A to Z: Going Indie: Y is for YOLO!

 Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

 If you read my post yesterday, you already know that I just turned 55. This isn't me complaining. It's a privilege to have made it this far and I'm hopeful of having many more years yet to enjoy. But, it also means that I've crossed a sort of meridian in my life and there's for sure fewer years left than I have already lived. 

So, it's time to DO IT. Whatever it is that you've been wanting to do and haven't done. For me: that's making a go of self-publishing, taking my writing life firmly into my hands and making all the decisions, accepting all the blame and any glory that might come from it. To BE A WRITER. 

Lucy had the right of it: 

 

A to Z: Going Indie: X is for Xanthic

Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

Xanthic? I know…but X is hard! If this word was new to you (like it was to me), Merriam Webster tells us that it means: 

So, I'm thinking "yellow" like "you yellow bellied coward!" but I actually have no idea if this word works for the more metaphorical meaning of yellow. But, I'm going with it. 

So, what am I afraid of when it comes to going indie? 

I have two main fears: financial ruin, and that it'll take the fun out of it. 

In terms of financial ruin, I've taken a few steps to protect myself: 

• I waited until the "right" moment in my life, when I had some dollars to spare without sinking the Bryant Family ship
• I didn't invest in all of it all at once, but did a little at a time, spreading it out across months and even years.
• I incorporated as an LLC, because who knows what unknown water lie ahead, and I'd like my family's assets to be safe if I really screw something up and end up in legal or tax trouble of some sort.
• I took some business training and tax advice 

In terms of "taking the fun out of it," I'm still finding out, I think. It has added new types of work to my life (see my post on D is for Decisions for more on that), so I have to be careful to keep some sort of balance and not burn myself out. 

But, I'm not especially afraid of hard work. In fact, it's a joy to focus my efforts on something that is so personally important to me instead of just day job drudgery or dirty dishes!

There's a lot of it I REALLY enjoy, too! I'm giddy sometimes with all the little delights that have been a part of this process: new things I've learned, new connections I've made, that feeling of "I made this!", positive reception of my work, etc. 

So maybe I'm not really all that metaphorically xanthic after all (if that's even a thing). 

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By the way, today's the day! Release day! Book birthday on my actual birthday! (I'm 55 today!)

So, if you've been interested at all by Not Too Late as I've nattered on about it in these posts, do a girl a solid and go buy a copy today! It's available through Ingram, so you can order it at your favorite bookstore, request it at your library, or buy it online at a lot of different venues. 

 

 

 

A to Z: Going Indie: D is for Decisions

 Welcome to Blogging A to Z! My theme this year is Going Indie. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to check out the other participating blogs. 

 Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. 

I knew, but I didn't know, you know? 

Going in, I anticipated that going indie would put a lot more decisions in my hands that had previously been decided by my publisher: 
 

• editions to be created: paperback? hardback? audiobook? 
• release date: as fast or as slow as I'm capable of and want
• editor selection: who do I want to work with and can afford? 
• cover art: who do I want to work with and can afford? what should my cover look like? 
• layout/formatting decisions: more here than I expected: size, type of paper, font, drop caps, header style, section breaks (I'm using Vellum and going pretty basic so far)
• blurb language: I usually did write this myself, but now I have the final say
• price: this part is cool--especially if I want to discount to participate in a promotion. It's totally up to me!
• printing and distribution options: going wide? focusing on Amazon? using Ingram? Trying out other printers? 
• review copies and distribution: who gets an early peek? Do we do NetGalley or other paid services? 
• corrections/revisions to the text: getting those fixed is one my timeline now
• imprint/branding 
• author pages: website, Amazon, Goodreads, BookBub, etc.  

There is a bit of decision fatigue…and it is difficult to balance time for handling all these decisions alongside actually writing and creating new work.  

Mostly, I've been pretty excited to decide on all these things. Of course, that means there's no one but myself to blame for the decisions that turn out to be bad ones, but then I get all the credit for good ones, too.  

 

Going Indie: Month One

2026 is my year of living dangerously, by which I mean I'm becoming my own publisher. I did some foundational work for that in 2025, which I wrote about here, but the real push started with the beginning of the new year.

Now that we've flipped the first month of the calendar, I thought it was time for an update. I want to document this for myself and as a help to others. 

My wall calendar: pollinator themed this year!

For starters, I should set the stage. Context is everything, after all. 

I've been a traditionally published author for about 12 years now, through small presses. At the end of 2025, I had completed my Menopausal Superhero series, had my stories included in about 20 anthologies, and had just put out my first indie book, a short story collection that I thought of primarily as my learning project (though I do love those stories): Stories from Shadow Hill. 

I've been pretty happy with my trajectory in my writing life (despite ups and downs along the way), but I wanted to move from "hobby that pays for itself and occasionally a little better than that" to "viable side hustle" and then to "pay my bills with this." And even though working with a small press is faster than the glacial pace of a Big 5 Publisher, it's still slower than I want to go. 

I've long had an interest in "going indie" but I hadn't done it yet. I was concerned about managing all the work of it, and unsure if I could support the initial financial burden to do it the way I wanted to. But, three years ago, I left teaching for a corporate job that is less stressful and pays better. My youngest child turned 18 years old, and I started to feel like maybe I could take this on now. I had more time, more knowledge, and more money to invest. 

I don't like how Amazon exploits creatives, but I recognize the stranglehold they have on our industry, so I wanted my books available through the big river despots, but not beholden to them--no exclusivity. So, I'm "going wide" as they call it--trying to have my books available on as many platforms as possible: ebook, print, and audio. Everything, everywhere, all at once. 

I'm not very business and number oriented as a rule, but I'm trying to corral my brain weasels and improve that. My sister is an accountant and is helping me, and I sought out training, education, and learning opportunities, both casual and more formal about running a business and about some aspects of indie publishing as well as marketing. 

So, now it's 2026, and my first "real" indie book, Not Too Late, a GenX romance will launch April 28, 2026 (for my birthday). 

 So far, I've spent: 

• Vellum software for formatting:  $249.99 (August 2019--bought when I thought about doing this the first time). I've used it for 4 books so far, so that makes Not Too Late's share: $62.50
• ISBNs: $295 for 10 from Bowker June 2025 which amounts to $59 for the two I used for ebook and paperback of this book. 
• Editing: $196.80, July 2025 (I got a friends and family rate from a FANTASTIC editor)
• Bookcover: $400 Pd. July 2025 (I hired a person I met through convention life)
• Proof copy from Ingram: $7.80 (September 2025)
• Audiobook cover: $50 January 2026
• NetGalley Co-op 1 month rental: $63 January 2026 

That's a total of $839.10 by my reckoning, but notice the dates in that list. I didn't spend all of that at once, but spread it out across several months. And the software purchase is an unlimited license, so the more I use it, the less it costs per book. 

I anticipate spending about $400 more on my audiobook narrator. Rather than a royalty share, I'm opting for paying $75 per finished hour and then not having to manage periodic payments thereafter. I did look into being my own narrator, but decided that's more than I want to take on at the moment. Maybe someday. 

Not Too Late has been up for preorder since September in a lowkey way. You can find it, but I haven't promoted it yet.  I put together a books2read link I could use for social media so that people can preorder wherever they might like to. https://books2read.com/NotTooLate which is free and has been really useful for connecting with other folks. 

My big focus in January was getting some early reviews lined up. So, I made a google form that I sent to my newsletter subscribers and posted around social media. That has netted me 9 ARC readers. I set up a bookfunnel download page to use with that, figuring I'd need a bookfunnel account ongoing anyway. 

My research suggests that roughly one quarter of the people who take an ARC will actually read and review it, so I wanted more than 9 people. I checked into NetGalley. NetGalley is a great way to connect with booksellers, librarians, influencers, and just plain old readers, but it's EXPENSIVE ($575 for one book). Luckily, because I have worked on building my network these past twelve years, I had people to ask and learned about NetGalley Co-ops. I rented a month on NetGalley for $63. 

As of this writing, that netted me 127 requests with 114 who downloaded the book. So far, I have 11 reviews and one set of feedback without a review on NetGalley and 7 reviews on Goodreads (which is the only venue where people can review a book that hasn't been released yet). 

For comparison, I didn't do any of this with my learning book Stories from Shadow Hill which came out in October and as of this writing, it doesn't have any reviews at all. 

But here's the thing with going indie: while all that was going on, I was also juggling several other things in the month of January:  

• Managing that NetGalley offer, vetting and approving requests
• Arranging for audiobook narration of Not Too Late, which meant uploading the ebook separately to Amazon so I could claim it on ACX
• Realizing I'd need an audiobook version of the cover, and negotiating that with my cover designer
• Realizing I'd want audiobook versions of all three of GenX romances, so negotiating that with my cover designer
• Finalizing the cover design for the third GenX romance
• Writing the blurb for the third GenX romance (the hardest part, IMO) 
• Working with another audiobook narrator for mini-audiobook productions of one of the short stories from Stories for Shadow Hill 
• Getting Beware Cheap Houses (the aforementioned story) up on ACX (which is when I learned that there has to be an Amazon ebook to go with a book you want to make an audiobook of for ACX)
• Creating graphics for social media and other promotional stuff, then keeping up with posting and interacting on social media (I do Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, and Threads mostly) 
• Arranging for another NetGalley rental in February for Acid Reign, the second GenX romance 
• Networking with other romance writers to set up future author events and collaborations
• Giving a reading at a local bookstore
• Arranging for several author events across the spring 
• Ordering copies of books for said events 
• Sending out press releases in my hometown for Not Too Late, since it's set in Bellevue, Kentucky 
• Beta-reading/critiquing two books, a short story, and a piece of a novel for author friends
• Finishing a promised short story for an upcoming anthology: Disruptive Intent (The story is a Menopausal Superheroes short called Ricochet Happens and I'm excited about it!) 
• Picking back up an unfinished novel to work on, a Gothic romance called The Architect and the Heir.  

See how low writing fell on that list? I feel like that'll be my new challenge: balancing all the "business" with the actual creation of new works.  

So, that's where I stand at the end of my first month of living dangerously. It's busy, but it's also exciting and I really think I'm going to love it! 

 

The Best Gift, an IWSG post

(Reminder: this site is now ONLY my blog. If you're looking for my book links or contact options, events, or any other aspects of my writer life, please visit http://dangerouswhenbored.com )

 

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the December 3 posting of the IWSG are Tara Tyler, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, Liza, and Natalie Aguirre!

December 3 question - As a writer, what was one of the coolest/best gifts you ever received?

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Winter Holidays, 2010. We had opened all the packages and were sitting there basking in the glow when my husband announced that there was one more gift. He left the room and came back with a little scroll, then handed it to me. 

When I unrolled it, I found that Sweetman had bought me a writing retreat! I'd be going to Pelican House for a week of quiet and writing. 

 It was quite a gift--not only in the dollar value of the retreat itself, but because it was also a promise to take on the extra labor to grant me the time. He'd be a single dad to our kids (they were nine and two at the time), take care of our house and dog, and leave me free to ignore my part of those responsibilities for a whole week and just focus on my writing!

 It was an amazing show of support.  

That week ended up being really important to my writing life. Not only did I make great progress on the book, but I made friends with a group of supportive women who boosted my confidence and helped me see the value in my work. It did a lot to fight my imposter syndrome and make me feel like this was something I could actually do. 

It's easier to find writing time now. Our kids are older. I changed jobs to something less stressful. I've got better at focusing under less-than-ideal conditions. But the writing space inside my head still looks a lot like the room at the top of the cupola at Pelican House. 

No AI for me, thanks: IWSG September

 

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the September 3 posting of the IWSG are Kim Lajevardi, Natalie Aguirre, Nancy Gideon, and Diedre Knight!

September 3 question - What are your thoughts on using AI, such as ChatGPT, Raptor, and others with your writing? Would you use it for research, storybible, or creating outlines/beats?

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No thanks. 

I've written about this on my blog before, and I'm honestly pretty tired of talking about it. It's a choice people make, and I choose not to. 

Here are my issues: 

1. Ethics. It's all over the news how AIs were trained on the backs of creators with no permission asked or granted, no payments made, etc. There are class action lawsuits in progress for breach of copyright and other types of theft or piracy committed to train these systems. 

Until they get this figured out and learn how to proceed ethically, I'm out. 

So far, the main use case seems to be exploitation or lazy seeking of shortcuts, at least with generative AI (assistive AI like Grammarly and ProWritingAid is another kettle of fish that doesn't stink nearly as badly). 

 2. Environment: The energy and water usage for AI processing is ridiculous. My brain works with way less fuel and does less damage to the planet. You can run a Samantha on coffee and curiosity for days. AI is much more expensive. 

 3. I don't see the appeal: I write because I enjoy writing. I even enjoy the parts that don't feel fun in the moment and get a real feeling of accomplishment from working my way through problems and figuring them out. 

I'm also enough of a control-freak and see enough stories about AI getting it wrong (how about those completely inaccurate search results, like citing books that don't exist? and the doubling down when called on it?) that I don't trust AI even in support roles because it hallucinates and then I'd have to redo the work anyway to make it useful. 

 So yeah, I'll stick to enjoying AI as a fictional concept. 

Some AI themed books I've recently enjoyed. 

How about you? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
 

 

She works hard for the money, an open book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Continuing on the topic of money what is the hardest thing you have done to earn money?

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Most of the hardest work I've done in my life, I did not get paid for: raising children, medical support, home renovation, clean up after a disaster, etc. Free labor for and with the people I love, paid only in love and appreciation, maybe with food. 

 To earn a living, I've only had a few kinds of jobs: teaching, writing, librarian, secretary/receptionist, DJ, and my current day job as a content strategist for a big financial company. (If you're asking "what's a content strategist" here's how my Dad explains it to the rest of the family: "she listens to the business people and lawyers and translates what they said into regular English people can understand." That's not a bad explanation, honestly.)

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 Out of all those, the hardest was teaching. Physically, emotionally, and psychically demanding. I survived for 27 years before I finally left that abusive spouse of a career I was staying with "for the children" and found something more tenable and sustainable to finish my working years. 

I don't want to rehash all my concerns about the way American school systems exploit and abuse their employees. I'm sure you've heard them all before. But I will say, it's great here on the other side of the classroom door. I loved teaching, and really felt like I made a difference in the world when I was doing it. But, I eventually had to choose myself before it killed me. 

 How about you? What's the hardest work you've had to do? 

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Wasting time? Or filling the well? An open book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What is your favorite way to waste time? (be non-productive) Bird watching? Long walks? Does it help your writing?

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I'm…not very good at being nonproductive. Or as other have put it, I don't know how to relax. 

I've got a restless energy most of the time and a drive that can be unhealthy at times. This feeling that there isn't enough time to get all I want out of this life. 

But I have learned to value a few activities that aren't directly productive for the recharge, reset, and brain-wandering time that lets my subconscious figure things out.  

Plants are a big one for me. I'm a plant appreciator, even though I'm not an especially skilled gardener. I love to go on long walks in the woods or in parks, or even just in my neighborhood and "see what's growing." I have a plant app that tells me interesting things like the variety of names that plant is known by and whether this is a healthy specimen or not. I take a lot of photos so I can share my joy in all these small beauties with friends and on social media.

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 Baking and cooking is another one, though not in the summer--I melt! I love picking something I've never made before and trying it out. Bonus if it means I get to try out a new-to-me ingredient or piece of kitchen equipment. Bonus bonus: you get to eat your work!

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I also enjoy board games, watching old movies (with popcorn), and playing with my dogs. 

When I need to just zone out, my ADD brain requires multi-tasking. I put on an audiobook or a television show/movie that doesn't require my full visual attention, and listen/watch while I play a pattern matching game on my handheld video-gaming device. Currently, I'm back on Dr. Mario on my Switch, but the game changes every few months.  

 None of these feel like wasted time to me though. I can feel the ways that they feed me, fueling me for other endeavors. So maybe the truth is that I still don't know how to waste time.  

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Revision: An open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Discuss: "Write the book you want to rewrite—because most of writing is revising! Don’t agonize over every word in a first draft; that will only slow you down. Just write the story. Get it onto the page. Drafting is the stage where you capture the idea. Revising is where you figure out how to really tell the story well." -Beth Kander, author of I Made It Out of Clay
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Revision works differently for everyone. Heck, I feel like it works differently for me depending on the project. Never the same game twice.

This quote from Beth Kander sounds to me like it's advocating for what I've heard termed the "vomit draft" or "garbage draft" where you write a complete draft without letting yourself go back and revise while you're still drafting. I have quite a few writer friends and critique partners who swear by this technique. 

It doesn't work for me though. 

I'm more of an iterative writer, working in loops. As we've discussed here before, I'm a discovery writer, or a pantser, which means I'm not working from an outline of any sort, but just following my writing where it takes me and shaping it into an effective narrative throughout the drafts. 

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 I write linearly for the most part, most of the time, but if I hit upon an idea that will significantly change the rest of the book, I've got a decision to make: fix it now or later.

Fix it later: Sometimes, I just pop a comment or a note into the document to remind future me to go back and change something later. That's usually if it's small and won't have a huge effect on the story, but is important to address for continuity. Something like changing a detail about a character like their name, appearance, etc. Or adding a bit that will change a particular moment in the plot, but won't spillover into the whole thing.

Fix it now: On the other hand, if it's a bigger change where it feels like it's harder to predict how that will affect the larger narrative, I might not be able to move on until I've figured out how that changes what I've already written. It all builds after all, and if this significantly alters a character, it might affect other choices they've made in the narrative and take the whole story in a new directions. So, I need to go back to the beginning and pull that thread through before I move forward again.

Now, that said, I definitely agree that, especially for a book-length work, it's important that you're invested enough in the idea to be really dedicated, because you are going to be living in that imaginary world for months, maybe even years. 

 It took me ten years to write the entirety of the Menopausal Superheroes series from the first page to the final "The End" and I couldn't have stayed with it without true passion about the story and the characters. It's a real commitment! 

Usually, by the time I'm ready to send a book off to a publisher for consideration, it's been through three or four of those weird looping drafts I do my own, plus one or two rounds of revision based on feedback from critique partners and beta readers. 

If a publisher accepts it, then it will go through at least two more rounds of revision based on editorial and proofreading feedback. Then, there's the final "spit and polish" read through in hopes of catching any little errors that made it through all of that uncorrected. By my count, that's at least eight rounds of revisions--and that's when the process goes relatively smoothly. 

I have one published novel (the third in my series: Face the Change) that went through a revise and resubmit process because I tried to rush it and what I sent the first time wasn't really ready. So, that was the whole process over again. Whew! 

It's definitely a lot. But I actually enjoy revision. It can be very satisfying in the same way that reorganizing a closet or spring cleaning is--you see the difference it makes and you know that life will be better now because you made the effort.

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The Hardest Format, an Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What has been the hardest format to write in for you?
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I've tried on a lot of different literary forms over the years. They're all difficult at first, because they're new. And each project is it's own critter, so even if it's a form I've written before, it's still a new challenge.

I began, in childhood as a poet, in formal and free-verse styles. I stopped pursuing poetry seriously (i.e. with an eye to publication) in my thirties, but I still write it for myself and sometimes share it. I might still someday produce a collection if I ever have enough that fit together that way. (My published poetry is all under my maiden name--Samantha Dunaway).

I really got into personal essays in my later twenties, writing a few that made it into magazines and newspapers. I was especially proud of a few that made it into We Alaskans. That led directly into some newspaper work as a book columnist for the Bering Strait (now defunct) and the Nome Nugget and attracted me to blogging where I could "sound off" more freely in this not-journalism-but-not-fiction area. 

I played with short stories off and on along the way but didn't really start to feel like I understood and made good use of the form until 2014 or so. Now I LOVE writing short stories, especially for anthologies, for the opportunity to try on different styles and genres without the long-term commitment that a novel entails. At this point, I've had 25 or so short stories published of 73 that I currently have in my pieces list on Duotrope. I'm in the middle of writing two new ones right now.

(SIDEBAR: Duotrope has been really useful to me for tracking submissions and helping me find places to submit my work. I pay $5 a month and consider it well worth it. It's great for folks like me who struggle to organize this stuff, and it's searchable, so I can make sure I didn't send that same story to that venue a year ago and just forgot.)

After my second child was born (2007) and I needed something to help pull me out of Post-partum depression, I joined a group of novel writers and started trying to write a novel. I started and abandoned three before I finished one. That one remains unpublished and is shelved for now, but I've since written an entire five novel series (The Menopausal Superheroes I'm always talking about) and seen it accepted for publication by two different publishers. So excited to bring that one to a close this summer! I've got several other partially completed novels I plan to finish up soon.

Novels are BIG, and it took me a while to develop a process and be able to track work that large and keep it consistent over a longer creation period. But discovering Scrivener software helped me a lot. It's so easy to re-arrange work and use color coding and image labels to help track things like POV or then-and-now timelines.

I've also written a couple of novellas along the way. I quite enjoy this form--longer than a short story, but not as involved as a novel, bridging what I love about short stories and what I love about novels. In fact, the project I'm working on now is a trilogy of romance novellas and I'm loving working on them. 

So that's a long-winded answer to a relatively simple question. The short version: short stories took me the longest to feel competent at, so I guess they've been the hardest for me. 

But I LOVE to try new things. Maybe screenplays will be next. I've got some friends who do some writing for indie films and that could be amazing to try my hand at.

So, how about you? Have you tried a variety of formats? What proved most challenging for you?

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Going off-roading, an open book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

How do you deal with a change in ideas halfway through your book? Or do you save it for a sequel?
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Well, I'm a "pantser" as they call it--meaning that I don't work from an outline, but just free-form it in my writing life. So, there darn well better be some new ideas halfway through the book or I'll stay stalled forever! 

I have, however, had an unexpected twist--where I really thought the story or characters were going one direction and suddenly, a left turn at Albuquerque. That's what I think this prompt is getting at: when you had one plan, but the story or character seems to have other ideas.

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When that happens, I usually follow the new inspiration, at least for a while. Sometimes I end up writing a few different versions of events before I settle on the one that really serves the needs of the story. I keep all the versions, just in case I want to explore another one or use part of an abandoned section in another story sometime.

It's probably not the most efficient method for creation, but it is the one that works for me. How about you? Do you make a plan and stick with it in your creative endeavors? Or do you go with the flow, even when it ends up being a dead end? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. 

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Free to Write Anything, so What's Next?, an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp, Liza @ Middle Passages, and Natalie @ Literary Rambles!

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I turned in the final novel in the Menopausal Superheroes series in 2024, for publication in 2025!

 

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Of course, I'm completely jazzed about that and I can't wait for readers to finish this journey with me (balloons, confetti, shouting in the streets!). 

 

Going Through the Change came out in 2015, so that means I'm starting 2025 with no writing deadlines to meet for the first time in ten years.

 

Okay, I'll still have editing deadlines to meet, but so far as the new projects I take on and the new words I create? They could be …anything! Which is wonderful and a little terrifying. 

 

See before I landed that first book contract, my big struggle as a writer was discipline--staying focused on a single project and seeing it to fruition without wandering off to explore the new shiny idea poking at my subconscious. But I respond very well to external deadlines. That little bit of external pressure calms the brain weasels. They take "no" for an answer when that "no" came from someone else, like John, my publisher. 

 

I mean, he does look kind of intimidating, doesn't he?

 

 

So, I worried that, once I didn't have a deadline hanging over my head, I'd founder. 

But, guess what? I haven't!

Since I turned in that novel, I've written a novella and a half of an intended set of three novellas that I plan to publish as my first all-indie project. In fact, I've been energized with that "new project energy" and creating at a faster pace than I have in years (ask John about all that deadline renegotiation we've gone through over the past couple of years). 

 

These are a whole new genre for me. My published work so far is the Menopausal Superheroes series, and a lot of dark-leaning short fiction. In fact, my author banner for events currently says: Samantha Bryant, Half-Hero, Half-Horror. 

 

Me selling my books at Splatterflix at the Carolina Theatre in Durham

 

These new novellas, though? Romance! 

A friend of mine from Women's Fiction Writers Association, Stella Fosse, wrote a how-to book about writing and publishing romances featuring older characters. I read and blurbed it for her--the connections to my own work with Menopausal Superheroes seemed obvious!

While I was reading, I had an idea…actually I had three ideas. And now, I'm off exploring an new-to-me genre and having a great time. My working titles: Not Too Late, a second chance Gen-X romance about a woman returning to her hometown and reconnecting with a boy she knew in high school; Acid Reign, a one-night-stand turns to love about an 80s punk star finding love with a local politician; and Skinny Jeans for Fat Girls, the idea for which is still just a nugget, so we'll see. But all three will feature women in their 50s finding love.

 

So that's what next for me! After that? Well, I've got several back burner projects I'd like to get back to, and a collection of short stories I never finished putting together, so there's a world of possibility out there. 

How about you? What's on the horizon for you in 2025? What are you excited about? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

 

 

The Best Thing in 2024, an open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What was the best thing that happened to you in 2024 (writing or otherwise)? The worst?
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2024 was a landmark year in my writing life because I wrapped up The Menopausal Superheroes series of novels--the work of 10 years! Getting to "the end" was a whole different ball game when it wasn't just the end of a book, but the end of an entire series, but I'm really happy with how I wrapped it all up. 

4 novels, 2 novellas, and the shorts. The series so far.

 

It's with my publisher now and we expect to bring it out in June of 2025, so soon you'll be able to find out how it all concludes. 

And now that it's done, I feel so excited about all my new projects. I'm writing a trio of romance novellas right now that I look forward to bringing out as my first all-indie project. 

So how did 2024 treat you in your endeavors? Any big wins? Anything you're glad is over? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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Seeing my Stories Through, an Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

How did you decide that you finally wanted to write your stories?
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I've always written--poetry and journals as a child; poetry, journals, essays, and stories as a young woman. But I was really haphazard about finishing things and seeking publication. I always let something else take precedence. I poured my creative energy into teaching, raising my kids, and building a life. And I wondered why I was feeling burnt out. 

For me, the moment of decision came when I was 42. Anyone who has read Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy knows that 42 is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, so I took that as my cue from the universe to get off my duff and take my writing life seriously. Stop playing at writing and do it for real. 

image source

"Doing it for real" for me meant committing to a daily writing habit and forcing myself to stay focused on a single project and bring to completion before allowing myself to chase the shiny new idea that flitted across my brain when the going got tough. It takes discipline to move from playing at writing to bringing your vision into a form where it can be shared with others. Discipline and bravery. 

I say it takes bravery because sharing your creative endeavors with the world is a highly vulnerable act. You'll meet with a mixture of responses. You may find love and support, you may find vitriol, or you may find indifference. Most of us find a little of all three.

So, that was what did it for me: I turned 42 and decided it was now or never. I chose now. 

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Celebration time, an open book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Do you have a special way of celebrating when you finish writing a book? Or other achievements in your journey? How do you reward yourself?
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When I finish writing the first draft of a novel, I'm so elated that I almost don't need any other celebration. I feel like I could float away from the joy of completing the book. I imagine it feels similar to what athletes experience when they get to the top of a mountain or the end of a race.  

I do, however, tell my inner support circle right away--my husband, my kids, my sister, my mother, my critique partners. Those are the folks who have been in the struggle with me for the months or years that it took to bring a project to fruition and they'll rejoice with me. 

In fact, I just got there once again at the end of June, on my writer's retreat to the mountains of North Carolina. How perfect to run into the main room, arms in the air, and take a victory lap, with my critique partners right there to whoop and holler with me. I should always try to finish a book while on writer's retreat!

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Of course, finishing *writing* a novel isn't really the end of that journey. There's still editing, revisions, and the actual publishing process. 

The BEST moment is when I hold the paper copy of my work in my hands for the first time. I keep a spinner rack in my office that has paper copies of all my novels and short stories in anthologies on it and it's a major boost to me just to look over and see how many books are there. 

For my first novel in this series, which was also my debut novel, Going Through the Change,  I had a book launch party at a local bookstores. Cookies and punch, copies of the book for sale, a Phil Donahue-style interview with me by a writing friend, reading from the book. My whole family came out and so did everyone local enough to me and it was one of the best nights of my life. 

Me, my daughter, and my dad, looking happy and related at my book launch party in 2015.

In fact, I think I'm going to do it again for this book. After all, it's the series ender, coming out ten years after the first book. Finishing the entire five book series (and accompanying novellas and shorts) feels like something to really celebrate. 

4 novels, 2 novellas, some shorts, and a collection of all the shorts.
One more novel coming soon!

In fact, I'm working on setting up a book tour for it, hoping to partner with some of my writer friends across the country and hit a string of bookstores, libraries, and other venues. 

(Hit me up, writer friends, if you might be interested in partnering with me on events in 2025, especially if our work has any obvious connections: feminism, aging, menopause, superheroes, female friendship, etc.)

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