When stuff goes sideways. . . .

So after being told too many times that I need a blog, I remembered that I already have the blog I was required to make in one of my PR classes. Here it is. It has been revamped to show my writing awesomeness. It's also had a makeover that required the use of purple furry walls.

Many of you reading this likely know me in some way, and you also know that I was working with a publisher to put out an anthology titled 13 that contains some of my short stories and a novel titled A Broken Howl. I had release dates. I had covers. I had book trailers. I had a PR plan typed up for both works (thank you comm. degree). I was ready.

Then stuff went sideways.

Too bad my publisher kinda wasn't ready. Sadly, my publisher is no more. For reasons that had nothing to do with me that I don't want to get into, the company dissolved.

Tragic.

And it has left me with a whole lot of stuff and asking “Well, what the fuck do I do now?”

In fact, I cried that a few times.

I've been writing for over half my life. I've paid my bills and feed my children on money I earned from writing. When it comes to me and publishing a full-length novel though, something always seems to go sideways. Simply put, I've been here before. My first publishing offer years ago was followed by a life changing event that meant way too much other crap to do for me to put in the time my novel needed. And the novel itself. . . well, my toxic long-since ended personal relationship spewed all over that and destroyed a lot of what I had. What remains of that novel sits confined to a digital folder on my hard drive. And there it'll likely sit for a little while longer. Rewriting something that was lost is painful.

But A Broken Howl isn't lost. It's sitting here looking at me and asking just what I plan on doing with it. I cannot lockup another novel in a folder to just sit.

As for the short stories, most of them have been published before. The ones that haven't are rather special to me, and I want to share them. The previously published ones were published in small magazines or websites, most of which no longer exist. When my publisher mentioned having me do an anthology, I had pulled them from the website they were currently for purchase on. Undoing that would be a mess. So likely they too, would be faced with being locked up in a folder.

My Tomcat (aka my husband) was the voice of reason, or maybe that should be unreason because we're rarely reasonable. He suggested I self-publish. The publishing world is a lot different from when I first started writing. Self-publishing is a lot different. Many of my writing friends are self-published. There isn't anything wrong with being self-published.

But I'm really stubborn.

My reply to Tomcat was that I didn't want to be self-published; I want to be published by a small press. And then my husband said, “Then we'll make a publishing company.”

And then I realized just how stupid I was being. By this stage, I didn't really need a publisher. I could self-publish.

There will still be a company created because that just makes better business sense, and I really like to name things. In fact, we already have a name, but we'll talk about that in another post.

Both 13 and A Broken Howl are going to be published, and you'll get to follow along on that journey through this blog. Organizing a publishing company (even one that only publishes me) will likely cause many colorful conversations between my husband and me. Don't worry. I'll be sure to quote us often so you can laugh too.

But this blog won't be limited to just writing. Strange things happen to me when I venture out in public, so some of that might end up on here as well. And, as I've never formatted a book before (besides things in college), it'll likely stress me out and have me cutting up t-shirts. My best clothing comes from stress, so there will also be how-tos for some of my favorite reconstruction projects.

It's going to be a lot of fun, and you're not going to want to miss a post. Please subscribe and “like” my page on Facebook.