The Book Rat book review blog was awesome enough to host a guest post from me on my book, Fractured Dream. Check out, Happily ever after and the fairytale retelling.

I first got the idea for Fractured Dream in 2005, and in my mind I envisioned a red-headed huntress—a warrior who hunted Big Bad Wolves—to be my main character’s BFF. As you can guess, she was my version of Little Red Riding Hood... See more here.

If you love epic fantasy, fairytale retellings and romance…You won’t want to miss out on this opportunity!

Fractured Dream (The Dreamer Saga,Book 1) is the first installment in an epic fantasy series full of magic, mythical and mystical creatures, a breathtakingly beautiful otherworld and the right mixture of romance, mystery and suspense to keep the pages turning. It will debut June 21st, 2014, and I am looking for people who are interested in joining an exclusive Facebook team dedicated to providing feedback and helping spread the word about this series. Your feedback is invaluable and I am hoping you are interested in joining my team.

As a member of the launch team, you’ll not only receive an electronic edition of the book before it’s available to the public but also gain special access to the author and all of Team K.M. Randall via a private Facebook group. In return, all I ask is that you leave a short, honest review of Fractured Dream on Amazon and share news about the release with friends and family you think may also enjoy it. 

Interested? Send an email to book manager Wendy Logsdon at [email protected] with your name, email address, and a brief explanation as to why you want to join Team K.M. Randall. Those selected will be notified via email and will be added to the Facebook group. We understand that not all people have Facebook accounts, in that case, we will make every effort to keep you updated via email. 

Thank you in advance for your help in launching my newest novel. Your support is greatly appreciated!

I haven't really been all that good about writing on my blog, something I pledge to fix this year. But since this week is quite crazy, I thought I'd run a post I ran awhile ago on my book review blog, Cellar Lit Rants & Reviews--with a few tweaks. I'm moving away from that blog, although I have a few review commitments left so it will live on a bit longer. But since, like I said, I haven't posted much over there, I am going to run the few reviews I have left up my sleeve over here as well. This one isn't new, but it's kind of fun. It was originally the Book Playlist of My Life, but I've since realized these are really more the books that shaped my youth and early adulthood, although there are a couple crossovers. I'll have to run a Book Playlist, the Later Years at some point. There are some of course that left an impression, not necessarily good, that I didn't mention, like "Gerald's Game." Stephen King's horrific imagery is still stuck in my head more than 20 years later. I probably shouldn't have been reading it at 12. But horror was my "thang" back then. Anyway, here are some of the more tame books near and dear to my youthful heart.

A Secret Garden/A Little Princess: Both these books were written by Frances Hodges Burnett, and were a huge part of my childhood and young adult life. I can’t tell you the number of times I read them. In fact, I was recently given a new hardcover copy of A Secret Garden in the last couple of years and I read it again, relishing in the comfort and magic of a beloved friend. They tell of two young girls overcoming insurmountable odds who find acceptance and parental love from unexpected people. I love them so much, and will cherish these stories and young heroines in my heart forever. How can I ever forget the moment Mary finds the lovely and mysterious garden? Or when the practically starving Sarah goes up to her attic room to find a feast laid out for her. I am a slave to feel-good stories and happy endings. Hence the reason I’m a Disney fanatic, which my kid will probably love me for until he’s a teenager and I’m still watching shows like “Wizards of Waverly Place.” But I digress.

A Mermaid Summer: On rainy days I would drag my younger sister into my room and read her this book. The magical tale of a mermaid and two children who must outwit her has been one of my favorites since my third grade teacher handed me a copy. I recently bought both my sister and I a hard cover edition, which I had to scour Amazon for because it’s out of print. It’s one of the first book I decided to review when I started my book review blog. Although I read it as a child, the story still appeals to me as much as if ever did.

Vampire Diaries/ Secret Circle: I am not afraid to say I love young adult. I can still remember when I picked up my first L.J. Smith book. It was the second installment of the Vampire Diaries series, and after reading it I knew I had to go back and read the first. At that moment I was hooked. After reading my rants about later installments written in the Secret Circle and Vampire Diaries series, any loyal readers I might have know I am passionate about these stories. These books are worn and torn. Secret Circle in specific, touched my 16-year-old soul because for a time in middle school and high school I thought I was a witch, or Wicca. Fun times remembered with an Oijui Board, candles, tarot cards and essential oils.

Summer Sisters: Judy Blume targets a more adult audience in this book about two girls and their timeless friendship. I seriously will read this novel again and again. It touches me because the relationship between the two main characters is so like my relationship with my high school best friend. In our early-to-mid-twenties I finally got her to read it by giving her a copy for her birthday. She  agreed. It was just like us. Except for obviously, she didn’t disappear or marry my ex-boyfriend. Anyway, it’s a great story about the bonds of friendship and growing up. What else could we expect from Judy Blume?

The Giver: I think I may have read this for school at one point, and I think I definitely read it again in college for a Young Adult Lit class. All I know is this book continues to come back to me through the years, inspiring and making me think. What if we lived in a world where feelings were taken out of the equation? I’ve had The Giver-themed dreams before, and continue to be haunted by the story’s themes.

A Wrinkle in Time: Honestly, I love this entire series by Madeline L’Engle. In fact, I love everything I’ve ever read by her, especially A Ring of Endless Light. But A Wrinkle in Time helped to inspire some of the elements from my own book.

Christopher Pike: I cheated a little bit here by just naming the author, but I honestly couldn’t pick a favorite. He was the author of my middle school life. I ate these books for dinner, from Remember Me to the Final Friends series to the Midnight Club. Pike started out in Y/A horror, and ended up in his later works exploring spirituality, mysticism and mythology. I always wonder why he stopped writing. I’ll have to Wikipedia that man.

Mists of Avalon: On a trip to Salem, Mass., (you can bet I was stoked because I was still a delusional little witch), I picked up this bible of King Arthurian lore. For anyone who likes to read about female-empowered characters, this follows the women within the legend, specifically Morgan Le Fey. I believe I actually even read it twice and it’s huge. It has served to color my views of anything dealing with King Aurthur since. There's a review of it here. Side note: Morgana and Guinevere have a part to play in my book Fractured Dream, but they've been re-imagined in a way never seen before. Look for it in June 2014!

Practical Magic: If anyone asks me who my favorite author is I would have to say Alice Hoffman. I adore her style of writing where magic drips from every word. Of course, Practical Magic involves actual magic, but it also deals in relationships between children, sisters, lovers and parental figures. Again, it’s one of those books I’ve read more than five times and a book I will read another five times. They’re the security blankets of my life. When in doubt, curl up with a good, familiar, beloved book. This one would definitely make both my early life playlist and my adult playlist.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: I read this for an environmental/nature writing class in college. I will never forget the way Annie Dillard was able to make me scratch myself in paranoia after she described the habits and appearance of all sorts of insects. Ug, I hate them but I love her. A mix between spirituality and nature, this book, her observations and philosophies, truly changed my life.

A Walk in the Woods: I have never laughed so hard reading a documentary-style book as I have this one. My husband, who was a witness to my amusement as I read about Bill Bryson’s trek along the Appalachian Trail, ended up reading it himself, and he’s not a big reader. We even got the idea for our son’s name from this book. This would also make list No. 2!

Many Lives, Many Masters: Early in my college years when I was discovering what I thought and who I was, I took a class called Reincarnation. We read a book by a man named Dr. Brian Weiss, who documented his first forays into hypnotherapy and his discovery of past life regression. Needless to say, my little open mind was hooked and before my mother could object, I had booked myself at a holistic retreat with Dr. Weiss himself. It was definitely an experience I don’t regret. Plus, the photo taken of me with the good doctor showed me I should never streak my hair orange again. That’s a valuable life lesson for sure.

The Time Traveler’s Wife: It’s not that I think this book was amazing, although it’s a decent read. But it gave me the germ of an idea that inspired some elements from my own book. Don’t get me wrong, if you read my book you would not even be able to see how this story could have been an inspiration, but it’s where the seed began and my own ideas dealing with alternate time and universe dimensions were sown.

Child of the Grove:  Tanya Huff’s Child of the Grove and Wizard of the Grove are two of my favorites. I love the way she writes and have always been inspired by her. Although it’s been some years since I’ve actually read the two-part series, I know I will again because they sit in my library waiting, creased and worn and loved.

If anyone wants to share their life/book/ youth playlist, I would love it!

And then the day came when someone actually read the book...

Any writer will understand the excitement and anxiety that goes along with finally letting someone read your work. I recently handed over my entire manuscript to my sister to be my first reader ever. She has listened to me talk about it for years now, so I figured I owed her the first read. Besides, she reads the fantasy-fiction genre, and can be pretty brutal when need-be.

From the point where I printed out the MS for the first time last month, topping off at more than 200k words, to the much slimmer version I emailed to her last week, it's been a journey.

In my previous post I babbled ignorantly on about how easy I found "killing my darlings," or editing, had been. And it was at first. But when I was still at 190-something thousand words after cutting 20- to 30 pages, I had to take a step back. I'm pretty realistic, and as much as I loved the 40 or so pages still lingering that were keeping me away from my goal of 160k words, I realize that I'm a newbie, a no-name writer, and a book of that length would be daunting coming from an untested author.

Despite knowing this, I tried going through the MS first and cutting down sentences, paragraphs and a page here or there in hopes that it would drop my word count down and bring me to a more reasonable length. I mean I want people to read it. But I moaned, I procrastinated, I debated and shook my head. It was too painful. I couldn't do it. But then I did. I clicked command-x and deposited the first 50 or so into another document, saved it, and said adieu—for now. A prequel could always rise from those ashes.

Instantly, I felt a sense of freedom, a weight lifted from my spirit and I turned to my book with new eyes and a better sense of length, pace and readability. And I've been happier ever since. But it certainly wasn't easy, I say to my previous naive self. I even got the word count under 150k. I mean it's fantasy, after all, so it's got a little heft.

This all brings me to handing it over for the first time to be read. I'm certain my sister wants to ring my neck, because I keep finding reasons to talk to her to find out what she thinks. But it's an amazing feeling to have written a book and have even just one reader, who so far, likes it.

Don’t mind the random fruit loop sitting on the booster seat chair. I have a two-year-old. Enough said. The focus is the manuscript sitting in print form on my kitchen table. Epic proportions it may be, seeing it like that filled me with a sense of accomplishment. No more computer screen. This is real. And then I quietly freaked out inside realizing how much editing still needed to be done before I could get where I’ve been heading all this time. Stephen King has a quote: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric scribbler’s little heart, kill your darlings.” I’d say in terms of words, I’ve been doing pretty well at cutting since I laid this out on the table. A friend’s words recently reassured me: “None of that matters though, when you can throw your book down on the kitchen table like that and it makes the floor shake, you did good enough.”

I did good enough. But now I need to do better. So gone are the first 25 pages, the first words I ever wrote when the story first came alive. Gone are pages in the middle, chopping away at 200k words as if it were someone else’s words going into the trash. Although there have been twinges, passages I delicately caressed before hitting control X– delete would be too harsh so I keep those words in another file–I have found that it hasn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Hours, days, weeks and years toiled away on the keyboard, and with one stroke those words are gone.

I guess, in the end, making it the best story it can be outweighs the pang of loss. And when the day comes I see it in published form, those years of words that will never see the light of day won’t bother me in the least. Because they were stepping stones and bridges to a story that moved beyond them. They served a purpose, and I can be content knowing that.

Today I read a an article at GoodEReader.com by Michael Kozlowski  with the headline, Self-Published Authors Are Destroying Literature. I was immediately offended for all self-published authors who've written solid work, I mean what a blanket statement. We all know that the facts are in, and that self-publishing has an obvious role in the future of book publishing, so blaming self-publishing for the downfall of literature seems  rather unrealistic.

For one thing, if you're going to blame anything, blame digital publishing and the ebook revolution. But honestly,  I didn't realize that literature was being destroyed. From my perspective, it looks like literature is being expanded to encompass more by allowing writers outside the mainstream to have a voice, while also giving the author more control. So many elitists tout the Big Six (not that I wouldn't love to have them notice my work) but I've got to tell you, some of the stuff being published today by the big publishers is yawn-worthy. It's almost as if there is a formula for success in certain genres — ahem, young adult or anything to do with vampires.

For awhile there, I didn't want to get into the whole ebook fad. I'm a print loyalist, I've said it before. But then I started reviewing books and it just became the easy way to go about business. Since a lot of self-published books start in the ebook format, I've read a few. There have definitely been some less-than-polished products, although our good writer over at GoodEReader.com seems to think self-published books in general "devalue the work of legitimate published authors."

His argument follows the line of thought that because indie authors often price ebooks between $0.99 and $2.99 that it makes readers unwilling to pay for mainstream work that's going for $7.99 to $12.99. I'm sorry, but I don't care if you were published by Penguin or your very own self, I refuse to spend $12.99 on an ebook, except for the one time when I did because I was just so addicted to the series. My excuse is I had a gift card. But in most occasions, I would just rather buy the print edition. You can't  lovingly turn the pages of a digital copy or see it age and wear with rereads. It is just not worth it to me no matter who you are to buy an ebook at that price. Unless, like I explained before, I was already addicted and not in my right mind. I mean it was like 1 a.m. and I just had to know what was going to happen next.

Here's the thing, I've read self-published stories that I didn't think were up to par with their editing — a grammar mistake here, a weird space there, or an entire chapter that could have been pulled. I've noticed when more editing should have taken place, but I can't discount that many of the stories have been wonderful. And that's not to say that all self-published works even have that problem.

Joe Vampire by Steve Luna was initially a self-published work, although he is now published under the Booktrope label. He was seriously a little bit of an inspiration in the vampire genre, where so many authors are trying to ride on the coattails of Twilight. It was refreshing to read a different take in a saturated topic.

I've also read truly awful stuff published by mainstream publishers that may have been edited to death, but still have grammatical mistakes. That said, I don't think self-published authors are singlehandedly destroying quality literature, especially beacuse there's plenty of quality coming from that spectrum of publishing.

The one area where I can agree with Kozlowski is the tweeting. I follow a lot of authors on Twitter, many of them probably self-published, and my stream is almost a solid mass of writers trying to get people to buy their books. I completely understand that this is one reason why Twitter is helpful, but as a reader, I'm more interested in what they have to say as people. The constant advertisements just blur together, and it's only when I see someone tweet something interesting that I'll really pay attention. Initially, when I first started my book review blog I caught a few titles off the digital bookshelf stream, but now I really have no need.

Like most things, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many would agree that Ernest Hemingway was an amazing literary author, but I've known people who didn't like his writing at all. E.L. James' 50 Shades of Gray certainly seduced readers in droves, but I wouldn't deign to touch the book. So let's give readers some credit for being able to choose their own literature based on their own personal tastes. If they choose a self-published author over a mainstream author, I'm sure the mainstream author will find plenty of other readers being backed by a big publishing house and the grace of newspaper book review lists. And if it's bad, then it'll tank. Like any book.

Just in case anyone thinks I'm writing this because I'm going to hopefully publish my book sometime soon, let me explain. While I respect self-published authors, I in no way want to go that route myself. It just seems like so much work and I want more support for my first book. But it doesn't mean I never would. Publishing today is a whole new game, one that elitists should get on board with soon because the writing is already on the page.

I've often heard random people mutter that every book seems to be a series these days. It's true that the hottest sellers do seem to birth sequel after sequel, especially in the young adult genre. Earlier today, I read a post on author Scott D. Southard's blog, titled "Writers, why does everything need to be a series?" Well I may not be a published author quite yet, but I'm going to raise you that question and give you an answer, not that you asked. But here you go.When I first got the idea for my book, let's tentatively call it "The First Dreamer," I had no desire to go beyond the one.  This was in 2005 when I was finishing up grad school in Boston by interning for a small, nonprofit magazine.

In my small bedroom in a house shared with three other local students, I got an idea and I started to take notes. Given the fact that I just finished writing the first draft in February this year, it's been a long time coming. The journey has been fraught with self-doubt, inspiration and a cursor that can delete with a homicidal vengeance. Many ideas and concepts have changed from that first seed of a story.

Along the way, as characters took on life and the idea blossomed and grew, I realized there was just more to tell. The story could not be summed up in only 300 pages. Sure, I could make it one giant book as J.R.R. Tolkien apparently did, according to Southard, but that's daunting to today's typical reader. My characters just can't be confined to one book. They need two more. I may not have set out to write a trilogy, but I lost control awhile back. It's them. The characters.

There are many different styles of writing. Some authors make detailed outlines, and follow an organized, set way of writing. While others, like me, have only a dream of an idea that needs time and patience to become the full-blown story that it is today. In my case, it's through the writing process of time that saw my characters become who they are, and the storyline mature in the way it has.

Southard suggests that many authors today decide to write a series for the money. I'm just finding this out, but apparently, series writers were looked down upon at one point. But I can tell you, when I decided that this was going to be a trilogy, money was the farthest thought from my mind. I don't even know if I'll make a dime. It was merely that my characters dictated they would not be done in the breadth of one novel. Although I didn't know what would happen in the first book, their stories became clear to me as I wrote. So I have a pretty good idea how it will end. But you never know. Stories change.

I'm the type of person who would eat dinner with her nose in a book as a kid. Spending the entire day reading a page turner is a luxury I can't afford since I had a son, but I used to do it all the time. And I love authors who give me more (sorry if I sound like an AT&T commercial). Give me a trilogy, give me a series of 10. If I like the story, then I can't get enough of it — Babysitters Club, Vampire Diaries, Sookie Stackhouse, Harry Potter, Twilight, Sarah Douglas' Axis Trilogy, Tanya Huff's Wizard of the Grove, Louise Cooper's Time Master Trilogy. I read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which Southard says was a "philosophical mess," and which I can't remember, so it's possible he was right there. But overall, I haven't been disappointed; it's not like the movies where the second one is never as good as the first. In my experience, book sequels rock.

I'm not saying they should go on forever. Every story has an expiration date as does life. But if an author can give me a little more, a little longer of a world I cherish, then I'm perfectly content to read on. And I know there are a lot of readers out there who feel the same way. Otherwise, all the books in a series wouldn't be doing so well.

Refuting the greatness of the book series, Southard gives  us an example of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, where in several paragraphs, the main character walks the reader through all the outcomes that happen after the book ends. While he seems to think this is just great, I say what's the fun in that? I want the book. I want to keep living those characters' lives. That's when you know you've found a great story teller, when you're sad the book has ended and you're clamoring to get the second one in the series, and then the third and so on.

Next time I write a book, I hope it's just one. Because it is probably much easier. The weight of the world continues to be on mine and my characters' shoulders, so tying up all loose ends in 300 pages would be superb. But that's just not the case with this first labor of creativity and love. So lookout, the Tresslan Chronicles of the First Dreamer will hopefully come to a book store, or Amazon, near you when my characters tell me they're done. And then you can expect two more.

Until then, keep reading my friends.