Only 2000 words so far this week, and I have to delete all of them. I’m 13,000 away from my goal, and it’s not looking good. Maybe I’ll have a burst of words this afternoon.
The amazing news is Rapunzel: Stay at Home Mom made a best of 2015 list!!! It came at the perfect time. I feel like I can’t put two words together, but at least last year I could!! Thank you, thank you Susan Voss! You’ve made my week!
Here’s her post at Dab of Darkness!
How’s you’re writing coming this week?
Ten Thousand words for me so far. Yesterday I did 7500! That’s one of my best days ever. I had an hour last night where I typed 1700 words. I wish I had a few more days like that this week.
Monday, I didn’t write at all for my novel. I spent the day redoing the call to action page for a book that’s going to be free today through Friday. Things like that take so much time. Hopefully it will be worth it in the long run. It’d be nice if it fared as well as Rapunzel did on its free days, but I’m doubtful.
Speaking of Rapunzel, if you’ve read it and have not left a review, please leave one! I had so many free downloads of it, but I didn’t get a new review until yesterday–a couple of months after the free days. It’s at 8 reviews and my understanding is double digit reviews bump up the sales. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 or 99. The sales are more than single digit reviews. The next bump comes at 100, but that is a looooong way off.
So please review Rapunzel if you’ve read it, and thank you to those who have!!!!
I got about 4000 words written this week. I kind of hopped around stories, so it wasn’t as productive as when I’m focussed.
The good news is Rapunzel: Stay at Home Mom made it all the way to #32 in Short Reads! It’s still free today if you haven’t read it and want to give it a try.
I know some people out there have more exciting news than I do, but I’ll leave it to them t speak up 
Happy writing!
Rapunzel: Stay at Home Mom is FREE for a couple of days on Kindle!
Here’s an excerpt from when she arrives at Sleeping Beauty’s Day Spa:
The forest opened up to a cottage, not a peasant cottage but a multi-story royal cottage with at least ten rooms on each floor, and a servant at the front door. Above the door was a large sign that depicted a sleeping princess followed by scissors and then a candle dripping wax. Rapunzel shivered at the wax. This had to be it.
A pair of birds landed on her shoulders and chirped a melody as she pulled the scroll from her pocket. The servant gave her a once-over and wrinkled his nose, but he opened the door, and she walked in.
Several ladies-in-waiting sat in chairs reading outdated copies of Palace. The birds flew from her shoulders to trellises covered with roses. The servant scooped up the hair Rapunzel had undone to capture the gingerbread man and dumped it at her feet with a bow, closing the door behind her.
A girl not much older than fifteen ran up. “OMG! It’s Rapunzel! Look ladies! I told you her prince was here. He’s soooo handsome. I’ll take that voucher and lead you to the baths. I’m Imogene. Of course Sleeping Beauty will be attending you personally. Ew, is that wolf slobber? I thought the huntsman came through recently. But didn’t you come in a carriage? Did the prince slobber on you? I knew he was a wolf at heart. Oh don’t worry. We’re all girls here. No one will tell.”
Rapunzel glanced warily at the other customers, sure the prince’s fictional exploits in the carriage would be in next month’s Palace.
Imogene led her to a private room with a large tub surrounded by candles and flower petals. Two servants undressed Rapunzel as Imogene commented, “Oh yes, I see what Magnus was talking about—”
Rapunzel turned rose red. “Magnus? Exactly how close did you get to my prince when he purchased my treatment?”
The girl bowed and backed up. “I’m so sorry, he was very formal. That’s just what we call him when we chat amongst ourselves: Magnus, Albert—it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Leave!”
The book includes four illustrations by Kevin Yancey plus the cover.
All for FREE!
Please give it a go!
http://www.amazon.com/Rapunzel-Stay-at-Home-Mom-ebook/dp/B00SY3D5O8
I’m experimenting more and more with marketing. I’m putting Rapunzel exclusively at Amazon for awhile, which means this is the last day to buy it for $0.99!
At some point tonight or early tomorrow morning, it will join Kindle Unlimited. If you’re part of Kindle Unlimited, you’ll be able to download it for Free! If you’re not, the price will be $2.99.
If you haven’t read it yet, please peruse the description and reviews: it has 7 reviews, all good!
Thanks to everyone who’s supported the book so far by buying it, reviewing it, or just dropping by to say “good going!”
I really enjoyed Shari’s blog this week about writing goals. As I look at my own, I realize how much I’m struggling to write this year. I haven’t worked on a new story since just before Christmas. While I’m delighted to have Rapunzel: Stay at Home Mom premiering Jan. 31 and a novel under my pen name premiering in February, I fear March is going to hit and I won’t have made any progress on the stories we’ve planned for release at the end of the year. All of my work time has been devoted to editing and promoting. I felt jealous of Dave and Shari this week at Spark Tally with their word counts and progress on new stories and wondered if Holly was as anxious as myself to get back to writing.
But, despite jonesing to immerse myself in plot and hooks and character building, I’m thrilled with what my little publishing business Hot Java LLC has done this month.
My publicist is rocking the Pinterest world. I think my favorite pins are this paper art of Rapunzel she found for the Rapunzel board:
And this eye make-up she found for the Sleeping Beauty’s Spa board:
My pen name twitter followers are up 10% this month and my @MelindaJMoore followers are up 150%! Woo Hoo! I also had a small bump up of Facebook followers this month. Thanks to all the new comers! And thanks to Julie for the headshot she took that’s now on my twitter account!
I’m doing a blog tour for Rapunzel. Right now I have three blogs booked. If you run a blog about writing, fairy tales, reading or parenting and would like me to come over and do a guest blog for you, please contact me at melinda@enchantedspark.com. All the blogs will be unique but focused around an aspect my Rapunzel story. For example at Life of Larisa my blog will focus on how judgmental I was as a new parent and how that aspect is magnified in Rapunzel. I’m sure we could come up with an idea for your blog! Please keep in mind that it’s a fairy tale for adults and uses mature language.
That’s it for me today. Please check back in for the buy links for my book. I’ll post them as soon as I have them. Happy writing!
I’ve lacked focus this week, probably this month. Sick kids at home, so not quite the writing time I was looking for. I’ve been editing my next novel under my pen name. It didn’t need major revisions like the first novel I published did, which is funny because I actually wrote this one first and the first one second. But I have ended up writing a few chapters from scratch, or at least big chunks of them. So about 3000 new words written.
Promotion stuff for Rapunzel has been going well. Countdown is at 8 days! More stuff has been posted at Pinterest including how to build a fairy garden. Follow me there if you’re a Pinterest person!
I’ve also practiced piano three days in a row. I texted a friend of mine from college who’s a professional piano player telling him I wasn’t as dreadful as I thought I’d be. He was very polite but probably laughing at me on the other end I texted Julie that it was in preparation for my piano playing, black jack playing fairy story. She said, “Finally.” I’ve written several complete drafts of the first story in that series, but it always feels like I’m ending it in the middle. Since it’s only novella length, I’ve decided it must be a novel and I am, indeed, ending it in the middle. So when I’m done with my pen name book, it’s time to take out the Fairy Luck series again and see what I can do with it. Excited!
How did you guys do this week?
Happy Monday!
It was a busy weekend for me. My husband and I formatted Rapunzel: Stay at Home Mom for Kindle, Nook and PDF. I’ve been pretty worried about getting the graphics to show up, but that ended up being no problem at all. If you decide to go into the self-publishing business, I highly recommend the formatting program Jutoh. It’s a fair price, and for the grief I think it saves, actually a bargain.
When we published the novel under my pen name back in October, everything was frantic because of my insane deadline. We were formatting it a day before it was due to be published. This time we have the luxury of catching more mistakes and getting it just right before publication. There is still a little bit of insanity because Julie and I are also currently editing the next romance under my pen name. Skiing is a part of the romance and I told her soon she would be seeing Rapunzel swooping down the slopes with her hair streaming behind her.
Rapunzel, however, is not a romance. As is tradition with fairy tales, I’ve changed it to suit the times and am using it to exaggerate parenting issues today. Here’s the blurb:
Shut away from the world as a child, Rapunzel is now obsessed with the safety of her own children. When she locks her kids in a castle tower, her husband decides it’s time Rapunzel had a day off at Sleeping Beauty’s Spa. But the path to the spa is perilous, culminating in a confrontation with her fairy witch mother. Should Rapunzel have stayed safe in the tower after all?
The countdown is on! Only twelve days until publication on January 31. I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am!
Congratulations to Shari Klase! Her story Princess in Peril is in the anthology Twice Upon a Time! It looks like it’s made it to #6 in Folklore on Amazon! Shari is giving away a copy on her blog so go to sklase.wordpress.com and comment on your favorite fairy tale!
This week has been up and down for me as far as writing. I’ve been doing editing. Rapunzel: Stay at Home Mom is ready for formatting. That’s always a great feeling.
My publicist has found some great articles and pics for my Pinterest Board about Rapunzel. Please check it out!
Unfortunately, I’m late for my next round of edits for my upcoming novel under my pen name. I have to get those done this weekend, but weekend writing time doesn’t always work out.
How did everyone else do?
A glimpse of Rapunzel from Kevin Yancey:
