My First Indie Author Event in San Francisco! SFINE

I am so excited to tell you all about my first ever "indie" author's event, SFINE! I am going to be at the Sheraton at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco on Saturday, June 15th from 12-4pm. OMG, can I just say I am so excited to be invited to such an amazing event! Colleen Hoover, Nyrae Dawn, Steph Campbell, and Jillian Dodd just to name a few of the 30 authors that will be there, with me! I can't wait to rub elbows with some truly talented writers!

Hey, but wait! Did I mention you're invited! Just go to the website,www.sfine.net and register (it's free). Then, come on down! I'd  love to meet some of my amazing Northern California readers and sign your books! If you don't have a copy of Wilson 1 or 2, don't worry, click HERE, scroll through to the last page and order a copy or two!

It has been an amazing time in my life and I can't wait to share it with all of you!

With Love,

Gretchen 

Truth Filled Confession...

I know everyone is biting at the bit to get their hands on the second book (my editor cleverly refers to as WM18@L).

I want to tell you how much it means to me to have so many people who have invested their time and hearts in Wilson and Max. Being a new indie author, I’ve learned there are a lot of avenues I have to trudge through to figure out what is working or not in this adventure called self-publishing.

Everyone has been caring, fair, patient, and totally understanding. So I owe a fair and honest answer to the hundreds of people who peek in on the Wilson Mooney blog every couple of days, wanting to know when the second book will be available.

Trust me, I wish I could just have the book out tomorrow, and let you all live in Wilson’s head for a couple of days; but if I did that, it wouldn’t be a quality moment for you and your experience with Wilson and Max is very important to me. Especially now that they don’t just live in my head anymore; they don’t just belong to me anymore. 

So, I want to take a moment to tell you what is happening as of right now in the physical world of getting Wilson out to you!

**My editor is 90% done with edits to the book. She likes what she sees and that makes me feel good. She is on her second read through and should be done by sometime next week.

**My designer and I are working out visuals for the cover and I think we will be able to pin it down in the next week. I still have to get the back cover summary hammered out. But I think that shouldn’t take much.

**My biggest hurdle I keep dreading is the typesetting and uploading. I know the process has changed since I uploaded the first book. So here’s to hoping the process is dummy-proof for me!

 

**Amongst all of this, I am behind at getting a book trailer out for WM18@L. But a great musician is letting me use one of his original songs, for the book video! The creative process continues!

Gosh, I can’t tell you how overwhelmingly grateful I am to everyone who has worked on Wilson. I have very talented, selfless, giving people, who are invested in this process with me. Not to mention the readers who love the book and keep it alive via word of mouth.

It is very important to me that people who read WM18@L still feel the connection they had with the characters in the first book. 

Oh my God, the pressure of producing a sequel is totally crazy! There are readers who have read the book over and over again. So keeping the continuity from the first book into the second is pretty important. Also, when I wrote the first book I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Now I do!

So here I am, at the same spot on the Merry-Go-Round, reaching for that elusive gold ring that seems to be so close and yet keeps slipping out of my hand every time I reach for it. It’s a feeling of disappointment that I can’t allow myself to embody. What I want is to snatch the ring, push my feet down in the stirrups of the carrousel horse and thrust that ring into the air, hollering at the top of my lungs…“I did it!” That, yes, I have a hard date WM18@L will be available. But it seems so impossible to predict right now.

Truthfully, what it comes down to is…I don’t want to let my readers down (there I said it). If I give a date and the book isn’t ready…how crappy would that be? Pretty crappy! So that’s why I am keeping tight-lipped about throwing dates out regarding WM18@L’s release date.

But, I promise you, when I feel I’m close I will post it here on the blog, the Facebook Fan Page, which feeds it to Twitter, and on my website.

Thank you for coming back and checking in on me! I really do appreciate your interest and patience. And believe it or not, I truly know how hard it is to wait when you are left—wanting more.

With Gratitude and Respect,

Gretchen

Almost One Year Later!

Sales of Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen are growing at a steady pace. Almost a year after it was released it seems word of mouth is working its magic. Yeah, at times I wonder if it is because I am getting close to releasing the second novel in the series…maybe. Or it could be that people are finding it because they are looking for a steamy read with a storyline and character development.

I understand readers want to invest in the characters; it is important to feel the different emotions that the characters evoke in their hearts. Let’s face it, we all want to love, hate, get angry, and laugh at characters in a book. We want to be entertained and transported to another world, even if it is only for a couple hours in a day.

When I decided to self-publish Wilson, I went about it with blinders on. When I stumbled or came across a roadblock, I would hit the internet and searched out how to overcome it. Yeah, sometimes I had to take a pretty big shovel and tunnel under some real huge barriers. Sometimes I would fall off the confidence wagon and question the choices I made. But I eventually found my footing again, fixed the axle of the wagon, and gave it a running push before I jumped back on.

The biggest roadblock I still work at overcoming; the biggest mental hurtle I work on the most (sometimes multiple times a day), has been my own self-defeating talk in my head. You know that little irritating, nonsensical voice that shows up in the back of your head when you believe everything is heading in the right direction.

Do I listen to the little irritating turd in the back of my head? Sometimes~ But my saving grace has been the people who support me and want to share in the success of my stories. See, I learned early in life, the people you attract in your life, the people who surround you will shape your experiences. Now, fortunately, I have some really amazing people in my life; people who share the same philosophy as I do. I’m not saying that we are a bucket of rainbows all the time. But we don’t focus on the negative situations for very long when they seem to come up and bite us in the rear.

Now, I’m not saying my journey been perfect. But it’s my journey and how I react to it, creates my experience. I work every day at perfecting my craft, marketing my books, and most importantly making sure to live in gratitude. Every person who has invested in me and my stories, every new sale I get, every letter or email I receive, and every moment I am given to write and create…I consciously and verbally give thanks for…everyday.

Thanks for visiting~

Make sure you check out the Wilson Mooney Facebook page~ HERE

 

Are We There Yet?

It’s funny, people who are close to me and my process can tell when I am coming to the end of a story. I start looking for the reassurance that what I wrote isn’t sh*t. I begin to question what I have written. It’s a bizarre feeling when my thoughts begin to morph into different advocates that cheer or hiss in my head.

I have to admit, when I decided to publish Wilson’s story…I felt like I took every stitch of clothing off and ran butt naked down the median on the highway. Every flap of skin, every pocket of cellulite, mole, and gnarly scar exposed for anyone who wanted to look over and point a finger (Pay attention, traffic is stopping up a head!). And yet as I awkwardly tried to run with my hands over my no-show parts, I felt the need to just free my arms and start waving at all of the rubberneckers checking me out.

Because, now that people are taking a chance on me and read my writing; they are beginning to wave back instead of point. They smile instead of scowl, and they actually roll down the window to cheer me on. They don’t notice the flaps bouncing with every step and somehow my moles and scars seem to disappear. Suddenly the shift from apprehension to confidence has taken place. Don’t get me wrong, I live the teeter-totter of cheers and jeers daily.

Everyday I’m learning that being an author is a game of patience and gratitude. I am completely aware that some people search their entire life to find something that drives them and they never discover what it is. I realize how fortunate I am to have found what drives me. There’s something deep in my heart…actually it’s in every cell of my body that tells me that I have to write. It’s almost like breathing. It is so personal, and yet at the same time so communal. 

It’s as if the huge metal claw in the grab-o-matic game hovered over me before it dropped down and snatched me up by the head and waved me precariously over the sea of prizes. And before I knew it, I was in the arms of the people who celebrated who I was and what I wrote. It's been the most humbling experience and continues to be!

So I guess I want to tell you, my wonderful readers…Thank you! Thanks for your support, your loyalty, and your patience as I edit, re-work, and revise Wilson Mooney, Eighteen at Last. Thanks for all the emails and letters you send me about Wilson and how her story has resonated with you in your own life.

From the bottom of my heart I am truly grateful.

Please keep checking back for updates and little teasers as I get closer to releasing the second book in the Wilson Mooney Series.

Want more?

Visit my website: www.gretchendelao.com

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Send me an email: gretchen(at)gretchendelao(dot)com

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Wilson Mooney, Eighteen at Last Teaser...

Alright ladies, here's a little bite for ya...

"Max glared at the floor for a postponed moment. His eyes slowly raked up my body. My skin burned and my vision blurred as my heartbeat bruised my lungs. It was agonizing to watch him take me in inch by inch. His expression tortured; his lips pulled in a severe line; his shoulders rounded like the whole world was dumped heavy across them. He opened his mouth and his nostrils flared as he began to speak words that must have caught somewhere between his heart and the back of his throat."

(Wilson Mooney, Eighteen at Last~2012)

Time Sneaks Away...

I know, I know, you don't have to ask. Where's the second book? 

I am still working on it! It seems lately Wilson and Max keep finding their way to the back of my laptop screen; especially when life tosses curve balls at my head. DUCK!!! (Don't worry, W & M are enjoying the privacy ;-p)

I really would like to be able to say... "wow I am done with the book and it is in edits," but that just wouldn't be truthful or advisable; considering I tend to have very dedicated loyal readers. Let's face it, I have the best readers in the world! And that's why I can be honest and comfortable with you all.

Wilson and Max's continued story is still in chunks and pieces, fortunately the space between the chunks and pieces are beginning to shrink to intimate moments tying scenes to pages and the novel is taking form. 

Equating it to life, it has ten fingers, ten toes, a beating heart, and the breath of life is beginning to fill it's lungs. It still needs some time before it is born, but soon, with nourishment and time the world will have one amazing continuum of Wilson and Max together.

Thank you for all your support, words of encouragement and I can't wait to give you Wilson Mooney, Eighteen at Last!