U is for Unusual: A to Z Blogging Challenge

The women in Going Through the Change aren't used to thinking of themselves as unusual. In their own circles, each of them is pretty normal.

Patricia fits in well with the suits she spends her day with in the corporate world. Linda is happy among her family and neighborhood friends in her role as mother and grandmother. Jessica enjoyed her role as half of a power couple, at least until she was slowed down by cancer. Even Helen, who isn't exactly happy, doesn't stand out too much from other real estate agents and midlife divorcees.

Menopause can make any woman feel alienated from her own body. One of the major emotions of this time of life seems to be WTF!

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If you've been reading along so far, you already know that the changes that these women went through were more extreme. The emotions though are more universal--we've all made this face at one time or another when we looked in a mirror.

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This posting is part of the A to Z blogging challenge, in which bloggers undertake to post every day in April, excepting Sundays, which amounts to 26 postings, one for each letter of the alphabet--preferably along a theme. My postings will all be about my debut novel and my experiences writing it and seeing it published.

Blogging A to Z is a great opportunity to connect with some excellent bloggers and interesting people. I encourage you to check out other participating blogs, too!

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click the image to preorder on Amazon!

T is for Time: A to Z Blogging Challenge

You hear a lot about how slowly the traditional publishing world moves. It's been described as glacial. It's a source of frustration, especially for eager new writers who are anxious to get their words into the hands of readers.

So I thought I'd share some details of the how much time went into the creation and release of Going Through the Change. For me, from conception of the idea to a book you can now buy (!) was almost exactly three years.

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In Spring 2012, I was struggling to finish the first novel I ever wrote (unpublished, His Other Mother, women's issues fiction). It's a dark story and it was emotionally hard on me to finish it.  So, part of my brain was trying to escape, and I came up with the general concept and some rough character descriptions for a superhero novel, escapism at its best. I filed them away and used them as a bribe to myself to make myself finish that first book.

In July 2012, I finished writing His Other Mother (that one took four years just for the writing of the first draft), and let myself start writing Going Through the Change. I finished the first draft in August 2013 (somewhere in there, I picked up my Magic Spreadsheet habit, which really increased my productivity). By the end of 2013, the book had been through my critique group and I had rewritten it. Keep in mind I also had a full time day job (middle school teaching) and a family during this time--there was only 1-2 hours per day I could get for direct focus on writing, often less.

I started querying it and submitting it in January 2014.  I won't make you suffer through the rejections and no-answer-answers with me.  The story ends happily with a book contract from +Curiosity Quills Press in August 2014. CQ had a really quick process. From my initial submission to my contract offer was only a space of about two weeks.

Since then, we've been working steadily on edits, cover art, marketing plans, etc. All the behind-the-scenes stuff that makes my book as beautiful and polished and perfect as it can be.  So, here we are on BOOK RELEASE DAY! It's been nearly three years to the day since I thought up the idea. In traditional publishing, I'd call that speedy-fast-quick!

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This posting is part of the A to Z blogging challenge, in which bloggers undertake to post every day in April, excepting Sundays, which amounts to 26 postings, one for each letter of the alphabet--preferably along a theme. My postings will all be about my debut novel and my experiences writing it and seeing it published.

Blogging A to Z is a great opportunity to connect with some excellent bloggers and interesting people. I encourage you to check out other participating blogs, too!

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click the image to preorder on Amazon!

S is for Superheroes: A to Z blogging challenge

"A superhero novel? Really?"

That's a pretty common response when I tell people what Going Through the Change is about. Superhero novels is getting to be a pretty nifty little niche market in fiction (check out Eric Searleman's excellent blog on the topic for more information), but it's still pretty small. A lot of people say, "I didn't know that was a thing!"

I've been a comics fan my whole life and I didn't know there were such things as superhero novels until a few years ago when I met James Maxey, author of Nobody Gets the Girl, and was thereby introduced to the sub-genre.

I've since read a lot more great books in this genre. (See my posting on DIY MFA on April 24, 2015 for some of my favorites).

Writing a superhero novel about menopausal women was the most fun I've had so far as a writer. It's still fun, as I finish up the sequel and make plans for a third book. I'm so happy to be playing on this particular playground!

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This posting is part of the A to Z blogging challenge, in which bloggers undertake to post every day in April, excepting Sundays, which amounts to 26 postings, one for each letter of the alphabet--preferably along a theme. My postings will all be about my debut novel and my experiences writing it and seeing it published.

Blogging A to Z is a great opportunity to connect with some excellent bloggers and interesting people. I encourage you to check out other participating blogs, too!

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click the image to preorder on Amazon!

R is for Redhead: A to Z blogging challenge

Redheads run in my family on my mother's side. Many of us have at least some red to our hair, and one of my cousins inherited the beautiful carroty shade I always coveted to go with my freckles. 

My grandmother was a redhead. I can even kind of remember her as a redhead, though she eventually had to stop dying her hair because the natural white beneath made dyed red hair look Bozo the Clown orange. But Grandma Liz was proud of her red hair, and she remained a redhead her whole, by nature if not by appearance. 

I always liked the idea that having red hair was indicative of your temperament somehow.  My grandfather definitely seemed to think that Grandma's stubbornness, quick temperedness, and impulsive nature all had something to do with her red hair. 

So, that's part of why Patricia O'Neill, one of the main characters in Going Through the Change, is a redhead. 

Real redheads are relatively rare compared to other hair colors. It's my understanding that it's a kind of mutation of the genes that makes it possible. I liked the idea that the mutation of the genes that made Patricia a redhead, and may have contributed to her fiery temperament, also made her susceptible to the superheroic sorts of changes she underwent. I think Grandma Liz would have liked that. 

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This posting is part of the A to Z blogging challenge, in which bloggers undertake to post every day in April, excepting Sundays, which amounts to 26 postings, one for each letter of the alphabet--preferably along a theme. My postings will all be about my debut novel and my experiences writing it and seeing it published.

Blogging A to Z is a great opportunity to connect with some excellent bloggers and interesting people. I encourage you to check out other participating blogs, too!

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click the image to preorder on Amazon!

Q is for Queer: A to Z blogging challenge

Gender and societal roles is an integral part of Going Through the Change,  nowhere more obviously than in the marriage of Linda Alvarez. 

Linda and her husband have been married for thirty years. They've raised three daughters together and seen all of them married. They have five grandchildren. Linda and David are a solid, devoted couple when the story begins. They've weathered many storms together. 

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Still, when Linda is unexpectedly transformed into a man, she's sure it means her marriage is over. She dreads having to tell her family, especially since the changes are so hard to explain. She knows that the truth is going to be hard to swallow. She worries that her daughters won't accept her as a man. She is especially worried about Carlitos, the grandson she is closest to. 

But her grandson understands right away. She's his grandmother, regardless of how she looks on the outside. 

“Abuelita?” said Carlitos, looking confused.

Linda knelt, putting her face near his and nodded silently. “Soy yo, Carlitos.” The room grew quiet again, all eyes focused on Carlitos and Linda.

Carlitos tilted his head as he always did when he was thinking deep thoughts. He was an old soul, Linda had always said. The boy laid one hand on each of Linda’s cheeks, looking very seriously into her eyes. “Abuelita, did you make my favorite cookies?”

“Of course, I did. Biscochitos y marranitos, también.”

He nodded. “And are you going to be a boy now?”

“Yes, Carlitos, I think I am.”

“But you are still my abuelita?”

“Soy tuyo, querido. I am yours. Siempre.” 

 As I continue to write Linda and David in the sequel and beyond, I know they'll continuing to show that love can truly be about the people we are inside. The rest is just surface details.

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This posting is part of the A to Z blogging challenge, in which bloggers undertake to post every day in April, excepting Sundays, which amounts to 26 postings, one for each letter of the alphabet--preferably along a theme. My postings will all be about my debut novel and my experiences writing it and seeing it published.

Blogging A to Z is a great opportunity to connect with some excellent bloggers and interesting people. I encourage you to check out other participating blogs, too!
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click the image to preorder on Amazon!

A to Z blogging: Who I'm Reading

Taking a cue from Tasha's Thinkings, who has been doing a fabulous collection of posts about fictional deities, I'd like to highlight what I've been reading during this year's A to Z blogging challenge. There's so much good stuff out there this year that I'd love to quit my day job and stay home reading blogs all day long!

So here are some favorites I encountered:

I "met" J.H. Moncrieff during the A to Z challenge in a previous year. She's a horror writer and a kickboxer and her A to Z posts this year have kicked butt.  Her theme is "Things That Go Bump in the Night"  and her posts have been filled with the creepy, weird, and strange things that may or may not exist in the sunlit world, but are a heck of a lot of fun in fiction, everything from Annabelle the haunted/possessed doll to Mothman and the Loch Ness Monster.

This year I'm participating as a minion, with a few blogs I'm assigned to visit each day. (I'm part of Tremp's Troops). As part of that, I've found some new favorite blogs to subscribe to and read regularly. One of these is Tarmangani by Dennis L. Goshorn. For A to Z, Dennis is writing about history with a focus on leadership qualities. He's telling interesting stories from American history and using them to highlight the qualities that make a person a good leader. I'm woefully undereducated in history, and have enjoyed these small lessons well told.

I've missed some of his postings now (jeez, job and children and life wanting my attention), but I was really enjoying the flash fiction postings of Jay Dee Archer on I Read Encyclopedias for Fun. They've been very evocative little pieces that build well on each other and the story was becoming really intriguing. I'm hoping to get back and read the rest in May and am happy to have found another new blogger to follow.

As a frustrated traveler held back by money and time, I always enjoy a good travel blog and I've been following two this year.  Elizabeth Hein of Scribbling in the Storage Room has been writing about the Galapagos Islands, which are the setting for a new mystery she's writing and jaybird of Bird's Nest has been writing about her home state of New Jersey and making me see it in a whole new light.

So, who have you been reading? What do you like about their posts?

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This posting is part of the A to Z blogging challenge, in which bloggers undertake to post every day in April, excepting Sundays, which amounts to 26 postings, one for each letter of the alphabet--preferably along a theme. My postings will all be about my debut novel and my experiences writing it and seeing it published.

Blogging A to Z is a great opportunity to connect with some excellent bloggers and interesting people. I encourage you to check out other participating blogs, too!

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P is for Patricia: A to Z blogging challenge

Patricia O'Neill was tough as nails long before she became literally bulletproof. She had to be. She was one of the women who put the first cracks in the glass ceiling of corporate leadership. Patricia had been taking care of herself for nearly her entire life, so when the Change brought some more unusual changes to her life, she didn't know how to ask for or accept help.

"Patricia had always taken the attitude that the only person she could rely on was herself, so she was shocked to find how grateful she felt that Suzie was there and cared about where she had been. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she felt tears in her eyes. Patricia never cried."

The Suzie in the above quote is Patricia's intern, a young, pretty, petite, cute blonde. Just exactly the kind of woman Patricia usually detested.  And, it turns out, just exactly the kind of friend she needed most. (You can read a short story version of a chapter in this book that features Patricia and Suzie at freedomfiction.com).

Patricia, as drawn by +Charles C. Dowd 

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This posting is part of the A to Z blogging challenge, in which bloggers undertake to post every day in April, excepting Sundays, which amounts to 26 postings, one for each letter of the alphabet--preferably along a theme. My postings will all be about my debut novel and my experiences writing it and seeing it published.

Blogging A to Z is a great opportunity to connect with some excellent bloggers and interesting people. I encourage you to check out other participating blogs, too!
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click the image to preorder on Amazon!