A Perfect Way to Start the New Year

Author and good friend Autumn Jordon is starting the year off with a BANG!! She has lots to celebrate. Her new Christmas release: PERFECT recently hit the Amazon Best Seller's list.
Here's Autumn's words on how she ended up writing this fabulous story. If you need a feel good story, check it out.

My life has been in a funk the last few years, to say the least. Sometimes, I don’t know which way I’m going and for what reason. I’m sure many of you, if not all, have had times when you’ve felt the same way.

Several months ago, after some heart-wrenching news, I opened my file to continue work on my next romantic suspense—because you need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, you know— and the words simply weren’t there. Tears rolled down my cheeks and my chest was so tight with pain. My fingers were stilled on my keyboard. I just couldn’t bring myself to write and put someone in danger. I needed laughter and love in my life at that moment. So, I did what any sane writer should do. I closed my romantic suspense file and started a new work. It was the best thing I could’ve done.
I found myself submersed in the lives of one down-on-her-luck Charleston, S.C. restaurateur and one yummy maple tree farmer who had one goal.

No. Not to fall in love.

After totally screwing up Thanksgiving, Dylan’s goal is to make Christmas special for his two, small nieces whose parents were deployed overseas and would be absence for the holidays. However, when Darcy Witherspoon arrives in Black Moose, Vermont, his thoughts do turn to the forever kind of love that suddenly seems apparent all around him. My fingers flew across the keyboard, and with my crazy-ass schedule in a little over six weeks I wrote the end to my new holiday novella, PERFECT.

Now, some might question whether writing a contemporary holiday novella, with not a suspenseful word in it, will dilute my brand as a romantic suspense author. BRAND seems to be big a BIG word in the publishing world—a rule of sorts for marketing. To them I say, “I don’t know. I like reading both. Maybe, I’ll bring a non-romantic suspense reader over to the darker side.” And, actually, I think I’m marketing myself—a unique writer with many likes.

All I know is if I hadn’t written PERFECT, I might still be sitting in front of my laptop, getting frustrated, and perhaps depressed because I needed happy, happy and wasn’t listening to my own needs. Instead, I went with my gut, finished a novella that made me chuckle, and while doing so, the oddest thing happened. Near the end of PERFECT my muse turned back to my unfinished romantic suspense.  I’m now ready to dive back into the second of the C.U.F.F series with renewed enthusiasm. I hope to finish the rough draft during the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood’s Winter Writing Fest. ( http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/mark-your-calendars-the-ruby-winter-writing-festival-is-on-its-way/ )

I truly believe if you listen and give yourself what you need, in the end you will be a much happier person.

To find out more about Autumn Jordon and her books: http://www.autumnjordon.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Autumn-Jordons-Fan-Page/316852659005?ref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJORDON
Blog: http://autumnjordonsnotes.blogspot.com/