The Story of My Heart

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Every author has that one novel–the one cherished above all others, the one that makes her think, If I never write anything else, that’s okay, because I wrote this. I’ve written eight books, and while each is special in its own way, the fourth one is the book of my heart.

The House on Linden Way began as a short story in the summer of 2017. I was waiting for a car repair and began sketching out an idea for a haunted house story. The house would be the main character’s childhood home, which she was revisiting for the first time in many years. When her young daughter vanishes inside, the mother tries searching for her but keeps getting trapped in memories. I soon realized I had a book on my hands, and when it was finished nearly two years later I wrote the following query:

While passing through her hometown a decade after she left, Amber Blake impulsively revisits her old house on Linden Way. She only means to stay a moment, to show her three-year-old daughter Bee the place where she grew up. But when the kindly new owners invite them inside, Amber cannot resist.

Soon Bee is missing, the owners have disappeared, and Amber finds herself in a houseful of ghosts. Time takes on new meaning as she loses herself in living memories and a past that does not wish to be forgotten.

As Amber fights the powerful lure of a childhood she’d long left behind, her tenuous hold on the real world slips further from her grasp. Is it merely nostalgia she’s battling, or something far more menacing? Who haunts the house on Linden Way, and where are they hiding her child?

When I began Linden Way, I didn’t know yet who or what was haunting the house. Like many of my stories, I’d imagined something sinister and evil and ended up with something more complex. What I did know was that I wanted to write a story about the trappings of nostalgia and the lifelong imprint of our childhood homes.

The book is personal because it includes so many things that are important to me, including the power of sibling bonds, the bittersweet memories of growing up, and the fierce strength of motherhood. It is unequivocally the book of my heart, and I’m thrilled to begin publishing it today on Kindle Vella. Read the first chapter here, and follow the story as new chapters will publish every Tuesday and Thursday from now until June. Enjoy!

New Year, New Dreams

Image by Mohamed Hassan on Pixabay

I have always been intrigued by the concept of giving something up for the new year. Writing it down on a slip of paper and then burning it. So often we focus on what we want to gain instead of the things we need to lose.

When I looked back on 2021 in an effort to list my tangible writing accomplishments, I found some good ones: editing my middle grade novel, drafting five short pieces over the summer, making progress on my fairy tale WIP, self-publishing a book and a short story on Kindle Vella, and traditionally publishing a piece of creative nonfiction which would go on to earn nominations for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and Best American Essays.

This all feels amazing, but perhaps the most important thing I achieved last year was deciding what I wanted as a novelist and choosing a path that fit that goal. Then I wrote down my old path and lit a match.

What I’m leaving behind in 2021 is the pursuit of traditional book publishing. Ever since Kindle Vella was announced last spring, I’ve felt such passion for the possibilities of publishing my own work. At first I’d planned on only releasing commercial fiction, but I’ve enjoyed the process so much I’ve now embraced it completely.

Last month I pulled The House on Linden Way from the final publishing house where it was under consideration and used earnings from my cozy mystery to commission a book cover; Linden Way will be released on Vella this spring and then in ebook and print in July. I am so excited to share this news! When I made the decision it felt as though a weight had lifted, like I had space to breathe life into new ideas about my writing and publishing goals.

I used to dream about seeing my books on bookshelves and holding author events and making a living as a novelist. These dreams feel dated now. I love being a teacher and not having to rely on income from writing; I’ve participated in author events and mostly felt stressed out and uncomfortable; and while it was thrilling to see The Fourth Wall on shelves, the truth is that the shelf-life of a book is very short unless you sell a gazillion copies, and that leads me to the number one reason why traditional publishing is probably not a good fit for me: everything revolves around sales, which is to say that everything revolves around money, and the pressure is immense—the pressure to perform, the pressure to earn out your advance, the pressure to sell, sell, sell. And that’s not what I want.

What I want from my books is the personal value that comes from writing them and putting them out into the world. I want to focus on the joy of being a creator, because that’s such an amazing thing. The fulfillment for me is imagining a story, bringing it to life, crafting the best version that I possibly can, and then letting it go. The rest is icing.

This is my year of rediscovering the total creative freedom that comes from detaching your work from external validation or numbers. It feels like a new beginning. I have so many ideas for stories and I can’t wait to write them and try new things and maybe fail but learn and grow and get better and just keep going. I want to stay passionate. I want to have fun. I want to create and let that be enough. These are the things that dreams are made of.

Happy Halloween!

Image by Mayur Gadge from Pixabay

It’s so hard to let go of October; I always wish it would stay a little longer. Halloween night has yet to arrive and already my month has been full of treats.

I indulged in plenty of great horror movies, including a re-watch of the compulsively re-watchable Fear Street trilogy; I switched from summer dresses and sandals to cardigans and boots; and once, on an early morning walk, I spotted a coyote disappearing down a dark quiet street. The half-eaten breakfast he’d left behind on a nearby lawn was as disturbing as anything I’d seen on screen.

Another sort of scary but fun experience was posting a short story to Kindle Vella.

“The Secret Keeper” was first drafted in 2015 as part of my collection What Was Never There. I never published the collection but succeeded in placing several of the pieces in online magazines. “The Secret Keeper” was obviously not one of those; it’s nearly 8,000 words long and that far exceeds most magazines’ word count.

It’s perfect for Vella though! A clear favorite among those who’ve beta read What Was Never There, “The Secret Keeper” is about a boy named Owen and the secrets he keeps beneath an enchanted willow tree. I split the story into three parts, all of which are now available to read. I hope you enjoy this magical tale of childhood wonder, summer nights, and October promises.

Happy Halloween!

My Big Mistake with Kindle Vella and Why I’m Starting Over

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

You may have heard me shouting from the rooftops about my Kindle Vella story when Amazon’s new serialized story platform launched in July. The YA cozy mystery I’d penned back in 2019 and secretly uploaded to Vella in April was chosen as one of a dozen featured stories on the new site, and naturally I was thrilled. I posted twice about it in a flurry of celebration. And then I went quiet.

Why? Because ten days after Vella launched, one of my dream agents, who I’d queried back in the spring, emailed. She was intrigued! She wanted to see more! Could I send a partial? My heart sank. Instantly I regretted publishing the book. There was no way she’d consider Murder by Milkshake now that it was publicly available on Vella.

But what if I unpublished it? It hadn’t even been two weeks. I would just be honest with her and explain the situation and hope for the best. I sent the partial and notified Vella that I wanted the story taken down.

Are you sure? they asked. That decision would be permanent; it could not be undone. I would lose my likes, my reviews, my subscribers. I said I was sure, and Vella processed my request. Two weeks later, the agent sent a rejection.

At first I was undeterred. I’d only submitted Murder by Milkshake to a dozen agents and that had resulted in two requests for partials and four personalized rejections—pretty good numbers. I told myself I’d just keep submitting and pursuing a traditional book deal.

But my heart wasn’t in it.

It’s not that I’ve given up on the idea of traditional publishing, it’s just that Kindle Vella is something fun and fresh and new. And I think differently about self-publishing than I used to; I love the idea of it. I forget where I read this, but someone mentioned how ego is not what drives writers to self publish, ego is what prevents them from doing it. And that makes sense to me. I remember how afraid I was to start blogging back in 2013 and how, once I got over myself, I started to really enjoy it. Because it’s just a blog. And a book is just a book.

Murder by Milkshake is pure genre fiction, the kind of book that can do well as an indie. In the seven weeks it was on Kindle Vella it earned more money than my traditionally published book earned in seven years. People were reading it and showing support, and I made a mistake in throwing all of that away simply because an agent came calling.

When she rejected the manuscript, it was just that—another rejection. But unpublishing the book came with a real sense of loss. I’d been a part of something daring and new and I’d taken a risk; giving that up felt terrible. But I’m glad it happened, because it helped me realize the self-publishing path I’d chosen for this particular book was the correct one.

I know because I republished Murder by Milkshake last week on Kindle Vella. And my heart is definitely in it.

One Author’s Experience With Kindle Vella

Whew, that was wild! Now that I’ve had a chance to catch my breath, let me tell you what led me to the Kindle Vella platform and how it’s going. This post is very long and mostly about me so if you’re just here for the Vella info, and I don’t blame you, scroll down to the screenshots. 🙂

Dreaming up Sweet Dreams

On a Saturday morning in January of 2019 I was sitting in my office at work enjoying a coffee break when suddenly I had a brilliant idea. It came out of nowhere in a burst of inspiration and I remember thinking, wait, has no one actually done this before?!

As a writer, you know there are only so many ideas, and none of them are actually original, but I thought that maybe I had found one.

I’d recently discovered a love for cozy mysteries. I adored everything about them—their punny titles, their cutesy covers, their formulaic plots stuffed with over-the-top characters and cupcake recipes. They were murder mysteries that didn’t take themselves too seriously, and they always made me laugh.

Waiting for the next cozy mystery in a series reminded me of waiting for the next Sweet Valley High or Cheerleaders book as a teenager. Falling into the familiar where you know all the characters and the setting and structure of the story and can read it in one day—a simple guilty pleasure.

The readers of cozy mysteries are fiercely loyal, and they are mostly middle-aged women. This same demographic makes up a large portion of those who read young adult fiction.

So why were there no young adult cozy mysteries?

I checked, and if they’re out there, I can’t find them. There are YA murder mysteries like One of Us Is Lying, and the Truly Devious series, but these are thrillers. Cozies are very different from thrillers and there aren’t any for YA readers. But I bet YA readers would love them. Think of Scooby-Doo, but with murder. A beloved cast of characters involved in SERIOUS STUFF like kidnappings and hauntings or in this case death but it’s FUNNY. Where are these books for teens?! Where are the short and sweet guilty pleasures that adults get with cozies and that middle grade readers get with Goosebumps?

So that was my brilliant idea. I’d write a YA cozy mystery series. I’d write the book I wanted to see in YA and subvert the tropes I was tired of seeing. No dead parents, no clueless/neglectful/abusive parents, no tacked on romantic subplot, no bookworm/nerdy-girl main character and, in line with the rules for cozies, no sex, drugs, profanity, or gore.

I’ve also long wanted to see shorter books. Growing up I could choose between 1,000 pages of Stephen King or 180 pages of Sweet Valley High, and they both fully qualified as books to me. Why does everything now have to be 400 pages long? I decided I would stubbornly keep my cozy mysteries to 45,000 words, no more. That’s plenty for a story, especially if you cut the ubiquitous and tiresome romantic subplot. That’s just what I’d do.

I let the idea percolate awhile, and then in the fall of 2019, I spent several weeks dreaming up my series. I also studied how to write cozies, because I wanted to do it right. Cozies have rules, and you cannot break them. Some of these rules are

1) Theme: there must be a theme, and it’s usually centered around the main character’s occupation or hobby, and you must show your main character engaged in this work/hobby. For example, there are bakery cozies, crafting cozies, and bookstore cozies. I chose ice cream for my theme, because my daughter had recently started working at an ice cream shop. I named my fictional ice cream shop Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Parlour.

2) Pets: there must be a pet, and pet care must be shown. Bookstore cats are common. I’m a dog person, so the Sweet Dreams pet is a golden retriever, and she’s amazing; you’ll love her.

3) PG rating: there cannot be gratuitous violence, profanity, or sex, all deaths are discovered, not witnessed, and there must always, ALWAYS, be a happy ending. The MC is rarely in any real danger for long.

4) Amateur Sleuth: cozies are not police procedurals. The sleuth is an amateur, and the mysteries are puzzle-like and solved by piecing together clues through interviews with several suspects. Often though, there is a contact within law enforcement, and in Sweet Dreams that’s retired detective Charlie Moran. You’ll love him too (he’s a cozy mystery fan, but insists he only reads them for the recipes.)

5) Murderer: the murders in cozies are based on motives like greed and jealousy. These aren’t serial killers but everyday people who are part of the community. Likewise, when apprehended they tend to explain their crimes in petulant monologues: again, think Scooby-Doo.

6) Victim: the victim in a cozy is often someone who is highly disliked, usually laughably terrible, and this allows for lots of suspects.

7) Puns: cozy titles are clever and cute, and puns are definitely intended. Some recent examples are Mocha, She Wrote, Partners in Lime, Thread on Arrival, and Game of Cones. I tossed around several ideas before settling on Murder by Milkshake.

There were rules I came up with for myself too. My books would be 45,000 words at most. I wouldn’t have any guns. I would keep my main character Genevieve’s friendship with her BFF Brandon platonic and she would remain focused on her one true love, her ice cream shop. No teens would be murdered, and no teens would be murderers. All deaths and suspects would be adults. The teens are the ones who save the day, and of course, they always succeed. Again, cozies have happy endings, you can count on them. They are pure escapist fun.

I wrote the first Sweet Dreams book in fall of 2019, and it was the absolute most fun I’d ever had writing anything. This was a purely plot-driven story, and I cheerfully riddled my book with adverbs, because I like adverbs, and I was going to flout the rules, by God. I wrote with joy, every day, and in thirteen weeks I had my draft. It was so much fun I jumped right into the next book and I wrote that one too. In June I edited Murder by Milkshake and sent it to my critique partner, and after several more months and edits I began submitting it, sure I would find an agent.

I did not find an agent. But I did find Kindle Vella.

What is Kindle Vella?

Kindle Vella is Amazon’s new serialized story platform. Authors can post episodes (chapters) as they’re writing them or, like me, simply post a book that’s already written (although it can’t have been previously published). Readers get the first three episodes free, and then pay for additional episodes with tokens. Tokens cost about a dollar each and are worth one hundred words. So for $9.99 you get 1,100 tokens which buys you about 110,000 words. My book is 45,000 words so it would cost about $4.00 to read it since you wouldn’t be paying for the first three chapters.

Why Vella?

I’ve long considered self-publishing. Having been traditionally published I really don’t feel I have anything to prove, and my books always seem to fall short of the word counts required for traditional book deals. Yet the steep learning curve for self-publishing was daunting—particularly formatting and cover design. It costs several hundred dollars to outsource these things, money I just don’t have. And then Kindle Vella came along and suddenly none of that mattered. You can literally cut and paste text into the text editor and not worry about formatting, and when it comes to the cover, well, you simply need one good image, eliminating the problem of balancing graphics and text on the cover and having a cover that works on ebooks and print books.

When I learned about all of this in April I was so excited! I would upload Murder by Milkshake on Kindle Vella and while I waited for it to go live I would edit the second book. I would use a pen name and create a new website dedicated to Sweet Dreams Mysteries. I’d create Sweet Dreams social media accounts and promotional material and devote all my writing time to making the series successful. I… did none of these things. Well, besides uploading Murder by Milkshake. I did do that, and then I decided to edit my middle grade horror book Halloween Eternal and didn’t think much about the Vella launch at all. And then Vella launched and out of the thousands of books uploaded to the site, Murder by Milkshake was one of twenty-five chosen for the featured stories page.

When I saw my book on the front page, I was elated and absolutely stunned. I was also, of course, instantly regretful. If only I’d worked on that website! If only I’d commissioned an image for the cover. If only I’d followed through with my promotion plans. But I didn’t, and now I had to fix it as best I could. I reached out to a graphic designer on Fiverr and told her I needed something fast, an image for Vella that had ice cream and was murder-y but also cheerful, could she do that? She could, and she did. I LOVE the image she created. I uploaded it and changed my pen name to my real name and announced my exciting news in a blog post and on Twitter. And then I sat back and watched the numbers.

It took a while to figure out how to access the Kindle Vella dashboard, but once I figured it out I was entranced. I’ve published one book traditionally as well as several stories and essays and I’ve never had access to numbers like this. It’s fascinating to see how many people are reading and which chapters they’re reading and where I’m losing them. It’s obvious, for example, that there is a problem with chapter four.

These screenshots are from Saturday, July 17, four days after Vella launched. So far, no one has read past chapter nine.

Is it worth it?

That depends on your reasons for publishing. One of the reasons I loved the idea of Vella so much is because I mostly just wanted a platform to make my stories available and I wanted them to look nice. Vella does that for me.

Without that front page placement though, I probably wouldn’t have any readers at all. And it remains to be seen whether even one person will read my entire book. If you’re looking for validation or money, you may not find it here, but that’s true of publishing in general.

Then again, I’m sure there are authors on there who did everything right and prepared and promoted and have thousands of reads and are making money and gaining lifelong fans. Vella gave me a platform and I have only myself to blame for not taking full advantage of it by having my book professionally edited first and having a promotion plan in place.

For now, I’m keeping Murder by Milkshake up on Vella, but I will continue to seek an agent for my adult gothic suspense The House on Linden Way and my middle grade horror Halloween Eternal.

I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to publish Sweet Dreams Mysteries traditionally, and now my secret is out. Maybe someone else will run with it and have better luck securing representation. If that happens, I’ll be envious, but I’ll also cheer them on, because I still believe the world needs a YA cozy mystery series and that all of us, but especially teens, need more laughter in our lives. 🙂

The ‘Best’ News!

“Transient” has been nominated for a Best of the Net award in creative nonfiction, and I am so honored. The response to this piece has blown me away and helped me feel validated as a writer in a time when I really needed it.

Additionally, the stunning featured photograph that accompanies the piece was nominated for best art, so congratulations to artist Stephen Ground! I could not have picked a more perfect image for my story than his gorgeous “Sentries.”

Winners for Best of the Net are announced in January.

In other news, my first attempt at self-publishing has gotten off to a surprisingly good start. I uploaded my young adult cozy mystery MURDER BY MILKSHAKE to the new Kindle Vella platform more out of curiosity than any real hope it would take off. When Vella launched a few days ago, I was shocked to see the book on their front page—one of a few dozen featured stories chosen from thousands.

At the time, it was listed under a pen name and I hadn’t bothered to pay anyone for a cover (yikes!). I quickly remedied that situation and now the book looks lovely with an image from midorix on Fiverr; I told her I needed something with ice cream that was murder-y but cheerful at the same time, and she delivered splendidly, don’t you think?

I’ll post more about my cozy soon. For now all I can say is that I’ve never had as much fun writing a book as I had writing this one, and if you decide to read it (the first three chapters are free), I hope you have fun, too!