Happy Monday Everyone, The newest news for me is that after 10 years, 2 months, I left Romance Writers of America. It wasn't an easy decision and I didn't make it lightly at all. I won't get into the reasons or any of the recent events. I made a decision I thought was the right one for me. I plan to keep the good relationships/friendships I made while a member of the organization and continue to learn and grow the best I can with the many other resources available to me. I'm grateful to the organization for the experiences that I treasure and for the connections I did make because of being a part of it. I plan to continue writing Romance, just not being a member of RWA. I'm working on several projects--some are books, and some are book-related but not writing or critiquing. I like keeping busy and I like the different ideas and things coming my way. Under my Jeannie Averie pseudonym, I've been querying agents and participating in Twitter Pitch parties. I...

Happy Monday One and All! Yikes! It's been a month since I wrote on this blog. I'm sorry! If it's any consolation, I did update the Jeannie Averie blog. This post is one that I started thinking about last week. I did some talking about this on Twitter (under both names) but I haven't actually written it all out in a more cohesive format. First and foremost: this is not a pity party. I hate throwing myself pity parties. Please, don't pity me. Don't feel sorry for me. My life has had ups and downs like everyone else's and I'm not looking for special treatment. In fact, I hate being patronized, too. The only special treatment I ever got out of this was having a laptop to take notes in high school and untimed standardized testing days. For the rest, I've worked hard. Oftentimes, swallowing my nerves and asking for help. Sometimes facing less-than-understanding teachers, but never felt entitled to anything except for the help I needed...and even the...

Happy Monday & 2020 To Everyone! When I was in high school, I couldn't even fathom 2000, much less 2020. It didn't matter how close or far any of those years were, I just found it astounding. It's another year to grow, learn, and experience life. Speaking from my experience, every year has good and bad. Some years you enjoy the good more, and other years, you've got to push through more of the bad. In any case, I like to experience each year whether it is mostly good or not. This year, I want to finish books 5 and 6 in the Immortal Dreams series. I'm pretty much ready to wrap up the Immortals, at least, for now. I've got some other ideas flashing here and there, so it would be good to see where else my imagination takes me. Now, that doesn't mean I'm not going to pay attention to those last 2 books and try to do the series justice--I am, and I will. The series is important to me, and I want to do it justice. Just hang on a bit while I work out...

Happy Friday Everybody! Recently I finished writing a Romance that features shape-shifters. This is not a YA (Young Adult) novel. Considering that my aim is not YA with this novel, and I'd been thinking about it for a long time, I decided to develop another pen-name strictly for those types of novels. Bethany Averie will remain associated with the Immortal Dreams series and any other YA novels I write. Jeannie Averie will be for the NON -YA Romance novels (Paranormal and Fantasy) that I write. The Jeannie Averie novels will be for ages 18/21 and up. Bethany Averie novels are high school and up. There isn't a drastic difference, except that the Jeannie Averie novels are a bit different in style and tone. Slightly "hotter".  So they need a different pen-name. Now, why do I use pen names? I like to keep my personal life separate from my professional life. Yes, tiny details of my personal life seep into my professional life, but the two are not exactly the...