Announcing My Second Chance

“Would fishing be fun if the fish jumped out of the ocean and smacked you in the face?”

I don’t think so.

In fact, that sounds like a nightmare I had once.

🙂

If fishing is thought, by some to be boring, this would be the opposite.

Downright frightening, in other words, but I like this writer’s post because it makes some true points on the subjects of balance, perspective, and when enough is enough in the life of an author.

Please shut up: why self-promotion as an author doesn’t work.

Now, while I think having a catchy title or opening line, like I made sure to include at the start of this post can work to grab the reader’s attention, I can’t say I haven’t been told to “please shut up” a time or two.

Okay okay, so it may not have been to my face every time, but I can guarantee it was being said under the breath.

I post on this blog, at a minimum, once a week. I post on Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis.

I want to share something. I want to express myself.

Both true and anyone who does that doesn’t always know, for the sake of all others, when enough’s enough.

I am proud to announce something today, but apparently I couldn’t just do it, without prefacing my announcement without my special brand of hyper-awareness of my self-promotion, and that it isn’t my goal to be pushy.

Because, as the blog post I linked above says (just in case you didn’t read it), nobody is going to buy a book, just because my story is in it.

Well, not only because they follow me on Twitter, have liked me on Facebook, and I don’t even have Instagram or Tumblr anyway.

I know that by opening myself up like this, I am risking vulnerability, and I’ not sure how I completely feel about it.

Sure, if E.L. James can handle it, so can I, right?

😉

Others may have an opinion of my story. Along with the good there inevitably could and will come the bad.

I wanted to share my good news with you here. That’s all I have control over.

I am bad at self-promotion.

Oh sure, I do it, but not because I live to promote.
I am one blog, in a galaxy of millions, and I wanted to announce that I have written a short story: One Last Kiss.

It is coming out, in June, assuming all goes as planned.

Okay, so I have a hard time believing it’s really happening because things like this don’t happen to me. Well, rarely if ever, but there’s always got to be a first for everything, right?

If you were to ask anyone who believes in the power of positive thinking, they’d say I need to scrap talk and thinking like that because no good can come of it.

So I choose to believe in this and to be excited.

I can’t see the cover, but the day the email was sent out to everyone of us, included in this anthology, the one in which the cover image was first revealed to us, I admit I couldn’t stop smiling.

I wanted someone to describe it to me, where exactly everything was, and where my name appeared. I gobbled up every single detail I could, so I could picture things exactly in my mind’s eye, the most powerful tool at my disposal.

Now I can finally share it with the rest of the world, or with my little piece of the world anyway, because I was told the Queen is much too busy with her birthday celebrations to offer me her opinion.

🙂

Right, well I never promised a humour anthology.

http://romanceanthologieshfbooks.blogspot.co.uk

The one to organize all this made the official announcement, over on her own blog, this past Sunday:

Author Hazel Robinson’s Blog – After The Scars Cover Reveal

This title fits perfectly because this was, indeed, my second chance, in a lot of ways.

More to come, but check out the Facebook page:

The Second Chances Anthology

I should be featured, with a short bio and synopsis of my story, on the page in May sometime.

Finally, I just wanted to share the GoodReads link. I can’t believe I am on GoodReads!

After The Scars – The Second Chances Anthology

Speaking of…I’m off to shout this from the rooftops.

Feel free to tell me to shut up: in your head, under your breath, or even out loud if you really deem it necessary.

Lara Fabian – I Will Love Again (slow version)

Fiction Friday: Mine and Others

April is Camp NaNoWriMo, a variation on what I took part in last November. It’s all in how it is set up, with a camp setting, organizing participants into cabins, which basically means writers are linked with other writers, for support throughout the month.
I am not taking part this time. I found the site a little tricky to use with VO (VoiceOver) and had trouble keeping track of my daily word count.
I hadn’t been able to find the necessary motivation before that time to actually write down the story I had swirling around in my head for several years. I went forward and used Twitter and kept track of my word count on my own.
I found it successful in that I managed to reach 50K words in 30 days.
Now it is happening again. They host this event every November, April, and July, along with their Young Writer’s Program.
I am not a camper for several reasons, the technology issues being one of them. The others are, simply put, that I still haven’t finished the ending of my first NaNo experience. I suppose I could have joined up and written another 50K words again this month; maybe the second half of my story or a sequel to it. I still have not decided.
However, I have way too much work I need to get done for school and that must take precedent right now. I do have a first draft of the first part, eagerly awaiting attention and major editing I am sure. I hope to share it here at some point.
***
April is also National Poetry Month in the US, which I’ve previously spoken about. Another event put on this month is called NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). The challenge is to write a poem a day for the 30 days of April.
I marvel at anyone able to pull this feet off, as I struggle sometimes to write one poem, let alone thirty. I love poetry and wish everyone who is taking that challenge on all the luck in the world.
***
I have no more of my own fiction to offer up today, but I can lastly comment on someone else’s.
I am not one of those blogs which exclusively writes and posts book reviews for authors. Some of them, like the lovely young lady I have convinced to join me in the Blog Hop I will be posting for on Monday, she does this. Her site Brittany’s Book Blog, posts and hosts books from many independent authors and she hosts a lot of them for book take-overs. These consist of the author speaking directly to the fans over Facebook, posting teasers and teaser pics from their books, and having give-aways of book related swag and prizes.
I admire her and the work she puts into this, plus a full-time college work load. She is simply a lover of books and does so much to support authors.
I have considered going into this area of blogging, but think, for the most part, I would prefer to focus mainly on my own writing. I am still trying to figure out what this blog is, but it is a bit of a confusing question. I was just hoping it would come to me, without having to consciously think about it.
I hope to be an author myself and greatly admire the authors who do all the work themselves. A lot goes into it. I want to support as many authors as I can and that is why I’ve seriously considered the book review blogging rout.
Today I will give a quick try at it with a book I was just recently given to read, by an up-and-coming independent author. I tried the Amazon/B and N/GoodReads thing, but think I will need extra practice navigating all those sites. I don’t have the largest following on here, but I can give it a try and maybe someone will read this and check her out.
Her name is Komali da Silva and her book is Angels Dawn. (Wow. I feel like I am writing a book report for school.)
If you are a fan of teen/Ya (young adult) you will love this story. It is a tale of young love, first loves, and the turmoil of being a teen.
Dawn is turning sixteen and living a good life with her family, her best friend, and her other life-long friend/boyfriend.
She and he have been friends for years and it finally turned into something more. He is reliable and the good guy, but we all know girls like that bad boy at one time or another, even if it gets her into trouble.
She is swept up in the heat of emotions she feels stronger than she’s ever felt before. He comes into her life, this stunningly good-looking stranger, seemingly out of nowhere, after she is attacked on the school grounds while her family and friends are waiting to celebrate her birthday with her.
When she wakes up in the hospital she remembers very little. It was her trusty boyfriend who came to her rescue, or was it?
This new guy might be the answer to all of her prayers or might just lead her into danger and trouble.
She must choose between the dependable friend who loves her or the guy she feels an intensity for that can not be explained.
The cliff hanger ending comes up upon you as a reader and you are left with another mysterious attack and more questions to be answered about everyone involved than answers.
Who is this mysterious and powerful female who seems to find Dawn as a threat and is doing her best to get rid of her? Is this guy really her saviour and the one she should be with or is he dangerous? Should she follow her heart or her head?
I look forward to the second instalment in the Angels Dawn series. I hope to learn all of this and more.
Thank you Komali, for sending your book over to me and I hope you find all the success for your future writing career that you are working so hard for.
Angels Dawn is the smart and fast-paced story of teen angst and a bunch of the supernatural thrown in to make a winning combination of a developing love story and a growing roller coaster of suspense.
Do you enjoy supernatural beings in the stories you read or do you prefer gritty reality?