Gratitude Giveaway and Year's End Summary

Well...this has been a year, hasn't it? Lots of good things, and lots of bad, alas. But in the end, I am still so grateful for all I have. And especially grateful for YOU, my friends, readers, and fans. So I'm doing one last giveaway this year for no reason other than to say thank you for taking this journey with me. Thank you for buying my books, and for putting up reviews (really, THANK YOU), and for generally spreading the word and being supportive. Y'all make the hard work worth it. So I'm doing this:

Carried away? Moi? Never.

So, here's this year in review--briefly, because otherwise we'll be here all day.
Good stuff:
Well, I had two books out, which is great. WICKEDLY POWERFUL was the third Baba Yaga novel, which was then followed by DANGEROUSLY CHARMING the first Rider novel.

BOOKS!

Got to go visit my friends in Connecticut, got visits from pal Bethany and her charming hubby Jarrod, and my stepdaughter Jenn, and FINALLY met long-time author pal Alex Bledsoe in person at Robercon (where I also got to hang out with the fabulous Tamora Pierce, which is always a joy).

Terry and Glenn in Connecticut

Jarrod, Bethany, and me

My kid and her two moms (no, not THAT kind of two moms)

Alex, me, and the fab Tammy

Plus, of course, the tarot deck is coming out any minute, so that might end up counting toward this year too.

Mind you, there was a lot of not great stuff too. I lost Mystic and Magic's mother Minerva in March (wow, that's a lot of M's). Had to rehome little Luna, because she couldn't adjust to the other cats (although she IS blissfully happy at her new house and I get to visit often). Angus was sick for months with an eye infection, then Mystic got seriously ill and almost died. (They both got better. That definitely counts toward the "good" column.) I seriously hurt my knee on the first of April, and it is still taking it's slow time recovering, and then I got shingles (which are brought on by stress, so I blame the election, plus all that other stuff...). Plus, you know, life.

Overall, I'd have to say it was a pretty tough year, where the not-so-great stuff often overwhelmed the great. But I survived and have hopes that next year will be better. And in the meanwhile, I still have a lot to be grateful for, including all of you. So thanks! And now, I'm going to do one last giveaway for the year, just because I can. Maybe it will finish off a few other people's years right.

Here's what we've got! A Fire tablet, a set of ALL FOUR BOOKS (signed, of course), winner's choice of one of three book cover notebooks, and a Deborah Blake calendar for 2017 plus a broom pen to write in it with. Four prizes, four winners. Woot!

No, Magic the Cat doesn't come with the prizes.

Winner gets his or her pick!

No, Angus doesn't come with the prize either. But his picture is in the calendar.

As always, all you have to do to enter is fill out the Rafflecopter form below. You get credit for anything you've already done, like following the blog, or signing up for my newsletter. And because it is my big end-of-year giveaway, I'm opening it up internationally. There is no purchase required, although of course, if you want to give ME a year's end present and buy one of my books, or put up a review for one you read, I won't tell you not to!

Good luck, thanks for everything, and happy holidays, whichever one you happen to celebrate.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Looking Back at 2015

First off, can someone explain to me how it is the end of 2015? Seriously. What the heck happened to this year? Oh, wait, this happened...

WRITING
This was an insane year for the writing--probably the busiest I have ever had.

1. I wrote the book for the fabulous Llewellyn Tarot Deck I'm doing with illustrator Elisabeth Alba. 
2. I signed the second contract with Berkley for the next two books in the Baba Yaga series, a novella, plus Veiled Magic, the urban fantasy I'd written a few years ago.  
3. Everyday Witchcraft came out from Llewellyn in April (and is still #4 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age & Spirituality > Wicca, Witchcraft & Paganism on Amazon!) followed by the Midsummer book in May. 
4. Witches & Pagans Magazine  put out an edition (#29) with me on the cover
5. Veiled Magic came out in mid-November. 
6. In the midst of all that, I was doing major revisions on Veiled Magic, writing and revising the third Baba Yaga book WICKEDLY POWERFUL and the novella Wickedly Ever After (both of which are up for pre-order, she said with a wink) and writing the first Rider book, Dangerously Charming. [More on that in another blog post, because OY.] 
7. Plus, of course, there was promo and giveaways and all that for all the books I had out already. Plus my column for Witches & Pagans, and a few misc. articles for Llewellyn.
8. Then in December, I signed a contract with Llewellyn for one more book, tentatively called "365 Days of Everyday Witchcraft." 

This was 2015!

So a good year, but INSANE. Hopefully 2016 will be a tad bit calmer.

Yeah, sure. That could happen.

TRAVEL
Then there was the traveling. I rarely travel much, in part because the cats don't like it, in part because frankly, I am a lousy traveler, and in part because I don't have the time or money. None of that seemed to stop me this year. This is where I went:

1. February--San Diego to visit my family and then on to San Jose for Pantheacon, one of my favorite Pagan conferences, where I got to hang out with my step-daughter Jenn, my beloved Llewellyn editor Elysia and publisher Bill, as well as lots of other cool folks.
2. July--New York City for the Romance Writers of America National conference. There I met up with my editor, my agents, lots of writing friends, participated in a panel, and hatched some interesting plans with Mindy Klasky. (Plus I finally got to meet the lovely Patience Bloom in person, which was a huge treat, and go to two panels by author Jennifer Crusie, who knows more about writing than anyone else I have ever met.)
3. August--Eight days after I returned from NYC, I took off for Boston to join my extended family for a long-overdue family reunion vacation in Cape Cod for nine days. The highlight of that was getting to spend time with my cousin Peter and his wife and two amazing boys, who I hadn't seen in years (or in the youngest boy's case, ever). Also, you know, BEACH.
4. September--I spent two days in Binghamton at an up-and-coming local SF/fantasy con, Robercon, with my pal Ellen. The best part of that one was meeting and hanging out with the shockingly talented and equally nice guest of honor, Tamora Pierce, who I have adored for years. We were online pals for ages, but now that we've met in person, we're best friends. (Okay, she probably doesn't realize that, but really, we are.)
5. November--Author pal Nancy Holzner and I headed to Saratoga Springs for World Fantasy Con, where I got to spend lots of time with author friends old and new, including the fabulous Carol Berg and Lucienne Diver.

To say that I am happy to be done with traveling for the year would be a huge understatement, although I am heading back out in February for four days in Daytona Beach for Coastal Magic.

The beach in San Diego. In February.

Me and Elysia

With Jenny Crusie

Alex, Mariana, Misho, Peter and me on the Cape

Nancy, me, Tamora, Crystal S at Robercon

Esther Friesner, Lucienne Diver, me, and Carol Berg plotting world domination

Personal Stuff
In between all this, I was dealing with my step-daughter Jenn's mom Jo (also a friend of mine) who had a massive heart attack in March and then another smaller one in early November. This has meant a lot more visits from Jenn, mostly to see her mom, and adding care-taking to my list of things to do, now that Jo is in a nursing home (since Jenn lives across the country and can't do handle most things from there). But we had a lovely Christmas together with our friend Ellen this year, so that was nice. (Ellen gave us all imaginary perfect gifts...that's what we're holding up.)

Me, Jo, Jenn on Christmas morning

Plus, of course, CATS:

Angus & Mystic

Luna

Minerva & Mystic

Magic the Cat, Queen of the Universe

 And running The Artisans Guild and making jewelry, and doing all manner of work on my house...so pretty much, life. But a good one.

I hope that you had a great 2015. I'd love to hear what the highlight of your year was. I think mine was meeting Tamora Pierce. What was yours?

Thanks for spending this year with me, and I look forward to sharing 2016 with you--may it be filled with health, prosperity, achievement, joy, love, and at least a little magic!

2014 into 2015: Looking Backward and Moving Forward

I had intended to post a “2014 in review” blog post at the end of the year, but between my step-daughter’s holiday visit (which was wonderful) and the unexpected loss of my cat Samhain (which wasn’t, obviously) I just didn’t get to it. So now I am going to combine my “Well, that was an interesting year” post with my “What’s coming in 2015?” post. We’’ just pretend I’m being efficient, shall we?

Thanks.

So—a brief look back at 2014:

This was the year of Finally Publishing a Novel. In fact, it was the year of Putting Out All the Books, which meant that it was also crazy busy with writing, editing, proofs, and promotion. Maybe a little too busy, in fact, since there wasn’t much time for anything else.

To review, these are the books that came out in 2014:

April (Llewellyn)  The Witch's Broom 

April (ePub re-release by me) Circle, Coven & Grove 

(Which I might have some good news about, but that's another blog post.)

August (Berkley) Wickedly Magical (novella)

September (Berkley) Wickedly Dangerous: Baba Yaga 1

December (Berkley) Wickedly Wonderful: Baba Yaga 2

I also wrote half of another novel (a romantic comedy) which is currently out on submission, signed a contract with Llewellyn to write the book for an amazing tarot deck and started working on the descriptions for the illustrator, and wrote a few articles for Llewellyn annuals. You can see why there wasn't time for much else.

I did make lots of gorgeous jewelry for the holiday season at the shop, observed the Pagan holiday cycle with Blue Moon Circle, attended the opera in Cooperstown with writer pal Nancy Holzner, and went to the New York Faerie Festival with Robin and the kids. But most of my focus was on career and not personal life, and I hope to have a slightly better balance this year.

Overall it was a good year, although I dealt with a number of frustrating health and house challenges, and of course, lost my little Samhain at the end. Ups and downs, like every life. But overall more ups than downs, and I am grateful for all of it.

*

2015: The Year of Peace and Plenty

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. What I do, however, is chose a theme for my aspirations for the year, and make a list of goals that will help me to work towards fulfilling those aspirations. I tend to focus on “self-improvement” in various forms—mental, physical, spiritual… And, of course, there are always the writing goals.

In general I am feeling reasonably good about where I’m at in life. Not that my life is perfect, or that I have everything I want. I still struggle with health issues, and finding balance, and getting my writing career to move successfully forward. But I have a family who loves me, great friends, four wonderful cats, a day job I like, and the most amazing fans/followers/online pals that anyone could ask for. That's a pretty decent place to be starting the year from.

So here are my goals for 2015. Feel free to check back in and ask how I’m doing. You can keep me honest...

Goals—

General:

1.  Work towards health and balance in all aspects of my life (this includes doing more exercise, yoga, meditation, and just plain play), try and encourage a peaceful mind
2. Spend more time with friends and family (see above)
3.  Be more careful about money (at least until I find out if I have another book contract or not)
4. Read or get rid of the gazillion books on my To Be Read shelf, instead of buying so many new ones (see above, oy)
5. Take the time to learn a few new skills (or, you know, how to use the electronic gizmos I already own)

Writing: This is a little trickier, because so many things are up in the air right now. For instance, I still haven't heard about whether or not Berkley will be contracting for Baba 3, and it is still possible that I will get a contract for the RomCom that is out on submission. If both of those things happen, they and the Tarot Project will pretty much take care of my writing time for the year. If neither of them happen, I have to figure out what to write next, and possibly consider self-publishing one or  more books I already have written but haven't been able to sell yet. Or even writing Baba 3 and self-pubbing that, although I'm not sure that there is enough interest to warrant it. Either way, without a contract in place starting the year (other than the Tarot Project, which won't be out until late in 2016), unless I self-pub something, I won't have a new novel out this year at all, and only one book from Llewellyn.

Maybe I should have made this the "Year of Learning to Live with Uncertainty."

But for now, here is what I have for the writing goals:

1. Promote Everyday Witchcraft coming from Llewellyn on March 8th. (In theory, this is my 8th and last book from Llewellyn, not counting my contribution to their new Sabbats series, but you never know.)
2. Enjoy finally attaining my goal of being featured on the cover of Witches & Pagans Magazine (out any day now)
3. Run a couple more giveaways, including one more for the Baba Yaga books, one or two for Everyday Witchcraft, and who knows what else...
4. Finish the Tarot Project as quickly as possible, so I can
5. Write another novel before the end of the year

I also hope to get to more conventions this year. I only went to one small one in 2014 (RoberCon in Binghamton, NY) and none in 2014 [in part because of my health issues, and in part because of the difficulty in leaving Samhain for any period of time. Also, see "insanely busy putting books out" above.]

For the moment, these are the ones I am considering, although I doubt I'll make it to them all. Be sure and let me know if you're going to be at any of them!

1. Pantheacon, San Jose CA -- February 13-16 A great Pagan convention I've attended a few times before. If I go, I'll be giving a workshop on the modern witch's broom and leading a ritual for bringing love into your life. I'll also get to stop in San Diego on the way and visit my parents, sister, niece & nephew, see my step-daughter, my writing partner Lisa, my Llewellyn editor Elysia, and lots of other great authors and fans. I'd originally cancelled this because of Samhain's declining health, but now it is looking more likely that I will go.
2. Romance Writers of America National Conference, NYC -- July 22-25 This member's-only conference is huge, and a great place to meet up with author friends I never see anywhere else, as well as being able to attend interesting workshops (and maybe give one or two), chat with my agent in person, and finally meet  my Berkley editor. Its a really expensive conference (and means a 5 1/2 hour bus ride in either direction) but it is also probably the most useful for my career. 
3. RoberCon 2015, Binghamton NY -- September 26-27 This one is only about an hour from me, and a fun SF/Fantasy gathering. Last year I took part on a lot of panels, which was fun.
4. World Fantasy Convention, Saratoga Springs NY -- November 5-8 This is one I haven't been to before, but this year it is in Saratoga, which is only 2 hours away from me. And I'd probably go with author pal Nancy Holzner, which would be a blast, and get to meet some of my "online only" friends like writer Carol Berg.

To be honest, I'm not really sure what 2015 holds. Hopefully it will be a mixture of work and relaxation, success, health, and happiness. Plus, you know, chocolate.

What are your goals for the year to come? And what do you intend to do to improve yourself or your life? Tell me, please—I’d really like to know!