Tag Archives: Synchronicity

Bookbuilding: How it all falls together

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It’s been a bit since I last updated. I’m busy busy getting Learning Curve finished up. Sometimes it amazes me how synchronous bookbuilding can be. I set out to write fifty villanelles. Actually, I set out to master the art of the villanelle, which is an accomplishment in itself. During the course of writing villanelles, it occurred to me that I could make a book out of them. It also occurred to me that two of my previous poetry books were actually the beginning of a series that Learning Curve could continue.

Synchronicity, man.

And now I’m putting together Learning Curve, and synchronicity seems to be more a factor than ever. I didn’t write the villanelles with any sort of organization or sections/chapters in mind. And yet, they seem to be dividing themselves up perfectly in groups of ten. Almost perfectly, anyway.

For me, this part of bookbuilding takes some time. I have been drawing all along while writing villanelles, and many of those illustrations are finding their way into my book. But I’m also drawing special illustrations for some of my poems. I’m putting together each page separately, just as I’ve done for past books, but I think I’ve gotten better at it.

Plus, it’s been very synchronous.

One of the illustrations from Learning Curve. Copyright 2022 Michelle Garren-Flye

Coincidence or Synchronicity? Spooky ties! And an angel?

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I’m currently embroiled in putting the finishing touches to the fourth issue of The Next Chapter Literary Magazine. I’ve often been bewildered (in a good way) by the way synchronicity works in my life. My bookstore for instance. Derby, my bookstore cat, for another. If I hadn’t been on Facebook at the right time, I’d never have seen his picture. And his magical purr would never have been there to help me through the hardest time of my life thus far.

Back to happier thoughts, though. This issue has had its share of confusingly coincidental happenings. I decided back in the summer to use a photo that was submitted for the last issue as the cover for this issue and use the theme of history. I invited one of the local authors to write the introduction. And everything fell together from there, from the submissions I received to the dedication.

Maybe I’ve read too much scifi and fantasy, but I’m a firm believer that there is a force that holds us all together. Some believe it’s their god. Some think the earth itself binds us. Jedi call it “The Force” (based loosely on the Chinese belief in “chi”). Maybe it’s just gravity.

I believe we are more of a hive mind than we’d like to let on, and that mind spans our history as well as our present and possibly our future. Hear me out. There might even be a scientific explanation for it.

In 2016, physicist Ronald Hanson proved Einstein’s dismissal of “spooky action at a distance” wrong by separating two entangled quantum particles to a significant distance and performing experiments on them, noting that the separated particle reacted in the same way as the one being experimented on. Or something like that. At any rate, the experiment proved spooky action was possible at a distance. So there was a tie between those two particles.

The universe is full of these ties, and I believe they can affect lives. But maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe it’s the work of angels. Back in the summer on a day when I was feeling particularly badly about my life, a lovely woman with a cheerful smile and an enthusiastic attitude walked into the store. She exclaimed over everything in the store and bemoaned that she hadn’t brought her wallet with her. She said she’d be back. As she left, she looked over her shoulder and said, “I’m Joy and I’ll be seeing you.”

I haven’t seen her since…but I believe I will.

The next Next Chapter. Coming January 2022. Copyright 2021.

Cover Reveal: Timeless! (Finally)

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Drum roll, please…Ta…DAAA!

Yes, that is the cover for the final book of my Synchronicity series, Timeless. And yes, it does have a unicorn on it! As all my best covers are, this one was designed by my talented friend Farah Evers of Farah Evers Designs, and I gave her a tough task, asking her to make a non-dorky cover with a unicorn on it. 🙂 (Sorry to all you unicorn fans out there, but…) As you can see, she rose to the challenge magnificently!

This one has been a long time coming. I started writing this trilogy in 2015, and Out of Time was published in 2016. I followed it up with Time Being in 2017. And now, finally, I’m ready to release Timeless. These worlds I invented and the portals between them have been fun to travel. Steeped in the legends of the Cherokee (T’sali) people of the Blue Ridge Mountains where I grew up, I feel like, more than any of my other books, these have a bit of my soul in them. I mean, what little girl doesn’t dream of finding out she’s a princess from a faraway land?

I’ve enjoyed my time in Eladi/Ayeli/Gadusi, consorting with Elves and Meti as well as humans, but I am ready, now, to let it go. So, on June 1, 2019, you can find out how it all ends. For those who have followed this story, the Raven Mocker does make another appearance, and yes, there really is a unicorn.

And if you haven’t followed the story? I’ve slashed the prices on the first two ebooks, Out of Time and Time Being, to 99 cents! (Come on, Disney/Marvel didn’t make you that good a deal and you still went to see End Game!) Don’t get left behind. Be ready for the end of this epic story on June 1!

Jack and Kaelyn have battled an army and realigned space and time to be together. But their greatest challenge yet looms, and it’s from Kaelyn’s own people. 

The joyous reunion with Todd and the Ayeli Meti should bring peace to all they love, but instead Kaelyn discovers a dark underbelly of prejudice. The Ayeli Meti have not forgotten the war with the Elves, and it takes very little to push them over the edge. Now Kaelyn must decide between love and duty.

Trapped on Ayeli, can she overcome the lingering anger against Elves? And can Jack defeat his father on the lost world of Gadusi, making it safe to reopen the portals? Most important, can Kaelyn and Jack find their way back to each other through the locked portals—or are they doomed to spend eternity alone?

#AmWriting: What it means to me

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mountains nature arrow guide

If only there were a sign that pointed the way. Photo by Jens Johnsson on Pexels.com

You’ve probably seen the hashtag #amwriting before. On Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I don’t use it very often because if I’m on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, I’m actually not writing. I’m putting off writing. I’m distracted. I’m looking for a way to get out of writing.

I’m procrastinating, and, as my high school chemistry teacher always said, “Procrastination is the thief of time.”

Today, for instance, I #amwriting. I’m writing guest blogs and interviews for other people as part of my ongoing blog tour for Becoming Magic with Goddess Fish. Meanwhile, my novel writing is at a bit of a crossroads. I have started and stopped several times on my new project. NicĂł and Brooke (the heroes of my newest untitled project) have been left wondering what’s to become of them. And poor Galen and Frankie from Magic at Sea! I left them way back last October to finish rewriting Becoming Magic and then realized I needed to write Dickens Magic if I wanted it out before Christmas this year.

Well, Kate and Alex from Dickens Magic are all set. Now I’m torn between the two stories I’ve started, and I have to pick a direction. Or I could always go back to finish up Jack and Kaelyn’s story in Timeless. At least that one’s written. I just have to edit and rewrite and edit again.

That’s what #amwriting means. I #amwriting. I just need to pick a direction. And quit feeding the procrastination thief!

So Much Magic…

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Since I have just returned to dry land after seven days on an Alaskan Cruise, I am now an expert on all the magical (and non-magical) aspects of cruises.

We’ll start with the non-magical. There are three. The coffee, to me, was the most important. The coffee on a cruise is just…coffee. It is what it is and you either make do or you actively dislike it and make yourself miserable.

But then you see something like this and suddenly coffee is no longer important because the world is magical. It just is.

Juneau moonlight

Juneau magic

The second non-magic thing about cruises is the toilets. As we found out the morning after we set sail when an entire section of toilets on our side of the boat stopped flushing because somebody threw a tissue in one. It didn’t take long to resolve, but until then, you had to go potty elsewhere. But then you look out the window at 10 p.m. and see something like this:

Sitka Midnight Sun

Midnight (almost) sun magic

Side Note: That’s a container ship on the right. One of those enormous things that dwarfs everything—or at least I used to think so.

The only other thing that I didn’t find magical on the cruise was the size of the shower. Tiny. Closet-sized. Impossible to shave your legs while showering. But then you approach British Columbia after a cool, gray day at sea and this sight greets you:

British Columbia magic

Sunlight magic

Of course with all this magic around me, I was amazingly productive. Seriously. I finished another pass through Movie Magic (coming October 31), and then I got an idea for a magical romance set on a cruise ship and started outlining and making notes…and writing. I say this a little sheepishly because I know it’ll be a couple years before I get this one out. My next magic book, which I plan to write during National Novel Writing Month this year, will tie in to Movie Magic and is tentatively titled Hollywood Magic. (You’ll meet Carole, the heroine, in Movie Magic.) So what the heck am I doing writing Magic at Sea now? Talk about getting the cart before the horse.

In case you’re curious, Magic at Sea will tie in with the adventures of Lady Lydia and Tony Hawke from Escape Magic. I had a lot of complaints about that book. It was my only attempt at a novella in this series, and evidently it didn’t work for a lot of people who wanted more about this particularly passionate couple. So, even though I feel I told their story pretty well (especially for a 99 cent novella), I’m going to pick it up a little more in this one.

But you’ll have to wait. Because before that can happen, I have Timeless, the last book of my Synchronicity series to get through (January 2018?), then Hollywood Magic (October 31, 2018). And then I’ll get to Magic at Sea. And you’ll meet Frankie, Lady Lydia’s protege, and her as-yet unnamed hero.

And just in case you think I’ve forgotten that magic can be found on land as well as at sea, here’s a little bit of heavenly magic perfection I found in Seattle:

Seattle rose

Seattle rose magic

 

 

NaNoWriMo wrap up: The big secret.

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I’ve spent a day recovering from National Novel Writing Month and I’m happy to report that I did it. I wrote 50,000 words in my third novel of the Synchronicity trilogy and I won. What did I win? Well, this:

nanowrimo_2016_webbadge_winner

Which is really just a fancy way of saying I can feel huge accomplishment in the fact that I spent a month writing and not procrastinating. Because, as we all (especially my high school chemistry teacher) know: Procrastination is the thief of time. Especially for writers.

Every time I do this to myself, I think I’ll come out of November knowing what’s so magical about National Novel Writing Month. If you survive it and actually manage to stick with it and hit the goal, you feel like you should know something more than what you did when you started. You should be privy to some spectacular secret that J.K. Rowling and Stephen King knew and chose not to tell you.

Guess what?

There’s no secret. There’s not even any real magic.

The purpose of National Novel Writing Month is to serve as a reminder of what J.K. Rowling and Stephen King actually did tell us. Writing is fricking hard work. And the only way to accomplish anything is to stick the hell with it. Every single day. Pounding the keys and writing and rewriting and beating your head against your desk if that’s what it takes to loosen the words up. Writing sucks. Writing is like flying. Writing is the ultimate in time-sucking, frustrating, awe-inspiring (for you if nobody else), wasteful, necessary vocation in the world.

And there you have it. It’s a vocation. A job. It’s work. And that’s what the secret is. If what you write is worth it to you, you’ve got to write it. Even if nobody else ever reads it and you drive yourself nuts getting it out of your head and onto paper.

Because anything worth having is never, ever easy.

Less than a month to Launch…and another excerpt!

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It’s less than one month to the Out of Time Launch Party (June 15). Remember, we’ll be celebrating right here all day long with a special guest, door prizes and a grand prize Kindle Fire giveaway. I hope you’ll all join me. In the meantime, here’s another short excerpt from Out of Time to pique your interest…Out of Time Excerpt3-page0001

There was nothing remarkable about this space more than any other. A small clearing in the woods, tall grass brushing Aylin’s withers, starred with little blue flowers. Kaelyn turned her horse in a circle, looking around, her scalp prickling. “There’s something here.”

“What do you feel?”

“It feels like—not danger, exactly. More like…possibility. Though I can’t say of what. But it’s there.”

“Where?” Cerys hadn’t drawn her sword. Whatever it was Kaelyn sensed, it wasn’t imminent danger, anyway, or her friend would certainly have been ready to do battle.

Kaelyn closed her eyes, feeling the wind brushing the hair from her temples. Her horse whinnied in protest of some unseen hazard. Behind her eyelids, she could see it sparkling, wavering in the air before her. She opened her eyes and pointed. “There.”

“Can you see it?” Tamsin peered at the empty air where Kaelyn pointed.

She couldn’t before, but now realized she could. As if on the edge of her vision, the air was a slightly different color—or, just as likely, a slightly different scent—than the air around it. Rose-colored. Rose-scented. The smell of a promise, the color of a dream. “Yes.” She shifted her gaze to Jack, who sat quietly on his horse. “It’s the portal.” She felt certain he’d brought her this way on purpose. He wanted to find out if she could see it.

He inclined his head. Something about his look troubled her. Had he hoped she wouldn’t know? This was the thing he guarded. Did Jack worry that she would want to go through it?

Writing and publishing and what comes between.

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I’m getting better at this self-publishing thing. I’ve even started thinking of it as a four-step process. The first step is writing/editing. This includes all the drafts and all the deep editing and re-writing. (I’m going to skip a step here, but stay with me.) The third step is publishing. This mostly consists of pushing a button and saying a prayer as your book begins its journey into the world. The fourth step, which actually begins somewhere between the second and third step and continues well into the future, is marketing. I’ve talked about that some, but it includes blogging, tweeting, sending out excerpts, begging for reviews, putting together a press kit…you name it, it’s there.

The second step, which is what I’ve been deep in the process of recently, is book-making. I include copy editing and formatting for ebook and print in this step, and it’s the step that many authors miss out on in traditional publishing. This is the step I’ve had to work to perfect over the years. I’ve found it’s not as simple as typing up a book and plugging it into a publishing platform like Smashwords or CreateSpace. It involves a lot of work, a lot of oversight and a lot of experimentation to get a good, clean-looking book. Chapter headings, white space, margins… Oh, and book covers! Book covers are so much fun. I usually have to get professional help with these, but I also get to make some suggestions and requests (much more so than with traditional publishing). And when it’s all done and you’re ready to move on to Step three, you can call yourself something new, something beyond an author, editor or even publisher. You can call yourself a book-maker.

Pretty stinking awesome.

I’ve been at it for a couple weeks now. I’ve finished the copy-editing and am into the formatting stage for Out of Time. It’s already up for pre-order on Smashwords and Amazon. Go check it out, even if just to look at the beautiful cover designed by Farah Evers Designs. But don’t forget to come back here often. As soon as I’m done with formatting the print version, I’m throwing myself headlong into marketing, and I’ve got a few surprises lined up that will culminate in the day long Out of Time Launch Party on June 15.

See you soon!