What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk.  Head over to Jaime's page for links to find out what's up with everyone else. Here's What's Up with me.
What I'm Reading

This week, I finished reading Moonless  by Crystal Collier and started reading Half the Sky  by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Moonless was a bit slow to get into, but once I figured out what was going on, I enjoyed it. I just started Half the Sky, but so far I'm finding it very compelling. It's a non-fiction book that my book club is reading this month. I expect we will have a lot to discuss about it.

What I'm Writing

I wrote this week, which is fabulous. It takes forever and a day to publish a book. People always say that while waiting to release book one, you are supposed to write book too. I've been trying. I just haven't always done a very good job at succeeding.

My debut novel,  Counting to D , comes out next month. My sophomore novel, The Evolution of Emily, is supposed to come out a year from now. Except, it's not done yet. And dealing with promotional stuff for C2D has been eating up a lot of my writing time lately, so I haven't been making the type of progress on EoE that I want. Until this week.

This week, I remembered why I love the characters in The Evolution of Emily so much. It really is a wonderful story, that I need to finish! In an attempt to get back on track, I managed to revise/rewrite seven chapters this week. I still have plenty more work to do, but if I can stay this productive for the next few weeks, The Evolution of Emily should be make it's tentative release date of winter 2015.

And Emily really is a fabulous character, so you want me to make my deadlines.


What Inspires Me Right Now

The reviews for Counting to D  are starting to trickle in, and so far they have all been positive. Earlier this week Lindzee Armstrong gave me a 4 star review. It's definitely inspiring knowing that strangers are reading and actually enjoying my writing. Yet another reason why I really do need to finish my second book.

What Else I've Been Up To

I haven't had much going on in my personal life this week, which is why I was able to find the time to actually write.

I do have something major brewing though. My husband and I decided to adopt out of the foster care system a little over a year ago. Because we knew we only wanted to adopt foster children, we decided to work directly with DHS instead of a private agency. DHS admits up front that they have a limited number of social workers so it is often faster to work with a private agency. They never specifically say how much faster though.

For the past 10 months, we have been patiently waiting for our home study, the next step in the adoption certification process. The home study is a series of interviews, reference checks, and four or five home visits that usually takes a couple months to complete. I know I have a lot longer to wait before anyone is going to call me mom. But, our first home visit in the home study process is happening next week!

I think this may be even more exciting than having a book being published next month. And I'm very excited about having a book published next month, trust me. I knew 2014 was going to be a fabulous year for me, and even though we're only two weeks in, it's already exceeding all my expectations.


Also, in the name of shameless self-promotion. I want to remind everyone that there are currently two different giveaways going on where you can win a free copy of Counting to D. If you haven't entered yet, don't miss out!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Goodreads Book Giveaway      Counting to Dby Kate ScottGiveaway ends February 10, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.Enter to win
So what's up with you?