This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Natalie Cross will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
It may be presumptious of me to give advice to a new author, as I still consider myself a newbie. Even though only two of my manuscripts are published, I have actually completed five or six manuscripts, in various stages of editing, over the past two years, so let me offer my two cents.
When I started my writing journey with the first draft of Ballroom Blitz, I wondered constantly whether it would be “good enough.” Good enough for who or to what standard, I never quite clarified to myself, but it was sufficient to halt my writing multiple times. I wasn’t finishing the book because I kept going back and trying to perfect my sentences.
That’s when I realized that the first draft isn’t meant to be perfect. It’s a very detailed outline, destined for rewrite after rewrite. Those bare-bones first drafts will evolve and morph into something beautiful and “good enough,” but if you never finish them, they’ll languish. I swear some of my unfinished manuscripts sit there laughing at me. And stories shouldn’t languish like browning bananas. They deserve to exist.
That’s not to say I’m not a mood writer. Should I sit down and complete a full three-book series in one go? Maybe. Do I do that? Absolutely not.
I have the first books in several different series lying around on my laptop. Once I get these competing stories out of my head and into a raw first draft, I skip around to complete other series. I’ve had to accept that’s the way my brain works.
That might not be how yours works, and that’s fine. That’s wonderful. Respect what works for you. We should all be different because we will create different and wonderful stories. They will be good enough for someone if they are good enough for you. I can’t wait to read yours.
In the glamorous world of ballroom, love and dancing do not always mix.
Professional dancer Anita Goodman has learned that lesson the hard way. With her studio and her reputation on the line, she has to take a chance on the last person she ever wanted to partner with: her best friend.
Patrick O’Leary has loved Anita since high school, but he has languished in the Friend Zone for long enough. He will take this last chance to prove to her that love is greater than winning.
Neither of them realize that conquering their rising attraction won’t be their biggest obstacle. Someone does not want them to be together, and will stop at nothing to get their way.
Love, dance, and danger. It’s a Ballroom Blitz.
Enjoy an Excerpt
The ballroom still thrummed with the clack of heels and the slide of suede, though its last inhabitants had vanished over an hour before. Applause and cheering from the final night party echoed across the hallway. The tables were strewn with hair pins, empty water bottles, and sweaty towels tossed with exhilaration before another heat. The perfume of sunless tanner and hairspray drifted toward the apex of the ballroom’s ceiling, and it almost seemed that a few notes of a Viennese waltz still clung to the utilitarian white hotel tablecloths.
Rapid footsteps broke the waiting silence. Stilettos from the click click click, glimmering with crystals, a few of which scattered from the shoes with a brackish clatter as the heels struck the parquet of the ballroom floor. Heavy breathing, panting. “No!” A stumble as one heel of the red satin crystal-encrusted stilettos snapped. Sobbing.
Then another pair of footsteps, flats, fashionable. Something hard, with an edge that might draw blood. These footsteps were measured. No panic. No anxiety. Calculating.
The sobs intensified. “Please, please, please, no, I didn’t do anythi—”
A gurgle, a grimace, a thud. The wash of silk from a bone-white evening gown susurrated along the cold parquet floor. The scent of copper flooded the air.
A grunt, a vicious exhale, an audible sneer.
Then the ballroom closed upon itself again. The tables, the cloths, the chandeliers, the lights. All waiting for its new secret to be discovered.
About the Author: Love is an adventure.
Natalie writes romances and cozy mysteries featuring women who want to be seen and the men and women who cannot look away from them.
Natalie lives in Los Angeles, where writing is an acceptable way to avoid sunburn. She is mom to two lovely young munchkins who despise brushing their hair and eat way too much cake. She is unapologetically terrible at taking selfies.
Buy the book at your favorite online venue.
What happens when the king of casual meets the queen of picking the wrong men?
Isobel was born and raised in London. She still lives along the River Thames with her husband and her substantial book collection. Ever the hopeless romantic, she fell in love with the genre from a young age and was inspired to write her own stories. When she’s not feasting on romantic comedies or binge reading her hoard of contemporary romance novels, Isobel is writing. 
Vanessa Jared, a 40-something divorcée, decided that the best way to pull herself out of their post-divorce slump was to form The Savvy, Sexy, Singles Club and start the “Do Me” portion of her and her friends’ lives.
2021 Vivian Award finalist and DEIA activist in the romance industry, LaQuette writes bold stories featuring multicultural characters. She crafts dramatic, emotionally epic tales that are deeply pigmented by reality’s paintbrush.
After years of adventures, professional thief and amateur noodle critic Yael is invited to join The Order of the Banshee, a collection of the greatest female thieves in the universe, despite being decades younger than any of them.
Robyn Singer is a lifelong New Yorker, and since she was a kid playing with her action figures, all she’s wanted to do is tell stories. She went to SUNY Purchase to get a degree in Playwriting & Screenwriting with a minor in Film and has produced several comic books, but she’s always had her eye on becoming a published novelist.
When Violet Parker is told she will be Queen Victoria’s personal housemaid, she cannot believe her good fortune. She finally has the chance to escape her overbearing mother, a servant to the Duchess of Kent. Violet hopes to explore who she is and what the world has to offer without her mother’s schemes overshadowing her every thought and action.
Rachel lives in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 29 novels including the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy, the Shop Girl series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin). Her latest novel, Victoria & Violet is the first book in her new Royal Maids series with the Wild Rose Press and releases 17th October 2022.
Prepared to die…fighting to live.
Jen Colly is the rare case of an author who rebelled against reading assignments throughout her school years. Now she prefers reading books in a series, which has led her to writing her first paranormal romance series: The Cities Below. She will write about anything that catches her fancy, though truth be told, her weaknesses are pirates and vampires. She lives in Ohio with her supportive husband, two kids, one fluffy dog, and four rescued cats.
Love knows no gender.
Carey PW (he/they) is a debut author, college instructor, and mental health counselor. Carey is currently completing his next manuscript, Acing the Game.
All in one day, thirty-five-year-old Hallie Marsh learns that the man she loves, works for, and is living with has found someone else and that she no longer has a job or a place to live. She is also involved in a car accident. She retreats to her parents’ home in the northern part of Florida to be consoled and to decide what to do with the rest of her life only to find out that her mother is planning to leave her father for another man. Embittered, filled with anger, and wanting revenge, Hallie decides to take a year’s sabbatical and write a novel that would reveal the unethical, if not illegal, real estate business practices of her former boss and lover.
Barbara Casey is the author of several award-winning novels and book-length works of nonfiction for both adults and young adults, and numerous articles, poems, and short stories. Several of her books have been optioned for major films and television series. 
Clint Williams
