The LDS Secret
by Sariah S. Wilson
Despite the title, no, this isn't a post about the wildly successful "The Secret" or how it affects LDS people, but I figured by doing that we'd get a lot of hits from people doing Google searches. Or maybe it's just a manifestation of my sleep-deprived psychosis. Hard to tell these days.
Anyways, I have some announcements that I've already sort of made in the comments section on Jeff's post this week.
First - my second book has a tentative release date of October 1. Of course, that is dependent on many different factors, but here's to hoping.
It's called "Desire of Our Hearts." It's currently #110 on Deseret's best selling list. Woot.
It is the story of Alma the Elder. I had originally entitled it "Redemption," but that was too close to Toni Sorenson Brown's (I think that's right, too tired to look it up) "Redemption Road." I keep having to check the new name of my book from my PDF version of it because I keep forgetting exactly what it is.
The new book is much more of a romance than "Secrets in Zarahemla." There is still some fighting, a very bad man, some deaths, some action. But the majority of the story is the relationship between Alma and his wife.
To give you a glimpse into the sort of relationship they have, I got the idea for this book in the last week of December 2005. How do I know that's when it was? Well, I was trying to read the whole Book of Mormon that week to get it done before the end of the year (and succeeded, thank you very much).
I had actually been stressing quite a bit prior to that because when you first write a manuscript, with only the hope of being published some day, you don't have to worry about what you'll write next. You can devote all your time to your labor of love.
But then...you sell. And your publisher would like it very much if you could continue to write, you know, more books.
I had no idea what I was going to write about.
So as I read through the Book of Mormon, I got to the story of Alma the Elder and I got a picture in my head of his wife throwing pottery at him on their wedding night.
I don't know why. I'm not really sure where it came from. But it stuck with me, and I wrote the story in record time, barreling through it trying to get it done before my family vacation and before beginning some intensive medical procedures for our baby.
I succeeded. Covenant bought it.
And in honor of that, I will be coming out to Utah on October 4 - 6 and will be doing some signings. So I am really hoping that "Desire" will be on shelves by then. I don't have a confirmed schedule yet, but when I do I'll be sure to post it here. I'll also be trying to stop by stores where I won't have signings just to meet the staff/managers. If you're someone like that and you want me to come by your store, please drop me an email at sariah at sariahswilson dot com and I'll try my best to come see you.
A third announcement - I found out this week that my third book was accepted, in what has been record time for me (I submitted it in the first week of July). The BoM cramming in 2005 also gave me the Ammon tale. That should probably be out in spring or summer of next year. It's always a relief to have another book accepted - I keep being afraid that Covenant will at some point laugh at me ("You want us to publish this? Hahahahahahahaha...").
But the next book, which I have not started on yet, will be going in a different direction. I would very much like to write all sorts of romances, historical and contemporary, and I didn't want to be pigeonholed into only writing Book of Mormon romances (although never fear - I have ideas for an additional five books). So the next book is a beginning of a series set in one of my favorite time periods - Regency (which is the Jane Austen "Pride & Prejudice" era). I told my editor I would give it to him in December. My baby has other plans. If I was a betting woman, I'd bet that the baby will win this one. We'll see if I can somehow manage it. I'm finally understanding why it is that so many women don't begin their writing careers until their youngest child is in school full-time. It's very, very hard.
Okay, accountability time. I only exercised four days this week - we had an emotional crisis with our 8-year-old at school and I just couldn't muster up the energy for that fifth day.
I did terrible at my diet this week (there were Oreos, Domino's pizza and chocolate chip muffins involved. Not all at the same time, but it was bad). I do the Weight Watchers points because if I feel deprived in any way, I tend to go a bit ballistic and freak out. As I did this week, even without the deprivation.
At my weigh-in this week I had lost 2.8 pounds. I absolutely do not expect that to go down at all at my next weigh-in, and may have even gained some weight. *Sigh*
But I am recommitting myself to my diet, to exercising five days a week, and I will try to add some resistance/muscle building home exercises to it.
How did everyone else do? What are your goals for this week?
Despite the title, no, this isn't a post about the wildly successful "The Secret" or how it affects LDS people, but I figured by doing that we'd get a lot of hits from people doing Google searches. Or maybe it's just a manifestation of my sleep-deprived psychosis. Hard to tell these days.
Anyways, I have some announcements that I've already sort of made in the comments section on Jeff's post this week.
First - my second book has a tentative release date of October 1. Of course, that is dependent on many different factors, but here's to hoping.
It's called "Desire of Our Hearts." It's currently #110 on Deseret's best selling list. Woot.
It is the story of Alma the Elder. I had originally entitled it "Redemption," but that was too close to Toni Sorenson Brown's (I think that's right, too tired to look it up) "Redemption Road." I keep having to check the new name of my book from my PDF version of it because I keep forgetting exactly what it is.
The new book is much more of a romance than "Secrets in Zarahemla." There is still some fighting, a very bad man, some deaths, some action. But the majority of the story is the relationship between Alma and his wife.
To give you a glimpse into the sort of relationship they have, I got the idea for this book in the last week of December 2005. How do I know that's when it was? Well, I was trying to read the whole Book of Mormon that week to get it done before the end of the year (and succeeded, thank you very much).
I had actually been stressing quite a bit prior to that because when you first write a manuscript, with only the hope of being published some day, you don't have to worry about what you'll write next. You can devote all your time to your labor of love.
But then...you sell. And your publisher would like it very much if you could continue to write, you know, more books.
I had no idea what I was going to write about.
So as I read through the Book of Mormon, I got to the story of Alma the Elder and I got a picture in my head of his wife throwing pottery at him on their wedding night.
I don't know why. I'm not really sure where it came from. But it stuck with me, and I wrote the story in record time, barreling through it trying to get it done before my family vacation and before beginning some intensive medical procedures for our baby.
I succeeded. Covenant bought it.
And in honor of that, I will be coming out to Utah on October 4 - 6 and will be doing some signings. So I am really hoping that "Desire" will be on shelves by then. I don't have a confirmed schedule yet, but when I do I'll be sure to post it here. I'll also be trying to stop by stores where I won't have signings just to meet the staff/managers. If you're someone like that and you want me to come by your store, please drop me an email at sariah at sariahswilson dot com and I'll try my best to come see you.
A third announcement - I found out this week that my third book was accepted, in what has been record time for me (I submitted it in the first week of July). The BoM cramming in 2005 also gave me the Ammon tale. That should probably be out in spring or summer of next year. It's always a relief to have another book accepted - I keep being afraid that Covenant will at some point laugh at me ("You want us to publish this? Hahahahahahahaha...").
But the next book, which I have not started on yet, will be going in a different direction. I would very much like to write all sorts of romances, historical and contemporary, and I didn't want to be pigeonholed into only writing Book of Mormon romances (although never fear - I have ideas for an additional five books). So the next book is a beginning of a series set in one of my favorite time periods - Regency (which is the Jane Austen "Pride & Prejudice" era). I told my editor I would give it to him in December. My baby has other plans. If I was a betting woman, I'd bet that the baby will win this one. We'll see if I can somehow manage it. I'm finally understanding why it is that so many women don't begin their writing careers until their youngest child is in school full-time. It's very, very hard.
Okay, accountability time. I only exercised four days this week - we had an emotional crisis with our 8-year-old at school and I just couldn't muster up the energy for that fifth day.
I did terrible at my diet this week (there were Oreos, Domino's pizza and chocolate chip muffins involved. Not all at the same time, but it was bad). I do the Weight Watchers points because if I feel deprived in any way, I tend to go a bit ballistic and freak out. As I did this week, even without the deprivation.
At my weigh-in this week I had lost 2.8 pounds. I absolutely do not expect that to go down at all at my next weigh-in, and may have even gained some weight. *Sigh*
But I am recommitting myself to my diet, to exercising five days a week, and I will try to add some resistance/muscle building home exercises to it.
How did everyone else do? What are your goals for this week?
Sariah Wilson — 9/08/2007 09:24:00 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Sariah, my new book Topaz, the third book in my Bracelet series, is also scheduled for an October first release. I don't have a signing schedule yet either, but it would be fun if we can do a signing or two together or at least meet.
Congrats on your upcoming books, Sariah! Totally awesome.
I did my five days of exercise this week, so hooray. I'm not really losing weight, but darn it, at least I'm getting in better shape.
Hi Sariah,
I have a book coming out in October too. Congrats on yours! We're sort of like new moms telling labor stories, aren't we?
Congradulations on your book. I have been reading your blog for a while and have realy enjoyed it.
I found another blog that talks about weight loss and faith that might be interesting for you as it has been for me. It is http://awaistisaterriblething.blogspot.com/ I don't know how to make it a link. I am kind of novice at this stuff.
Ok Sariah...you are WAY funny! I stumbled upon you today {first thing today...it is just after midnight teehee} and you have me laughing much too loudly to be condusive for my familys sleeping hours.
I look forward to reading more about you via your blog enteries. And I will definetly be reading your books too!
Hip Hip Horray!! Congrats on your new books!
I love regencys! The first 'book' I ever wrote was a regency, a few months ago I decided to dust it off and see if I could polish it up. It was awful. I had about four POV shifts in the first page, completely sappy descriptions and unrealistic dialogue. So I quickly hid it away again and pretended I didn't write it at all.
I didn't exercise nary a day--but I put up 120 quarts of peaches, 3 quarts of tomatoes and revised 150 pages. It was exhausting :-)
COngratulations on your new book. I'll look for it in bookstores. And better luck with your diet and exercise program. Why not just get rid of all processed foods. Oreoles, candy, pizza, chocolate chip muffins are a nice start, but get rid of everything that is processed and your body will love...well at least what's left of your body after you drop a bunch more weight. Good luck with all that.
Congratulations on your new book! That teaser about Alma's wife really makes me want to read it. :D
I think I exercised five times last week, instead of just four, and according to the scales, I also lost another 800 g, which is just over a pound and a half. This is both exciting and suspicious. Exciting because I'm losing, and suspicious because it's going so well. I do occasionally eat chocolate, and even go overboard about once a week, and yet the weight just keeps dropping off! I'm wondering if it really can be explained by the fact that, on the whole, I do eat less chocolate and more fruits and vegetables. I'm also trying to get in more protein and whole wheat. This weekend I gave in to my younger son's nagging and baked a loaf of white bread in the machine. He was ecstatic, but I was really missing my regular bread of half and half. I'm sure that the white bread didn't keep me satisfied for the same amount of time. It's back to whole wheat to-day!
Melanie Goldmund
Jennie - April is handling my signings for me. I would love to meet you and any other LDS authors in the Salt Lake/Provo area when I come out. Congrats to you and Janette on your new releases!
WTG Stephanie on meeting your goals.
Anonymous - thanks for the link. I'll be checking it out.
ajoy - thanks for the kind words - they are so appreciated! (And yes, everyone, read my books. You know you want to! ;) )
Josi - I love Regencies too. I'm not as into those Austen wannabe books, like P&P told from Darcy's point of view or the continuation of P&P, but I do love a good Regency romance. Probably because the heroines are actually virtuous and the books, by definition, have to remain sweet. Now Regency historicals are a whole different ball game. But I do love the time period and have always wanted to write a book set then.
Second anonymous - you are very right. I know you are very right. Processed foods are bad. Unfortunately, knowing something and doing something about it aren't always the same thing. Again - I'll stick with my Weight Watchers where I still get to eat stuff I love, but I just can't eat as much of it.
Melanie - Thanks! I hope to have my website updated soon with a first chapter for the Alma book. And congrats on losing weight - you're my hero with eating chocolate and still losing!
Sariah,
Great post--very entertaining and inspiring. You make me laugh.
Congrats on all your publishing and upcoming books, Sariah. Can't wait to read them!
Looks like I've been working on a book that comes right in between yours. It started out being about Alma's three sons, but Corianton's wife insisted on moving into the center of the story. Moroni was in the first run of the opening, but I think I'm going to steer around him. So was Alma's wife, for that matter, but I've now decided she probably died in Judges y. 5. I'd love to talk to you. This id is also my gmail address. But I understand if you're busy.
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