New Parents Guide coming out Monday

With great relief and little fanfare, The New Parent Survival Guide is coming out Monday.
If you are expecting your first child, read this 53-page booklet to know how to survive the first year after birth. It's full of tips and advice. It's a nice handy companion to the expert books that you are probably reading.
I wrote this booklet for one main reason: I got such great advice and if I didn't write it down I was going to forget it. I have passed on some of the tips in the booklet and my friends were so grateful that I felt compelled to share with the rest of the frightened new parents waiting anxiously for the birth of their first child.
Can I say the book cover is so cute? It stars my daughter in her most lovable state - sleeping.
I do not have the photo handy as I'm writing this post remotely. I will update it tonight with the picture.

The publication of the booklet also clears the way for me to get the two young adult books I've been laboring over published. I won't state the publication goal date because I feel it's putting unnecessary pressure on me. The only deadline is the one I have in my head and I'm not going to share it right now.
Not surprising, I was delayed again --- you've heard this lament a million times -- but we all got the flu two weeks ago and are still recovering. I hardly slept for three days and am only now catching up. It's the same story for my husband and daughter.
Next year I will not miss my flu shot, even if I have to get it in August.

Glad I'm not a bank teller

The guide for new parents is almost done. I should be able to meet my self-imposed deadline and have it online by mid-February.
Life has just become so much work for me. I know I complain a lot. That's my charm.
Every night I try and squeak in an hour of writing. I don't always succeed. Right now my priority is the guide. Before it was the former Virus book. I don't have much more than three or four hours a week to write.
It makes me very frustrated that I don't have more time but I don't know where I'd get it. It's 8:30 p.m. and I've just sat down at the computer.
Now it's 8:35 p.m. and I've just returned from upstairs searching for the origins of a huge crash noise.  I was a little freaked after searching every room and finding nothing. My husband discovered a shampoo bottle fell off a shelf in the family bathroom. We must have a ghost because no one was in that room moving around.

So, I'm going to cut this short because I'm writing the guide.When I'm having a crisis of confidence I wonder if I'm wasting my time. I guess I'll know in a few months.
I hope that folks will take a chance on my stories and enjoy them.
That brings me to my assignment today. I don't talk much about work. That's another reason why I don't feel like writing because I do it every day for work.
Anyway, I covered a couple of Criminal Injuries Compensation Board hearings.
The first one was a guy who got stabbed. The second one was profound. It was a woman who had worked at a bank for 35 years. She - TWICE - was the teller on duty when the bank was robbed. The first robbery was violent with men in masks with guns.
The second one was a man with a knife.
The woman is now a mess. I almost cried during the hearing. She suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome, depression, anxiety and is really struggling to live a normal life. She hasn't been able to go back to being a teller because she's afraid of dealing with the public. Who can blame her?
I have covered several bank robberies in my career and I always wondered what happens to the tellers. Well, now I know.

Revisions bogging me down

I am making major revisions to my book. After re-reading the book several times, I couldn't get over the fact that one of the male lead characters was so unappealing I had to get rid of him.

So, I've spent some time thinking about what kind of guy I want him to be and have started the revisions. I'll be re posting a new first two chapters soon.

This is one of the things I so dislike about writing. It can be such a slog and so much work.
I do a lot of whining in this space. So I shall finish on a positive note.

With the changes I'm going to make, I think it will drastically improve the book and the romance element.

See you soon.

Survival guide coming out in February for new parents

Because I secretly have ADD (not) I am putting out a survival guide for new parents in February.
I'm doing this before I forget all the wonderful tips I learned or were passed on to me before I had my now 3 1/2 year old.
I'll be publishing it as an e-book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. I'm thinking of pricing it at $1.49. It will only be about 50-pages full of useful information.
This is not a booklet repeating all the information already out there. It's interesting that you can read a ton of books before you have your baby and yet still know nothing!!!
I mean, did you know there were sleeper swaddling sacks with Velcro arms that are super easy substitutes for doing that incredibly complicated wrap to keep your kid swaddled? Did you know that Mylicon is one of the only essential must have you need beside diapers and wipes?
If you learned anything, you'll want to check out the booklet. I also have a section on all the useless crap they sell you at big box baby stores that you don't need.
In these hard times, the only thing you have to buy brand new is a bucket car seat and that's only if you can't borrow one.
For more check out the tab and online book stores in February.

Happy New Year

I hope everyone has great plans for the upcoming year.
Regretfully, it will be a struggle to get the book done by January. Although it's complete I've had some revelations about the rewriting. I don't plan to change plot but would like the words to flow better.
I got the idea from Justin Cronin's The Passage. I like his writing. I'm on Chapter 8 of the book and it drags a bit because it's laden with scene setup and lots of description but he makes the words flow. I'm finding the book a little perplexing right now but I admire the writing.

I'm also a bit tied down with family crisis. My father is in the hospital and I'm finding it very distracting. I have already travelled to Toronto once and might go again in the next few days. I will get this book finished and published over the next month or so. I'm setting a goal and I'll make it work. It's just going to be a struggle. I guess I'll have to start treating it like half-marathon training and reserve several nights a week to rewriting.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great holidays. I plan to perk up when I can.

I've got to change the title of my book. Virus just doesn't do it for me.
It makes me think of a Michael Crichton book. My book is not about the science of the virus nor about it as a medical device. It's more about what it does, who released it and why.
The virus is just a device to get me where I want to be.
I have never liked Virus as a title and always leaned toward other more accurate phrases like Polluted Blood. That title brings to mind a medical Stephen King, which the story isn't either.
There is nothing medical in the book. In fact there isn't a doctor to be found.
Its' a story of survival, friendship, family. The series is to be called Remakables.
Need title ideas.....

Book release delayed

Unfortunately, I haven't had the time or enough sleep to finish the edits yet. Soon. I've had a rough two weeks and took time off when I did have some free moments.
I gotta have a life, otherwise I'd be a zombie. I don't know how others do it. It's so time consuming to write the book, take care of my daughter, occasionally exercise, cook meals, periodically talk to my husband and go to work every day.
I have no life outside of those few tasks. Sometimes I think that's just not much of a life.
Except, every day I get book ideas. I get excited about the stories I want to write. It's a compulsion. I can't wait for others to read the stories and be entertained.
How sick is that?
My hope now is for the book to be done by the end of December. A mid-January release is now in the works.