Book Giveaway: Sange Cove (Link Below)

UPDATE:
Congratulations to my @Rafflecopter #BookGiveaway Winner... Laurie Harris! Thanks to everyone who entered. #youngadult #amazon #shapeshifter #werewolf #magic

Book Giveaway

Click to go to the Rafflecopter.

Writing is Hard: The Road to Sangre Cove

 

Gina & David 2007

Writing is Hard: The Road to Sangre Cove

 

Summer 2007, I stumbled around a small town in Texas purchasing last minute items for the wedding reception. A couple of friend and my future husband loaded bar items into the bed of the truck and made our way over to the reception hall. Bright colors of red, yellow, green, purple, and blue splashed across the room with novelty items reminiscent of a Mexican Festival. It was beautiful. When we finally finished, we had dinner and rested for the big day to come.

The next day hundreds of people arrived as I sat nervously in the turret of one of a couple of dozen castles in Texas. I was about to take the first step into my fairy tale life. My handsome prince awaited me and we would set forth on a marvelous journey together.

Fast forward one year, we get the phone call from our social worker that we would be parents—if we chose. This was an instant family of 3 boys. Shock settled over us and we discussed our option. It was daunting. My husband would go from being a new step dad, to a dad of four boys—four. In the span of one year. I cannot even imagine what was going through They arrived our lives changed and we never had a spare moment. Wow!

Then, just six months into being the parents of four boys, three under six, we got another call from our social worker. She said she had a placement for the boys. You see, when you go through the state, you have to have the children with you for at least six months before you can adopt. It’s call legal risk. I say that to tell you the words the social work spoke, “Good Afternoon Mrs. Castillo. We were just calling to tell you we have a placement for the boys.” My heart squeezed and my through tightened. Tears threatened and slowly made way over my bottom lid and down my cheeks. It was that quick that our instant family would be taken.

I finally found words and said, “But they have been with us six months. We are planning to adopt.”

“Oh, no ma’am. We don’t have a placement for them. We have a placement for you. Mom just had a baby and we would like to keep the children together. Are you interested?”

“What? How old is the baby?”

“The birthdate was March 10^th.”

“I need to talk to my husband.” I said.

“Of course. But they will release the baby tomorrow. So, we need to know or they will need to find alternative placement.”

“Okay, I’ll call David and we will get back to you. Is the baby a girl?” I asked.

“No, it’s a boy.” She said.

“Okay, we will call you as soon as we talk.”

My husband and I talked, we decided, and the next evening we had a week old baby delivered to our home and he was precious. This baby was beautiful. Now our family had grown again. We were now a family with five boys—four under the age of six. Wow!

 

Due to some of the baby’s issues and how many days I was missing from work, I decided to stay home with him for a while. I was a teacher and it was difficult to find out at the last minute that I need a sub for my classroom. It was hard. So, for two years I stayed home.

I tell you all this to tell you that this is when I had some ‘free time’ to do some things I enjoyed. This is when I started to write. And it is a process. Those of you who are able to write a novel. Pat yourself on the back. Getting fifty to ninety thousand words on paper is an adventure. Breaking those words into scenes and chapters is an incredibly feat. You have done an amazing job. But the job doesn’t stop with getting the words, scenes, and chapters written.

Next comes social media sites. My twitter groups have been invaluable. I read and study and hashtag like crazy. I’ve gotten many beta readers and critique partners that have been a tremendous help and I enjoyed this process.

Social media groups help you to find contests as well. I’ve entered contest that I may not have won, but I did receive amazing critiques from industry professionals that were invaluable to me and to the writing process. I encourage any writer to seek these contests out. Some contest gives you free help with edits which have been amazing as well. All of these things have help me move forward.

Then came the query process. Ugh! This was not fun at all. I’ve sent out many queries and had many rejections. I’ve gotten some requests for full or partial manuscripts, but in the end I still didn’t get an offer of representation.

Then, the time came for me to go back to work. My son was in pre-kindergarten and life’s challenges proved I need to go back to work. So my writing slowed a bit. I continued to work with critique partners and send out queries to no avail. Then, I sent my query to Calumet. I had an appointment to talk with Ian and the phone cut out. I couldn’t get back with him. I wasn’t that good with technology. I thought about it and the non-traditional route would be difficult for me at the time. So, I just kept on critiquing and querying. Nothing.

Then, I start the new year at school. The ability to write slowed down. I was tired and not feeling well. My breathing was labored and I thought I was catching the flu. I took some over the counter medications and started to swell. So, I had put it off too long and decided to head over to the urgent care after work. The doctor looked at me said the words that really scared me, ‘congestive heart failure.’ I headed to the hospital and didn’t emerge for six days. Not able to see my kids was difficult. Knowing my husband was having to do everything was even harder.

This put my writing on hold for a long while. But, I started to feel better slowly. I wasn’t entirely exhausted at this point and started to write again. I put that book to the side and started a second. I love my first book, because it had been inspired by my sons. I had woven in some of our culture with their names and it was very special to me. But I was writing. Stealing moments at night when boys were watching a movie or in bed. Working on it on the weekends, sitting my recliner while be boys watched their movies. I wrote.

Then, I started to critique and query. I got lots of requests for full manuscripts, but still they passed in the end. I was frustrated. I send an email to Calumet, but didn’t follow through. Then, as I was about to give up on writing. Going through the ups and downs of sending out your writing was taking its toll on me. I didn’t want any more rejections. Publishing is super subjective and I wasn’t breaking through and getting noticed.

Then, I got an email from Calumet. They said they would like me to send a full. So, I sent in my manuscript and got an email in a few weeks. Calumet isn’t traditional. It’s a hybrid model of a partnership between the publisher and the author. I spoke to my husband and decided to get started.

From there, it was editing. Reading over my revisions at night after the boys went to bed and my extra school work was complete. Writing. Editing. Revising. All in my free time. Oh and along the way, our social worker called a couple more times and our family grew from five boys to seven boys. Yes, all boys. Not a girl in the bunch. So, the older boys are pretty self-sufficient. Our new babies are not. Without my husband, I would never be able to write.

So, I am back to stealing time in the evenings and weekends. I am exhausted most of the time. But my fairy tale life that began in a Texas castle many years ago has had a happily ever after. December of 2020, I published my first book. I say first, because I hunger to continue. I don’t want it to take me ten years to complete the process of writing my second book. I want to push through and really begin to market this book, so that my dream of writing will continue. The happily ever after will continue being—happy.