The first time I ever “met” an author, I was eleven years old, pajama-clad, sitting in the back of my mom’s blue station wagon while Romancing the Stone played on the giant screen in front of me. The author’s name was Joan Wilder. She was a romance author. And she looked like this:
After the release of Ashes Swept, I was surprised by how many readers said they were excited for the sequel and asked when it would be out. This caught me completely off-guard, because Ashes Swept was always meant to be a stand-alone novel. The book covers the important part of Synda May’s story, so I’d never even considered adding on beyond that.
Continue reading “Why I’m Not Writing a Sequel to Ashes Swept”
Sitting here at my desk, contemplating this post, I’m finding it hard to believe another year has gone by. One year ago, I was knee-deep in editing Ashes Swept with the help of my CPs, Shannon and Ely. It had been a whole year since I’d set up my author page and social media sites, but the reality of calling myself an author felt a million miles away. Now, with 2017 behind me, it feels like my first launch day was ages ago.
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Hillary Clinton said: “The whole romance novel industry is about women being grabbed and thrown on a horse and ridden off into the distance.”
I laughed when I first read that. Then I grumbled. And then I set out to write a post about how unjust that sentiment is. That’s when I fell down a familiar rabbit hole. And bear with me, this subject change is going to give you whiplash…
I finished the fourth draft last week, and if all goes well, that should be my last revision. Now I’ve just got to send it back out to my team, make the necessary edits, and do a few polishing runs. I’m finally approaching the end of this tunnel!
The publication timeline is slowly coming into focus, but I don’t have a date yet. Part of that will depend on my cover artist. Hopefully I’ll have a better idea in the next month or so.
Now that I’m getting so close to the end, I’ve started looking ahead to book two. I’m really excited to get back into editing that one. It’s actually the first novel I wrote–way back in 2010. The story needs a lot of work. And, I realized, it’s another red-headed protagonist. Which, oops. I swear I only have two! =)
Julia J Simpson 