Readers’ Favorite Award Ceremony 2022 in Miami

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What a great weekend my husband and I just had as we attended the 2020 Readers’ Favorite Awards Ceremony. We used the weekend to not only celebrate my awards, but also our 20th anniversary which was at the end of September.

I’ve been writing since Oct 2010, and I have won a few awards, but I have never attended an award ceremony before. It was a blast! I met new friends, ran into a few that I had lost contact with, and even learned a few things along the way.

Actually having the honor of walking across the stage to receive my awards was humbling, and I am so thankful for the opportunity to do that with the first three Rise Again Warrior Books. Because of the pandemic, the ceremony wasn’t held the last three years, so this year, they honored everyone authors and illustrators from 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In the Military Fiction category, Mission: Believe won Bronze in 2020. Mission: Accept won Gold in 2021 and Mission Repair won Gold in 2022. Check out the video my husband took of my crossing the stage.

I huge thank you to all my readers, and to those at Readers’ Favorite who put the award ceremony on!

A Difficult Decision

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We have all seen how much the world can change in the last two years. With that, so do priorities. With significant issues needing to be focused on around my house, I had to prioritize my family and our household. In doing so, I started working outside the home again.

My job is a very important one, and I am passionate about what I am doing, but it is intense, and it is hard to switch that intensity off to write sometimes. I travel a lot and spend hours teaching classes online and in person. My creative side isn’t always at its best when I am home.

I have been working on Mission: Gratitude for the last several weeks. It was set to release in November, but unlike the first four books, this story is not flowing the way I expected it to. It’s been like pulling teeth, and I know better than to force the issue.

With the deadline closing in, the stress was growing. These books go through a much more in-depth editing than my other romance novels. Scenes are reviewed by special people who have given input on the technical aspects of the story. The story is then read by a couple of ARC readers before it even goes to editing, then it goes through 3-4 rounds of editing with my main editor before it goes through two separate proofreaders, and then on to more ARC readers. This process takes months, and I don’t even have a quarter of the story nailed down.

That is why I have canceled the pre-order for Mission: Gratitude. It was a tough decision, but one that I believe I needed to make. I will not rush this story. It is not like I am just trying to give two characters a happily ever after, but I am showing how people overcome struggles that some of us could never quite comprehend.

When will it be released? Well, when it’s ready. I will not put it on pre-order again but will immediately release it once it has been written to my satisfaction and has gone through the entire editing process.

My sincerest apologies to those of you who have been waiting for it. I know this is the second time I have canceled the pre-order, and it frustrates me to no end that I have had to do that. I just can not rush the books in this particular series. I do hope that you can understand how difficult this decision has been.

Sincerely – Stacy Eaton

Taking a Me Break

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The last year has been rough. Between health, house issues, and mental health, I have been in a constant state of up and down for months, and it’s time to take a break.

Generally, when I needed to feel better, I turned to my writing. I would lose myself in my stories, passionate about what I was doing. I always thrived on my crazy busy schedule, and I lived for deadlines, but it’s time to take a different approach, and that approach will affect my current schedule of books.

In early November, I had hand surgery. Four weeks later, I was back to work. Shortly after Christmas, I ended up being sick for a month. Then I got back, only to have surgery again in early March. Now as we start April, I’m still recovering from my major facial surgery, and my mental and physical health is in dire need of a jump start.

So that’s what I am going to be going. I’m going to take some time off to focus on my physical and mental health. I will still be writing, but I will only be doing a fraction of what I typically do.

What does that mean for the books coming out? Well, many of them are being put on hold. I hold myself to a high standard, and if I can’t write to that standard, then why write? Right now, I need to focus my energy on myself.

How long of a break will I take? Well, let’s just say that it will be at least three months, but it could be longer if I find that I need more time.

What books will be on hold?  Let’s take a look.

Finding Love on a Dude Ranch will release on April 8th. Evan, Loving a Winston Series, Book 2, will be released in later April (Not May as originally reported)

Reckoning (Blue Blood Returns Series, Book 5), is one that will be on hold but I do hope to have that released before the summer.

Mission: Gratitude (Rise Again Warrior Series, Book 5), originally set for July release, will release later this year. I do not have a date at this time. This series is so near and dear to me that I want to make sure I am in my best mindset to write it.

That brings me to the Twisted Love Series that is co-written with Amy Manemann. Amy is currently working on the next book, Love Crossed, and while the publication date may change slightly, we still anticipate the book coming out this summer. The final two books in the series, Love Twisted, and Love Lies, will release later this year.

Typically, I look at my books 5-7 months out and plan on when they will release, put them on pre-order, and then write them. For the next year, I’m going to change that, and focus on writing stories a bit slower, and once they are ready, do a release without a preorder.

This will allow me to focus on my health, my home, and my family. It has been a tough decision, but one I am not regretting. I hope that my readers can respect and appreciate my decision, and I look forward to getting back into the swing of writing, once I find myself, mentally and physically again.