Here's to Endings and New Beginnings

     So, I'm working on the final book of my Agents for the Crown Series. This has been a long time coming, actually. 
     I started writing the series back before there really was an internet to speak of, so all of my research was done in libraries and bookstores. It all began in 1995 with the beginnings of the first book, now titled Courting Danger, but in the beginning it was titled For the Love of Ellen... and it was bad. Oh so bad! LOL 
     It went through so many edits and rewrites. Nine complete rewrites actually. I sent that book out to multiple agents, received feedback from some. Sent it to more, and started all over again with the edits. It was definitely before ebooks came into being.
     Finally, after going through critiques and more edits, I submitted it to  Amazon for their breakthrough novel contest. I made it into the top 100. I didn't win, but I came close and they sent me a link for a little site called Create Space. I decided to go through with it, to commit myself for better or worse to self-publish. I just wanted my book out there. 
     Then I met a fantastic group of people, Rue Volley, Sarah Davis Brandon, Linna Drehmel, Catherine Stovall, Sinead MacDouglas, Ada McEwan, Joseph Davis and Travis MacDonald... They encouraged me and cheered me on. 
     And then I wrote another book. The first in my YA Paranormal series, Soul Mates: Scent, and I self-published that too. I met a reader online who fell in love with Soul Mates: Scent, and she gave it to Sarah Davis Brandon to read over... 
     Turns out Sarah Davis Brandon was starting her own publishing company, but I hadn't talked to her in a few months and was not aware of it. Did I mention I'd been writing? In the mean time I'd released book 2 of the Agents for the Crown series, Artifice. And things were looking up. Sarah signed me for the Soul Mates series and I was so excited. I ended up writing the next Soul Mates as I prepped book 3 for Agents for the Crown, Charade, for release.  
     The first three books I'd ever written were doing really well for me, but I was not getting the exposure I wanted and I sent an informal proposal to Sarah about them... 
     Really I said, Hey Sarah, would you be interested in taking on my Regency Series? And Sarah said YES. 
     From then on my work has been exclusive to Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing. Sarah has expanded the company, buying out a Scottish imprint, Vamptasy, creating a few more imprints, Hot Ink and Steamworks, and now, her newest imprint: Lace Hearts Ink... a place for the romances like mine, and I get to be involved in it. Sarah has blessed me in so many ways. Picking up all of my work, hiring me on as editor, and giving me a virtual home. 
     And now four years later, I'm finally getting to write my final book in the Agents for the Crown series, formerly titled Tangled, it is now titled Unraveled. I'm so happy that I have a home for it, and that I finally get to see the ending as I imagined it, but it's hard to say goodbye to a cast of characters that I have spent 20 years with in my head.  
     I know it's all going to be over in less than a month, and I am going to miss them. So the writing has been slow, but good. The research is easier than it was when I first started the series, now that I can look anything up with the help of google. And I have the feedback from a few friends, Mariana Thorn, and Stephanie W., as well as my editor and friend, Catherine Stovall, as I write.  
     So here is to endings and new beginnings, because with the ending of this series, I have plans to write a series for a new cast of characters set in the Twenties. I'm excited about it. I hope you are too.