Kat Daemon's Blog, page 7

2014! New Year, New Goals!

It seems only fitting that I begin 2014 with a post on this new blog.

Before I go on about my goals and hopes for the new year, I’d like to first reflect on the past year.

2013 was a tough one. It held a lot of challenges for my family and we are still trudging through some of them, but it held a lot of opportunities as well. Back in February, I was alone on my birthday. It was (as far as I can recall) the only birthday I’ve ever spent alone. I had just left the job I loved back in June and was attempting to “make it as an author”. My rejection letters were piling up, and I felt a bit lost. Needless to say, I was depressed. So I decided to spend my birthday writing a new manuscript. It was a gift to myself. I had always written full length adult novels averaging about 110,000 words. I wanted to do something different. So I took a character from one of my books that was in the slush pile and gave him his own story.

I started to get lost in the tale, and explored a new avenue of writing I hadn’t attempted before. It wasn’t long until I had a 25K novella on my hands. But I had no clue what to do with it, so it just sat and collected dust in my Mac. Then one day in August, I happened to see a pitch contest that this work might have been a good fit for. So, not getting my hopes up, I pitched it for the first time to Entranced Publishing. Now that little novella is a full length novel and will be published in March by Entranced.

So it just goes to show you, you don’t know where the road may lead you. That sad day in pajamas, I mourned the books that were not getting noticed, and by distracting myself, produced one of my best stories. Funny how life works out.

I also met my editor, Kara Leigh Miller, who turned my book from good to freaking amazing!!! Working with Kara gave me such confidence as a writer and showed me how to improve my stories.  For the first time I think I’m starting to grasp the phrase, “show not tell” and I have Kara to thank for that. She isn’t just my editor, she became a great friend in a short amount of time, so I actually was given 2 gifts the day I pitched my book

Now on to 2014….

I have so many wonderful things going on. The first of course is that my book, Taming Darkness, will be available on March 3, 2014.  I can’t express how excited I am about this! If you are into sarcastic fallen angels, a main character that gives new meaning to the expression, “devil worshipper” and a heroine that literally can bring him to his knees then head on over to Goodreads and mark it in your to-be-read list https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18779536-taming-darkness  (Cover to be added very soon!)

RT2014! It’s my first convention and I am so thrilled to be a part of it! Plus it’s in New Orleans and Charlaine Harris is one of the guest speakers… I need to decide which Sookie book I will (hopefully) get autographed! Plus I get to actually meet Kara in person, along with other amazing Entranced authors like Barbara Garren (who keeps me sane through laughter) and Georgeann Swiger (a fellow angel author) to name a few.

My personal goals this year are

1. To finish writing the fantasy book that I promised my daughter. Being raised on Oz and Wonderland, you’d think this would be easy. Nope, it’s hard to write original fantasy and although I have my characters a few scenes and a lose outline I’m struggling.

2. Sign with an agent *the dream of all dreams*

3. Work toward publishing the first book I ever wrote, which is so close to my heart it’s hard to give it away. This goal may actually become a reality… I’ll have to keep you posted on this one

4. BLOG MORE! I used to blog on a different site quite often, but my new day job takes up so much of my time, not to mention energy, that this will be a challenge.

I have other wonderful things happening in my life as well. My two closest friends are having life changing events this year: One is getting married in August (I’m a bridesmaid, yay!) The other is having her daughter in 2 weeks.

With all this positive energy being released how can 2014 not be amazing?

So how’s your 2014 looking?

Love & Light!

~Kat

#WIPMarathon check in #1

So much has changed since the last #wipmarathon. My life as a writer is a bit different know. The last time I took part in this amazing project, my goal was to finish writing a novella and take matters into my own hands and self publish it. I was very excited about this. I was researching editors and cover artists and trying to decide how to make this a reality. Early in the “marathon” I finished my first revision of the novella and handed it over to my husband to read. He was very encouraging, and suggested that I query it out “just to see what happens”. What happened was a book deal with a publishing press. Crazy, right? The novella turned into a full novel and I’m finishing up line edits now. 

So I am very excited to be a part of this new winter wipmarathon. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with the friendships that I made the last time and cheering others on! The support team here is amazing and I’m lucky to have found it. 

So without further ado….

Marathon Goal 

A completed draft of an old idea. Time to bring my character out of the Mac files and breathe new life into him.

Stage of Writing

I am going back to an old MS that I haven’t looked at in over a year. I need time to just reconnect to the characters and figure out where I want this story to go. I have a few intro chapters done and an outline for the middle but nothing more than that… an ending would be good too!!!!

What inspired my WIP

I have always, ALWAYS loved vampires. (Old school Anne Rice Vamps!!) I never ventured to write about them because the topic seemed very saturated and overdone. But I feel like I owe it to myself to try. So that’s my goal.

Possible Distractions

The day job *sigh*, my edits for my contracted book and my home life. Oh yeah, and Christmas.