Where Does The Time Go

Being A Super Busy

I started writing this blog post on July 19th, and here it is September, and I'm just now getting back to finish it. I'm changing things because the original information is outdated. 

I spent the summer working on my new young adult lesbian romance, working, and trying to spend time with my grandkids. I have three grandsons who live in Colorado, so I only get to see them during the summer. This summer was so crazy that I didn't get to spend much time with them, which sucks, but it's the way things go sometimes. 

The grandkids my partner, Rosa and I are raising are back in school and doing lots of school stuff. My oldest grandson, Jacob, turned 15 this summer. I can't believe it. He's almost 6 feet tall and in marching band. My oldest granddaughter, Jazmyn, is 13 going on 23. Just praying all of us survive her being a teenager. My other grandson, Julian, that Rosa and I are raising is 6, and we are homeschooling him. Socialization has not been a good thing for the other kids, and as crazy as things are in our local schools, we're going to keep him home.

What else is going on?

Today, I wrote "The End" to the story I mentioned earlier. It's a little over 75,000 words that I'm putting on the shelf for a few weeks while I start editing a story that I started last year during NaNoWriMo. If the editing muses are in a good mood, maybe both books will come out before the end of the year. 

I still haven't finished making Avalanche of Love available in print. Amazon and I are still at odds about the formatting. Hopefully, things will slow down long enough for me to get the formatting right.

I'm also planning to publish both of the plays that I've written. They are both 10-minute, one scene plays. Last year "Is She or Isn't She" was performed at the Emerald Theater Company in Memphis, Tennessee. This year my play "She's My Sister" didn't get picked to be performed, but that's okay. But, I thought some of my fans might be interested in checking them out. (I wrote that back in July. Still, haven't done it yet.)

I also have a very short story that I hope to publish soon, so keep a watch out for that. 

What I'm reading!

I finished Annette Mori's book "Artist Free Zone." It was an enjoyable story. It made me feel sorry for Rosa having to deal with this flaky artist. Thank God she loves me.

I read "Finding You" by Emma Nichols. I really enjoyed this lovely romance that takes place in London and Paris and some other places in western Europe that I'm not very familiar with. (Finished this and the next book in the series "Remember Us." I liked them both a lot. Going to start the third book in that series soon.)

I'm ready Courtney Stevens' book, "Dress Code for Small Towns." It's starting out to be a cute story. I haven't gotten very far, though. I've also got Gerri Hill's "Midnight Avenue" on my shelf to read next.

What's New

I just rejoined Myspace, and I'm going to start creating mixes for my books from the songs that I've listened to a lot while I was writing. Music plays a significant role in my life, and if it does in yours too, you might like to know what songs inspired me during the writing of each book. You'll find a lot of overlap, especially with my romances. 

I'm going to stop here to make I get this posted tonight before something happens and I don't get it done. (Waiting on the granddaughter to come home after lying about her ride, going to be one of those nights.)

Highlight of My Week! Maybe My Year!

For the very first time ever, one of my books was a #1 New Release in Lesbian Romance!

Granted, it only lasted 3 days, it was still super nice, and it might make it's way back up the list.

What else is going on?

I'm over 10,000 words into my new young adult lesbian romance. I really need to finish my play, but haven't gotten around to it. I've used some different avenues for promoting Avalanche of Love, and that seems to be paying off. I've gotten 5 reviews on Amazon, and 5 reviews on Goodreads and the book has only been out 14 days. 

Amazon and I are still not in agreement with the print version of the book, so hopefully, I will get that resolved this week. But, most of my sales come from digital. I mostly do the print books for family and friends.

How's Life?

I went to Owensboro this weekend with my oldest, Jessica and her son, Jacob to see my other daughter, Michelle and youngest granddaughter, Deborah. ( I have 7 grandchildren. 5 boys and 2 girls from 15 years old to 2 years old.) We made tacos together to celebrate Mother's Day. We'll let me correct that, Michelle and I made tacos while Jessica texted with her boyfriend and everyone else watched TV in the living room. Typical Mother's Day. 

Last night Jacob and I went to see the band, Shinedown at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. It was Jacob's first real rock concert (he's almost 15), and we had a blast. It was a great show. I'm exhausted and can't wait to go to bed soon. 

Trips in the Works?

A little less than 2 weeks until I got to Colorado with Michelle to get her boys. I'm really excited about the trip. On the way back we're going to stop in St. Louis and take her three boys to the St. Louis Zoo and the Arch. 

I've purchased the plane tickets for the trip to Florida to see my brother with Jacob over Father's Day. I booked a nice hotel close to the beach and have made plans to do some research reconnaissance for another book that I'm working on. 

As you can tell, not much has changed over the last week, except I finally made it to #1 New Release in Lesbian Romance, not to be confused with the #1 selling book in Lesbian Romance. Avalanche only made it to #2 so far, but that's still the highest I've been in that category. It was also #11 in Action & Adventure Romance where it is sharing the top 20 with the likes of Janet Evanovich.  

That sums it up.

Those are the highlights of my week. If you like hard rock and get a chance to see Shinedown in a small venue like the Ryman, do it! You may not be able to hear the next day, but it's totally worth it.

It's Here!

Available on Amazon!

It's Here!

Avalanche of Love is now on Amazon Kindle. If you don't read on Amazon Kindle, but would like a copy of the book, contact me directly at metudor.com@gmail.com

I'm still working on the print version. Amazon and I have not come to an agreement about the cover, but I hope to have the print version available by the first of next week. 

What else is going on? 

Well, I'm writing a new young adult book. It's in it's earliest stages, so there's not much to tell yet. I'm also working on a play for the Emerald Theater Company's contest. I've written the basics of the play, but I need to edit it, and fine tune it. 

How's life?

My partner, Rosa retired a few weeks ago, and I could not be happier for her. She spent a lot of years working and truly deserves this time off. Of course, she has taken over dealing with my three grandchildren we are raising, so she hasn't had much downtime. She has been able to work on her craft projects, and we're getting several ready for the flea market. She's going to be at the FleaLand Flea Market here in Bowling Green on May 25th with her son, so if you want some cute crafts, stop by and see them. 

Trips in the works.

I love to travel, so I'm very excited to have two trips coming up. Labor Day weekend I'm driving to Montrose, Colorado with my daughter, Michelle. We're going out there to get her three boys. Colorado favors fathers in custody cases, especially if the father's family knows the judge, so Michelle's ex got custody of the boys. Grrr. Anyway, they come to Kentucky every summer, so we're going to get them. 

I used to live in Colorado, and I miss it, so I'm always excited about getting to go back to the mountains. 

The other trip will be in June. My grandson, Jacob and I are flying to Orlando, Florida to see my brother. We're all that's left of our immediate family, so I try to get down there at least once a year. I'm not that excited about going to Florida in the middle of the summer because it's going to be very hot, but my brother lives relatively close to the beach, so we'll get to cool off there. 

I'm going to use the trip as a research opportunity. A story I was working on last year takes place in this area, so I'm going to check some things out so I can make my story more authentic.

That sums up what's happening with me right now. I hope you'll check out Avalanche of Love and leave a review to let me know what you think. And visit my page on Facebook so you can keep an eye out for upcoming giveaways. 

Have a great week ya all!

Good Morning from the Midst of Chaos

Good morning!

I borrowed this picture from a blog called Patchwork Reflections because it could have been taken down the road from our house. I've seen many sunrises like this one here in south central Kentucky.

Ironically, the blog the photo came from hasn't been updated since 2013. It hasn't been quite that long since I updated this blog, but it has been almost four months. I'm not sure how many people actually read my attempts at keeping this blog up, but for those of you who do, thank you.

If you've been following me for the little over eight years I've been posting this blog, you know it's been quite the journey. I didn't even realize I've been posting that long. I'll have to go back and read some of my old blog posts for kicks.

So what have I been doing the past four months that have kept me from posting? So much! I dug out an old story that I posted on The Royal Academy of Bards site at least ten years ago and reworked it. If you're not familiar with The Royal Academy of Bards, it's a Xena-Gabrielle fan fiction site with a lot of great free works to read. I used to post stories there before I was published and you can find some of my rough originals there.

Besides reworking my story, "The Outfitter," which has become "The Avalanche of Love," which will be released May 1, 2019, I'm working on a new play and a YA story amid our life of chaos. The chaos is caused by kids and pets. Even this morning, as I'm trying to write this, our new Australian shepherd mix kept nudging me until I finally got up to let him out to go potty.

Yes, we have a new dog, and we needed one like a hole in the head, but we got him the same way we ended up with three grandkids to raise. My oldest daughter, whose kids we have, gave her loser boyfriend this puppy when he was three months old. The boyfriend, who I could describe in the most colorful of terms, was not taking proper care of the dog and when they temporarily broke up decided he didn't want the dog. The grandkids had already grown attached to him, and he really is a sweet dog, so we took him. Now we have a Shih Tzu/Papillon/Chihuahua mix, who is not happy about the new dog; two cats, and three kids in our small three bedroom house.

For those of you who are just getting to know me, I used to be married to a man, as did my partner of twenty years, Rosa. She had two sons (her oldest passed away a few years ago due to diabetes complications). I have two daughters. Between us, we have eleven grandchildren from 14, almost 15, years old to 2 years old. 

The three we are raising are Jacob, the almost 15-year-old, Jazmyn, who might make it to 13 if she straightens up, and Julian, who is 5 and very good at it. All three are my oldest daughter, Jessica's children. Jessica had drug problems when Jacob and Jazmyn were babies and no maternal instincts. She still doesn't have any motherly instincts. Fortunately for the kids, Rosa has motherly instincts in spades. I do too. I don't have the patience she has.

Rosa just retired. Like, yesterday was her very first day of retirement. She'd worked for over 45 years, doing a wide variety of jobs. The last one was at a car parts factory for the past 15 years. Now, her job is taking care of the house and kids, especially the teenagers who need to be watched more than the 5-year-old does.

We planned for over a year for Rosa to be able to retire. Things will be tight money wise, but I was happy I could let her have this time of doing what she wants.

Earlier you may have noted that I said I was working on a new play. I wrote one last year that was performed by the Emerald Theater Company in Memphis, Tennessee. There is nothing like watching other people interpret your words and bringing them to life. You can check out the video of the dress rehearsal of the play "Is She or Isn't She" on YouTube.

As you can imagine, life stays pretty busy for us, and I haven't gotten to be online as much as I used to, and every time I think I'll get to do more work online, something else comes up. So, no promises about how soon I'll be able to post again. I hope you will stop back occasionally to see what new craziness is going on in my life. With teenagers in the house, you know there will be more craziness to report. 

I hope you have a fabulous day and are up early enough to catch a sunrise. I'm going to do some writing while it's still quiet in the house.

A Letter To My Fans

I would say that I'm surprised that I haven't posted since July, but that wouldn't be true. I'm not surprised. This fall has been absolutely crazy, and the beginning of winter hasn't fared much better. Especially after I almost took the tip of my left pinky off with the car door.

I have been mostly an optimistic person, but there have been a few really rough patches this year when my depression just about overtook me. I know a lot of you out there can relate.

My partner, Rosa and I are raising my oldest daughter's three children. Jacob,14; Jazmyn, 12; and Julian, who is 5 and very good at it. Jacob is bossy and controlling. Jazmyn is a drama queen and hanging with the wrong people. And Julian is busy, busy, busy and making these two middle-aged women tired.

We get no help from their mother, financially or otherwise, and that's my fault for being too loving of a mother and not enough of a bitch. Rosa's son and his wife help us as much as they can, but it's pretty much just us and the kids.

The lesbians we know, even the ones who have kids of their own, are not social with us because we don't fit into the social or economic class.

Rosa is going to retire in 2019 so she can take care of the kids full-time so; hopefully, they won't turn out to be the jerks their mother and aunt were when they were teenagers. Again, my fault, you can't beat or love genetic assholeness, and those two got it in spades from their dad and me.

So, I've taken on a part-time cleaning job, I work full-time as a librarian, and try to write as often as I can. You can imagine the challenge. But creating a good story and getting feedback from my fans is totally worth every minute I spend spinning my tales.

I have several unfinished stories that I will either complete this coming year or delete forever (well probably not). Anyway, I've set some pretty high goals for myself, and I hope you will all stay tuned for the stories to come.

Have a safe and Happy New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Love, M. E.

The Wrap-up of Finding Jenna's Chapter Summaries

This is the last chapter summary post for Finding Jenna. I hope that those of you who have followed this blog journey are as excited about the release of this book as I am. There are thirty-three chapters and an epilogue filled with excitement, courage, and love.

Chapter Thirty-two

Elliot takes his mother to Sandy’s restaurant in Morehead where Darlene and Terry get to meet Sandy. Everyone at the restaurant are excited to see Elliot and happy about the prospect of him possibly coming back to work there. Cara’s mother, Caroline, her grandparents, Ralph and Valerie meet there at the restaurant for lunch. Cara shows up with her new girlfriend, Bonnie. Elliot is disappointed and hurt that Cara doesn’t seem to be able to have the same feelings for him that she did for Jenna, but he knew if was a possibility from the beginning of his transformation.

You didn't think I'd give the whole story away, did you? I hope you'll get your copy of Finding Jenna to find out if Elliot and Cara work things out, and to find out what the final verdict is for Michael Matthews.

Thank you for following this story.

Finding Jenna Chapters Twenty-nine and Thirty summaries

Many apologies, yet again. One of the things about having children in your life, you can never predict how things are going to go. I thought for sure I'd be able to get online and update this blog for you while I had six of my seven grandchildren, but I was wrong. So here we are, just five days until the release of Finding Jenna. I hope that those of you who have been following the blog will be ready to get a copy of the book and find out how everything plays out.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Elliot goes to see his mother at the hospital in Evansville. Terry Howard had already explained to Elliot’s mother, Darlene about the changes he’s been through. Darlene wasn’t all that surprised and was just so happy to know that her child was alive that she didn’t care if he was a boy now. Elliot tells Darlene what happened and visits with her until the nurse tells him he as to go.

Chapter Thirty

Cara and Caroline Marshall are visiting Darlene when Elliot and Terry get back to the hospital. Caroline is happy that Jenna is alive in Elliot. Cara leaves the room to avoid Elliot, but he finds her in the hospital cafeteria. The two of them talk about Elliot’s changes and why he can’t go back to being Jenna. End the end they agree to try to be friends.