Rani Divine's Blog, page 13

Bloop bloop

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. All month long, we’re celebrating all things druid. Why? Because the next of the Druid Novels, Anialych: People of Sand, is all set to come out this coming March (with preorders opening in February, woo!)! And I’m so excited that it’s all I can think about.
So, Tuesdays this month, we’ve been talking about all the Druid Novels—and Thursdays, well, Thursdays have been the epic day when I share a new excerpt from my latest, Anialych! If you haven’t been around much this month, you’ll definitely want to go back and read what I’ve been sharing.
Today, let’s talk about the third of the Druid Novels to ever hit shelves.
Dwr: People in the Water
Now, as you know if you’ve been following the Druid Novels (or my work in general) for any amount of time, the novels have not been released in chronological order. That means the story, as you know it, hasn’t been happening in order. With the release of Dwr, we come to what is thus far the closest we’ve been to the beginning. Dwr, of course, is the second book, chronologically. Though it was the third to hit shelves. It’s the book that immediately precedes Coetir, and it’s the book that I so badly didn’t want to write that I tried to make it into something else first.
Yeah, you read that right.
Remember last week, when I talked about Cedwig being the real start to the series as a whole? The book that really opened my mind to writing this as a series, and not focusing on Coetir being a beautiful standalone novel?
Well, I was still fighting when it came time to write Dwr. Fighting so hard that I actually attempted to write a different seafaring novel. It’s called The Cauldron, and it’s horrible. Horrible, because the story was supposed to be for the druids. It was meant to be about the Dwr, about humanity crossing over the water and encountering these beings within it. But I really wanted to write something with pirates, and there couldn’t be pirates in the druid world. Why? Because if there were pirates, then someone would’ve been to the Coetir islands before, and that just wouldn’t do.
I spent almost a month working on The Cauldron. I still have everything I ever wrote for it, and occasionally I go back and read it to remind myself that I should never write a book just for the sake of writing a book.
That’s not why I write. I write books with reason, with purpose, not just for writing’s sake.
I digress.
Thing is, Dwr became one of my favorite books in an instant, when I finally sat down to write it. I love it. I really do.
I don’t know how to swim, so I had to improvise when it came to describing things like diving and water pressure, but I had a lot of fun doing it. Once I started writing, I could honestly see everything in this beautiful water world.
And though it was a bit of a mess by the time I finished, after being slightly muddied by my ever-present desire to be writing a pirate book, I still loved every bit of it. Which made it a bit of a pain to edit. But the released version, I assure you, is my favorite of them. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. It’s exactly as it was meant to be. And it contains one of my favorite characters of all time.
Next Tuesday, I’ll share a bit about the book I wrote in the shortest amount of time—and the book that required the least amount of editing, all because I loved it so much that I easily immersed myself inside it.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Go

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I'm glad you stopped by! 
Today, if you didn't know, is excerpt release day!  
To celebrate the upcoming release of my next novel, Anialych: People of Sand, I'm sharing excerpts from the book, every Thursday this month. (make sure to check out last week's, if you missed it!) 
I hope you enjoy this short, the beginning, the start of a world you all know well by now. 
[love]
{Rani Divine}
Excerpt from Anialych: People of SandBy Rani Divine©Copyright RAD Writing, 2019
“Go,” Sheyvu breathed as she released the hands of her sisters, sending them off to their own lands. The choice had been made during the night, with the death of the witch. Though not Sheia’s eldest daughter, Sheyvu was chosen by the Vartes to take charge of the people—and they had looked to her in more than slight confusion when she’d made her decision known. The Dewin could not be localized to the desert, not when humanity could very well have spread out in any direction from the plains. The Vartes had left pieces of Paradise here on this world, and they needed to be protected. The tree of souls within the forest, the pure lake and seeing stones in the mountains, resting rock in the Anialych lands, and the spirits of the Diafol and Esforos himself locked away within the islands and in the deep. Sheyvu’s people could not leave them alone, for humanity to find at every corner.  One by one, her sisters left her sides. Corinne to the islands, Yeshu to the waters, Tzet to the jungles, Hythdor to the mountains, and Meena to the plains. They each had their own following of seven Dewin, Dewin who would be used to form their own species within their designated lands.  As soon as they left the desert, they would no longer be the concern of Sheyvu, nor even her own kind. The Vartes would give them means to speak to one another, as had always been. No matter the distance between them, they would always be as they were now—sisters, to the very last—but their realms would be their own. Coetir, Dŵr, Cedwig, Mynidd, and Cayau they would be called.   None looked back as they started upon their way, leaving Sheyvu and her hundred remaining Anialych to watch them leave. She was glad that they did not turn back to her. It meant they were prepared, that they agreed in her decision. Truthfully, the sisters had instigated the idea together. They’d worked as they always had in mother’s absence, voting on what would be the best way to proceed, and they’d known this was the path the Vartes had chosen for them. Humanity was restless within the plains, and the Dewin needed to hold the world in stewardship until humanity was ready to receive it. Even the plains themselves needed to be cared for, and to them Sheyvu sent the strongest of sisters. Meena would not be broken down, even under so great a charge.  “What are we to do now?” Aedan asked as he came up beside her, the highest among the wanderers—those most connected to the Vartes, second only to the witches.  “Delilah holds the key,” she replied, still staring after her sisters as they disappeared into the vast mirage before them.  In her heart, Sheyvu believed she was not yet prepared for what the Vartes asked her to do. Her mother had meant everything to her in years past, and now Sheyvu would live the rest of her days as witch in her own right. Though she’d known since childhood that she would be named witch if the time came for her mother to be taken back into the heavens, though she’d borne the triquetra mark upon her wrist from the day of her birth, she did not yet feel readiness for the task at hand. Humanity had rejected them outright. Sheia had gone to them in the form of the humans, a right granted only to the high witch, and still they’d mistrusted her. Sheyvu didn’t even know what been done to her mother in the hours leading up to her demise. All she knew was that Mother was gone, and that now she was one of only two of her daughters to remain in the desert.  Still she held her head up high, knowing the Vartes would bring her through this. She would not be asked to do anything that she did not have the strength or will to complete. The Vartes was by her side, even now. All she needed was to go to the humans, to make them understand, to show them the fault in their ways. But thus far, Delilah had been the only one willing to speak to any of them. And Sheia was the only one the girl had ever spoken with.  “I cannot go there,” she whispered under her breath as she turned to look Aedan in the eye. “Do you understand?”  “You wish for me to go to her, my witch?” His brow furrowed, and Sheyvu imagined what it would be like if he were allowed to turn human, how beautiful he would become if he could’ve taken on their form. Instead, the gift was given now to her and her sisters, to bridge the gap between human and Dewin. Sheia had called it a gift.  “Watch her,” she answered. “Delilah will be alone now. She will be afraid.” She turned and looked back out at the red rocks and sand-filled plains beyond. “Give her time.”  Silently, Aedan reached out and took hold of her hand. Now that Sheia was gone, her father was the only one who well knew the burden she bore. But without her mother beside her, Aedan seemed less of a father and more of a man who’d simply worked beside her mother all these years. In the lives of the Dewin, it was not necessary that Sheyvu’s father remain a part of her life. For the rest of her people, fathers and mothers were not even known. The trees surrounding resting rock were the ones who chose what pairs to join in the making of young. The high witch was the only woman required to bear children of her own body, with whatever man she saw best suited.  Sheia had chosen Aedan.  For his part, he had done his best to remain in their lives. But he was a wanderer, and it was not possible for him to remain in one place for very long. Every fiber of his being desired to be out there, to go and walk their land and pray to the Vartes. That was his charge. To go out into the deserts and speak to the land, to pray to the Vartes for Paradise to be returned to them all.  And yet, Sheyvu could think of none better to see to his mate’s final mission. Her father was the best option available to go to Delilah and to bring her deep into the desert, to resting rock. The girl would be the first human to lay eyes upon it, to see the whole of the Anialych with her own gaze. For now, Sheyvu could only hope that Delilah would be prepared for the things of the future. Already, Sheyvu felt as though she’d seen far too much.  “Go,” she urged, releasing Aedan’s hand. “Please.”  He nodded and turned toward those who stood behind them, toward resting rock. “Return to your duties,” he said to the crowd. “The witch has made her choice.”  Sheyvu’s eyes drifted down to the mark upon her wrist, the symbol that would forever tell her people of the family to which she belonged. She was the daughter of Sheia, the first witch to ever be born upon this world. Even in her wildest of imaginations, she did not know if she would be as successful as her mother.

The Leap

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. All month long, we’re talking druids. Druid Novels. My pride and joy. My baby. My beautiful little book series that’s finally nearing its end.
As most of you know, Anialych: People of Sand, the fifth of the Druid Novels, is due to hit shelves this March! Woo! And most of you probably also know that it’s not chronologically fifth in the series. No, that honor goes to Cedwig: People in the Vines. Anialych is actually the first, chronologically. It will reveal how everything got to be the way it is now, it will show the druids for who they really are, and explain why humanity is the way they are.
I cannot wait for you to read it! And therefore, we’re spending all month talking about the druids.
Last week, I told you a little bit of the story behind Coetir: People of the Woods, the first of the druid novels to hit shelves. The first I wrote. One of my favorite things I’ve ever written. And the humble beginning that was the start of the Druid Novels.
Today, let’s talk a little bit about Cedwig: People in the Vines.
Cedwig, as you’ll know if you’ve been following me for a while, was the second of these novels to be released. It was also the second one I wrote, though I fought it… hard.
See, at the time that I wrote Coetir, I’d only been writing novels in the Advanced Saga. I’d only ever written books in a series. I really wanted to write a standalone. Coetir was that standalone, for a few months. It was one and done. No more. Nada. "Please don’t make me continue and make this into a series."
But then I saw the Cedwig. I saw them in my dreams, I saw their eyes in the vines while I edited Coetir. No matter what I did, I couldn’t ignore them. So I wrote the book. Which almost turned out exactly the same as Coetir.
Why? Because I love Coetir. I didn’t want to change the story, didn’t want to have to modify it to make it work within a series as a whole. I never wanted that. But it had to happen. Things had to be changed in Coetir, for the rest of the series to make sense at all. And I didn’t want to make those changes.
Eventually, after much kicking and screaming, I forced a book out of myself. A long book. A good book. A unique book, that changed the way I saw everything in Coetir. And a book with so many holes that I dreaded going back and editing it. But it was a book.
And, what surprised me most… I liked it.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. I was writing this book because I hadto, not because I wanted to. And yet, by the time I’d finished Cedwig, I liked it.
But that didn’t mean I was done fighting the series. Oh, no. I fought the next one, too.
Cedwig, however, was really the book that launched the series. Cedwig was the book I wrote when I didn’t want to, the book that allowed a whole series to spawn out of a simple idea I got in the middle of a Viking Mythology class in college.
I’m so glad I took the leap, that I forced myself to sit down and write the amazing story of the Cedwig. They deserved it. All the druids deserved to have their stories told.
Thursday, you’ll see a bit of how their story unfolds—from the very beginning.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

My Only Friend (excerpt)

Hey guys! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I'm super extra glad you stopped by today, because today, I'm sharing the first ever released excerpt from my upcoming book, Anialych: People of Sand! 
Remember, check back on Thursdays this month for more fun reveals from Anialych (and on Tuesdays, for a little fun with the rest of the Druid Novels)! 
[love]
{Rani Divine}  Excerpt from Anialych: People of SandBy Rani Divine©Copyright RAD Writing, 2019
I didn’t want this. I’d never wanted this. My hope had been for Sheia to come here and for everyone to see her the way I saw her. I’d never meant for her to come here like that, for her to be attacked and questioned—and especially not for her to be executed. She was the leader of her people. They needed her. I didn’t know how they were going to get on without her. It would’ve been like asking all the women of Tywed to survive without men by their sides. Most of us wouldn’t have known what to do.  In part, it was why I disliked my home. Tywed was no better than the plains had been, at least for women. Things had changed for the men, as far as I’d heard, but that had never meant much to the lesser sex. When men were bettered, women’s lives worsened. That was what mother had taught me. She’d been forced into her own marriage by her father’s ruling, in exchange for an amount of silver she’d never known, and I knew she’d never learned to love my father. She’d loved us, as a mother should love her children, but it didn’t make things any easier for her when night fell. She used to tell me that I was her saving grace, that she had her little girl, and it was all she needed to be happy. I didn’t think that was true.  She hadn’t deserved to die by father’s side. If it was his time to die, then whatever power in the universe controlled life and death should’ve allowed her to live. After all, she’d been dead in life longer than she’d really been alive.  By the time it’d happened, my favorite brothers were already matched and gone. Amos and Kalev had families of their own, in towns far enough away that I could never have been sent to them. I’d vied for it, when Aran began discussing the option of leaving the plains entirely, but none of my siblings sided with me. Publicly, at least. Yosef believed I would’ve been better off with Kalev. I’d heard the words from his lips.  It was Mikah who made our decision for us. I didn’t even blame him for what he’d done, only wished I could’ve talked some sense into him. We all knew Zion was the warrior, not him. He didn’t have the heart for it. Upon his death, Aran’s harassment in the streets became too much for him to bear. He and Zion both believed opportunities would be better here, in Tywed. They believed father would’ve thought the same. That might’ve been why I didn’t want to come, at least in part. Aran, my eldest brother in Tywed, wasn’t much better than him. He’d always idealized father, following after him in every possible way.  Now as I sat below the window in my bedroom, the only place of mild comfort I had in my feeble life, I cried. I cried for the loss of my parents, the loss of the life I should’ve had, and for the loss of the only friend I’d ever known in life.  I’d come of age a few years before we’d come to the desert places, before our parents had passed on, and already Aran had seen me as a commodity. I was an item to be traded, bartered away for whatever tools or workers Aran needed in exchange. I knew it was only a matter of time before he chose a man and brought him to the house to meet with me. Until then, I was kept alone. We’d been here for months before I’d even made a friend. Aran wouldn’t allow me to leave our property, so I never spoke to anyone outside my family and the shepherd, Tobias. Yosef didn’t have much talent for talking to anyone most days, and Zion spent most of his time at the barracks, so there would be no visitors. If any had come, Yosef would’ve driven them away with his incessant laughter, or Zion would’ve drilled them with his stare so long that they would’ve felt as dead in life as a woman.  Sheia had been my one solace from all of it. She was the one person I could go to in time’s of trouble, and she’d always somehow managed to be there when I needed her most. I couldn’t count the times that I’d laughed over the fact that she wasn’t human. Of course she wasn’t. Of course the only person I could find to be my own, the only person I knew who was only mine and belonged to no other, wasn’t even human. But she was beautiful, more so than any person I’d ever laid eyes on. And she could look human, when she wanted to.  She was a druid—one of the creatures whispered about back in the plains, the dreaded monsters that fathers told of in terrifying bedtime stories, designed to keep their children in line. Anialych, she called her people. Anialych of the Dewin. They were given charge of the world until humanity was ready to take it over. Almost every day, Sheia had come to my home while my brothers worked, to tell me of her people. She’d wanted so much for me to come out there into the desert, to meet them.  I should’ve gone. I knew that now. But my place was here, and I had to follow the will of my brothers. I was a woman, not a man. I couldn’t make my own decisions.  A sigh passed through my lips and I lifted my head to lean against the wall behind me. It felt pointless by now, that I should go back to sitting here and crying the night away when only a few days ago I’d been told of Sheia’s decision to make herself known to the rest of my people. It had been foolish of her to believe they would accept her, that they would look her in the eye and feel trust the way I had. As it was, I didn’t even know why I trusted her so much. I just knew that every time I’d stood with her, I’d felt safer than I’d ever felt before. But my people had no reason to listen to me, even if I had stood up for her.  Groaning, I got to my feet and turned around, placing my hands upon the window sill as I looked out to the sunset. Tobias was out there somewhere, tending to Aran’s sheep and avoiding going to sleep. If my brother was in a good mood, maybe I could watch while the sheep were sheared tomorrow.  It should’ve been my job. I should’ve been allowed to work, to help my brothers earn their livelihoods. Instead, all I got to do was clean the fruit and vegetables brought to my table, cook the meat my brother put in front of me, clean the house we’d lived in for a total of seven months, since the day of its completion. The duty of a woman was to her home, to the men who resided in it. That was how all my brothers saw things. None of them bothered to clean up after themselves, knowing that if I had something to do during the day I would be less likely to pester them to watch over the sheep for even a few minutes. But the sheep were the only things I knew outside my home. I’d listened to their bleating every day, and I’d never once grown tired of it. I would’ve gladly gone out to pasture myself, if Aran would’ve let me.  There was no more hopeless cause. Not now that Sheia was gone.  My eyes stared out at the pink and orange clouds that hovered above the desert horizon, my tears quietly fading away. Out there, beyond the boundary of Tywed, stood two tall humanoid figures—figures I’d been invited to join. If I’d been brave, I would’ve gone then and there. I would’ve run outside my brother’s house as fast as my feet would take me, like the day I’d first met Sheia, and there would’ve been no one to stop me. I would’ve gone out there to her people, and I wouldn’t have turned back. There was life out there, life that I could hardly even imagine. I wanted to live it, to see the world the way Sheia had. But even the thought of it made my heart race and my stomach turn. Could I really leave behind the only life I’d ever known, to go and be with a people who weren’t even human? Even when I’d run that day, the day I met Sheia, I’d fully intended to return as soon as my tears dried.  One of the figures moved away from their place, slowly disappearing into the horizon, and more tears came to my eyes. I had to wonder if they were there waiting for me, waiting to find out if I would come and join them now that their leader was gone. Or maybe they blamed me. Maybe they were hoping I would come out there so they could punish me for what I’d done.  Sheia was gone, and so was whatever link I’d once had to her people. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, and I sniffled quietly as I reached up to run my fingers through my hair. I wished I could be stronger than this, that I could bring myself to turn around and leave this place.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw as Tobias got down off the fence and walked into the pen to be with the sheep. At the very least, I could be out there. I could be doing something that mattered instead of being cooped up here with nothing to do and nothing to show for my life. All I knew was how to be a good woman, how to take care of a man and make sure he came home to a clean house. I wanted to know how to be alive, how to think for myself and make my own decisions. I wanted to be like Sheia, to move through the desert with purpose and reason, to be listened to when I spoke, to be looked upon with eyes of kindness instead of lust. I was a person, and I wanted to be treated like one. I didn’t think that was too much to ask, especially not of my own brothers. Surely, they would understand why I’d gone, wouldn’t they?  But then, they hadn’t even known that Sheia was a friend to me, before she’d gone out into the village. They knew nothing about me, and they didn’t seem interested in learning. Maybe I should’ve taken that as a sign.

Humble Beginnings

Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to the first post of 2019, in Too Many Books to Count—I’m glad you stopped by.
This month, I want to celebrate.
Why?
Because my next book, Anialych: People of Sand, will be hitting shelves soon, and I want to celebrate. It’s chronologically the first book in the Druid Novels, and the second to last to be released (there might be a surprise, between this one and the last one…), and it was probably the most difficult to edit, thus far.
But this month, this lovely chilly January, and I want to take some time to talk Druids, with all of you.
Do you know how it all began?
Coetir: People of the Woods
You have no idea how many title options I went through with my publisher before we finally settled on this one. The idea was to show how unique the series was, by listing them under very unique names. Try looking up Coetir or Mynidd or even Cedwig on Amazon or Barnes & Noble—mine will be one of the first that pops up, because there’s nothing else in that name range. We also wanted to primarily use the bi-line, as a method for marketing the books. People of the Woods, of course, refers to the Coetir. They are the people of the woods, in the island forests.
Of course, if you’ve only read Coetir, you might be surprised to learn it takes place on an island. Why? Because most people don’t think of their large island home as an island, but as their home. It’s not like it was a tiny island.
Coetir had extremely humble beginnings. Beginnings that started in my Viking Mythology class, back in college.
I was a little bit behind in writing a story for my Advanced Fiction course, but thankfully in a class that allowed us to write genre fiction (my Intermediate teacher believed that fiction could not be genre, and therefore refused to let his students explore anything outside pure fiction). Anyway, I needed to have a flash fiction piece written in about two weeks (which was behind, for me), and I hadn’t had any ideas.
Then, presto, my Viking Mythology teacher started talking about druids.
I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I do remember the moment I flipped my notebook over and started writing what I thought was the beginning to a beautiful short story. I tweaked it, lengthened it, and submitted it for my fiction class. But even after that, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Night and day, I envisioned the druids. I saw their world, their lives, and how humanity had mistaken them… and I knew I couldn’t stop there.
I wrote Coetir in less than six months, thinking it was a standalone novel. We’ll talk about what happened next, next week.
Oh, and that short story? Most of you probably haven’t ever read it, though it has been published. It was in one of the back editions of Mavguard, and it’s about Ellya, as a little girl. That’s still how I see her, most of the time. A curious little girl, afraid to grow up. And I still write her just as easily as ever. We visit, sometimes, whether in the past or in the future. 
Check back in on Thursday, for the first ever released excerpt from Anialych: People of Sand!
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Move Along

Hi there, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day, and I’m glad you came back over to read my final post of 2018. It’s been a fun month, hasn’t it?
All month long, I’ve been talking about a few things I want you all to keep in mind as we close out 2018 and usher in 2019, and today, I probably have the most important topic of all. True, this month has been full of things you probably already knew, things you might not have wanted to be told again, but we can always stand to be told at least one more time.
Especially when it’s something important.
#6: Time to move on
If there’s only one thing you focus on, as you glance back and forth between the year behind you and the year ahead, let it be this. It’s time to move on. It’s time to step forward, to walk straight into the future with your head held high.
Yeah, it’s hard to move on. Yeah, for some of us, 2018 was horrible. Yeah, for some of us, 2019 doesn’t look any better.
That doesn’t mean you can’t grow through it, learn from it, and move on.
In fact, that’s exactly what you should do.
It’s time to move on.
If you’re still one of those people who sees 2019 as nothing but a blank slate, a year in which you’ll accomplish far more than you accomplished in 2018, then it’s time to stop looking back at 2018. It’s time to look forward.
But if you’re like me, if you don’t think of time and years the same way everyone else seems to, then it’s time to buckle down, to stay strong, to keep moving. December gets busy. We all know that. January is usually just as hectic. So keep your head up and keep moving.
Keep calm and carry on, as they say.
The new year brings opportunity. So did the year you’re leaving. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to look at 2019’s opportunities and shrug, like you did with some of the ones in 2018? Or are you going to move on, to keep going, to keep pushing forward?
Well, that’s for you to decide.
Either way, it’s time to move on.
Whether from a year of glorious victory or a year of wretched failure, it’s time to move on. To move into the future. To look to the better that’s just over the horizon. Because whether you’re in a good place right now or not, there’s always something better, just over that hilltop.
All you have to do is get there. Move on. Keep moving. Don’t ever let the calendar get you down.

Thank you all, once again, for sticking with me this year! I’ll see you on the other side. (where, I should mention, I'll be posting in the RADblog for both January and February!)
[love]
{Rani Divine}

MC

Hi there, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, because today, I want to wish you the very merriest of Christmases.
I know, I know, I’m early. But I’m going to be taking Christmas day to be with my family, and I have a very special topic I want to discuss in here before the new year hits, so I wanted to take this time to thank you, all of you, for joining in on the fun in Too Many Books to Count.
I don’t know a lot of you personally. I might not even know your real names. But I do know that you read my blog, that you come by twice a week to see what I’m chatting about, to learn and discover a little bit about writing and editing along the way. And I know that it’s been a lot of fun, this year. I’ve had a great time exploring the world of fiction with you.
So, from the depths of my heart, Merry Christmas.
I hope that these next few days fill your hearts with joy and love, and that you find yourself full of smiles on Christmas day.
I know for some of you, the holidays aren’t a time for joy—and for you, I wish the brightest of smiles and the heartiest of laughter. Even if you don’t feel like it. Even if you feel like you have nothing in the world to smile about. Crack a smile, force the laugh. It’ll feel good once you’ve done it (science proved that, a long time ago).
Even if you’re by yourself in a room, know that you’re never alone. Come on back to Too Many Books to Count. Read a series from a few years ago. Hang out with me. Drop some comments (if I see them on Christmas, I’ll hit reply).
Thank you, each and every one of you, for spending time with me this year. Merry Christmas, my friends. Here’s to many more.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Change the Same

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. It’s been a hectic month, and I’m thankful you took a moment out of your schedule to hang out with me. I’d miss you, if you weren’t around.
All month long, I’ve been talking about some things that I want you to keep in mind, as we close out the year. And, true, a lot of these things are things you already know—but they’re also things we all need to hear, once in a while. We need to hear them, and we need to take them to heart. As writers, sometimes we need to hear it from another writer. And that’s what I’m here for. :)
#5: There won’t be as much change in 2019 as you might think
I don’t know why, at the end of every year, we get our hopes up that next year will be so much better, so much different, from the year we’re leaving. The odds are, not that much will change. In fact, the odds are that next year will be pretty darn similar to this year. Sure, some years will be better than others, some will be worse, but in the grand scheme of things, in the day-to-day, everything generally stays about the same.
Keep that in mind, as we enter 2019. It’ll help take the pressure off.
You, my dear writer, are always growing. I don’t mean to say that you’re not, that your craft isn’t constantly getting better or that you don’t need to work on it because nothing’s going to change. No, dear writer, I’m telling you that if you think of every year as just another year, another opportunity, without putting an extreme high-beam on it, your accomplishments will be all the greater (and it’ll be easier to look back on every year with joy).
2019 can’t control what becomes of it. But you can. 2019 isn’t an entity, but a year. It doesn’t get to decide what happens and what doesn’t happen. You do that. But if you put too much pressure on, if you try to tell 2019 that it has to be the best year ever, you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed when December rolls around again.
Before you go getting the wrong idea again, I’m also not telling you that you shouldn’t aim high every year. You should. In fact, you should aim higher in 2019 than you aimed in 2018—but only if you actually reached all your goals in 2018. If you didn’t, then shoot for the same mark. Once you get it, shoot higher.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to make 2019 amazing, that you should just think of it as another year and nothing more. No, what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be thinking in terms of the calendar days at all.
Have a goal in mind? Set yourself a realistic timeframe to get it done. Don’t focus on it fitting into 2019. Focus on getting it done to the best of your ability, in the time that you have.
2019 is just 365 days. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s just a group of days on a calendar, and it shouldn’t be how you look at the things you want to accomplish. Sure, you’ll do some amazing things in 2019. I know you will. I will, too. And we’ll look back on 2019 and be thrilled at the things we did. But we’ll also remember 2019 as the year we started something. The year we finished Goal A and moved on to Goal B, the one that would take us five and three quarters of a year to finish.
Doesn’t matter what year it is. You probably won’t be able to complete all your goals, if you don’t set them realistically. That's what happens every year, or didn't you notice?
So take the pressure off. 2019 is just another year, another set of calendar days in which to work toward completing our goals.
And it won’t be all that different from this year, because nothing ever changes that far. We’ll still be writers, we’ll still be writing, editing, publishing, and repeating. Only we’ll be getting better at it along the way—no matter what day or year it is.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Do not stop

Hi there, and welcome to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. Really, I am. It’s good to have you here, to know you’re reading, that you’re hanging on through the end of the year.
And that’s what we’re talking about, this month. We’re closing out 2018 and ushering in 2019, in the best way I know how. I have some things I think you ought to know, or ought to remember, to realize, because I’m fairly certain you already know a lot of these things. I’m going to tell you anyway, because I think these are things we need to keep in mind, especially as we’re about to enter into a new season of life, a new year.
#4: Success is fleeting—don’t let it get you stagnant
Tuesday, we talked about failure. We remembered what it’s like to fail, and we reminded ourselves that failing doesn’t make us failures. Today, I want to discuss the opposite.
For some of us, success came easily. For some of us, success only meant finishing a novel, and once we did that, once we succeeded, that was it. That was all we wanted to do, and so that was where we stopped. For others, success meant publishing that novel and making money off it. We did it right, we started making money. But that meant we’d done the thing we set out to do, so there was nothing more to do with it anymore.
That’s what I want you to avoid.
You, dear writer, must not allow yourself to become stagnant. You must not allow your writing to be a thing in the background, a thing you think little of, a thing you allow to fall to the wayside when you’ve completed a goal.
I know how easy it is to become stagnant when a goal is completed, when we’ve done something amazing. And I know why it is. We want to revel in that completion, to enjoy it as long as we possibly can, without thinking about the fact that now we have to set a new goal, move on to a new task we must complete. I know, it’s easier to revel than it is to start from the bottom once more. I know, dear friend. I know. I’ve been there, too.
But we must not allow it to happen, when it comes to our writing. We must not allow writing to be the thing that falls aside, once we’ve reached our success—whatever that success may be.
So you’ve finished your book—now what are you going to do with it? So you’ve edited it—now where are you going to get it published? So you’ve published it—now how are you going to market it? So you’ve marketed it—how much are you going to make from it? So you’ve made a following—now how are you going to keep them?
There’s always something more for you to do, some new success to reach for. Don’t allow your successes to make you stagnant, to convince you that you’ve done this great thing and can now take a break.
Take a breath, take a rest, yes, by all means. But don’t stop. Don’t let it fall aside.
Success is fleeting, success is amazing, contagious—and you must always reach for it. Always, no matter what. No matter when. No matter what you’ve just done.
You, dear writer, can always do better. Even when you’re a bestseller.
Don’t let your successes convince you that you’ve peaked. You haven’t. You’re just coming into your best days—can’t you see them, just there, up ahead?
I can.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Stepping Stones

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. Especially this month, if I’m being perfectly honest.
The whole month of December, I’ve been taking the time to tell you some things you ought to keep in mind as 2018 closes, and to remember as we bring in 2019. These are things that some of you probably already know, that most of you should already know, but I want to tell you anyway. Why? Because sometimes all it takes is for you to hear it from someone else, for you to finally understand and embrace it.
I’ve experienced it myself, so I know firsthand.
Today’s topic? Well, I’ve experienced that, too.
#3: Failure is only a step toward success
You know this. I know you know this. You hear it all the time, you recite it to yourself every time you make a mistake and have to pick yourself off the ground, but for some of you, you’ve said it for so long that you no longer believe it like you used to. You’ve fallen down so many times that you don’t want to get up. Or you’ve succeeded so many times that you’ve forgotten failure is always an option (remember the Mythbusters' famous mantra?).
We’ve all experienced failure. You’re lying to yourself, if you say you haven’t. You’ve suffered some setbacks, and had to pick yourself up off the ground. And you’ve gotten back up, no matter how long it took you.
But you will do it. All of you. You, dear writer, you know that your writing is important. You know it’s necessary, needed, that there are people in the world who must read what you have to say. And so you pick yourself up and you start again. You try again. You try something new.
And I’m proud of you, for it.
I’m so proud of you, my friend.
And I’m proud of you for remembering that failing doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you someone who tried, and someone who will keep trying until they get it right. Failing once doesn’t mean you are the failure, only that the thing you tried didn’t work out. Failing a hundred times doesn’t mean that, either. The failure was the thing you tried, not you. Not you, my dear writer. My friend.
You are not a failure, despite the failings in your life.
Failure is something everyone must go through, on the road to success. For some of us, not much failure is involved. For those, it’s easy to forget that failure happened at all. For others, failure is a constant in the back of our minds. But it should never be something that holds us back. No, dear writer, failure should propel you forward into the future.
Into success.
[love]
{Rani Divine}