The hammock is one of my favorite summer reading spots!
How’s your summer reading going? I’m usually a mood reader, meaning I don’t really plan my reading lists ahead, rather I read whatever I’m in the mood for. This summer, however, I’ve decided to make a list and see if I stick to it. No promises!
The month of July is my birthday month, so I’ve decided to celebrate by putting all my novels on sale! ONLY DARK EDGES, my modern-day Hamlet retelling is $1.99 all month long on all ebook platforms, including directly from me on the Purchase Books page. If you’ve been watching the TV show adaptation of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, ONLY DARK EDGES will devastate you in all the same ways.
After finally having conquered the ability to read audiobooks (see “Long-Awaited Update on Training My Brain to Read Audiobooks”), I’m right on track with my reading goals for the year. I’ll be doing a bit of traveling in July, which should give me some time to conquer my summer reading. I’ll also be working on revising my first ever adult novel, a cozy dystopian that I plan on releasing this fall, so keep an eye out for more about that. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you’ve already gotten a sneak peek at the cover. Busy, busy as always over here!
I’d love to hear what’s on your summer reading list this year, so please feel free to share in the comments.
Honesty time…I don’t enjoy book release days. Part of that is because by the time a book comes out, it’s old news to the author. My brain is like, “Been there, done that, let’s move on.” I’ve already been working on a bunch of other projects since I finished BLACK BUTTERFLY, and now I’m supposed to keep talking about that old project?!
It’s not that I don’t love the book that’s just come out. I’ve probably spent years working on it, which is most certainly true for BLACK BUTTERFLY (see “The 10-Year, 230-Rejection Journey of the YA Thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY”). I love all my books and want them to find readers, but I’m also ready to move on to my newer projects, which are much more exciting to me than my finished books.
There’s also the inevitable disappointment of release day. My release days aren’t exactly leading to big sales numbers, and I’m not sure what number might make it feel less disappointing, but I certainly haven’t reached that on release day. Maybe I never will, even if I started hitting big numbers. The sales numbers (or lack thereof) aren’t what keeps me going as a writer.
The excitement of a new idea popping into my head at the most unexpected moment. An idea sticking around in my mind long enough to quietly develop in the background until it demands I open up a blank page and start writing. The satisfaction of finishing a draft, typing The End, even though I know there’s more work to be done. Noticing an interesting theme in a draft and teasing it out with imagery and metaphor in revisions.
Those are the things that keep me going as a writer!
Once the book is released, there’s nothing left for me to do except try and get people to read it. And I’m not particularly good at that. I’m much better at writing and putting out a good story than selling one. I’m a writer, not a marketer. Though I do my best to do both things, it’s painfully obvious to me which is the one I meant to do.
With that being said, yesterday my YA dystopian thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY released. The day was “mid” as my 12-year-old so often says about his better days at school. Yet, I want to take this moment to recognize the huge accomplishment it has been to now have ten (!!!) published books to my name. That is no small feat. And no matter how “mid” the day felt, it’s a notable one for sure.
Is she the hero or the villain?
Black Butterfly wakes to a country devastated by terrorist attacks, supposedly at the hands of the Chinese government. She remembers nothing of her personal life—not even her name. All she knows is that she was in New York City on the day of the attacks. Though, she soon discovers she has an unsettling repertoire of violent talents.
Elijah and his found family of off-gridders from upstate New York take in Black Butterfly and mend her wounds. With nowhere else to go, she joins them as they head to a rally in Washington D.C. The eclectic group begins to feel like the family she can’t remember—or never had.
An encounter with Luca, a spy for a shadowy government agency, confirms Black Butterfly’s worst suspicions about who she was in the life she can’t remember. As more memories surface, Black Butterfly heads to the agency’s headquarters to find out who’s behind the terrorist attacks. It’s unclear whether she intends to reveal the truth or go back to her villainous way. And it’s more than her life she’s putting at risk.
Check out this gorgeous cover by BetiBup33 Design Studio. This was my first time using a premade cover for a book, and I’m really pleased with the result. The designer was open to the small customization of adding in the butterfly mask over the face. It’s the same butterfly image that is part of the chapter headers inside the book.
Sometimes, you see an image and know it’s got the right vibe for the book, and that’s what happened here.
It may seem sudden that BLACK BUTTERFLY releases in less than a month because I haven’t really talked about it much, but this book was a long time coming. I started writing it back in 2014 (nope, not a typo…it’s really been 10 years!). Originally, I sought to have it traditionally published. There was quite a bit of interest from agents and a few editors, and it won a couple of contests. In the end though, it earned over 230 rejections (again, not a typo!) and never landed an agent or a publishing contract.
I shelved it for awhile, but I never gave up on it. Even though it’s quite dark with a terrorist attacks, violence, and torture, it was oddly fun to write. The main character, who has many aliases (we’ll stick with calling her Black Butterfly to avoid any spoilers), is an amnesiac and finds out she’s a government spy. She also discovers that she might not the hero of the story but the villain!
The story is told in 1st-person present tense, which is a very close point-of-view to work in. It was a really interesting writing challenge to make her an unreliable narrator, but (hopefully) the reader doesn’t end up feeling cheated by her keeping secrets. Anyway, the story and the character kept sticking around in my head, refusing to be ignored.
Fast forward to last year, and I started getting serious about writing a sequel with the thought that maybe I’d self-publish the series. Despite the many, many rejections of the first book, I have always believed in it. Coming across the cover image that fit the story so perfectly, I knew that I had to make BLACK BUTTERFLY a real book…not just a manuscript wallowing away on my computer.
I got the proof copy of the book the other day, and it’s so exciting that BLACK BUTTERFLY is going to finally be available to readers! Here’s a little about the book:
Is she the hero or the villain?
Black Butterfly wakes to a country devastated by terrorist attacks, supposedly at the hands of the Chinese government. She remembers nothing of her personal life—not even her name. All she knows is that she was in New York City on the day of the attacks. Though, she soon discovers she has an unsettling repertoire of violent talents.
Elijah and his found family of off-gridders from upstate New York take in Black Butterfly and mend her wounds. With nowhere else to go, she joins them as they head to a rally in Washington D.C. The eclectic group begins to feel like the family she can’t remember—or never had.
An encounter with Luca, a spy for a shadowy government agency, confirms Black Butterfly’s worst suspicions about who she was in the life she can’t remember. As more memories surface, Black Butterfly heads to the agency’s headquarters to find out who’s behind the terrorist attacks. It’s unclear whether she intends to reveal the truth or go back to her villainous way. And it’s more than her life she’s putting at risk.
Remember how I mentioned last week that I’ve been very introspective in my thinking (it’s totally okay if you don’t remember…I just thought this was a good way to start the post)? Part of that is because I’ve been so busy in my life that I haven’t had the time or energy to be extrospective.
(Okay, totally made up that word…but it totally should be a word…nonintrospective isn’t really right because it implies a lack of thought…I’m more talking about keeping thoughts inside vs. expressing them, hence extrospective…digression over!)
The other part that’s kept me introspective is where I’m at in my creative process, which is revision. I’ve been going through all the great feedback I have from my in-person critique group, my beta readers, and the professional feedback I’ve gotten for my WIP YA thriller (right now titled BLACK BUTTERFLY).
So I’ve been thinking a lot about what the story still needs and what feedback is working and what isn’t resonating with me. It’s a lot of decision-making, and it’s tough on the ego to be working through the criticism, even though it’s all done in a professional, constructive manner. After all, the revision process is all about facing what you wanted to do with a story and haven’t yet accomplished or realizing that what you wanted to do with the story in the first place maybe isn’t the best thing for it…not easy!
Often when I’m working out some tricky thinking in my own head, I turn outward to help sort through the thoughts. But, surprisingly, I’ve turned inward in this case. It’s like I have to hold all those thoughts and feelings close in order to really experience and figure out how to move forward. Expressing them would ruin them before they can turn into whatever it is they need to be, so I continue to hold them close until they’re ready (the whole pregnant and birthing analogy would be apt here, and like pregnancy and child-birthing, it’s exhausting).
All that physical and mental busyness leaves less room for other things, mainly blogging, Twitter, Facebook, exercise (though I do a lot of walking with the boys), and even reading. The number of books I’ve read this year is way down from last year and also below my adjusted yearly goal.
I didn’t expect or plan to step back from those things (and haven’t entirely ignored them), but it’s what happened. And I’m allowing myself to be okay with that. Because I’m allowing the other things I’m doing and thinking about that are more important (no offense to my Internet peeps!) to take priority. The unpredictability of life and the creative process are what makes my life and work exciting, and it also fuels my stories.
What exciting or unexpected things have you been doing lately?
First off, my guest blog schedule is pretty wide open for the fall, so I’m definitely looking for guest posts to come my way. If you have a book coming out or an older one you’d like to promote, I’d love to have you on the blog. I prefer a post with some original thoughts (though it could be a post that’s been posted elsewhere) as opposed to something purely promotional.
You don’t have to be published or even a writer to guest post either. I’d love some short, fun posts about anything to do with writing, reading, the creative process, or whatever interesting ideas you might have. Hit me up on my contact page if you’re interested or mention it the comments with an easy way to contact you!
Okay, back to our regularly scheduled post…
So technically it’s still summer (and it certainly feels like summer this week here in CT), but school’s already back in session and the air and earth are starting to get that fall feel and smell to it. That means my non-summer schedule has started and with it comes more writing time. Yay!
Though I certainly have enjoyed all the fun times we’ve been having this summer and all out outside time, I’m definitely looking forward to sinking my teeth back into my writing projects.
In particular I’ve been chomping at the bit to get back to revising my YA thriller. Even with beta reader feedback coming in (and those ever-present doubts are rearing up, making me questions my abilities to pull off what I’m trying to accomplish with this story), I’ve never been so excited about the thought of sending a piece of writing out. So I’m hoping to ride this wave of confidence to the finish line and get to submitting it soon.
After that I don’t have any set plans on what I’ll be working on next. It’s a freeing and exciting feeling. I love the prospect of starting something new (or possibly digging back into something I put away for awhile but may come back to soon). The world is wide open at this point for me.
So how was everyone’s summer? What are your plans for the fall?
