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Tag Archives: Eclectic Bard Books

It’s all in how you look at it

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As you all know I am in the process of getting the Soul Series re-edited and re-released. The books in that series are all in different stages of that process. As those get the attention that they need I can also start looking at the spin off trilogy again. I have told you that the first two books are already done and just have to go through the editing process. What I haven’t spelled out for you is that I left the third one not started on purpose. I wanted to wait until I could give it the focus that it needs. It will not only be closing the door on the trilogy but also on the series. This will be the final goodbye to the characters that we have all come to love.

I have a contemporary romance that I have eluded to in the past that is still rambling around in my head. I also left this one on hold on purpose. This book will be the last romance story I write. I plan on moving onto paranormal suspense from there. While I enjoy a good romance story I don’t want my books to fall into the trap of being the same book over and over again with only minor changes. I plan to move on before that can be a possibility.

While I am working on all of this, it affords me the time I need for research. There are so many aspects I want to include in my paranormal suspense series and I need to do a lot of research to make sure that I get it all right.

I have a growing stack of books and I have started sitting with actual books armed with a highlighter and page tabs. My family is watching this new development with confusion. I am usually not one to mark in a book and I throw a fit if they even turn the corner of a page down. To see me highlighting and tabbing pages is something they are not used to.

Of course some of the books I bought only for research so I am fine with highlighting passages in them. The ones that I bought for both research and enjoyment only get the page tabs. I use the post-it page tabs so they will not damage the book in any way and I can write on them to know what is in that section of the book.

Although it is hard for my family to understand,  I have to read these books before I can finally start on the series that I am really excited about. I will be diving into a paranormal suspense series within the next few months. I have a lot that I want to get done but I think I will have the time I need to accomplish it all.

It would be great to not have to work at the day job and focus on my writing and all that goes into it I am not to that point……yet. I plan to be there but it takes time. While I am working my way to that I have to factor in the time for the day job and schedule things out further to assure I have the time to get it all done. For that reason I am not giving an estimated time for any of my other works. I plan to have the series re-released before the July event of Writers on the River but other than that I don’t have a timeline. I ask for your patience as I get back into the groove of it all.

For now I am happy to be progressing and hope you will all be as excited about the new projects I am working on as I am!

~Miranda

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Remember what?

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As you have probably been able to tell, I have gotten a little scatterbrained lately. I am adjusting to the new medicine for my fibro while also getting everything at work done so things will run smooth while I am gone and packing. I think I need to simplify or focus on one thing at a time.

I have everything rounded up and packed with the exception of my bathroom bag because I will need that stuff. My hubby will miss me while I am gone but I am sure he is ready for me to leave already so he doesn’t have to keep hearing me say, I feel like I am forgetting a lot of stuff. He keeps reassuring me that I have it and we will do one final check as we load up the car tomorrow.

I gave up on trying to do edits last week when I kept reading the same sentence and did not know what needed to be fixed but just wasn’t understanding what I was reading. You can’t critically read while your mind is so distracted.

I managed to get everything at work done. I feel comfortable with leaving things the way they are right now. I’m pretty sure I will not get very many texts while I am gone.

I will always have the feeling of forgetting things no matter what I do, but I am pretty certain that the hubby has made sure that  have everything I need. He double checks me to make sure that I actually did what I said I was going to instead of mentioning I need to and then not actually do it.

I am so excited for this trip! I can’t wait to be on my way tomorrow. Things will be quite on here until I get back but I will be back with many things to tell you about.

~Miranda

Re-Release of Soul Journey

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The second edition of Soul Journey is now available on Amazon!!!

 

 

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Get your copy of the revised book!! Some scenes have been expanded and there are some new scenes that have been added as well!

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It has been many lifetimes since the cycle began.

The cycle that still haunts Annisa Lawson.

A spell cast in desperation to help, which only caused heartache.

Now, Annisa has found her way out of the varying repeats of her past; only to bring more danger to herself, and those around her. Now she must learn to survive with the help of her friends: Chase, Penelope, and Landon have all gone through each life cycle with Annisa. Sometimes helping, sometimes hindering. Now that Annisa has broken the cycle of their collective punishment, she finds that she needs her friends more than ever to keep their enemies, known, and unknown, at bay. As the group of friends learn of their souls’ journeys through their many life cycles, they must also learn to control the magick they have discovered within themselves and each other, in order to defeat the most feared assassin in their world.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Journey-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00N7T7CX4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458573051&sr=8-1&keywords=Miranda+Shanklin

It’s almost time!

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As you all know I have been working on revisions and polishing the Soul Series. Well yesterday I was taught how to format it! Formatting is one of the last steps in the process. That means that it will be coming out very soon!

This is exciting news for 2 reasons. The first being that I will be uploading the 2nd edition of Soul Journey this week! The second being that you only have a limited time to grab your copy of the 1st edition of all the books. I will be pulling the 1st editions of ALL OF THE BOOKS IN THE SERIES. If you want a 1st edition better get it now because they will all be gone this week!

I am excited that this process is in the last leg for book 1. I am also anxious about the rest of them. Book 2 is in the editing phase and will be coming out soon. The schedule I have worked out will have the books coming out about a month from the one before it. I have it all planned to where all the books will be released before the Writers on the River Event I am participating in on July 9, 2016.

While this is an exciting time it is also a busy time. To get all of this done I will be working quite a bit until it is done. I don’t mind and actually enjoy this working! I love making the books the best they can be!

I know this is a short post but I gotta get back at it so I can stay on schedule!

~ Miranda

Taking on more than I thought

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Ok, so I had this great intention of doing the short stories every Friday. It is a great idea in theory. The problem is that I seem to run out of time to write the stories. As most of you know, I am the assistant coach for my daughter’s competition dance team and also have a day job as a paralegal. I know that sounds like a lot all by itself.

Competitions start in two weeks. I have a conference in early April. It is crunch time for both. I didn’t take that into consideration when doing my schedule for the year.

I had emergency surgery last week to remove my gall bladder. What I didn’t realize was how bad the gall bladder had been making me feel for a long time. Now that I am recovering quickly from the surgery I have found my self with a lot of extra energy. The doctor said that my gall bladder had been bad for quite some time. This means that my body was fighting the gall bladder that whole time. Now that it is gone my body doesn’t know what to do with the energy ti had been expending on the bad gall bladder.

I have so much energy and am getting so much done but I am still only one person. I can only to do much. I love being a part of something that means so much to my daughter, I love the day job (plus it pays the bills LOL) and I would never be able to give up writing.

So that leaves me getting more organized. In order for me to keep up with everything, as I am not willing to drop any of them, I just have to organize and manage my time. It can be done and won’t even be difficult, I just have to do it.

In the meantime, I will be doing short stories but it probably won’t be every week. They will get added as I work them into my schedule. I know this is a long ramble just to say that there won’t be a story this week, but I wanted to make sure that you all know I am not forgetting about the stories and will get them out when I can.

I will still be posting on here at least twice a week sometimes it will be ramblings like this and sometimes it will be more. You will just have to stay tuned to see what is next 😉

~ Miranda

Getting behind

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I always have the best intentions, but most of the time things don’t work out as planned. Only one week after saying my cold was gone and I would not miss another Short Story Friday, that is exactly what I did.

It is not completely my fault that I missed the short story this week. Sunday I went to the ER in a lot of pain. I ended up having emergency surgery to get my gall bladder removed. I was down and out of it. There was no way for me to keep up with everything going on with the fogginess in my head due to the pain killers.

I am finally starting to feel better. I am taking Advil during the day and only taking the pain killers at night so I can sleep. I am still pretty sore but it is getting better every day. I am sure walking into my office tomorrow will not be as good to see, though.

While I am sure that there is plenty sitting on my desk waiting for me to get back, I will get through it all. An unplanned week off is worse than a planned one, but they are both something that I have to work through. Sometimes it is a good feeling to see how much you are needed at your job. I love the help I receive in trying not to leave everything for me, but to know that I am needed for that work to get done gives me a sense of purpose.

While I have enjoyed the down time that I don’t usually get, I am ready to get back on the horse. I am used to always being on the go. Sitting around and waiting for my body to heal enough to get back out there is not an easy task for me.

I am finally able to sit at the computer and get a few things done. For a while there sitting in this chair was not going to happen. Now that my body is mending itself and adjusting to a piece being removed, I can start to slowly get back to doing what I love.

~ Miranda

Frustrations

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I have been working on getting everything ready for my events coming up. The first event I am going to is in April so it is getting down to crunch time on preparing. I am starting to feel the pressure.

I have ordered about half the swag that I am going to. I know what else I am ordering for that but the budget demands it all take a turn and I can only do so much each week. I have paid the table fees for all the events this year. There is still so much I have left to do!

The first event I am going to is a conference. There is a Villain’s Ball that we dress up for on this one. I had picked out my costume and had it in my cart on Amazon and was waiting to order it. Today I saw there was only 1 left in stock so it got ordered now.

There is also an awards ceremony. I am a finalist for the Best Cover Award. I am so excited for this as it is the first award I have been up for. The only thing that would make it better was if the award was for my writing, but that time will come. After bargain shopping with the best bargain shopper out there I got the dress and shoes for the ceremony. I also got a dress that I can wear for the signing part of the event.

Sounds like everything is going along just fine, right? Ya, that was until I had to work on imaging. I wanted to order rack cards and a table banner. That means I had to design them both. I spent 8 hours and finally got the images the way that I wanted them for the rack cards. I finally got them the way that I wanted them and got them ordered.

Knowing that it took so long for the rack cards I decided to wait until a Saturday to work on the banner. At one point I actually threatened to take my laptop, throw it in the driveway, and run it over. I’m not sure if it was my computer, photo shop or what I was trying to do that was the issue. All I wanted to do was resize my logo to fit the banner. Easy, right? WRONG! It took a half an hour and my computer freezing up twice to get it to resize. When I did finally get it to resize it then would not upload to Vistaprint. I thought maybe I had the measurements backwards. It took another half an hour to resize again. It still wouldn’t upload.

At this point I was no longer just threatening I was seriously considering running over my laptop. It was then I was rescued and taken shopping for the dress for the awards ceremony. That break was what did the trick.

When I got home I decided to use pixel size instead of measurements. That was what worked. It only took a couple of minutes to resize that way and it uploaded right away. Finally, I had gotten the banner done.

With all of that frustration done and the images done and ready to go I am now free to obsess about the rest of it. I still have to finish edits and polishing so I can order books and have enough time to get them before I have to leave for the conference.

Even with all that it comes with, I love this and wouldn’t give it up or trade any of it!

~Miranda

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Oops

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I posted last week how I was going to start keeping up on here. Then I haven’t posted in a week. Oops! Well, I think to be totally honest that it might only be once a week or I might find more time as it gets colder outside to sit in front of my laptop and write posts.

I know the point of a blog is so that my fans and/or readers have a chance to get to know me. The problem is I am not even sure I know all of myself yet. I have found myself on a journey that I never thought I would be on. I didn’t think I would find the courage to write a book and then publish it. My fears and insecurities were just too much.

Now that I took  deep breath, jumped in the deep end, and found that I can swim and didn’t sink, I find myself in unchartered waters. I may be swimming against the current for now, but I am still swimming.

I have not been discouraged with the low sales, I know that it takes time. I have seen authors post on Facebook about how they published their first book three months ago and are ready to give up due to the low sales. I just shake my head at them. Being an author is a marathon not a sprint. It takes time to get your name out there.

I know that I can’t just publish my book and millions of people will all just buy it without me doing anything else. There is marketing and promoting and making connections that all have to be done as well. It has only been a year since I first published and the fact that I am still selling any at all is encouragement enough for me.

My books are in a transition phase right now as they are re-edited an polished in preparation of being re-published under Eclectic Bard Books. Due to this transition I have not been doing a lot of marketing and promoting as I am waiting until they are re-published. Even without the extra work I am still selling books.  That tells me that I am doing something right.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a patient person. With this I don’t think of it as being patient and waiting for everything to fall in my lap. I see it as working to make it happen. As long as I am working towards getting my name out there and my books in the hands of the readers then I am doing something that I love.

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