Rinda Elliott's Blog, page 16

Comment at The Deadline Dames through Saturday for a chance to win an early e-copy of Blood of an Ancient, which doesn’t release until October 22. I’ll be announcing a winner on Sunday.

http://www.deadlinedames.com/blood-of-an-ancient-early-giveaway/

I’ve been talking with friends about how social media can be both a good and bad thing. It’s pretty obvious I’ve loved it and it’s most definitely the way I find new books to read, so I’ll never quit it. I do enjoy the randomness of Twitter, but am working to jump on a little less.

And I’m making a few changes. One of them is fewer shorty posts EVERYWHERE while going back to more blogging here and on The Deadline Dames. More fun author-ish stuff. Especially now that I’ve learned I actually have a few readers who want to keep up. Yay! (And some who are excited about upcoming announcements. Yeah, yeah, you don’t believe me after all this time. I don’t blame you. )

My problem is with some of the other social media sites. There are SO MANY. Between Twitter (which I still “mostly” like), Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram… we are bombarded with information and we also miss a lot. Take Facebook. I have a public page (4 actually because of official author pages and a pen name) and it has friends and family. Lots. When I’m working hard, I don’t go through and read status messages and besides that, Facebook doesn’t show me all of them. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just too much sometimes. So when someone is upset that I haven’t commented on their news, it’s really, really, really a waste of emotion. I probably didn’t see it.  And if you post a lot of negative political stuff or those awful abuse of animals or people pics, I for sure didn’t. I tend to hide all status updates from a person then. There’s enough negative to deal with in life without facing it day in and day out on the Internet. In fact, there are people I won’t be around at all anymore after seeing horrible things on their social media sites–things they would never think to say in person at gatherings. Hmm… I think most of my problem is with FB, don’t you?

But I digress.

We are keeping up with too much news. 

Anything from worldwide to what someone had for lunch. There are constant scares over weird things like onions, crazy rumors, family dramas…

And honestly, I think maybe we are on call too much. With phones at our hips, we don’t get breaks. I can’t turn mine off because I’m a mother and can’t miss a call from the school or a child–but I don’t always answer. And sometimes, my phone is left inside while I’m out…I also don’t take it into the shower. I’ve had people calling over and over, both cell and house, then asking why I didn’t answer. Why do we always have to answer? If it’s important, leave a message letting me know what’s going on so I can get back to you. If there is no message, I assume it was just a random call and there’s no urgency. This is actually one of the hardest things about people knowing when someone works from home. At an office job, you can’t randomly chat on the phone for an hour, right? But when everyone knows you’re home…

I recently came to the realization that I felt too busy. All the time. And I wasn’t really going OUT to be with friends anymore. (Okay, car & other issues have a lot to do with that. LOL) But I got overloaded and I’m not the only one feeling this way.

I’ve been working years to get a career going and it’s finally moving and yeah, it kind of all moved at once, so I’m overly busy. But I wanted this and I’m so excited. It will even out. And in the meantime, I still have a busy family I love so my plate is full.

In order to write books, I also have to put in a lot of hours and I have to have quiet. I can’t let my mind be bombarded by the constant streams of information coming  from all directions. I can’t worry about all the “friendly” advice about what authors should and should not be doing or whether I’m supposed to read my reviews or not. (Yes, I do read them and yes, I believe reviews are for readers–not writers. But I’m truly interested in opinions at times. My only real problem is I can be a little obsessive about reading them when a book first comes out. That probably won’t change–sigh–but I’m learning to wean myself from this habit because yes, a bad review, while valid because everyone has different tastes, can sting a little sometimes. )

I realized I need to remember to live a little, too. I can’t keep up with everything and I was trying to do just that. And then, I was worrying that someone would be hurt if I missed something…and then learned some people really were. Gah. There’s a level of stress we get trying to keep up and yeah, spotting random things that hurt our feelings.

I still love social media and still believe it’s a great way to promote my books and to find books to read. So yeah, I do want to share about my writer stuff and commiserate with other authors on the ins and outs of this crazy business. I’m pretty lucky because I have the most wonderful support system ever in The Deadline Dames. We’ve been together five years and the mix of honesty, loyalty and support is priceless. We span time zones and continents, so if one of us finds herself writing or struggling in the middle of the night, there is usually another one online. I also have very good friends in this business I’ve met online–like Jocelynn Drake. I enjoy our wordy emails and one of the best parts is if either of us doesn’t email for a while, the other takes it in stride because life is hectic sometimes.

I also want to hear about new books that have excited you, because maybe I’ll find a new author to love. I do want to keep up with that sort of thing.

But a change is needed. Instead of trying to show all these different layers of me on all these different sites, I’m going back to blogging a little more here and at The Deadline Dames and just linking. I’ve been kind of splintered. Jokes and family stuff on one site, more writing related on another. Too hectic.  I’m staying on FB and Twitter, but I’m paring things down. I’ll connect blogs more to Facebook, that sort of thing.

AND… here’s the biggie… I took them off my phone. ALL OF THEM. I did. No really, I did! Sure enough, on my morning walk today, I went to check one and found I couldn’t. I was annoyed for about a second, then turned the phone off, took a deep breath of fresh air and faced off a squirrel. (I’m pretty sure he was sent here by Lilith Saintcrow to play chicken with me.)

I started some of this a little while back and because I haven’t been reading status pages, I’m not getting caught up in cryptic messages that make me track down what’s going on, not getting embroiled in the latest Internet drama. The deal is, I think I I used to be an okay writer and feel my craft has suffered from information overload. I need to spend more time becoming a better writer. I need to have more “in person” fun plotting sessions with my critique partner, Rachel Vincent.  We both work long, long hours and have to nudge each other out  and every single time we do, we have a blast. Even when we’re working. See? This is us (okay, just our feet) creating magic on a Friday night. We fixed a major problem in one of my young adult books this night.

I’ve got a lot of deadlines and some big dreams coming true after a long, hard haul. I want to share the excitement about what’s going on and yeah, I want to hear about your excitement in your writing/reading world too. See? That’s the stuff I’m always afraid I’ll miss. I just wish it was easier to get that only and not so, so much other stuff.

Woke up to a wonderful email from a book reviewer about Blood of an Ancient! She loved it as much as Dweller on the Threshold. I’m getting VERY excited about the release of this book next month and am toying with the idea of an early giveaway at The Deadline Dames soon.

In the meantime, I’m working on two sets of revisions. Both due around October 1st, so I haven’t been blogging much. Haven’t really been online much at all, though I do pop into Twitter occasionally. My editors and close writer friends are on there but I’m still not keeping up with everything. Hope I haven’t missed important news!

To learn more about Dweller and Blood, click on the books.

I’m currently trying to redesign this website to give it a bit more pizzazz! So, the themes will be changing because WordPress doesn’t have an option to try things out before you publish. That’s a little annoying actually, but I have a great new image (using a comp now and will purchase if I can get it to work.) that goes with some upcoming news and I want to see if I can make a website pretty using it.

Caught this seriously COOL review of Dweller on the Threshold on Twitter today. Made my day!

http://bestfantasystories.com/cut-throat-paranormal-romance-in-dweller-on-the-threshold-by-rinda-elliot/

Blood of an Ancient dipped back into the top 50 in SF on Amazon!! I hadn’t  checked in some time, so was thrilled to see it still getting a little interest. Review copies of Blood of an Ancient have gone out and one new rating is up on Goodreads. It’s a good one, but I’m thinking I’ll just stay away from there a bit because it’s a little nerve-wracking. LOL

But check out Dweller at Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/Dweller-Threshold-Beri-ODell-ebook/dp/B00BV308E8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363543064&sr=8-2&keywords=rinda+elliott

I did a short catching up with me post at The Deadline Dames today. No real news other than a couple of deadlines, the new BLOOD OF AN ANCIENT excerpt listed below and another tease about upcoming news.

http://www.deadlinedames.com/catching-up-with-dame-rinda/

Blood of an Ancient is now up on the Samhain website! I loved seeing which excerpt they chose to post. This one is pretty long and a little revealing…

http://store.samhainpublishing.com/blood-ancient-p-73054.html

I used to write all these long, hopefully insightful posts on my blog, then sort of stopped when I got an agent and started submitting books. I was always worried about over sharing. But sometimes writing feelings out then sharing them helps. These things can maybe help someone else. If a writer has anything to offer, it’s a way to put into words the feelings and experiences that affect our lives.

So I may start doing this again a little more often. Going to do it today.

This has nothing to do with my last little FB status, by the way. Yeah, my kids are growing up, but I’m certainly not losing them. One already moved out and I haven’t lost her in the least. We swung by and took her out for a family lunch just this past Sunday and she texts me pretty much daily. Oh look, there’s a text from her now. LOL

But I’ve been thinking a lot about why I still cry a lot over the loss of my cousin. I don’t talk about this very much because his mother follows me on FB and I worry to death about her catching a post about him and you know, maybe it’s a good day for her and I could hurt that. But losing him taught me something important about myself.

I don’t deal well with loss. I kind of figured this out a few years ago when a friend passed away. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with her because I’d been going through a rough time, yet her death hit me hard. So hard, I started becoming more of a hermit. As a writer, that tendency is already pretty strong, but I took it to new levels. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d convinced myself that if I wasn’t around so many people, I wouldn’t care so much about them and then losing them wouldn’t hurt so much.

Then my cousin passed away last December on my anniversary. I hadn’t spent any recent time with him either, yet this one hit hard. It hit my husband just as hard. Thing is, it is still hitting hard. I think about him most days and it feels like this knot in my chest is never going to leave. I will just randomly start crying over something silly. The other day, I stretched out on the couch with my Kindle, propped my feet on my husband’s lap and remembered how my cousin and I read like that. We both read all the time and if one was on the couch, the other would just stretch out and stick their feet on the other. Okay, there was usually some kicking first.

He lived with my husband and me when we were first married. He was a second cousin and three days separated our birthdays. My mother told me she was racing with his mom to have the baby first. They gave us similar middle names. His is Daniel, mine is Danielle. We couldn’t stand each other as kids but grew incredibly close when we were older. But reading was our thing. I can’t tell you how many times we’d be traveling somewhere and my husband would be driving while Guy and I had our heads stuck in books.

But I noticed something changing a little. Just last night, I picked up my Kindle and found myself wondering if he’d had a reading device, or what he’d thought of them. Knowing him, he would have preferred paper books, but he also would have loved how many books he could have fit on that device, all that at his fingertips at all times. I actually smiled when I let myself think about all the different kinds of books he would have on a Kindle.

Funny enough, popular fiction was never my cousin’s first choice, and while he did occasionally make fun of some of my reading choices–I loved contemporary series and historical romances back then and the covers were tease worthy–he always respected them. But… if he was still around and he had a Kindle… I’d try to sneak some romances onto his reading device.

Loss is a part of our lives. There is no avoiding it.  Maybe the best way to deal with it is to think of the good things, to celebrate the fact that this wonderful person was a part of your life and for that time, you were pretty damned lucky.

With Blood of an Ancient releasing in two months, I’ve started approaching reviewers. This time around, we have time to build up a little buzz, so I’m hopeful the ones I’ve contacted end up enjoying the book enough to share their excitement with readers. Blood was a difficult book for me. It’s emotionally dark and I had to deal with some pretty rough stuff with these characters, but it was a necessary transition for what’s to come as the series progresses. There’s more of a focus on the romance throughout but I promise not to skimp on all the fun UF action we all love. Beri and the friends who are fast becoming her family have great things to do in their world.

There’s a gamble sending out copies early. There’s always the fear authors have that a book will be innocently shared then somehow end up on pirate sites. If this happens early, sales won’t happen. No sales means no more book offers. It’s a risk we have to take.