Willow Sanders's Blog

Maybe It's OK to have ADD

I was talking to a writer friend of mine the other day.  She is hands and feet more successful than I am at this writing thing.  She stepped away from her 9-5 years ago and writes full time, with an agent, and a slew of books backed by notable publishing houses.She is reading my latest book.  The one I've been promising since like IDK March.  I'm stuck.  I sit and look at it and words wont come.  I know where its going I know how it ends but this final push to shoot me to the conclusion is fighting me worse than a toddler who hasn't napped and is coming down for a sugar crash.Anyhow, in this discussion she mentioned to me that she has something like 20 opening chapters written for various books.  Twenty.I have like seven books in various stages of completion and I thought *I* ad the ADDs.  Usually though as I write- like I am with this current book- which BTW finally has a title I love - I tend to ignore all the other stories that float in my brain and force it like an out of line child to focus solely on the task at hand, concerned that by focusing on the other books this one will never get finished.The final installment of the Secret series has been poking at my brain of late, it wants to be written or at least paid attention to a little bit.  A new book which I want to work on for NaNoWriMo this year- which will be entirely chick lit and I'm calling it a combination of The Help meetings Devil Wears Prada, also wants to be paid attention.In addition to that I have a novella series that wants to be written and some ideas for short stories.  So many ideas but very few are bearing fruit when I sit down to write.I'm starting to wonder if this is because I'm not just letting my brain work the way it wants to work.  Writing to me used to feel like flying.  It used to be something that was nothing but bliss as my fingers tried to keep up with my brain.  I don't know when I lost that or how I get it back.   I don't know why the thing I used to love, the thing I couldn't wait to get home from work so that I could escape for a few hours and be entertained by the character sin my head... why it doesnt bring me the same joy anymore.Maybe in order to get back to that I have to surrender to the madness and just write whatever words or scenes decide that they want to be written  even if it has nothing to do with the project at hand.  Perhaps its through the clouds of glitter and rainbows and unicorns and fog that I will find the way back to what I love and the ability to reach "the end" on this current project.

New Book COMING SOON

Ahhh- Im so excited and I just can't hide it!
Stay Tuned because very soon (Im hoping by the end of July) there will be a brand new book out.

I don't want to say much... I just came up with the title over the weekend and I'm not sure it's going to stick... BUT seriously I'm loving this book.
I hope you will too!

Stay tuned!

Drop What You're Doing & #WatchThis from @IamSteveHarvey #LiveYourJump

 A few days ago, I saw this posted on someone's Facebook wall.  Take a minute and watch the video it will be well worth it.   For me personally, I can't tell you how many times a day I struggle with wanting to throw in the towel, declare myself a failure and give up.  And every time I think it's time to peace out from the writing scene the Universe decides to send me a sign --whether it's someone buying my book, or a friend inquiring in to my recet manuscript, or something that reminds me of one

Why I'm Going to Pass on the Goodreads Challenge This Year

  Last year I dove in to the Goodreads challenge feet first.  Not only did I dive in to the Goodreads Challenge, but one of the groups that I belong to, dedicated to the many forms of Romance novels offered an annual challenge in tandem to the Goodreads challenge.  I figured 'why not?' it made sense if I had pledged to read 250 books that I should also join the Romance challenge to help me reach my goal.     There were many issues with my lofty goal.  First, by committing to read two-hundred

I love the Brits, but the Brits don't love me

So, I'm kind of in love with England.  What isn't to love with a country who gave us Austen and the Brontes and Thomas Hardy and Shakespeare,  Oxford and Cambridge, and the Beatles. I absolutely love England.  If I could go back in time and rewind to the day of my birth, I might just (if I had had the option) chosen to be a Brit.     My favorite designer Joe Browns is a Brit. My favorite shows: Dr. Who and Orphan Black?  British.     My editor, RJ Locksley is a Brit.     Why do I tell you all of

HAVE YOU SEEN MY MOJO?

  It's the middle of NaNoWrimo in case you didn't realize.  Maybe not a lot of actual authors participate in NaNo- I don't know.  I know there are a few that do I see them on the Twitter. I used to love Nano. I would look forward to it.  Revel in the delicious torture of not being able to put paper to pen on the new story bandying about in my head until 12:01am (yes I stayed up and counted down the minutes like a drunken New Years Eve Reveler) when the story would explode from my fingers like

Writing Walls & Other Things

  Its been a while since Ive randomly rambled about the thoughts in my brain.  Does anyone find that when their life has turned into a total shit-show that creativity just disappears?  Ive had a change in my regular 9-5 and am hoping that the new employ leaves a bit more room in my life for doing things other than working for the man (or, um woman as the case had been).  I have hit a creative wall in regards to all things story related.  I have two planned stories in the Dirty Little Secret

Writing Walls & Other Things

  Its been a while since Ive randomly rambled about the thoughts in my brain.  Does anyone find that when their life has turned into a total shit-show that creativity just disappears?  Ive had a change in my regular 9-5 and am hoping that the new employ leaves a bit more room in my life for doing things other than working for the man (or, um woman as the case had been).  I have hit a creative wall in regards to all things story related.  I have two planned stories in the Dirty Little Secret

How @Amazon is putting the screws to the little guy

So, I'm not a best selling author - clearly. :)  I don't write to become a millionaire, or even a thousand-aire.  I write simply because of the love of writing and hoping people will be touched by my stories.  Obviously since my books are for sale and not for free - I'm hoping to make -something- on my books, but I have absolutely no illusions that I'm going to be rolling in the cash.I currently am running a .99 promotion for my first book - mainly to expand my readership as my reviews and sales have hit a bit of a slump.What's the big deal right?  Yeah- thats what I thought too-  until I got this Nasty Gram from AmazonHere is the problem with this.  First- without marketing and marketing schemes (like reduced cost books) it is nearly impossible to get new eyes on your book. In order to do that, you need to utilize E-Book deal emails to help find those new readers.Unfortunately with Amazon's new "Kindle Unlimited" and "KDP Select"  either you are beholden ONLY to Amazon and you can't sell on any other platform-  or you sell everywhere else but you can't put your book on sale, do countdown deals, pre-orders or any of the other multitude of marketing schemes that those authors who are part of Unlimited and Select are privy to.And if as an author you DO decide that the other platforms aren't nearly as important as Amazon and you decide to be beholden to them- you're pretty much screwed out of true profits as you are forced to accept whatever "share" of the profits they deem you worthy of.It's pretty sad, in my opnion that Jeff Bezos and the bean counters at Amazon decided to turn their backs on the independent authors who essentially put Amazon Kindle on the map for indepenedent publishers in the first place.

How @Amazon is putting the screws to the little guy

So, I'm not a best selling author - clearly. :)  I don't write to become a millionaire, or even a thousand-aire.  I write simply because of the love of writing and hoping people will be touched by my stories.  Obviously since my books are for sale and not for free - I'm hoping to make -something- on my books, but I have absolutely no illusions that I'm going to be rolling in the cash.   I currently am running a .99 promotion for my first book - mainly to expand my readership as my reviews and