For the Criminally Inane

  Seasons of Sugar Creek: Summer is here! Yeah, I know it's fall. It's a little late. But it's here,  it's here! You can now pre-order my book on Amazon. I'll get it up on other retailers soon! Don't you love this cover? It's like a breath of fresh air. Thanks to Hillary Doan Sperry for the cover design!  Here's the blurb: Who will believe that a billionaire fashion icon and a tomboy dairymaid are dating? Tomboy Kristen Benton is roped into competing in the Miss Sugar Princess pageant with her sister. No one expects her to win—especially not the preening bullies who taunt her into wagering on the winner. Desperate for a pageant coach, Kristen makes a deal with billionaire fashion icon Ward Bianci to help her get into the final five. But the price he asks is pretty steep… Italian-American Ward Bianci needs a fake girlfriend to inherit his grandfather’s multi-billion dollar fashion empire. At a mutual friend’s wedding, the groom wagers Ward can’t get Krist

 Yahoo!  We did it! We funded the books, now we're working on stretch goals! I updated the original post but I thought I'd write one here, too. We are just about $300 away from sprayed edges!!! These books will look gorgeous on your shelf and you'll love getting it out and rereading the story! Also I am adding some metal bookmarks. Find out more here!  What else? Revisions for Sugar Creek is going well. I got a peek at the cover and it is GOR-geous! I can't wait to show you!

 My daughter's open house is over! Wedding prep that has lasted over a year for the three weddings is finally over! My sister got engaged last August. As her maid of honor-type person, we did a lot of talking about how and what to do for her wedding. As she was nearing 48, and her first wedding, we wanted to make sure that we properly celebrated. We decided on a Hallow-wedding! She loves Halloween and has skeletons hanging, not in her closet but in her garage. So between August and October it was a race as we picked a color scheme. We designed wedding invites. We planned. Mature brides have different priorities than young ones. No attendants. So that was nice. She paid for a large chunk of the party herself. And she had a huge invite list. Her bridal shower as a "mourning the death of her single life," including an obituary and macabre decor. Perfect for October. Her reception was a costume party with prizes and dress up. I was a German barmaid with my daughter. MCed the

#### update!##### We funded in TWO HOURS!! Now we're working on custom sprayed edges. We are so close to our stretch goals! We have color print, the prequel novella, the sprayed edges. The gorgeous hardbacks will all get foiled jackets! They are going to look amazing sitting on your shelf! Not only that, but the book itself is epic! Love, betrayal, enemies, lovers, centuries-old conflict.  Okay, I hope to see you there! I am trying something ridiculously scary and exciting all at the same time! I am launching my new pen name A. E. Zeigler in a Backerkit crowdfunding campaign !  What is crowdfunding ? Crowdfunding is where people all come together to fund a certain project that might be too expensive for a creator to fund on their own--like a board game or a print run of really beautiful edition of their books--within a certain funding period.  Words to know in a crowdfunding campaign: Creator : company or person who comes up with a project they want help funding Campaign : is a pro

I did something today that I've never done before. I bought a label maker and made labels to organize my bookmarks. If you are a label-maker type person I envy you.  It doesn't come naturally to me. I really struggle. I found out recently that I have ADHD. I was surprised, but I found that I was already doing something things to manage it. Lately, my family (my brothers and sisters) talk a lot about ADHD because we've all recently discovered that we all had it. I think it started with one of my siblings actually going to the doctor and getting diagnosed and the rest of us saying, oh, wait. I have that symptom, too. I was talking to one of my brothers about it and he said I was the one who escaped it. I was like, what are you talking about? I can tell you several symptoms off the top of my head. Look at my backlist, it jumps from genre to genre and I haven't finished a complete series yet. ADHD? I think so. Learning I have ADHD has answered a lot of question that have pl

I have a little bit of a rebellious streak. Not against God or authority or anything important. Mostly against social trends. Like when I was in high school, whatever was popular, I would do the opposite. Don't think that this is going to be a confession of epic proportions of all the shenanigans I pulled in my youth. Far from it. In fact, my rebelliousness tends to be the opposite. I go against the popular grain. This is great if you go to a crazy high school that had one of the highest drug and weapon confiscation rates in the state. It is not, however, great for writing. Because, you see, the same repulsion I have toward the trendy clothes, the trendy cups, the trendy water (in middle school everyone drank Evian,) etc. etc. carries through. I CANNOT write what everyone else is writing. It's in my nature. Authors are writing hockey romance because it's trending. I shrug my shoulders. Vampires in the early 2010s. Meh.  And that's a good thing. Those trend-chasers make

 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