Amazon lists All I Ever Wanted as "live." But the price isn't up and you can't actually order it, nor does it come up in a search on my name. I'm hoping this issue will resolve itself by Monday. If not, I'll try publishing it a second time!
On the up side, In the Mood continues to sell. Of course, I have it at ninety-nine cents, so it's more of a loss leader, a way to introduce myself to the readers over there, than an actual chance to make money. Still, I'm happy to see people actually buying it. I just hope some more of them will leave reviews at some point:-).
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
All I Ever Wanted
I got All I Ever Wanted formatted and up on Amazon yesterday (it can't be purchased yet because it takes between 24-72 hours to go live). I haven't read it in forever, and had forgotten how many characters it had in it. It's my only full-length contemporary thus far, and it's naturally got a much more complicated plot than my novellas.
I will admit this particular novel kind of depresses me because the hero is a Hodgkin's disease survivor (like VH), and at the time I wrote it VH seemed to have won his battle with cancer, but of course in the long haul he didn't. However, most people with Hodgkin's do survive it-- according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, it's "now considered to be one of the most curable forms of cancer." And it's my understanding that they're learning ways to treat it that don't lead to later solid tumors, now that they've become aware of this problem.
At any rate, All I Ever Wanted is a slightly more serious book than my other contemps, due to the hero's background, but it's still basically a light, humorous story, and I'll be glad to have it back out there.
I will admit this particular novel kind of depresses me because the hero is a Hodgkin's disease survivor (like VH), and at the time I wrote it VH seemed to have won his battle with cancer, but of course in the long haul he didn't. However, most people with Hodgkin's do survive it-- according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, it's "now considered to be one of the most curable forms of cancer." And it's my understanding that they're learning ways to treat it that don't lead to later solid tumors, now that they've become aware of this problem.
At any rate, All I Ever Wanted is a slightly more serious book than my other contemps, due to the hero's background, but it's still basically a light, humorous story, and I'll be glad to have it back out there.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Where I'm going from here
I'm working on figuring out where to go from here. I have a couple of projects simmering in my head. But today, my project is going to be to get All I Ever Wanted properly formatted so I can release it on Kindle at the beginning of March.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Yay!
I got a nice five-star review on Amazon from a reader who called In the Mood a "fantastic story." That's the first review I've gotten on professional work in a long time, and it makes me happy to know someone enjoyed it.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Interesting
Ha, lookie what I managed to do. I imported my old blog into this one. I actually didn't know you could do that, but it wasn't hard. (That's the great thing about Blogger-- it's easy for the computer challenged to work with!) So now all my old posts (and even the comments) are in this blog too.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Rights
I now have all the rights back on my NCP books, thus leaving me with Samhain as my only publisher right now. I just contacted Bantam to see if I can get the rights back on The Light in the Darkness. (It's been out of print for years and years, and there is no reason to suppose they would want to even put it into an ebook edition.) It's my first book, and in some ways it's a bit rough, but in other ways it may be my best book. So I'd like to get it back and put a Kindle edition out there.
Also, I'm trying to figure out how to get access to my domain name (www.ellenfisher.com) so I can point it to my new site. I'm having some trouble because I don't know what the old password was (VH always handled this stuff, not me) and I've subsequently switched email addies, so I have to fax some stuff in and try to get a new password. It's all very complicated *sighs*.
Also, I'm trying to figure out how to get access to my domain name (www.ellenfisher.com) so I can point it to my new site. I'm having some trouble because I don't know what the old password was (VH always handled this stuff, not me) and I've subsequently switched email addies, so I have to fax some stuff in and try to get a new password. It's all very complicated *sighs*.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Fun with the kids
Today, I took the kids bowling (by request). I haven't been bowling in years-- VH and I used to go a lot, but the overwhelming smell of smoke bothered us. They no longer allow smoking, so that problem is solved.
Anyway, I remember bowling as cheap fun. It's still fun, but not so cheap (maybe the issue is, as it all too often is, that I have too darn many children). Still, the kids all enjoyed it, and so did I.
I won, by the way:-).
Anyway, I remember bowling as cheap fun. It's still fun, but not so cheap (maybe the issue is, as it all too often is, that I have too darn many children). Still, the kids all enjoyed it, and so did I.
I won, by the way:-).
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Warming weather
It's been an unusually cold winter. But it seems to be slowly warming this week. Today I kicked out the kids to play (having first purchased them new chalk, a new Nerf football and a new foam bat and baseball, so they had something to do out there). I tied out the dogs on twenty-foot leashes-- we still don't have a fence up, but the dogs love hanging out with the kids. They played outside for hours, and a good time seemed to be had by all.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Unartistic art
I didn't love the cover I'd done for what will be the Kindle edition of All I Ever Wanted, so I redid the text last night. It's better now, although I still think the "Ellen Fisher" needs to stand out a little more. Considering most people will only see it in a thumbnail, it's best to keep these covers simple, I think. At any rate, those of us who aren't artistic are best off not trying anything really elaborate. Dara Joy's latest cover is a case in point-- I really think she'd be better off using a simple stock photo or something more basic, rather than trying to create elaborate computer generated images.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Ugh
The kids and I had a spectacular stomach virus this weekend. Every person in the family came down with it in rapid succession. Fortunately I got it first, and fortunately it was on a Saturday, so the kids were able to take care of the dogs for me while I lay in bed . Like a lot of stomach bugs, the worst of it didn't last long. Even so, I was not really ready to get out of bed and start taking care of kids, but by the next day everyone was sick, so I had no choice. It wasn't until yesterday afternoon that I really felt decent again.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
My dad
I'm heading out to spend some time with my dad, as I do every week nowadays. We moved closer to family about four months ago, and that means we can see all the grandparents more frequently.
Anyone who used to read my old journal may remember that my father had congestive heart failure and almost died a couple of years ago. They told me he'd never live independently again. Well, he proved them wrong-- he's still living in his own house, doing his own housework and cooking, and keeping himself quite busy. He has one badly arthritic hip, vision loss due to macular degeneration, and quite a bit of hearing loss. But he'll be ninety-three next week, so all this is to be expected. Overall, he's doing great, and I'm glad that I get to see him so often nowadays.
Anyone who used to read my old journal may remember that my father had congestive heart failure and almost died a couple of years ago. They told me he'd never live independently again. Well, he proved them wrong-- he's still living in his own house, doing his own housework and cooking, and keeping himself quite busy. He has one badly arthritic hip, vision loss due to macular degeneration, and quite a bit of hearing loss. But he'll be ninety-three next week, so all this is to be expected. Overall, he's doing great, and I'm glad that I get to see him so often nowadays.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
*Sighs*
My baby isn't a baby any more. He turned five years old today. It's hard to believe he's all grown up! *sniffles*
Friday, February 5, 2010
What I've learned from fanfic
A few years ago, I became disgusted with life and publishing, for reasons that I've already adequately enumerated. A writer doesn't stop writing, of course, so I wound up writing fanfic-- close to two million words of it. Here's what I've learned from writing fanfic:
1. How to write short. When I started writing romances, long, long ago, my natural writing length was about 100,000 words. I eventually learned to write novellas of 20,000 words or so, but it wasn't till I started writing fanfic that I discovered I could write very, very short pieces. I've written short stories with satisfying endings as short as 400 words. Of course, fanfic comes with its universe and characters already established, so you don't have to do setup. It's unlikely I could produce a satisfying original story of 400 words, but I can now turn out decent original shorts (with sex scenes, even) of 5000 words or so.
2. How to write angst. As a romance author, my published stories all had happy endings. That didn't really fit with my mood after my husband died, and during all my health problems. So I indulged myself by turning out the occasional piece of angst, with endings that were really, really sad. And to my surprise, I can do it darn well. I don't know if that is a skill I'll ever be able to use in professional writing, but it's nice to know I can write tear jerkers.
3 How to write differently. I've tried all sorts of different stuff-- first person, present tense, dialogue only, stories told through emails, slash, and even a "literary" type story or two. These are all things I probably wouldn't have done professionally (except the first person, perhaps) and I think they all helped me develop some new skills and learn more about writing.
4. How to have fun. Most professional writers know that the endless grind of searching for agents and publishers can have a really bad effect on the ego. Fanfic has nothing to do with trying to get published, and there's not a lot of stress involved; it's just writing what you enjoy. People generally don't read you unless they like your style, so you typically get mostly positive feedback. That's fun too:-).
5. How to write every day. I've spent the past several years writing nearly every day (I've slacked off some this past year due to health issues). It's easier to write for feedback. But it also helps to have a set time every day just to sit down and write, and to make writing a priority in your life.
6. How to use Photoshop. Well, Photoshop Elements, actually, and clearly I don't know how to do anything fancy with it. But I've spent a couple of years making my own title pages for my fanfics, and I enjoy playing around with images as a break from writing. At least I can make a banner now, which is something I couldn't have done before.
So fanfic has been fun. I think, however, that if I can translate some of these lessons over to my professional writing, it might begin to be fun again, too. We'll see!
1. How to write short. When I started writing romances, long, long ago, my natural writing length was about 100,000 words. I eventually learned to write novellas of 20,000 words or so, but it wasn't till I started writing fanfic that I discovered I could write very, very short pieces. I've written short stories with satisfying endings as short as 400 words. Of course, fanfic comes with its universe and characters already established, so you don't have to do setup. It's unlikely I could produce a satisfying original story of 400 words, but I can now turn out decent original shorts (with sex scenes, even) of 5000 words or so.
2. How to write angst. As a romance author, my published stories all had happy endings. That didn't really fit with my mood after my husband died, and during all my health problems. So I indulged myself by turning out the occasional piece of angst, with endings that were really, really sad. And to my surprise, I can do it darn well. I don't know if that is a skill I'll ever be able to use in professional writing, but it's nice to know I can write tear jerkers.
3 How to write differently. I've tried all sorts of different stuff-- first person, present tense, dialogue only, stories told through emails, slash, and even a "literary" type story or two. These are all things I probably wouldn't have done professionally (except the first person, perhaps) and I think they all helped me develop some new skills and learn more about writing.
4. How to have fun. Most professional writers know that the endless grind of searching for agents and publishers can have a really bad effect on the ego. Fanfic has nothing to do with trying to get published, and there's not a lot of stress involved; it's just writing what you enjoy. People generally don't read you unless they like your style, so you typically get mostly positive feedback. That's fun too:-).
5. How to write every day. I've spent the past several years writing nearly every day (I've slacked off some this past year due to health issues). It's easier to write for feedback. But it also helps to have a set time every day just to sit down and write, and to make writing a priority in your life.
6. How to use Photoshop. Well, Photoshop Elements, actually, and clearly I don't know how to do anything fancy with it. But I've spent a couple of years making my own title pages for my fanfics, and I enjoy playing around with images as a break from writing. At least I can make a banner now, which is something I couldn't have done before.
So fanfic has been fun. I think, however, that if I can translate some of these lessons over to my professional writing, it might begin to be fun again, too. We'll see!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
My best buddies - a picspam
I posted some on my old journal about the two new guys in my life, but a proud mommy can never show too many pictures. A couple of years ago, I bought a tiny little ball of gray fluff:
The tiny ball of fluff rapidly expanded into seventy pounds of fluff (and a lot of heart, but absolutely no brain). His name is Big Blue Hero, Hero for short, and despite the unfortunate lack of brain power, he is indeed a hero who guards his house and people zealously, while allowing the four-year-old to use him as a pillow without complaint. He is a puppy at heart and will fetch balls or stuffed toys for hours.
Since Hero was so clearly the best dog ever, I went back to the breeder and bought one of his brothers six months later. (They have the same father, and their mothers are full sisters.) This was our second ball of fluff:
Thanks to the blue eyes, he was dubbed Electric Blue Impulse, or Impulse for short. Hero loved the new puppy (or as he saw it, his new chew toy) and the two of them rapidly became inseparable:
Impulse (usually called Impy) defends his family and house just as enthusiastically as Hero, but he has one true purpose in life, and that is to lick faces. He'll settle for hands, but he'd much rather lick your face.
He is a sweetie, and unlike Hero, he does possess a brain. His one unfortunate habit is eating anything he comes across, which is going to land him in the doggy hospital one of these days.
They've grown into two beautiful seventy-pound dogs who adore their family and each other:
The tiny ball of fluff rapidly expanded into seventy pounds of fluff (and a lot of heart, but absolutely no brain). His name is Big Blue Hero, Hero for short, and despite the unfortunate lack of brain power, he is indeed a hero who guards his house and people zealously, while allowing the four-year-old to use him as a pillow without complaint. He is a puppy at heart and will fetch balls or stuffed toys for hours.
Since Hero was so clearly the best dog ever, I went back to the breeder and bought one of his brothers six months later. (They have the same father, and their mothers are full sisters.) This was our second ball of fluff:
Thanks to the blue eyes, he was dubbed Electric Blue Impulse, or Impulse for short. Hero loved the new puppy (or as he saw it, his new chew toy) and the two of them rapidly became inseparable:
Impulse (usually called Impy) defends his family and house just as enthusiastically as Hero, but he has one true purpose in life, and that is to lick faces. He'll settle for hands, but he'd much rather lick your face.
He is a sweetie, and unlike Hero, he does possess a brain. His one unfortunate habit is eating anything he comes across, which is going to land him in the doggy hospital one of these days.
They've grown into two beautiful seventy-pound dogs who adore their family and each other:
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