Amanda A. Allen's Blog

I got to be part of an awesome group of authors whose books are priced from free to $0.99.  You should check these babies out, because I am pretty dang excited about the ones I grabbed.

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Oh and P.S., the new Mystic Cove book is out now, and it’s only $0.99 too!

 

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You can buy it here.

~Amanda

Hey there,

I don’t know about you folks, but I am a *HUGE* fan of mysteries set in other time periods.  It was for this reason that I started writing my new series Zinnia West.  It’s set in the 1950s, and it has been sooooo fun thinking about what life may have been like then compared to now.

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My favorite time frame is, however, the time period between the World Wars.  And guess what?  The super author Lee Strauss has just launched a new series set in that time period.  Who’s excited with me?  I know you are!

Look at these gorgeous covers!

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I am so dang excited.  Click here to get your own copies.  The first two are only $0.99 each which is a dang bargain!

Who’s gonna join me?  Come on now.  You know you want to.

~Amanda

Heya!

This is a book born of friendship…

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During one of the hardest times in my life, my buddy, Auburn Seal, distracted me by suggesting we write a book together.  This is the first one.  The series now has 6 books, 2 short stories, and the first book is available for free here.  Check it out!

~Amanda

…about Carmel-By-The-Sea, California…

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1.)  They have a bakery that’s been open for more than a 100 years.  I like to think they’ve been perfecting their recipes that whole time and they have a baklava that tastes like honeyed magic.  I can not confirm this, but I’d like to.

2.)  They have houses there called Hansel & Gretel Cottages.   They might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen outside of Disneyland buildings.

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3)  The Cypress-Inn is so dog-friendly, they have dog events.  I’m thinking my Sookie would dig these.

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4.)  They built the first outdoor theater west of the Mississippi, where they buried the town dog, Pal.  They’re not joking about being dog-friendly in Carmel.

5.)  My upcoming cozy mystery series is set in Carmel in the 1950s.  It’ll be my first non-paranormal book, and I’m having so much fun writing something that includes bicycles, what it might have felt like to have lived through World War II and then pick back up a ‘normal’ life, and here is the current cover.

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Even though I remember when people first starting toting cell phones, it’s weird to think of things without google, convenient phones, and little things like miranda rights.  I was just writing a scene, imagining the detective’s desk, and then realizing he wouldn’t have a computer.  Fun, huh?  It’s coming soon and I hope you love it!

~Amanda

…last year (I think) I wrote a blog post about how I didn’t see how it could even be 2016.  I ditto that now.  I don’t know how it’s 2017.  I don’t know how so much time has passed since my last blog post, and the truth is epic shiz is happening.  My life feels like an endless to-do list that keeps getting longer even though I am scratching things off right and left.

 The adoption of my littlest has begun.  Which is a blessing because fostering a child sucks the aforementioned shiz.  It sucks it hard.  When you love a child and the state can just come get them and you have ZERO legal rights, you do things like develop anxiety issues.  I didn’t really think we’d get this far, this fast, and now that we’re here, it’s sort of shocking and surreal.[image error]This is my littlest.  What you are seeing here is the beginning of an epic tantrum.  Which is probably why I’ve been so ridiculously out of touch lately.  It’s so easy to point the finger at this little person.  He has issues.  Those issues are SUPER hard.  And sometimes, despite adoring him, being his mom also sucks shiz.  Thankfully he makes up for these moments with streaks of super cute, super smart, super clever, super adorableness.  His existence in my life–learning how to handle him and be his Mumma–took up all of the final shreds of whatever free time a single mom of 4 kids has.  He also taught me to plug my ear with my own arm fat while he has those epic, middle of the night, tantrums.  I mean…you needed to know that right?  Telling you that wasn’t weird at all.  Right?  Right.  K, whatever.
I have been writing my pants off.  In the last year, I published books I didn’t even get around to blogging about.  In fact, FYI, another Inept Witches book has come out.  It’s called Murder By Degrees and it is putting a little pause on Ingrid and her story while leaving her in a good place.  In the last year, I’ve never been more serious about being a writer as a full-time living.  When I publish the book I’m telling you about next, I will have written 20 books (two will be coming out at once, but I’m only telling you officially about one since I have yet to name the second.)  [image error]
I’ve started to realize–because sometimes I’m too stubborn to learn and need to be knocked about the head–that I have to be smarter about how I publish.  Which is why I am starting a new series.  I think you’ll like it. I like it.  In fact, I like it a whole lot.  It came easily.  It was like it had grown inside my head and I didn’t even know it as there.  Scarlett–my newest protagonist–WANTED to be in the world, and her story was the easiest I’ve ever written.  Here is the NOT-FINAL cover.  But it will be close to this, and I think it’s super, super cute.  [image error]The book is fully drafted and in the editing phase.  Because I’m a weirdo, I half-edit, half-draft as soon as I pass what feels like the first 1/3 of the book.  So even though I just finished the draft today, I also am about halfway through the 2nd draft of the book.  Bedtimes will be going out for some solid feedback within the week, and I hope to see it for sale soon.
So, with all of the above, I’m trying to be a lot smarter about how and what I do as a writer (and a mom).  I have much of my summer’s worth of writing planned out.  But outside of the coming duo of books and the major adoption event, EVERY other part of my life is up in the air.  I feel sort of like a first-time skydiver who is praying their shoot deploys.  Which sounds so much dire than my life is.  I am working really hard to improve the life of myself and my kids.  They mean everything to me, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them healthy and happy.

Here’s the reality, though, outside of bullet points and plans and lists and to-dos and paperwork, the day to day of my life is wonderful.  I often get told because my kids are foster care adopted that I am somehow wonderful.  This is BULLCRAP.  I am lucky, so lucky, to be their mother.  I am lucky, so lucky, to be part of their lives.  To be the recipient of their stories.  To be the one they see as a rockstar and run to.  To be the one that they curl up next to.  To be the one who holds their hands as they fall asleep.  And outside of being a mother, I am so lucky, so happy, so grateful to be pursuing my dream of being a writer.  I might be working hard and partaking of far, far too much caffeine, but I am also loving writing.  When I wrote Bedtimes and Broomsticks, there were so many mornings where I woke with the next piece of the story in my head.  I was excited, anxious even, to sit down and work.  Who gets to say that?

So yeah, you’ll be seeing a lot of stories from me in the coming months.  I’ll be launching those stories in different ways.  I’ll be experimenting with genre, with co-writers, with whatever it takes.  Because this life of mine is a good life, and I’m grateful to have it.

~Amanda

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Look at this pretty, pretty thing!  It’s the fifth book (novella really) in my Rue Hallow series.  This book is huge in so many ways.  I decided last year that I needed to get a series to 5-7 books.  January brings the 6th Rue Hallow book, Fated Graves.  In February, you’ll be seeing the 7th Rue Hallow which is called Rubies and Graves.  I am stupid proud of myself for getting to this point.

When I started writing this series, I didn’t know it would be the one where I could keep going and going.  I knew with some other books that I wanted them to be longer than they currently are (I’m getting there).  With this one, I thought–oh, sort of Inept Witches but college.  That could be sooooo fun.  I had no real plans beyond that.  And when I imagined it up, I intended so many different things for the series.  I intended it to be more whimsically fun like Inept Witches, but the truth is Rue Hallow is not Ingrid and Emily and expecting her book to feel the same or act the same was silly.

But what was more fun was learning that a character had her own way of being that was outside of me as the author.  I had experienced before but never as strongly as with these books and this character.

I am so proud of this book and the book that comes before it, Sisters and Graves.  That particular novel was one of the purest stories to itself.  It really told its own story and just dragged me along for the ride.

Either way, today I publish the 5th book and start a new one and it’s a happy day!  You could purchase Yule Graves here or Sisters and Graves here.

~Amanda

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Two years ago, tomorrow, my dad died.  At that time, I felt relief.  He had been so very…it was all the things.  He was uncomfortable, depressed, held back from the man he was.  It was hard for him to even talk and be understood.  He had a hard time hearing.  He had a hard time doing anything other than listening to music, reading, and watching tv.  Which sounds like an amazing life when you’re 14.  But when you had been who he had, it was torture.  

Maybe I should start by explaining who he was–  

My dad was a fighter pilot.   His stories were kind of crazy, so even though I believe him, they seem like the stories of Santa.  Because the dad I mostly knew was post-stroke Dad.  Pre-stroke Dad was a Colonel in the Air National Guard.  He worked as a manager of pilots at Horizon Airlines.  He played racquetball and served in our church.  He was busy and always moving.  He was like Alexander Hamilton in the musical–he never stopped.  Even vacations were insane.  They were these epic crash courses of everything.  It was the redwoods, Disney, San Diego, Vegas…all in 9 days of madness.

But I was only 17 when Dad had a stroke.  A person is pretty unaware and self-absorbed when they’re that young.  So I didn’t know him well, and my memories are flashes of who he was.

Post-stroke Dad was something totally different.  I think the only way Dad could have slowed down was with something like a stroke.  Otherwise, he’d have run and run and run until he died.  But post-stroke Dad had to counsel you because he couldn’t do things for you.  He tried, my goodness, he tried.  He drove again, he walked again.  He had the kind of stroke that made doctors marvel that he lived.  So doing those things again were BIG deals.

 

Post-stroke Dad slowed down because he had to.  And in slowing down, you saw so much more of his tenderness, of his goodness, of his kindness.  He’d hold your hand.  He’d sit next to your bed.  He tried.  He contributed.  He made you feel adored.  He had to show his love in a different way.  Pre-stroke Dad showed his love by working his butt off for you.  Post-stroke Dad showed his love in time, in wanting to be with you.  He showed it when you went for drives or he dreamed with you and for you.

I was lucky enough for him to live next door and I often went over and got him and made him come and talk with me.  I miss that so much.  

When he died, I was relieved for him.  Because I believe in an after-life, it was as if I was saying goodbye for a little while.  Now that he’s been gone for two years, though, the grief hits me sideways.  It catches me unaware and leaves me inexplicably sad over a bowl of tomato soup.  Ir makes me leave the peanut butter cups in the Halloween candy behind.

I have fallen in love with the Hamilton musical.  If he were alive, I’d call him and ask him how much of the musical is historically accurate–because Dad would know.  If he were alive, I would be able to introduce my kids to him.  Here’s the thing…he died when he needed to.  But it was TOO SOON.  It was too soon because he didn’t get to meet my sons or my youngest daughter.  Because my oldest daughter was the “peanut” then and she couldn’t talk.  He would have been delighted with her sassiness.  He’d have fed her sweet tooth unapologetically.  He’d tell my oldest stories and listen to his stories.  Dad would counsel me to patience with my youngest.  He’d have adored my snuggle younger daughter.  He’d have fed her love for her babies and wanted nothing more than to sit with my kids, eat popcorn and candy, and watch Frozen 7000 times.

So, even though it was time, it was too, too soon.  And I want him back.  I want to hear his voice and tell him my worries and learn from his wisdom.  I want him to meet my children and love them with me.  I want him to be next door and go over and get him to watch a marathon of his favorite cartoons with my kids.

This week, we’re making yellow cake with chocolate frosting and finding some Rocky and Bullwinkle.  We’re having Grandpa Day.  It won’t ever stop being too soon, and I won’t ever stop missing him, and this week, the grief won’t be sideways.  It’s right there, next to me, reminding me of how blessed I am to call him Father.

I miss you, Dad.

~Amanda

…today my son was born.  Except I wasn’t there.  He was born to another mother whose exit from his life has left a hole so big that even more than half of his life later–it comes out in all the ways.

My son is wonderful.  He is smart, funny, full of stories which are the direct path to my heart.  When I make him food he likes, he is quick to pour on the compliments and gratitude.  He tells me I’m beautiful, and–to my ever-living wonder, he means it.  He adores his sisters and brother.  He looks after them and loves them.  He invites them into his play developing them into little storytellers as well.  He is passionate and full of feeling.  He is my biggest helper.  He will pick up and clear the table and helps his sisters scrape their plates into the garbage.  He gets me the diapers I need for little brother and littlest sister.  He plays superheroes with his next sister.  They put down their pirate ships and have epic battles in my living room.  He is a TV zombie who loves stories in whatever their form. The biggest horror in his next sister’s life is that he is big enough to go to soccer and school and she is left behind.  Because HE is her hero.   When littlest sister needs help, she is as quick to call for him as she is for me.  Whenever he’s not home, she won’t stop asking for him–he’s her star.  

I don’t object to his being born to another mother.  There are times when I regret the things I missed.  The first steps.  The first smile.  But, I don’t object to the years I lost.  Six years ago, today, he was rocked by another mother.  A father certainly looked down on him in wonder–how could he not?  Grandparents squealed with delight as they held him for the first time.  This little, red-haired, tiny piece of a human.  He would have been so little.  So light.  So fragile.  So quick to cry–he couldn’t tell them his stories then.

And it will ever be both a tragedy and a miracle that I get to be the one who hears those stories. That I get to see his mind unfold the complexities of his world.  He’s gone from Turbinado–the hero with rocket packs nearly everywhere to Dark Matter–the super villain.  His mind feels out the edges of a story–and I wonder at it, because mine does the same thing.  There’s a real possibility that the two of us will begin working on a story together this year.  There’s a real possibly that he will continue to struggle with the hole in his heart.  And it will come out making other things harder than they should be.  Kindergarten is hard for lots of kids, but it will be harder for him.  Losing a friend is hard for everyone, but for him–it reawakens that first, biggest lost.

Because adoption is always associated with loss.  It is associated with complex feelings.  It is both beautiful and horrible.  For me, I am the lucky one.  And I want it to be understood that I am well aware of the magnitude of my blessing in this little man.  Tonight, I rocked him.  Tonight, I pulled him into my arms and made up a birthday song for him that his sisters and I sang together.  Tonight, my three oldest took turns getting tickles.  And I was the one who got to hear the lullaby composed of squeals of laughter.  Tonight, I kissed his head and left him awake with his book.  And tomorrow, when I wake, he’ll run to me and call me Mommy.

There is something a little impossible for me in not thinking of her when these moments come.   Because somewhere out there is another woman who thinks of this–her son–with sadness and I am not unaware of that either.  I don’t think you read my writing, but if you do, I’m sorry for your pain.  I’m just so sorry.  If it helps, he is loved.  He is adored.  He is wonderful.  He’s ok.  He loves you still and he is reminded often of your love.

Happy birthday, my son.  You are so very loved.

~Amanda

Not sure why this became a thing, but I found thinking back to be very interesting (in reference to me) given that this is the last week of work for me at a place that has colored much of my adult life.

1- Babysitting

2- Dairy Queen

3- Fred Meyer Shelf Straightening chick

4- Built printers at Hewlett Packard on an assembly line

5- Engineering Clerk at Tidland Corp (so much filing….)

6- Phone Customer Service Banker

7 – Technical support for phone customer service reps

And because it rounds it out —

8 — Email Customer Service Banker

9– Fraud Analyst and Writer

10– Mom and Writer (staring Monday!)

~Amanda

Three years ago on Tuesday, I published my first book.

When I look back at what I’ve accomplished since then, I am pretty dang impressed with myself.

But lets talk about what’s important.  Spiders.

Yes.

Spiders.

As in the giant house spider.  Something like this fellow:

One of these evil little … um… things.  Well it CRAWLED across my desk on Tuesday.  Mere inches from my HAND.  From.  My.  Hand!

1)  I did not scream.  2)  I was forced to recruit someone else to kill it.  I am not ashamed of this.  It took me about 10 people to find someone to get rid of it.  3)  There is only one thing to be done.

Clearly, I must leave my job.

Nothing else can be done.  There could be a colony of them underneath my desk.  They may be currently planning to attack and embed themselves right into my flesh.  Nothing else, whatsoever, can be done.  I have to leave.  But in all seriousness, yes.  That’s right.  I am leaving my job of 16 years to be a full-time mommy and writer-from-home.  Today, I gave my leave.  I’m giving myself a year to slow down this crazy train and give my books a big push.  I don’t know what will happen but I’m grateful to be in a position to take a break and catch my breath and do things like snuggle my kids a little more and not lose it when my kids (inevitably) wake me every single night.  Currently daughter #2 wakes every morning at 4:00am.  Every. Single. Morning.  Then son #2 wakes at 5:00am.  I think it’s pretty obvious that they’re plotting against me and my job.

But not any more.  I have set *very* high goals and will be working hard in the coming year in order to make this year the first of many.  But, regardless of what happens, I’ll appreciate the chance to be only a member of the Allen Family Team and my only requirements be hugs for each of my babes and seeing to their health and happiness first and foremost.

Aren’t I so blessed?

~Amanda

ps, If anyone cares about what I’m reading, currently I’m re-listening to the Harry Potter audio books.