Daughter of Destiny is in the Top 10 of the Launchpad Manuscript Contest

Y’all I am shaking right now! Daughter of Destiny made the Top 10 of the Launchpad Manuscript book to movie Contest! I’ve been visualizing it for weeks, but I still can’t believe it. It has NOT sunk in yet.

This means that “you and your project will be showcased individually to agents, managers, executives, and producers who are looking for new clients, projects, and writers.” This is HUGE you guys!!!

According to the email they sent, all of the judges will now read all of the books to determine the winners. The final announcement of the three winners (and other prizes) will take place July 16. I consider this a propitious day because it is not only my grandpa’s birthday, but the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. (I wanted to become a Carmelite nun for a long time and still consider myself a Carmelite at heart.)

So please keep those prayers and good vibes coming! We’re really getting close to this being optioned!!! “Next Game of Thrones” is still my mantra and I plan to win this thing!

PS – What do you think of my new branding? I hadn’t planned to change it, but I found the picture and the rest just happened!

Big News! Daughter of Destiny is in the Top 25 of the Book-to-Movie Competition

You guys, this has been a crazy good day in terms of news! I can’t talk about some of it yet…maybe tomorrow or hopefully by Monday for the BIG stuff. But I can tell you Daughter of Destiny has made it into the Top 25 of the Launchpad Manuscript Contest, which as you know by now, is a book to movie contest.

At this point, the exposure the book is getting is better and better. For this round:

  • You and your project will be featured in both our individual launch Pad Competition Booklet, as well as our Annual Launch Pad Alum Booklet, both of which are shared with our industry network and beyond, including agents, managers, producers, executives and other creatives seeking new material and clients.
  • Your project will be featured in a special Launch Pad section of our annual Hit List, Young & Hungry List, and Spec Book.

The next round is the Top 10, which will be announced on June 30. Please join me in the positive visualization because that is when you get individual pitches to Hollywood people.

As I’ve said before, I’m aiming to be named one of the three winners on July 16, so your support and good vibes are much appreciated. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Daughter of Destiny (and the rest of the Guinevere’s Tale series) IS the next Game of Thrones!

Daughter of Destiny in Top 50 of Book-to-Movie Competition

Things are getting serious, folks! Daughter of Destiny has made the Top 50 of the 2020 Launchpad Manuscript Competition. I am so happy!

This is a contest to find the books that will make great movies. They have some pretty heavy-hitting partners in Romark Entertainment (producers), Energy Entertainment (literary management and production) and Inkshares (publisher).

The next announcement is the Top 25 on June 18. Cross your fingers that someone sees the potential in DoD to become the next Game of Thrones!

Daughter of Destiny in Top 75 of Book-to-Movie Competition

Four years after publication, Daughter of Destiny  just keeps going strong! My baby, my debut, has made the Top 75 of the 2020 Launchpad Manuscript Competition. I am so happy right now I could cry.

This is a contest to find the books that will make great movies. They have some pretty heavy-hitting partners in Romark Entertainment (producers), Energy Entertainment (literary management and production) and Inkshares (publisher).

The next two months will be filled with additional announcements as they make their way down to the final winner. (Top 50 is June 4.) Cross your fingers that someone sees the potential in DoD to become the next Game of Thrones!

Daughter of Destiny in Top 100 of Book-to-Movie Competition

I am so proud to announce that Daughter of Destiny has made the Top 100 of the 2020 Launchpad Manuscript Competition. This is a contest to find the books that will make great movies. They have some pretty heavy-hitting partners in Romark Entertainment (producers), Energy Entertainment (literary management and production) and Inkshares (publisher).

The next two months will be filled with additional announcements as they make their way down to the final winner. (Top 75 is May 21.) But it sounds like all of the Top 100 will be presented before their Hollywood partners, so cross your fingers that someone sees the potential in DoD to become the next Game of Thrones!


And I realize it has been forever since I’ve blogged. My day job went went crazy when COVID-19 happened. (I’ll post about that some other time.) Outside of that, I’ve been working in the Minor biography. I’m about halfway done!

I’m Quoted in Publisher’s Weekly!

I’m over the moon to say I am quoted in a Publisher’s Weekly article on Taleflick, the company through which I got my TV/movie option for Madame Presidentess. It may seem silly to be excited about this, but Publisher’s Weekly is very much about the traditional publishing industry, and rarely delves into anything with independent publishing or self-published authors.

In case you don’t want to read the whole article (which you should), here’s my quote, where I talk about what Taleflick has done for me:

I highly recommend Taleflick. But I would also recommend going with the $88 package. If you’re a writer, you can write your own logline, etc. and no one knows your book better than you. I didn’t even know the $300+ package was an option. It must be new.

Camelot’s Queen Chosen as a TaleFlick Team Pick

OMG y’all I am so excited! Camelot’s Queen has been chosen by TaleFlick as Team Pick. TaleFlick is a company comprised of movie/TV producers (including one formerly of Apple and Netflix), filmmakers, writers and tech experts that aims to get storyteller’s stories turned into TV and movies.

Now, this doesn’t mean there’s been an offer; only that Camelot’s Queen is getting extra promo from the company, but the more eyes that see it, the more likely it is that Camelot’s Queen will be eventually turned into something. Cross your fingers!

5 Favorite Movies Inspired by Books

So I’m a few days late with the weekly blog challenge post. Whoops.

Last week’s topic was Favorite Movies Inspired by Books. I had to think about this one for a while because the book really is usually better than the movie. But there are the rare occasions where the movie is better, or is at least good. These are five I like:

  1. The Adjustment Bureau – This is hands down one of my favorite movies of all time! I liked it so much, I wanted more, which is how I found it is loosely based on a Phillip K. Dick story called “The Adjustment Team.” If I ever did the Kindle Worlds thing were I wrote in someone else’s copyrighted world, this would be on the top of my list (the movie world, not the short story)! I loved the intersection of reality and spirituality in this movie, the tug between free will and fate/God’s plan. I’ve had plenty of experiences in life that feel like “someone” has intervened, so I can totally relate to this storyline. Plus, Emily Blunt. She’s one of my favorite actresses.
  2. Queen of the Damned – Maybe it’s because Lestat is my ideal fantasy man in this movie – a rockstar vampire – or maybe it’s because he ends up with a pretty redhead, but damn do I like the movie better than the book! The two are really so different that they may as well be unrelated stories. The heroine of the movie, Jessie, is actually only in the book for like two seconds and then she dies. So that makes the movie seem like fan fiction if you compare the storylines. But I can never see that movie enough.
  3. The Haunting (1999) – I feel like such a bad fangirl admitting I’ve never read the source material by Shirley Jackson (whose writing I love) for this movie. But I have seen the original movie, which is actually much, much better. But I have a soft spot in my heart for the overly CGI’ed 1999 version because I stayed in the castle it was filmed in (Harlaxton Manor, in Grantham, England – which is also where Alex in Been Searching for You gets his last name) about a month after they filmed. They still had set pieces and the security guard told us all about the filming. I was obsessed with Catherine Zeta Jones at the time, so I was in heaven. We even got to take home a set souvenir. I have a wardrobe tag that says “photo double – Nell” with the woman’s name (I’ve checked the credits; it’s legit) and my friend got the padlock they used to chain the gates shut, which features very prominently in a few shots of the film. I really think the movie could have been great had they not felt the need to show you the ghost at the end. Up until then, the movie scared the crap out of me. Oh – and Harlaxton really IS haunted. We didn’t know it until after we were there, but several of us had experiences. BTW – if you like The Haunting, be sure to check out Scary Movie 2, which is a spoof of it (and oddly enough, Kathleen Robertson, my ideal Mia from Been Searching for You, plays the Catherine Zeta Jones role in this movie – this is where I got the inspiration for how Mia physically looks). Another one of my favorite movies!
  4. PS I Love You – I admit, I’ve never read the book, and I’ve been told not to, since I am in love with the movie. It’s got all the essential elements of an amazing love story to me. I mean, how can you not love a guy who cared enough to help his widow grieve his own death and eventually move on with her life? Subconsciously, I think this was a bit of inspiration for Annabeth’s letters in Been Searching for You. And he’s played by Gerard Butler. Yummy!
  5. The Princess Bride – I HATED the book, but the movie is one of my favorites. I can pretty much recite it from beginning to end. What did I not like about the book? Well, without giving anything away, it’s much more gritty and realistic than the fairy tale nature of the movie. It also has a “Lady or the Tiger” type ending which leaves the Happily Ever After (HEA) open to interpretation. No, no, no, and no! Wesley and Buttercup live HEA and that is all there is to it! No ruining my childhood romantic fantasies with your intellectualism, William Goldman!

What are some of your favorite movies that are based on books? Have you seen any of the ones I listed? What do you think of them?


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Huffington Post Article on the Women of Camelot

I’ve known for months that when Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur movie came out (as it does tomorrow in the US) I wanted to share some of the many books that have been written about Arthurian women. What I didn’t expect is to go on about the lack of movies about female Arthurian characters. Well, I’ve done both in this article in the Huffington Post! Happy reading! (And I hope you find another book you’d like to add to your list!)