The Official Launch Of...........

This is it! 

Today is the official launch of my new author's website! I'm very excited and pleased to see it go "live" to everyone around the world!

I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while, as a way to get the name out there and to showcase some of my photography from various venues that actually appear in Book 1, aka "No Regrets". So far, the site is very plain, but it includes the same banner I use on my Facebook public profile, a slideshow featuring shots of various places like Mahone Bay and Lunenburg, a brief biography and a little surprise for anyone who visits it!

The special people who got a prescreening seemed to love it and after they gave me some creative criticism, I tweaked things until they were perfect. The site looks great and I'm so happy to have my own website now, as a way to get the name out there even more and to promote my books! 

I humbly to invite all of you to visit...

V.J. Allison's Official Website

The link is permanently included in my Links area.

Thank you to all of my fans, friends, family and loved ones who supported me in the first stages of my journey to become published! I'm not quite there yet but hopefully I'll soon be able to announce I will be published one way or another, whether it's via a publishing house or self publishing of some sort! Much love to all of you who have been there for me during every single step of my journey!

On another note, my wonderful husband and I officially became a couple 22 years ago today... So it's a double celebration for me!

Happy Labor Day and have a wonderful week everyone! 

Launch Day!

Today has been a great day...

It was the official launch day of my Author's page and updated author's profile, along with updating the look of my blog. Everything went smoothly and it looks great!

My author's page now has a banner with a photo (taken by me) of the shoreline in my area, and my theme, "Love is the music of the heart..." on it. It looks wonderful and I'm tickled about the new look!

The updated profile (owner of the page) has a banner using the same picture, but with a little surprise on it... A quote from Book 1!

As all of you can see, the blog is updated with a new scheme too... The photo I have as a background is the sky portion of the photo I used for the banners.

Everything looks great. I'm happy how it all falls into line and everything has the same theme... Sky and sea represent endless possibilities and that's what I'm hoping to show with the new look everywhere.

I also got a little writing done today... Hubby took Son shopping with him so I had some quiet time (first in a couple of weeks!) and I dove back into it. I did take out a scene in Chapter 29 that was dragging the story down and got back to the build up of the gem that Sandra shot at me back in March. I haven't done the initial edit yet (things have been crazy in Facebook, I'm getting notifications galore in both profiles!) but hope to get to it when things settle down here. What I wrote today reveals a little more to the mystery that the leading lady is trying to unravel... That's all I'm saying! I'm doing my best to only give away bits and pieces very slowly, but not too slowly! I don't want to bore the reader after all, but at the same time, I don't want to give it all away at once. The big "WOW!" will come during the gem idea and that won't be happening for a few more chapters at least!

It's been an awesome day and I'm flying high....

I'd like to thank everyone who has messaged me, commented on my posts, liked my posts and photos, etc and gave me love and support during the official launch of my Facebook author's page and profile today... I'm so blessed to have such wonderful family, friends and fans! Love you all!

(And thank you everyone who sent me birthday wishes! Y'all rock!)

Have a wonderful week everyone!

The Final Countdown Begins...

It's been a long road but I'm finally starting to see the end of this journey ahead of me...
NR's first draft was finished almost five months ago... Since then, I've been letting it perk, editing it, I had my beloved mentor Sandra (Durham) read it and I've been making necessary changes to it.
It's time... To get moving with the final stages of getting it ready for publishers and hopefully landing a publishing contract with one of the ones on my list. If not, there is always the self publishing route!
The synopsis for publishers is now completed, I have the perfect nom de plume (my real name is a tongue twister!) and over the next few days, the first cover letters will be written up, a final reread/edit of the story will happen and finally, NR will be on its way to at least one publisher.
After this blog entry, I will probably not be posting much about NR except in passing, a recap of my journey with it, or in regards to what I hope will become its sequel, Untitled 8 or "WL" as the working title now stands.
The nervousness has settled in but only a little bit right now. I imagine it will settle in a lot more once NR is out into the world and I'm getting squirrelly while waiting for replies from the publishers I've chosen. I will not be revealing who those publishers are for fear of biasing them either to or against me one way or another, nor do I want to disappoint everyone when the rejections start rolling in. Yes, I am being realistic here... Even a great like Stephen King got rejections before he got his first publishing contract... So someone like me may get a lot more and I'm preparing myself for it. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a publishing contract after all and there are some who are very successful in the self publishing realm. If I don't get on with a publisher, I will definitely be going that way.
NR WILL be published one way or another. I promise all of you that.
I will continue to post blog entries from time to time, as work on WL/Untitled 8 progresses and I'll definitely be posting something when NR will be published, etc.
Thank you all, for reading and following me on this journey... It's been one heck of a long road from NR's conception to this last couple of steps before it's finally sent out to publishers, almost three years. It hasn't been easy, I've had so many ups and downs, good days and bad days, but I think in the end, it was all worth it. I finished one book in my lifetime and will see it published, some how and some day in the future.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...
Blessings, love, peace, light and happiness be yours.
Always,
~Valerie-June~