Serena Simpson's Blog, page 5

It’s March!

Welcome to March! I hope you are as giddy as I am. Soon I anticipate the ground no longer being covered with snow. That thought is enough to bring tears to my eyes. We have been having one heck of a winter up my way.

Ok on to the really great stuff. Aran is coming out at the end of this month and I can barely hold my excitement in. I love Aran, he is strong, dominant, and an alpha to his core. He is also loving, sweet, and swoon worthy.

If it were just Aran that would be enough of a reason to be excited. But he meets Rena who is Alpha in her own way. She has the biggest heart, but is unwilling to be walked on or to settle for less than she deserves.

The two of them burn up the pages.

Come get to know them. Along the way you will meet Rena’s best friend and Aran’s brothers’. There are surprises and laughter, mystery and life threatening moments. Come along on their journey of suspense and love.

For an early look at the cover  visit my website.

Available the end of March.

So excited

I have spent the weekend working on the editing of my new novel Aran. The first in the Love Me Harder Series.

I love this novel. The characters are fantastic together. I love discovering a whole new world and specie that I never knew existed.

The romance is hot, but more than that I love watching the way they interact with each other. Watching a relationship bloom whether it is between the pages of a book or your best friend and her new man, is exciting.  There’s always a chance it’s happening in your life, that’s when your heart beats harder and your smile is more radiant than the suns light. The sweaty palms and the dreams at night of forever are your new friends.

The pleasure you feel when you hear his or her voice over the phone. The disappointment at a missed date combined with the excitement of the next date. Relationships and romance are a wonderful thing and writing Aran and Rena’s romance has been wonderful. Reading it for the first time was wonderful and heart moving.

If you love paranormal’s, romance and aliens combined with hot love and a few twists. Check out Aran and Rena’s tale of love. They will be around at the end of March.

What ever you do, keep loving, keep reading

I Dare!

 

Anticipation

It’s February. Nothing to really be excited about in my world if not for the anticipation. I really assigned release dates for the first three books in my Love Me Harder series.

Book one: Aran

Book two: Niko

Book three: Sergey

Book one is slated to come out in March and I have to admit I am excited. I have read it and reread it. I love it. Aran and Rena stole my heart. I was sure it was the best book I had ever written. Then I moved to the nest book of the series. Smile

Now I am going over Niko and I am loving it. If you have ever written or dreamed the story you wanted to read you will understand. The characters capture you and before you know it your totally invested in their world. You feel what they feel. Yeah that good.

Then there is Sergey, but I am keeping it under wraps for a while until my editor see’s it. I have a surprise in there for her!

The fourth book is coming alone nicely.

Update on faith

Its coming alone nicely. Its more intense and going a little slower than I would like, but it is going. I am waiting to read the finished product.

So anticipation is my word for February and may even extend into March.

Keep reading! Keep loving! Keep living!

I dare

Stand still earth, I want to change directions

Yesterday I was listening to Les Brown, a powerful motivational speaker. He said something that hit me hard. “Ninety percent of people are going to jobs they hate, while praying they don’t get fired.”

Now we can argue over the percentage, but what we can’t argue over is that he is right. I met them when I rode the bus to work. I work with them all day, their bitterness lashing out at other employees like a plague. I see them on the street corners. Finally I see her in the mirror every morning.

Today I woke up, sick again. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Ewww, I know. Nope for those of you thinking it, not pregnant and don’t have the flu. Yeah!!!

Having said that, today I threw up while sitting at my desk. Double ewww, I know. My administrator with all of her tack called me in the middle of this to ask me if I was throwing up (as if her snitches had lied to her). Then she tried to hold a conversation with me. Wasn’t happening.

When I was half way decent I went into her office. She told me I had to leave and I had the nerve to argue with her.

1. According to her we are all grown ups and she is no one’s mother. As such she doesn’t send people home for being sick.

(Imagine a room full of office employees tied to their desk and whipped continuously to produce more…)

– ok, now that you have the picture you may be able to understand why this came off as a personal assault to me. I won’t mention the other sick employees over the years who were told they could not leave.

2. So why was I arguing?

– Was I trying to save my PTO (paid time off)? Mayb,e I have a child that was born with a genetic disease. I never know when I will have to take her to the ER.

– Was I concerned about my job? No.

– If not the above reasons, then why.

3. Could I be so indoctrinated into a way of life that has been slowly killing me?

– Ding, ding I think we have a winner.

– I was sick (as indicated by the lost of breakfast at my desk). I repeated the process when I got home and then took my weakened body and rolled into bed to sleep for several hours. I woke still sick.

– Yet I had the nerve to argue. When did working become more important than taking care of one’s self?

-When did a paycheck that barely pays the bills (Yeah I am talking to you too) Become the most important thing in our lives?.

4. Changing directions

-My desire to change directions did not come on with the lightening bolt of clarity. It slowly encompassed me over several years.

– It started with a way to bring in a supplemental income and grew from there.

– Eventually I started writing. I won’t become an overnight millionaire from it, but I love it. I woke up at four this morning with the start of the next chapter running around my head. I got up to write it, not wanting to lose it.

– Since the world won’t stop long enough for me to change directions I will have to fight the momentum, while walking in the other direction. Being sent home was like being pulled kicking and screaming in the direction I wanted to go. I stopped fighting and went with it willingly when I realized it.

5. I wonder

– How many of you are kicking and fighting when in reality its the direction you want, even need to go in.

 

Re-evaluate your world. Do something fun. Tackle the bunny slopes. Parachute from a plane (I want to, but I am such a wuss!) Live your life.

I Dare

 

 

Plans change

Well my plans for the new year have already changed. Not really changed, simply reordered.

I started writing the second book in my Alien destination Series. It didn’t click and I couldn’t figure out why. Finally I realized I was losing writing time so I left it all by its lonesome.

I started writing the third book in the love me harder series. I am so excited about this one, the heroine is fantastic. So spunky and different. She had her own story and wants it told just right. I love heroines like that.

I am excited about her and Sergey. Their chemistry is hot.

The first story in this series has gone to my editor. Can’t wait for her to tell me what she thinks.

Here’s to the best year ever!

Do something great this year. Do something fun.

I Dare

 

Happy 2k15!

I hope everyone had a Happy New Years. Wishing everyone the best year ever!

My 2015 work schedule. I have finished Tau the first book in my Alien Destination Series. It will go through one more edit, mostly because I am anal!

I started the second book in the series Jan 1st, smiles!

I have also completed Aran and Niko. Book one and two in my Love Me Harder Series. They just need to be edited.

So the start of a good year I hope.

After I write book three in both series I will turn my attention to Faith the second book to Hope. I have some interesting plans for that so if you read the first the second will be so much greater.

For everyone who has taken a chance on my books or even looked at my website THANK YOU!

My goals for 2k15 are to be better and greater.

Happy reading to all.

Do something great. Do something different. Do something cool.

I Dare

 

 

My 2014 lessons

Do not write for the world, your parents or even your children.  Hmm guess I should start at the beginning. Finding out that there was a place I could expose my writing to the world was the most wondrous thing I had heard in a long time.

I gleefully went to my keyboard and started to write. Nirvana. All the stories in my head now had a place to go. Then I started to think! I started to censure myself. What if my mom read this? What would she think about me?

What might my sister think? Would they think I was perverted if I wrote a love scene or crazy if he actually died (I.E. he was killed). Then there was my editor and beta reader. She’s my friend!

So I wrote the friendliest things I could write. To tell the truth I am happy I did that. It gave me a chance to think and eventually grow.  Eventually I learned to write for myself and to hopefully edit for the world.  And what do you know the voices in my head came back when I wrote what I liked.

The above was personal growth, now comes growth as a business.

I started two series and I loved them and was so happy until I went to write the second book in both series. My next book, Faith, in the other world protection series killed me. I wrote it, got several thousand words into it and trashed it. I did this four times until I put it to the side.

I wrote the the second book to Thea’s homecoming and gave it to my editor. I was so happy with it. Great character development, but I knew it had a problem.

Finally she said I love the character development. Fist pump, but they are still not together. Keep reading I said. So she did. Again we talked and she said they are still not together. My reply, this isn’t going to work is it? Nope.

I took it back, now it sits waiting for me to get back to it. I was devastated and I pulled out something I had started years ago. I decided I needed to write so I might as well write for myself. When I was done I edited it and gave it to my editor who smiled. She liked it.

Which brings me to a word of wisdom for my life. Have more than one book in a series written before you call it a series.

When I finished the book above I immediately started a second book in a different series. I realized that I seemed to need to work on two different series and there was nothing wrong with that. At least not for me as long as when I finished the second book I started the next book in one of the two series I was writing and I did that.

This is common sense and I am sure all of you will never do what I did. Make sure when you write the first book you can write the second. My problem, I am a different person than when I wrote them so finding a bridge was hard.

I found the bridge from hope to faith and like everything else it showed up as a voice in my head one day and demanded I write it down! Life  can be grand.

I hope you learned something in 2014 whether it be small or large.

My the Lord bless you all in 2015.

Make a change for the better next year.

I Dare

 

 

Starting Over?

Have you ever considered starting over? One day you get up and take a look around you realizing your life isn’t what you hoped it would be. Your dreams, rather big or small, somehow eluded you. All you know is that this is not what you wanted.

When your in your twenties changing course can feel like no big deal. When you hit your thirties you may be in the “Who moved my cheese mindset.”

Things get a little more touch and go in your forties, by now you think you should be stable, happy. Then you reach your fifties and if your still not satisfied with life it truly feels like the end of the world.  You may even imagine the word failure is tattooed on your forehead.

I can’t get behind that philosophy. I believe no matter how old you are you can make a change in your life. My Mom went back to college. My mom, I am so proud of her. She’s been downsized so many times it’s not even funny. She’s been rejected for jobs because of her age. Not that they would say that’s the reason, but she chose to change her life anyway. To mingle with youngsters who are less than half her age and she has thrived.

So why do we throw up our hands and say there is no hope for us when we reach a certain age?

Is it because society worships youth and we feel like yesterdays left overs? Or is it because at some point we stopped seeing ourselves as valuable. Did we forget that our children, toddlers, teens and adults are still learning from us. They will carry the mark of what we do till the day they die. Lets not let them down, more importantly lets not let ourselves down.

Many of you were meant for so much more than you are presently accomplishing. You know more, see more and have the talent to be more, but you feel your time has come and gone. That’s not true your time is just beginning so many people have reinvented themselves later in life.

If you are in your forties celebrate and if your life is great sit back and relax, but if you need more. Note I said need more this isn’t about an extra car or another television. It’s about that deep drive inside you that is saying my life was meant to do more, to mean more. I want to achieve more, live better, be healthier, whatever it is you can achieve it.

Forty, fifty or sixty or older you are not dying you still have lots of life to live seize the moment.

To my friend if you are reading this you have touched my life. Your friendship has been invaluable, your encouragement something I have come to count on. Your life is not ending the fun is just beginning and everyone around you is paying attention. Make your move, you deserve it.

I Dare You

The good, the bad and the ugly, news that is.

Good news I finished Zenna! Bad news I trashed Zenna. My editor/ beta reader said I really like some parts of this book but I am two thirds through and they are still not together. I knew better, but somehow I convinced myself it was ok. Back to the drawing board on that. It will be coming, it is back in the production line. It will be bigger and better than the first one.

I started faith the second novel in the other world protection series. I trashed faith – five times. Here’s the ugly I  pushed it back on the production schedule. I once heard someone say on a podcast she wished she had just stopped playing around with the novel that wasn’t working and moved on. So moving on. It will be written I just need a few more months of growth before I tackle it again.

Alien destination – I still have no other title for it, is with my editor/ beta reader. I loved it. I loved writing it and already am composing the second one in my head. Both will have a 2015 release date.

What I am writing now. Title Love Me Harder. I believe this may be the series name also so the title may change. I am excited about this book and the characters they are already bringing smiles to my face.

That’s the news I will keep you abreast.

Directions

Writing can be accomplished in a multitude of ways and genre’s. I think we learn early that we can write almost anything. We also learn early that the best writing is the one that earns us an “A” in school. That writing is done exactly how the teacher wants it and not necessarily how you may have wanted it.

Recently I took a good look at some of what I write for myself and what I write to publish. To be honest what I write for myself is really really good. So I had to ask myself what is the difference. I hated asking that question because I knew I would have to face the answer.

No one will ever see what I wrote for myself. This means I am not worried about being judged or made fun of. No, not by the world as a whole, but by family and friends who suddenly see me as human instead of the mom who can do anything.  They would see the human woman instead of the one who works like crazy to make ends meet and always has time for her child and so much more. I want to be seen as human but not condemned for being human.

So I wrote my next story the one that will come out after Zenna as a story that I would write for myself and edit for others. The working title is Alien Destination I sure I hope I change it soon. When will it come out? Not sure. My editor does it because she wants to not because she is paid. Yep I love her.

So I called this directions because no matter who you are (especially if you’re me) do everything to the best of your ability without fear of what others will say. Here’s the thing I  have come to realize they all live their lives without wondering what you think.

Live well, play hard and be true to yourself

I dare you!