Finally about my writing...

Hello again! So, folks who read the subtitle on my blog will notice that it says something about writing fiction, but I haven't really talked about it yet. I'll fix that.

I've been writing since I was little: really little. I started writing my first story when I was in second grade. It was about a bat, named Batter, who lived in a haunted house but one day was thrown out by Frankenstein's monster when he landed on some old lettuce headed for the compost. I illustrated the story by myself, too. Actually, that's not quite true. I invited some friends to help me do the illustrations, but then threw them off the project when their art didn't measure up to my standards. I suppose I was too demanding back then. Now I know to just do things myself if I want it done my way.

I've always been writing. I think, the more you do something, the better you get at it, and you have to go through a lot of bad writing before you grow into good writing. I'm sure I haven't finished my growth as a writer. I hope I keep getting better and better at it.

The cover of Book 1: Dragons to Loose

I have published a few books. I started a short story some years ago, but it turned into a novel that then demanded a sequel and then spawned a four book series. The series is completed now and available on Amazon in paperbacks. As of now, books 1 and 2 are also available on Kindle. Books 3 and 4 will get onto Kindle probably in the next few weeks. In fact, book 1 will be free on Kindle for three days at the end of this month, January, 27-29. So, if you're looking for new reading material, please do check it out. Here's the Amazon page for it here!

I only published this series because an online friend began praising my other bits of short fiction on a sharing website, so I was brave enough to invite her to read the first book, and she loved it and gave me a lot of encouragement and some feedback. She basically demanded I publish it so she could hold the hardcopy in her hands. I first pursued publishing houses, but was turned down, and somewhere in me, I really didn't want to sell my rights to my characters and story away. Writing is a personal thing for me, not a profit-based venture.

Because I have other employment, it really isn't that important to me if I make money off my writing. I don't want people to steal my work or claim it is their own work, but if I don't make much money from it, that's cool with me. What's more important to me is knowing that I wrote a good story and people enjoy it.

I mentioned one friend who demanded I publish the first book. She and I remained online friends until we met in person. For whatever reason, we had a much better online connection than we did in person, and meeting in person sort of ruined that, too. It was sad to see the friendship fade. However, a couple years later, another friend read the first book, and she loved it, too. It was with her encouragement then that I was motived to get the rest of the books out into the real world.

As I wrote these books, I grew as a writer, so my writing in the fourth book is far better than my writing in the first book. Sometimes I want to go back and rewrite the first and maybe second book, but I have been resisting. I'm afraid it would erase my own personal journey, and might damage also the reader's journey.

So anyway, a little about the series: it's a fantasy adventure. The first book has a romance that is essential to the plot, but it's not explicit. I don't write explicit love scenes. The second book continues the adventure, and has some bits that are as scary as I could make them. The third book adds some mystery, and the final book concludes it all.

What some people have said about the series, is that it has a lot about family, and different kinds of families. I hadn't noticed this myself, but I had been aiming to show many different kinds of love, in many different sorts of relationships, from friends to lovers to pair-bonded couples, including bonds between siblings and parents and children and allies, too.

I don't mean to make it all sound like it's all lovey-dovey and full of hearts and rainbows, because there's plenty of fighting, wars, struggle, conflict, and all that, too. I think it's an adventure before it's a romance or a lovey-dovey series, but perhaps what's best to say is that it's the bonds between the characters that are the most important aspect. It's those bonds that pull them through and make them strong enough to fight.

I really hope it's a series that can be enjoyed by more people. I poured my heart into it. That two of my friends have really enjoyed it delights me. If even more people enjoy the world I made, I would be even more delighted. If you'd like to learn more, here's my website where you can find more information about the books. Unfortunately, I don't update the site as often as I should, but I am trying to be more disciplined about it.

Thanks! Mata, ne.