April 15-17,  Earls Court, London

This year’s London Book Fair begins today and explores the theme, Making Words Go Further. However, the Digital  Minds Conference that kicked off the Book Fair was held  yesterday and featured Best Selling author, Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman is a novelist and screenwriter of  fantasy, horror, science fiction, and dark fantasy. His most notable works are The Graveyard Book, American Gods, Neverwhere, Stardust, and Coraline to name a few. Early in 2001, after finishing American Gods, Neil set out blogging about the every day chores of writing, revising, publishing, and eventually promoting the book. His blogging evolved into a routine of updates and tweets to fans and potential fans, and overall thoughts on being a novelist. He is one of many authors who are directly active with fans and answers questions through email. Why blog? Well, according to Neil, “because writing is, like death, a lonely business.” And blogging is, perhaps the quickest, most efficient way to connect with readers.

This gives Neil, an early pioneer of social media, a unique perspective on the new territory known as the Digital Frontier. As Keynote Speaker at the Digital Minds Conference, Neil’s personal theme was “try everything” which I found inspiring and liberating and quite exciting. As an author whose debut novel will be published as an e-book original by Random House, I feel as though I am hitched to the wagons and set to explore this new frontier. It’s a bit scary but then, most new things are. I encourage new writers to read his full interview at www.publishersweekly.com and to keep up on the ever changing publishing world. What you don’t know can hurt you and what you learn can help you understand the changes in e-contracts and the power of social media as your greatest promotional tool.

Meeting Chelsea King

I wanted to introduce an amazing young woman named Chelsea King. Chelsea is the daughter of Brent and Kelly King. On February 25, 2010, Chelsea was taken from her family and friends much too soon. I never had the privilege of meeting her in person, but while attending her memorial I came to know her as a wonderfully spirited woman with an infectious smile and an undeniable spark in her eyes. I had never witnessed such an outpouring of love and respect for someone so young. Chelsea will remain forever seventeen but she has grown in ways unimaginable to us all.

At the memorial, Brent said that Chelsea had so much she wanted to do with her life. This was followed by a long sad moment of silence as though all of Chelsea’s dreams had died with her. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Everyday Chelsea is making a difference, making her stamp on life. Through her parents and the Chelsea’s Light Foundation, Chelsea is helping to keep you and your children safe from violent sexual predators. She is changing California state legislature–Chelsea’s Law was unanimously signed into law only seven months after her murder–and continues to make a difference one state at a time. You have reason to thank her, and I encourage you to meet this wonderful young woman by visiting www.chelseaslight.org.

Begins Appropriately On April Fools Day

Welcome to my Blog! First things first, I must give a BIG shout out to my web design team, the wonderful Paula Colby of dotbizdesigns.com. I am so thrilled that she and her team took time to understand the design and layout I was looking for. They were so professional, patient, understanding, and generous of their time. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Paula, you ROCK!!

Secondly, I would like to thank my amazing editor, Sue Grimshaw! I am so excited to join the Penguin Random House team.

Thirdly, I thank my family: my husband and daughters,  for allowing me ‘alone time’ to write. I hope to make it worth it. For those of you who have read all or part of the first book in the Soulkeepers series (Forbidden) you know the inspiration came from my daughter’s diagnosis of thyroid cancer. Many of you have asked how she is doing and I am happy to say she is cancer free and doing great! And thank you for asking.

And last but not hardly least, I must say hello and hooya! to my wattpad.com readers!!! I’m so glad you came over and found me because I have to thank all of you for reading Soulkeepers. Your comments were awesome and gave me confidence to keep going! I can’t wait to see which of you is next to sell your amazing stories! Good luck to you all and remember to keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. I’ll do all I can to post helpful hits and important info I discover along the way, and some that have already worked for me, namely . . . keep writing!!