Jun 23, 2014

Guarding Angel Blitz from June 23rd to June 29th, 2014,



Guarding Angel by S. L. Saboviec
(Fallen Redemption #1)
Publication date: May 19th 2014
Genres: Adult, Fantasy


Synopsis:

Guardian angel Enael can’t seem to keep her human Wards in check. They’re the ones who choose their paths before reincarnating—she’s just there to help make sure they stay on track. But it’s not as easy as it might look.

When she meets and falls in love with charismatic Kaspen, a fellow Guardian, Enael’s feelings about Heaven, Hell, demons, and the life she’s known are turned upside down. Worse, angel-turned-demon Yasva, Kaspen’s former love, still holds him in her clutches. Even as Yasva works toward obtaining complete control of Earth, she taunts and haunts Kaspen’s and Enael’s lives.

Now Enael is forced to face her past (which is centuries long and bursting with secrets), her present (which is terribly unfulfilling and full of questions), and her future (which becomes more uncertain as time passes). Armed with a newfound love and fear of losing it all, she must figure out how to save the world—-and the angel she loves. Which side will win? Who will Kaspen choose? Will Heaven and Earth continue to exist, or will everything go to Hell?


Purchase links:


Excerpt 1

Yasva tipped her head back. “No more. I revoke my place in Heaven.”

Her amethyst eyes went wide and the air shimmered around her. I cringed but couldn’t look away. She screamed as she clamped her hands to her ears. Her wings quivered. No… They flared above her and burst apart in a spray of royal purple. The droplets hung in the air before they contracted into nothingness.

I backed away but bumped into a bush. It’s happening again.

Shrieking, Yasva pressed her hands to her eyes and doubled over. Deep purple blood soaked the back of her robe where her wings had been. She wrenched her hands down and stared at me. I willed myself to move but couldn’t. Her eyes were pits, stark black and seething. She regarded me with a hatred I had seen but once before.

My stomach lurched in fear. Beside me, Kaspen gripped his hair, eyes wide. I’d nearly forgotten he was there.

Yasva thrust out a hand as though to steady herself. “This isn’t…” She wobbled, reaching for Kaspen, who backed away. “… the end…” She coughed and staggered. “… of me! I will have my revenge!” She went to a knee before fading and disappearing into Hell.

Where all angels who renounce their connections to the Source go.

Where they live as demons.

The stench of sulfur washed over me, and I quashed the urge to gag.

Excerpt 2

I was wrenched forward and thrown over something—the shoulder of whatever creature had assaulted me, perhaps. Lurching footsteps carried me away from where I’d faded into Hell. I fought, but whatever bound my wrists and wings squeezed more tightly around them. I stopped struggling, clamping my lips together to keep from crying out.
  
I’d never visited Hell, so I wasn’t certain where it was located, which would make it harder to get there. Instead of envisioning the place, I closed my eyes and pictured Kaspen. I reached for his essence, groping for him. Ah, there. As expected, his life spark was located somewhere other than Heaven or Earth. Darkness pulsated near him.

I took a deep breath and fixed my mind. Straining, I envisioned Kaspen’s face, wondering where I would end up. I opened my eyes to the greens of the Garden melding together and fading.

This transition was nothing like the pleasant tingling I felt when moving between Heaven and Earth. Instead, it felt as though something cold and slippery were being poured over my body, into my mouth and nostrils, and squeezed through my pores. My stomach churned. Dimness enveloped me and the oiliness slid from my skin.

I found myself in front of a pit-marked rock face marred by a double swinging door. I tried to peer through the crack between the doors, but a figure blocked most of the dim, red light.

The doors burst open and I was knocked to the ground. A hood fell over my face. I tried to fade from Hell but couldn’t. Something wrapped around the base of my wings, and my arms were forced behind me and bound.

“Help! Kaspen!”

Excerpt 2


Kaspen said, “I’m so sorry, Enael. I can’t do this anymore.”

I stopped. The humans disappeared around a corner. “Come with me, Kaspen.” I clenched my hands in my skirt again. “Please.”

“I can’t watch them be whipped for something I did.”

I turned. Kaspen’s head was bowed. His wings trembled. A feeling of resolution blasted through the bond. “Kaspen, don’t!”

“It’s the only way, Enael. I don’t belong here. I don’t deserve Leon, just as I didn’t deserve Miriam.” Kaspen looked up. His white eyes pinned me. I was stuck to the ground, unable to move, unable to speak. “Just as I don’t deserve you.”

I went numb. It was as though I watched the scene from a great distance. My human Wards had experienced this in stressful times, but I didn’t know it could happen to disembodied angels. “I love you, Kaspen. Please, stay.”

A look of sadness and compassion—For me!—came over him. “There’s only one place in the universe that I belong. And it isn’t here.”

I was unable to move anything but my mouth. “We’ll be together, Kaspen, forever, just don’t go. Please, stay with me and I’ll tell you my true name. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Kaspen stood and walked toward me. Another carriage, this time from the other direction, rushed through him. He brushed a hand through my hair and kissed me. “It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to be close to you. Forever. I love you, too.”

Other angels stared at us, but I didn’t care. “Then stay. Stay and we’ll—”

Kaspen stepped backward and spread his arms.
 

AUTHOR BIO


Samantha grew up in a small town in Iowa but now lives in the suburbs of Toronto with her Canadian husband and expatriate cat. In her spare time, she reads, writes, and thinks about reading and writing—along with playing the occasional video game or eight.








Hi  Samantha I am so glade to host you today!

and you my dear readers invited to read the next guest post that Samantha had sent to me, I am sure that you'll find them interesting

COFFEE BOOKS & ART INTERVIEW WITH SAMANTHA


  • Give us the title and genre of your book and a short tagline.
Guarding Angel – Fantasy.

Guardian angel Enael is forced to confront her inability to protect her Wards when a demon interferes in their lives.

  • What kind of writing do you do?
When I first started writing when I was a kid, I wrote lots of short stories. Many of them were near copies of my favorite books or stories in Cricket magazine (loved it!). But we all have to start somewhere, right?

As I moved into junior high and high school, I got into fan fiction. I loved the X-Files—don’t get me started on Mulder and Scully. It was an evolution of sorts because I went from completely derivative to branching out into a universe someone else created while still coming up with unique ideas.

For several years in college, I exclusively wrote in an online journal. It was a great experience for many reasons. I would do a lot of stream of consciousness stuff to help me through that, ahem, painful time of growth, and I met a lot of other people that way. It was really a way to connect more than write, but I felt like I was practicing my writing skills for the future at a time when I couldn’t really focus on fiction writing.

Now I write novels. I’ve tried to write short stories again, but they feel like they’re missing something. I’m verbose, so I always think that what I have to say is too large to contain in a story of only a few thousand words. I can definitely see myself writing novellas or short stories in the universes that I create, once I get a few things out there. I’m trying to focus on my novels first and foremost right now, though.

How does Guarding Angel relate to your spiritual practice or other life path?

Guarding Angel is the culmination of a journey I’ve been on for awhile. I grew up in a strict Lutheran household and then considered myself born-again Christian for many years. I even spent three summers on mission trips overseas (Trinidad, Thailand, and Botswana).

However, I never felt like the philosophy fit what I really believed deep inside. Some bad and judgmental behavior on the part of the leaders on the mission trips made me begin to question what I’d been taught. I sought answers through prayer and reading, and after awhile, I found them. The answers that I found did not match what I’d been taught, so in my early twenties, I walked away from Christianity.

The book is an amalgamation of the beliefs of different religions set in a world where all religion and spirituality has a purpose without any one being correct. The heart of it is what I believe in, although I embellished many of the details for the sake of the novel. I don’t actually believe that the angelic hierarchy is exactly the way I wrote it, that a Muse’s wings are royal purple, or that a place called the Praetorium exists in Heaven. Although it’s interesting to imagine!

  • What were your goals and intentions in Guarding Angel, and how well do you feel you achieved them? 

I had several goals. First I wanted to create a story about a guardian angel who was struggling with the morality of the choices her human Wards made. This I definitely achieved. I also wanted to raise the question of whether her morality was correct or if their morality was correct. I also believe that I achieved that, although Daniel turned out much more of an ass than I had originally written him. He was kind of boring at first—so I took him in a pretty strong direction.

I wanted to continue the theme of correct action based on perspective throughout the book. I think I also achieved that. It makes sense for Enael to do what she’s done, even though she struggles with it and gets no support.

In terms of world-building, I definitely created the universe the way I wanted it. All religion or spirituality has power, but none are correct or exclusive.

  • Are there misconceptions that people have about Guarding Angel?  If so, explain.

A book should stand on its own merit, so if I have to explain something outside the book, I’m not doing my job as a writer. However, I will say that people too often assume that a writer believes in or condones the behavior of the characters in the book. That’s a ridiculous assumption.

Although I believe in the essence of spirituality of the book, I’m not so sure about everything. I’ve created a universe where humans choose the terrible things that happen to them, for their own spiritual growth. That means that murders, rapes, and suicides are something that you or I choose before we come to the physical plane. It’s a simple answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Occam’s Razor is great, but I don’t know that spiritual truth can be simplified that easily.

I will say that question has made writing the second book challenging since I’m delving further into that same theme.

  • Who is your favorite character from Guarding Angel and why?

That’s easy. My favorite character is always the flawed but complicated one. In this case, as with many books, it’s the antagonist, Yasva. She’s seductive and mean and broken. She’s chosen a not-very-wise path, but she’s done so because she feels she has no other choice. She’s angry at the Seraphim for crimes they may or may not have committed. She’s also trying to hold herself together, so you have to wonder. Are her over-the-top schemes and game-playing compensation for her feelings of inadequacy or are they true to her true personality? Maybe it’s both.

My all-time favorite character of any book or film is Hannibal Lector. I don’t know what that says about me, so I’m not going to analyze that! I didn’t pattern Yasva after him, but I do strive to create his complexity and allure in my characters. Especially the villains.

  • How did you come up with the title of your book and series?

I’m terrible at coming up with titles. I originally called it “Enael’s Book.” I mean, horrible, right? When it went out to the first round of critique partners, one of the first readers was my dad. He came up with the title Fallen Redemption, and it fit. A year ago, when I was querying, I searched for the title in the marketplace and didn’t find it. However, when I was getting ready to self-publish, much to my horror, I discovered someone else had recently published a book with that title.

When I hired Jessica Swift of Swift Ink Editorial to do my developmental edits, she also agreed to help with the book blurb and titles. She researched keywords and came up with a number of them, but none of them really clicked with me. We spent a session on the phone and finally came up with Guarding Angel. It’s simple but descriptive, and the rest of the series fits into the pattern. (Reaping Angel, Warring Angel)

I just couldn’t let Fallen Redemption go, though, and I feel it’s a good descriptor for where I’m going overall. So that’s how it became the name of the series.

  • Tell us a little bit about your cover art. Who designed it? Why did you go with that particular image/artwork?

I’ve never been a visually artistic person, but I know enough to be dangerous. I can look at a cover and say, “Yes, this works,” or “No, that doesn’t,” but I can’t say why. When I looked through Regina Wamba’s portfolio, her tone and artistry fit the feel that I wanted.
When we started work on the cover, she sent me a questionnaire. I say “we started work” loosely—all I did was answer some simple questions about what my book was about, the main characters, and the mood. She came back with this amazing cover. I only had a few tweaks, and it was done.

Everyone tells me how much they love it, so I think I did a great job. A great job picking out an awesome cover designer, that is!

  • What inspires you? 

Great stories inspire me. I recently finished The Siren by Tiffany Reisz, and it made me both want to write the hell out of my book and hang up my pen forever. It’s a complicated story about multi-layered characters with shocking revelations that in retrospect seem almost cliché—but she handled them so masterfully that I am in awe.

Another book, We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, inspired me through its character development, too. It put us in the mind of one of the least remembered victims of a school shooting—the shooter’s mother. I never would have considered what the situation would have been for her, yet the author created a living, breathing character.

Character-driven novels about flawed people. That’s what inspires me the most and what I aspire to write.

  • Are you a full-time or part-time writer?  How does that affect your writing?

I’m a part-time writer, unfortunately. I’d love to be full-time, but it’s not economically feasible at this point. (Ah, the old refrain.)

Last year, I was mentally dedicated to writing and revising what I was working on. I have a 45 minute train ride to and from work every day, so I was able to sit down and focus for that 45 minutes almost five days a week. I’d also work hard on the weekends for a few solid hours each day. I probably didn’t give myself enough breaks—I’d get burnt out every once in awhile and need to take a week or two off. I should probably give myself at least Sunday … But I digress.

This year, though, it’s been even tougher. On Christmas Day, my husband and I got the best gift—a positive pregnancy test! I didn’t realize how dramatically things would change for me as the months progressed. I don’t know if it’s the hormones or the exhaustion or the random aches and pains, but I’ve been having trouble focusing. So I’ve been doing little things and trying not to beat myself up for not keeping the same pace as pre-pregnancy. On or around September 3, it will all be worth it. And maybe I’ll be able to get back to writing. Or maybe it’ll be even harder with a new little person around. We’ll see!

  • Do you write more by logic or intuition, or some combination of the two?  Summarize your writing process.

I wrote Guarding Angel without plotting. I found that I had to go back and clean up a lot of dead-end subplots and character issues. I wrote my second book, working title The Exorcist’s Assistant, by starting out pansting and switching over to plotting. After I got the plot down, I let the story continue to take me where it wanted.

Now that I’m working on the sequel to Guarding Angel, I’ve done plot and character sketches. The things that happen while writing still surprise me, but at least now I know what direction I’m heading. I defined all the major plot points—first chapter inciting incident, first act finale, midpoint, etc. Until I get that down, I flounder.

I’m sure I’ll continue to refine my process, but it will always be a mixture of the two. Logic for the big plot points and intuition for the smaller nuances that happen throughout the book.

  • What projects are you working on at the present or do you have planned for the future?

All of these books have working titles, except the sequel to Guarding Angel, which I chose with my developmental editor, Jessica Swift, when we picked out all the titles for the series.

Reaping Angel – Book #2 of 3 in the Fallen Redemption series. This is hard to describe without spoilering the end of the first book, so I’ll be vague. Enael must deal with the consequences of her decision near the end of the first book by paying penance to the Council of Seraphim. It’s fully plotted and approximately 1/3 written. I hope to get it to my first round of critique partners before our baby is born at the beginning of September.

Warring Angel – Book #3 of 3 in the Fallen Redemption series. A war erupts when Enael uncovers a deep-seated conspiracy dividing heaven’s reigning Council of Seraphim. I have the major plot points determined, but I won’t start on the detailed plot until the 2nd book is written.

The Exorcist’s Assistant – Dark Urban Fantasy. A woman harassed by a demon discovers its connection to her past life. Enlisting the aid of a doubting exorcist, she fights for her life—and the life of her wife and daughter. I’ve written this and revised it once. It’s currently out with critique partners, and I hope to get it revised a second time before the beginning of September. I haven’t decided if I’m going to query or self-publish it.

Titus versus Tamora  – Science Fiction retelling of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Titus and Tamora each lead a terraforming team at the edges of the galaxy. A feud from decades ago erupts between them against the backdrop of the vast and unforgiving wilderness of space. I’ve started plotting this one when I needed a break in the Fallen Redemption series. I don’t have a goal for it right now; I’m going to focus on the others first.

  • Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

I only published my book a month ago, so that’s not been a lot of time for people to discover me. I’ve heard from a few readers told me they loved it. It’s the most gratifying thing for me, to know that people have read my book and loved it. The best comment was that the reader was “confused what to feel/think about a book” but that he thought it was an “amazing book.” The first part of the comment made me nervous, so I’m glad he followed it up with the ending part!

But the more I think about it, the more I like the comment. I wrote Guarding Angel both to inspire people and to make them uncomfortable. I am unapologetic about the world I created, the situations I placed my characters in, and the moral implications of everything that happened. I only hope that I did as well as I wanted.

  • What can readers who enjoy Guarding Angel do to help make it successful?

Write a review for Amazon and Goodreads! I think for self-published writers especially, that’s the number one thing. The second would be to tell your friends and family to go buy the book.

Think of me as your small-town shop owner. I’m here, but I only have a tiny little storefront, and I need to get the word of mouth out so traffic picks up.

  • How do you feel about eBooks vs. print books?

I grew up on print books, of course, and I feel like nothing can top a paperback in your hands. But that’s nostalgia, really. I almost exclusively read eBooks now because it’s more convenient. I have a friend that loans me print books, and I find them unwieldy compared to the eBook. Our kids are going to grow up on eBooks, so they’ll probably get the same nostalgia holding a tablet or eReader as I do with a print book. (At least, I hope they’ll enjoy reading as much as I do.)

I recently discovered that I could install and read Kindle books on my Android phone. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before to look up the app. I was just reading them on my tablet, which I had to lug with me. But now, I’ve gone nuts. I can read while standing in line somewhere rather than goofing off on Facebook or Twitter. (Sorry, FB and Twitter.)

  • How do you feel about alternative vs. conventional publishing?

I struggled with the idea of self-publishing originally. I honestly felt that to be a real writer, you needed to have an agent and a publisher to validate that you were good. But as I explored the options, I realized that’s not the case. People who approach self-publishing as an entrepreneur who is setting up a small business and selling a product can be successful. And self-publishing is no longer the option of the desperate and terrible writer.

I have a book review blog, and I welcome self-published authors’ work. However, being that I’ve been exposed to a lot of it, I have seen the lower quality work that is out in the marketplace. People come up with all sorts of excuses (“I don’t have money;” “I don’t have time;” “I’ll just throw this out there and someone will see my scintillating talent through my typos if they’re smart enough”), but I don’t agree with any of that. If I were a small business owner, I would do everything I could to invest the right amount of money and time into my beautiful creation to ensure it flourishes. I don’t understand people who do it differently.

So that’s what I’ve done with Guarding Angel. Three editors, a professional cover designer, a webpage designer, a photographer for my headshots, and more. Is it 100% perfect or as good as it would be if backed by a huge publisher? Maybe, maybe not. After all, writing is art, which is subjective.  But I believe I’ve put as much heart and soul into it as I have without getting paralyzed by the “Is it good enough?” doubt and never releasing it into the world.

  • What do you think is the future of reading/writing?

The endless debate about traditional publishing versus self-publishing exhausts me, actually. I steer clear of the people who proclaim that print books are dying or that big publishers are dying. I’m sorry, but if Wal-Mart went bankrupt next week and closed its doors, another gigantic corporation would fill its spot within a year. It’s a basic consequence of capitalism.

Now, will the same Big 6 publishers exist 100 years from now? I would be inordinately surprised if they did. Some of them will be unable to adapt to changes in the marketplace, and they’ll die off. Again, basic capitalism. But big publishers of some sort will always exist, of that I’m sure. They might sell text floating on your Google glasses, but until we outlaw gigantic corporations, they’ll be around.

So what do I think the future holds? Writers gonna write. Readers gonna read. Both quality and shoddy work will get attention with enough marketing; both quality and shoddy work will get ignored if not in the right place in the right time. Reading and writing won’t die, and that’s really that’s important.

  • What makes your book stand out from the crowd?

Before I made the decision to self-publish, I queried agents and participated in contests. I got a small amount of interest and feedback, but the answer always was that angel books are a saturated marketplace, so I needed to make my query stand out more.

I found it difficult to make that happen. What makes Guarding Angel stand out isn’t the plot or characters, which is what book blurbs and query letters focus on. What makes it stand out is the world-building and the underlying moral questions that I raised. It’s not preachy (or, at least, if it was, I would have hoped that my developmental editor, Jessica Swift, would have beat me over the head about that), but the context and situations I placed Enael and her humans in were ambiguous.

As an example, Enael’s second human, Tabitha, has decided to make life very difficult for herself during her planning sessions before reincarnating. Bad things happen to her, some which she had chosen and some of which Enael’s demon nemesis orchestrates. In the end, it’s too much for Tabitha, and she succumbs to depression. The angels have to intervene to prevent damage to her soul. That entire section about Tabitha is emotional. Sometimes I have trouble rereading parts of it because it’s so brutal. And I never figured out a way to get its essence crammed into a two paragraph query letter—especially since it’s not the main plot.

  • What are some ways in which you promote your work?  Do you find that these add to or detract from your writing time?

Before Guarding Angel released, I sent out requests for book bloggers to review my ARC. I’m now continuing to send out review requests, a few each week, because I know that reviews are most important for Amazon rankings. I’ve also been doing interviews and guest posts on different blogs, and I keep an active Twitter and Pinterest account. I don’t know how much either of those things helps, but it’s fun and keeps me connected to the community.

I have to say that sometimes I’m nostalgic for last year, when all I was doing was writing and not worrying about whether I’d been on Twitter enough or I’d met my quota of review requests for the week. The grass is always greener! I’m starting to adapt, and now that the release has happened, I’m settling into a routine. I need to add more writing time to my routine, definitely, though.

  • What do you like to read in your free time?

I’m a big fan of speculative fiction. I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy. I love a well-written world. Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood series was the most recent sci-fi that I was in awe of. She created an alien species that was foreign yet believable. I love when writers can do that. It’s also why Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card has been one of my favorites for years.

I also like to read erotic romance or dark contemporary books from time to time. I have some feminism-based issues with a lot of the romance trope, so I usually can’t stay in that genre for very long before getting discouraged. But some great books exist out there. I really liked Mina Vaughn’s How To Discipline Your Vampire and How To Reprimand Your Rock Star (I just finished the ARC from Netgalley; whoo hoo!). She’s a smart, sassy woman who writes smart, sassy books, so I’m excited to see more from her.

  • How can we contact you or find out more about your books?
I’m on Twitter the most. Not to sound like a snob, but I’m a bit choosy about who I follow. I have a big pet peeve about people who only retweet or only spam links to their books / products or only send out famous quotes. I like to talk about random stuff with strangers who then become Twitter friends, so if people who follow me are doing that, I follow them back.

I don’t have much of a presence on Google+ or Facebook yet. I don’t know about the future of businesses on Facebook, but it feels like they’re killing off the small ones. So I don’t know that I’ll ever devote much time to it. But I have a page now!

Have You Lived Before?




One of the central ideas in the world of Guarding Angel is reincarnation. The main character, a guardian angel named Enael, is responsible for guiding the spiritual growth of her Wards during one of their lives. One woman is only on her second life, while another man is on his sixty-fifth. Their common characteristic is having lived multiple lives and the desire to experience certain things on their return to Earth.



Many Westerners (you, perhaps?) don’t believe in reincarnation because the predominant religion here is Christianity. To believe in being born more than once is heresy because it is contrary to the purpose of this life. However, evidence suggests that past lives are not only a possibility, but they shape who we are, what we fear, and even physical traits in our current lives.



Children That Know What They Shouldn’t




My favorite type of past life stories are children who recall living before. From the little girl who can describe the moment of her previous death to the little boy who has an uncanny knowledge of details relating to his previous profession, I love hearing them.





Children’s Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child by Carol Bowman is a fascinating read if you want to delve in-depth into what two- to five-year-old children routinely remember from previous lives. If you want some quick snippets of stories, the blog article 10





So How Did You Die?


One interesting belief about reincarnation is that a violent, sudden, and unhappy death may cause birthmarks in future lives. As the Wikipedia article on birthmarks states, “the exact cause of birthmarks is not known.” Not definitive proof, of course, but speculation is interesting.



Mikhail Gorbachev’s port-wine stain on the top of his head is one of the most famous birthmarks in the world. Is it just me or is it reminiscent of two hatchet marks? Ouch.



I have one birthmark. It’s a one-inch oblong mark with jagged edges on my inner thigh. I’ve contemplated how I could have died from a wound like that. Since it’s over my femoral artery, I think that perhaps a few lives ago, I died of an arrow or a bullet wound in the leg. Was I a Native American, running from an enemy? Or a Civil War veteran who took a shrapnel hit and bled out on a battle field? At this point, I’d rather not know, but it’s interesting to speculate.



Your Irrational Fear Might Not Be So Irrational After All




Another unpleasant aspect of having lived—and died—before is that our souls remember what our conscious minds don’t.



Part of why reincarnation is on my mind (besides the release of my book!) is that I recently had a past life reading. I asked the psychic a few general questions, one of which was, “I have an irrational fear of dying a certain way. Why is that?” Don’t get me wrong—I believe in psychic phenomena and past lives, but I’m also well aware of leading questions, so I made this one as general as possible.



The answer was, paraphrased: I had lived two lives where I had drowned. The first was when I lived on an island. A tidal wave crashed over where I lived, and many people died. The second was on a boat. The boat broke apart during a storm and I drowned in the ocean.



When I asked the question, I wasn’t expecting that response. Instead, I was thinking about how I can’t handle horror movies in which people get eviscerated (even typing the word makes me shudder). That started when I was in seventh grade and read Jurassic Park. The scene where those spitting dinosaurs kill Dennis Nedry still haunts me.



But then I remembered: A few years ago, I developed an irrational fear of water deeper than my shoulders. When I told my husband about the past life reading, he said, “Yeah, I remember. We were at a hotel, and you were in the deep end, and you said, ‘I can’t stand to be in here. I have to get out.’” And when we went to Jamaica a year ago, I was ok being in the ocean because it was clear and no more than shoulder-deep. But when I’d been to Puerto Rico years before and the water was cloudy, I was terribly afraid.



I can’t tell you if I drowned in a past life. I can tell you that the fear came upon me in recent years—growing up, I loved swimming pools. You couldn’t keep me out of them. But one of the aspects of phobias caused by past lives is that they may come upon a person when they reach the age at which they died.



So Have You Lived Before?




Whatever you believe, the idea of living multiple times is a fascinating one. It’s interesting to consider that we could be leaving a legacy throughout history more than just creating offspring by living and dying multiple times.



What about you? Got an interesting birthmarks you’d like to hazard a guess about? Any irrational fears that cropped up recently? Have you talked to a child lately that knows way too much about 1800’s London?

A Time Before Blogs


I have a confession to make. I have a hard time with blogging.

Not with reading them or commenting or interacting with bloggers, but with writing a blog. I resisted starting one for a long time, even though it’s high on the author marketing to-do list. Now that I do have a blog, the subject is something I feel is almost a cop-out because it’s so simple—reviews on other books rather than my own generated thoughts.

I’ll tell you why that is.

In the summer of 1999, just after my high school graduation, I discovered a website that allowed members to keep an online journal. This wasn’t any site, though. It had a specific purpose, and its name was Open Diary.

A Diary, Open to the World


The idea behind the site was more than just journaling, chronicling one’s day, or putting down random thoughts. Instead, it was a diary, something the participants took quite seriously. We’d write out innermost thoughts, hopes and dreams that we didn’t share with others; we’d bare our souls.

A journal, on the other hand, is a log of events that happened in a day. Maybe it delves into what the journaler thinks of the day, but mostly it’s a surface look at someone’s life. A blog, to me anyway, is even less personal: how-to’s or random thoughts or lists of things we think are cool. Yet the blog posts I enjoy the most are the more personal ones—the ones I see bloggers apologize in advance for, before opening their souls.

Opendiary.com was full of people being honest and writing those personal blog posts I love. They were people struggling with something in their lives—secrets they kept, lies they told, and the dropping of the mask they wore to the rest of the world. And I was one of those people.

The Only Way to Get to the Other Side Is to Slog Through

My difficulties weren’t as dramatic as some of my diary friends’. I didn’t cut myself, harbor suicidal thoughts, or battle with how to tell my parents I was gay. No, my problem was crippling shyness and a mountain of guilt from the “sins” my religion, born-again Christianity, taught me that I had committed. I found that the more I tried to overcome my “sin,” the more obsessive I became. Yet only in retrospect do I realize that was the heart of my true struggle.

As I went off to college in the fall of 1999, my diary became my companion. Sometimes I would spend hours at night writing out what happened in my day. It was a time of growth in my life, of moving from an extremely timid teenager to a more confident and happy new adult.

I had the challenge of being away from a stable, happy home for the first time. I loved it because I’ve always been independent but was frightened because I was so young and sheltered. I had the challenge of mingling with all types of people, of all types of backgrounds, ethnicities, and moral structure, outside my 1,200-person white Christian small town.

I found that, as I documented my struggles, my tears over rejections from crushes, difficulties keeping up with the amount of classwork I kept piling on myself (because who takes the minimum credit requirements? To the max!), and frustrations with roommates and their boyfriends, I had a narration of the growth of a person.

If You’re Not Honest With Yourself, How Can You Be Honest With Others?


I gradually opened up to my diary. I was surprised at how difficult it was to be honest with myself, even in the entries I marked “private.” But as the years wore on and I grew more self-aware, I realized that honesty was the only way I could overcome the mental barriers I had erected over two decades of living. Admitting that I had negative thoughts, about myself, about my life, even about my religion, was the first step toward becoming a whole person.

It took five years of keeping a diary before I moved from terrible shyness, brought on by feelings of unworthiness, into something better. My growth has continued over the last fifteen years, and I’m sure it’s not at an end. The catalyst is honesty, first to myself and then to a group of anonymous supportive friends going through the same struggle—if not over the same thing. Being truthful helped me become a whole person.

The most succinct way of summarizing my most important lesson is that no matter what your thought is, ignoring it and pushing it down will never make it go away. Whether you’re ashamed because you’re overweight or because you’re jealous of your sister’s success in life or because the baby you’ve wanted so badly didn’t push aside the dark depression you’ve always suffered, you heal when you bring those thoughts into the light. Being honest with the ugly, naked truth is the only way I’ve found to stop the negativity.

What about you? Have you ever journaled or kept a diary? Has it helped you as a person?

If You’re Going to Self-Publish, You’d Better Have a Plan




As a self-publisher, you need to be many things: writer, marketer, social media guru, designer. But one thing you maybe haven’t considered is the need to be a project manager.



I’ve been a bank technology project manager for ten years (O Lord, has it been that long?), so I know intimately the need for a solid plan in any endeavor. As the old adage goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” and I’ve seen it over and over. You have to be flexible, of course, but you can’t be flexible about something if you started with nothing.



Pantsers, sorry. In this, you have to plot.



Four phases exist in any project. In complex technology projects, lot of sub-steps happen, but they fall under one of the main four.



Let’s take a look.



Initiate: What are you doing?




Here’s where you decide you’re going to do something—a project. In self-pub, this means deciding, “Yep, I’m taking the plunge!” But if you’re going to do it, you need to spend time reflecting on the realities of taking this on.



The realities can be anything, but here is where you do some homework. Good questions to consider are: Can I really afford this? What are my sales expectations? Do I have the time to devote to this? How long will it actually take to get my book in final shape and ready for release? Who can I hire and what can I do myself?



The answer to these questions shapes the plan you’ll make in the next phase of your self-pub project.



Plan: How are you doing it?




This is the most cerebrally intense part of your self-pub journey. You figure out all the individual tasks you must complete and organize them. This might feel like a monumental task, but you can break it down to feel less overwhelming. After all, I love the other old adage, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”



Professional project managers do something called a Work Breakdown Structure at this point in the project. It might sound fancy or intimidating or pretentious, but it really isn’t. Instead, all it really involves is a bunch of different colored sticky notes (I love sticky notes), some fun colored pens (and who doesn’t love fun colored pens?), and a blank wall where you can apply said sticky notes after using said fun-colored pens to fill them with notes.



Start with the big picture. What are the types of things that you need to get done? Assuming your book is written and revised, you’re going to need to get it edited. So you write, “Edit” on a sticky and put it on the wall. Then you’re going to need a cover. So you write “Cover Design” on a sticky and put it on the wall. What else? You’ll need to format it, distribute it, and market it. Maybe you can think of other categories.



After you’ve got the high-level categories written out, you go through each one and break down what needs to be done. Let’s say for “Edit,” you want to do a copy edit and a proofread. So you make some stickies and put that underneath the first sticky. And for copy edits, you’ll need to hire an editor (new sticky in a third row), wait for the editor to finish (next to the one you just put down), and review and accept the changes.



Now you see why it’s called a Work Breakdown Structure? You’re structuring and breaking down the work that needs to be done. With stickies. And fun pens.



Note: You don’t have to use stickies and fun pens. You can use a notebook. You can use a back of an envelope. You can use your computer. The important part is thinking through each piece of work that needs to be done, in a logical order, until you get to the granular level where you feel like everything is captured.



After this, you can look at all the work that needs to be done and use it to plan how long it will take in more detail than in your Initiate phase. The information also helps you understand your budget and possible issues that could come up along the way. Update the plan as you go—it’s not set in stone!



Execute: Time for you to do it.




If you’ve spent sufficient time and brainpower planning, this becomes easier than you would have imagined at the outset of your self-publishing journey. You’ve anticipated a lot of the things that need to be done. Even though crazy stuff will always pop up (maybe you cover designer gets sick and you have to hire a new one or your computer craps out so you can’t do the edits when you had planned), you already know how that’s going to affect the other work.



An oft-quoted recommendation in the project management industry is that your planning time should be about half your Execute time. Maybe that’s a bit long for a self-publishing project, but you should devote enough time to Planning so that you get it right.



Close: You did it!




Release day is here! Your project went mostly according to plan. Maybe you had a few delays, but you put some slack into the plan, so you were ready in plenty of time for your release. Now you’ll want to thank all the bloggers who helped you promote your book during release week, order yourself some copies of the paperback, and throw yourself a celebration.



Yes, celebrate your success. Even banks reward its hard working team members with a nice meal and a thank you gift. A night out with your coworkers is usually somewhat awkward, but it feels good to say, “Yes, we did this, and it’s done.” Whether you sold one copy or one thousand copies on release day, self-publishing is hard work. You only have to look back over your plan to see everything you accomplished. Give yourself a pat on the back, at the very least.

10 Things I’m Glad I’ve Done

Since The Bucket List came out, I’ve seen lots of “here’s my before-I-die list” blog entries. I like that idea, I really do, but at the moment, I’m drowning in to-do lists. I have my work list, which never seems to end, and my personal list, which is so long that I’ve split it into categories. Now, instead of two, I have about six or seven—I don’t even want to count.

But what about all the things I’ve done with my life? Like the daily to-do list, once something happens, I tend to discount it once it’s crossed off. But today, I’d like to pause a moment and be grateful for all the things in the world that I’ve experienced.

Here are ten of them:

1. Gotten LASIK surgery

My big regret is doing it so young (age nineteen) because my eyes had a tad more adjustment to do and I don’t have the perfect vision I had when I first had the surgery done. But going from thick gas permeable contacts to being without vision correction has been freeing in a way only those who have glasses or contacts could understand. Thirteen years later, I still wake up in the morning and gaze across the room in wonder that I’m able to clearly see the details of the shirts hanging in my closer.

2.  Journaled my way through college

For four solid years, I was committed to journaling, both as a way of discovering who I was as a person and as a way to develop my skill as a writer. Some nights I would sit in front of my computer and spend hours chronicling the events of the past day or two. And now I have a record of that tumultuous, exciting time in my life, one that I may or may not ever go back and read. But having it written down is precious to me. I’m so glad that I did it.

3.  Started pursuing my writing dream at a relatively young age

After I finished college, I pursued the sensible course of action—a stable job with a nice pension and good benefits. I shelved my writing and didn’t look back. Yet I wasn’t fulfilled. And I kept wondering—what was missing?

A couple years ago, I realized that for a long time, I would think to myself, “I’ll write when I have time. Maybe when I retire. Maybe after the next promotion. The next project. The next time I have a long break.” Yet it never happened—until a friend helped me wake up and realize that writing was what I wanted to do. Never mind the career that didn’t capture my heart. So what if writing doesn’t pay the bills? That’s not why I do it.

And so, even though I was past thirty when I really got serious about writing, I did get serious. I’m realizing my dream, one book, one chapter, one sentence, one word at a time. And I’m grateful that I started, even if sometimes I want to beat myself up for starting so late.

4. Been laid off from my job of five years

This one isn’t as odd as it seems. At 27 years old, I was laid off from my job at a large bank. Due to a variety of circumstances, I spent the next nine months struggling to find work. Yet I count this as one of the most important things that happened to me in my life.

First, it taught me that I could overcome just about anything. By the end, I was running up credit card debt, having blown through all the savings I’d carefully squirreled away, never thinking that the day would come when I’d need it. Yet I came out the other side stronger.

And secondly, it taught me that corporations do not care about me. And I learned it at a very young age. Since starting my career ten years ago, I’ve seen all different demographics of people fired or laid off—retirement age, middle age, with young children at home, just starting their careers. And because I’ve been through it, it no longer shocks me. I’m still appalled and saddened and angered, but I understand that none of those emotions do me any good. I’m as loyal to my job now as I know it is to me—which is to say, we have an understanding.

5. Been in a cutting edge guild in World of Warcraft

Yes, I have to mention this. I’m a video gamer. In fact, it’s how I met my husband, in an online world. We played WOW for several years before really getting into raiding, which required quite a time and energy. Although I may never again be able to sustain the level of commitment to a computer screen that it requires, being really, really good at something and admired by “the masses” on our server was exciting while it lasted.

6.  Fallen in love

I believe in soul mates, but I also believe that not everyone is destined to find theirs. That my husband and I met on an online game, another one of my loves, is both fitting and ridiculous! I’m grateful that I found him and had the courage to have a relationship with him.

7.  Moved to a city …

As a result of falling in love and another bunch of extenuating circumstances (I seem to have a lot of those in my life), my husband and I ended up moving to Toronto. Some days, as I trundle off the train and get swept away by the rush hour crowd, I recall that I am a small town girl living in the big city. I think of the excitement of going to Chicago or New York City for the first time, the flutters in my chest at the hustle and bustle, and I think, Boy, you sure were an idiot.

I hate the city. The people. The smells. The busy streets.

But I’m glad I got to live here so that I knew what I was missing out on: not much.

Sorry, city folk.

8.  … In another country

My husband is Canadian. Although Canada isn’t quite as foreign of a country as, say, North Korea, it still has its differences from the Midwest. Everyone is friendlier (except in the aforementioned Toronto commute). Everyone is more accepting. Everyone is more laid back and less concerned with everyone else’s business. Whether it’s the country, the tapestry of different religions and beliefs, or the Greater Toronto Area itself, I don’t know. But I do know I like the culture here, and I’m glad I have been able to experience it.

9.  Went to Africa

This is actually the one thing that sparked the idea for this list. I loved going to Africa, and I would love to go back someday with my husband and future children. But even if I never do, the beauty, majesty, simplicity, and ruggedness of that continent will forever stay with me. It’s something that I think should be on every person’s bucket list. It was the only place that changed me by simply being.

10. Had a baby

Technically, I haven’t had a baby yet. But sometime on or around September 3, I will become a mother.

I have a confession: I’m not a baby person. I babysat for the money, not for the love of children. And at four months pregnant, upon holding my friend’s newborn in my arms, I thought perhaps the “ugh, what am I supposed to do with this thing?” feeling would be washed away by the pregnancy hormones. It was not.

But, as they always used to tell me, when it’s your baby, it’s different. Let me just make this clear, though: I don’t like pregnancy, the constant need to pee, the ravenous hunger that strikes with no regard to the clock, the aches and pains and weird stuff that you don’t even want to know about. But when I feel my baby roll inside me or kick a painfully sensitive spot (good golly, I wish he/she would stop doing that), some sort of oxytocin-fueled starry-eyed-ness goes off inside me. And I’m glad. This will be an amazing ride, I just know it. And they’re right. When it’s my baby, it’s different.

What about you? Are there one, two, three things you’re happy, gratified, excited, or glad to have experienced?
 
**GIVEAWAYS**

Each blog participating may host a giveaway for one (1) ebook copy of Guarding Angel.  
Open internationally.  
The winner will be turned in by latest July 26th, 2014. 
The  prize will be sent out after July 28th.

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