Hello my friends, 

I know it’s been a long minute since I posted last. I am very sorry about that. I will strive to gt better, because I have news!!

Since I began my novel Extermination of an Empire, I have had my eye on it being published. I have researched and done my due diligence on the industry that I have made a rather weighty decision. Up until this point I have had my heart set on publishing my novel through a publishing house. I looked forward with great excitement at the idea of having a team working on my book. 

In the years since I first looked toward publishing houses with heart aglow, much has changed in the industry. Traditional houses are offering less and becoming more of a monopoly as houses are merged. Authors are being offered less support with much the same compensation. Which brings me to my decision. 

If I am going to be left doing my own marketing, and much of my own leg work, I may as well be compensated higher for my work and take control of the process. 

I have set a publication date for my breakout novel, Extermination of an Empire. September 24th 2023 Extermination of an Empire will be available to the public. 

The decision, while exciting is also daunting as I begin to arrange all of the things needed for a successful book Launch. I hope to have cover art ready in March for a reveal. The date of the cover reveal is still TBD, but I am excited to have the cover art ready to put Extermination up for Pre-Order!!!

I am very excited to share this news with you and hope to have many updated for you throughout this coming year!!!

Love, 

April

Well, I made another change in my life. I quit my job of nearly five years. As a prank, because I was working at a bottling plant that contracted with Pepsi, I left a gift in the office windows of the plant manager and the production managers. I gifted both of them a small 12oz glass bottle of coke. This was done the night before my last day. Well, they got their knickers in a twist and had me clean out my cubby and leave instead of working the last day. Ah, C’est la vie.

On Monday, I’ll be starting a new journey as a clinical tech at an optometrists office. Which is an exciting change. Because I have a little time before I start the new adventure, and because I finally got my last Beta-reader’s feedback, I’m tightening up my project before I send it off to the editor. My goal is to send it off before I report to my first day at my mew job on Monday.

My friends, I am very excited to have this progress. My hope is that I may be ready to participate in Pitch Wars on Twitter in March. Here is crossing fingers. It all depends on how quickly I can get my edits back and worked on, but I am keeping my head held high. The latest will be in June.

For my March Blog post, I’ll share a short story with you.

I hope this post finds you all well and prosperous.

April Fellows.

Hello my little rain drops. I just realized that I haven’t given anyone an update since August.

Well, I am happy to say that the first round of Beta readers finished and delivered their feedback, which was very exciting! Another positive thing to report is that I made the necessary edits and it is now with the second round of readers.

While round two of Betas are reading, I took a step and started working on book two. With any luck, this should kick off the progress in a way that may hopefully shorten the time in between publications (Once we get there that is.)

Because I am doing Nano, I’m trying to get a huge chunk of the book finished by the end of the month. This would be a lot easier if evil little plot bunnies weren’t trying to invade. Comically enough, I began scrolling tiktok [@aprilfellowsauthor] and came across a video that inspired an entire romcom… Guys,… It’s fluffy. Most all of my writing involves a LOT of human suffering and overcoming that suffering. Then this fluffy little romcom leaps out, and promises to be a Happily Ever After where they find a passion and a purpose together. I don’t know if I have the heart to publish it under my main name. The biggest concern that I have is that readers of this story will come to expect fluffy from me in the next book they read of mine. And on the flip side, readers of my main work will come to expect the human suffering and get a fluffy story.

I dunno. Maybe you guys can tell me what you would prefer. I have a pen name ready for the new fluffy, but I’m not allowing myself to touch it until my Nano goal has been reached. I mean, I already have the first half of is summarized. Just the summary alone is a thousand words though. Oh my goodness.

Alright Rain-drops, I will get back to my nano writing so I can get book two ready by the time book one finds an agent. Love all of you.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Don’t put the cart before the horse.” I have always understood this to mean that it is useless to buy a cart if you have no horse to pull it. A phrase steeped in history.

As I embarked on the journey toward eventual publication I allowed my dreams to soar. Wat publisher would I like to submit to? Would my story become a movie? Would it be a best seller? On and on these thoughts coursed through my head and before I even had a working outline, I poured over major publishers and all the many ways to publish.

I quickly realized that the business of writing was not as simple as I had imagined. In my naivety, I supposed that I would write the book start to finish, print it off, and send it to a list of publishers with illustrious dreams of an acceptance from someone and my name on the dust jacket of a book published nationwide. These dreams are of course some eight years old now.

In the time since I began Extermination of an Empire, with stars in my eyes; I have grown a great deal. Though what I have learned while I was cart shopping was a great deal about the business of writing. Publication is serious business. Any entrepreneur worth his/her salt would tell you that you don’t sell a bad product. You work on it, you develop it and then when it comes time to sell it to the public, you want it to be the best that it can be. Often times you sink a great deal of your own money into the development before you can attract investors to ease the process.

Writing is much like a young business and our written word our product. The first draft will never be the draft that sells as the prototype is rarely ever a saleable product. We write because we believe in the story and this is a great thing. Does it mean we should crumble at the first sign of criticism? No. Are all of our critics wrong? Not entirely. Sometimes you have to learn what that criticism is trying to say. A dear author friend of mine gave a chunk of her novel to a friend who told her, “It needs space pirates.” It stung. She felt like she had written a boring story and that no one would want to read it. Then she upped the momentum of the piece and sent it back to the same friend. Suddenly the friend loved it. It no longer needed space pirates.

That said, we need to remember, my young writing friends, that we need to first train our proverbial horses before we look to acquiring the proverbial cart. Take heart, keep writing and learn from your mistakes. You may get thrown from the horse a few times, but do not give up. Those who have succeeded have failed before. They have likely failed many times. What matters is learning from that

 I wanted to report back on the progress so far!
Extermination of an Empire is with Beta Readers right now! 

As exciting as that is, I have decided that it is best to make the best of the time while I wait to hear from readers. In this “down-time” I am working on book 2 and I am proud to report that I am eight thousand words into the novel. Now that may sound like a lot, but it is really just the first two chapters. 

I am so excited for the coming months. As school starts, I will have more time to steal away for some writing and keep this momentum up. My hope right now is that I might have book 2 ready shortly after starting my hunt for an agent. This way, I can make sure you, my readers, don’t have to wait too long for the next edition. 

I hope this little update finds each of you well.

 As I write this, I am preparing material for my Beta Readers!! 

This is a step that I never expected to reach! When I first began writing Extermination of an Empire almost 8 years ago, it seemed a pipe dream to be approaching this step. Now I find that not only am I preparing work for Beta readers, I am also working on book 2 as well. My hope is that I can release them as close together as possible once I reach that point. 

The other exciting element, is that Extermination is not the only exciting project before me. I hope to follow up the series with either a Historical romance thriller based in Ancient Egypt and a Peter pan re-telling that both excites and terrifies me. (the sheer possibilities and the cult fan base are partly terrifying).

I have a great deal of faith in each of these projects. Enough that I can easily see them each as either a tv/mini series or a major motion picture. I believe in their potential. However, I am also realistic. Even as I dream of all of the possibilities for these projects, they are also like children to me. Children that may reach their potential, or may be content for mediocrity. Their destinies are yet to be written as they still sit un-published.  

A dear author friend of mine pointed out that my belief in my work is a rare gift. I had not thought of it that way. My life has forced me to choose to develop a certain amount of tough skin. Once upon a time, I wished and wanted and when I didn’t achieve the result I desired, I gave up. Like everyone else I have struggled through these feelings. I think that the one thing that I had to learn was that there is value in critique. Things to be learned from failure. 

Failure does not mean all is lost. It only halts you when you choose to allow it. When I have failed with this story, there were times when I felt it might be better to give up. I actually did give it up for a couple years. During that time, I focused on being a mother and a wife while trying to survive my work schedule. 

I don’t remember exactly when I got back into it, but I can attribute much of my growth to finding the right kind of critique. Critique that built my confidence. So I started again. I found that my POV made it difficult to read. So I worked on changing it to a more consistent POV. Then after that work was done, I changed POV again finding it stronger and more engaging. At last I finished my manuscript and then went through tightening the text. More or less, re-writing the manuscript. 

I have discovered things about my story and characters that may not have revealed themselves had I not made those changes. 

Something I would like to express to all of my readers; both fiction and blog, is to persevere. Never give up on things that are hard. If you are writing, don’t give up. It is hard to do right. 

Don’t be afraid of failure. Instead, when you fail, try to find something meaningful to learn from it and where to start the work from there.

I believe in you. Even if we haven’t met, I believe in you. You have a potential that can only be reached if you work at it. 

To quote Ashton Kutcher, “Every opportunity is disguised as hard work.”

Don’t be afraid to put your shoulder to the wheel and push on my friends.

Well, 2020 is over and 2021 has come in like a jaguar leaping for the jugular.

November we had joy and heartbreak as we found out that I was pregnant and then promptly miscarried a week later. We found our way to healing, and then came February and withing the first 5 days, my 45 yr old husband had a heart-attack. To say that the last 6 months have been difficult and stressful would be an understatement.

So with all of these distractions rampant, it is reasonable to assume I have been struggling, because I have.

Today I am happy to report that I am working on Chapter 14. This marks the over halfway point! I cannot tell you how happy I am to be where I am. This novel has been a labor of love, research, and perseverance. What began as a lofty goal in 2013 is now nearing completion as I hit the halfway mark in my self-edits and send my writing off to my editor. Soon I will be sending Extermination of an Empire to Beta Readers, followed by the ever daunting Query process where I will be pursuing an agent.

For those of you who have stuck with me through all or part of this process, I want to thank you. Your support has made this process worth while. My goal is for 2022 publication. As soon as I have a solid date, I will make sure that you, my readers, are the first to know!

8/24/2020
 I am absolutely stoked to share with you some excellent news!!!
The rewrite is complete!! Now begins the edits!

This book has been a labor of love that started back in October of 2013 and now in August of 2020 we begin down the path of edits!!!!  As soon as I get into a good workflow with edits, I will be sharing with you a new project I will be writing alongside the sequel to Extermination of an Empire.  I am excited to share this project with you as I believe it has a great potential!

For my grammar specific friends, I beg you to pardon my excessive use of exclamation marks.  I am actually that excited and beside myself in this achievement. 

12/17/2020

So as you can tell I’ve been a bit absent. 2020 has been a hairy year. There has been a good deal of difficulty throughout the year including family funerals, miscarriage, and a nasty sprained ankle to name a few.
But to update you on the current progress of Extermination of an Empire, author edits are about 30% done with more progress being made every day. While I am working through the first round of edits, I hope you will all be patient with me. I started out with an auspicious deadline to complete not only the rewrite but all of my edits and be working on querying my work to literary agents by the end of the year. 

We cannot predict what might happen in the world as we set out with these goals, however as writers we must ind it in ourselves to allow ourselves our humanity. Time to grieve, spend time with our families and to prioritize those things most precious in our lives. My circumstances may seem easy to some and insurmountable to others. However, in the end, they are mine and I believe that when the time comes for publication, Extermination of an Empire will be best that it can be.

hoping all of you are safe and I pray you all have a merry Christmas!

Each of us began life as a clean slate without skill or ability. An inherent potential resonated within us. We were trained how to do something and we failed. We failed, and failed again until at last we succeeded.

With every failure in this early period, we received encouragement to press on. To keep trying. To keep failing. The best example is learning to walk. Countless falls and bumps go by. Sometimes one on the heel of the other, and still we tried again.

Somewhere along the way, failure became scary enough to stop our advances. The fear of failure stops us from ever trying again.

I recently had this discussion with my daughter who was unwilling to go fishing with daddy because she fails.

“Mommy,” she told me, “I just fail. I don’t like it.”

She had only been fishing a handful of times and was still working on a successful cast. I think she may have been using it as a plot to do something else, though i can’t be certain. So we talked about her desire to take dance class and violin classes. Both skills that take a lot of practice to become good.

I asked her if ballerinas fell a lot. She shook her head and told me they leapt. With a smile, i asked if they fell when they were learning. She thought for a minute and nodded. I followed up by asking if they kept trying. She again nodded. I’m sure you can tell the direction I was headed.

We then talked about the man who invented the light bulb. (She still doesn’t remember his name) How he failed a thousand different times before finally succeeding.

Being the mean mom I am, I informed her that there would be no dance or violin classes if she was not willing to keep trying something she hadn’t mastered. (I am being facetious when I say I’m a mean mom. I know I’m not) This made her think about her reasons for not wanting to fish with daddy and she chose to go.

This has been on my mind as I recently spoke to a writer friend of mine about participating in NaNo-WriMo. I am in edits on my breakout novel right now so it doesn’t make sense to participate for me. She expressed her desire to join and try to win. So along with the expectation of falling short of the goal.

She said, “I will try to win it, but the real reason is that I know I will NOT, and THAT is why I need to. I need to reinforce (in my mind) that failure is NOT something to fear.”

Her words struck me. As writers, how often do we pause at the idea of failure? How often do we hold our writing back for fear of criticism, theft, no one liking it?

What we write is so much a part of ourselves, many of us consider our writing as our babies. But I think it is more than that. It is a reflection of ourselves. This is very clear to me as a mother myself. My fears surrounding my writing are very different than my fears for my child. My baby.

I want my baby to see the value in failure. So I try to see the value in it.

My mother always taught that it is far better to Shoot for the moon and miss than to shoot for a cow pie (poop) and hit. At least if you miss the moon, you still land among the stars.

Where would we be if the great Edison, Tesla, and Bell had not shot for the moon? If J.K. Rowling had quit after her first of 23 rejections? The reality is every great success is born of failure. Failure requires us to reach higher. It encourages us to try again.
In this Christmas season, I pray you all recognize your failures as stepping stones and allow them to lift you higher.

May God bless you and keep you in his care.

Merry Christmas

 Hey guys!! 

I’m sorry it has been a hot minute since I shared anything with you. I will be remedying that soon!
In the mean time, I thought you might like to know how the rewrite is going. 

Extermination is within a chapter of completion of the rewrite. As soon as it is done (Hopefully in the next few days) I’ll be ab;e to launch into the edits with my wonderful editor!  I’m so excited to be entering this stage. 

This has been a long journey. When I began writing Extermination of an Empire 7 years ago, I had no idea it would take me this long or that it would be such a journey to get to this point.  When I started, I was so positive that EOE would be a big hit. I still hold this belief but I know that much of its success will be because of hard work and willingness to learn. 

As a new writer, you are afraid of plagiarism, you are afraid of offending, you are terrified of people not liking your work. So much so, that you are afraid to share your work with others.  This fear, while normal, will hinder your abilities to grow as a writer. I sat stuck in my methods for a while before I took the plunge and shared my writing with others.

I found the largest writing group on Facebook that I could and took the first opportunity to share. The response was terrible.  Maybe one person responded positively, while the rest blasted me for my writing skill. To be honest, it was pretty bad.  What I faced was a pivotal decision. 

I could have chosen to hide in the corner afraid of what others thought of my writing, or forge ahead. I chose the latter. I later found that smaller writing groups were often much more inviting and did more to grow one another. When I was a member of the large group, I found that other members who had grown in the craft already were rather judgemental and just wanted to quit under the weight of their disapproval.  

In the smaller group I found people that believed in me and my story who were willing to make suggestions on how I could improve. Their belief in me helped me to recognize the value in their critique. No longer was I faced down with disapproving stares, I was built up by people who knew I could be better  if only I had the help. 

This is so true of so many young budding writers. No matter your age, writing is a process and the first book will always take the longest. and take a great deal of you with it. And it is so rewarding. 

I am so excited to share EOE with all of you!! Hopefully there will be good news soon. 

I hope all of you are safe and well. 

April.