novel

Circling The Shadows — it happened!

/ PaigeRandall / 6 Comments

20150429_180211This is maybe the happiest blog I’ve ever blogged. Except the Brooklyn blog, Emotional Rescue. I really liked that one. Thank you to my twitter friend Mohamed.  We had an interesting discussion today. The question … what was the best day of your life?  Everyone immediately defaults to weddings, graduations, etc.  But are those really the best days of our lives?  Those orchestrated, choreographed, costumed events that cost an arm and a leg and require enormous stress. Births are of course wonderful, but they are certainly not the best day of parenting.

Mohamed wanted to know if releasing Circling The Shadows, now available on Kindle and paperback (typing that is actually really fun), was the best day of my life. It really got me thinking and truthfully I don’t have an answer. I’ve been thinking about the best ten days of my life to put the whole thing into perspective. It is really hard to boil your life down into the top ten days. This is going to take awhile.  To answer Mohamed, no, publishing Circling The Shadows, now available on Kindle and paperback, was not one of the best days of my life. Discovering I could write it in the first place, that was definitely one of the best days of my life.

Since the beginning, I was always afraid that writing would be a Flowers For Algernon scenario for me. Much like Charlie Gordon, I would suddenly have this ever increasing intellect, only to lose it in the end. Of course writing isn’t about intellect so much as it is about understanding… or desire to understand.  What makes people act and react?  In Circling The Shadows, now available on Kindle and paperback, Stephanie talks about understanding peoples Whys. Why do we think, say, do, don’t think, don’t say, don’t do? I love that.

I’m a little drunk.  I can feel the ramble coming on.  Let’s end it with a song. At this point, there really is no choice as to the song, of course. Did I mention that  Circling The Shadows is now available on Kindle and paperback?

Lots of love to you all!

And Mohamed – thank you for your friendship.

Coworker Love

/ PaigeRandall / Leave a comment

This one is a tribute to my coworkers (CW)…

When you have to go to that place, that damn building and sit at the damn desk 40, 50, who knows how many hours a week, coworkers are a lifeline. Very few coworkers know about my writing. It doesn’t mesh well with my job and I’m enjoying the separation of church and state as long as I can.

Friday I brought in the proof of Circling The Shadows. The support I feel from these people, has been extraordinary. And the joy they shared in seeing my book, warmed my heart.

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Truly, I tweet about IT CW incessantly. He is my perfect foil in every way… backgrounds, beliefs, etc. He likes to tell me to be more ladylike. I like to tell him I’ll kick him in the balls. It’s a nice friendship. Watching him hold my book, telling me how proud he was of my accomplishment, was lovely though, really genuine. There is another CW who gave me a huge smile with a beautiful text. Add to that everyone who literally breathed deeply the pages of my story, there was such kindness. How do these people, whose homes I’ve never seen, who have never eaten at my table, become like family? 

To these and many others, new friends and old friends, who shared my struggles with story and processes of publishing, I am so grateful to you. The daily grind is much less grindy with you in my life.

Where My Wit Ends

/ PaigeRandall / 6 Comments

Wit, def. (noun) – The keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure.

I think I’ve found it.  My wit’s end.  The end of my wit.  The keen perception is iffy, cleverly apt expression is so so. I think amusement and pleasure are in serious jeopardy.  They are actually shot to shit.

Wit (idiom) – At one’s wit’s end, at the end of one’s ideas or mental resources; perplexed.

Yeah – that’s more like it.  Mental resources are very low and I am highly perplexed.

You may (or may not – shame on you) have noticed that I have not blogged in months.  I have found that life, work and writing enabled me to keep a fairly robust blog going.  Life, work and this process of self publishing… not so much.  For these last months I have been immersed in setting up accounts, art, designing and re-designing covers, fonts, styles, articles of incorporation, tax documents, ISBNs, formatting, .pdfs, Mobi, blow me. Not to complain but IT FUCKING SUCKS.  I can’t remember the last time I wrote something longer than 140 characters. I have actually come to rely on Twitter as a writing exercise because I am not writing. <— That is the saddest sentence I have ever written.

20140727_082449-1Here is the good news… If all goes well, even if all goes badly, Circling The Shadows will be available on Amazon Kindle and paperback on May 1. There is a tiny chance the paperback will lag a few days behind.   If you are wondering, the idea of a big fancy launch with actual marketing, was just too much for me this go round.  The irony is I am professionally in Marketing.  Oh well.  Forever Falling, book two in the Sunshine and Moonlight series, is ready to move into the editorial process.  It will release with some larger fanfare, perhaps, on August 1.

My blogsite got a bit of a face lift.  I added a page for Novels.  You can read about Circling The Shadows here.  I’ll add the Amazon links soon.