[Posted this on Facebook this week, but wanted to widen its reach.]

I, like many people, have been disturbed by the political happenings of the last week. If you are happy with the way things are going, yay! But this post is not for you.

I have also been disturbed by a sentiment I have seen floating around the Internet that the vote is over, so we all have to suck it up and deal with it. This is not true. In America, we don’t vote in a dictator. Our political system is designed to encourage political participation all year, every year. This is what free speech is all about. If you have a problem with what’s happening, you have every right to participate in political speech to prevent it from happening, or continuing. Our system was built by people who believed we had not only the right to do so, but the moral obligation.

January 28th, 2017 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Today I am happy to announce that A Million Shadows, sequel to A Thousand Faces is finally available on Kindle and in print.

A lot of people have been waiting for a sequel. This is the number one writing question I’ve been asked over the last year. A Thousand Faces is the first in a trilogy, and I actually had the first drafts of all three books written before publishing the first.

So why did it take over a year to get this one out? Was I sitting on it and resting on my laurels?

Um, no. Here’s the thing. First drafts are bad. They need a lot of work. And over the last year this book has given me lots of fits. If you asked me when it would be ready, I probably told you it would be published as soon as I could get all the suck out. Not all books are equally easy to write, and this one was hard. And that’s why I’m so happy to say, I did it! The book is done! The book is awesome! The book is ready for you to read!

And as for me? I’ll be over here revising number three.

Here’s the cover! If you haven’t read A Thousand Faces yet, that’s available too!

November 21st, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I don’t want to talk about politics.  But I do find myself wondering what I can do to speak out against the acceptance and minimizing of sexual assault and misogyny.  This is what I can think of to do: I’ve made my book, Everything’s Fine, free for the next five days.  

I’d love it if you’d read it.  I’d love it if you’d share the link around.  This is all I can do with my one small voice.  It doesn’t feel like enough, but it feels better than doing nothing.

It occurred to me that some people might not want to read anything heavy this week, so I’ve also marked my summer romance, Boyless, down to 99 cents starting tomorrow, for a week.  And while the official launch is waiting on the print to be ready (probably sometime next week), if you’re looking for my sequel to A Thousand Faces, the e-book is already up on Amazon.

But really, I don’t care if you buy my books.  Read this one for free.  It’s the only thing I can think of to do.

November 10th, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

[This post is part of an ongoing series of how I get work done with kids at home.  As always, a disclaimer: I'm not sure anything I say will be useful to you unless you are me, and have my particular kids and circumstances.  But before I had children everyone told me I'd never have time to write, and this is my message of hope: for me, anyway, it's not true.  Not even a little bit.]

When I had my first child, I had to do edits on my first published novel in the first few weeks of her life.  I remember that I prioritized writing over everything besides the basic biological needs of me and my child.

With the second one, things went somewhat differently.  Part of this was because this time around I have a four year old who needs my attention, so not every napping moment could be spent writing.

But a lot of it was because I basically lost my mind.

With both my kids, I was really worried about post-partum depression.  I have some risk factors, so I watched closely for signs.  But I missed my (quite obvious, in retrospect) symptoms of post-partum OCD, because I was only vaguely aware that’s a thing that exists.

Turns out it does exist, and I have it.

A lot of people thing of OCD as obsessive cleaning or being irrationally bothered by small things.  What gets talked about less are the obsessive thoughts about death and danger and horrible, horrible things every waking moment of the day.  One of the reasons I missed my post-partum OCD was because it felt like normal anxiety.  I worried.  A lot.  Obsessively, all day long.

I checked my child’s breathing about a hundred times a day, because if I didn’t, I was sure he would die.

I never let him sleep in his car seat/infant swing/bouncy seat because if I did, I was sure he would die.

I followed every SIDS guideline, obsessively.  I was sure that if I didn’t, he would die.

Every time I did something normal, like walk up the stairs, I thought about all the horrible things that could happen–like hitting his head on the railing, or dropping him.  I was pretty sure the stairs were going to cause him to die.

Every time I put my kids in the car, I would think about getting in a car accident, and the horrible things that could happen.  These things always happen when you least expect them, so I was sure if I didn’t think about it, my kids would die.

I did a lot of thinking about car seat positioning.  When I only had one, she sat in the middle of the back seat–the safest place in the car.  Now that I have two, they can’t both sit in the middle.  So if I put one on one side and one on the other, I felt like I was choosing which one was going to die when we inevitably got in a car accident.  I thought about this every time I put them in the car.  If I didn’t, I was sure they would die.

I could go on.  It got to the point that I didn’t even want to take care of him anymore, because if someone else had him, I didn’t worry he was going to die.

When I really started to realize something was wrong was when I put that together in my mind.  I thought that by thinking of these things, I could actually prevent bad things from happening to my children.  Like there was some kind of causal link between my thoughts and random, unlikely danger.

That, friends, is craziness.  And I knew it, but I couldn’t make it stop.

At about eight weeks, my anxiety level was so high I was having panic attacks on a daily basis.  I was traumatizing myself with all these thoughts.  And I could not make them stop.  My OB said I probably had anxiety.  He suggested drugs.  The drugs made me sick and I stopped.

And then the OCD latched on to my writing.

I got to the point where I couldn’t write a sentence.  Like literally could not do it.  I didn’t know how to write the right sentence.  I didn’t know how I had ever known how to write the right sentence.  How did words go together?  How would I know what to write?  I knew all the advice.  I had been just writing the words anyway even when they sucked for seventeen years.

But now I couldn’t.  Completely couldn’t.

And that, crazy as it is, was when I knew something had to be done.  I went to my primary care doctor, and got an OCD diagnosis and a different drug, which made me sleep through about a week, but then, about three weeks in, magically fixed my brain.  All the obsessions went away.  Ninety percent of the anxiety went with it.  Now, looking back, I could see that I had OCD with my first child, too, and it never went away, not completely.  I’ve probably always had some of these tendencies, but post-partum hormones ramp it up out of control.

The drugs, though, they are amazing.  I’m back to writing now.  I write with my kid in the bouncy chair, and if he falls asleep, I don’t panic.  I can let him nap without going in four or five times to make sure he’s still breathing.  Fastening a car seat can just be a thing that I do, and not something I have to think about and obsess over.

I’ve always prided myself at being the writer who gets it done, but sometimes you just can’t, and that has to be okay.  Or it’s not okay, but it doesn’t change the facts.  Brains are weird.  Life is crazy.  Sometimes things get in the way and you have to push through and keep at it, but sometimes things get in the way and there’s nothing to be done.

Fortunately, especially with kids, life can also change pretty quickly. What’s impossible one day is possible the next.

And it’s on to another adventure.

August 30th, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (3)

Today is the release day of DUSKFALL–debut novel of the awesome Christopher Husberg. This is one of my favorite epic fantasy novels ever. I love the genre, but I put down far more of the books than I finish, because of the epic fantasy tendency toward slow pacing and bloated description. DUSKFALL is a novel that moves, the characters are compelling, and  the world is awesome and well-drawn.  Seriously, you should read it right now.  But in case you need more convincing, here are my three favorite things about it.

Not counting the gorgeous cover, of course:

#1: DUSKFALL has women in it.

Okay, this seems like it should be a given, right?  But SO many of the epic fantasies I pick up have a) no women who are not love interests, b) no women who are side characters, or (sometimes and!) c) only women who are spoken of by other characters/treated by the narrative in condescending, objectifying, or gender typical ways.  This might be better than our Tolkein roots in which there are almost literally no women, but not by, you know, a lot.

The women in DUSKFALL, on the other hand, are full characters with their own motivations and goals.  I love each of them for different reasons.  Their actions serve their own character arcs.  These characters are not always “likeable.”  I never felt like they were token.  They felt like people who happen to be female as opposed to women who are written as if femininity is the foremost (or only!) aspect of their character.  They were all different from one another!  There are romance arcs, but they’re secondary to the central character arcs of each of the women.  Winter, especially, had one of the most horrifying and compelling arcs I’ve read in a long time.  AND, while the book doesn’t go out of its way to call attention to the fact, as main characters the women outnumber the men.  All without changing the tone of the dark epic fantasy book which will surely still appeal to male readers, probably even as a primary audience, given the state of the genre.

It’s shameful that this makes the list of my very favorite things about this book, but this was the best handling of female characters in an epic fantasy that I have perhaps ever read.  It made my inner feminist do a happy dance.  For real.

#2: I want to avoid spoilers, but there’s an addiction story that was the best handled portrayal of addiction that I have ever seen in fiction.  I generally avoid drug narratives in books and films, because glorification of drug use often makes me feel physically ill.  This one, however, was so artfully done, I felt incredible empathy for the character, though the behavior of this character was truly classic (and rightly terrifying) addiction behavior.  There was a scene near the end of this arc that was at once awful and incredibly powerful.  This is fiction at its best–dealing with darkness in realistic ways without stumbling over messages or glorifying illness.  I wish I could say more but…spoilers.

#3: It does things that I thought couldn’t be done, and does them well.  DUSKFALL, to my great surprise, had not one but three elements that are hard to pull off in new and interesting ways: amnesia, vampires, and elves.  I didn’t know it was possible to sell a book with elves in it anymore, but these elves work wonderfully.  (And kind of Vvardenfell-esk, which puts them close to my heart.)  The amnesia is plausible, well-structured, and generally well-written.  And the vampire was just plain awesome.

I limited myself to three things, but if I was going to pick a fourth, it would be how much more story there obviously is to be told.  It sold in a five book deal…and I wish I had the sequel already.  And the one after that.  And the one after that.  And the one after that.

But hey, if you haven’t read this one yet, you still get to read it for the first time.  Lucky you.  Get to it.

June 21st, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I did one of these, but this post is part of an ongoing series of how I get writing done at home with a child.  Insert standard disclaimer about how this probably only works if you are me and have my child, but before I had kids I was told I couldn’t write with little children and would never get anything done.  This is my way of sending a more hopeful message out: if you’re me, it’s possible, so maybe it will also be possible for you.

When my daughter turned two, getting work done at home became immeasurably easier.  Because I started letting her watch TV.

Yes, I became THAT mom who uses the television as a babysitter.

But here’s the thing.  She’d given up napping, and was sleeping WAY better at night for it, so it was clearly what she needed.  But she wasn’t actually ready to interface with people all day without getting seriously grumpy.  So we instituted a one-movie-per-day policy.  She got 90-120 minutes of screen time which doubled as downtime, and I got the same to write in peace and without interruption.

And it worked beautifully.  My own guilt kept me from letting her have any more screen time than that, but in that many minutes a day, I could keep up a work pace that I was comfortable with.  Plus, my child fell in love with Miyazaki movies, which was an added bonus.

After she turned four, things changed a bit.  I wasn’t quite prepared for this, but while for my three-year-old I was the favorite person and preferred playmate, my four-year-old would much rather play with her friends.  For hours.

Suddenly I found myself with tons of time on my hands where all I had to do was be on hand to help solve problems and provide snacks–and we weren’t even watching movies anymore more than once a week.

Coupled with this was a realization I had.  I’d always thought I couldn’t write at night because I am braindead at night.  But I went through a couple months where for physical reasons I was braindead ALL the time.  And I discovered something invaluable: the quality of my ability to think doesn’t actually affect my writing ability at all.  This may be because I’ve been writing for sixteen years now and it’s all become muscle memory.  Or maybe I always could have done this, and I was just telling myself I couldn’t.  (As a sidenote, it’s amazing what I can do when I stop telling myself that I can’t and just do it already.)  But I would get into the evening hours and my thought process would go something like this: I am tired.  I cannot brain.  Tired brain cannot write.  Wait.  When will my brain not be tired?  Crap.  This is all I’ve got.  Tomorrow, it will also be all I’ve got.  Next week?  Same.  Guess I better write anyway.

So I started getting work done during the day while my child was happily occupied AND at night when she went to bed.

Thus followed the most productive writing months of my entire life.  I got so much done.  It was liberating and exhilarating.

But…then.

Then.

This happened:

We’re in for a whole new adventure, guys.  Stay tuned for the Mommy Writer, part 2.

June 14th, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (9)

While I was really looking forward to publishing BOYLESS, I dreaded the process of approving a cover.  The beauty of this cover (and all my covers) is due to the wonderful work of my cover designer Melody Fender.  But usually when we begin work I send Melody not only the book, but also a lightbox full of stock photos I’ve collected as a jumping off point, and a description of any ideas I have.  Often (very often) we go in a totally different direction, but at least it gives us someplace to start.  As Melody puts it, “it lets me see what’s in your head.”

But for BOYLESS, all that was in my head was a list of what I didn’t want.

The main character of BOYLESS is overweight.  She does not, as some early readers suggested, merely imagine that she is overweight.  She is actually what the BMI would classify as obese.  (I’m not going to even get started about what I think about the BMI and this classification, and instead let the fact stand.)

In my head, Bryn and Logan look something like this:

Isn’t she cute?  Overweight and awesome.  This is the Bryn that I wrote about.

But that photo above?  It represents one of only four or five photos I could find of cute couples where the girl is overweight.  Most of the photos that claimed to have overweight girls in them either had girls who were a) not actually overweight, just not Vogue models or b) were insulting, “humorous”, or otherwise offensive.  What remained were a very few images like this one, which is a snapshot.

NOT a cover quality image.

This made me intensely angry.  Because I wanted to put a picture of my main character on the cover, like my other contemporary novels.  But mostly because it’s ridiculous given the sheer volume of photos of happy couples on stock photo websites that there isn’t a wider range of body types.  Every once in a while I would make another pass, sure that the photos I was looking for must be out there somewhere.

But they weren’t.

I thought seriously about trying to create a photo of my own.  But when I thought about the added complexity and expense…I just didn’t have the resources to hire a photographer, pay (let alone find) models, pray that the pictures came out right the first time, etc.

No.  I’m an indie author, and I am limited to what stock art provides.  But I didn’t know what we were going to do, so when I sent the info to Melody, instead of a list of ideas, it read like a big long list of what I didn’t want.

Here are a few of the things I told her:

I wanted the cover to match my other contemporary novels, which meant no drastic changes in style, like going illustrated a la the cover of Dumplin’.  We needed to find a photo that would work.  Also, BOYLESS is a romance, so I wanted a couple on the cover.

However, I absolutely did NOT want to put a skinny girl on the cover, because that is so insulting to my character.

Other things I didn’t want to see:

-refrigerators

-food

-clothes that indicate size that are not on a person at the time

-images prominently featuring my character’s butt

(This list brought to you by actual covers by New York publishers.  Ugh.)

I also passed along this article which summarizes a lot of why those particular trends in covers are problematic.

In the end, this was my take home:

“I don’t know that an appropriate image exists.  It’s really annoying because by avoiding putting Bryn’s body on the cover it’s adding to the idea that no one wants to see an overweight body, but there are no appropriate photos of bodies available to PUT on the cover.  Stupid fat shame culture.  Stupid airbrushed people.”

I closed the email saying this might be an insurmountable problem.

And you know, with my resources, it really was.  Maybe I should have tried harder.  Maybe I should have done it differently.  But in the end, my cover designer created this cover, and it’s gorgeous.

I am so, so happy with Melody’s work.  The cover fits the book, nails the genre, and is a great advertisement for the story.  (And the boat scene remains my very favorite in the entire novel.)

A part of me, though, will always be angry on Bryn’s behalf, and, really, on behalf of all women, that we didn’t have the option of using a cover quality, market appropriate shot of an overweight girl as part of an attractive couple.  Because, guys, this is a thing that exists in real life.  Guess what?  Fat girls are loveable.  And have men who love them.  And therefore real life romance stories that don’t involve makeovers or weight loss.   That’s why I wrote this book–because I think our media should reflect that reality, and the fact that it doesn’t just makes me sad.

June 7th, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Today I am excited to finally announce the release of my contemporary young adult romance novel, BOYLESS!

I’ll have more to say in the coming days about the cover, but today I just want to share it with you, in all its glory:

BOYLESS is available today on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.

What’s it about?  Here’s the back cover copy:

Nothing was going to ruin Bryn’s boyless summer. She was all set to have a fantastic experience working at all-girl Camp Timberpine, away from the outside world, away from her food-obsessed mother. With no boys around, Bryn was no longer the bottom of the totem pole of desirability. She was only River, art counselor, still fat, but without the constant reminders that her body shape took her right out of the spawning pool, like a salmon who couldn’t swim upstream.

And then he appears—the camp director’s son, up for the summer to build the camp a new outdoor stage. Logan is more handsome than Bryn would like to admit–and he’s also a threat to all of Bryn’s summer plans. As the other counselors throw themselves at him, Bryn knows that any one of them might be the lead in Logan’s summer romance. Even worse, Logan seems to have pegged her as the safe girl—the one he can hang out with without getting constantly hit on, and no amount of Bryn’s caustic sarcasm will get him to leave her alone. In fact, he almost seems to like it.

Bryn’s hope for a boyless summer rapidly turns to anything but. But could Logan ever be interested in her as more than a friend? And can Bryn let go of her fears and give romance a chance?

(And for those who are wondering, yes, the sequel to A Thousand Faces is coming.  It’s in edits AS WE SPEAK!  It’ll be out in the next few months.)

May 18th, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I have been so happy to have SKIPPED back out in the world again.  This was the book that made me a published author, so it will always have a special place in my heart.  Thanks to everyone who’s read and shared it.  The listing with the new title and cover doesn’t have any reviews yet on Amazon, so if you’ve read the book and feel inclined, I’d love it if you’d pop over and leave one.

If you’re new to the book–and it’s been a while!–I thought I’d re-share some of the things I wrote about it back during its release in 2012.

• Here’s a post on John Brown’s blog where I talked about where I got the original idea for SKIPPED and how I turned that idea into a novel.
• And a piece I wrote for the Macteen blog about how I like to write about things that disturb me, and how that played into Ricki’s story
• And last, a post for Mary Robinette Kowal’s ongoing series, My Favorite Bit, where I talked about what I was most proud of in the book.

March 1st, 2016 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)