We are almost two weeks into the New Year, have you already broken your New Year’s resolutions?

Unfortunately, most people already have. The reason for that is that Resolutions are easy to make and much easier to break. We often fail because we do not feel accountable to anyone but ourselves and that makes it easy for us to find an excuse and fall again into the same rote.

This year, I made a resolution to no longer make a New Year's resolution and so far, I have not broken that one. “Yay Me!” I did this because I was tired of never being able to stick with my crazy unachievable goals. Most of my resolutions would be broken within the first month, sometimes even making it pass Valentine’s Day at the longest. I would slowly veer off track, lose interest and eventually fail. Then, I would feel guilty because I broke my resolution. I was a failure, and no one likes to feel like a failure. That feeling alone leads to more unhealthy habits, which I do not need. Hence, this year I decided to say “No” to resolutions, and now, I do not have to worry about breaking them. That is just one less thing to stress about and that is a good feeling.

In 2013, I can honestly say that “Zero” is the number of resolutions I will break this year.

So, have you broken your resolutions yet?

“And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so? It came without ribbons! It came without tags! "It came without packages, boxes or bags!" And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. "Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

...and the Grinch was right!

Christmas isn’t about the parties and tasty treats

or how many gifts are under the tree.

The real meaning of Christmas is Jesus Christ of course.

On Christmas, we honor the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior,

the greatest gift that God could send to us.

It's the perfect time to reflect on God’s goodness and grace

and knowing how wonderfully we have been blessed.

Christmas is a time for love and forgiveness,

it’s a time to remember your family and friends.

Christmas is about giving not receiving.

it’s about serving and caring for those less fortunate.

Christmas is about putting the needs of others before your own,

it's about making sure that at Christmas time, no one is alone.

Enjoy the Christmas spirit by spreading the Christmas cheer

and let’s all celebrate that Jesus Christ came to earth.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This year my kids and I are getting a real Christmas tree. It has been years since we have bought a real one, we are used to putting up our 9ft fake tree, but this year, we will be getting the ugliest, scraggly tree from the lot, the tree that no one else wants, it will be sort of our Charlie Brown tree.

So this weekend, we are starting our search for the ugliest tree we can find in our side of town and we will decorate it. The downside is that I will not be able to use all of the Christmas ornaments and decorations that I have collected through the years, but we will make it as pretty as possible with what we can and give it a home for the holidays. Finding the ugliest tree should be fun. I will take pictures and post them later.

Books always make great holiday gifts and in honor of the holiday season, I have put my books on sale. If you have a Kindle or Nook, why not add a few new titles to your library? From now until December 25, you can find any of my books in digital format on sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Merry Christmas!

You are probably wondering, what in the hell is she talking about? LOL.

Well, one of the many advices given to a new writer is that you need to get a thick skin to make it in the business. Whether you write a blog or a novel, writing opens the door and invites anyone to take a pot shot at you. What sucks is that as a writer you don’t get to shoot back with a smartass reply to the critique, because it is unprofessional. Dealing with criticism is part of a writer’s life, but learning from it and staying motivated is part of the process of being successful in writing. Guess what? —this is easier said than done.

Now that my work is available to the public, there are days that I wonder why I ever thought of becoming a writer. I was just setting myself up to get my ego hurt, humiliated and criticized, but I had a dream and I was going to live it, or at least give it my best trying.

I have always been my worst critic, and I thought of myself as being tough person. After all, growing up wasn’t easy, I was picked on for being different, I was anorexic skinny, wore awful looking glasses and had bushy eyebrows, then later on, I was made fun of for speaking with an accent, which to this day I still do. I was rocking the heavy accent before Sofia Vergara made it popular and sexy. (*grinning*) I wasn’t known as the cool girl, I was noticeable for all the wrong reasons. So you’d think I’d be used to criticism and that by know my skin would be as thick as a rhinoceros’ hide, but that is not the case.

When I started submitting queries and partials, the rejections made me want to curl up in a ball and just give up on my dream. The truth was that my shell was not as tough as I thought it was, beneath it, was and still is a very sensitive soul, sometimes I take things personally, not a good thing when you want to be a published author. Now that I’ve suffered through enough rejections, I kind of take them in stride but I still cringe and get weak at the knees every time I open an email from a literary agent, luckily most of them are just form rejection, but when they’re not, I read what they have to say and learn from their constructive criticisms.

Some people have a gift for giving criticism in an encouraging, constructive way, and others say the same thing and you feel you’re being ripped to shreds. So if the criticism comes from someone to whom you should listen, then you should begin looking for ways to learn from what they said, take what you can learn from it, and move on to the next thing. At least that’s what I try to do.

It’s ok to have flaws, we are all perfectly imperfect, and other people may notice that from time to time. Nevertheless, no one likes to be criticized, especially when you don’t have a hard shell to hide under and you don’t have a magic wand to make the negative feedback go way. You can’t act like a kid and close your eyes, and put your fingers in your ears while shouting lalalala, —that won’t work, I think I may have tried that already… lol. As grown-ups, we have to face it, and sometimes even cry, but we must always pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start out all over again, that’s is the only way to survive a critique.

Personally, I value the input of others and find some critiques to be very helpful, especially those that point out deficiencies in my writing. If one of my stories happens to die of an honorable death because it is unreadable, received low ratings or unfavorable reviews, I’m fine with that, it doesn’t mean they don’t like me, they just don’t like the book, besides, I will not be the first nor the last author that this happens to.

Now you are saying, “OMG! Did she get a bad review?”

Ok, so my writing is not perfect, at least I should get an “A” for effort, right? Well, that is not the way it works. Darn it! I knew I should have asked my family and friends to write excellent reviews for my books, that way the good reviews would outweigh the bad ones, but I didn’t… EPIC FAIL! I don’t compare my writing to any famous prolific author, nor I am in the same rank as any of them but I like to write and I have fun doing it, coming up with characters and scenarios in my head. Writers write; they put their writings out there for the public to enjoy and praise but they also run the risk of getting their work shredded by the public. I just know that I have to be appreciative of a bad review; at least they took the time to read my book and write about it. Of course, it crushed my ego, and left a bad taste in my mouth, but life goes on.

Excuse me, while I finish dusting myself off, —ok, done! Now, I need to keep focused on what I do and why I do it. Since I am new in the business of writing, I still have a long, tough road ahead of me with much more to learn, if I dare to keep going down this path and keep falling down, but if I do, I’ll better start working on my rhino suit. In the meantime, I have to keep reminding myself that a bad mention is better than no mention at all. It could actually work in my favor, as other readers, particularly those who are skeptical of reviews would have never know of my book, had it not been for other people talking about it.

Can you handle criticism or do you need to work on your rhino suit?

After taking a break from writing Secret Sins, it is time to reboot my brain and pick up where I left off and bring back the psycho b**ch, Ashley O’Connor aka Helena Grimaldi. I love this character and her psychopath personality, which can be a bit challenging but I’m really hyped up because I get to kill people... lol. One thing that I’m not too happy about is that during the break, I noticed that there are a lot of novels already on the market named Secret Sins, so more likely I’m going to end up renaming the book and working on a new cover. I just haven’t decided on the new title yet, but for now I will continue to call it Secret Sins.

Congratulations to the winners of the "Now You See Me, Now You Don't" book giveaway!

I would also like to sincerely thank the 549 people who entered the contest at Goodreads. Thank you all for your interest in my novel.

Congratulations to the winners of the Purple Moon (The Shadow Guardian Trilogy) book giveaway! Many thanks to the 571 people who entered the contest at Goodreads.

NOW AVAILABLE!

Betrayal will send her to the arms of an angel, but her blood will always flow for the one she is supposed to hunt.

Available in kindle edition and paperback through Amazon. Coming soon to Barnes and Noble.

Watch the trailer on my website.

Things that goes bump in the night is one thing, but actually seeing a creepy ghost appear in your bedroom is quite another. Find out what has Benjamin so spooked.

Get your promotional copy of “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” for only .99 cents at the Kindle store. Hurry promotion ends October 10!