Updates On What I’m Doing
This is Book 1 in the Oregon Series.
I will speak more about this later. In fact, Joel Larson will be making a guest appearance when this book comes out. Rumor has it a couple of other Larsons will be popping in as well. Kind of like old times. 
I’m looking forward to making that particular post.
Anyway, if you would like to reserve your copy now, I am going to post the links below:
Kobo (will also be in Kobo Plus)
I have not posted episodes for this yet on Radish, nor is it on Everand until release day. But I have most places covered. If there’s a place you buy books that I haven’t linked to, please let me know. I’ll see if I can do that.
Well, I thought I had put The Wilderness Bride in pre-order under the audiobook, but I checked my dashboard just now and realized I haven’t done that yet. So I will be working on that soon.
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I Updated My MailChimp List This Past WeekendI am happy to say that I have figured out how to set tags and groups on MailChimp. I know that this probably makes some authors laugh since they’ve been doing this for years, but I just now finally figured it out. I also updated my signup form with options on what list people want to be on. I hope that signup form works the way I planned. I’ll be going in and manually checking things out for a few months just to make sure.
If anyone is reading this post who received an email from me on Friday via MailChimp, I want to thank you for responding to my email. So many of you were very kind and understanding. I appreciate that a lot, especially since I’m not the most tech savvy person around.
I Decided to Join Inkers MastermindI decided to join this group for a week-long sprint session, and I was surprised by how motivational it was to write when joining other authors who were also writing. We did this on Zoom, and we went in 25-minute sprints. They offered this three times a day, but I mostly could only get on twice on four days. Anyway, I had a lot of fun doing this, and since I did enjoy the conference this group put on last summer, I decided to join their Mastermind portion of things.
It does cost to join this, but sometimes I think spending money is worth it because of the value it provides. My main goal is to join their regular writing sprints. They do offer Q&A Sessions with other authors and classes, but what I want most after going through burnout is to simply have fun writing and learning new things. Even if I don’t use the stuff I learn for the writing side of business, I still enjoy learning it.
I Got Certified to be a Virtual Assistant for Other AuthorsFor about six months last year, I took a course by Grounded Chaos from veteran author assistants who taught me (and others in the course) the ropes of helping other authors with common tasks. Some I knew since I have been indie publishing since 2009, but other stuff was new. These two ladies were great. They have a site for additional support, and I’ll be joining it when it’s ready. If anyone out there is interested in being an author assistant and would like to take their course, let me know, and I’ll give you their information. (I am not affiliated with them in any way. I just thought they did a terrific job and would recommend them in a heartbeat.)
I Also Joined Joe Solari’s Treat Your Writing Like a Business CourseMonths ago, I linked to his Capital Planner that went over expenses needed to run the business, along with figuring out how many words you need to write to reach a certain number of books you can publish in a year. I went on to listen to his Advantage audiobook that I got on Google Play. After some consideration, I decided to do the course. My primary goal is to simply learn new things. If anything I learn ends up being something that helps me, that’s a bonus.
I have not done anything yet in this course. In fact, I just created my password today. But I will work my way through it. I do a little at a time so as not to get overwhelmed. I still want to focus on writing new books.
Speaking of writing…I am very excited about the stuff I am working on at the moment.
I am coming the last 1/4 part in The Hero Least Likely
This is Book 2 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series:
The hero will finally get a chance to prove himself to everyone. He’s already proven himself to the heroine. I am about to write their wedding scene. He was just collecting flowers for her wedding bouquet. I had to look up the kind of flowers that grow out there in the Arizona desert, and I was surprised to learn that there’s a batch that could be toxic to eat if it grows in the wrong soil. Who knew?
I’m coming to the halfway mark in The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride
This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series.
And the hero and heroine still do not know the aliases that they fall under. Which is good because the longer this goes on, the funnier it is, and the most exciting things will be when the “big reveal” happens. I’m looking forward to that moment. As an author, I can’t help but rub my hands together in fiendish glee of the chaos I’m about to throw on these two characters who are so very much in love. (A book isn’t interesting without some conflict.)
I have a good start on The Preacher’s Wife
This is Book 2 in the Oregon Series.
I admit that I wasn’t sure how things would go with the preacher when I started this book. I introduce him in The Wilderness Bride, and let’s just say that he is a very different person once you get into his point of view. Like, I had no idea that he’s not the jerk that he appears to be in The Wilderness Bride. I fully expected to start writing him as an egotistical jerk who thought he was better than everyone else. And that just didn’t happen. I could have gone that route, but I have learned to trust the writing process enough to let the characters tell me who they are. The only way I can really learn who the characters are is by writing their viewpoints. So when I wrote The Wilderness Bride, I could only see the preacher from the viewpoint of the hero and heroine in that particular book. It’s only when I dive into his viewpoint that I realized how wrong they were about him.
Well, if you read The Wilderness Bride, you’ll see how the preacher comes off. Then if you read The Preacher’s Wife, you’ll see how he seems like a totally different person, even though he isn’t. Quite frankly, these kinds of surprises is what makes writing so much fun.
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Alright, I think I’ll stop there for now. 
