updated

It's funny how all of these things have landed in the same week in February. I didn't plan it that way, but I'm glad to have several projects ending at once! In this case, the entire Nogiku Series has been updated and uploaded to all of the retailers.

Do you own the old versions and want the new ones?

There are a few options available for you here.

If you purchased on Amazon, use the Amazon website to navigate to Account > Content & Devices. Find the book you want to update, and choose “Deliver or Remove from Device.” You should remove it from your device, then choose “Clear Furthest Page Read” from the More Actions menu. Then re-open “Deliver or Remove from Device” and send it to your device again. You may need to do this more than once to get the new version. I tested it out on my Kindle Paperwhite, and it took two attempts. The new version has 2022 on the copyright page and a new ebook design.

You can contact me with a proof of purchase (a screenshot will do), and I will give you BookFunnel links to download them.

You can also start by downloading Removed and Released from my direct store, since these books are now free. If you continue on with reading the newly updated series after that, and you had purchased the books before, you can still contact me with proof of purchase, and I will hook you up.

What I changed in the new versions…

I ended up changing quite a bit of the structure of these novels for this update. Removed and Released saw the most changes. I moved a lot of chapters around, cut a lot of description, and removed/edited some sexy scenes.

The whole series saw a change from the Japanese honorific suffixes (-san, -chan, etc.) to English titles like Mrs. Ms. Miss, etc.

The overall story did not change.

Haven't started this series yet?

I can't imagine there are many of you out there! But just in case, you can start the whole series with TWO free books! Download Removed to start and then get Released for free as well.

Download Removed Today for Free!

ETA: Sorry, I forgot about this before this post went out. Paperbacks for this series will be available in March. I took the original paperbacks off sale because I need to completely reformat them with different paper and different ISBNs. I also am no longer selling box sets of this series. If you purchased a box set and want new files, please contact me with proof of purchase.

The post The Nogiku Series Has Been Completely Updated appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Suri’s Sure Thing Is Now Available!

I have good news today! Suri's Sure Thing is now available on its own for sale. Many of you probably already read this story when it was a part of Pets in Space 6, so I don't expect it will be a title that gets a lot of sales. But it's on sale now if you haven't read it and/or you are new to my work. I was waiting and waiting for this to be available on Scribd, but they seem to be slow to add it to their system. Oh well! Maybe it'll be up on there soon.

All work and no play…

Suri Kimura has decided not to go to the Hikoboshi Farewell Ball. She’d rather work in orbit and earn more cash, even though her overbearing father insists she should attend. When she meets up with her dog, Finn, and her best friend, Erik, for a short planet-side rest, they’re met with a surprise. Her ex-boyfriend is back and he insists on taking her to the ball.

Suri doesn’t know what to do. Finn’s doggy instincts don’t trust the ex, and neither does Erik. Something strange is amiss, but Suri has to give it a fair shot. After a disastrous attempt to rekindle the romance, Suri realizes Erik means a whole lot more to her than just a friend — but, does he feel the same?

Quiet and reliable project manager Erik has always taken care of Suri, but it's never felt romantic before. When he rushes to her side to help her handle her ex and her work troubles, Suri suspects that the dynamic between them has changed… or has it?

Will Suri and Erik breach the boundaries between them? Or will Suri just return to space and leave her feelings for Erik far behind?

Suri's Sure Thing is the first novella in The Kimura Sisters science fiction romance series. If you like juicy family sagas, handsome men with a heart of gold, and lovable dogs, then you’ll adore S. J. Pajonas’s thrilling best-friends-to-lovers romance.

Yay! I'm so excited that this is finally available on its own for you. It was a pleasure having it in Pets in Space 6, and I hope you'll pick it up if you missed it in that anthology.

You'll find all the links to purchase this one right here!

Purchase Suri's Sure Thing Today!

The post Suri’s Sure Thing Is Now Available! appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Sunday Update – February 13, 2022

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

It was another crazy week around here. I feel like we never have boring weeks anymore. There's always something going on.

My husband returned home on Sunday from Las Vegas pretty late in the day. Thankfully he a good time with his friends and the whole trip went well. He slept in his own bed Sunday and Monday nights, but then on Tuesday, he drove down to the beach house to take care of things after we had the burst pipe there. Lulu really missed him, of course! And things are always harder at home without him. He spent the night there and drove back the next day. Then he went to the city on Thursday and his car got a flat tire before he parked it in the garage to catch the train. The fun never ends!

I spent the week doing lots of the usual stuff, walking Lulu, exercising, etc. This week I finally got around to making pickled beets and pickled eggs. They turned out really good! I put them in salads. Mmmm. Lulu likes her new car seat and it has lessened her anxiety in the car SOME but not all of it. I finished up the Winter Power Zone Pack Challenge this week, and I'm happy with how I've been doing on the bike.

I didn't mention in the last update that I'm now tracking all of my food again. I had given myself 6 months off from tracking, just to see if I could maintain my weight loss without thinking about it too much. But the holidays did me in. Lol. I think they were tough on everyone. So now I'm back to tracking. The first 5 days were hard but now I'm rolling with it.

I'm also not sleeping well again. If I go to bed too late, I do nothing but toss and turn all night. I'm trying to figure out now if I need to go to bed at 8 or 9 PM from now on. That would be a serious bummer but I need sleep. As I sit here typing this, my right is twitching. A sure sign I am sleep-deprived.

I also did some website maintenance here to speed up my site. I deleted or disabled plugins I'm not using and switched over to using the Gutenberg editor because the Classic Editor was making everything slow. I hope I can get used to it.

In writing news, I finished up all of my edits on the Nogiku Series. I reformatted everything and uploaded the changes. I also made pricing changes (Released is now free, too) and delisted the box sets. I wrote bonus scenes for A Fortunate Accident, edited them, formatted them, uploaded them to BookFunnel, and created a page on my website that I'll publish this week for all Bonus Content for all of my books. Phew! I was very busy this week! Tomorrow, I finish up prep work to publish A Fortunate Accident and I start working on my next Kimura Sisters novella! Lots to do! I'm super excited by it all.

Lulu had a spa day at daycare and got her Valentine's photos taken! Aren't they adorable?

I took my oldest daughter to get her Covid booster shot. Outside of the facility, everyone takes their sticker and puts it on the wall when they're done.

I got a new coat for outdoor walking with Lulu. I can't believe how nice and warm it is! I also can't believe I didn't do this sooner.

Lulu in her carseat, looking out the window in the back.

Snoring on the couch next to me.

It was warm this week! (It's snowing now, of course.) So I spent a little time outside on the deck in the sun.

When my husband is away, I eat ALL THE GLUTEN.

And finally my pickled beets and pickled eggs. I'm going to have a pickled egg today with lunch. Mmmm.

Have a great week everyone! Stay safe and healthy.

The post Sunday Update – February 13, 2022 appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

TV Chat #16 – Gilmore Girls, Emily in Paris, Get Back, The Expanse, Blown Away Christmas, Foundation

Though I haven't been reading much this year except for my own work (like 600,000 words of my own work), I am watching a lot of TV in my downtime moments. So let's get to the shows I've finished recently!

Gilmore Girls
Comedy, Drama | October 5, 2000 (United States)


8.2











Writer: Stars: , , Summary: Thirty-two year old single mom, Lorelai, lives with her teenage daughter Rory in the small town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, with crazy neighbors and many ups and downs.





Photos


See all photos >>


Source: imdb.com

So I finally finished Gilmore Girls! I watched all of the seasons and then the Netflix special afterward. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on this show. Lol. Probably too many. I'm glad they always stuck by their quirky nature and the fast fire dialogue. That was always a bonus of the show. But I'm disappointed that they didn't give Rory her happily ever after. She could have easily gotten everything she wanted out of life WITH Logan. There was no need to choose between the two. I guess this is coming from my romance background where you can choose the love you want and everything else too. I get the feeling the show runners caught some flack from that because they tried to give a happily-ever-after in the Netflix show. Notice how I say “tried.” It was half-ass, for sure. Sigh. Overall, I'm glad I watched this show and I can appreciate the faults.

Emily in Paris
Comedy, Drama, Romance | October 2, 2020 (United States)


6.9











Writer: Stars: , , Summary: Emily, an ambitious twenty-something marketing executive from Chicago, unexpectedly lands her dream job in Paris when her company acquires a French luxury marketing company - and she is tasked with revamping their social media strategy. Emily's new life in Paris is filled with intoxicating adventures and surprising challenges as she juggles winning over her work colleagues, making friends, and navigating new romances.





Photos


See all photos >>


Source: imdb.com

I loved the second season just as much as the first, I gotta say. It was fabulous. There were lots of laugh out loud moments and things to just love. There was this scene where Emily reads out a letter she wrote in broken French with a voice over, and it was so funny. Especially the response from the friend she wrote the letter to. And once again, I loved Emily's friend, Mindy. She had some of the best lines. I will probably watch this season again soon.

The Beatles: Get Back
Documentary, Music | November 25, 2021 (United States)


9.1











Stars: , , Summary: Documentary about the music group The Beatles featuring in-studio footage that was shot in early 1969 for the 1970 feature film 'Let It Be.'





Photos


See all photos >>


Source: imdb.com

The full title is The Beatles: Get Back, of course. But once you read the words “Get Back” you'll have the song stuck in your head forever and ever, amen. This was a long watch because it's nearly 8 hours long. We watched it over the course of two weeks, turning it on when we didn't have other things to watch. Yes, it was boring in parts, but overall, I enjoyed it. I'm a huge Beatles fan. Laura in FACE TIME is a Beatles fan because I am. :) Watching them compose music and jam and play songs by other artists was a lot of fun. I didn't realize that the dynamic within the groups was so one-sided, though. It's clear that George Harrison got put on the back burner most of the time, and that Ringo Starr was just there. He showed up on time and left on time every day, and then he didn't do much between then. It was interesting to watch.

The Expanse 
Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 60min | TV Series (2015– )


8.5











Writer: , , Stars: , , Summary: Two hundred years in the future, in a fully colonized solar system, police detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), who was born in the asteroid belt, is given the assignment to find a missing young woman; Julie Mao (Florence Faivre). Meanwhile, James Holden (Steven Strait), the first officer of an ice freighter, is witness to an unprovoked attack upon the ship, by craft believed to be from Mars (MCRN Federation). As news of the attack spreads throughout the system, the incident's flow-on threatens to destabilize already tenuous relations between Earth, Mars and The Belt. Far away from the struggles in deep space, on Earth, Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a powerful United Nations executive and diplomat, works to prevent war between Earth and Mars by any means. Soon, the 3 find out the missing woman and the ice freighter's fate are part of a vast covert conspiracy which threatens all humanity. Written bynano_tech





Photos


See all photos >>


Source: imdb.com

We finished the last season of The Expanse and I'm sad that it's over. I absolutely loved all of the books and seeing them come alive on the screen was so cool. Overall, I think they did a good job with the book material and making it work for six seasons. I'm a little confused as to why they included material from the STRANGE DOGS novella when they're not going to dive into the meat and potatoes of the Laconia world. But oh well. Hopefully they have a spin-off at some point. I've heard some rumors that might happen.

Blown Away: Christmas
Reality-TV | November 19, 2021 (United States)


6.7











Stars: , , Summary: Five fan-favorite glass blowers return to the hot shop to compete in a series of Christmas-themed challenges; the winner will receive a $10,000 cash prize, plus an additional $10,000 will be donated to his or her charity of choice.





Photos


See all photos >>


Source: imdb.com

I have thing thing about reality shows. There are only a few that I like, Project Runway being one of them. So I picked up Blown Away Season 1 at some point during the pandemic and loved it. Blowing glass is really cool. I got to do it once as a teenager and I really wish it was something I could try as an adult (maybe someday). The Holiday/Christmas special was just what I needed. I loved all the projects people made and the winner definitely deserved it. This show is not only fun and interesting but also educational. I highly recommend it.

Foundation
Drama, Sci-Fi | September 24, 2021 (United States)


7.4











Writer: , Stars: , , Summary: Far in the future, The Empire is about to face a reckoning unlike anything else it's faced before: several Millenia of chaos has been predicted by the galaxy's leading psycho-historian: Hari Seldon. But can The Empire offset the disaster before it begins? —Johnny





Photos


See all photos >>


Source: imdb.com

And finally Foundation, which I finished yesterday. I read all of the Foundation books both as a teen and young adult. Maybe 4 times? So I was wondering how they were going to adapt that story to the screen. First of all, I should note that the first 2 to 3 episodes are slow. We almost gave up on it. We turned it off in the middle of an episode to go to sleep and didn't pick it back up again. But then my husband was traveling so I decided to pick it up where we left off and I'm glad I did. The action and story started to zoom ahead around the 4th episode and then I couldn't stop. I'm really pleased with the amount of women writers and directors I saw in the credits. I'm also really pleased with the diversity of the cast and the gender changes on many of the characters. These books were great but Asimov was never a fan of women. They were merely set props in his books, two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. This was a breath of fresh air. I do want to mention that there is a serious lack of LGBTQ+ characters though. I hope that's fixed in later seasons. All in all, this one is worth sticking with.

The post TV Chat #16 – Gilmore Girls, Emily in Paris, Get Back, The Expanse, Blown Away Christmas, Foundation appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Sunday Update – February 6, 2022

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

After going back and forth with the dev team at MailPoet for over 3 weeks, I finally got the newsletter plugin working enough that I could send out my Friday newsletter! God, that took FOREVER. And there's still an issue with the display of subscribers within lists that they are working on. Why is it that I find all the bugs in software? Lol. I feel like bugs follow me everywhere.

So now my newsletter is a lot less frequent. I'm sending the first and sometimes the third Friday of every month. That's it. No more automated emails every Friday. It was killing my deliverability since the Apple privacy thing went into effect. But that's life on the internet. Gotta stay on my toes!

In my personal life, we had a crazy week around here. The beginning part of the week was life as usual. Then we got news that a pipe burst in our beach house. Thankfully, it was in an unconditioned space on the outside of the house. The water flooded the crawl space though, and it created a small pond on the lawn. I'm sure our water bill will be sky high. Sigh. Big thanks to the electrician who came to do work and ran into the problem.

Then there was this big storm coming in, and my husband was planning on going to Las Vegas on Friday, right when the storm would be here. So he ended up moving up his flight and going a day earlier. Not what I was expecting but I'm glad he made it there on time. The storm was TONS of rain and the temperature dropped by almost 30ºF in one day! It was nuts. Lulu didn't get any walks. Poor thing. I need to teach her how to walk on the treadmill.

Also, Lulu really misses my husband when he's gone. She is so sad. Not her usual self. She just loves him so much. Lol. I am a pale comparison to him. :) Dogs are so silly.

On Friday, something cool happened. I presented to a 200 level English class at Michigan State University on my writing process. I spoke about the Roadmap I always put together before I write a book. If you want to see my roadmap and presentation, you can go to this page and view the materials. I was invited to talk to this class by my former professor, Bill Vincent. I had him for many English Lit and Film Studies class when I was there from 1994-1998. We're still good friends. It was fun talking to the class and they asked great questions! I hope I can do it again sometime.

In writing life, a few things happened…

I sent off A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT to my ARC readers! There are only a few ARC readers left on my team, and now they have the book in their hands. So that's done. Yay! It will be published by Feb 18th.

I finished the main four books of editing on the Nogiku Series. I'm working on REVEALED now and I plan to be done with that in a few days.

I was given the rights back to SURI'S SURE THING from Pets in Space 6. So I plan to get it into Vellum and publish it this week. It should be out on the stores by the 11th.

I switched over to these cute cat-eye reading glasses.

Editing RECLAIMED, I came across this quiet moment between Sanaa and Jiro that I just loved.

Out walking with Lulu and she turned her back on the camera as if to say, “Ugh, Mom! NO PHOTOS!” Lol.

But she's always up for some tummy rubs.

A good week for food. We ordered sushi on Tuesday and had saké with it. I cooked up some salmon for myself for Thursday and Friday night dinners. And I bought broccoli and cauliflower on Tuesday, washed and cut it up for meals during the week.

I'm reading through my Japanese cookbooks for inspiration.

My new yarn came! I can't wait to knit with this. The colorway is The Solar System. There are chunks of color that match the Sun and all the planets. Love it!

And finally, a few photos from my presentation on Friday.

Have a great week everyone! Stay safe and healthy.

The post Sunday Update – February 6, 2022 appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

My Thoughts And Feelings On Re-Editing The Nogiku Series

Since December, I have been working on re-editing The entire Nogiku Series. I originally got the idea to do this after making changes to my cozy mysteries and re-editing the Hikoboshi Series. I really saw a difference in the tone and ease of my work after the changes had been completed, and I wanted to carry that through all of my backlist.

My first task in the Nogiku Series was switching from Japanese honorifics (-san, -chan, etc.) to English titles. For my cozy mysteries, they benefited from the switch from Japanese honorifics to English titles. The prose became easier for Western English speakers to read. It just flowed better, there's really no other way to put it. My initial thought that everyone would get used to it was definitely wrong. I made the change and I noticed that sell-through went up, and people were reading and reviewing more. For the Hikoboshi Series, I had already switched from Japanese honorifics to English titles, so I used it as my guide for re-editing the Nogiku Series.

Honestly, I thought I would miss the honorfics, and the whole story would fall apart without them. I was kinda attached to “Sanna-chan.” I have a friend who named her cat Sanaa-chan, after the character. (Serious love for that.) The good news is that once I dealt with a few references to the honorifics directly in speech, I didn't miss them once they were gone. Once again, I think the prose flows nicely without them. So it was nice to see the story still holding strong.

The next thing I dealt with was getting rid of any extra Japanese in dialogue. The few references to Japanese items (like the katana or kotatsu) have been preserved. But things like apologies or greetings were all edited into English. I thought I would miss these too. And in some cases, rereading the Japanese texts I wrote brought about some natsukashii (nostalgia). I remember doing all the translations, and how much better I was at Japanese 10 years ago. Sigh. (This is why I'm doing Duolingo now.) Anyway, only in a few cases am I sorry to see them go, but I don't think readers will miss them.

The most re-editing happened on Books 1 and 2, REMOVED and RELEASED. Both of these books were written before I truly understood 4-act structure, so they were both a little long and some scenes were just not needed or out of order. I also felt like the first chapter of REMOVED was too slow and laden with details.

Cut, slice, dice! I ended up cutting 14,000 words from REMOVED, and 19,000 words from RELEASED. Books 3 and 4, REUNITED and RECLAIMED fared much better. I cut 9,000 words from REUNITED and only 2,000 from RECLAIMED.

Finally, I put my most critical eye on the last book of the series, RECLAIMED. This book continues to get some harsh reviews to this day because of the way I chose to end the story. It's a happily-ever-after for Sanaa and Jiro for sure, but it's not happily-for-now for Sanaa. It's a classic Hero's Journey where the protagonist loses pretty much everything and still defeats the enemy at the end.

And after giving it a lot of thought, I decided that all the details would stay. This story is true to Sanaa and her journey, and it makes her the clear-headed and forgiving person she becomes as Empress later. If you stick around, you'll see Sanaa in some of the Kimura Sisters books. I already have plans for her to be in Book 2. So those reviews will just have to stick around because I changed nothing of the story for the end, and I'm happy with it the way it is.

I didn't feel any remorse cutting these books or making them shine. I felt like a surgeon the whole time — peering in to see what was wrong, slicing off the dead bits, and sewing it all back up. It was my job, and I was going to get it done.

During the process, though, something wonderful happened. I fell in love with this series again. What a joy it is to be able to read my old work and still love it. I know so many authors who won't even look at their old books. They will even sometimes say they hate stuff they wrote. I find this a totally foreign concept, to be honest! Sure, I get annoyed with my stories after 4 or 5 rounds of edits, but hate them? No.

I love everything I've ever written because it was ME that wrote it. I'm not saying it's the best writing ever or worthy of awards. Merely that I wrote the books I wanted to read, and I still love reading them to this day. I'm so grateful I've stuck with my love of writing and never let myself just switch to a different genre or be something I'm not to ride a popularity wave and make big money. This is where I belong.

All in all, it was a pleasurable experience re-reading and making edits to this series. I have REVEALED left to go, and I don't anticipate anything big happening to it. I hope to have the revised series up for download and sale by the end of February. I'm sure you'll hear about it again in March.

The post My Thoughts And Feelings On Re-Editing The Nogiku Series appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

February 2022 Goals

I'm so glad we made it through January in one piece! The first month of each year is SO LONG, and then the rest of the year just rushes on by. It's also my birthday month, and once the birthday is over, it's just a slog. Onward to February!

What happened with January's Goals

Start first pass edits Skylar's Book 2. I finished this and the whole book! It's with proofreaders now.

Start Kimura Sisters Book 2. I haven't started this book yet because I decided I wanted to finish Skylar's book.

Edit REUNITED and RECLAIMED. I did REUNITED. I only started on RECLAIMED yesterday.

Schedule my promotions for my books through the end of March. Done.

Do my Duolingo Italian and Japanese every day. Done! This is fun! I do it every morning.

Start the Winter Power Zone Pack Challenge and keep up with the rides. I'm almost done with this! We're in week 5 now, and next week is the last week. It's been hard but doable. I think my fitness is getting better.

Close on the beach house. Done! And we went there over a long weekend, too.

Reading, knitting, and crocheting on my temperature blanket. Not as much reading or knitting, but I have been working on the blanket!

February Goals

Publish A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT. This is looking likely to be published on February 18th. There will be no pre-orders. I'll post to the blog and newsletter once it's available.

Finish editing the Nogiku Series. I have RECLAIMED and REVEALED left to do. Then new formatting, paperbacks on Ingram Spark, take the box sets off sale, and revise the prices.

Start writing the next Kimura Sisters novella. This is happening this month. I'm super excited to dive into Myra's life!

Do my Duolingo Italian and Japanese every day. Gotta keep my streak going.

Do some long endurance biking. Once the challenge is over, I will be concentrating on putting in more endurance miles on the bike. My plan is to bike for 90 to 120 minutes every day, Monday through Thursday. Climb rides on Friday. 60 minute class on Saturday. I will be watching movies and TV while biking.

Complete the Peloton Boxing Program. I plan to start this next week. It's a short program, and I'm hoping it'll be fun!

Reading, knitting, and crocheting on my temperature blanket. The usual!

The post February 2022 Goals appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.

Sunday Update – January 30, 2022

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

I'm currently in a little bit of a pickle regarding my website and MailPoet, which is a plugin I use to reach all of my lovely subscribers. For 3 weeks, I couldn't access any of my lists. Then they realized it was a bug and fixed that. Now when I look at my lists, they are all jumbled up and people who are not supposed to be in one list are there and listed as Unsubscribed. It's so annoying. I have not sent a Friday newsletter in almost a month now. People who are subscribed to my individual blog posts are receiving emails and that's it. I'm at the end of my rope. I sent more emails to MailPoet on Friday and haven't heard back. I'm hoping it'll be resolved this week. I paid for the damned plugin. I should be able to use it.

In regular life this week, nothing really interesting happened. It's been cold and snowy, and yesterday, we got hit by a blizzard. We got about 6 inches of snow (15 cm), but the storm turned and hit New England a lot harder than it did here. Lulu didn't get any walks yesterday. I plan on walking her today although I'm waiting for it to warm up some. It's only 10ºF outside.

I have good news! A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT IS DONE! I'm sending it off to my proofreaders today and I hope to have it to ARC readers by the end of the week. My tentative date for publication is looking like February 18th. No pre-orders. I will just publish the book when I'm ready. This is my new thing. I am just writing, editing, and publishing. No more beta reads or feedback from my critique partners. They only ever told me they loved the books and never suggested changes, anyway. So I'm on my own except for proofreading! (My beta readers and critique partners still read the books, just later.)

Moving on after this, I will be editing RECLAIMED and REVEALED. Then I will be republishing the whole series, asking Amazon to push the new content to people, and making some changes to the prices. After I'm done with that task, I will be moving on to writing the next Kimura Sisters novella.

It has been 32 days since I last checked my sales. I don't even care to check them anymore. I may glance at them when I upload A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT. I may not. We shall see. I downloaded my 1099s this week so I saw some numbers from other vendors. Nothing that bothered me.

I now go to Whole Foods every Tuesday morning right after it opens. I avoid people this way and get the shopping done first thing.

And I finally figured out why I kept getting white bread of different sizes at Whole Foods. The organic one is smaller! The regular one is bigger. I had no idea I was buying two different breads.

Lulu is cute but she's been a real pain about sleeping lately. She may have to go back to the crate for a little bit. Last night, I only got 3 hours of sleep. She woke me up after an hour and I tried to get my husband to go deal with her. He was too asleep to move (ugh) so I got up and put her back on the couch. Then it took me an hour and a half to go back to sleep, and my body did its usual wake-up thing at 4:30. Then I tossed and turned until 6:30AM when she was woofing outside our door again. THIS IS NOT ENOUGH SLEEP. I woke up today with bloodshot eyes and I'm cranky as hell. I'll be forced to cut my weekend short now and go to bed early tonight.

Sometimes my rides on the Peloton are super sweaty. I sweat through this headband during my 75-min ride and had to text my youngest child to bring me another headband. From now on, I will be bringing two headbands with me to the bike.

A good hair day.

Friday night was martinis and a fire. Lovely.

Have a great week everyone! Stay safe and healthy.

The post Sunday Update – January 30, 2022 appeared first on S. J. Pajonas.