Still Breathing

I am still alive, everyone. Have no fear! I am simply swamped with a busy schedule. Between work and home improvements and editing, I have not had much free time of late. My husband and I just finished our bedroom and finally got to move out of the living room after a year and a half. I cannot overly express how exciting this was. We also made some changes to our kitchen layout to make it more functional. I love it so much better now.

 I am nose-hair deep into the final edits for both After and When Ravens Fall. These two projects have been all consuming. My beta readers sent me scads of wonderful notes for me to consider and am I busy tweaking things where needed to keep things easy to understand and flowing nicely. I cannot emphasize enough how thankful I am for my beta readers. They were awesome. Many thanks to Tammy, Meredith, Rebekah and Jenelle! I could not do this without you.

I also want to thank Nay and Stephanie for all the work they have been putting into the edits for these two stories. I would be lost without you both!

I am so excited for the release of When Ravens Fall. I am hoping to be able to announce a date in the next few weeks. There are still a few details to work out and some final edits to be done, but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I will be doing something a bit different for the actual launch which I hope everyone will enjoy and appreciate. More on that to come.

As to what I am reading right now (because I am always reading something): my brother-in-law loaned me this very interesting book called Codeword: Catherine. It's based a true story about two missionaries who try to smuggle ten royal children out of Ethiopia. So far I am enjoying it immensely.

I will hopefully be paying much more attention to my blog very, very soon. I apologize for the long periods of silence, but blogging does require much time and attention which I simply had to devote to other projects. But I will be getting back into a routine soon, I hope. In light of the "hopefully-soon" release of When Ravens Fall,  I will be doing a few posts on this story to introduce you to the characters and the story world. I have become very attached to this story. I wrote it in a six week whirlwind, on a whim, and have not been able to get these characters out of my head. I fear more tales are begging to be told from these ones. They are most persistent. Last November, I sat down one day to sketch out a scene for a Beauty and the Beast story from the perspective of the Enchantress. It irritates my with the Disney version that the catalyst for the entire story has such a tiny, tiny role in the story--which is why I removed her entirely from Wither. I felt she wasn't needed for that story. But, this decision inspired me to write a story that gave this character a much bigger role. In a few short days, the plot for When Ravens Fall burst to life. This tale is about about restoration and coping with tragedy. All of the characters are struggling with something, either in their past or their future, which haunts them and drives their actions. Some of them behave well, some of them do not, but they are all entangled together. I have never enjoyed writing a tale as much as I enjoyed this one. It was fast, furious and enchanting. I am still caught in its spell. I hope you will be, too!

To whet your appetite here is the song from my Ravens playlist which reminds me of Kenna--the poor, misguided Enchantress in my story.