I don’t know what to call this . . .

I really have to apologize for how absent I’ve been the last week or so. Granted, it’s nowhere near the sort of absences I’ve had before. I have gotten behind with responding to things, especially on here, but I’ve been sort of popping in and out of everywhere else during the week. (Twitter, GoodReads, etc.) Obviously this wasn’t the ‘I’m going to disappear for a month without saying a word anywhere’ sort of break that happens when I’m writing and lose complete track of the days.

I am a bit frustrated about it, partially due to all the stuff I’ve been wanting/need to get done, and partially because I’d finally gotten caught up with everything and am now behind again.

As per usual, I do have an excuse. It’s probably one of the most ridiculous ones. Though valid (in my opinion), I have nothing to show for it.

I’d had something bothering me for months (work-related), and it finally came to a point where I just had to fix it. So I did. It was only after doing as much (and spending several days doing nothing else) that I realized . . . it was essentially pointless. What I’m saying is that I had a really good reason that turned out to be a not-so-good reason, and that frustrated me to no end. I could’ve been doing all that other stuff I need to do.

I guess this is one of those things you have to just get over and move on from, which is easier said than done for me. It will probably bother me for longer than I care to say.

Moving on . . .

I did two takes on the video Q&A this morning (technically yesterday morning now). It’s very frustrating when you forget important bits in one, remember in the other, but in the other you forget other important bits that are included in the first. (Yes, I know that was worded horrendously.) I’m thinking about chopping it up (so I can have the answers I’d prefer) and splitting it into separate videos. It ended up being about 40 minutes long, and I’m not sure that anyone wants to sit for 40 minutes straight watching/listening to me talk about things.

I’m sort of proud of myself. I think that’s the least I’ve stammered in . . . a very long time. Possibly because I had answers pretty planned out in my head beforehand. Or maybe that’s because I replaced all the places where I would’ve fumbled over words with umm and like and you know. (‘You know’ like I’m having a freaking conversation. -_-) Oh well, you can’t have everything. And I definitely suck at talking, so yeah. Probably better this way than trying four times to get one word out.

I DO have to ask . . .

For any of you that actually have intent to watch this . . .

Should I split it into separate, shorter videos? (This is assuming I could figure out how to do as much.)

I want your opinions!

 

I guess that’s really it for now. I’ll be trying to get caught up everywhere, and get back to that to-do list that I typed up last week.

Hope everyone is doing well. 🙂

Legends of Windemere Book Trailer!

Check out the book trailer for Legends of Windemere!

Legends of Windemere

HERE IT IS!
THE LEGENDS OF WINDEMERE BOOK TRAILER!
HELP SPREAD THE WORD AND CHECK IT OUT ON YOUTUBE!

A BIG THANK YOU TO SEAN COOKE FOR PUTTING THIS TOGETHER!

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Reave (Reave #1) by C. Miller

😀

TheBookishReviews

Genre:

Fantasy, Romance

Synopsis:

How far would you go to be free—to make your own choices without being subjected to punishment for doing what you felt was right? Could you kill for it?

After being abandoned by her father as a child, Aster spent ten years of her life as a servant for the leader’s House in the broken city of New Bethel. She’d known, even as a child, that the cities of her world were corrupt places with human monsters—assassins—running rampant between their high walls.

Thinking everything will remain the same as it always has there, Aster is startled to discover that one day . . . the cycle breaks. As a young new leader takes a strange and—at times—horrifying interest in her, will she be capable of discovering the reasons behind his actions and orders?

In a world where nothing is as it seems and all things…

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Elude (Reave Series #2) by C. Miller

😀

TheBookishReviews

Genre:

Fantasy

Synopsis:

Escaping is hard. Surviving is harder.

Aster has lived a life of servitude for ten years, but now she is determined to be free. Countless Reapers stand between her and the gate to New Bethel, and more await just past the walls. She’s spent her life being invisible, but in a world full of assassins, becoming close to any of them only makes you a target for the rest. Every step she takes puts her in more danger, closer to Reapers with unknown intentions. Unexpected friendships develop, but can she really trust any Reaper when they’ve all been trained to deceive? Aster and Chase know what awaits them outside the city, but can they get past it?

In Aster’s journey for freedom, she learns there are some things in life you can’t ever truly escape from, and that some steps can’t ever be taken back.

My Review:

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Love: Lost and Found by Pamela Beckford (Blog Tour!)

Today, I’m participating in part of a blog tour for a blogging buddy of mine, Pamela Beckford. Love: Lost and Found is the third book of poetry that she’s published. If you enjoy poetry, you should definitely check it out!

Also, she’s a super nice person, and you should go check out her blog if you haven’t already. 🙂

 

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Lost-Found-Pamela-Beckford-ebook/dp/B00LEST9Z4/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1405041518&sr=8-8&keywords=love+lost+and+found

 

Alone (double cinquain)

Alone

So incomplete

Gazing at the moonlight

Wondering just when you’ll be here

Nearby

With me

To start our lives

Never to leave again

Becoming whole and not just half

As one

 

Pamela has written a second collection of love poems. Poetry is an expression from deep within the soul. It can be therapeutic and healing. It can bring out all the best or the worst in life. Her poetry comes from the heart, not the head. It is an outpouring of emotion and she exposes it to the reader in the pages. Love: Lost and Found contains over 90 poems representing over a dozen different forms of poetry. The poems span the angst and despair of love lost to the exhilaration and ecstasy of a deep abiding love.

 

Love: Lost and Found has already received a five star review that says

“Pamela Beckford writes with her heart as much as her mind. She makes me feel things when I read her work that usually stay buried beneath the surface. Her way of expressing emotions that usually aren’t captured for later evaluation is amazing.

I also enjoy that she uses a lot of different styles and forms of poetry in her collections, making the book varied and interesting. Some are shorter and some longer, but all of them carefully constructed. Her ability to say so much in so few words is a indication of her talent as a writer.

If you are looking for an excellent poetry book, look no further.”

http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-Love-Collection-Pamela-Beckford-ebook/dp/B00I9H9K3Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405042082&sr=8-1&keywords=dreams+of+love+pamela

 

http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Nature-Pamela-Beckford-ebook/dp/B00JCRWVJU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405042107&sr=8-1&keywords=voices+of+nature+by+pamela+beckford

 

Pamela’s other books have also garnered some great reviews and both are available on Kindle or paperback as well.

 

Season of Love (tanka)

First there is summer,

Followed by fall, winter, spring

But lest we forget

The season of love appears

Bringing hope for all lost souls

 

SO MUCH TO DO

I have a lot to do.

I’m trying to get them all separated into things I want to do and things I need to do. I don’t typically do posts where I lay out what I need to get accomplished, but I have to figure this out anyway and might as well make a post out of it. These are not writing/editing related. I have a list of those on my What’s in the works? page, and I update it occasionally. If you’re interested in what’s going on with me in that regard, you’re more than welcome to check that page out whenever and see if I’ve updated it. (I’ve been updating it every two weeks or so, roundabout. It’s more so for when I actually accomplish the goals on there.)

These are in no (real) particular order and have no set time limit (as I have no idea which order I want to tackle them in):

1) I need to get a mailing list sorted out. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now, but I really need to get that done. It would strictly be to keep people informed about when I have a release. I might do a quarterly ‘newsletter’ as well, but wouldn’t post anything from that onto here or the same in reverse.

2) I need to get the questions I’ve received for the video Q&A into a cohesive list. (One that might travel in a relatively straight line to prevent me from getting too far sidetracked and end up rambling forever.) There are still a few more days before I’ll attempt to tackle that, if anyone else wants to contribute questions. Really, I welcome anything for it. You can check out the post if you haven’t already. (Also want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone that’s shown interest in it, and asked me questions. I really appreciate it.)

3) Decide whether I need to actually make all these spreadsheets I feel like I need to make, or if I can put that off for a little while longer.

4) Catch up with responding to things.

5) Get my sleep schedule sorted out because I really do not like being awake during the day.

6) Figure out how to get this muscle in my cheek to stop twitching. It’s extremely distracting. (I’m guessing it’s stress-related.)

7) Get a little more organized on Twitter.

8) Figure out a way to get organized in general that won’t take months upon months of cutting into my work time.

9) Reach out to more reviewers for Reave. (If you’re interested in that, let me know!)

10) Write up some rather important emails without causing more facial twitching for myself.

11) Get book 1 of the trilogy to the first beta-reader.

12) Figure out if I want to release that one next or between books 3 and 4 of the Reave Series. (Probably and preferably between 3&4, but that depends on several factors.)

13) Figure out what the hell I’m doing.

14) I really dislike odd numbers.

 

Okay, one more thing.

I haven’t ‘liked’ near enough pages with my personal Facebook account. I have a lot of blogging buddies on here and I would like to ‘like’ your pages. It’s MUCH easier for me to keep up with what’s going on with people by looking on there rather than on here (at least for now).

If I haven’t liked your page, please feel free to leave a link down in the comments and I’ll go do that.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Video Q&A

Yes, you read the subject correctly.

I had an idea several weeks ago about doing just that (a video Q&A). Knowing my anxiety (it’s like a real person to me, watching over my shoulder), my first thought after the idea struck was, ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea.’ (Please imagine that being thought in a sarcastic inner voice.)

I mulled it over (cue Harry Potter thought path . . . moving on . . .) for a while. After doing as much (and talking to Husband about it and hearing his opinion), I tossed the idea out there to a couple friends. Most said, “DO IT!”

(All but one really said as much, and admittedly that friend is freakily similar to me in a lot of ways so I can definitely understand her saying she didn’t know.)

I have my obvious issues with it:

1) That I will make an ass out of myself.

2) That words worse than ass might slip out of my mouth on accident. (I frequently use ‘bad’ language, but only when I feel it’s ‘appropriate’ to do so. I try not to use those words on here because I consider this something along the lines of being ‘out in public,’ where my ‘bad language’ is all used in my head. (That’s the way I was raised.) Hence me starring things out (for the most part) when I either feel like I can’t or don’t want to get around using a particular word.)

3) I write much better than I speak. (Hence me being a writer and not a public speaker. Or public ANYTHING.) Do I really want everyone to hear this stammering I occasionally post about on here? Not particularly. Do I want anyone to hear ummm come out of my mouth about fifty times? No, but it most assuredly would happen. (Not to mention that I make absolutely HORRENDOUS faces while I talk. I really do.)

4) Do I really want to send myself into all the anxiety attacks this would surely induce for absolutely nobody to even watch it? No.

There are the good sides to it:

1) As much as I prefer writing to speaking, obviously you can get more out faster with the latter.

2) I would really like to hear any questions people might potentially have for me, and then answer them.

3) As hesitant as I am about literally putting a face to the name, I don’t really think it would be a bad idea to essentially say, ‘Hey, here I am.’ (Then follow it up afterward with, ‘I bet you can see why I sit alone and write books now, huh?’ 😉 )

4) Even if it might stress me out, it might actually be fun.

I do video diaries for myself to keep up with things going on in my life (because I have a horrible memory), and I’m sure doing a video Q&A then sharing it with everyone would let people see that the way I go about writing on here is very much how I am in real-

SQUIRREL.

(All the parenthetical asides in posts/comments/messages is how my mind works when I’m not writing books. Really. I am a mess. ha)

Anyway, I didn’t want to make an ass out of myself with even asking if it wouldn’t be something people were actually interested in seeing. (Who would want to watch me ramble?) But better to ask than not because someone out there might have something they’d really like to ask me. Who knows?

 

SO! If anyone is interested in this (the rambling/stammering/etc./etc./etc.), please let me know. Feel free to start asking questions. I don’t really care what sort of questions they are, to be honest. They can be work-related. (About characters/writing/publishing/etc.) They can be ridiculous and have nothing to do with anything. (Why do I love Merlin so much? What’s my gamerscore on XBox? I’m kind of proud of that last one. Just saying.) I don’t mind.

I only have ONE stipulation with this though. Just one.

If any of the questions contain spoilers for either of the books I have out, please ask me those questions privately. I will try to find a way to answer them in the video regardless because I’m pretty used to being careful with how I word talk of these books. If I can’t do as much but feel I can answer your question privately, I will do as much.

Anyway, feel free to comment on here or Facebook. If you would rather ask the question privately (either for the reason mentioned above or because you don’t want me to use your [first] name in the video), you can do so by messaging me on either my Facebook page or GoodReads. (Also feel free to add me as a friend on there if you’d like while you’re at it.) Or you can shoot me an email at cmillauthor (at) gmail (dot) com.

If there aren’t enough questions asked to warrant doing this, I WILL answer the questions asked via whatever means you contacted me.

One more thing:

I will not give away any spoilers. Not for any of the books, whether released yet or not.

HAVE A GOOD DAY, ALL!

(Please excuse me while I mentally go hide under a rock.)

Elude is available!

I’m so sorry for not posting this on here yesterday, but better a little late than never.

Anyway . . . here are the links! (I’ll be updating the My Books page and the What’s in the works? page to reflect all this, plus adding a few more links.)

Elude on Amazon (Print and e-book have already attached, so that’s nice.)

Elude on SmashWords

 

Hope everyone is doing well out there. 🙂

 

On releasing a second book . . .

Trying to process how I’m feeling with the release of Elude coming up fast has been a pretty interesting experience. It can be all pure, undiluted excitement for who knows how long, only to be overtaken by stress and the like at a moment’s (unwanted) notice. Me, I’m a stressful being. I’ll be stressed about the sky being too blue if nothing else is going on. (WHERE ARE THE CLOUDS?! THERE SHOULD BE CLOUDS RIGHT NOW!) Clearly that’s an exaggeration (of sorts), but there’s always the ‘expect the worst’ mentality trying to break through any bit of positivity in my head. That’s just me.

I’d been ridiculously stressed trying to get everything done and (as close to) perfect (as I can get) with this. I was still excited despite all that, more of that than anything else. Then, all at once, most of the stress and other negativity was sucked up. I was just excited.

Thus far, preparing to release a second book has been an entirely different ballgame than the first. I know what I’m doing a bit better than I did when it was Reave I was preparing for. (Though, admittedly, I did forget some things this time which was much easier to be remedied than initial learning.) Releasing that first one, I was a giant mass of stress. I’m pretty sure I was putting off so much stress that it could easily be detected by others within a fifty-foot radius of me. (Though it’s rare for people to be in that space.) Obviously there was the pleasantness as well. I was FINALLY going to have a book out there in the world. I was going to push it off the proverbial cliff to see if it could fly. It was terrifying.

It was also exciting.

After several years of writing books and wanting people to enjoy them like I enjoyed them, it was . . . a bit surreal, to be honest. I’d been so over-protective and private with my work until that point, and the thought of any and everyone being capable of reading it just blew my mind. (I’m getting better with the over-protective part, but it’s a process for sure.) It still does blow my mind, when I really think about it in certain ways.

I’ll say my head is much clearer this time around. Rather than, “Is this really happening? Really?” it’s, “This is happening.”

I’m happy. I think a great deal of that is due to just how much I love the rest of this series. If you’ve read Reave, you know it leaves off for things to PICK UP. And pick up they do. I really love this second book. (Though I’ll easily say that the fourth is by far my favorite in the series.)

One of my concerns was that other people wouldn’t agree with me on this, that they wouldn’t enjoy the rest and would be like, “FIRST.” After having several people read Elude and telling me they liked it better, and having the people who have either finished book 3 or are currently reading it saying the same (that they like it even better than the second, which was an even larger concern for me if I’m being honest) . . . I’m feeling good.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, or if it’s only a temporary thing, but I think I’m getting just a smidgen better at putting away the negative thoughts where my work is concerned. They’re still there, of course. But I’m getting a bit better at not letting them dictate so much, or have so much of a say in matters where they don’t actually need to have input at all.

Obviously I’m stressed out, wondering how it will be received, and all that. At the same time, I know it’s better and I can be excited about that.

As of right now, I don’t really know that I’ll be posting another entry on here before the release. Unless I think of something important, this will probably be it. So I have a few things to say to all of you who have actually taken the time to read this and are interested. There will be no mass of stress seeping into the following…

1) I am really looking forward to you reading Elude, if you’re planning on it. I hope you enjoy it. I hope it makes you feel something. I hope you’re satisfied with it.

2) Thank you. I sincerely want to thank any and everyone who has been supportive of my work. These books mean more to me than I can actually get across. (I suppose that’s easy when they pretty much consume your life…) And I’m really not very fantastic at many aspects of this. Getting the word out? Yeah, I’m pretty awful at that. Having confidence in myself? Pretty awful at that as well. So thank you all for either dealing with the latter of those, or helping with the former. More than that, thank you to anyone who has at any point ever thought the characters I write deserve to be not only enjoyed by you, but shown to others. It seriously means more to me than I could ever express.

That’s why I do this.

(Apart from trying to keep my sanity in getting these stories out of my head. 😉 )

– C

Releasing a second book? Yeah, it’s happening.

Be prepared on July 14th. Until then, you can check out Reave, or add Elude on GoodReads. 🙂

Elude is up on GoodReads!

As the subject says, I’ve put Elude on GoodReads! I probably should have done it sooner, but . . . I didn’t. I’ll be totally honest and admit I hadn’t even thought about putting it up early, but was asked when it would be up and I figured, ‘I should probably do that.’

Anyway, you can find it here: Elude on GoodReads

I’m a bit behind where responding to things is concerned, as per usual. I’d planned on getting caught up tonight, but it is now the morning and . . . I’m not caught up. Please be patient with me where that’s concerned. I will definitely get to all that tonight (after I wake up), but it’s pretty close to bedtime for me now.

I’ll have a more substantial blog entry coming soon, within a day or so. I suppose that would depend on how you defined ‘substantial,’ but totally not the point. I’m not entirely sure what the point is, apart from that I’ll be on here a bit more often. And Twitter.

I just wanted to make sure I let everyone know that Elude is up there now, in case anyone wanted to add it. 🙂