One thing I’ve noticed with publishing is it’s a whole lot of waiting, then everything seems to happen all at once. We went to Europe last week and within a span of days, I got a bunch of updates!

I’ll fill you in on those in a second, but the overall theme here is how lucky I’ve felt lately. Even when things don’t go exactly how I want or planned, I remind myself how much worse they could be and how sometimes misfortunes are blessings in disguise.

Here’s what’s happened since I last updated you:

1. I received my second developmental edit letter. With the first one, I had to change the plot in middle of the novel, but it kept the same beginning and ending. This revision letter was basically “let’s talk about the ending.” LOL. But hey, it’s much more exciting now! I also had to completely rewrite one of the characters top to bottom - every bit of dialogue they said, everything my character thought about them… I also had to cut entire chapters and scenes. Whew!

   This revision felt so much longer and harder than the last one, but some of that was due to the general end-of-school-year “busy-ness.” I submitted my second developmental edit at the end of June and breathed a huge sigh of relief!

2. I learned the previous character art I purchased was partially AI. This was heartbreaking since the artist I selected stated on their profile they were anti-AI and reiterated that in our communications. I’ve left it up in the previous blog post because I did pay good money for it, but I’ve decided not to use it going forward. Instead, I hired a different character artist (Victoria Lopez - @MrsViloArt) and started from scratch. Victoria was wonderful to work with, and I highly recommend reaching out to her! Here’s the final incredible product:

I AM SO IN LOVE WITH IT! I can’t stop staring at Sivon’s gorgeous aura (which you’ll learn about on page one of Soulmatch). I’ve already printed off some bookmarks for a writers conference I’m attending this weekend! Receiving this new art was the first of four fun things that happened while I was away, and in hindsight, I’m so glad the first piece didn’t work out because this is so much more eye catching!

3. Plot twist! My son inexplicably dislocated his knee while we were in Switzerland. At the time, we were traversing the side of a cliff on the Murren Via Ferrata, 1800 meters above the ground. This pic was taken only a minute before it happened.

Obviously, my son dislocating his knee was not lucky, but we count ourselves SO VERY FORTUNATE that we had such a knowledgeable guide who helped us all stay calm, got us safely off the cliff, and managed to convince the nearby urgent care clinic to stay open two hours after closing to see him. That accident could’ve been so much worse. I have to force those intrusive thoughts away several times a day and focus on the fact he’s okay.

After we got out of the clinic and sat down at dinner to regroup, I received an email from my editor. She loved my revisions and suggested we move on to copy edits! We all high-fived around the table, grateful to have something to get our minds off the earlier trauma.

4. Only minutes later, the final version of my cover hit my inbox! I can’t share it yet, but stay tuned!!!! Sometimes good news comes right when you need it most.

5. The next day, I was introduced to my publicity team! They were super complimentary of SOULMATCH and have already planned a few opportunities! SimonTeen has been an absolutely dream to work with so far. I think back to the near-misses I’ve had with other editors and publishers and am so glad I ended up where I did!!

That’s it for big news, but I’ve also managed to breach 700 followers on Instagram even though I haven’t had the chance to post much at all lately. I’m also getting close to 200 “Want to Reads” on Goodreads! Go ahead and click it. You know you want to! (wink wink)

What I’m Reading

I am so embarrassed to admit this, but I haven’t finished a single novel since my last blog post. It’s just been that non-stop around here. However, I’m ALMOST finished with the third installment of Nisha Tuli’s Artefacts romantasy series, Fate of the Sun King. She just posted that the ebook will be on sale for $2.99 this weekend, so you should totally scoop that up while you can!

What I can’t wait to read

My friend, Keshe Chow’s debut novel, The Girl with No Reflection releases next week! I’ve already preordered my copy and you should, too!

LaDarrion Williams’ Blood At the Root is not only making a splash, but tsunamis in the YA space. Ooh, it looks so good.

Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana. I have to keep pushing the delivery of this one on Libby because I need to finish Nisha’s novel first, but I’m so excited for this one, too!

Happy reading, everyone!