My Big Fat Busy New Year

January is going full-on. I mean, that's expected because the Earth revolves around the Sun and days bleed into nights and on and on. But for me, January in full swing means I'm super-busy. I plan on making 2013 an even better year for writing than any year before.

I started by registering my own imprint. Why, you may ask (someone did ask)? Okay, I have reasons that go beyond, ooo, pretty graphic on the cover page of a book.

1) In Missouri (hi, Missouri!) it's really easy to start a sole proprietorship. There's not a lot of paperwork involved, no need for a federal employer id number, and you don't have to apply for a line of credit. Makes tax work way easier.

2) It looks nice inside the book and on an ISBN registration.

3) It looks professional on a business card. (Note to self: update business cards)

So, you can see the logo there. And what's with the bug? And the fancy French? Demoiselle translated into little lady, more or less. But that's not why I wanted to use the word. I'm fascinated with dragonflies because of a Native American legend about how dragonflies carry messages from our world the the next. There's a mention of that in the third book in my series. While I was researching dragonfly species, I found out about a damselfly, which is a little smaller and they hold their wings differently. But they're known as colorful, predatory insects. I think we all know you have to be a little colorful and predatory to stand out in the publishing world. I loved it immediately. A little graphic perusing on a stock photo site, and I found that one. Boom. Logo.

Some people will argue that using an imprint name on self-published books is dupping readers into believe they're real books published by real houses. Let me stop you right there--it is a real book. We're real authors, whether we have the Big Six behind us, a little known e-publisher, or are self-published.

Aside from getting my imprint going, I've been participating in a program similar to NaNoWriMo to help finish up the fourth book in my series. It's been a loooooong process. After accidentally (but possibly subconsciously on purpose) deleting the first 70,000 words of it in November, I've been struggling to rewrite and take it in a different direction. Rewriting it has been a pain, but I know I'm better for it. It's not the first time I've rewritten a book. I'm closing the gap at almost 70,000 again. Just a little more to go and then it's back to editing.

This year will also bring me to the end of my 5 book series, Legends & Lovers. I have a plot in mind and character names in place for rounding off the last book. I even have a cover. Because I'm a procrastinator. And I figure if I buy the images and make the cover, I have to write the book. Maybe I should hire some big beefy guys to whack me on the kneecaps if this book falls through. One second thought . . . maybe not.

Argh. Might've taken a little too much
off the left side of my head. And, I
admit it, I made my arms a little skinnier.

One other thing I'm working on right now is raising money so I can go to the Romantic Times Convention in Kansas City this May. I set up an Indiegogo page for my campaign, RTKC or Bust! It includes horrible Paint cropped pictures of me, so you'll want to check that out. If I don't raise all the money, I promised to donate half of what I earn to the Ozarks Literacy Council here in Missouri so others can learn to read and improve their reading. But if you donate, you have the option of picking a prize from me including e-books and signed artwork related to my series. I think it's kind of cool. If you can't donate, that's okay, because you can still help me spread the word through your social network sites.

When I'm not begging for money and blogging here, I'm at my own blog, Have Novel, Will Edit, on Facebook, Twitter, and G+.