For the Criminally Inane

 Sorry, I lied... I know I said I wasn't going to use a pen name to write my Young Adult fantasy. But now I'm reconsidering it. I already have quite an AWESOME following for my sweet contemporary romance. And a lot of people will jump with me to another genre. (Some won't, and that's okay. I'm still writing for them as well!) But I'm hoping that I can also gain a new audience with my Young Adult fantasy books. Separating the genres by pen name would keep those two lines from being crossed. It wouldn't be anything dramatic, although I've already got Amy Leduc as one of them, I would likely go for a pen name like A. E. Zeigler or Amey E. Zeigler. I do hate that both my names are hard to spell, which makes it more likely that I'll choose the initials and the last name, but we'll see. What's your preference? What will you be writing and will I be interested in them? Great question. Here are a couple of ideas I've already started writing/plan

 Why I write clean Young Adult Fantasy First off, I love teenagers. I connect with that age group. I feel like I'm still seventeen sometimes. I want to write books that will benefit them, give them hope, courage, and comfort. I want to write books that my kids can read and enjoy.  When I was younger, I would lose myself for hours reading the most fantastical books of the day. I loved how fantasy books could take me to another world, explore topics in a way that couldn't be done here in a contemporary setting, and could talk about good versus evil in a fantasy context. I loved the creativity of these writers, the worlds and characters they come up with and the conflicts! I want to bring that to you! Fantasy has had a resurgence in the last few years, especially the popular romantasy. If you aren't familiar with the term, it's basically romance genre smashed with fantasy. I love it! What a time to live! I tell you, I was born to write romantasy. But the problem is, what I

  Top Ten YA Fantasy Reads 1. Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander: What I love about it: the characters are amazing, story is top notch, great read-aloud books to youngsters. Good morals.             2. Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer What I love about it: I love inventive retellings, characters are good. Each book has a fairytale couple.              3. Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale What I love about these books: fun lore and magic system, (Goose Girl is a little slow in the beginning, give it 60 pages), great story, memorable. I have signed copies. Shannon once said if she wanted to make money in the biz, she'd write more Bayern Books but her heart took her another way. I respect that.              4. Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson What I love about this series: clean YA, great story, pacing is exciting, and I think I just like the word chronicles in a series title?              5. Carava l by Stephanie Garber What I love about this series: I just started the f

  You may be wondering why the genre switch... First off, I want to make sure you know that I am not leaving behind my contemporary sweet romances or my mysteries. I will still continue to write in both genres.  However... My personal mission has always been to create stories than anyone can enjoy whether you're 14 or 94. I write clean/fade to black/closed door/just kisses romances. I always will. Nothing changes. Just the setting. Why YA? I still read Young Adult literature and I feel like the genre is shifting into darker, steamier and grayer areas. I would love to make sure that my kids, your kids, our kids still have uplifting, clean books. Also no one tends to complain if there's not spice in them.  I love the adventure, the coming-of-age, the wonder and excitement of adventure. I consume these books with relish. Stay tuned for a list of my favorites low/no spice books enumerated in another post. Will you be using a pen name? I've gone back and forth about this a thous

A few years ago, my sister wanted to visit Europe for the first time. She tried to find a friend to go with her--another available friend who could frolic over Christmas break when she had one week of vacation between Christmas and New Years.  She couldn’t find anyone. People were visiting family or they were short of funds. My parents, concerned with her going by herself to foreign countries, asked me if I would go with her. I lived in Europe in my twenties for a year and a half and was somewhatly still fluent French.  But we were poor.  My husband was still in grad school. We lived a simple life on his small stipend, and I stayed home with our three kids. And Christmas was a family day.  When my parents offered to for pay my airline ticket, my husband agreed to let me go. All we had to pay for was lodging (we stayed at hostels), food, and travel within the country. So we were off!  We scheduled our itinerary to be in Paris for New Years eve! How exciting, right? To be in the city of

Summer is heating up here where I am at, which is good because that means all I want to do is sit inside all day in the AC and write instead of doing outdoorsy things. I've been wildly productive and I've been working on a few things this summer: Sin and Sinister (paranormal vampire and werewolves mystery series set in Monte Carlo) is finally done. I had struggled with the ending and put it down to work on more pressing things. My Alpha readers are looking it over for plot holes and other major revisions I might need. More plotting for this series is ongoing! Seasons of Sugar Creek First Kisses. This is the backstory of Roland and Debra and how they had their first kiss Homecoming evening in 1972. It's been fun to write a retro piece. It's almost finished probably at the 80% mark.  The Autumn Fallout ( also part of Seasons of Sugar Creek )  is 100% done with the first draft. I'll be sending that to my Alpha readers this week for major plot/character suggestions. I