May 7 question – Some common fears writers share are rejection, failure, success, and lack of talent or ability. What are your greatest fears as a writer? How do you manage them?
To decrease the intensity of our fears, it’s important to talk about them and examine their likelihood. But I had to think about this question for a while. At first I thought I that I had no fears in writing since it’s a side hobby to my day job. As I delved deeper, though, I unmasked my biggest fear…
Rejection from traditional publishers.
I was fortunate to sign with a small publisher (Omnific) to edit and release my first four novels. Then I ventured out on my own to self-publish the next five books. I’ll likely self-publish my work in progress, Low Water. There are some advantages to self-publishing, including speed and creative control. I also have a wonderful editor and book designer to polish the manuscript.
But it would be way cool to sign with an agent and submit to traditional publishing houses. With the flood of self-published novels out there, a larger publisher has the potential to bring more attention to my little novel. I tell myself I don’t have enough patience for the Big Five route, which is true, and I also don’t have a clue for how to land an agent. But the more salient hurdle is fear. What if I put all that effort in, and I get rejected? I hear rejection is quite likely on the trad pub path. I know I could handle the rejection (I’ve handled worse in my life), but I doubt I’ll risk it.
Another fear I have is not improving. I started writing on a lark, and there was so much I didn’t know upon the release of my debut novel. I want to keep learning and growing as a writer, and it would be disappointing if I remained stagnant or got worse.
Novel in Progress Update: Low Water 50,000 / ~85,000 words
April 2 question – What fantasy character would you like to fight, go on a quest with, or have a beer/glass of wine with?
I would like to have a beer with Westley from The Princess Bride (without iocaine powder added, I hope!) Not only is Westley clever, funny, mysterious, and tough, but he also portrays an air of vulnerability that draws people to him. Most endearing is his lasting love for the princess that helps him persevere through countless adversities.
Thank you to Ronel Jansse van Vuuren for helping guide me with publishing wide for the first time, and I also appreciate fellow co-host Natalie Aguirre as well as IWSG founder Alex Cavanaugh for spreading the word!
It was nice to see the short-lived orange banner on the Amazon site for the obscure category I chose.
Novel in Progress Update: Low Water 45,000 / ~85,000 words
I’m excited to launch my second sports-romance short-story today.
Who Can Help Her Meltdown on the Pitcher’s Mound?
Fast-pitch softball is Andie Wilson’s life. She’s a fierce pitcher hoping to score a college scholarship, and she hates the annoying distraction of cocky baseball players crashing her high-school charity game. But she doesn’t anticipate the impact of one baseball player: Colt Turner. As Colt stares at her through his catcher’s mask, his steadfast gaze may be just what she needs to guide her through a crisis. And Colt may need Andie, too—to cope with the secret hiding behind his mask.
I’m grateful to author Ronel Jansse van Vuuren for featuring her review on her blog! And stay tuned to authors Alex Cavanaugh’s blog and Natalie Aguirre’s blog for spotlights.
Thank you to early reviewers Michelle and Kate for 5-star reviews!
A special congratulations to Ronel Janse Van Vuren for the new release of her dark fantasy series, Smoke on the Water!
Instead of answering the optional question, I want to share the cover and blurb for my upcoming short story, Behind the Catcher’s Mask.
Who can help her through a meltdown on the pitcher’s mound?
Fast-pitch softball is Andie Wilson’s life. She’s a fierce pitcher hoping to score a college scholarship, and she hates the annoying distraction of cocky baseball players crashing her high-school charity game. But she doesn’t anticipate the impact of one baseball player: Colt Turner. As Colt stares at her through his catcher’s mask, his steadfast gaze may be just what she needs to guide her through a crisis. And Colt may need Andie, too—to cope with the secret hiding behind his mask.
~*~
I originally wrote this story for the IWSG Anthology, Masquerade: Oddly Suited. Thanks for the inspiration, IWSG and Dancing Lemur Press! I added a bonus scene and decided to self-publish the story. Because I’m reeling from a recent event in my family, I haven’t set a release date yet–hopefully late March or early April.
If you would be willing to help spread the word about this young adult sports romance, please let me know on the google form. I hope this link works as it’s been years since I created a google form?
They’ve been alive forever. They’ve been bored for some time. And now they’re showing it.
Congratulations to Ronel Janse van Vuuren on the completion of her dark fantasy series, Irascible Immortals!
Smoke on the Water
Immortals + Boredom = Catastrophe
Something old and dangerous is awake and influencing the immortals to act in ways they’d only imagined.
First, small things like Odin, Anubis and Mab going on separate vacations and leaving their seats of power open for the taking. Then, Yue Lao, Cupid, Bast, Apollo and a Kitsune messing with the lives and memories of mortals. It grows to pandemonium when Pan and Poseidon upend the world, creating the Warp – and a free-for-all where it comes to the immortals’ wildest fantasies. Especially the twisted fantasies of Baba Yaga and her Nightmares, Morrígan and her love of War, and Isis who has no qualms unleashing hell on Earth to get Osiris back, plunging mortals even deeper into danger.
Thankfully, some immortals are older and wiser than others, catching on that everything isn’t as it seems… But damage control, trying to avoid the Apocalypse of all realms, and discovering who the ancient evil is, takes more magic, wit, and sacrifice than they could’ve dreamt possible. Can the unlikely grouping of Hel, Aphrodite, Set, Thor, Loki, Apollo, Freyja, Ra and Ammit save the realms?
Scroll up to buy now and enjoy the hilarity, disaster and more that ensues when bored immortals let loose.
When I heard that each book is a 30-minute read, I needed to learn more.
Let’s talk about your creation of the series. Did I read correctly that each book is a 30-minute read? If so, how did you choose that format? That sounds unique and interesting.
I was talking to my optometrist about reading whichever series I was bingeing at the time, and she said she had like five minutes a day to devote to reading which meant that long books and series just didn’t work for her. Which got me thinking about how much punch a short story can give in a limited amount of time…
I had already written “Breaking the Habit” and submitted it to an anthology. (The first three books are featured in the “Grumpy Old Gods” anthologies.) From there, it was easy to build the world and the characters that inhabit it. Going from various gods and immortals being bored and just having a bit too much fun messing with humans to bringing about destruction was just a case of indulging my inner psychopath. LOL. I was listening to a Nightwish album and “Symphony of Destruction” came up and it just clicked: Pan and Poseidon clean up their domains, cause havoc among humans, and whatever happens next isn’t their problem.
Various gods and goddesses vied for my attention, so I wrote about the ones I’ve always wanted to write about (like Isis reuniting with Osiris).
At first, it only built to no-one doing anything to fix the Warp (the result of Pan and Poseidon’s competition) and adding to the mayhem. But after a while, I realised that I didn’t like things hanging there without any conclusion. That’s when I wrote a couple of stories to end the series and published them all together in “Smoke on the Water”. I stuck with the short format (which I recently heard is called a “mosaic novel”) so even in the collected edition, each story can still be read on its own.
Going from mayhem to fixing it, meant finding an antagonist behind it all. It was fun finding someone that is even more powerful than ancient gods like Ra. It also worked well with foreshadowing I (unintentionally) added in the first book.
We live in a world with short attention spans, limited free time, and a lot of competition for said attention and time, so we need to work with what we have.
I used my warped sense of humour, the need to focus on fixing Climate Change, and remembering that we should live and not just exist, to add different layers to this series.
It was a fun experiment in length, character POV, and world-building.
Award-winning Dark Fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren writes about kick-ass heroines, the duality of being human and loves to use folklore to underscore her point.
She’s a Rottweiler pack leader, chicken wrangler and horse servant.
All of her books are available for purchase from major online retailers.
February 5 question – Is there a story or book you’ve written you want to/wish you could go back and change?
Oh, YES! I wrote my first two published novels in third person omniscient point-of-view. Though this POV provides a broad perspective to the characters and story, the downside is unfortunate head-hopping within the scenes. Cringe-worthy! I did seize the chance to edit my debut novel seven years after its initial release. To tighten the story, I chopped about 30K words, but changing the point-of-view would’ve been too extensive. My publisher released the edited ebook version but did not update the print copy.
Speaking of revising stories, I’m preparing to self-publish Behind the Catcher’s Mask, a short story that was part of the 2019 IWSG anthology, Masquerade: Oddly Suited. The theme of the anthology was young adult love featuring a mask of some sort, so naturally I turned to my favorite genre (sports romance) to pen a romance between a softball pitcher and a baseball catcher.
I hope to rekindle my writing and publishing mojo in 2025. I even signed up for a book event in Savannah, GA this fall!
Novel in Progress Update: Low Water 40,000 / ~85,000 words
Happy New Year, writers and readers! How is yours starting? I have a sinus infection that has turned me into a phlegm factory (sorry for oversharing). My 88-year-old father was in the hospital with heart problems, and I probably picked up a bug visiting him there. But he’s now in a great acute rehab facility, so I’m hoping he recaptures independent functioning soon.
January 8 question – Describe someone you admired when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up?
I choose two men who I admired as a teenager: my Spanish teacher, Neil Frank, and my college swim coach, Jim Steen. I admire them just as much now as I did then.
Sr. Frank taught four years of high school Spanish to me and other lucky students in Cincinnati, Ohio. His hyper-kinetic approach was so loco that I became endeared with the beautiful language and various cultures of Spanish-speaking countries. I’ve created quite a few Latino characters in my stories. I also strive to add a spice of his mischief to teaching college classes, including “board relay races” in which two teams of students race to the board to scribble the correct answers. I dream about becoming fluent in Spanish, which would help my psychologist career. I recently downloaded Babel, but I haven’t spent much time with the app yet.
Another person I deeply admire is my Kenyon College swim coach. Coach Steen is the NCAA’s most-winning coach (though most don’t know about him since Kenyon is in the small-school Division III.) He innovates and inspires. Jim is so insightful about each swimmer’s psychology, and he balances a challenging yet lighthearted approach that helps unlock his swimmers’ potential. Now that I think about it, he’s rather hyper, too. I guess I admire high-energy male educators with an exuberant sense of humor!
I’ve come up with a tagline for my work-in-progress, Low Water: A swim coach and his psychologist team up to heal from trauma. I’ve written 35K out of about 85K words.
I hope you’re having a clear-sinus start to your New Year!
(I realize this image says “newsletter”, but it was too cute for me not to copy/paste! Hope the IWSG creator doesn’t mind. (Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay))
December 4 question – Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader?
I have mixed reactions to cliffhangers. Mostly I feel robbed from a satisfying ending, but sometimes I think they’re brilliant. One of my novels ended in a major cliffhanger, and some readers were angry with me!
My book that sold the best is Blocked, a New Adult volleyball romance. I wanted to write an opposites-attract love story, so I chose a romance between the college-age children of US Democrat and Republican presidential candidates. (I wrote this in 2014 before the vitriol of partisan politics became even more incendiary.)
I strived to present an unbiased view of both political parties until the very end of the story, which featured the results of the presidential election. Therefore, it didn’t feel right to choose a winner, and my story ended, “The next president of the United States is…”
Some readers were furious, whoops!
I hadn’t intended to write a series, but I felt motivated by reader feedback (a mix of love/hate, haha). I eventually chose a winner for the rest of the trilogy, Aced and Spiked.
November 6 question – What creative activity do you engage in when you’re not writing?
I know how much devious inspiration it takes to weave plots involving compelling characters, so I can only imagine the multitude of additional creative pursuits my fellow writers have undertaken. I look forward to seeing what you’ve been up to!
For me, I adore cooking and baking projects so much that my friends call me The Pinterest Assembler. Maybe it’s not that creative simply to recreate recipes, but it sure is a blast! Here are a fruity owl and a cookie cake:
Since moving to South Carolina to live closer to my six-year-old niece, I enjoy babysitting and playing with breakfast:
Update on my Novel in Progress: Low Water 28,000 / ~85,000 words
It’s great to participate in the October giveaway hop–my first from my new home in South Carolina. I’m sure the Halloween weather will be warmer compared to Ohio.
As a psychologist / author (psycho author), I took a hiatus after the release of Rivals–a romance between Ohio State and Michigan coaches. I’m thrilled to be writing again! My next novel is a psychological drama titled Low Water that features a powerful treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
I’m giving away two of my ebooks and a $20 Amazon gift card. Enter on the Rafflecopter, and be sure to check out all the cool giveaways.
Jennifer Lane Books 