Read Around the Rainbow • Would You Rather... #RAtR →

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Hello again! It’s nearly the end of January, and so far this year I’ve managed to stick to the promise I made myself—Notice how I avoided the word resolution? That word has failure written all over it!—to take more time for writing and editing and keeping up with my monthly RAtR posts. Allowing myself time is something I’m particularly bad at. There is always something—or someone—else that needs my attention, and these moments, no matter how limited, can feel selfish. But after the last three years, I’m determined to make my mental health more of a priority and grab a little fun for myself.

This month Read Around the Rainbow is answering a few would you ever… questions. We are a group of authors spread across the map, so I’m interested to see how my answers line up with everyone elses.

I’ve never participated in a would you ever… post, and it sounds like fun. I haven’t really looked at the questions yet, but it seems like three questions wouldn’t make for a particularly long post, but being that I tend to go on and on—something that is exclusive to my writing and not me in person—we’ll find out together.

So, let’s get into it…

Would you rather publish one insanely great-selling book and never write again … or publish a string of 15 average-selling books over 20 years?

This is a hard one to answer, because who wouldn’t want a wildly successful selling book? But to never write again?!! That might just be too much to ask. Also, you’d have to assume that there are certain things a wildly successful book would bring with it—book tours, interviews, expectations, everyone knowing who you are—that are far less wonderful.

But if I could have a wildly successful selling book, and be able to write but not publish? That might be okay. I’ve sworn off writing before, only to have it call to me like a siren. I don’t think I could cut writing out of my life, but I might be able to cut out the publishing aspect of it and be content. And then, if I did it right, someday when I’m gone, my grown children would find my writing and think…wow, mom was quite the perv. #lifegoals

Would you rather be recognized wherever you go… or live a quiet (monetarily successful) life of anonymity?

I think I accidentally answered this one above. I am an introvert. I find the idea of being recognized everywhere absolutely horrifying! LOL

Would you rather write in a rooftop garden surrounded by city noises — or in a quiet studio with cows as your neighbors?

This is an easy one! The rooftop garden, surrounded by city noises! For me, nothing sparks creativity like the city, and everything that goes along with it.

Shortly after I was first married, my husband and I seriously considered purchasing an old Victorian in the middle of downtown. This was in the early 2000s when you could still afford a 100+ year old mansion of a house. One of my husband’s arts school buddy’s father had purchased it as a place for his son to live off campus, and after he graduated was selling the place. It was beautiful, and everything I always wanted. But we were young, and in the end were scared off by the cost of furnaces and windows and paying to heat a house with so many fireplaces. I still regret it.

But someday, when the children are out of school and we no longer have to worry about good school districts, we haven’t ruled out grabbing one of those lovely highrise condos with their view of the city lights to write by.

Well, that was longer than I thought but not as long as normal. Go me! Now, go check out how everyone else answered! That’s what I’m going to do!

You can check out the other Read Around the Rainbow authors by clicking their names below!

See you in February!

Read Around the Rainbow • Goodbye 2023. Hello 2024. #RAtR →

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Happy Holidays! I hope everyone’s doing well. I’ve missed you all!

It’s hard to believe I haven’t posted since April, but this year has been a series of unfortunate—and some quite tragic—events, and I’m going to do everything in my power to bend the coming year to my will!

Since I started writing in 2014, I’ve mostly ended my December with a look back at the year and by making plans for the next. So, it worked out well when Read Around the Rainbow decided to do just that.

I started 2023 with big writing plans, including five books I intended to finish scribbled onto the whiteboard hung by my desk. As the year progressed, that whiteboard became less of a quick reference to where each of my projects stood—dark blue ✔ for planning, bright pink ✔ for writing, lime green ✔ for a completed first draft, dark green ✔ for a completed second draft, orange ✔ for beta reading, aqua ✔ for editing, purple ✔ for published—and more of a reminder of just how much of a writing dumpster fire the year had become.

It’s not the first time writing had to take a backseat to everything else—I chose to take a break from writing in 2019 and 2020—but it was the first time I failed so dramatically. But then, five books for me is always ambitious.

While behind—I’m always behind—any momentum I had, screeched to a halt when my father was hospitalized in the summer with serious concerns that he would not be walking out again. This was followed by a health scare for my mother, my husband getting laid off at work, and losing a young member of my family to Covid.

Even now, as I write this, trying to get it scheduled to go live early tomorrow morning, I’m healing up from a sprained back—or is it called a pelvis sprain? I’m not even sure!—that occurred three days before Christmas. And while it made it too painful for me to travel with the rest of my family out-of-state to celebrate with my in-laws, it hardly mattered after my father-in-law called two days before Christmas to cancel because he’d contracted Covid.

So, yeah. I hope the door hits 2023 on the ass on the way out.

Still, 2023 was not all bad. My father is home and healthy, my mother did not have cancer, and as for writing, I began a TikTok account and a Facebook Page early in the year—I’m far too shy to have a group—both of which I have every plan to utilize far better next year, if only for the fact that making videos is so fun! I even managed the publication of Findley Black and the Reaper of Shivelly Park in July.

To add to my successes—and in times like these we must count every one we can—I recently completed the first draft of Revenge and the Sinister Seven which I hope to submit to my publisher by end of next month.

If you’re part of the Amy Spector Reading Group, or follow my FB page, there will probably be a blurb and cover reveal in a few weeks, so keep an eye out! Until then, here’s a peek.

The way I see it, that alone sets me up for at least some success in 2024, but I also have a completed first draft for the third book in my House of Witches series, Diablo’s Pit—which follows the story of Gideon—and some writing work done on The Monastery, Angel’s Ink, and Hemophilia, books four, five and six in the series. There’s also completed cover artwork for all four books—I’m a partner in a design firm and I’ll give you three guesses what I do when I’m stressed out and stuck at my desk, and the first two don’t count—and I’ll share them throughout 2024 and 2025 when publication is closer.

I also hope to pick up where I left off with Demetri Forlorn and the Library Between Places for 2024. This story was supposed to be part of a project with the Naked Gardening gang—Holly Day, Nell Iris, A.L. Lester, and K.L. Noone—this time celebrating World Letter Writing Day. I pulled out of the project this summer, and it still breaks my heart! But I will not let Demetri fade away completely, he has wet footprints, a secret admirer and a bee infestation to deal with after all, and I won’t let him down!

And those are my hopes for 2024! I hadn’t really planned to go into this post with such specific plans, but there you have it. While I’m well aware my plans may change—in-house publisher story calls are a siren song to me!—I’d like to publish Revenge and the Sinister Seven, Demetri Forlorn and the Library Between Places, and a book or three in my self-published House of Witches series pet project.

Wish me luck. Send chocolate. Oh, and pain killers!

Make sure to check out all the other Read Around the Rainbow author posts as they say goodbye to 2023 and hello to 2024. And here’s wishing you all the success for the coming year!

You can check out the other Read Around the Rainbow authors by clicking their names below!

Addison Albright • Holly Day • Lillian Francis • Fiona Glass • Ofelia Gränd • Nell Iris • A.L. Lester • K.L. Noone • Ellie Thomas

Happy New Year! See you in 2024!