by Mlissa | Jan 27, 2024 | All That Glitters, Endurance series, Racing, Sports
It’s that time of year. Racing season.
For me, it all starts on the last weekend of January with the Rolex 24. It’s a 24 hour race that begins this afternoon and ends tomorrow afternoon. It’s sports cars, not stock cars or Indy cars. It’s an endurance race. It’s run in teams with multiple drivers, each one taking turns for a set or certain number of hours throughout the course of the 24 hour period. It’s part of the IMSA series (International Motor Sports Association). They run a much shorter race schedule compared to NASCAR and Formula 1. Indy car is also a shorter schedule and you’ll find a lot of the Indy car drivers in IMSA. IMSA is one race a month for the most part, sometimes two and they run anywhere from 100 minutes to 24 hours. In Europe, there’s the World Endurance Championship and the 24 hour race is Le Mans.
Over the last few years I’ve really gotten into following this kind of racing. I still watch NASCAR and still love it. It’s changed though and some of my interest has waned. I hope it comes back, but there are so many other racing series to keep me occupied while NASCAR does NASCAR things.
Maybe you wonder what this has to do with anything, if there’s anyone actually reading this other than me, but my new series (yes, I promise it’s coming…) is about endurance racing, IMSA style endurance racing following their schedule. I am super excited about this series (Endurance) and y’all know I struggle to hype anything of mine (something I am working on), but this series is… I haven’t loved an idea or a series like this in years, maybe ever. The tone is personal brash and in your face. It’s very loosely tied to the Stick Shift Motorsports series (and yes, I know… book three is coming soon, I swear), but it is its own thing, with its own voice, its own storylines, its own characters who are young and hungry and awesome.
I’ve been reworking the blurb and will post it soon along with the new release date. For now, I’m going to go and get what provisions I need for race watching and I’ll catch up with y’all soon.
Lissa
by Mlissa | Apr 27, 2022 | Coming Soon, Cover art
So much new…
New covers.
New old covers.
New new covers.
New titles with new covers.
Old titles with new covers.
Old series with new titles and covers.
New series with new covers.
Just all kinds of new.
And I’m just all kinds of excited about it all.
by Mlissa | Apr 27, 2022 | Reading
…for their Books Unbanned program.
If you’d like to learn about it, click HERE.
If you’d like to donate, click HERE.
If you’d like to see the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement, click HERE.
As an author AND as a reader, the banning of books, of any kind, offends me. And I will own being offended. Books should never be banned. Books aren’t something for us to create fear and hate around. Books aren’t something to hide away, to ban, to burn.
Books are full of love and adventure and questions and curiosities and stories that help us understand ourselves and each other. Books create community and connection. They create opportunities for discussion and new ways of thinking. Books allow us to get lost in another world. The allow us to feel seen, to feel found, and sometimes to simply feel because sometimes only in books do we find no judgment, no hate, no fear, no chastisement, only acceptance and comfort.
At least, that’s what books have done for me, that’s what books have meant for me and to me.
by Mlissa | Mar 25, 2022 | Writing Life
I’ve been writing this whole month of March.
The. Whole. Month.
It’s a challenge. No, really. It’s a writing challenge I set for myself and I’ll tell you about it when the month is over, which…it’s not.
*glares at the calendar and how many words are left to write*
As you know, I work on several projects at once. I’ve never been a monogamous writer. I cheat on WIPs ALL THE TIME. There are good and bad things about this way of writing and I’ll go into that another time. However, for the purpose of this blog, one of the ways this is not so good is that multiple WIPs reach the middle at the same time. UGH.
Two of my roughly five active projects have reached the middle. Double UGH.
There’s always a book with a muddling middle being written. That’s the way this game of writing works. There’s always a moment in the middle when a writer questions why she began writing in the first place, why she thought she could write a fucking book, why she didn’t just stab the characters at the first sign of trouble and what would happen if she did that now… Writing life choices, y’all. Writing life choices.
And while I can and do work on others when I’m stumped with the need to mull things over, at some point I have to get back to the muddling middle of these two WIPs so that I can get through it and over to the other side, sliding toward the finish line.
When these two are finished, another couple will have reached that same middle ground and I’ll have the same questions pop into my head and I’ll feel extra stabby for a bit.
For now, though, the knives are still tucked away.
Are you curious about them? The books, I mean… Cool. Me, too.
What I can tell you is that one is the 3rd book in a series that has taken me millennia to finally write, and the other book is the 1st in a new series no one asked for, but I hope people will like it just the same.
Hope y’all are well, safe, healthy, and finding something to smile about.
by Mlissa | Sep 1, 2021 | Reading
In addition to the writing I’ve been doing and all the story ideas I’ve been collecting through July and August and likely through September, too, I’ve been doing some reading and thought I’d share what those titles are…
I’ve finished a reading a fantasy novel, A Court of Honey and Ash by Shannon Mayer and Kelly St Clare, and to be honest with you… I’m both looking forward to the sequel and yet, I’m not. I didn’t like the way the first one ended and had I known, I’d have waited until the whole series was available.
I’m currently reading Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury for nonfiction. I heard someone describe it as a love letter to writing and she was right. It is. It’s wonderful.
Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin. Because I can always, always, always handle this better.
I’m also slowly working my way through Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. If I focus on it, I’ll not be doing any writing at all because I’ll be reading it and the two books that follow and re-watching the series on Netflix. So, I have to pace myself.
Not My Romeo by Ilsa Madden-Mills. It’s slow going, too.
I gave up on City of Sin by Ivy Smoak. I couldn’t get into it. At all.
I need to finish, at some point, Ruckus by L.J. Shen. This one isn’t reaching me the way Vicious did. Defy was really good…
I have The Love Interest by Kayley Loring and Magical Midlife Madness by K. F. Breene waiting to be read as well as The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly.
There are a few on pre-order, too…
Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber
Gallant by Victoria Schwab
Kingdom of the Cursed by Kerry Maniscalco
And…
The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly.
Let’s not talk about the number of books already on my bookshelves (real and virtual), my library wish list, and my bookstore wish lists.
So many books… Man, I need a couple extra lifetimes.
If there’s anyone reading this, tell me what books your reading…
