Merry Christmas, everyone! And Happy (early) New Year. Christmas is usually one of my family’s favorite holidays, but parts of it this year didn’t quite feel like Christmas. (I’m sure most of you can relate.)
I know I don’t have to tell anyone that this has been the strangest year. Just when you think 2020 couldn’t get any crazier, it did. But, can you believe we’ve only got five days left before 2020 turns into 2021?
Yes, I do realize I haven’t updated since May—in fact, I’ve started and restarted this blog update four or five times over the past few months and just couldn’t seem to get it to hold together. (Now, granted, I’m also expecting Baby #4 in January, so I suppose I can blame baby brain for part of my problem. LOL. But, honestly, this year has been enough to mess with anyone’s head.)
Philippians 4:6-7 talk not being anxious about things and about having the peace of God that transcends all understanding. I’m grateful for that peace on a good day—or in a good year—but it’s been particularly comforting this past year.
Release News
It’s a testament to how crazy this year has been that I haven’t even officially announced I released a new book in June. Isn’t that wild?
I finished Gold-dust Roses and renamed it In Plain Sight. It’s now available as both an ebook and a trade paperback. (I’ll do a separate release post for it.)
Writing News
I mentioned in May that I’ve been writing like a crazy woman, and I’m happy to report that continued through all the ups and downs of the past few months, including moving the end of August. Writing has been my escape from 2020 and my way to stay sane in the midst of everything going on the world right now. (I love my family dearly, but sometimes Mommy just needs a few minutes to herself. Hard to do when everybody’s staying home as much as we all have.)
Project Updates
The project I was working on this spring in between finishing In Plain Sight was the start of a Christian Romance series. The first book was going gangbusters until after my last blog post, when everything stalled because things with the pandemic just kept getting crazier. (Apparently, my brain has issues writing modern-day romance in a normal world when the world around us is currently upside down. Go figure.)
As a result, I ended up going back to my space station detective story and wound up with a new series on my hands. I’ve mentioned before that I’d I started that story over a decade ago. Well, I’m happy to report that I finished that project—turned out to be a short novel—and in the process discovered that my detective and his friends have a bunch more stories to tell. grin Needless to say, I’m pumped.
Hoping to have a release date on this first Finder book, Head Case, very soon. It’s in final pre-publication stages now. I’ve been working on more books in the series—science fiction mysteries are all my creative voice wants to write at the moment.
Stone General
Haven’t made much progress on this one—the Finder series took over most of my writing brain this year. It’s at the top of the list for projects I want to work on in 2021, though.
The Guardians: Book 5
Haven’t made much progress on this since the beginning of the year. I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the bandwidth to give the story the justice it deserves. When Covid happened, my brain took one look at the complex story threads involved and said, “Nope, no way. Not writing this now.”
It will get done—hoping to work on it in 2021—but I’m afraid as far as 2020 progress is concerned, it was an early Covid-19 casualty.
Hope y’all are staying safe. Have a Happy New Year!