Hello, All!
Yes, I know it’s been nearly a year since I more or less vanished from the world of online presence, but I’m back now!
I think all of you deserve at least a cursory overview of where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to the last 11-ish months, so here goes…
The precipitating even was in late February 2019 when my wonderful husband Jack suffered a heart attack. Despite all of his doctors, our daughter Debby (a med student), many friends with experience and knowledge, and even Jack telling me it was “only a minor heart attack”, I pretty well freaked out. I’m sure those reading this who have been through something similar will understand why I suddenly saw nothing else even came close to the priority of Jack’s health and recovery. Nothing else mattered. At all.
But as time passed and Jack went through each stage of his rehabilitation and treatment (including bypass surgery) with flying colors, I became more relaxed and was able to look at the big picture again. I guess I finally accepted that he wasn’t going to make me a widow.
As a direct result of Jack’s health issues, I decided to back away from corporate world as much as I could. I stepped down as CEO and turned that over to my long-time COO. Our oldest daughter, Amanda, stepped up and continues to do her share of the heavy lifting in the company as well as balancing her musical career. There were obviously ripples and shuffling of positions and duties throughout the company, divisions, and subsidiaries, and all of that took time to implement. I still hold the board chair, but that is not a day-to-day job.
So as all of these changes (and others) were settling down, I was getting ready to look at increasing my focus on writing, something I have wanted to do for many years but time was not available due to the need of the business side of the street. Then, the proverbial “other shoe” dropped…
As I mentioned, Debby (our middle child) wants to be a doctor. She completed her pre-med and starting looking seriously at medical schools. Because of her grades and all the other things schools look at, she pretty well had her choice of schools to attend. Debby decided to pick Johns Hopkins and was accepted.
We live in Southern California near San Diego. I want you to find that on a map. Johns Hopkins is in Baltimore, MD. Now find that on the map. Without measuring and calculating the scale, it’s a long damn way from San Diego to Baltimore.
Now, a little more on Debby…a number of years ago, Debby was diagnosed with leukemia. After chemo and radiation, she has been in remission for nearly six years now, but things were a little touch and go for a while. Yeah, I more or less came unglued back then, too.
And now, my little girl is going to take off and go to school on the other side of the freaking country!
To make a long story short, it took a while, but both Jack and I came to terms with Debby going that far away to school. You have no idea how hard it is promise Debby, and really mean it, that her dad and I won’t be visiting her every weekend! Yes, as the date for her to leave gets closer and closer, we are stressing more, but it’s manageable because we know this is the right thing for her. We’re behind Debby 110%.
Now I’m back to getting more focused on writing again.
I’m not sure exactly how that will all come out, but I suspect I’ll stop writing under a few of my many pen names (I have more than 30 active right now) and narrow my focus into a smaller number. I know I want to keep writing in the erotica romance arena despite it not being a money maker. It’s fun and I like it, so the accountants can get that stupid look off their faces and go add some numbers.
The first step is getting my online presence back in place…
Next week, my Melodee’s Rule for Authors (posted on Fridays) and Two Hundred Word Tuesday will be returning. Both of these allow authors and readers to interact and learn about each other.
My Free Links area is also available. Here you can have a link to your website, blog, or whatever on my site.
I’m working on how to more efficiently handle my Twitter Mentions. The old way I did them was very time consuming, and I just can’t justify that amount of work anymore. I’m playing with a number of ideas of doing things differently, but nothing has been decided yet. I would welcome any ideas or suggestions.
(All of these promotional items are detailed on my website under the Promo Opps tab. See there for more information.)
And lastly, I’m considering offering book reviews again, but this is very much up in the air. Odds are I have already “read” your book(s) either myself or via a synopsis from the company acquisition editors. The problem is that I have never believed in the ill-advised concept of all books getting a good review. This isn’t fair to anyone…readers lose out because the review doesn’t give them an accurate feel for the story and, more importantly, the writers lose when every review is 4 or 5 stars because they never learn what they are doing wrong. Honestly, about 95% of all books are crap. When I do a review of a book that is crap, my total lack of political correctness makes me say that it’s crap. Well, usually I’ll say it’s big steaming pile of shit. The problem today is that most writers are not able to deal with a bad review. I have mixed feelings about doing reviews again because so many authors get butt hurt and go off the deep end. It is a fact of life that some people are good at something and others should consider a different career choice. I have no problem saying that, either. This all boils down to a need for me to consider doing reviews very carefully. I have no clue about how this will come out in the end.
There you have it…why I’ve been scarce for so long and what my plans are for the immediate future. Feel free to comment here or even drop me a personal note if you have thoughts or questions.
Keep Loving!
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