I CHOOSE THE BEAR - A BEAR-SHIFTER ROMANCE

That means we might be a custom-designed dustjacket by Blue Raven Designs!

Speaking of designs, I was tweaking the graphics for the campaign & adjusted the cover's color...then decided to tweak the cover a bit. I sometimes do my own  covers and I'm trying to decide which is better.

Help me out?

A.
Or
B.

When I found out that Mercedes Lackey was going to have a book in Booktopia, I got so excited I started bouncing in my seat.

And we were on a car trip back from Illinois. You should have seen the looks my husband and kid gave me. If they didn't already think I was crazy, that would have done it.

My kid, in the long run, thought it was cute and told me, "It's funny seeing you fangirl over somebody."

Sigh. You gotta love it when your eighteen-year-old refers to you as 'cute'.

I went on to explain to this kid how heavily Lackey's writing has influenced me, both in terms of world-building and giving me a love for fantasy and strong women in fiction and in terms of who'd I grow to be as a person.

She planted seeds in me at a young age, on tolerance and love and acceptance and it's taken me years to understand just how deeply those seeds were planted and how much they affected me.

Authors, through their writing, can do amazing things-Mercedes Lackey is proof of that.

As I've been working on my book, I've been building the backstory that goes along with Ivy's heritage and her people and while in some ways, I pull from common mythology, I'm also weaving my own and Ivy's an animal lover. As I write more, I learn more and her love of animals goes deeper than just liking them--they're drawn to her and that ties into her heritage.

She likes to adopt rescue animals and currently has two pet cockatiels that she got from a bird rescue group. For the past days, I've been working on an illustration that I might either put in the book or use as a vellum insert.

I'm not sure just yet, but you can check out my illustration of geeky love below. Note: I didn't draw any of the images. I used hand-drawn illustrations through Canva and designed the layout, but that's all the credit I can claim.



Backers, you get to read an excerpt and meet Ivy's babies.

I've kinda fallen in love with the idea of the Lore Cards so I'm making it a flash giveaway.

In today's update:

ON THE LORE CARDS!
I've been trying to think of the best way to share the answers for the trivia questions without spoiling the story and a couple of days ago, I had the idea to create Lore Cards and the more I think about it, the more I love the idea.

So, I'm doing it. On top of the digital coloring book (pledge by 9/15 to get that). I'm starting another flash giveaway.

If you back the project at any level, you'll receive the trivia questions, made into digital Lore Cards.  This flash giveaway runs through 9/22

They'll look like this on the front.



Designed using a template from Canva and tweaked by yours truly until it looked the way I wanted it with human-created art and no AI as far as I can tell, these cards will feature the trivia questions on the front.

The back will give you the answer and offer some insight into the research I've done into this particular mythology.

These will be delivered a short time after the ebook is delivered so you have a chance to read the book before I share the spoiler about Ivy's secret.

AND...POSSIBLE PRINT CARDS AS A FUTURE STRETCH GOAL

I found a possible printer so this might be a stretch goal for all backers of physical tiers, but we'll have to see how we're standing in a few days...still trying to crash through that $6k goal so we can get pretty, pretty dustjackets! If you know of anybody who'd be interested in this book, share the campaign!

ONTO QUESTION #6

I decided to share a hint... test your mythological chops.

Here we go...


So...did that narrow your choices down?

Sometimes, I'll see a meme that's just so relatable to me as either a reader or writer, i have to share.

Today is one of those days.


There's no denying I'll put things in my books that have a deeper meaning.

I touch on issues like depression, being neurodivergent and trauma in a number of my books.

I almost always find a way to be 100% a smart-ass even when some of my books get really dark or I'm dealing with rougher subjects...frex when Ivy just escapes assault by her soon-to-be-ex, thanks to a certain bear...and she asks him...


And geek references abound. It's not uncommon for me to slip little facts about my hometown in a book if I place a story in an area local to me.

Ivy will have a couple of pet birds that she adopted from a rescue and she names them after a favorite author duo.

So, yes, there are absolutely times when things in my books have a deeper meaning...but, if it's just the curtains, or a carpet, the walls...dude, they're just curtains.😊

I had a crazy busy day. getting my newsletter out and doing up graphics and such, updating my newsletter so we might skipping trivia tonight but I'll have a new question tomorrow.

Make sure you're playing along and participating because...hey, prizes.

And if anybody has guesses they wanna share with the group...I'm curious to hear.

Just a reminder for those who haven't backed yet, if you back by 9/15, you get the free digital coloring book and y'all, it's so cool. I'm tickled unto death by how it turned out.

We reached another milestone! 150 Backers. 

Let's see if we can crash through $6k so we can get a dustjacket!