the big event!

I've been writing and editing furiously lately, in the hour or so I have between dropping my daughter off at school and teaching my physics lab each morning. And it has paid off--all the editing and rewriting is DONE!

I am beyond excited to say that this means the whole (first) story of Paodin and Syndria is ready to share with all of you, and it will be available on Amazon starting tomorrow, 31 May 2013.

I want to say thank you to all of you who stuck it out all this time, who have stopped by on occasion to see how this crazy writing journey of mine is going. It's been a bit of a bumpy road at times, but it's been fun so far...and I'm definitely not done yet!

The next part of Tundyel's story is outlined, not to mention Roedel's story that I carry around in my bag so I can write any time I have a spare minute (though I have to admit, Roedel's been abandoned lately while I've finished working on my first brain-child!). Writing is a part of me, and there's no way I'll be stopping any time soon.

*map made by my husband

SONS OF TUNDYEL: THE PROPHECY will be available both as an ebook and as a really truly paperback,so if you're like me and haven't given in to the idea of trading the smell of paper and ink for an electronic reader, I've got you covered ;0) Stop back by tomorrow and I'll have the links to where you can find both versions.

Again, thank you to everybody who has followed this path with me. Your comments and encouragement has meant the world, and I hope that in exchange you've gotten to escape the real world for a little while!

something's missing...

I've been doing some editing lately, trying to get SoT:The Prophecy ready to sell on Amazon (that still seems strange for me to say...). I actually printed the whole story out, after shrinking everything down and then printing two pages of the story to each printed page (what can I say--I really didn't want to go through that much paper and ink!).

A funny thing happened when I was getting everything ready.

I realized that I'm missing a chapter.

Yup, an entire chapter. And this is after I had "finished" and completely walked away from the story I'm thinking that maybe "oops" doesn't really cover it, huh?

I remember not writing it now. I was stuck and didn't really know how to get the story from point A to point B, so my mom suggested I just skip forward and then go back to it later. That's what I did, just with that one minor difference of not going back to it later.

So now, I'm finishing the editing and reading the story start to finish for the first time, believe it or not. I haven't quite gotten to that missing chapter yet, but it won't be too much longer before I get there. Then the story will truly be finished and I'll be ready--or at least as ready as I'll ever be--to put it out there for people to read in its entirety.

Roedel and his journey have been pushed to the back burner for a little while since I'm still planning on having SoT available by the end of the month, but I can tell you that I'm anxious and excited to get back to him. As a bit of a glimpse into his story, when I left him Roedel and his companions were approaching the Vale and trying to disguise Roedel's unruly red curls so the Ula Eos wouldn't recognize him as a halfbreed...

comfort in chaos

Lately, Nathan has been sending me to the coffee shop for an hour or two every couple of days so I can write.

I've been going to a Biggby's just down the street from us, getting a regular coffee with mint flavor and half and half, and setting upstairs at a little table with my back against the wall. I plop my pink notebook down on the table in front of me, pull my pen out, and write.

It took me a while to find a spot to write. I kept searching out someplace quiet, a place where I could set in peace with nothing to interrupt my thoughts. I would get there, get settled in, and then--
--get incredibly distracted.

Everything would be quiet, 
then somebody would cough 
or answer a phone 
or drop something 
or slurp their coffee
and I would totally lose my train of thought.

The first time I sat down in what is now my favorite writing place, I almost didn't. It was loud! People meet there for everything from business to studying to friends just getting together to Bible study...so it is anything but a quiet place. There's even a radio playing all the time, often with songs I know. I'm a huge music person (I was always a choir nerd in school), so I just knew I would be way too distracted by all the chaos to get anything written.

Then, I wrote 2 pages without even really noticing it.

Huh. That's interesting.

I went back a couple of times that week, and the same thing happened: people talked and laughed and slurped coffee and dropped things and made lots of noise, and I wrote 2 or 3 pages in my hour long lunch break.

Life has always been busy for me.There's always been noise and chaos and just plain stuff all the time. I had this idea that I needed to lock myself away somewhere to write, to find a quiet place with no distractions.

Apparently, I was wrong. I'm a person who has always done multiple things at once. I listened to the radio while I did my homework, I always had 2 or 3 books on my nightstand because I couldn't read just one thing at a time (unless it's a Dean Koontz novel), and then when I was teaching I sat in the living room with the t.v. on while I graded papers. We even had the radio on in my classroom quite often.

Maybe I'm odd. Maybe most people need quiet and peace and solitude to write. I've always dreamed of spending a week by myself in a cabin somewhere, just me and the quiet and my writing. Maybe I need to change that dream to a week spent in the middle of Times Square or something!

Until then, I'll be at the coffee shop. I'll be that girl setting in the corner, a cup of coffee in one hand and a pen in the other, somehow comforted and spurred on by the chaos and noise around me.