Category: Dragon Lesson

News: The New Title

8/12/2017

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8/12/17

After conferring with all of you, and emailing back and forth with LT3, the new title that will replace Dragon Spy has been decided. There were a number of considerations that went into it, including how well the new title flowed off the tongue and how many previous titles had the same initials. We decided against Dragon School because it doesn't really flow all that well and said no to Dragon Direction because there are already so many stories that are DD. In the end we went with my first instinct and I am quite happy with it.

What do you all think about Dragon Lesson?
I have just finished the first round of edits for Dragon Lesson. They're going back to the editor for a second round, since I rewrote a couple scenes that need to be looked over. Now that those edits are done, I need to decide which of my completed stories--If A Butterfly Don't Fly or The Coup and the Prince--I want to get ready for submission first. Unless the edits for Kelpie Blue suddenly appear in my inbox (which, since I don't have a release date for it to plan myself around, that could happen), I should have a few weeks without edits to focus on lots of other things.
Dragon Lesson is available for pre-order at LT3. You can get it for a 15% discount if you buy before October 11, 2017. You can also add Dragon Lesson to your to-read list on Goodreads in preparation for October. It feels like a long way away, but October will be here before we know it.

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News: Allergies Make Life Difficult

8/5/2017

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8/5/17

These last two weeks have been very interesting. Last week my family and I went to the beach for the entire week. I spent quite a few hours sitting in a chair, my feet buried in the sand, the sound of the surf in my ears, and a book in my hands. Needless to say, I didn't get much editing done. I had hoped to make up for that this week, but then something outside bloomed. When my allergies get really bad I start wheezing and my sinuses fill up. I end up with tightness in my lungs and a sinus migraine. In addition to the fact that I'm not breathing spectacularly well and am coughing to make up for it, the pain in my head is horrible. Plus, I get light sensitive with vertigo. Looking at a computer screen has been almost impossible. The only solution is Benadryl as painkillers don't touch it, so I've basically spent most of this week either suffering at work or asleep at home.
Given the fact that Justified comes out next week, I knew I had to suck it up and get the copy edits completed. I somehow managed it and Justified is now ready to go. Make sure you get your copy for a 15% discount before Justified comes out on August 9th.
I haven't finished the edits for Dragon Spy, which is a problem. If my head behaves, I would like to spend the rest of this weekend working on them. I need to get the edits back to LT3 asap as we're beginning to run short on time. I think I've settled on Dragon School as the new title, but I want to run it by the editor first before I make a decision.
You can probably guess how well the editing is going for the two stories I've completed and want to submit to LT3. I haven't touched them, but I have been thinking. I don't want If A Butterfly Don't Fly to come out too close to Kelpie Blue, the prequel. I don't have a release date for Kelpie Blue yet, but I know I want to give at least six months of space between the two stories. If I submit The Coup and the Prince first (and LT3 accepts it), that will increase the amount of space. It really depends on how the last bit of editing goes for both stories, which I can't start until after Spy is back with LT3.

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News: Edits and Titles

7/23/2017

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7/23/17

I have received the first round of edits for Dragon Spy, the next book in my Supernatural Consultant series. They appear to be pretty straightforward, so I'm making good progress. There was one major plot hole the editor pointed out and a few other smaller issues, but the biggest thing the editor recommended was that I change the title. The editor stated that they thought "Spy" didn't seem to quite fit with the overall theme, which made the title a bit misleading. I can totally see where the editor is coming from, so now I'm bouncing new ideas around in my head. I'm leaning towards something along the lines of "Dragon Lesson", but I'm not sure that's strong enough to fit in with the rest of the series. What do you think? Would you read a book titled Dragon Lesson, or can you recommend something else that falls along the lines of learning or growth?
Sometime in the next week I am going to pull out If A Butterfly Don't Fly and finally give it a last edit. It is ready to be submitted. I always feel guilty bombarding LT3 with multiple submissions at a time, so I'm definitely going to wait until after I've heard yes or no from them on Butterfly before I pull out The Coup and the Prince for that story's final edit.
I still haven't settled on a story to work on next. That's probably a good thing because it means I can focus on the edits I need to get completed. Still, I prefer to be writing. Hopefully one of my stories will jump out at me sometime this week.

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News: A Successful Week

7/17/2017

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7/17/17

I completely closed the document for If A Butterfly Don't Fly and have refused to open it again. If the document isn't available, I can't nitpick at it. It's been a full week since I finished the story and I'm going to try to give it one more week before I give it a last edit and submit it. I would like to wait until August, but I'm not certain whether I'll be able to last that long.
I focused exclusively on The Coup and the Prince this past week and to my surprise I was finally able to finish it. This story was stalled for a few months while I figured things out and I am happy with how it turned out. Unlike Butterfly, I haven't been regularly editing the story as I went to help stave off writer's block. I would instead switch to working on something else. That means Coup will need a full month of rest before I can start editing. I'll pick it up again at the end of August, clean it up, and get it submitted.
Which leads me to another what's next dilemma. I have so many books on my to-do list at the moment, but none of them are calling to me. I'll try poking at a bunch of them to see if anything bites. Unfortunately, if the muses aren't talking, I don't know how much actual writing I'll be able to get done. I'll let you all know whenever I settle on something.
The last bit of news isn't as exciting, but for those of you who love Lumie I know you'll be glad to hear it. Dragon Spy, Lumie's first story in my Supernatural Consultant series, has begun moving forward. LT3 has posted it on Goodreads, which is an indication that they think the story is still on schedule. I expect to get the edits any day now as there's only three months until release day. I'm hoping in conjunction with those edits I'll learn some potential release dates for the two other stories LT3 has accepted. There's so much to look forward to and I'm excited to get started.

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News: Covers, Edits, and Writing

7/1/2017

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7/1/17

For those of you that follow me on Facebook, you probably saw that I added all six new covers for my Dragon's Hoard series. They're absolutely amazing. I loved the old covers, of course, but these are super special too. Six covers is too much to share in a blog post, so if you want to check them out they're on Facebook and they're on my website.
Finding the Wolf, the first book in my Dragon's Hoard series, is available for pre-order. If you purchased it in the past, DO NOT bother buying it again (unless you want to for some reason). There have been edits, but it is basically the same book. What you can do, is when the series is re-released you can dig through LT3's rather difficult purchased page and find your original download. As far as I'm aware, you should be able to download the new version from that page. I don't know what to do if you purchased your copy from Amazon or another ebook site. If you are a brand new reader of the series, then make sure you DO get a copy now while it's on a preorder discount. The reprints of the entire Dragon's Hoard series as well as the new Gathering the Hoard short story set should all be available July 12th.
I have been plugging away at the edits for Justified and I am almost finished. All that's left is a final read through--which I've already started--and then I'll send it back to LT3. Justified is available for preorder, and you can always go onto Goodreads and add it to your to-read list. It comes out really soon too on August 9th, so get your preorder in now.
I have also been able to get a lot of writing done this past week. If A Butterfly Don't Fly has passed 30K words, which means I have less than 10k left to write. The twist I added has turned out amazingly and I'm really happy with how this story is progressing. The plan is to have it completed in July so that by the end of August I can start getting it ready for submission to LT3. By then I'm hoping to have more news to share about Kelpie Blue, the first book in the series. Kelpie Blue was accepted by LT3, but aside from that I don't know anything else about its progress. Of course, the next set of edits I should be getting are for Dragon Spy, which I know my readers are excited about since Lumie is the main character. After that is when I'm expecting to start getting word about Kelpie Blue.

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News: Procrastination is Going Well

6/24/2017

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6/24/17

I received the edits for Gathering the Hoard, the Dragon's Hoard short stories, and for Justified and I did start working on them both, but then the next thing I knew I had somehow managed to write 5k words for If A Butterfly Don't Fly and hadn't touched my edits in a week. That was not my intention in the least bit, especially since both sets of edits are already running a bit behind schedule. My plan to bust my butt this weekend and see if I can get the edits for Gathering the Hoard done and get a good chunk of Justified completed too has so-far been successful. Gathering the Hoard was just returned to LT3, so if I can get a lot accomplished in Justified, I can stop feeling guilty about procrastinating from edits by writing.
Speaking of If A Butterfly Don't Fly, that story is going amazingly well. I've added 5k words and I think I've figured out an extra twist that will make the story longer and will also help to strengthen the romantic elements. Right now there is a romance, but it's a little stilted, and the twist will hopefully help to iron everything out. I hope to reach my goal of 40k soon.
The reviews for Dragon Home have been beyond amazing. Everyone seems to have really enjoyed reading it, which I am so ecstatic to hear. The next step for this series is Dragon Spy, which is slated to be released this October. I'm hoping to have the next book in this series mostly written by that point, but that's only going to happen if the edits stop coming in so quickly. Since I still have three more stories I haven't seen edits for just yet, I have doubts on my ability to get book seven completed before book six is released. The good news is, I think I've come up with a title for book seven. What do you think of Dragon Trick? That's still subject to change, of course, but it fits with how the story is writing so far.

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News: Writing Continues

3/26/2017

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3/26/17

I have begun writing book seven of my Supernatural Consultant series. I'm almost finished with the prologue, which will connect this new story to the end of Dragon Spy as well as fully connect the new arc started in Spy with the hints I dropped in Dragon Deception and Dragon Dilemma. Unfortunately, the prologue is the only part of the story I have planned out at the moment. I'll need to return to planning the rest of the book once the prologue is completely written. I haven't figured out a title for the book yet either. What I do know is Nickel and Platinum will be the main characters. There will still be considerable input from Lumie, but after what happens to him in Dragon Spy, Lumie needs a bit of a break. Right now I'm expecting book eight to return to Lumie's point of view.
You won't believe how many questions I've received about when the second half of Ge-Mi will be released. It's almost as many as when readers have asked for more Tori or more Lumie. The reception this story has gotten is amazing and has galvanized me into starting work on part two. There is a lot of work to still do for this story, but putting together the overall plot and much of the research was done for part one. I'm hoping that means writing part two will go faster, but I can't make any promises.
Most of my writing time has been spent working on some of my fairy tales. I am currently writing three different fairy tales and am hoping to rewrite a fourth. If I combine those with my two fairy tale stories that recently went out of print, I feel like I could have a nice compilation. There's still a ton to write, but I'm really enjoying putting these stories together so I hope to have some of them completed soon.
I have been wracking my brain, trying to figure out what to do with Hadash Aviv. For those of you who don't remember, Hadash Aviv was my cute little contemporary crime thriller that recently went out of print. I absolutely adore this story and I want to get it reprinted, but it's too short. LT3's (and most publishers) minimum word count for stories they'll accept is 10k, but Hadash Aviv is only 7k. I've read through the story and I'm concerned that adding another 3k words will ruin the flow. I could release it as a free story, but that isn't fair to the people that purchased a copy. I thought about pretending it was a Beauty and the Beast inspired story so I could slip it into my fairy tales, but it's really not. Hadash Aviv will unfortunately continue to sit on my computer until I can come up with a solution.

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3/22/2017

There are many reasons why I shouldn't guess potential release dates for my upcoming books, the main reason of which is that I'm usually wrong. In this most recent case, I was very wrong. LT3 has provided me with all the upcoming dates they were able to schedule this far ahead of time and pretty much all of my guesses proved to be way off. Here's the official dates (which are subject to change, but should be mostly accurate at this point), so mark your calendars:

Dragon Adventure: May 17, 2017
Justified: June 21, 2017
Dragon's Hoard Reprint and Short Stories: July 12, 2017
Dragon Home: August 9, 2017
Dragon Spy: October 11, 2017

The only book that LT3 has accepted for publishing that is not on that list is Kelpie Blue. If I might guess (and at this point you've hopefully realized that my guesses aren't worth much), I would say December 2017 or January/February 2018.

In other news, Dragon Soldier, Dragon Detective, Dragon Adventure, and Dragon Home will be released in print in Supernatural Consultant Volume 2. This print compilation continues from where Volume 1 left off and should be released around the same time as Dragon Home in August.

Supernatural Consultant Volume 2 is also being considered for release in audio. The decision hasn't been made just yet, but I have been told it is on the list of potentials.

And the last bit of release news is that once the edits for the reprint of The Dragon's Hoard series are complete, the series will be submitted for translation into Spanish.

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News: Coming Soon

3/19/2017

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3/19/17

The next three books on my coming soon list are starting to come together. First were the covers, which if you missed you can check out HERE. Next are the release dates. Dragon Adventure will come out on May 17, 2017. Mark your calendars for this short story.
I was also given a tentative date range for Dragon Home of sometime in June or July 2017. That date can't be finalized until LT3 and I are through with my Dragon's Hoard series rerelease process. The series will most likely be released in the same time frame as Dragon Home (barring any unforeseen editing snafus). This matters because LT3 isn't going to want to release Dragon Home too closely to my Dragon's Hoard series. This could be as simple as one comes out in June and the other July, but that determination can't be made until Dragon Home and my Dragon's Hoard series have completed the editing process.
Adding to that is Justified, which will also need a release date. It's far too soon to even guesstimate when Justified might be coming out. It is currently in a long line waiting to go back to the editor for a second round. Once it's through the line and the editor's time, I still need to complete those edits. Then it's off to the copy editor. Only at that point will the story be far enough along to start thinking about dates. If you give a month for each step in the process (March for the editor, April for me, May for the copy editor, June for formatting and other considerations) we're looking at a potential for July, August, or September, but again that date would be dependent on when the Dragon's Hoard series and Dragon Home are released.
After that it's impossible to guess anything. Dragon Spy is presumably next on the list, followed by Kelpie Blue, which was accepted by LT3 this past week. Those are months and months away from being published. Fall or winter of 2017 or even early 2018 is the best guess I could give. It's really exciting to me to see all these books slowly fall into place and, as always, I'll keep my readers updated as I learn more.

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News: Submissions, Editing, and Writing

1/31/2017

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1/31/2017

Dragon Spy was accepted by LT3! I'm so excited! You have no idea how happy I am to finally be writing again and for the writing process to be bearing such wonderful fruit. More on that below. Spy is the start of the next arc (careful readers of the series will have some inkling of what the new arc might be because I have been hinting). Unfortunately, I'm still not sure what book I want to work on next for this series. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon because I definitely have some awesome plans for our favorite dragons!
The copy edits for Dragon Soldier have been returned to LT3. It's almost ready for release on March 8th, so make sure to get your pre-order in now: lessthanthreepress.com/bo oks...
And don't forget that Ge-Mi: Part One comes out next week! If you want it for a 15% discount, pre-order ASAP: lessthanthreepress.com/books...
Now that Dragon Spy is completed and accepted by LT3, and now that I've given up on forcing A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes to be completed this month, I don't have a story I'm focusing exclusively on. I really want to take this opportunity to shrink my to-list, which is far too massive. There are a number of stories on it that I have been slowly working on for years and years. Ge-Mi: Part One was a story that sat for a very long time, so seeing it finally be released is galvanizing. There are two stories on my to-do list that are just as old--if not older--than Ge-Mi: my Dragon's Hoard Short Stories and Kelpie Blue. I've been stuck on the Dragon's Hoard stories for a while. I know what I want to write, but the words just aren't coming. Every once in a while I pluck away at it, but it's not growing the way I want it to. Kelpie Blue, on the other hand, is huge. This story has taken so long to write because of the sheer amount of research it has needed. The mythology, horses, and everything else that's gone into it has required careful checking and double checking to make certain my facts were all correct, which has slowed the writing process down considerably. I would absolutely love it if Kelpie Blue were the next story I submitted.

In the last few days I've added over 10k words to Kelpie Blue. It's finally approaching the final fight scene/climax and every last bit of remaining plot has been completely planned out. I know exactly what's going to happen next. All I need to do is write it all down. That will still take time, of course, but I've been working on Kelpie Blue since 2013. A few more weeks or months won't hurt.

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News: The New Title

News: Allergies Make Life Difficult

News: Edits and Titles

News: A Successful Week

News: Covers, Edits, and Writing

News: Procrastination is Going Well

News: Writing Continues

News: Release Dates

News: Coming Soon

News: Submissions, Editing, and Writing

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