9/15/18

Ground of Insurrection is 99 cents at LT3 this weekend only!  If you don't have a copy, now is the time: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books...  Insurrection has been getting truly wonderful reviews and it has one of the prettiest covers I've seen.  I'm sure you'll enjoy it too, so get your copy today!

Heartbeat is now available on Goodreads. Feel free to add it to your to-read list if you're interested: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41830430-heartbeat

I have completed writing Ground of Resurrection, book two in my Wizard Wars series.  I have set it aside to marinate for about a month, so sometime in mid-October I'll get it edited and formatted for submission.  I'm excited about how it turned out.  It answers some of the questions I know you had from book one and expands the world and the story.  I'm hoping you like it too!  Next for this series is book three, which I have the barest outline for.  I'm not planning on starting book three for a while (I have a few others I want to finish first), but I'm looking forward to it. 

Otherwise, I haven't done much the past few weeks.  I had a good new year celebration with my family, which was nice.  I'm behind on the edits for The Coup and the Prince.  I'm hoping to make some progress on it this week around Yom Kippur, but it's going to be difficult.  There will be more time to focus on the edits next week.  Once the edits are done I'll return to writing and will hopefully begin to make real progress on some of the other stories I know you're waiting for. 

9/6/18

I've have been making some more progress on my to-do list!  There's still a lot left for me to get done, but I like what I've been able to accomplish so far.  Here's what I did:

First, I was able to complete the edits for Heartbeat and get them returned to LT3 on time.  (Okay, one day late, but that hardly counts when you consider how late I returned some of my previous edits...)  Heartbeat is therefore complete and ready to go for October 3rd.  It is available for pre-order at LT3 and should be out to other retailers soon.  Heartbeat is a reprint, so only go get your copy if you don't own the original. 

Another big ticket item on my to-do list is finishing writing Ground of Resurrection, which I have almost completed.  The story itself is done, but I'm only halfway through the epilogue.  I'm of two minds when it comes to the epilogue.  On one hand, it's a cute bit of fun extra that I want to give to my readers.  On the other, it really serves more as a vignette rather than a full epilogue.  I'm still going to write it and include it in the submission, and then I'll see what the editor says.  If they think it's okay to keep it in, I will, if not I'll release it on my blog as a deleted scene.  Either way, you'll get to read it, which means I need to finish writing it.  Once the epilogue is done, Ground of Resurrection will be complete and all I'll need to do is edit and format it for submission. 

I have also written a few hundred words in Gi-Mi: Part Two.  I had the day off this past Monday, so I was able to spend a good chunk of time focusing on this story.  I really want to get it complete this year, but I still have approximately 15k words to write, so I'm not sure that's possible.  Hopefully I can get it done by early next year. 

Lastly, The Coup and the Prince.  The second round of edits arrived and are sitting on my computer waiting for me.  Now that Heartbeat is done, I've decided to take a few more days to complete Resurrection, and then all focus has to go towards getting Coup done.  I've read through the edits already and I know they won't be easy.  There's still a few things to rewrite and a couple of other things to tweak.  It's going to take time, which means I need to get cracking.  Wish me luck! 

8/21/18

Despite the constant edits, I have managed to squeeze a little writing in.  There are so many stories I want to get complete, but finding time to work on them has been difficult, especially when so much of my writing time has been stuffed full of editing.  Here's what I've been able to accomplish the last few weeks:

I added a few more drips and drabs to Dragon Spy, book seven of my Supernatural Consultant series.  Mostly I'm trying to figure out the balance between Nickel's role and Lumie's role to the overall plot.  They're both big personalities that demand focus and attention, and giving it to them both without losing the essence of the series is going to be an interesting task for this particular book. 

I also added about 1.5k words to Ground of Resurrection.  I've said this before, but all I need to finish writing this story is time.  There's about 4k more to go and it's all planned out, so it's really just about finding a few stolen moments to work on it.  As soon as I'm done with edits, I expect this story to be the next add to my completed list. 

LT3 also posted a new collection call named Bound by Nothing.  It's about shifters and injuries that I thought was really interesting.  I've got an idea for it and I managed to write about 3k words, but I don't know if I'll be able to complete the story by the deadline.  It's due at the end of January and it's only asking for a minimum of 20k words, but I have so much else to do that this story might unfortunately not get there in time.  Which doesn't mean I'll abandon the story, of course.  It wouldn't be the first time I've missed the deadline for a call and later published the story anyway, but I would like to try.  You can check out my tentative summary on my current projects page and I hope to have a title to share soon too. 

But what about Ge-Mi: Part Two, or the fairy tales I keep insisting I'll work on?  I fully admit, I've gotten distracted from these two endeavors.  Ge-Mi is another story that I just need to find free time to work on, but because the story is so involved, it's got to be more than a few brief moments stolen here and there.  Usually that's all I have, which is perfect for all the other stories I've mentioned so far, but not for Ge-Mi.  That's going to take a few weekends of no other distractions to really get into and right now that time is being spent on edits instead.  As for the fairy tales, I've got two left to complete and one still to rework.  I can work on them in the stolen moments, but I'd prefer to finish Resurrection first, so once that story is done I know I'll return to my fairy tales. 

7/31/18

There's a lot on my to-do list (I feel like there's always a lot on my to-do list), but this week I've found myself focusing on two specific items.  The first is, of course, the edits for If A Butterfly Don't Fly.  I'm making progress, but as usual it's slow going.  The editor has again requested that I rewrite large portions of the story.  I understand why, but a) it's painful to do, and b) it's ridiculously time consuming.  Still, I want to try to get it done quickly so I can really start digging into the second thing I've been working on this week. 

Dragon Spy, the seventh book in my Supernatural Consultant series, has been languishing for far too long and I've finally taken the time to get some work done on it.  Chapter One is from Nickel's perspective, which is always a bit more serious, but Chapter Two has decided it wants to be from Lumie's perspective instead. There's a bit more levity when Lumie is around and causing problems.  I can't say it's more fun to write Lumie instead of Nickel, but it's easier to find the right flow.  This means I can finally start figuring out the second half of the blurb for Dragon Spy.  It also means that I'm planning for a future book to be in Platinum and Goldie's perspectives.  Admittedly, the main characters of that future book will depend on who is speaking to me at the moment, but I'm having fun planning ahead. 

The two additional books on my radar right now are still Ge-Mi: Part Two and Ground of Resurrection.  Part Two is at the halfway point and I'm having a bit of trouble getting it over that hump and into the start of the build up for the final battle scene.  I'm hoping to take some time to refocus the plot and get it moving again.  Resurrection, on the other hand, is just waiting for me to have time to return to working on it.  I only need to write about 5k more words and the story will be complete, which is basically the last battle and the romantic conclusion.  When I finally have some free time to devote to writing, I'm hoping to get Resurrection completed. 

4/22/18

It only took me an extra three weeks, but the edits for If A Butterfly Don't Fly are finally back with LT3.  They need to go back to the editor for another round, but I think (I hope) I was able to make a lot of progress this time around.  We'll see how I did when I get round two in a month or so.  Right now I'm going to take a deep breath and try to let the stress of overdue edits finally fall away. 

Of course, now that those edits are done for the moment, I'm sure the second round for Ground of Insurrection will arrive.  Insurrection is starting to head quickly towards release day, and getting the edits complete is a big step towards making sure June 13th happens.  I'm not expecting anything too crazy for this second round, so it'll hopefully go quickly.  Don't forget, for the rest of April LT3 is having a huge birthday sale and you can pre-order Insurrection for 40% off: https://lessthanthreepress.com... 

With editing done for the time being, I can finally turn to writing again.  There are so many stories to work on, but right now my muse has the next scene planned for Dragon Spy, book seven in my Supernatural Consultant series.  Lumie decided he needed to come say hello and I have a hard time saying no to Lumie.  It should be fun to write and I'm hoping that will also help me get further along with planning out this story.  It's been stalled for a while because I'm not entirely certain how I want to organize it all.  I also want to get back to finishing Ground of Resurrection, but I've lost the momentum I had a few months ago.  Basically, whichever story grabs my attention and keeps moving forward is the one I'll be working on. 

1/28/18

When I'm writing a book, a lot of the time the ideas for the sequel start popping up.  I usually shelve those ideas until the current book is complete, and then pull them back out to start work on the sequel.  Except, by that point those new ideas are dusty and sometimes difficult to work with because of the amount of time they've been sitting (which has sometimes been years).  That was the case for Ground of Resurrection, the second book in my Wizard Wars series.  It took me years to write book one, Ground of Insurrection, and all the ideas and plans for book two got warped and messed up.  I've scrapped and restarted the first 1k words in Resurrection at least three times, just trying to get the pieces I shelved to work with what actually wanted to go onto paper.  The story was stuck around 1k for a few months, but then I received the first round of edits for Insurrection. 

Somehow, reading through Insurrection reminded me of those original, shelved ideas, and reordered them until they finally started to come together in a story that makes sense.  Writing Resurrection suddenly became a process of getting the words onto paper fast enough before my brain moved on to the next scene.  Resurrection has just passed the 10k words mark.  (I've also started shelving ideas for a potential third book in the series that will likely be called Ground of Defection.)  10k words is the halfway point for the books in this series, which are all only about 20k in total, and I know the basic layout of the rest of the story.  It's just a matter of finding the time to write it all down, but I'm really hoping Resurrection will be completed soon. 

On another note, thanks to all your advice from my last posting I have decided to go with Dragon Spy as the title for book seven in my Supernatural Consultant series.  I hope regular readers of my blog will understand that I am recycling a previously scrapped title.  I have also come up with the first paragraph of the working summary for Spy, which you can read HERE.  I'll be able to add the second paragraph and smooth out the first paragraph once I've fleshed out the story a bit more, but at least now you can get the basic gist of what I'm going for in this story.  I haven't made a decision on what to do about the title for my coliseum story, but I'll let you all know what I eventually decide.