Today, May 24, is National Road Trip Day. In honor of the day, I decided to update a blog I wrote after a road trip up the California coast in 2009.
Since I wrote this blog, self-publishing has forged a new direction for many of us, but the basic message is the same: start with a road map even if you decide to take a detour. Another update: after that trip we bought a GPS, and more recently, we bought a new car that has a navigation system. In 2018, my husband, son, and I took a road trip to Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, and Deadwood, South Dakota. Our son, who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, flew into Salt Lake City to join us. He drove the rental car through the whole trip, which was a help. He also taught us how to use Google Maps on our Smartphones. So, we no longer need to worry about a GPS if we are in a rental.
Do you have a GPS in your car or as an APP on your phone? It seems everyone nowadays has a GPS in some form or another. Before our 2009 trip up the California coast, I decided we should buy a GPS and take it with us. My husband disagreed, saying the maps we got from AAA would be enough to guide us. (I know, so old school). When we picked up the rental car, we turned down the rental company’s GPS because we didn’t want to pay $140 when we could buy one for about $50 more at home. Big, big mistake.
We got lost a lot on that trip. A lot. My husband becomes unglued when he gets lost. We fought. At one point I was writing a story in my head titled, “A GPS Would Have Saved My Marriage.” We finally calmed down and resigned ourselves to getting lost at times. We missed many of the sights we’d wanted to see, partly because the state of California Big Sur , which was one of the main things we’d wanted to see. On the other hand, while lost we stumbled onto Ventura Ventura
What does this have to do with writing? Do you have a GPS for your writing? Do you know what direction you want your writing to take, or are you barreling down the freeway and hoping for the best? When you started writing to sell, did you map out a plan? Did you decide to attend conferences and workshops to learn all you could about the craft of writing? Then, did you write and write and hone your craft? Or did you write with no real direction, feeling you didn’t need to study the market, that your books would find their way to the right publishers, like a GPS you plug in with no destination and wait for it to take you somewhere?
I know writers whose plan it is to sell only to a big New York
By all means, get back onto the main highway after the detour if you still want, but by opening yourself to new roads and taking a less traditional publishing route, you’ll have a book out there, a book people will want to read. Isn’t that better than keeping the book hidden in a drawer?
On our California trip, we didn’t get to see Big Sur, but we discovered Ventura
Since then, numerous epubs have sprung up. Some fell by the wayside, but many others are thriving. I contracted for my second book, a romantic suspense, with The Wild Rose Press. In GPS terms, I haven’t found Big Sur, the NY publishers, but I found my publishing Ventura
You might have to change direction from time to time, but the important thing is to know where you’re going. Study the market, write what you love, learn all you can and drive forward into that publishing freeway. But be prepared for detours and know those unexpected twists in the road might lead you to greater adventures.
You can travel anywhere in the world through books. My latest release, Wedded On a Dare (Love On a Dare Book 2) is set in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. You can travel to all those places for the price of a book.
A beautiful woman...
What could go wrong?
When a struggling actress takes a role as the glamorous temporary wife of a wealthy playboy, she finds love doesn’t always come on cue.
Struggling actress Kate Carluccio showed up for her wedding but her groom bowed out without warning. He absconded not only with her heart, but also her parents’ life savings. Her confidence shaken, Kate’s determined to find a way to restore her parents’ money. Then she’s offered the role of a lifetime: step out of her colorful high-top sneakers and into the glammed-up role of socialite wife to a shallow, annoying playboy. If only Kate wasn’t also secretly attracted to him, the one-and-a-half million dollars he offers with his proposal of a marriage-of-convenience might be easier to accept.
Breathtakingly handsome, super rich, and sophisticated with a bad boy vibe, Zach Lyon is a tabloid favorite. He may be a vice-president at his father’s company, but up until now he’s just played a supporting role. But when he discovers two executives are conspiring to force his dad out and take over the company, Zach decides it’s time to step into the spotlight. What better way than to take a glamorous new wife to Las Vegas to spend the Christmas holiday at the home of one of the conspiring executives?
As the curtain rises on the eclectic house party, Kate and Zach play their roles against the backdrop of schemers and snobs, while hiding deep secrets of their own. Can Kate pretend to love Zach without revealing the true depth of her attraction? Can Zach prove to his father he has the stability to go from understudy to leading man? They may have wedded on a dare, but with the stage set for romance, their marriage-of-convenience might just turn into a marriage-to-last-a-lifetime.
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For your reading pleasure, both books in the Love On a Dare Series are available in one set:
Love On a Dare Duet
Two women...
Two life-changing dares...
Do they have the courage to accept?
Two life-changing dares...
Do they have the courage to accept?
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