Black Cats and Witch Hats

I don't mean to be a cliché, but October is finally here! I truly do love this month way more than any of the other months of the year - and not only because Halloween is near, but also because the world starts to creep into "cosy" mode for the impending cool months. The air is colder, blankets are warmer, the world gets wet and we struggle to keep dry. All the while, the veil between this world and the next thins... if you believe such things!

As a Wiccan, Samhain is obviously the most fun day of the year for me. There are few others around here whom I can celebrate the holiday with, but I'm happy to partake with the select few individuals I'm closest to on this planet. We recently celebrated Mabon together, a holiday I wrote about in Midnight Magick! And yes, our ritual really did go a lot like how I describe it in the book!

But anyway, I digress.

This year has been a turnaround year for me. I've finally cast aside the shackles of routine and taken a big risk by opening myself up to the world of writing, and while I mainly have myself to thank for that, I'm planning on spending this month using all the energy I have from last month's excitement and turning it outward toward the people I love. It's time to give back!

Anyway, I just thought I'd drop in since I haven't in a while. I promise I'll write more often. I'm working on two new titles at the moment:

Taken in Darkness' older sister, Penny Dreadfuls: we return to a more elegant time, to the Victorian Gothic, a time of corsets and top hats, where man's carnal urges were repressed behind the straight-jacket of politeness. To a place where monsters could walk among the herd, obscured by perpetual smog, free to indulge in the sins of the flesh.

Midnight Magick: a (still untitled) sequel and the second book in the series. The smoother, sharper successor to Midnight Magick where I take what I've learned and apply it in full force, pouring blood and sweat into the keys. I can't say much, but I can tell you some witches had better be mindful of their actions; you never know when your very life may depend on your ability to to retrace your steps.

I hope you enjoy them!

How are you all going to be celebrating Halloween? Feel free to drop a comment! I don't bite!

Kat
xx

Midnight Magick

It's been a wild ride, but after much - MUCH - hard work, Midnight Magick is finally ready to hit the shelves! I've posted the blurb below, plus the new cover art to the left (which I think is a great improvement over the first, but feel free to let me know your opinions) and with all that said I think I'm ready to go!

Thanks to everyone for their support, I hope you enjoy my work!

Click here to go to the Amazon Sale Page: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NS3LXPM

And click here to Like me on Facebook to keep in touch: https://www.facebook.com/katmartinezauthor

*Comments/ criticism/ feedback absolutely welcomed!

Blurb: 

"Lonely witches get up to no good."

Amber Lee has a decent life: she lives in a great house, she's about to start school again, her best friend Eliza is pregnant, and the pair of them are Wiccans with a healthy bond. But ever since Eliza moved out of Amber's house and in with her boyfriend Evan, Amber's been feeling a growing pang of loneliness in her chest.

When Damien, a stranger to her town, mysteriously comes into her life bringing with him all manner of strangeness, everything changes. Damien shows Amber a side of her she never knew existed, and ignites in her a spark she hadn't felt in a long time, but he's haunted by a dark secret and a purpose which may prove fatal to them both - and by the time she realizes it, there's no turning back.

Midnight Magick will take you deep into a world of witchcraft and mystery, where bonds are tested, hearts broken and lives lost. 

Prowling Toward Your Target

A daily 2,000 word goal is almost a necessity for a brand new Author, as I mentioned in my last post, but even if we're only able to manage 1,000 a day (like me!) or 500, there are other victories you can count which are just as good.

If you're a dreamer, like me, sometimes keeping your mind on the same task is... difficult. You need the new, the fresh. Ideas assault your mind constantly and demand to be acknowledged, otherwise your leg will shake, you'll grind your nails to nubs and end up blocked and unable to write.

So if you're having a hectic day where nothing's going right and forcing a moment to write just isn't going to work, do what I did today and listen to the voices in your head. Let's face it, we're writers; our heads are full of voices! But don't just listen to them, interview them. Ask them questions. Give them a few minutes in the spotlight and they may just surprise you with ideas you didn't know were in there.

That's what I did today, and while I'm not 2,000 words closer to finishing Midnight Magick - one of the first Paranormal Romance novels I plan on publishing this year - the little notepad full of plot outlines and a rough road-map for 2014/ 2015 certainly counts as prowling toward my ultimate target. So write your heart out when you can, and when you can't write, dream - but always be working, especially if you're new! Every little step counts.

I'd like to hear back from other writers on this. Are there others like me? How do you cope with bouts of lethargy and hyper-motivation? Do you have daily word goals? Did you think you were biting off more than you could chew when you first started off?

Thanks for reading!

Kat
xoxo

Finding my Feet

My entire time as a writer I thought the hardest part of being an author was the writing, but having spent the last few weeks in the world of marketing and promotion I can say this; writing is at once the hardest, but also the funnest part of being an author. Everything else is an exercise in psychological endurance, and you'll gain little fun from it if you aren't prepared.

When I published my first piece of work I hit the Tweets hard, spread myself all over Facebook and ran myself ragged hitting the Refresh button on the KDP Reports page to see if I'd made more sales. Sales came, and they were awesome when they popped up on my screen, but they were minimal. 

It took me a while to realize it but a few days ago I read something that made me calm down with the tweets, ignore the KDP Reports page - checking it only at the end of every day - and leave Facebook alone. You'll read this on many other blogs but it bears repeating, especially since I'm living through it right now. What I learned was the only and best tip to becoming a successful author: write more books.

So I wrote and wrote and wrote and guess what? The world didn't collapse from not checking my Twitter page, the KDP Report didn't show a drop in sales because I wasn't incessantly refreshing it, and people didn't like my Facebook page any less. Why's that? Because no one knows who you are yet and they're not going to miss you if you aren't tweeting.

By all means go on Twitter, set up and share your Facebook Author page among friends and family, but always remember that the best thing you can be doing is writing. When you have a moment, write. When you have three moments, spend all three of them writing. Tweet on occasion. Look for other blogs and read them, comment on them or write your own. Set yourself daily word goals and hit them every day before doing anything else with your time. Organize yourself and your time well.

I haven't written this until I reached my word goal! If you're aspiring to be an author and you haven't written anything/ enough today, stop reading and write! 

If you want to walk with confidence among all of the other amazing authors out there one day you have to find your feet first. It'll take time, the grass is prickly, but you'll get used to the path soon enough. You just have to take it one step at a time, and the first one is the most obvious; don't stop writing. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this! Follow me for more!

Kat

xoxo

Out in the world!

Welcome to my very first blog! I'd like to thank anyone who has decided to take time out of their busy day to read on! The thought that someone outside of immediate family/ friends is reading my words right this very second fills me with a thrill I didn't even know existed until I decided to stick my wet nose out into the world and join the rest of the pack.

My name is Katerina Martinez, and my passion is telling stories. I figured out early in life that I was good at it but routine, family and an unhealthy fear of the unknown had me quickly settled into a desk job and consigned to a life of mind-numbing drudgery at the whims of my employers. The idea that I was meant to do more with myself didn't come until a few years ago when, after a family crisis, I decided to put myself first and stop trying to please everyone else.

Now I'm a girl with a keyboard, a blinking cursor, and the world at her fingertips! It took guts to hit that yellow "Publish" button and take the step from Writer to Author, but I've done it and now I'm ready live in the world of criticisms, reviews, social media, blogs, and of course the ever present word-goal. I've never blogged in my life, but I've noticed that all the blogs (or at least a majority of them) about writing, self-publishing and marketing have been written by people who've "been there" and "done that".

I'm in the thick of it right now.

I'm at that turbulent, nebulous point where I worry about whether or not I'm going to make it, whether I'll be brave enough to ride through the storm and come out on the other side a better person, free from the shackles of mediocrity and free to live and breathe and share the worlds I create. In many ways, I'm that fresh kitten sticking her nose anywhere it'll fit not knowing whether the experience will be positive or negative - only that I have to do it, and then tell people about it.

I'm hoping that others in my situation will read this and be able to at least relate to what I'm saying, or at best find strength in my words. That, to me, would be better than even becoming a best-selling author! However, since I'm a writer and my personal development rests in the hands of people who see my work, I would be grateful for - and indeed encourage - any comments or tips related to writing, self-publishing and marketing books. And if someone decides that they want to read my books and let me know what they think about my writing, I would be absolutely ecstatic!

So anyway, before closing this first blog, I'm going to tell you what genres I'll be writing about/ interested in discussing and end with a link to my first piece of work "Taken In Darkness":

- Horror
- Mystery
- The Paranormal/ Occult
- Romance (Paranormal Romance being, primarily, what I'm most interested in)
- Sci-Fi
- Post-Apocalyptic
- Erotica (though not necessarily as a primary genre)

"Taken In Darkness: 7 Supernatural Shorts" - this is my first piece of work available on Amazon now as an eBook. This book is an Erotic Anthology of 7 short stories touching upon the paranormal (Vampires, Witches, Werewolves, Angels, etc). Why Erotic? Honestly, because being the shy person I've always been in life I thought eroticism in my novels was what I would struggle the most with, and I wanted to not just overcome that hurdle but cut through it in a blaze of glory!

Even though I've only had two reviews on this piece, I'm confident to have succeeded in my task (of both writing it and publishing it) and will use the experience as a font of strength to get me through the rest of the ordeal of working two jobs until I'm free to focus entirely on what I love to do; write stories!

My next piece, a novel called "Midnight Magick" is already coming along, and I can't wait to tell you all about it! But first, please feel free to comment, Tweet or email me! I'd love to hear other people's stories too!

Thanks for reading!

Kat

xoxo