My son cracks me up

He says: "Became a man today."

I am one lucky mom. 

After Two Hard Years . . .

Post by Home Run.

Just For YOU!

The Emerald Wolf is almost ready for publication! So, so close. Just a couple of weeks more and it should be available at Amazon.com I'll post the link as soon as I have it.

In the meantime, I've dropped the price of all my e-books to .99 cents to celebrate the near release. Go check them out!

Cover Reveal!

I've recently signed on with a wonderful publishing company called Trifecta Books because of a very special project. I've had a book for a few years now. One that I haven't been able to decide whether to take Indie or go with a publisher, and finally decided it needed wider distribution than I could do going the Indie route. Thankfully, I know this AWESOME publisher who wanted the story and has persuaded me (it wasn't hard) to turn the single book into a 5 book series! Book one is slated for June and book two this coming winter. I AM SO EXCITED. I wrote the first draft of this book in 9 days. It just poured out of me and I hope that excitement bleeds through to you readers. I can hardly wait for you to read the story!

And so, with no further ado, I give you the cover for Newtimber: Fractured, and a brief summary of the story.

Introducing Newtimber: Fractured, an exciting YA urban fantasy novel by Karen E. Hoover, author of The Wolfchild Saga and others.

There was absolutely no way a black dragon hovered outside of Newtimber. Sianna rubbed her eyes, but the dragon was still there, clutching a round object that looked like a spotted egg. And then the egg fell, hitting the ground like an atomic bomb, sending out waves of a slow-moving fog that distorted everything it touched.

The citizens of Newtimber change. The old man down the street stretches into a screaming tree. Sianna’s skateboarding friend, Matt, transforms into a giant green dragon. Pegasus. Sirens. Griffins. Vampires. Zombies. Creatures from the myths of every culture come to life through the people.

Even Sianna changes, her skin becoming stone hard, and she gains the ability to travel from the human realm into the dimension of the fae, using it to free her father from prison and enlist his aid in battling the evil bent on taking over the world.

One person to heal a family, a town, and save the world. It seems an impossible task, but with the help of her new friends, it could happen.

Right?

Newtimber: Fractured will be released early summer 2014 by Trifecta Books. Visit www.trifectabooks.com for exciting updates about this great new series!

Spotlight!

I was interviewed and spotlighted on Tanya Parker Mills website today. Want to see pictures of me when I was younger? Find out the first book I learned to read? The answers are there. Why don't you go check it out and see? Just go HERE. And if the link doesn't work, the address is 
http://www.tanyaparkermills.com/wednesday-writer-karen-hoover/

Catching Up

Wow. I don't remember the last time I did a real post about real things going on in my real life. It feels like years.

But things have changed.

I've spent the last two years in a torturous hell with one of my children making some very bad choices that have put him in trouble with the law and made him very difficult to live with. It sucked my energy and ability to write for a very long time, and then things got so bad I had no choice but to write or I was going to go insane or kill the kid (not literally).

That's where everything changed. And yes, I do know I just said things changed twice, but this shift in my life has been so incredibly huge that I am no longer the same person I once was. My heart, that was so focused on the misery of my life and how awful things were, now weeps at the beauty of a cherry tree blossom, and is so full of gratitude I feel as if It is oozing from me like an overflowing ice cream cone on a hot day, when you can't catch the drips fast enough and end up with a delightfully sticky hand.

It began on a Sunday. April 28th, to be exact. I woke up in excruciating pain. My back was on fire and in spasms, like it has done on many occasions, but after a back rub and 600 mg of ibuprofin, I still hurt. Not my back, but my lower right side. I thought perhaps it was just a gas pocket or something. I'm so used to pain that I frequently blow it off and don't do anything about it. But that day my husband told me that if I didn't call the doctor the next day he was going to kick my butt. In other words, he was going to nag me until I got it done.

Having experienced his pushiness with my health before (much to my benefit), I called the doctor Monday, but couldn't get in until the following day. The pain continued to increase and by Monday night I thought Gary might actually be right to push me to the doctor's office.

Tuesday I went in and within five to ten minutes, the doctor said I showed all the classic symptoms of appendicitis, though I didn't seem toxic as of yet. He sent me over to our local hospital, having called ahead, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I felt a little foolish walking into the ER and telling them my doctor told me to come in because of possible appendicitis. Silly me. I had no idea how serious this was about to be.

I spent most of Tuesday in the ER having tests run. The CT scan was particularly interesting as the tech told me sometimes it makes you feel like you wet your pants, but you didn't. It just feels that way.

He was right, and it made me laugh. I was very grateful for his warning!

It was getting close to five o'clock when the doctor came in and told me I could either let my appendix grow, get more painful and infected and possibly burst, or we could do surgery and take care of it right then. Of course I elected for immediate surgery. I'm not stupid. Foolish, sometimes, but not stupid.

I was prepped for surgery, and I remember going into the surgical room and being put on the table and everything. It was interesting, and they were very nice and comforting.

And then everything went black.

I woke up three days later.

It's taken a week to piece together all the pieces, but evidently when they sent in the camera for the surgery, they passed a huge mass on my colon. That put a big, screeching half on surgery until the doctor got my husband to the hospital so he could talk to him. Thankfully it's only about fifteen minutes from home and Gary got there fast, even bringing the kids with him.

After seeing pictures of the mass and being given his options, Gary had to make a decision, one that is never easy for a spouse to make, but I believe it was the right one. He chose for me to undergo major surgery to remove the mass, take out at least twelve to fourteen inches of my colon, have everything shifted over, and reattached.

Of course I had no knowledge of any of this until I started to wake up. I was on a constant morphine drip so was a little out of it. Okay, a lot out of it. My friend's daughter came to see me and told me later that when she asked me how I was doing I slurred, "I'm sooooooo stoned!" I didn't remember until she reminded me. I feel like I've lost a month, though I was in ICU for 4 days and regular rooms for another 4.

I've got at least a foot of staples running up the middle of my belly, plus a few down lower and two where the laparoscope initially entered, and yet I've felt hardly any pain. The nurses asked repeatedly for my pain number, and aside from a couple days in the beginning that were a 5, my pain has been between a 0.5 and a 2 throughout this ordeal.

I remember one evening when a nurse and a CNA stood on each side of my bed and wanted to inspect my staples, since I have a metal sensitivity. They wanted to be sure they weren't infected (which they weren't--just red) and they looked at the staples with something akin to awe. One of them said, "Look at that. They are perfectly straight. He (the doctor) does such beautiful work!" Then to me, she said, "You're hardly going to have a scar. You are so lucky you got Doctor Hansen!"

I agree. I am lucky. But much, much more.

I am blessed. Doctor Hansen and my husband saved my life.

The biopsy came back cancer free, but according to one of my friends who is a bit of a colon cancer expert, the turnaround time for a mass like that to go from benign to cancerous is 6-7 years. They believe it is an endometrial mass that stuck around after my hysterectomy 6 years ago. The timing there is insane.

Twice now I have dodged the cancer bullet (or cannon ball, it feels) because the man upstairs knew more than the doctors and guided their hands to eliminate possible cancers before they had a chance to invade my system.

It is one of the most humbling things I have ever experienced.

Things are still hard. My son is still being a pill and making bad choices. He goes to court this week. I'm tired. Weak. But oh so grateful for all of it. When I first saw my troubled child I hugged and hugged and hugged him--and this growing fifteen year old let me. I hugged them all. I find myself saying all the beautiful things to people I was too scared to say before. Compliments on scarves, and clothes, yes, but also just when someone looks beautiful, which EVERYONE does.

Like I said, I've changed. I'm still me, but I suddenly see the importance of family, of true friends, of every beautiful thing God has created for us. I see the beauty I was blind to before, and all I can say is thank you. Those are probably the most important words of all, and so very simple. Thank you for life. Thank you for beauty. Thank you for gifts and friends and family.

Just--thank you.

A Cheer for the Hard Times

During the month of March I've been participating in a "March-a-thon," where basically a group of us are doing as much as we can on our current projects. My very favorite part of this process has been the "Cheers" that have taken place--essays written by the participants to cheer each other on. I wrote this one last Thursday and today one of my friends suggested that I post it here. That it was "Too good to keep to ourselves." I appreciated that confidence she has in me, and since I've not posted anything inspirational for ages, it felt like the right thing to say today.

My mother spent the first few years of her life in Tucson, Arizona back in the 1930s. She was a precocious child—curious and frequently doing things without thought, once jumping back and forth over a rattlesnake until my grandmother snatched her away.

One day she decided to go for a discovery walk toward town. Unfortunately, the closest route was across the railroad tracks, which she’d been told time and time again not to go near. Now, we’re not talking about crossing the tracks. No, I mean, the tracks formed a bridge that spanned a deep gorge that was nearly a mile across. So, this particular day she started on the tracks, skipping and probably singing, as she jumped between the rails.

She was having a grand time until the ground began to shake. She glanced over her shoulder and was terrified to see a train bearing down on her, horn blasting its warning. She ran as fast as her five-year-old legs would carry her, but even at that young age she knew there was no way she could make it to the other side before the train arrived. 

As death raced toward her, getting louder with every passing second, a quiet voice spoke within her. “Climb over the side.” Without hesitation, she lowered herself over the side of the track and hung on to the trellis with all her might. The passing train was inches away and deafeningly loud, but she hung on, fearing her bones would shake to pieces, until at last the caboose passed her by and she could pull herself up and, with shaky legs, make her way home.

And why do I tell you this? Well, aside from the fact that it’s just a really cool story, it does have a purpose—one that has affected me throughout my years.

Things got hard. Terrifying. Life threatening. But she listened to the spirit inside of her and she survived. She made it through the hard and survived to become something more.

Now, if you read my short post last week, you’ll know that life has been really hard for me lately. For a solid year or more I’ve struggled with a rebellious, disobedient, and disabled teenager that I thought was going to put me in jail or a mental institution. I wanted to die, just to make the pain stop. 

But guess what? The spirit spoke and I listened. Time after time after time I received peace and reassurance from the other side. You’ll be okay. You can make it. Be patient. There’s a time for everything. So many words and such comfort despite the difficulty, and finally life is getting better.

Let me share something that my friend Regina Sirois wrote to me recently, as I feel it applies to all of us:

“Giving birth to words is like giving birth to people. Sometimes they come with only discomfort, sometimes with a struggle that seems to threaten life instead of give it. Since you know dragons, let me remind you how many you are fighting right now. They are savage and relentless. You fight on, bloodied, tired, wounded, feeling the cause is hopeless. It isn't. I wish you could see the faces of the angels fighting with you. Their jaws are clenched, their eyes are burning with determination. They will not leave you. This is their battle, too. Because you only feel the fire burning over your head, you don't realize how brave and strong you have been. You don't have time to look around you and see how many enemies you've slain. And someday when these dragons fall you will sit down and rest. You will have time to look around you. You will remember what you have done and you will smile. Give yourself permission to fight one battle at a time. Give yourself permission to tend to your wounds. Give yourself permission to feel how loved you are. . . .

" . . . Give yourself permission to fail. And after the first attempt fails, give yourself permission to try again without feeling like a failure. The words will come. Like children, sometimes they arrive late. Sometimes they surprise us. Sometimes they cost a great price. But always, they are miraculous.”

I really can’t say it much better than she did. Life gets in the way much too often, and as parents, especially mothers, it is easy to feel guilty, whether it is guilt for not writing, or guilt that we are writing too much. Guilt that our children aren’t making the right choices. Guilt that we just aren’t good enough, our writing isn’t good enough, nothing will ever be good enough.

Let me tell you right now, that is not true! 

My mother told me two things over and over, and though I still face guilt and fear of failure, I remember her words and they make me strong. I give those words to you.

“You can do anything if you want it enough.” And “I have confidence in you!”

Those words have helped me to try things I’d never known. I’ve created useful projects that have helped me move or simplified my life. I’ve built bookcases and laid carpet and tile, painted, and built an entire office in my garage—all because I KNEW I could do anything. My mother told me so.

I’m telling you now. You—yes, I’m talking to you—YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!

Believe it. Live it. Do it.

That’s where you’ll find your joy, and isn’t that what we’re here for? Find joy in the journey each and every day, despite the trains bearing down on you. Because why?

You can do anything. 

Anything at all.

"I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it."

Ernest Hemingway