The world is a different place than the world I was raised in. It's even  different than it was when my girls were young and heck I've got a few who are still in their 20s. Yesterday, I started my 3 weeks of no writing. So of course, I got dressed and went out my front door to see if the world was still there. I was kind of hoping to see children walking home from school in costumes(In Sacramento our house is near an elementary school), but alas, I didn't see a single one. On the main road heading toward the stores, I was immediately surrounded by police vehicles full lights racing off to somewhere. Jeez, it must have been the entire Elk Grove PD and I got that icky feeling you get when in an urban area because you know when you see racing cop cars they are responding to something messed up.(In Santa Barbara it just means they're going to Starbucks) When I went to Walgreen's, I bought candy to give out and when I brought it home my husband said Why did you get that? And I stared at it and realized he was right. We are not going to get trick or treaters today. The world is a different place than the one that exists in my memories.

In The Girl of Sand & Fog, I've released my first new millennium girl coming-of-age, and in it poor Kaley goes through all the trials of a girl in our modern world. How she sees the world is different. How she interacts with friends, loves, and meets her challenge is different than her mother, Chrissie from The Girl on the Half Shell. How she talks is different. What she hopes for is different. Even her HEA is different.

Time is marching forward, the world is constantly in change, for me, my daughters, my grandson, and even my book daughters: Kaley, Chrissie, Linda, and soon Krystal. But at the center of all our too quickly changing existence, there seems to be still the greatest of universal truths: hope exists in love.

Have a marvelous Halloween. Be safe. Be well. Look out for the little ones if you are somewhere where elaborately costumed children still knock on your door for candy.

And  as ever I wish you Peace.

First, Indie world is what it is, my book will either sell or it won't sell. Love Indie world or leave it.  No matter how hard you work, what happens after hitting release is beyond your control.  I know the business now. I had everything lined-up to do well this release. And then my PA, disappeared 9 days ago after I paid her and today I have no promotion. Oh well. I'm a tortoise not a hare. I sold 54 copies of The Girl on the Half Shell the month I released her. Now over a year later, she's  selling steady and strong. So, I'm a tortoise and I always will be. Yep, that's something I've learned.

Second, there are some books that will kick your butt as you write them. The Girl of Sand & Fog was perhaps the most difficult and complex book I've ever written. We are really getting deep in the Parker Saga and with each new release that ups the complexity of the writing process(making sure I've carried the other story-lines into this one correctly, making sure I don't make readers suddenly not like a beloved character from another book, and crafting this part of the overall story I'm telling to fit and work).

I've also learned that as well as I know me and my writing process, I can still be surprised. This book took me double the time it normally takes me to write a full length novel. It's a beast of a book(129K words). Like my readers, I've come to know my characters so well, to be very invested in them, and this was a tough Girl to write. I broke her in Broken Crown, but I had to do it again, first person point of view, in The Girl of Sand & Fog, and then I had to put her back together again. It hurt going through her angst. It felt like it did with my own girls. I wanted the best for her, but I couldn't stop her from doing what she was going to do.

Third, I still get a flutter in my stomach when the first copy sells. I'm 17 months, 14 releases, 100K+ downloads, and it still rocks my world when I release a new book and see someone downloaded and they're reading me. I don't ever want to lose that magical feeling.

Finally, I love my readers. They're wonderful people. They've enriched my life with their notes, comments, and emails, and maybe that is winning at my age. To out of nowhere have an amazing connection with people from  all over who love the things you love. It's made having no kids our  house so much less lonely for me. You keep me happy and connected with the world during "The Comfortable Quiet" of my life and I'm grateful for it.

And as ever, darlings, from my heart thank you for giving this old gal a chance by joining me in the pages of my books and I wish you Peace.

🎵 Just Went Live! The Girl of Sand & Fog🎵
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Synopsis:
The Girl of Sand & Fog is the second of three Stand-Alone books in the Sand & Fog series. This book has a HEA.
~
Two seconds into the kiss, I’m sure I haven’t misread the guy. He likes me. He is attracted to me. I feel that flash of female supremacy surge through me. Just to be a bitch, I move my hips slightly to brush my softer parts against his no longer soft part before I end the kiss and scramble back over the gearshift to my side of the car.
“You can go now,” I say.
“I was planning to.” Bobby opens the car door. “Do you want to hang out again sometime?”
He’s almost out of the car. What a strange ‘that’s it’…
~
Kaley Stanton has it all. Beauty. Brains. Wealth. A beloved, renowned family. And fame as an Internet sensation. What she doesn’t have is the one thing she needs: the truth.
Bobby Rowan isn’t the ordinary boy next door. This hot surfer doesn’t play by any rules but his own. He’s never chased any girl. Kaley is no different.
As childhood friends reconnecting years later, their shared history and instant chemistry draws them together. But is that enough to make these two independent and conflicted souls a forever love or will the past make a future for them impossible?

I was happily in my home in Santa Barbara at the end of September, marching toward a September 30th release date, sending chapters back and forth to my editor, hearing in my head I think I can, I think I can, and into my office walks my husband. It went something like this:

Him: Susan, I want to spend the fall in Sacramento. Pop isn't getting any younger. He's 95, and it's too hard to drive up there every weekend to take care of him.

***Very reasonable comment***

Me: OK. Let me finish this up and we can pack up and hop.

Him: I was thinking about leaving Tuesday.

***Not a reasonable timeline***
I still. My face tenses.
Me: That's five days. I release on Wednesday.

We've been together so long, our marital discussions are not long. Somehow that was the end of it, and all around me my house was being shut down and I was hopping North Tuesday whether I wanted to or not.  When you've been married forever, there really is no point fighting about the small things, and being unexpectedly relocated in five days over a release date--for a couple with 5 kids--believe it or not, that is a small thing. In the last seven months I've been through the birth of  my first grandchild, three book signings, 4 book releases, 1 heart condition diagnosed for my husband, 1 emergency surgery for my husband, 1 scheduled heart surgery for my husband, and the onset of him retiring after 40 years of public service.

Delusional perhaps, but I left Santa Barbara on Tuesday the 29th with the mantra in my head I think I can, I think I can, and drove 400 miles north with 2 geriatric cats and a dog with dementia. Opened up my Sacramento house, dropped my bags, went upstairs to my writing cave in the loft and went oh crap, I'm exhausted. I don't think I can.

I'd forgotten in the sudden rush of relocating that I've gotten old, too. Inside my head, I'm still 29. That lasts until I look in a mirror or in this case drive from Southern California to Northern California in a single day.

So I guess I can say, marriage happened on the way to this release, and I'm disappointed to have missed my 30th release date and I'm touched by the number of emails I've gotten asking "Where is The Girl of Sand & Fog. I'm addicted to the Parkers" but if you've read my books, then you know one thing for certain about me. Love triumphs over all things.

So, I'm riffling chapters back & forth to my editor and it looks like it is going to be an October 15th release date. I apologize for the delay, but in Susan's universe that dear man I've been with for a very long time triumphs over all things.

As ever darlings, I wish you Peace.

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