Goodbye 2023, Hello 2024!

So I swore that for 2023, I would get my "year in review" post done by the end of December...and then it didn't happen. Oops. Sorry. But, to be fair, a LOT happened and even more new and exciting things are in the works for 2024!

First, the recap:

2023 was the year of eight books. It was fun and I'm so happy the Searching the Skies series is complete and out there for the world to see...but I'm not sure if I ever want to do that again. I also finished and released Sonata for Springtime, which was an achievement considering how long the first third of that manuscript sat on the time-out shelf, along with two spicy novellas, Train Hard, Rest Harder and Tangled In His Possession.

2023 also brought about a new logo and an Etsy shop for physical products (focusing on personalized signed paperbacks, but there are some stickers and bookmarks in there too!). 

A lot of what I started working on in 2023 was in preparation for my big plans for 2024. In no particular order:

The rerelease of The Edge of the Sphere is now available for pre-order! This is the last of my earlier books where the rights reverted back to me when the publisher shut down. Obviously it has some gorgeous new cover art, and I edited the hell out of it to bring it up to my current standards. Part of me can't believe I wrote this book twelve -- yes, twelve -- years ago, but I still love the characters and their story. Paperback, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited will be available on January 19th!

Next, people keep asking me about audiobooks, and I've finally decided this is the year. At some point, I'd love to have the majority of my publications where I own the publishing rights available in audiobook, but since this is a brand new adventure for me, I'm trying to take things slow. (But let's just say one may already be in the works...)

Lastly, remember the logo rebrand and the physical merchandise I mentioned? Much of that is due to me booking my first in-person appearances at signings and conventions, starting this year. As of right this second, I'm booked for two in 2024 and two in 2025, but I have some applications and feelers out for a few more. I'll post a schedule soon!

Here's to a happy and productive 2024! Cheers!

Write, Write, Write Some More...and then Keep Writing

This past Wednesday was the 11-year anniversary of this blog/site, which is kind of crazy to think about. I definitely had no idea what I was doing back then (not that I have much of a better idea now), and while there have been times when I was only posting here sporadically, I do love having this record of my writing journey. I've met so many great people along the way, which I'm thankful for, but these anniversaries also remind me how some of my fellow writers who I respected and admired decided this wasn't for them and decided to leave writing with the goal of publication behind. It's tough. It really is.

Despite me doing this for over a decade now (which, like I said: CRAZY), I wouldn't say I started gaining much traction until about late 2019 or so. That was when I started reaching my pre-childrearing levels of momentum and had a slightly better idea of how to market my books to readers who were looking for the specific genres I was writing in. In a weird way, I think the lockdown of 2020 helped a bit, as people were reading more and I also had the time to dedicate to building more of an online presence. (Okay, Twitter. I'm talking about Twitter.)

After all this time, I'm finally coming to terms with something I've known deep down for many years: to be more successful, I have to produce more. Now, we can have the "quality vs. quantity" argument until we're blue in the face, but while my backlog is pretty big at this point, I know I need to write and release faster to keep building my audience. Part of finally accepting this is how, at this stage in my life, I WANT to do it. Some of my hobbies have fallen by the wayside (I haven't watched much TV or even touched my knitting in well over a year now), but writing is becoming my priority in my down time and I'm okay with it.

I don't have a firm release schedule for the rest of the year yet, but I have a lot—a LOT—planned. It's almost to the point where I'm so excited, I'm getting impatient and I have to resist the urge to publish a lot of books and stories all at once, but I've been doing this long enough that I can make myself be methodical about it. As always, make sure you're subscribed to my newsletter and following me on social media for the latest details!

No Rest for the Wicked

Sometimes I wonder if I've started repeating blog post titles. Then I remember I'm coming up on the 11-year anniversary (!!!) of this site and I've decided not to let it bother me.

Okay, so! As of my last post about a month ago, I'd finished writing a book that had taken me on quite the journey. Whenever I finish a writing project, I always say I'm going to take a little break, maybe read some books that have been on my list for a while, play some video games, etc. Aside from my usual August vacation, though, I've noticed that break getting shorter and shorter. My "to-write" list never seems to get any smaller, and I guess I've gotten used to my routine, even if I'm not as fast as some other authors out there. There's probably also something to be said about how with the current state of indie publishing, especially for romance/erotica, the faster you produce, the more successful you are, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to tackle that topic.

All that is to say...yeah, I've started a new project. I'm not going to say "book," nor am I going to say "short story," as I don't know yet exactly where I'm going to land word count-wise. Originally, I thought it was going to be a short story, but as I started writing, the words started coming out FAST. Like, really fast. I'm as shocked as you are right now. I started it almost three weeks ago, and I'm already creeping up on 10K words. For me, that is fast.

By my estimations, which have actually been getting worse over the years as my writing has become more detailed, I think I'm around the halfway point. So much for a short story. Either way, I'm having a lot of fun, and that's the important part, right?

(I'm not 100% sure about the title yet, so no tag for now!)

The Home Stretch (of what feels like a marathon)

The release of A Flame Among the Stars went swimmingly, which is always a good thing. Reviews are popping up on Amazon and Goodreads, and they're largely favorable. As of right this second, I don't have any additional promotional events coming up, but that can always change!

As the saying goes, however, there is no rest for the weary. In addition to wrapping up AFAtS and promoting it, I've been working on finishing up the Geneva/Searching the Skies series. Book 4, Chasing the Skies, kind of went slowly, probably because I was promoting a bunch of other things while trying to write. There were a few times I questioned whether I still liked the plot I'd come up with, and one night I even debated scrapping the whole thing, but it worked out, it's done, and I'm satisfied with the results.

So, here we are at the end with Book 5, Conquering the Skies. I had a better mental outline going in than with Book 4, though there are still some details in the middle I need to flesh out. By my calculations, I estimate I'm roughly about a third of the way through, but since this is the final book, I won't mind if it goes a little longer.

It's funny - after spending so long with these characters, there are points where it almost feels like the book is writing itself. I know what they're going to say, how they're going to feel in any given situation. There have been times when I've had an idea for the plot, thought "no, that can't happen because of XYZ", and then actually included one of the characters pointing out that something can't happen because of XYZ. In fact, for the first plan I had for wrapping up one of the plot lines, I finally realized it would be out of character for our gruff but lovable space heroine and I have to do something different. (At least I realized before writing it out!) A lot has happened in five books, and I want everything to make sense and be satisfying for readers.

I still have a fair amount to write. As I've said before about other projects, I'm not quite at the point where I can say "the end is in sight!", but that point of being able to say that may be in sight. And really, it feels like a significant place to be, near the end of a five-book series that I wasn't sure was ever going to happen. I have no idea what I'm going to write once I'm done with Geneva & Co., but I think I'll finally take a bit of a writing break and play some games and catch up with Netflix. But first, to the finish line!

Disintegration Updates

In addition to writing my blog posts on tropes, I have been plugging away at other things, namely the Disintegration series re-release. For the most part, everything's been going smoothly, and I think I'm on track to release at the end of the summer as planned. As always, some things come with a learning curve, so I figured I might as well organize all my progress updates in one place and talk about my experiences, as I try to document in this "writing about writing" blog. Let's organize this into categories!

Covers: First and foremost, I cannot possibly say enough good things about Emily of Emily's_World_Of_Design. She has been absolutely fantastic to work with and I 100% recommend her to anyone who's looking for a cover designer. As of right this second, the covers for Disintegration and Disintegration: The Prequels are complete, and The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions is in progress. I'm planning on doing an official reveal for Disintegration in about another month, but in the meantime, here's a tiny sneak peek to hold us over. (I say "us" because this cover is amazing and I'm so impatient, but I want to wait for a few more things to be finalized before the reveal.)

Keep an eye out for that little scorpion to be showing up on all sorts of things in the weeks to come, and don't forget—newsletter subscribers will see the full cover first!

Editing: Everything's fine here. Since the kids are finally back in school full-time, I started getting back to my usual work schedule a couple of weeks ago, so that's slowed me down a bit on the editing front, but it'll get done. Again, Disintegration and Disintegration: The Prequels are completely done, and The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions is in progress. The "that" and "just" count for TFotMS did, as predicted, nearly make me sob, but I went through and slashed a lot of them. ("Still" wasn't awful. "Really" snuck in more than I'd remembered.) Like I said in a previous post, there wasn't a ton of work to do here (as compared to the Skies series, for example), but I still need to devote time to actually doing it.

Formatting: Aaaaaand here it is, why the statement "everything's been going smoothly" has the "for the most part" qualifier in front of it. By this point, I'm pretty confident in my abilities to format an e-book. I went back and forth for the longest time over whether to outsource the paperback formatting or do it myself. I finally decided to give it a go on my own, and then if it turned out I was in over my head, I'd pay someone else to deal with it.

I used a combination of Amazon's official guide plus a couple of other articles/blog posts that explained some steps a little more in-depth. While I know there are various programs out there for book formatting, I stuck with MS Word because that's what I already own and that's what I'm familiar with. As I followed (or thought I followed) the step-by-step instructions, it turned into one of those things where everything was going fine...until it wasn't. For the curious, where I got tripped up was the page numbers and the headers/footers. There's a difference between "acceptable" and "professional" and I was aiming for the latter, so I turned to Google for help. It took a little time, but I eventually wrapped my head around how to accomplish exactly what I wanted, and I think/hope it worked out. I'm crossing my fingers that I got all the margins and stuff right the first time out and it won't be rejected, and I'm definitely planning on ordering a proof to double check everything. If, after all that, something's still not right with the paperback, I'll turn it over to someone who actually knows what they're doing.

The e-book and paperback for Disintegration are mostly formatted; I have a placeholder in for the TFotMS cover and blurb, and I figure I should probably write a dedication for this one. Disintegration: The Prequels is only getting an e-book, but I haven't formatted it yet. I'm hoping once I get to formatting the paperback for The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions, I'll feel pretty comfortable. Maybe.

So that's where everything stands. I was originally planning for a September 1st release date for Disintegration (and make the prequel set the newsletter freebie starting then; I'll also make it accessible for free to current subscribers). However! I was recently reminded that the Alanis Morissette concert tickets I got last year were rescheduled for that day, and it looks like the show is going ahead, so even though I think everything will be all set up for the book release, it still feels like a LOT for one day, y'know? Since everything's going well, I'm now aiming for August 30th. I haven't decided when I'll make the preorder available, as I've heard conflicting advice about that, but there's going to be a lot of fun stuff going on leading up to the release, so stay tuned!

Multitasking

I'm pleased to say I've reached the home stretch of Surrendering the Skies. I have one more chapter to go, plus an epilogue. And honestly, I'm not crazy about where my word count is right now, so I might wind up going back and adding in a few more things, but we'll see where I wind up. Still, exciting!

As I started inching closer to the end, I also started thinking about what else I want to accomplish this year writing-wise. Regular readers will remember I have more older books that came back to me following a publisher shutting its doors, and I have to figure out what to do with them. It finally hit me that if I want to re-release any of them on my own, these things take time, and I should probably start making some sort of plan. (I know, it's obvious. Big derp on my part.) As I've been saying this past year or so, now that my kids are a little bit older, some of the brain fog is clearing, and I've been feeling more like my writerly self. So, let's attempt some multitasking!

I revisited my beloved Disintegration series to check out where it is now and how much work it would need. You know what? My love is not misplaced; those books are still fucking awesome, if I do say so myself. Really, some of my best writing is in there. They will need some editing, and I will probably sob to myself as I slash all the "thats" and "justs" and a whole bunch of adverbs, but otherwise, I don't think it'll be too painful.

Next, I realized if I want to do right by these books I love so much, I should invest in some kick-ass cover art. I've got tax return money coming. I've got stimulus money. LET'S STIMULATE THE ECONOMY AND SUPPORT ARTISTS! I put a call out on Twitter, reached out to some artists, and found someone I think will be a great match. Since I wasn't crazy about the original covers back in the day, I'm super excited about this part.

After/during cover art will come editing, which, again, I don't think will be too strenuous. And then after that...formatting. I've done e-books before, so I'm not too concerned there. It falls under the category of "time-consuming, but not terribly difficult." But I haven't done a paperback on my own yet, so I need to start doing research on that. I know there are ways to outsource this work, but since I'm spending money on the covers, I'll most likely handle the formatting myself.

So far, my plan is to finish up Surrendering the Skies, shop that series around, and then get to work on editing. As of right this second, I'm planning a release date for the first Disintegration book for September 1st of this year. It might be a wild ride, but I think it's doable. I'm also going to release the set of prequel short stories at the same time, but—BUT!—newsletter subscribers will get those for free, so make sure you're all signed up for that.

I'm voluntarily putting a lot on my plate, but as of right now, it's making me happy and motivated and all of that good stuff. Fingers crossed these plans work out (says the pantser)!

A Series of Questions

I've been saying to myself "oh, I really should write a blog post" for about the past week or so. Honestly, I don't have a whole lot to report. Progress on Surrendering the Skies, Book 3 of the series I'm rebooting, is coming along nicely. I would estimate I'm somewhere between a third and halfway through, and I've got a pretty good outline for the whole thing. (As well I should, as this has been floating around in my head for years.)

As I've been writing, I've been thinking of how this book will fit into the series as a whole, and various issues relating to doing a series in general. First, I should preface this by saying I admit I have not read a series in a long time. Free time for hobbies is limited these days, and I try to spread it around evenly. Due to that, I've definitely had a preference for standalone books the past few years. I know, I know, good readers make good writers, blah blah blah. But there are only so many hours in the day, you know.

One big issue I've been thinking about whether or not it's important for each book of a series to be able to stand on its own. As always, there's no one right answer. I read a lot of the Anita Blake series in high school and college, and I started with Book 9, Obsidian Butterfly, because I got it as a birthday gift from a friend who worked at Barnes & Noble when it came out and he liked the cover. (Hey, there are worse reasons!) Interestingly enough, Obsidian Butterfly is kind of the "side quest" of the series, in which Anita takes a vacation from all the drama in her life. So, that kind of answers the standalone question and actually made it a decent book to start with. I continued on with #10, Narcissus in Chains, liked that too, and then went allllll the way back to the beginning.

(Then I quit after #12, Incubus Dreams, and learned a few years later that I was not alone in stopping at that exact point, but THAT is another topic for another day.)

Then the other full series I've read in recent years is The Hunger Games trilogy. (I have not gotten to the new fourth book yet, but that's a prequel anyway.) I started at the beginning, and I can't think of a single person who has started anywhere other than with Book 1. I'm sure they exist, but I can't imagine reading that series out of order. Also, I did read the first Outlander book a few years ago but didn't continue with the rest of them, and that seems like another one where people tend to start at the beginning.

So, my Skies series. I've said before that back when I wrote the first one, I never had any plans for it being a series, which I guess fits in with me being more of a pantser than a plotter anyway. When I wrote Book 2, Defying the Skies, I did make an effort to make it accessible to readers who hadn't read the first one. Now, with Book 3...eh, not so much. I mean, since it's not really a complex world, I guess readers could start here and figure out the context quickly, but it's not a priority for me this time around. And unless someone whose opinion I value tells me otherwise, I'm sure I will be at the point of barely caring at all about this issue by the time I get to #4 out of the planned five.

Which reminds me, I will eventually need a better outline for #5 than I have now, but I don't need to worry about that yet, right? (Pantsers unite!)

To the Skies!

I've mentioned a couple of times over the past months that the first publisher I worked with has shut down, all the rights to my books have reverted back to me, and I had to figure out what to do with them. I took my planned writing break following the completion of A Flame Among the Stars, but then it was time to decide what to start next. As always, I had a number of ideas to choose from, but one possibility called to me the loudest: I wanted to finish off the Skies series.

To recap: Searching the Skies was my very first published book, featuring Commander Geneva Greyson and her attempts to balance her career goals with her family life, along with having to choose between two men who show a romantic interest in her. (Spoiler alert! She chooses both, and the three of them live happily ever after.) As this was my first major writing project that wasn't fanfic, I didn't really think too far ahead beyond "can I get something published?" I don't even remember what made me want to write a sequel, but I did, and it came out a year and a half after the first one. I did have plans to write a third book and had a pretty solid outline for it, but for a whole long list of reasons, it never happened.

So, here we are. Before starting the shiny new book, I wanted to go through and edit the first two. I'd skimmed through them back when the rights first reverted back to me, and I knew I had some work to do. As I wrote in a previous post, Searching the Skies was...ARGH. Ergh. Bleh. I guess if nothing else, it's nice to be able to say I've so obviously improved as a writer? Some of it was downright painful to reread, to the point where I almost want to track down everyone who read it and apologize to them. Honestly, there were points where I considered scrapping the whole thing, but if this were easy, everyone would do it, right?

I believed a good story lay hidden in there somewhere and slogged through to the end. Next up: Defying the Skies. While not flawless, I'm pleased to report this one held up considerably better. Sure, there were some errors that had been missed the first time around, and a few instances of lazy writing and awkward phrasing, but there were a few points that made me say "oh, damn, there's some really good shit in here". Us writers are often known for doubting ourselves, so those moments where the opposite happens are quite nice, I must say.

Okay, so the first two books are edited. Time to start the third! I started a new file two nights ago and I'm easing back into writing these characters I first created almost ten (!!!) years ago. But wait, there's more! As I said, I'd outlined the third book (and even titled it!), and it had a clear beginning, middle, and end...but then I realized that the ending I'd planned wasn't the most satisfactory, especially considering the series as a whole and comparing it to the previous two. I mean, it's an ending, in that it concludes the story the book tells, but I don't think I can leave off there. To make a long story short, I've decided this trilogy is now going to be five books long, and everything will be finished off with a pretty little bow on top by the end.

It sounds like a lot, and I definitely have my work cut out for me. I also have to decide on the best route for publication, and while I have some ideas/strategies, I need to get a bit more actual writing done first. For now, though, this is what I want to focus on, and I'm looking to more fun, sexy space adventures. Because I firmly believe the world can always use more of those.

New Year, New...well, all sorts of things

Happy New Year! Okay, so the general state of "the world is on fire" hasn't quite been put out. (I'll make my statement of if you in ANY way support the terrorism and insurrection that went on at the Capitol last week, you can see yourself out now, and I won't miss you. BYE.) Not much else to do besides keep slogging along, I guess. Fingers crossed that better times are, in fact, ahead.

I did reach my goal of finishing the main writing of my latest book before the end of the year, though the editing process went into January. Since it was a lot longer than anything else I've written recently, obviously editing took longer, too. And since I had plenty of time to think about and overthink things, that's exactly what I did.

First of all, I decided I didn't love the title of Elemental Forces. It wasn't terrible, but I thought I could do better. After thinking about the characters and some recurring themes and imagery, I played with a few combinations. To my surprise and delight, a Google search of my top choice didn't show anything notable with that title. So now, the book is A Flame Among the Stars. Very fantasy-esque, right? I'll go make that new tag now. Maybe I'll go through and re-tag the older posts, since there aren't too many of them.

Next, I debated long and hard about the idea of submitting to a different publisher. I'm very happy with everything the team at Decadent Publishing and I have done together, but as they're a general romance publisher, I considered submitting someplace more specific for my next lesbian romance. I did some research on publishers who focus on lesbian fiction, narrowed it down to a few possibilities, and selected what I thought would be the best fit. Since everyone has different requirements for submissions packages, it took me longer to put everything together for this one. I waffle back and forth with how confident I feel, but at least I can say I took the chance. And if it doesn't pan out, I have some backup plans.

Onward to the rest of 2021! I don't have, like, an actual calendar or anything (though maybe I should), but I am planning out the rest of my writing year. I do always like to take a break after finishing off a project, so I've been reading some books that have been sitting on my Kindle for a while, and I'm going to start The Witcher 3 on the Switch tomorrow, which I'm going to assume will take me at least a month to get through since I can only play at night after the kids are in bed. After that, though, I think I've decided on what I want to do next, but plans can always change. Stay tuned!

Hilarity May or May Not Ensue

So, I think we've all realized by now that I'm not one of those people who is SUPER SERIOUS, ALL OF THE TIME about her writing. That's not to say I don't write serious stories, because I definitely do...I just frequently laugh at myself while doing so. To be honest, I often find people who always take things seriously (assuming it's not a life-or-death situation) to be exhausting, but hey, you do whatever you need to do to get through your days.

I won't make any comments as to whether or not I'm "funny," as I know how subjective humor is. Maybe I've made people laugh here a few times over the years, maybe I've just made them roll their eyes at my flippant attitude before they move on. For what it's worth, while I have my "fiction writing" voice, as we all do, my "writing about writing/blogging" voice here is pretty close to what real-life me is like. I've said before, while I'm sure I'm not everyone's cup of tea, I like to think I'm fun to be around in most situations. But again, who knows.

On to the writing about writing part! I've written in a whole lot of romantic sub-genres, but I don't know if I've ever set out to write a true "comedy." Some of my books/stories are intended to be lighthearted and maybe a little fluffy, and even in some of my darker stories, the occasional odd situation or snarky remark slips through. (That might be tied to my "real me" voice, but I digress.) And now that I'm thinking about genres, I'm starting to wonder—can you even write "just" a comedy without including some sort of sub-genre? (Romance, mystery, adventure, etc.) Like, is "contemporary comedy" a thing just like "contemporary romance" is? Clearly, I am not among the people getting paid to create categories on Amazon.

(I just took a tiny break from writing this blog post to take a look. Lots of romantic comedies out there. There was a "wilderness" comedy on the first page of Amazon hits, which I would file under "adventure." And Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was also near the top, which I did enjoy, and parts were funny, but I don't know if that was the point of the story? Moving right along.)

Outside of my little website here, I have written stories explicitly intended to make people laugh, in the form of fanfic. I'd even venture to claim I was successful, in that my old Dragon Age and Mass Effect comedies were always my most popular fics, and they're still getting hits and comments and bookmarks and everything 7-8 years later. (UGH, I'M OLD.) Recently, I've been experiencing the same trends with my Fire Emblem: Three Houses fanfic. So, I know I *can* do it, but I'm also aware of the contextual differences between writing something humorous in an existing universe vs. starting from scratch with everything.

I'm still making great progress with my new project, Elemental Forces. I'm still not sure if we've established it can be a "comedy," but it's definitely on the more lighthearted end of the spectrum. I'm not attempting to land joke after joke after joke, but I made an effort to set the tone early on, and that tone (hopefully) is "this book will make you smile and feel good." As I mentioned in my last post, it's heroic fantasy and, of course, romance, since I consider myself a romance writer first and foremost. Since it's romance, there will be some emotional and poignant scenes in addition to the fun ones, because I'd argue you can't really have a romance without those, but THAT is another topic for another post.

In the meantime, I'll switch back to my Word document now, because I am still writing up a storm and it feels GOOD! (Might as well end on a "smile/feel good" moment!)

Full Speed Ahead

 (requisite reminder that Blazing Justice is available on Kindle Unlimited now!)

Guys. Everyone. Y'all. Something crazy is happening.

I am writing and I am writing fast.

Well, fast for me, anyway. I know there are writers who crank out thousands of words a day and go back to edit them later, and I know there are writers who lovingly pore over each word as it caresses the page and have little editing to do at the end. Neither of those approaches is right or wrong. I personally tend to hover near the slower end of the spectrum, like it or not.

I've discussed before about how once I had kids, it was often difficult to 1) carve out time for writing and other hobbies, and then 2) actually be productive and not just zone out in a rare quiet moment. The kids are getting older (they started virtual kindergarten this week!), and while I wouldn't necessarily say things are getting easier, the new sets of challenges maybe aren't as physically draining all of the damn time. There are definitely days where once they're in bed, I just want to park myself on the couch and click around on the internet, but I often try to at least get something done.

So. The new project. I spent some time this summer writing Fire Emblem: Three Houses fanfic and marveled at how quickly I could pop out a short story. Maybe it was finally time for me to apply that to my own original writing?

I decided I wanted to stick to a similar genre in the hopes that the energy would carry over, so I started my new heroic fantasy* romance on August 30th. For the most part, I've been maintaining my pre-childrearing rate of at least 500 words a day, and I'm four chapters in. Since it's fantasy, I'm relying on some popular tropes (because everything uses tropes to some extent anyway and you will never convince me otherwise), but I'll be playing around with some of them at the same time. It's light and fluffy, but the characters have depth and heart. Most importantly, I'm having fun, and that's contributing to the words spilling out on the page. 

 

*Before getting started, I spent some time, of course, on TV Tropes reading about the differences between high fantasy, low fantasy, heroic fantasy, etc. This is definitely heroic fantasy. The dragons show up in the third sentence.

 

Will I be able to keep this up for the whole project? Perhaps. I'm bound to hit a slump eventually, or have to deal with a section that's just not working out quite right, and so on. But for now, I'm really satisfied with my writing output for the first time in a very long time.

 

New title tag in 3...2...1....

Choosing a Direction

In my last post, I made a short vague statement about revisiting an old project/idea, accompanied by a promise to write a blog post about it. You know how sometimes when you sit around thinking about something, debating all the pros and cons and everything, if you wait long enough, a decision is made for you? That's kind of where I'm at right now. So, here's the promised post.

A couple of weeks or months ago (time has lost all meaning in this pandemic), I was thinking about some of my earliest books. I reviewed my contracts to see when the rights would revert back to me, and I was there on most of them. I was debating emailing the publisher to clarify a couple things, and then working on a plan for what I want to do with the books. I ran this by usual sounding board buddy Boobulon, and his immediate reaction was to encourage me to do this, reminding me that the works are mine, and if enough time has passed, I should take advantage of the reversion clause. I thanked him for his input, and ultimately filed the whole thing away in the "stuff to maybe get to someday" mental folder.

Then this morning, I got an email saying that the aforementioned publisher is closing/being absorbed by another company, and all rights have reverted. Okay, that's taken care of, I guess. There was a list of options regarding relisting with the new site, paying a fee to retain cover art and formatting, and so on. I've given all of this some thought, and luckily, for what I want to eventually accomplish, I don't have to *do* anything or contact anyone. The rights are mine, and I'm not going to have the books listed with the new site.

To steal the title from my last blog post: So, what now?

That's where things get a little trickier, and I will actually have to do something other than sitting around on my butt. Some decisions are clear, while others, I haven't formed a definite plan yet. In no particular order:

For all of them: Redoing the covers. Whether that means throwing together something basic on my own or paying someone to do it for me, we'll see. (Maybe a combination.) I also decided to do all the formatting on my own. The Kindle publishing platform is less finicky than it used to be, and while yes, it's another chore to do, it's not the worst thing ever and I can handle it. For availability, as of right this moment, I am leaning toward making them all Amazon exclusives, free for Kindle Unlimited members, and a low-ish price for non-KU people. I have Feelings about Amazon becoming a monopoly, but for right now, I think it's the best way to go.

The Edge of the Sphere: This one's the easy one. New cover, check the formatting, done. I think I'll try to get this done by the end of the summer.

Disintegration/The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions: Since these two go together, I guess I should come up with some sort of branding and scheduling plan. Also, there's a glaring typo right in the beginning of TFotMS that's been bothering me since it was published, so I can finally fix that, at least. I've been poking around on stock image sites, and I may wind up outsourcing the cover design for this one, but we'll see. Not a priority right now, although I do still love this set of stories.

Searching the Skies/Defying the Skies: Arrrrrrrrgh. Lots going on here. This was actually what made me start thinking about looking into the rights reversion in the first place. I'm sure I mentioned it at least once here, but once upon a time, this was intended to be a trilogy, and then for a variety of reasons, the third book never happened. It has a pretty good outline, but I never even started writing it. Another complicating factor is that when I first got this idea, I went back to review, and StS needs a lot of work to make me feel comfortable rereleasing it. A LOT. The foundations are there, there's still a lot of the story I love, but there's a lot that makes me cringe because I know I can do better now. I'm not talking a total revamp/rewrite here, at least, but it definitely needs some polishing. (DtS has held up better. Yay for growth.) Yet another thought I had was, if I did clean up Book 1 and wrote Book 3, if I want to shop this around to a new publisher as a completed set, rather than doing it all on my own.

Then that leads us to perhaps the biggest question of them all: How much time do I *really* want to spend on this? Which is the better use of my time—giving these existing books the best shot I can, or focusing on the future with new projects? I mean, I can try to do both, but I also know my limitations.

To steal the overused emoticon from my last blog post: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My tentative plan is to get The Edge of the Sphere back out there soon-ish, but also focus on the new project I've been outlining and work on that. The other books will be relegated to the backburner for now, but I guess if I get into a writing slump with the new project, I can work on rereleasing the old stuff. As far as writing the third book of the Skies trilogy goes, I really don't know. It's not the priority now, but who knows, I may get excited over the idea again. At least it looks like I'll be keeping busy!

So, Now What?

Since last checking in, the world seems a little bit less on fire, but not significantly so. Throughout the whole lockdown, I saw a lot of authors and fellow writing buddies posting on social media about how they didn't feel like writing AT. ALL, and dude, I totally get that. Trust me, I do. And even though we all have a whole laundry list of valid reasons for not being able to be creative and productive, that didn't save us from the shame spirals.

People have also been talking about "the new normal" and what that's going to look like. Considering how much is still up in the air, I think the answer is pretty much: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But even though a lot of things still suck right now, and I wouldn't say life is much less stressful than it was a month ago, maybe some of us are starting to adjust to the world in its current state.

I am still playing the hell out of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and it continues to be both the escape I need and just a plain ol' GOOD piece of fiction on its own. After poking around the fandom a bit, I started writing some fanfic. Then I wrote some more. For a while there, I was in a pretty good writing routine, for once. Which then led me to think...is it time to start applying this creative burst to my own original projects?

The answer: still ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And then that leads into the next obvious question, what should I write? I haven't touched Sonata for Springtime since last September or so, and I already have the first third done, so that was a possibility. I've had a dystopian romance mentally plotted out for a couple years, and I'd planned on that being my next project following Hunting Astrid, but I think it's understandable that I am NOT in the mood for dystopia right now. And there's another old project/idea I thought about revisiting, which I'll eventually dedicate a blog post to, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet.

So, I thought about what's been making me so happy about and motivated to write FE3H fanfic. Although Hunting Astrid is in a totally different setting, I realized there were some similarities that made me excited about writing: fast-paced, plenty of action, and, above all, FUN. At this point, I definitely need my writing to be FUN right now. Sure, it can be fun to write darker stories, with all sorts of Very Important Feelings, and I still plan on doing that sometime in the future, but FUN is taking priority at the moment.

I could go on for another several paragraphs about the age-old "where do ideas come from?" but two days ago, I came up with the most basic of plots in the most basic of settings with three basic characters, and since then, I've been fleshing those out. I'm in no rush to start, especially since my free time is being devoted to a crocheted baby blanket that has a very firm deadline that is fast approaching, but the details are gradually surfacing, so I think I'll be good to go soon enough. I've blogged before about how I have a tendency to not write a whole lot during the summer months, but this is a new world, so who knows what will happen. But I have a plan, and plans are good. Plus, even if the writing goes slowly, I know I'm not alone.

New Things For Spring

(almost nailed the rhyming title, but not quite)

Lately, it seems that all of my creative-minded friends have been talking about what new project they want to embark on. I would say something poignant and poetic about it having to do with the time of year, with spring just around the corner, and everything waking up and getting ready to bloom, blah blah blah, but I'm in the part of the country that got smacked by a number of storms in a row and not all the snow in my yard has melted yet. So we'll save that for another couple weeks. ;) 

My writing fingers are getting itchy already, even though it feels like I just finished up the most recent novella and sent it off. Usually I take a break to read some books, play some games, and see what's new and exciting on Netflix, but other than a couple books I'd wanted to read for a while, nothing else is really calling to me. I guess I might as well start something new, then!

Of course that leads to the all-important question...what should I start next? As any writer or other creative-type knows, there are always plenty of options and not enough hours in the day to tackle them all. Some of my ideas have been bouncing around for years, while others are fairly new. Some are pretty fleshed out, while others are nothing more than little snippets yet. Here's my list of mostly-baked ideas (all romance):

Option 1
Pros: Except for figuring out the order of some scenes in the middle, I basically have the major plot points outlined. The characters are fleshed out in my mind. I realized lately I haven't written anything in a male POV in quite a few years now and I'd like to go back to it for a change. One plot thread is something I've wanted to write about for a while.

Cons: It's...fluffy. Not that there's anything wrong with fluff, but nothing about the plot is particularly earth-shattering or ground-breaking. Also, it's in a contemporary setting, which I've been finding myself writing in a LOT lately, even when the stories have sci-fi or fantasy elements.

Option 2
Pros: I was so excited about this one, I almost started it over the summer. I even did some research with a friend. It's got a dystopian setting, alternate dimensions/timelines, and all sorts of more complex stuff to wrap my mind around. The two main characters are pretty well established to me.

Cons: All of that aforementioned complex stuff takes a lot of plotting, and I'm not quite all the way there yet. There are also some big issues I have to decide how to tackle - stick with familiar tropes, or throw caution to the wind and do my own thing? (The latter takes more work, of course.) While I have the major plot points figured out, there's still a looooooot of blanks to be filled in.

Option 3
Pros: Action! Sci-fi! Edgy smartass main characters! The plot is mostly done! Pew pew pew!

Cons: I don't feel like I know the main characters well enough. I still need to figure out their goals and motivations beyond "I want to meet someone attractive and bang them." 

Option 4
Pros: I know the characters and the plot. Though it's mostly a contemporary setting, there are some sci-fi elements to play around with. Also, the romance is a menage, which I haven't written in yeeeeeeeeeeears.

Cons: Even though everything is plotted out for the most part, I haven't 100% convinced myself that the plot is a good one and something I should commit to writing. And even in my head, the female lead seems a little bratty, and I need to work on ways to tone that down.

I guess this is a good problem to have, right? Nothing's set in stone, but as of right this second, Option 1 is calling to me, fluff be damned. And if it's calling the loudest, I should probably listen!

I should also probably save this list for the next time the same issue arises, but who knows how many options I'll have to add by then!

To the Finish Line! (Also, Let's Talk About Word Count)

The end is in sight for the current short story (which does have a title now, and no, it's not what I previously posted). I think I'll definitely be able to get the first draft done by the end of the weekend. Then comes proofing/editing, and I'll see which of my friends I can sweet talk into looking it over for me. I have plenty of wiggle room with the deadline, but I like to get things in early.

What I don't have as much wiggle room with is the word count. The "preferred" word count is 3K - 6K words, but according to the guidelines, 2K - 7K is acceptable, if necessary. I can read between the lines and know that the story has a better chance of being accepted if I keep it under 6K, which I don't think I'll have a problem doing. I'm quickly approaching that limit, though, and it's affecting certain choices I need to make.

I know I really should turn off the word count display, write the damn story, and then edit it down later. But at the same time, it's making me focus on what's important. This is erotic romance, after all, so as my friends and I like to joke, there's the climax and the "climax". The plot stuff is done, I'm just giving my characters their well-deserved happy ever after. (And yes, the submission guidelines state that a scene like that has to be in there.)

As always, there's no good answer. I'm sure I can put together something submission-worthy and get it to the right size. I just need to whine about it here a little. ;)

(Anecdote time! Years ago, a friend in my informal writing group told us he'd submitted a short story for a magazine, I think it was. He got a rejection letter, and we all commiserated. But then it came out that the submission guidelines asked for stories with a word count around 1K - 3K...and he sent them a 7K-word story. The ship had sailed at that point, but privately, some of us were all NOOOOOOOO!

So yeah, don't do that.)

Multi-Tasking (or maybe not so much)

So I've been plugging away at the novella-in-progress. Not as quickly as I would have hoped, but it's moving along. I'd given myself the tentative goal of finishing the first draft by the end of 2017. It would have been a stretch, and I'm not sure I would have succeeded, but it was within the realm of possibility.

But then! (And this is a good excuse, I swear!) Every so often I remember to check my usual spots for anthology submission calls. Admittedly, it's been a long time since I submitted anything like that. With the calls I see, usually one of two things happens: either the theme/content doesn't interest me that much, or by the time I see the call, the deadline/word count combination is near impossible. 

Last week, I finally stumbled across something that caught my interest, had a short-ish word count requirement (2K - 8K words, though 3K - 7K is preferred), AND the deadline isn't until February 1, 2018. Woo hoo! Totally manageable! I can do that!

Except...I'm in the middle of this novella. And I'm sure I've said dozens of times on here that working on simultaneous projects isn't really my thing. But new shiny fun submission call!

My plan is to finish up this current chapter of the novella, and then knock out the short story. It might not be the speediest "knocking out", but I'm confident I can get it done well before the deadline. I already have my idea and my outline, so I'm hoping everything will go smoothly. And once that's in, I can get back to my novella and hopefully pick up some momentum again. Wish me luck on my multi-tasking!

Decisions, Decisions

In case you missed it (unlikely, I know), Seductive Suspect has been officially released. You can tell it's official because it now has its own entry under the Books tab. :D

They say the best way to promote your current book is to write the next one, so I'm happy to report I've finally gotten started on my next project. I hemmed and hawed for a while as to what to start next. I suppose it's nice to have too many ideas, but that just adds to the indecision. Here were my choices:

Option A: Fully outlined (a rarity!), projected word count not terribly high. Still a novella rather than a short story, but a short-ish novella. (Which might be redundant?) I know exactly how it will begin and end.

Option B: Somewhat outlined. The basic structure is there, but some details still need to be filled in and some dots need connecting. I know certain scenes I want to include, but I'm not positive about the order. I know how it will begin, and I have a general idea of how it will end, but not the exact words.

Option C: Still needs some baking. I know how the prologue will go, and I have a very basic timeline, but it needs a lot of work. Pacing is going to be a big one here. I know the general idea of the conclusion, but obviously books don't stop immediately after the climax. However, out of the three, this is probably the most unique, imaginative idea, and that calls to me.

I waffled between A and C instead of actually writing for a long time, even going so far as to do more research on C. Ultimately, I decided on A, figuring it won't take me *too* long to knock it out. We don't talk about how long Seductive Suspect took, even though I have plenty of valid excuses, so I felt like I needed an easy win, so to speak. It's coming along nicely so far, and while I don't have a specific set goal in mind at the moment, I feel like I can get a pretty decent-sized chunk of it done by the end of the year.

(Though I might have to take some time off in October for the upcoming Seductive Suspect book tour, shhhh.... ;) )

Everything is In Order

While I didn't hit my original deadline of finishing up Seductive Suspect by the end of February, I did get it done before the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda next week. We'll put that in the win column! So that's all taken care of, and I have another ten days to loaf around (and maybe replay some Dragon Age: Inquisition on my shiny new laptop that I bought for ME:A).

I've mentioned it before, but I'm the type of writer who needs to write in order. That method has its pros and cons, and I'm certainly not going to argue with the people who write their scenes as they come because hey, whatever gets the words on the page. For me, though, when I go in order, I wind up thinking about the final, climactic scenes SO much, by the time I get there, writing is just plain fun. The words fly out of my fingers, and it's a far more enjoyable process than "okay, how am I going to connect Point A to Point B here?" I don't mind waiting for the reward as opposed to getting the fun stuff done first and then having to tie it all together. (But again! Whatever works!)

(Incidentally, the knitting project I'm working on now is similar - the body of the cardigan is done in one color in plain stockinette on tiny little needles, and I'm not going to lie. It's been a bit of a slog. But once I get to the colored yoke, HOLY CRAP IT'S GOING TO BE SO MUCH FUN!)

(My knitting friends may think I'm a bit nuts, too.)

Getting back to writing! Interestingly enough, despite all the nights I lay awake hashing out every single detail about those last thrilling chapters, I did wind up tweaking a few details once I got there. Nothing major, just some bits I thought made the plot flow a little better. I suppose it just emphasizes that no process is perfect. Either way, I'm happy with the end result, so stay tuned for more updates!

These Things Happen

I don't remember if I've ever mentioned it here before, but I suffer from chronic illness. Well, "suffer" probably isn't the best word - I was diagnosed nearly 20 years ago (eep!), and there's definitely been a ton of ups and downs. Lately I've been in one of those valleys, which resulted in a five-day hospital stay. It had been about six years since that happened last, so I really can't complain too much.

This post isn't meant to be a whiny rant, or a pity party. These things happen, and while the situation may suck right now, it's bound to get better sooner or later. It should go without saying that a lot of things fell by the wayside when I wasn't feeling well, and writing was one of them. At this point, I'm probably not going to meet my self-imposed deadline for this book. Meh.

But. BUT! As anyone who's ever been in one will tell you, hospitals are boring. I wasn't on my deathbed or anything, just in need of some IV drugs (and maybe a little more rest than I get at home with two toddlers running amok). I actually read some books, and then I had the bright idea to tell Mr. Landen to bring me a brand new shiny notebook and some pens. Brilliant, I say.

I managed to successfully extricate myself from marathons of Say Yes to the Dress and Law & Order: SVU and get some writing done. And, of course, I was right at the scene where the romance really kicks off, but awkward or not, I forged ahead. So yeah, there I was, curled up in a hospital bed with an IV in my hand, writing all sorts of dirty words in my notebook.

As I said, these things happen. That's got to earn me some street cred in the smut-writing world, right?

Forging Ahead Into the New Year

Happy New Year! Okay, I'm a couple weeks behind. I'll be honest - while I do love the holiday season and it's one of my favorite times of the year, part of me is really glad to be settling back into our usual routine. I was a creature of habit even before having kids, and now I have two little people who benefit from having structure. So even though it was great being around friends and family, celebrating and doing other fun stuff, I'm not terribly disappointed that it's all over.

With that return to normalcy comes a new burst of writing energy! I've noticed this for a couple years now. Something about the new year gives me the push I need and I get a lot done in the early months. I wish I could bottle up whatever it is and whip it out in, say, August, but I'll take what I can get. Who knows, maybe the darker, colder months just lend themselves to better writing when there's little else to do.

I'm moving right along on Seductive Suspect. The chapters are getting longer; I plan to finish one this week, and then I only have two more, plus an epilogue. I'm on track for my estimated word count, and I have very firm plans for the final chapters/epilogue. When I started this book, I had a pretty comprehensive outline for a change, but there were still some blanks that needed filling in, and I struggled there a few times. For where I am right now and one point near the climax, there's a couple minor little details I need to work out, but I think/hope it'll be smooth sailing until the end.

I'm all about realistic deadlines. Knowing real life can get in the way, I *think* I can be done with this and ready to submit by the end of February. I have a few weeks of wiggle room, but I NEED to be done by mid-March. Why, you ask? Some major life event? An exotic vacation? Vanishing in a glamorous poof of mystery?

Nope. Mass Effect: Andromeda comes out then. I pre-ordered it a while ago, and since I'll only be able to play in the evenings once I have it, I anticipate it's going to take me a loooooooooong time to get through it. As they say in the games before the final quests, I'd better wrap up any unfinished business before then, since I'll be disappearing off the face of the earth for a while. ;)