Today’s the day.

Today, although I’ve been writing forever, I can officially call myself an author. My debut novella, Fortune’s Fool, is on sale! To call my path to publication a long road is understating the point immensely. I’ve done the dance (and been abandoned on the floor) by several publishers along the way. I have an uncanny talent for writing exactly the right book at exactly the wrong time–either it’s too weird or just misses the wave or the line closes or something.

This time, though, I took a different route. A group of writer friends, all of whom are from Central Florida, came up with the idea to write a series of interconnected novellas. The idea came from a conversation Catherine, Caro, Teresa, and Wynter had while driving home from RWA National in Atlanta. They invited Katherine, Nancy, and yours truly to join the group, and the Jewel Box Authors were born.

I have to admit to a huge wall of trepidation. I was the only unpublished author in the group. Between them, these women have bestseller status, contracts with multiple publishers, pretty much everything I hadn’t managed to attain for myself. It’s intimidating. Flattering, too, considering how generous and encouraging everyone was about my participation. So I said yes, and my unlikely journey to publication began.

The next several months involved decisions I never thought I’d have to make. On top of the writing, I now had to think about cover design, hiring a cover artist, distribution points, pricing, sourcing outside editing, promotion–things I frankly wasn’t ready for but learned along the way. Writing the story had its own twist as well, since I had to focus on continuity elements in addition to my own characters and their journey. There were days when I felt swept along, days when I thought I’d quit, days when I wondered what I’d gotten myself into, all leading up to today.

I can’t thank my friends enough for making me do this. I can’t thank my family enough for ignoring my lapses in motherhood and housekeeping. I can’t thank Mr. Man enough for being who he is, strong and supportive. Nor you, for celebrating along with me and (I hope!) buying or downloading a copy of your own. Here’s where you can find one:

Amazon (print or Kindle)
Barnes and Noble (print)
Nook
Kobo

Happy reading!