Getting Feedback Never Gets Easier

Readers' feedback is absolutely invaluable to the overall quality of a story. Receiving this feedback is inevitable if a writer is serious about creating a completed product, and considering this feedback—whether or not we ultimately choose to incorporate it into the work—does improve our writing, especially when the feedback includes criticisms and not only compliments.

Knowing this intellectually does not, unfortunately, change the trepidation we feel when giving our book to a reader for the first time, the anxiety we feel as we wait for a response, and the insecurity we feel when reading critiques and comments. I've written before about receiving reader feedback—from a friend!—for my first novel, Mending Heartstrings. Still now, 5 published books and uncounted critique rounds later, receiving reader notes hasn't gotten any easier.

The anxiety starts when I send the story off, but invariably gets so much worse when an email with notes pops into my inbox. What if the reader hated it? What if the work I thought was almost done actually needs months of more revising? Or worse, what if it's actually a worthless waste of time, storage space, and (occasionally) paper?

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Something Special to Kick Off 2019!

At the end of last year, I kicked off my brand new Patreon page. It's been an interesting experiment thus far, and I'm excited to share a something special:

To thank my Patrons, each one will receive a limited-edition card in an exclusive design with a personal handwritten note!

Not a Patron yet? This applies to everyone who's a Patron as of midnight February 1st, at any level of support, so you can join now!

Check out the details here.  Become a Patron here. Or follow me on Patreon (no commitment!) so you don't miss out on future cool announcements! 💕

Not sure what this Patreon thing is all about? One cool thing I'm doing is sharing my new story, "Summer Seduction," exclusively there. Read the first part now!

Taking a Consumptive Courtesan into the 21st Century

Fallen—my most recent book—is a retelling of Verdi's La Traviata. But it is also a retelling of the original story on which the opera was based: La Dame aux camélias [The Lady of the Camellias] by Alexandre Dumas, fils.

The story is timeless, which explains why it's been adapted and retold in countless versions and multiple forms & languages, even by the author himself. Opera, ballet, film, stage, and yes, prose—all captivated by this tragic love. The movie Moulin Rouge! is one such retelling, and according to Wikipedia, there are 9 film adaptations entitled Camille, including the 1936 movie featuring Greta Garbo, not to mention the many film adaptations with other titles.

There were many challenges in trying to live up to the poignancy of the original, and of the retellings. (I'm anxious to know if I succeeded, which is to say, to see what readers think.) But one of the first was deciding how to make consumption (tuberculosis) into something relevant for modern-day Manhattan since, thankfully, TB isn't common in New York nowadays.

As I thought about the story I wanted to tell, already knowing I wanted to give more weight to the heroine's journey, I wanted to retain some of the key elements relating to consumption. The heroine's illness had to be life-threatening, and it needed to impact the lungs.

The rest of this post is up on Patreon, and in the interest of not doubling up content, click below to:

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And don't forget to grab your copy of Fallen—or read now in Kindle Unlimited!

Fallen is Officially Available!

I'm still struggling to believe it but:

4 years and 4 months—to the day!—since I first started writing it,

🎉 Fallen is officially available! 🎉

I realized fairly recently that I actually started writing this book before any of my others were published. My first novel (Mending Heartstrings) was originally published by a small press in December of 2014—almost 5 months after the first words of Fallen were written. It still blows my mind to think about it in those terms. Just a quick reminder about this story:

 Violetta Dorée wrings every drop of pleasure from her life, and Manhattan’s social elite are happy to help, pampering their darling with endless luxuries. And why not? She deserves a little fun before she dies.

But there are pleasures money can’t buy. When Adrian Thompson with his box-store khakis and overly concerned eyes insists that Vi’s missing out, her curiosity is piqued. What else can she do but indulge it?

Fans of Moulin Rouge! and Me Before You will love this contemporary retelling of Verdi’s La Traviata.

It's been quite an experience writing this retelling, which you can read about in these posts:

• A Lists of Firsts with Fallen
• The Story Behind Fallen
• Taking a Consumptive Courtesan into the 21st Century
• Psst. Through 11/6, there's a giveaway happening over on this post to celebrate the release!

Start Reading Fallen Here or Grab Your Copy!

A Halloween Treat: Mortal Musings and Murder

You may have seen a post circulating around social media (for a couple years now, on and off) that asserts any book's first line can be improved by making the second line:

"And then the murders began."

I tried it with a few of my own first lines, and the results are pretty fun. One I particularly liked was the one from Mortal Musings, partially because Brett is a mystery writer. So I wrote a quick (dark!) flash story set in an Alternative Universe of Mortal Musings, mixed with murder. My Halloween treat for you. 😉

 ---

Writer’s block had walled him in. Again. And then the murders began. 

A football player strung up to bleed out on the goal posts, found at early-morning practice.

The stay-at-home mom injected with a fatal paralytic then positioned at her kitchen counter, prepping the ingredients for that night’s stew. Toppled by her four-year-old’s hungry nudge.

The garbage man chopped into pieces and scattered around neighborhood compost bins.

Gruesome, senseless death. And as far as the police could tell, unconnected. 

Brett scoured the news, glued to any live updates, all saying the same thing: No one knew anything. Not one clue had been found.

On the fourth night, Brett woke, heart pounding from nightmares of wielding a long blade, eviscerating a trio of restaurant servers before trussing them up in the freezer. 

Unable to face the darkness, he staggered to the light switch then landed in front of his computer. His hands came to the keys.

The authorities might not be able to catch the killer, but Brett’s detective could. Piecing together the puzzle behind grisly deaths was what Pete lived for—why he’d been created. And now, Brett knew what puzzle Pete would solve.

As the dark turned to a timid morning gray, red and blue lights flashed outside Brett’s window—a new ineffective patrol. He shook his head and blinked the grit from his eyes. The blurry lines of text on his screen came to 6,863 new words.

Brett sighed and leaned back in his chair. A rustle in the silence spun him around.

Formidable and fearsome, his hallucination stood wiping blood off a broadsword. Her gleaming red hair fell smoothly to her waist, miraculously avoiding the myriad weapons secured to her curves.

“Well?” she asked, her blade catching the light as it wove deftly through the air. The tip landed beneath Brett’s chin, tilting his face up to meet the challenge in the apparition’s astoundingly green eyes. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

Save the Date!

Fallen will be published on November 13th, 2018! 

Just 4 years and 4 months (to the day) after I started writing it.😂 In fact, I realized recently that I actually wrote the first words of Fallen before my first novel was published, which is mind-blowing. 

It also makes me extra-nervous to release this story out into the world, since so much time, energy, and emotion has gone into writing it. Fallen has been a departure in so many ways, since it's a retelling, is not a romance, and demanded to be written in first-person present, which I still believe is the hardest mode. But I hope you'll love it—and tell me even if you don't. 💕

Want to start reading now? Check out a sneak preview on Patreon!

About Fallen:

Violetta Dorée wrings every drop of pleasure from her life, and Manhattan's social elite are happy to help, pampering their darling with endless luxuries. And why not? She deserves a little fun before she dies.

But there are pleasures money can't buy. When Adrian Thompson with his box-store khakis and overly concerned eyes insists that Vi's missing out, her curiosity is piqued. What else can she do but indulge it?

Fans of Moulin Rouge! and Me Before You will love this contemporary retelling of Verdi's La Traviata.

Preorder your copy!