Friday Four or Five

1. September marks twelve months since I jumped into the adventure known as self-publishing. What a year! That topic deserves it's own post, so soon I'll do a recap and let you know what I've learned along the way.

2. In twelve days I leave for a seven week stint in Europe. Am I ready to go? Of course not! :) I've been too busy writing, writing, writing. But now I have to change hats and gears and focus on everything I need to do to prepare. My parents are going to house sit. My daughter will still be here but she's eighteen and starting university. (I know, most people's kids leave when they graduate. In our house, we're the ones leaving.)

I'll be spending the first three weeks traveling around Germany with my husband who's on tour and working there for two months. We're going to take a week to check out Nuremberg and Passau, the two cities that are settings in my book PLAYING WITH MATCHES (coming this November). I really wanted to visit these cities before launching that book, so I'm excited that it's worked out to do it.

I'm spending the month of October in Romania where I'll be teaching English to kids on a couple poor farms outside of Brasov. I'll for sure let you know more about that when the time comes.

A Brasov street cafe

3. Tied to #1 and 2, I've been working really, really hard to get every thing ready for my fall book launches (two novels and two novellas) before I leave. That means lining up cover work, hiring out edits, setting up cover reveals and reviews, getting proof readers, formatting. My goal is to have everything in place so that I can still launch successfully no matter what strange bed I'm sleeping in, so long as I can get on the internet.

4. I had no idea when I turned the calender in January that I was going to get as much work done in 2012 as I have already and project to do by the end of the year. Working this hard on writing and publishing, basically getting my business rolling, meant I had to let go of some other things. Like blogging and reading blogs. Once upon a time I blogged five days a week or more and read and commented on several blogs a day. I miss my blogging friends and I hope that one day, I'll be able to come back to the blogging table. But for now, I'll have to be content to wave from the distance.

Times and seasons in life change. The photo above is my 20 year old son wearing the back pack he wore when he was in grade two in Germany. Those German kids know how to rock a back pack!

Have a great weekend, everyone!