Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday

I have been posting teasers passages on most Tuesdays. I try to keep them free of major spoilers, though there might be some minor ones and maybe a name or two that you don't recognize. In case you've missed them, you can see them in the gallery below (not in any particular order).

And of course keep an eye on my Facebook page or Twitter to see them in the future. Look for the #teasertuesday

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Words words words.

I know. I've been terrible about keeping up with posts, and videos and the like. But I keep telling myself that you all would rather have the next book than the next blog post. And that's exactly what I've been working on. If you watch video below, you might notice that I'm well past the deadline that I set for myself in January. However, I am making great progress on book 3. I jsut wanted to pop up here and leave a quick post to tell you what I've been working on. 

And I will have a blog post or two coming soon.

 

My Peak Challenge: Probably not what you think

Yesterday, I gave you some social media resolutions for a better year. Today, I want to talk about my personal goals for the year. Rather than hitting you with another wall of text, I made a video for reasons that will become apparent.

I you're interested in following along, you can pop over to my Youtube channel and subscribe.

My 2017 Social Media Resolutions (that you can adopt too)

My 2017 Social Media Resolutions (that you can adopt too)

While we can’t do anything about some of the people we may lose, or the natural or even man-made disasters that may befall us in 2017. We CAN work TOGETHER to make social media and the internet better for us. We can reclaim the equalizing communication tool that it could be from the people who would use it to manipulate and misdirect us.

So, I would like to introduce some new year’s resolutions that I will be enacting or continuing. And invite you to try some of these too. They’re simple behaviors that we can all do to change the tone and quality of the flood of information we take in every day. If we can all agree to these, we can make social media a better place all around.

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New Cover!

Original cover

Original cover

In the midst of all the upcoming Book 2 madness, I have a bit of news about Book 1.  Most book series have similar covers or a similar look to the covers across the series. When I started thinking about what I wanted for the Cauldron cover, I took a long look at the cover for The River Maiden. And I decided that I wanted to take the look of the series in a different direction.

Let me be clear, I do like the original cover for The River Maiden. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on it. However, there are just two things I would change.

1) It's not great in black and white or thumbnail size. And in the age of ebooks and e-ink. Black and white and/or thumbnail size, is how a lot of people first see it. I thought I needed a cover that is eye-catching in both. 

2) It wasn't my original vision. It is what told the graphic designer, who was very accommodating and great to work with, I wanted. The photo of the jars and jugs evokes the rustic Appalachian life that Sarah grew up with. But I'm just not sure it's evocative of the main theme of the story. 

Even before I decided to publish the book myself, I had a vague idea of what I wanted, and it centered around the crown of flowers that Sarah makes for her mother on that fateful morning in 1976. In fact three years ago at the James River Writer's Conference while listening to the king of cover designers, Chip Kidd, talk about some of his greatest hits, I sketched out a quick design. It was the crown floating with a few blooms floating away from it. 

But in the course of editing and formatting, and paying for one designer to botch and refuse to fix a design, and having to search for another, I eventually chose expediency and went with a photo that I had taken of jars stored on an old worn table in the back of my own Granny's carriage house (No, my Granny is not a moonshiner. She just likes old jars.) 

 

It has served me well, but I'm very excited to have the new cover. This one is far more similar to the cover I originally envisioned. It has the flowered crown with a few blooms falling away. They're floating on a blue background calling on the image of water, and of course the UNC setting for the book.

It also helped me establish the look that I want to have for the rest of the series. You might also notice that the short stories Unfit and Buddy also have new covers the same style. Hopefully in the next week or so, I can show the cover of Cauldron.