Category Archives: What’s On My Mind?

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Classes, Twitter, and Agents! Oh my!

How is it December already? More importantly, what happened to November?

I’ve been forcing myself into the role of being a respectable author, which means taking classes to improve my querying skills (which I hate, just so we’re clear). Nothing makes me more uneasy than selling myself to complete strangers. I’ve spent the last month preparing to query literary agents. They’re hard to find and they all want different things. How do I cope with my anxiety, you ask? I stress-eat and forget to sleep. That’s healthy, right?

Okay, maybe it’s not.

To top it off, today was the first #PitMad I’ve participated in. Four times a year, you can pitch to agents, publishers, and editors who are scrolling through Twitter to find new clients. You get three tweets for the entire day. Three.

No pressure.

If they like your tweet, you submit to them and go to the top of their slush pile. Then you wait. This is by far the worst part. If they respond immediately it’s a no. If they never respond…also a no.

So while I wait 2-12 weeks for various rejections, please know I miss you all like mad, hope you have a lovely December, and I’m writing as often as I can.

You should follow my September Roberts blog, friend me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter and I’ll follow you back! I’ve been told by an editor friend of mine that I need to be active in social media, and that’s what I plan to do. See you out there!

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Go Vote! You Want Blood Awards are open!

I’m clearly out of touch with reality. I totally missed the fact that I’d been nominated for four You Want Blood Awards (thanks for bringing it to my attention, Meridian – who, btw, was nominated 28 times!).

Here are important dates:

  • August 7, 2016 Nominations Open
  • August 31, 2016 Nominations Close
  • September 1, 2016 Semi-Final round Voting Opened
  • September 30, 2016 Semi-Final round Voting Closed
  • October 8, 2016 Final round Voting Opened
  • October 22, 2016 Final round Voting Closed
  • October 31, 2016 Winners Announced

 

As always, I’d like to thank Robin (AKA 4Padfoot) for the countless hours spent compiling names and creating a poll for all our lovely readers. ❤

 

I’ve been nominated for:

Mr. January – Best Lemon for It Happened In Rhodes

The Saucy Award – Best Sookie for Petulance

The Viking Award – Best Eric for Detox

EricIsMine Award – Favorite Author

 

As much as I would be honored to win any one of these awards, I’m also a realist and know I’m up against some VERY talented authors. Thanks for the warm fuzzies to whoever nominated me. I love you guys!

 

Oh, and I finally found time to work on my sequel to Petulance. RL has been a bitch.

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Hello?

Is this thing on? I promise I haven’t abandoned you. I’ve been working hard on a new story. 25,000 words in and still going strong, but not quite ready to share. I have a feeling I might need to change things as I go since the ending keeps wiggling out of my grasp. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to finish it soon, and when I do, I’ll start posting.

 

What’s that? You’re anxious to know what the new story is about? Just imagine Sookie’s first visit to Fangtasia, except for the part where she’s enthralled with Bill. After she alerts Eric of the raid, he generously offers to take her home (take a hint, Bill). The story veers wildly away from canon at that point and Sookie finds herself neck-deep in vampire business. Hold onto your hats. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

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New Story Coming Soon!

Hello? Is this thing on? It’s been weeks … or maybe months at this point. Either way, it’s been too long since I’ve been here.

I’ve been working non-stop for the last seven weeks, but not on anything interesting. While taking a break from SVM fanfic to get my third book ready for my release date (December 28th!! So soon!), my house decided to remind me that being a homeowner sucks ass. When you combine sixty-year old clay sewer lines and sixty-year old tree roots, you get a basement full of raw sewage.

Yep.

I’ve spent the last seven weeks moving everything out of half of my house, ripping up all the flooring (including waiting for a disaster crew to come in and take care of all the asbestos – did I mention the age of my house, because yeah…), cleaning everything with lysol, hiring tile setters and carpet layers, and dealing with my insurance company on a daily basis.

Needless to say, I haven’t had time to write regularly, but that hasn’t stopped this story from forcing its way out of my brain in the five minutes I have with my computer. So on Friday I’ll put up a little blurb for Relapse (sequel to Detox) and hope like hell that I’ll be able to spend some quality time writing. Not today. Today I’m sanding walls and priming. Goody.

I miss you all and hope you’re all safe! ❤

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Post to PDF

One of my lovely readers, Zoe, brought something to my attention and I’ve been trying to figure out how to help her and think I just came up with a solution! She wanted to download my stories (as PDFs) to her Kindle so she could take my stories anywhere. I tried a few options, but still wasn’t satisfied.

I had lunch with a friend of mine yesterday and I told her about my frustration in converting URLs to PDFs, and she suggested something so brilliant and beautiful that I’m kicking myself for not thinking about before: Print Friendly. There are a bunch of websites where you can copy and paste a URL and they create a print friendly page (no headers, no ads, and no sidebars) that you can download as a PDF! It’s awesome!

I found several, but Print Friendly was the easiest to use without having to instal an app. If you’re interested, click here!

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New Story Coming Soon!

Happy Friday! I just wanted to let you all know I’ll have a blurb and pic ready for my new story next Friday! I hope you’re all having a lovely summer…unless you’re reading this in the southern hemisphere in which case I hope you’re having a lovely winter!

You might ask, “What should I do while I wait for your new story?”

I would reply, “Read some of my other Fan Fiction! I have eight one-shots, eleven shorts, and six full-length stories. I’ve also published original fiction in the form of two novels and one short story, which you can find on my Amazon page.” 🙂

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From Fan Fiction to Original Fiction: Part 2

Part 2 of my piece about publishing original fiction is up on the Fangbangers Anonymous Directory! You can read it here. This is the perfect opportunity to ask questions … about publishing or whatever you’d like to know. I’ll answer them all, so ask me anything! Please use the contact form following the article. You have until the 14th of June (this Saturday!) to submit questions, so I hope you all participate. 🙂

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From Fan Fiction to Original Fiction

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working with hisviks and MsBuffy on a piece for the Fangbangers Anonymous Directory. Today, part 1 went live. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to write original fiction and get it published, check out Part 1 here. There’s a contact form following the post where you can ask questions anonymously, which I’ll be happy to answer as soon as hisviks gets them to me. 🙂

Since this is my blog, I’m going to shamelessly plug my original fiction. I’ve written four books and one short story: the first two books have been published, I self-published my short story, I’m querying book three, and editing book four. I’m also outlining book five so I can write it this summer. Please visit my author blog, September Roberts, for more information.

The post on Fangbangers Anonymous isn’t meant as a way for me to toot my own horn, I simply wanted to share what I’ve learned and offer advice to anyone who is thinking about writing original fiction with the intention of it being published. 🙂