Another Year, More Responsibilities and a NEW BOOK!

Hello there. I’d like to thank everyone for the onslaught of birthday wishes. It’s great to know everyone is thinking of me today. It’s a lot different than last year. I was a mess – My beloved baby Amber, aka "Shithead", was not well, and she progressed downhill so fast. We lost her the following day, August 20^th.

This year, things are so much brighter. I’ve made a lot of new friends, from eXtasy Books/Devine Destinies, and other spots, and I’ve also gained a lot more responsibility as an author in the eXtasy Books/Devine Destinies realm. Best of all, my sophomore novel, Away to Me, is coming out sometime later this year!

Away to Me

Book 1 of the Tri-Town Series

A huge thank you to Cheryl Headford, Maggie Blackbird, Taryn Jameson and Denise N. Wheatley for doing the cover reveal for Away to Me for me on August 5^th! I’m tickled to have such great friends that are also uber talented authors.

August 5^th was also the day I got the first round of edits back from my editor at eXtasy Books for Away to Me. Despite being accepted, it still needed a lot of work.

Away to Me was one of those stories that started off in one area and wound up going into a completely different direction when it was looked at several years later. It was originally written in 2014, as a practice run, and although I did submit it to a publisher, it was rejected.

After looking at it in 2019, I can see why. It was full of passive areas, and tended to feature too much of the pets’ antics. It was over 74 K when I started revisions on it in May, and by the time I was finished round one, it was down to under 60 K. I also removed areas where the dog slid across the floor, or they were paying attention to him when they were supposed to be discussing their relationship or their daughter.

It wasn’t all pet antics either, there were a lot of mistakes overall, from using nicknames instead of full names and other things. I learned that lesson from Stricken and its publication process, and I’ve learned a lot more in the last six months, thanks to help from fellow eXtasy Books/Devine Destinies authors, some of who are best selling, so they know their business.

A couple of more passes saw it being cut down to about 55 K, which is about what it was when I submitted it to eXtasy Books.

In the pass with my new editor, Trish, Away to Me lost over another 1 K, due to more passive areas. Again, it was stuff with the pets. I removed the last two scenes featuring the pets, that was cut back to a sentence or two.

However, to make up for it, and to add a bit of the “twist” you see in my author tagline, I was asked to whip up a scene or two here and there to smooth out some spots that seemed to end to abruptly.

In the end, the updated word count is close to 55 K. It’s Novel Length according to eXtasy Books/Devine Destinies guidelines, and a few K short of Stricken’s final word count.

I sent the accepted edits and new revisions back on August 12, and heard back from Trish last night. She accepted my work (thank heavens) and I’m now back to waiting for approval from our higher ups.

I’m not expecting this book to be out until sometime in October (going by the 120 day guideline listed on the eXtasy Books submission rules) but I could be wrong. Like I’ve said before, nothing is set in stone in this business, so be prepared to have things be changed up on you (in a good way) at any second!

You can add Away to Me to your wish list at eXtasy Books here: https://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2630-9-away-to-me/

Stricken:  http://www.extasybooks.com/v-j-allison/stricken/

Thanks again for your continued support!

Book 2 of the Tri-Town Series

I’m back to plugging away on this one. It’s slow going even though the first draft was written in 2017, because I’m adding to the foundation of this story as I go. I’m deepening the POV, changing it up a bit, adding more descriptions of things (which was lacking even in the better drafts of this one) and doing my best to make sure I don’t have any of the same mistakes in it that Stricken and Away to Me did before they were submitted. I am taking all of the lessons I’ve learned from the last three years and applying them to this manuscript.

I’m only on Chapter 2 of this one’s revisions, so do not expect me to say it’s submitted/accepted for a while. I’ll probably be much deeper into it once Away to Me is finally live, and I’m not worrying about that one so much.

Thanks again for being so patient with me the last couple of years. I’m doing my best to get a backlist built up, and get more stories out to my amazing fans.

Have a wonderful week, everyone! I leave you with my favorite song of all time… STRICKEN by Disturbed.