Special Announcement and Mega Holiday Giveaway!

First, let me start by wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! I hope this finds you all well, happy, healthy, and surrounded by loved ones!

2013 has been a rough year for me, as many of you know. While I won’t share too many details about my personal life, after the numerous emails essentially asking “What the hell happened to you?!” I feel I need to say something.

I should have known that the cosmos had it out for me when the year started with a computer crash that virtually wiped everything from my hard drive. I lost two completed manuscripts, numerous works in progress, and pages and pages of notes. Then, while all this is going on, the universe slapped me down further by giving me the plague and excruciating pain while I was supposed to be on vacation in the Ozark Mountains. I blogged all about it in Welcome to Hell, Population: Me back in February.

Now, losing that amount of work was devastating, and I’ll admit I didn’t handle it well. I did eventually re-write Four-Letter Words, but it took weeks after that before I felt like writing again. Then in April, the headaches started, blinding, nausea-inducing headaches that left me curled in bed for days. If any of you suffer from migraines, you know what I mean. Almost every day for months, I suffered from these headaches, and on the days I was blessed to not be in agonizing pain, I was too exhausted to do anything.

After numerous trips to the doctor, medication that didn’t work, and having my life completely disrupted, I began thinking the real problem was with my eyes, not my head. A couple of different visits with the optometrist, 3 different prescriptions, and a whole lot of frustration, I found an amazing doctor who finally got it right. With my new glasses, the headaches went away, and things began to get a lot better. By this point, though, it was already August and almost three-quarters of the year had passed me by.

August and September brought a lot of stress and emotional upheaval in my personal life. I won’t say more than that, but once again, I couldn’t focus, which meant no words were being written. I did manage to finish and submit Speakin’ of the Devil (which is now available for pre-order) and when October rolled around, I began working on Raven’s story.

I know I said I would have Raven’s book finished weeks ago, but unfortunately, that didn’t really work out. A lot of distractions popped up in October, family things that I couldn’t ignore, but that wasn’t the problem. I was more than halfway through the story, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Something was missing. It happens. Every now and then, the story gets away from me, gets off track, and it’s hard to find that place where everything went to hell.

In this case, it took a little longer to figure out, but I eventually realized the problem. My characters weren’t talking to me. They weren’t telling me their story. I was talking for them, putting words in their mouth, so to speak, and apparently, they got fed up with that shit, because I haven’t heard a peep from Raven in weeks. I probably should have anticipated that he’d be a stubborn, uncooperative little bastard.

So, regrettably, it’s going to be a while longer before Raven’s book will be available for reader consumption. I apologize to everyone who will be disappointed by this news, but I promise I’m not abandoning Raven completely. Or I guess I should say that he hasn’t abandoned me completely. We’ve decided to…take a break…see other people as it were. After the holidays, we’ll reconvene to discuss the future of our relationship, but don’t worry, I can be very persuasive. *evil grin*

So, in conclusion, I didn’t die, retire, or have a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t abducted by aliens or a traditional Amish community. What did happen? Life. Life happened hard. Again, I’m sorry for any disappointment, but I hope everyone can understand where I’m coming from and be patient with me for just a bit longer, because I’m still here.

2014 is a new year, with new possibilities, and hopefully, a lot of new stories. And as a special thank you for the continued support from my amazing readers, I’m offering a mega holiday giveaway. For more details on how to enter, please visit the Holiday Giveaway page on my website.

In honor of my recent movie date night with my oldest son, I’d like to say good luck and “may the odds be ever in your favor.”