Dear friends:

What a great year this has been! This year was the year I really doubled down on my commitment to my writing, and it paid off. I am still smiling over getting my first book deal, hopefully the first of many more to come.

This year I put up the remaining two books in my Urban Fantasy Time Travel series. This series started as a dream dozens of years ago and I am thrilled that that dream has finally manifested into a full series. I am sure Fiona and Sonder will be off on many adventures in the future, whether we share them or not.

This year I attended a writing conference and pitched two books to two different publishers. The second book, a contemporary romance, got stalled at one publisher but I expect an answer from the second publisher I pitched it to subsequently in a few weeks. Fingers crossed!

The big news, of course, was that the first in my five book paranormal romance series “Fire Danger” was accepted for publication by Samhain. I cannot say enough good things about this publisher. Jennifer, my editor, had lots of edits and comments and each one made the story better. She has been thorough but has never tried to edit my voice, just the unclear parts of my MS. The book comes out on June 21, 2016, the culmination of a long held dream.

This was also the year I tried my hand at short stories. As of today (12/31/15) I have had eight short stories and one reprint accepted for publication. Most were released this year. This has enabled me to explore other genres like horror and science fiction in short, digestible bites. I love writing shorts and won’t be stopping any time soon.

The amazing folks at AuthorBytes revised my website to reflect current day and give it a more modern look. This website is more suitable for a professional author, although the previous website was fine as well. For anyone questioning whether or not to spend the money to hire a kick ass web designer, from my experience I think the answer is yes.

I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November and successfully finished a first draft of a novel that had been lingering for years. Actually, that was a theme of 2015. I tackled old half-finished drafts, books that I had written fifty pages on and abandoned, or books that had a beginning, a sex scene and an end and nothing more and brought them to life. I write way faster than I edit and my books are stacking up like cordwood, ready to topple over. It’s a good problem to have.

To that, since I committed in 2015 to write every day I have finished many books and stories. By my count I finished nine books (and edited five) and thirty short stories/blogs. I hope to keep up this pace in 2016. There are lots of stories to tell!

I am trying to commit to blogging more so if there is anything you want to know or would like to see more of, let me know. 2016 is going to be an even more exciting year than 2015!

Have a happy New Year and CYA in 2016!

Claire