What Happened? What’s Next for My Books?

Maureen L. Bonatch — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 14:41:19 +0000

We make a plan, then life tells us how that’s going to go.

The last post I shared here I discussed quitting my day job and focusing on my plan for writing freelance and fiction. I did that, but then like the best laid plans, things changed. One of my freelance writing jobs quickly became a full-time job. I’m still at that job, because I enjoy it and have learned a ton (and hello—twin girls in college!), but I continued to write fiction in my free time.

Sadly, my free time was not as abundant as I hoped.

When There’s a Writer, There’s a Way

As a writer, I can’t not write. It’s part of who I am and I feel incomplete when I’m not writing my fiction stories. So I did. The funny thing with me is, writing the story is the easy part, the editing is where I procrastinate. That lead to accumulating multiple story drafts on my computer that I planned to return to edit ‘later’.

Then Comes COVID

Luckily for me, when the lockdowns happened during the height of pandemic, it didn’t affect my day job. We continued working and were busier than ever. But the pandemic did affect my writing.

When my favorite month came along (I’ve talked about my love of November’s National Novel Writing (NaNoWri) until I’m blue in the face), I started a new story—and I stalled. Current events, and the fear in the world, were stealing my writing mojo. Until I switched gears and changed the story to a holiday paranormal cozy mystery.

I played Christmas music to inspire me and watched a multitude of holiday shows—something I hadn’t done in years—and the story poured out. That story (Magic, Mimosas & Mistletoe) is just one of the paranormal cozy mysteries I’ve written for my new Charmed Cocktail Cozy Series.

Why Two Author Names?

I added the pen name of M.L. Bonatch for my paranormal cozy mysteries. Most of the reason for doing this is due to the business side of writing. It’s also an easy way for readers to identify my paranormal cozy mysteries from my Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance books that will remain under my author name of Maureen L. Bonatch.

What’s the Difference in the Books?

My stories are similar in these genres in that they all:

Have a paranormal element
Usually feature magic and/or witches
Have Humor
Usually have pets or animals in the story

My stories are Paranormal Cozy Mysteries are different in that they are:

A little shorter
Humor is a huge focus
There is no sex or violence
There’s always a mystery, and usually a murder, to solve
My heroine can talk to her cat, or other animals

Exciting Book Stuff Coming Your Way

My website will continue to share book information for all my genres
My Charmed Cozy Cocktail series will have at least 3 releases this year:
- Curses, Cats & Corpses (Is initially included in this boxset to give you a taste of ten other fabulous cozy mystery authors)
- Hexes, Highballs & Hockey
- Magic, Mimosas & Mistletoe
My book, Grandma Must Die, is being re-edited and released with a new cover and a stronger focus on the mystery as one of the characters in the story (Abigail) has her own paranormal cozy mystery series coming early next year.
No worries if you love Urban Fantasy – I’ll have several stories in draft (one in a new series) that you’ll hear more about in 2022

Hop on This Crazy Train with Me!

There’s so much going on this year with my writing. The best way to know what’s up next is to sign up for my newsletter right here or:

Follow me on my social media- especially my new pages as M.L. Bonatch (She’s lonely & looking for friends)

Author: M.L. Bonatch:

Author: Maureen L. Bonatch:

Both M.L. Bonatch & Maureen Bonatch:

Afraid you’ll forget about all these books coming out? No worries- preorder links are already available on my M.L. Bonatch Amazon page right here.

More Good Stuff for you

Find new authors and enter right here for this fabulous giveaway to win an Amazon gift card!

Searching for Your Next Cozy Mystery?

Check out these great deals on Cozy Mysteries (click right here) to fill up your TBR

Get Out and Read Giveaway

WIN 1 OF 4 KINDLE FIRES

Do you enjoy spending the long, lazy days of summer with a book in your hand? One of the best ways to find new-to-you authors is on BookBub, and LitRing has got you covered. Head over to the Get Out and Read Giveaway now to get 175+ chances to win a Kindle Fire >> https://www.litring.com/get-out-and-read-giveaway/

Thank you for sharing this journey with me, lovely readers! I can’t wait to share more stories with you.

The post What Happened? What’s Next for My Books? appeared first on Author Maureen L. Bonatch.

Still Charmed by My First Magical Story

Maureen L. Bonatch — Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:02:04 +0000

So it begins…a new year, a new month, and a new 52-week Blog Challenge from Marketing for Romance Writers (#MFRW). You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you? This week’s topic is Favorite Thing I’ve Written (and why). My first thought was how in the world could I pick a favorite story? That’s like asking to choose one child over another. (Well, not quite, but kind of.) But with most things, the first is often the most magical.

If You Loved The Show Charmed

Like many fantasy and paranormal shows, I was drawn to the show Charmed immediately. I have three sisters myself, although that’s about where the similarities end. I do wish and dream that I can do magic, and I write about good witches. But so far I’ve had no luck gaining any of the charmed ones abilities.

I was taking one of my first extensive writing courses at the time and I needed to write an essay. Hence, That Magic Moment, was born.

A Short and Sweet Story

That Magic Moment isn’t a long story; in fact you can probably read the whole thing over a lunch break. But despite being an author that tends to be long-winded and feel more vested in my novels, that doesn’t make this little story any less special to me.

Getting the…Email

I’d been writing essays, flash fiction and short stories for years. I never really thought I would send them to anyone to read or to consider for publishing. But when my assignment for the writing class was to submit a story, off went That Magic Moment to The Wild Rose Press.

I still remember checking my email that morning and seeing a response that they wanted to offer me a contract to publish it. I can recall exactly what I was doing (yoga stretches—yes while checking email, I used to be even better at multi-tasking. Mom of twins, remember? Lol). And I can still almost feel how my heart skipped a beat while reading those magical words. I didn’t tell anyone for several hours, just so I could savor the news all to myself.

The Start of My Journey

That story allowed me to believe that it was possible, that I could be published and that someone besides me and my family might like to read what I wrote. The journey from essay—to short story—to many edits—to getting a cover—to being published—was the best ride I ever went on.

Even though every new story gives me such a thrill, each time I look at that story I’m transported back to being a new author and experiencing the joy of sharing my characters with the world for the first time. That naïve author who didn’t even know what a blog was when TWRP encouraged all authors to have one. I had to look up what a blog was, lol.

Check Out What the Other Authors Have to Say

This is a blog hop! Check out the other authors as they talk about their favorite story, or the favorite thing they’ve written.

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