Loving Chico

OOPS! First, my apology: I'm sorry, folks, but my automatic time scheduler failed me and this didn't come online when I expected it to. It's here now!

The little town where I live in northern California has much to commend it. I've loved this community for decades now and, when I chose to set a new WIP here, I decided I want my readers to love it as much as I do. I'm taking the opportunity to share some of the things I love most about our little community. Here's one quick bit of description from MAGGIE RISING:

Saturday was another Chamber of Commerce day, as nearly perfect as a day ever gets. I enjoyed our ride into town, past the cemetery and along the creek to the large parking lot where the market gathers. It was filled with vendors’ pavilions, produce and products for sale, and wall-to-wall, shoulder-to-shoulder shoppers. This market was always much smaller than the Thursday night affair. Though there were usually musicians on one side or the other, there were no belly dancers, no jugglers, no bounce houses or two-story inflatable slides. Saturday’s market was more business than pleasure.

It was also quintessentially Chico—the neo-hippies with their dreadlocks and fabric shopping bags mingling with gray-haired couples holding hands and well-dressed younger families with toddlers in tow; the Hmong farmers working their booths side-by-side with the lilywhite fifth-generation growers whose ancestors had been among the area’s first non-native settlers; the potters and jewelry artists hawking their wares beside the folks with the petition to legalize recreational marijuana, while conservative politicians smiled and shook hands and kissed babies in the next booth over. The whole place smells delicious—scents of fresh produce or yeasty bread mingling with the patchouli oil and sandalwood on the artisans. 

That's just a taste, of course. Before Maggie has finished, she is going to show readers all that's best about my hometown.

Susan Aylworth wrote her first "novel" on a yellow legal pad when she was nine years old. Her first eight published books are now available in digital form for Kindle, Nook and other e-readers. Her ninth novel, A SECRET FAMILY RECIPE, is due from Covenant Communications in June, 2013.

My Muse Has A.D.D.

For some years now I've joked about my muse and how she (I know she's a she) can't seem to stick to a single genre. Although my first seven books were romances, and #8 was too, that eighth one began to diverge and became a little bit of something else--what, I'm not exactly sure. The editors at Covenant liked it and it came out with "romance" in the description.
Book Nine took a while, and largely because it's such a huge departure. A SECRET FAMILY RECIPE, due out in June 2013 and also from Covenant, is the story of a family, broken years before by adultery and divorce, now struggling to piece itself back together and forge new connections. The title does not disappoint and there are indeed recipes at the beginning of each chapter, but romance? Maybe some touches here and there, but this is a story about a struggling family. The word "romance" will not appear in the description.
Last month Covenant and I signed contracts on Book Ten, which won't appear for another year or so, and talk about departures! EASTWARD TO ZION is historical. It starts in Sydney, Australia in 1852 and follows James and Eliza as they find one another, fall in love and marry (the romance part), but it continues to follow them as they meet Mormon missionaries, convert and gather to Zion, ending in Deseret in 1860. It's a religious story, an adventure, a tale of connections to friends. Muse and I had a great time working on it.
So where is my muse headed now? Would you believe Young Adult Paranormal Detective stories? I'm working with my agent to place MAGGIE RISING with a large New York house--if I can get the YA elements down correctly.
There are more YA stories floating around in my muse's territory, where she lives in the back of my brain. She has romances back there, too, and another family saga. She and I both enjoyed doing the research for historical fiction; maybe there will be more of that as well.
All I'm certain of is this: Where she goes, I will follow. She makes "branding" difficult, but she hasn't misled me yet.

Susan Aylworth's first eight books are now available in digital editions for Nook, Kindle and other e-reader platforms. Watch for A SECRET FAMILY RECIPE this June.

Resolutions for 2013

My last post was on Old Year Resolutions, but I have a few for the New Year, too. These are all about my writing life (those for my personal world I've written down elsewhere), and they're more nebulous than I'd like, since much involved in traditional publishing is not in my hands, but I have them. Perhaps you can compare to see if any of yours are similar.

1. I have a book coming out this year, published by Covenant Communications, and I'm setting goals for how to get the word out. The story is about the Burnetts, a Mormon family struggling with a death, but it can apply to any family of any religious background. It has recipes in every chapter, but it's about a much bigger question: What recipe can you use to mend a broken family? Watch for A SECRET FAMILY RECIPE, coming in June.
2. I'm up to eight books available now for e-reader devices and I'm devising goals for publicizing these. I plan to grow my Twitter community, use Facebook and other social media to let people know about these sweet love stories, and trumpet the fact that I actually got a personal recommendation from Debbie Macomber. Really! Maybe that will help?
3. The eight mentioned above include six from the Rainbow Rock series. I'm currently writing a seventh. Set a decade or so from where the last book left off, RETURN TO RAINBOW ROCK begins with Marcie Carmody coming home in disgrace, ruined both socially and financially by her ex-fiance who has left her for another woman. She thinks she has it rough until she meets Ryan Fields, abandoned by his wife who has also taken their children. It's a story of growth and maturation, mistakes and second chances, or as William Faulkner once said about "the only plot there is," it's a story of "sin and redemption." I plan to have it online by June.
4. When I get Marcie comfortably settled in Rainbow Rock, I am going to marry off her step-brother, Danny, who is now an officer for the Arizona Highway Patrol. That story is already giving me delicious moments of anticipation.  ;-) 
5. MAGGIE RISING, which I previewed in my last column, is with my agent now. I'm making some revisions appropriate to a specific genre and audience (TBA) and I hope I'll have a contract for it soon.
6. Mostly I intend to spend less time at the "day job" and more becoming a full-time, professional novelist--my dream since I was eleven years old. Let's see how I do.

May you have success with your own goals for this Good Luck Year, 2013.


Susan Aylworth is the author of 11 novels--8 published, the 9th soon-to-be, the 10th contracted, and the 11th with her agent. She hopes to write dozens more. Connect with her here or at www.susanaylworth.com or follow @SusanAylworth.

Old Year's Resolutions

I'd like to focus for a moment on one goal for 2012 that I actually achieved. I had promised myself I would complete the first draft of MAGGIE RISING, my first attempt into paranormal detective Y.A. Maggie was there with her psychic reading business and her friend, Lauren, who just happens to be a ghost, and her problems with the law. She just needed me to get busy.

I did. And I finished the last line of that first draft on the last day of last year. That leads me into one of my first goals for 2013: to get Maggie and her paranormal friends off to my agent. The book has been out to six great alpha readers who have given me all kinds of helpful comment. I've been revising, tightening, editing and clarifying. The book will be office to my agent this week.
To give some sense of what Maggie and Lauren have been up to, here's an excerpt from the first time they chat in one of Maggie's dreams:

I stood in the Children’s Playground next to Bidwell Presbyterian. ...

I looked around, wondering how I’d gotten here and why I’d come. That’s when I noticed a pretty blonde girl watching me. She was leaning on the uprights for the swings, but as I looked her way she separated herself from the contraption and walked toward me. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. I looked behind me to see if maybe her focus was actually directed elsewhere, but we were alone. As she came toward me, she gave a half-smile and asked, “Remember me?”

“You look familiar,” I answered, searching my memory.

“Lauren Hall,” she said. “I was in the high school class just younger than you, but at Chico High instead of Pleasant Valley.”

“Lauren Hall?” I didn’t yet remember her from high school, but I certainly remembered the name. “The missing Homecoming Queen?”

“The murdered Homecoming Queen,” she answered. “I met my murderer right here in Children’s Park during lunch last Wednesday.”

I swallowed, unsure how to speak to a murdered girl, let alone a murdered Homecoming Queen. “So…you’re dead?”

She rolled her eyes. “And everybody said you were smart.” She plunked down on the bench a little way from me. For a ghost, she seemed to have substantial mass, since it gave under her weight. “Do you want to help me out or what?”

I've had a good time working with Maggie and Lauren and I'm eager to see what happens with them next. I'll keep you posted.

Susan Aylworth's first eight novels are available as e-books for Kindle (Amazon), Nook (Barnes and Noble) and other e-readers or computers (Smashwords). Her ninth, A SECRET FAMILY RECIPE, is due out from Covenant Communications in June.

An image poem

Here's another quick image. I seem to be in a melancholy mood just now:


Disconnect

She wants to share her loss

With friends from long ago

And so she calls their number,

Held in long-term memory.

“I’m widowed now,” she practices.

“My husband died in autumn.”

Recorded voices stop her:

The number’s disconnected.

Susan Aylworth's novels are available for digital readers at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords and other digital websites.