OMEGA RISING is ready and I just hit the ‘publish button’…
Okay folks, I’m finally finished and ready to put it out there. Part two in my Dormant Desires series, Omega Rising, is now available on Kindle. Just an FYI to all you that don’t have a reading device, such as myself, Amazon offers the app for free to any device, Mac included! So don’t use your lack of a Kindle as a valid excuse to not get my books. I have my app on my PC laptop and it works just fine!
Omega Rising is a continuation of my Alpha Awakened story. Allison and Jacob find each other and we get to meet the bubbly and infectious personality of our red headed heroine. Jacob finds release from his insanity and together with Matthews’s family, they all head into an unpredictable future. Jacob and Allison consummate the bonding ritual which is somewhat violent and very painful, but with dramatic and fantastic results at the end, and they find themselves mated and bound for life. It’s a passionate story and I’ve further developed some of the main characters.
And a little more about me:
I started this blog a couple days ago and it morphed into a strange sort of confessional, so, I’m going with it and decided to flesh it out and reveal more about me. I’ve been working like a fool, and trying to find time to not only finish my own projects, but also continue to get out my weekly word count for my ghost writing jobs. These are the jobs that are putting food on my table, so unfortunately, I have to put them first on my list of have to’s, and there really isn’t enough time in a day, or enough brain power in my skull, to write more than eight or nine hours a day, which yes, that’s what I’ve been doing. No wonder I feel drained and empty as of late, and why responding to friends emails is torture for my weary fingers.
When my books sell enough that I can simply write for myself, I will be able to really focus on my own works, which is part of my current struggle. I’m dealing with a bit of depression because once again, I’m doing something I love, but I’m doing it for others and cannot find the time to do what I want, for myself. It always come down to finances and how to survive, how to eat, how to feed the dogs. This week, I was sick, so I didn’t earn a thing, and now, there isn’t any grocery money, or feed store money, and I’m totally bummed that I have to work like a dog just to feed myself. I’m also weary by this age to still be living from paycheck to paycheck. I have nothing saved, no investments and seriously people, no hope of it getting any better.
I’m also in a stage of my own evolution where I’ve given up having any sort of real life, or real friends, or even a relationship. I’ve always been an all or nothing kinda gal, and now seems no different. I’ve decided it’s not so much a character flaw as simply my character. Even with the years I dedicated to my horsemanship, I gave it everything I had. Not always, but most of the time, hard work does pay off, and even though, when I was at my lowest point and vowing I’d never again invest myself fully in anything! I find I’ve once again gone and done just that, and I’m only tentatively hopeful that it will pay off for me in the end. I often read back over what I’ve produced and think its juvenile, and I can do so much better… in like ten years and that many more hours of practice. Then I cry because I’m not sure I have it in me.
Unfortunately, (for me), I don’t really know how to operate any other way. My inner beast is a lazy mother fucker and mostly craves depression, and long hours of TV and laying on the couch. Back when I started a dialogue with this slothsome creature inside myself, I bargained with it that we could stay on the couch if we could somehow produce something, and so, I began writing. What I found was the catharsis that writing provided me, and that sense that I could fulfill my desires to love and be loved through my characters. My stories are nothing shy of my versions of modern fairy tales, not the happily ever after kind, the formula romance where they travel through a land of hating each other, only to come out the other end discovering they can’t live without the other, (I’m so sick of that kind of story), but mine are more the, we love each other enough to somehow struggle through and survive together, kind of tale. Always though, always, it has to come down to love being the most important thing. In my stories, love is power, and energy, and the final solution.
So, when you read what I’ve written, you are getting a really big dose of who I am as a person, what I’ve always secretly wished for in my life, but also always knew would never happen. I wasn’t raised on fairy tales, my mom thought them way too evil of a way to bring up kids; not real life, all lies, opposite of reality and a terrible way to set up a young mind to fail repeatedly in its future quest of an unattainable, fictional solution meant to appease the misery of reality.
The odd part however was, is, even without the input of fairy tales onto my young psyche, I still longed for my prince charming. I put that in past tense because I don’t much anymore, he never appeared, and at this point I’m pretty convinced he doesn’t exist, and if he did, I don’t have enough energy left to find him or reciprocate if I did. I’m also grappling with the fact I feel far too old to really fall in love, not because of my age in years upon my body, no, it’s more because of my age in years in my soul. I seriously doubt I can fall in love. It feels as if that is a broken place inside my heart, a defective place that’s been trampled on and then subsequently unused to the point that it’s atrophied away and disappeared entirely.
I write about it now, I live through my characters, but I never really believe it can happen. I can’t even keep casual friends, how in the world can I form a bond with another soul that would get me … even partially? Daily I struggle with my beasts desires to not care, not invest, and simply give up again, which I actually did four years ago. It was a hideous time in my life, and conversely, it was the most liberating freedom I’ve ever felt.
I’ve always had this knowing inside of me that I was meant to be a success. I have been a success, in a small way, simply because I’ve always followed my bliss and never worked for another, or clocked in or spent any amount of time watching as it painfully, slowly clicked by. My life instead has flown past me, and now I find I am just about half way through it, and have not a thing to show for all those past years. Unless you count my own souls growth and evolution. Humans don’t count this as success, I can only hope that someone out there does, because if not? I’m totally screwed!
At the risk of sounding arrogant or cocky, I’ve never been much of a fan of others, but I’ve always felt as if I should have fans. I didn’t have kids, I suppose those are built in worshippers that are guaranteed to love you. I just don’t feel as if it’s worth the torture I would have endured simply to create my own fan base. Of course, it could be argued I have spent my life, self-torturing in search of my people, when all along, all I really needed to do birth them.
I get to a point when I publish something, a book, a blog post, even an email sometimes, and I physically shake, and my heart pounds when I hit the enter button. It’s a way of flaying myself open and exposing all my hidden little parts, I can’t take it back, it has now become public domain and I must deal with the consequences, which is another whole part of the evolution of who I am. It’s the moment of judgment, and I understand now what other writers say when they complement me on my bravery. I’ve decided to go ahead and just put it all out there, no hiding, and no years and years of practice.
My first novel, AdventuresinPayne, is okay, I still feel it needs a ton of work, but I self-published it so I had something to show for two years of work. Open and unashamed has always been my motto. It’s not garnered me the best responses from others, but it’s kept me open, and willing to look deeply inside myself, and then I am in turn, willing to offer it up into the light, for all to see.
All those years of introspection are hopefully, willingly coming out now in my characters, and I’m still trying to find my peeps, my fans, and even though it sounds way too cocky, my followers. Shameless self-promotion is the name of the current game. If you like me, please help me. That’s all I ask. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to write and promote myself and my books and I wonder how everyone else is doing it?
Over the last three months I’ve consistently written five thousand words a day, five or six days a week. For these aforementioned ghost jobs, (I don’t get author credit, but I do get paid up front while the client struggles with the promotional end of things), I’ve managed to write one other entire novel, it’s about 90K words and has jokingly been referred to as the vampire/human sex manual, yeah, it’s all about the erotica at this point, and that’s what I’m getting paid for, writing the sex scenes is easy for me. We have plans for me to continue on with that story and write a second installment soon. I’ve also produced both Alpha Awakened and Omega Rising, and right now am attempting to get both these novellas combined into one printable paperback book and also narrated for audio. That’s still an ongoing project.
Next on my list is a joint effort novel with author Noir Duvall. The current working title is, The Road to Salvation. This book will find us in a post-apocalyptic world full of creatures from legend and lore, including zombies and some new beings that I’ve created. Aiden is our recalcitrant human hero that struggles to lead a weary band of other humans through a life full of treacherous conditions. Narrissa is a mystery woman that Aiden finds one night on his way home from the only town in a hundred miles, Salvation. Narrissa is amnesiac and wounded. Aiden takes her back to camp and the adventure unfolds from there as they attempt to figure out who she is, and what she is, since she apparently is not a human. She reveals some amazing abilities and powers, and of course she and Aiden find a tenuous physical connection.
I’m also attempting to find time to edit my completed second installment in the ADVENTURESINPAYNE Series/saga, DISCOVERIES. In this second installment we enter the land of the Fae where there are Griffons, Dragons and Elves. Payne and Jess find themselves dependent on each other while they search for Collin who’s been captured and taken into this alternate dimension. We also get to see some of Queen Talia’s back story and what happened during the years following her capture and while her soul was still in the hands of Cypher.
I also have plans to write a third installment in Dormant Desires which will take us farther into the lives of Allison, Jacob, the clans Fraser and McQueen, and the wolf Lumen. I don’t have a title for this one yet, but the story is brewing inside me right now.
The only way I can justify writing full time is if I keep working on these ghost jobs, (great practice if nothing else!), and through the help of my small, (all five of you), fan base. Your encouragement and support mean the world to me. Please spread the word and help me get my books sold so I can keep doing this thing I so dearly love. I do believe I have a talent for it, and like I’ve always said, I can only get better. Perfect Practice Daily is what I’m striving towards.
I thrive on the good feedback and, although I hate the negative, I listen to it as a way of learning, and I take what I can and I apply it to my next story. Please keep telling me what you like and what you don’t, and hopefully I can write in a way that pleases all of us… or most of us… or all six of us!
Come and fan me up on Goodreads here: http://www.goodreads.com/Adventuresinpayne
And Follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/PayneAdventures
I’m also on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/paynehawthorne/
And on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/PayneatAdventuresinPayne
And My Amazon Author page where all my books are available on digital: http://www.amazon.com/author/paynehawthorne
AdventuresinPayne 