Victoria: A Tale of Spain (which I now call informally “Victoria/Alyce” because it is a merge of both stories) is an updated version of two stories that used to be in a series and are still listed that way on Goodreads. But you can ignore that because now it is one middle-grade novel set in Spain in the 1600s. In fact, I made a new listing for Victoria/Alyce—Victoria: A Tale of Spain (New Edition.) One issue with “Alyce” was that it really plunked down in the middle of the story and didn’t give a lot of background on the characters. Putting Victoria on the front end of it helps to explain how “Alyce” happened and what motivates the characters.

And the first part of this new story—which I must stress IS new—is set in The Alcazar, a real castle in central Spain. I visited it about three times, years ago. I’m grateful for being able to stand in a real building of this sort and not have to rely on my imagination. Being there multiple times, especially, helped me emulate the feeling of living in this castle. It’s actually someone’s home—home of the family of Duke Carlos with his many daughters—and it might be difficult for us to imagine, with our very different houses and conveniences, that it was a place to live. Not a historical set, with historical costumes—I wanted an unselfconsciousness about it that is a major part of being authentic if you describe any type of family life. Those little details like experiencing the climate of central Spain (it gets really chilly at night!) flesh out the world in a concrete way that I’m glad about.

Victoria has to run away at midnight after learning her older sister has disappeared. Although I always saw this castle during the day, it wasn’t hard to think it could be very spooky at night. And when you’ve got an intruder stalking her—who she doesn’t know yet is a friend in disguise—Victoria is going to be pretty upset and it makes for the kind of unsettling atmosphere that is a big part of the journey. She learns there are things she needs to know as she gets ready for the King’s ball.

And there will be more updates.

When I listened to a lot of advice from other writers, I rapidly learned that most were myopic and vague. They only saw what worked for them specifically, and immediately recommended it to others.

"FB ads have brought me loads of readers,” “Twitter works so much better than Goodreads,” “these promotion sites give back the most downloads,” “you need to offer free things on your site,” “Book Bub is an amazing alternative dimension of great sales.” “WRITE BOOKS IN MY GENRE.” “Book Bub always rejects me, I think I’ll look elsewhere,” “I’m all about LibraryThing’s giveaways,” “newsletters, newsletters, newsletters. Great authors have strategies to utilize this POWERFUL tool, the newsletter, and you should too,” “I hate Amazon.” “I love Amazon.” “I published with a site other than Amazon.” “I’ve had great success with podcasts.” “AUDIOBOOKS.” “Keep up a courtesy blog every couple of months so people know you’re alive.” “Blog daily.” “INSTAGRAM.”

And in the midst of all buzz, I’ve found only one thing that worked for me—follow your heart.

In this deeply commercialized writing world, I found a lack of clarity about who the readers actually are. The goal is to be the same as some other author you view as successful. When the truth is that authors are individuals. They are thinking about what their readers are thinking about.

Finding your path is about finding your readers, who may or may not be on Instagram. Or Twitter. Or be interested in podcasts. Or audiobooks. Or book conventions. Maybe they never read blogs. Or maybe they love using a site in an unexpected way, like getting a feel for an author’s personality on Goodreads instead of using it for books. Whatever your readers are thinking about, that is what you should think about. There’s no use going to lots of FB groups if your readers hate them and would never hang out there. It’s pointless going wide on ebook sales if your readers only download from Kindle. Do your readers want paperbacks and hardbacks? If they don’t, don’t bother buying author copies that will lie around in your house. EVEN IF OTHER PEOPLE DO IT.

Follow your heart. What would you do? It’s what your readers do.

And there will be more updates.
 

A Year with the Harrisons and the combo pack of Everwood with The Amulet of Renari are on sale for $.99 this week. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can also borrow these or any of my books and read for free. Some of the other titles are reduced to $1.99. You can browse around my Amazon author profile  to find them. 

In the future I’m hoping to make it easier for people to pop in a quick review of my books by just sending to a review page or feedback box so they don’t have to download specific copies and get back specific reviews by a certain time, etc. Reviews are important, but pressure to review takes all the fun out of it and a lot of the authenticity as well. People just ARE more likely to review a book they think is interesting than one they don’t, so I’m not going to pressure people to review any of my books (as so many authors do.)

I’d like to make it just a lot easier for them to do so if they want. Offers to review a book aren’t pressure—they’re an opportunity to show the book interested you. It’s also not an effort to cover up if the book isn’t being read. If the review process takes fewer steps, the reviewer honestly has time to do it and that removes an impediment that keeps me from reviewing lots of books and probably keeps other people from doing it too.

And there will be more updates. 

After doing numerous posts on characters, I’ve never done one on Karl Kallai from Halogen Crossing. I guess Karl can get overlooked. It’s hard to understand at first quite what drives him and why he’s so focused on something everyone else finds boring (namely, finding the ancestral roots of his people.) And his relationship with his cousin Cassie is central to what makes him tick.

Karl doesn’t know this himself. He isn’t aware how vital a part of his life Cassie really is. Brynea, a complete stranger who is assigned to spend time with him during his visit to a foreign city, sees this at once. She also spends a large part of the story dropping clues in his direction and prodding him to pay more attention to his cousin. But Brynea has a lot of preoccupations and loyalties of her own that make her reluctant to just out with it. So Karl tunes her out.
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In the end, Karl recognizes the close bond he has to his cousin. Though neither of them knows what this means yet—the story ends with Cassie thinking there’s more to come—that is why they’re so meaningful to each other. And I think that’s a part of life, actually, something we’ve all encountered. Sometimes things or people come into our lives and we aren’t consciously aware of them like we are about other situations around us at the time. That’s because those moments are the real deal. They take up a quiet residence in our lives and then this flash of insight comes when we look at it (or at him or her) and realize this is the truth. This is what really matters to us.

And there will be more updates.