Category: - Mell Eight's Writing Blog

2014 Goals Results

12/30/2014

One of the things I started doing in 2014 was posting my monthly goals. It's worked really well, so I figured I might try doing the same thing for the entire year. Here is how I did in 2014. Look for my 2015 goals to come out in a few days!

Book Releases:

Paint, Guns, Money, and Love came out in February and ran as a serial story with LT3. It came out in ebook and print few months later in June.
The Oracle's Hatchling, book two in The Oracle Series, came out in ebook in March.
Wings of the Stars, part of LT3's A Loose Screw collection, came out in ebook and print in April.
Heart's Tournament, part of LT3's Won't Back Down anthology, came out in ebook and print in May.
Heartbeat, part of LT3's Satisfaction Guaranteed anthology, came out in ebook and print in September.

Books Ready for Release:

Road to Home is edited and ready to to arrive in stores in January.
The Oracle's Golem, book three in The Oracle series, is also ready to be released in January.

Submitted Manuscripts:

The Oracle's Sprite, book four in The Oracle series, has been submitted to LT3.
Dragon Consultant, book one of my new Supernatural Consultant series, was also submitted to LT3.

Completed Manuscripts:

Thunderbird, my submission for LT3's Intertwined collection call, is back from a beta reader and almost ready to be submitted.
Ground of Insurrection, my submission for LT3's Devil's Land collection call, is in edits.
Dragon Deception, book two in my Supernatural Consultant series, is completed and in need of editing.
Magnified, the longest story I've ever written at 60k words, was also completed. I want to finish writing the sequel, Justified, before getting Magnified ready to submit.

Writing Progress:

Dragon Detective and Dragon Spy, the next books in my Supernatural Consultant series are growing daily.
The Oracle's (Water) and The Sentinel's Prophesy, the next books in The Oracle series, are also taking form.
Kelpie Blue wins the award for the most progress made this year. It's only reached 20k words, but it took the most research and planning of any of my stories to get there.

Other Accomplishments:

I started posting monthly goals to keep myself on task and have had a fair amount of success with it so far.
I created a monthly newsletter to help keep readers and fans informed.

News:

6/11/2014

6/11/14

Paint, Guns, Money, and Love is now available in print! Get your paper copy today!
I am seventy percent done with the edits for Heartbeat and I don't foresee that last thirty percent taking more than a week or two to complete. I'd say I'm looking forward to not having edits on my plate for a while, but Third Time's The Charm, the free short story I'm working on eventually publishing with LT3, is still sitting there mocking me. I will finish Heartbeat and then I'll tackle TTTC.
Knoty Love has been submitted to Riptide Publishing. I will hear yes or no in November!
I am working on two other anthology submissions that I really hope to have completed soon. For LT3's Intertwined call I'm writing Thunderbird. I have the larger plot planned out, but putting all the smaller pieces onto paper will take a while. It's not technically due until January, but Dragon Consultant is due around the same time and DC is a much longer and more involved story. I'll be working on DC until the last minute, so having Thunderbird out of the way sooner will help me a lot.
The other anthology I'm working on is for Dreamspinner Press's Celebrate call. They're asking for an end of the year themed short story based in another country. I couldn't resist the lure, so I started working on it. I don't have a title for it yet. The call closes in August, which is an unbelievably short amount of time. I think I can make it.
My other stories are all coming along. Magnified is attempting to become a series in my brain and I'm trying very hard to contain it into a two part story. The Oracle Series is plucking along steadily. I'm still hoping to have Sprite and Prophesy submitted within the year. If a Butterfly Don't Fly is growing steadily, but my Out of Underhill series has a long way to go. I'm writing as much as I can and hopefully they'll all be ready for publishing soon.

Out Now: Paint, Guns, Money, and Love

6/4/2014

Out Now: Paint, Guns, Money, and Love

The mafia doesn't much care for gay men, but Nick's not in the mafia so that shouldn't matter. All he wants to do is paint and he's finally found the perfect subject in a man who looks good in real life and on a canvas. But something about Lucy is a little off and Nick soon learns that the mafia might not be so far away after all.

Buy it Today!

NEws:

6/2/2014

6/02/14

There's only a few more days to pre-order Paint, Guns, Money, and Love! It arrives in stores on June 4th.
I finally finished the edits for Road to Home. They're going to be put into the hands of the wonderful editor who did Road to Revenge for a full editing job. I'm hoping not to see it again for a few months, at which point my frustration with the story should have faded. There's still no word on a new release date, but I'll keep you posted when I know more!
I am working on the edits for Heartbeat. Most of the changes are fairly straightforward. There's one or two things I need to add or fix, but I don't need to do any major rewrites. I should have the edits done and back to LT3 soon!
Now that I have more free time I've been able to get some writing done. I've been working on The Oracle's Sprite and The Sentinel's Prophesy, one of which I really hope to have ready to submit in the next few months. I have also been fleshing out my submission for LT3's Intertwined submission call. It's titled Thunderbird and is about that creature and its Native American mythos. In addition, Dreamspinner has an Advent Calendar call for end of the year stories set outside the U.S. that I am planning to put something together for.
I haven't had time to work on any of my longer stories, but my plan is to get a large portion of Magnified and Dragon Consultant finished this summer. The submission call for Dragon Consultant ends January 1st so I have a lot to write in very little time.

I'm So Close!

5/28/2014

Except for the fact that I'm not at all... Edits are cruel, cruel taskmasters and for some very strange reason I can't get the edits for Road to Home done. It's only twenty pages--if you remember I mentioned that there were so many issues the editor sent it back to me to fix before she continued on to the rest of the story--yet it's acting like it's one hundred twenty. Every time I feel like I've made progress I reach another hiccup that takes days to wade through. After which I feel excited that I've made progress, which only spins me back to the new hiccup. It's a never-ending cycle of doom and it's infuriating! I should have had Road to Home back to LT3 weeks ago and I haven't been able to come through.

I really am close this time. I think. I only have six more pages to go and I've already gone through them once. I can do it! Until the next damned hiccup appears, at least.

I do have progress to report elsewhere:

Lynden Leaves will have a new title in just three days! I do admit I have already picked the one I like best out of all the wonderful submissions to my contest, but there's still time for one I like even more to appear. Once I have the title I'll go through the story again for any last minute edits and have it submitted before the call closes on July 1st. It's always nice to feel like I accomplished something!

I have the edits for Heartbeat, my story for LT3's Satisfaction Guaranteed anthology call. I've glanced through them quickly and I'm happy to say that there doesn't appear to be any major rewrites or plot issues. There's definitely work to be done, but nothing near the scale of Road to Home. I'm saving these edits for after Road to Home is back with an editor, but I'm definitely looking forward to edits that don't fight me every step of the way.

I can't forget to mention that Paint, Guns, Money, and Love is coming out on June 4th, which is less than a week from now! The final chapter is up on LT3's serial page at the moment. What I don't understand is how the two people that negatively rated the story on Goodreads months ago had read enough of the story to downgrade it so heavily. The story hadn't even reached midway on LT3's serial release and they apparently already hated it. They weren't even kind enough to leave a review as to why! I hope everyone else has been enjoying it!

Speaking of feeling accomplished, Magnified is now the longest original fiction story I have ever written! It's currently at 46k and I haven't even reached the midpoint! I suspect it will take a long time to finish, but the journey has certainly been exciting so far. I'm still diligently working on all my stories and hope to have something from The Oracle Series ready to submit next.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I should probably stop procrastinating and get back to Road to Home. I will have the edits done before June! I can do it! And, yes, the pompoms might be necessary in this case.

Lots of Giveaways:

5/27/2014

5/27/14

There are a bunch of giveaways going on right now for my books and I don't want anyone to miss out. Make sure you check out all of them:

Win a copy of any ebook from my back list at my Title Contest and Giveaway. The contest closes on May 31st.
LT3 is holding their June giveaways on Goodreads. You can win an ebook copy of Paint, Guns, Money, and Love. Contest closes on June 19th.
Hearts on Fire Reviews is also holding a giveaway for a free e-copy of Paint, Guns, Money, and Love. Their contest closes on May 31st.

News: Release Dates and Another Giveaway

5/20/2014

5/20/14

I had a feeling it would happen the second I saw at the scope of the edits returned to me, and it has. The release date for Road to Home had to be changed. We're still working on a concrete day, but look for it to come out sometime at the end of the year instead.
I also have two more (tentative) release dates to share! Heartbeat, my story in LT3's Satisfaction Guaranteed Anthology, will be released on September 24, 2014 and The Oracle's Golem will be released on January 21, 2015!
Paint, Guns, Money, and Love is up for an ebook giveaway at LT3's Goodreads page. All you have to do is comment to enter!
I haven't gotten much done on the writing front this past week. I've been trying to focus on the edits for Road to Home and my friend got married this past weekend so free time has been limited. That said, I have gotten started on my potential submission for LT3's Intertwined Anthology. The story is titled Thunderbird and is focused on the Native American mythology of that creature. I'm expecting it to be short and sweet. It should be a lot of fun!

News:

5/15/2014

5/15/14

My title contest and giveaway is still ongoing! Please check it out and see if you can win a free ebook.
The Oracle's Golem has been accepted by LT3! The contract just got put in the mail, so it's still a little too early for them to tell me release dates. Hopefully I'll have more information to share soon.
Won't Back Down is a bestseller at ARe! My story, Heart's Tournament, is one of my faves and the anthology itself is really well put together. I recommend it.
Paint, Guns, Money, and Love is up for pre-order at LT3. Get a 15% discount if you buy before June 3rd.
I've gotten a little bit done here and there in terms of writing for this week. I've written 1k in The Oracle's Sprite, The Sentinel's Prophesy, Magnified, and Dragon Consultant. It hasn't been a substantial writing week, but everything is still moving along nicely. None of my stories are anywhere near completion, but I'm hoping to have one of the Oracle stories at that point within the next month or so.

Edits, Writing, and PGM&L

3/22/2014

3/22/14

After writing my rambling blog post about how I have too many stories on my plate, my to-do list has grown. Instead of being buried under all my stories, I'm neck deep in edits! I am still working my way (very slowly) through the edits for Third Time's The Charm, but today I also received the edits for Road to Home. If I thought the rewrites for TTTC were tough, the editor for RtH decided to only edit the first 19 out of 73 pages because there were "too many issues" to continue. Oy. I've read through some of the comments and it's clear to me that while the editor does have a point in some places, in others I want to smack myself upside the head for not making some things that were perfectly clear to me also clear to others. It's a classic editing issue of not being able to read your own work. One of the problems is that I've described what the editor believes to be THE Department of Homeland Security in D.C., when it's really A super secret office within the DHS. Rafi isn't exactly your run-of-the-mill DHS agent and his office isn't either. The editor did amazing work google imaging and other fun things because I didn't make myself clear. And that's only the first issue I've messed up! So, yes, I have a hell of a lot to fix.

What this boils down to is I'm not sure if the July release date I pushed for is feasible. I have to fix a ton of issues, the editor has to edit those changes as well as go through the next 54 pages, and then it comes back to me again for more fixing. It's going to be a whirlwind couple of months for RtH.
I have been successful on the writing front, though! I've written 3k in Lynden Leaves (I really need to come up with an actual title for that story!), 2k in The Oracle's Golem, and 2k in Magnified. I have written more in a week, but 7k isn't a bad showing! If I could just write that much in only one story I could have something actually finished! Dear Muses, please let me finish writing a story soon!
Paint, Guns, Money, and Love is completely ready to go! The release date is June 4, 2014, which is when it will be finished running as a serial story. I have my author copies of the ebooks and I've heard that the paperback may be heading to the printers in time to coincide with the ebook's release. June is still a while away, but it's nice to have something to look forward to!

Out Now!

2/11/2014

My Truest Love, part of the Rocking Hard Volume 2 anthology.

By day, Cole is the lead singer of popular band The Four Kings, traveling the galaxies to sing to their adoring fans. Though a glamorous life on the surface, it's far from easy and even more dangerous than some would guess, because his real job title isn't lead vocals—it's spy.

Buy it Now!

Paint, Guns, Money, and Love

The mafia doesn't much care for gay men, but Nick's not in the mafia so that shouldn't matter. All he wants to do is paint and he's finally found the perfect subject in a man who looks good in real life and on a canvas. But something about Lucy is a little off and Nick soon learns that the mafia might not be so far away after all.

Check Out the First Chapter!