Blogging, Day One

I know that you are likely asking yourself "What's with the hat?" Well, it's the only recent photo that I have of myself, and it was taken at Red Hat event. No, I do not wear hats all the time.

I am the published author of 7 historical romance books, with 2 more nearly complete and 9 more in various stages. Stories just come to me out of nowhere and at the oddest times and places. Life in my head is a traveling caravan.

The above mentioned 18 manuscripts have all been written in the last 3 years after a long 30+ years of writer's block. All those characters and plots have been fighting or their freedom in many painful conflicts until that glorious day when the first cracks in the writer's block wall began to appear. The first book that clawed its way through was Love's Tie That Binds. Man, I was smoking! Chapter after chapter flew onto the page and my love for the characters deepened. For six months I created a wonderful story with a wonderful place to be and with a strange feeling finally typed those immortal words, "The End." Proudly I sent it to my niece to read, and my dear friend, Vicki. Shockingly they both said it was too long. What? It was a good length, 800 pages and when bound would only be 400 pages!

What the hell was I thinking?

So, for the next two months, I worked on splitting it up into 4 books, which meant I had to add pages and storylines to flesh it out and fit them together. At last The de Clare Chronicles were finished. Now comes the heartbreak part. As a senior living on an extremely limited income, I couldn't afford a professorial editor, and I was lousy at it. Music - da da da dum.

Some readers are downright cruel. I love these books, and to this day I have strong feelings for the story and the characters, of course, the fact that my actual ancestors are the characters doesn't hurt.  The pain of the cruel comments took me into the darkest depths I have ever experienced. Those comments were designed to keep others from buying my books. It didn't matter that there were far more good reviews (5 stars) than the one that threw me into a tailspin. I began re-editing and failed again. Recently I have received help after I decided to call it quits. People believed in me and my books.

Next week, the low-down on Lo ve's Tie That Binds, book 1 of the de Clare Chronicles. 

My Books:
The de Clare Chronicles: A four book series
Love's Tie That Binds
Love's Sweet Home
Love's Valiant Struggle

Glorious Surrender
Quarter Given
Fate by Fire

Love's Tie That Binds and Fate by Fire are available at iBooks, Smashwords, Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Nobel, Nook, and Kobo. The rest are on Amazon/Kindle only, but will soon be on the other sites as well.