Sara Bell's Blog

I was going to title this post "I Haven't Blogged Since January Therefore I'm a Suckass Blogger" but it's just too long. True, but long. Instead I decided I'd just tell you about my new book and then promise to blog more often. No, seriously, I promise.

My new book (it's more of a novella really but calling it a book makes me sound more important and I'm all about the self-esteem) is called Pool Hall Green. It's about a guy named Drew who hit the jackpot when it comes to pool playing talent...

According to my mother, I was born behind (three weeks overdue), so it should be no surprise to ya'll that I haven't posted a blog update since August. *Sigh* I was one of those kids in high school who always showed up late to class with a armload of loose, crushed, and crumpled papers because I'd left my binder at home. Rather than trying to cram five months of updates into one post I'll give ya'll a nutshell version of what's happening with my tardy self and tell you what I've got planned f...

The other day a reader and good friend of mine asked me, "So why Wavyscribe?" referring to the screen name I use for AOL and various social sites. I've had readers mention it in passing (some were sure it was an homage to gay romance, as in not straight but "wavy"), but until my friend asked I didn't give much thought that people might actually be curious about it. I'm afraid the truth behind it isn't nearly as exciting as some of my readers seem to believe.

It's all about my hair.

Vanity, thy ...

About six months ago, I decided it was time to go back to Reed, the setting of my first two books. I was ready to do the third book in the series, I told myself, and despite the time that had passed since I'd written a Reed book, I began my task with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a fire in my belly. I chose Mitch, Ben Lewis's brother from The Way You Say My Name to be my main character and off I went.

I was about four pages in when I realized I just wasn't feeling it.

It happens that way som...

So, I always knew I was something of a procrastinator, but going three hundred and seventy-two days between blog posts is a new record, even for me. I thought about playing it cool, just sliding in a post (this is May, same month and all) and hoping no one would bother looking at the year but then I realized I'm not that slick. I figured a better course of action would be to fess up and tell you where I've been. I had some health and family stuff to deal with--normal, everyday, real world stu...

After making my first post, I did some research on reviews. In the span of three weeks I got four good ones, one medium one, and one I would consider "bad." That still puts me ahead, if you average them all together. Of course, most writers--myself included--can have twenty-five stellar reviews and only one negative one, but it's the negative we dwell on every time. As I said in an earlier post, I do my best to take bad reviews with a grain of salt, the "live to write another day" approach. I...

So I'm new to the whole blogosphere (as you can tell since this is my first post) and it occurred to me that starting out I wanted to talk about some of the tough stuff--stuff some writers don't like to talk about. I'm the eternal optimist, and I believe if you deal with the bad stuff, you can clear it out to make room for the good.

Yesterday, one of my books got a bad review. I say this not so you'll feel sorry for me, because I'm honest when I say I try to take reviews in stride. Bad reviews...