6/20/20
These days it seems like all I have to talk about in these blog posts is editing. Yes, editing for my Supernatural Consultant series continues at a good pace, and we're ahead of schedule, but there's more to my writing world than that and I want to share it with you. I've submitted two huge projects to NSP:
I have added 2k words to Dragon Spy, the next book in my Supernatural Consultant series. (For new readers of this series, by next I mean not previously published. There are seven previously published books, all of which have been/will be re-released by NSP in 2020. Dragon Spy is book eight.)
In other news, I bought a house. It's my first house so I'm super nervous. Closing is in a week and a half, the moving truck is scheduled to come soon after that, and my apartment is currently stuffed with boxes. I foolishly thought packing my books would be the easiest place to start, however, I've filled four boxes of just books (and I know about weight limits, so they're not overfull), but have only taken about a third of my books off the shelf. Luckily, I'm moving close by. I'm going to have to take those full boxes over myself, empty them, then bring them back to fill again for the movers to take. If someone can explain how books multiply so quickly, I'd appreciate it.
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5/10/20
I've been working diligently on The Oracle's Current these last few weeks (in between all the editing) and I've made so much progress. The story went from being stuck at the beginning, with me desperately trying to figure out how to get the characters started on their journey, to almost being complete. I was on such a high with how well the writing was going. Yesterday was a great day for writing. I added a ton and was halfway through writing the final battle scene, and I was getting really excited. This story has waited so long to be completed and all I needed to do was put the finishing touches on one last scene and write the epilogue. Or so I thought. I looked down at my word count and realized I needed to add another 2k words to reach my minimum. Enter a moment of total despair. There I was, thinking I was almost done, and now I had to come up with another 2k worth of plot! I abandoned writing for the day and put on a movie instead. Except, as the movie was playing, my nerve started to come back. So what if I needed to figure out another 2k. I just had to write. Finish the one scene I was working on, write the epilogue, and then see what turned out in the process. Well, that one scene I thought only needed a few finishing lines suddenly kept going. And going. I struggled to find a way to actually end it, and when I did, somehow the word count matched exactly what I needed. It's weird that things magically seemed to work out, and I don't know why. If I knew why, I'd replicate it for some of my other unfinished stories. Because, The Oracle's Current is complete! After approximately five years of writing (including a long pause while I wrote The Sentinel's Prophesy instead), I have finally finished. I did a little happy dance when I typed the final period. It's an amazing feeling to know the book and the series is complete. Now comes the next steps. I'll put Current aside until June, at which point I'll pull it out again to give it a thorough edit. After that, it's up to NSP whether they'll accept it and the rest of the series, but I'm excited to see how it goes! 4/25/20
I have reached the halfway point in The Oracle's Current! The main love interest has been introduced, and the conflict is about to really get going. I recently came to a realization about this story: I can't have it meander throughout the world; it has to be focused completely on the Monastery. As the final book in the series, I need to tie together all the last loose ends, and I can't do that if they're not in the location where those loose ends need to be tied. I therefore had to scrap my idea of more pirates and heading to Altnoia, but I think the new plan with the Monastery at the center is ten times better. I'm super excited to see how it goes, and to see if I can get it completed in time to submit to NSP with the rest of the series. As part of my work from home social distancing, I've been auditing some college courses to help my subject matter expertise grow. One course I'm taking is about magic in the middle ages. I promise, it does technically apply to the work I do for my day job, but they had a whole section on Jewish magic too. I took a lot of notes, and some ideas are definitely swirling for Codified. If you remember, Codified has been stalled because I haven't had the time to do the research the story needs. This course has helped with some of that, and has also given me some new avenues to start digging through as well. I don't actually know when I'll be able to return to writing Codified, but I'm happy with the progress I've made. That's it for writing at the moment, but between what I've added to Current and finishing my Fairy Tales, I think this has been a very productive last few weeks. 4/16/20
I hope everyone had a lovely holiday (whatever you happen to celebrate). I had a nice zeder (zoom Seder) with family and friends for Passover. Social distancing at its best. Please stay safe and healthy out there! Since my last post, I have been working hard on a number of different projects. Number one is new edits, of course. The first and second round of edits for Dragon Deception, book two in my Supernatural Consultant series, arrived. Overall, there wasn't much to fix, however some small things were changed in order to make this series YA. Next for Deception is copy edits, which should arrive soon, and the first round of edits for Dragon Dilemma should also be on their way. My last fairy tale story, A Heart's Dream, is complete! This means the anthology is also complete. I still need to put A Heart's Dream through edits to get it ready for submission, and to do that properly it first needs to sit for a month. I'll pick it up sometime in May, get it and the rest of the stories in the anthology completely ready to go, and then I get to wait for NSP's go ahead to resume submissions. Despite the wait, I know those of you that have begged me to republish my older fairy tales will be happy to know they, and some new material, will all soon be available for you again. I'll definitely keep you appraised as this project moves forward. I have also been working with NSP on some more covers. I have seen the first draft of the cover for Ge-Mi: Part Two and have been in discussion about the covers for Dragon Deception and Dragon Dilemma. I think you're going to like them all, and I'm eager to get them out for you to see too. Hopefully I'll have final drafts to share soon! I am still planning to return to The Oracle's Current as my next project. I would like to be able to submit it along with the rest of the (newly fixed) series when NSP says I can send in more books, but that means I need to get cracking now. Thankfully the story seems to have stopped fighting me, but I won't know if it will go smoothly until I start writing again. I'm eager to get started. 3/29/20
Social distancing is very interesting. For an introvert like me who prefers my own company, being home by myself has been wonderful. I have been teleworking, which means I primarily get to work from home (interspersed with office visits to keep the place running), and I've found I'm a lot less stressed and tired by the end of the day. That means I have the energy to write on weeknights, energy that has been lacking since I started my current job. I've therefore been working on trying to finish some of the stories you all have waited years for: I have three (maybe four, if I write an epilogue) scenes left to write in the last fairy tale story for the anthology I've been promising since the day Cleanly Wrong went out of print. I'm hoping to have it done this week, which means as soon as NSP tells me it's okay to submit more books to them, the fairy tales will be sent in first. Next on my to-do list is to try to finally complete the last book in my Oracle series, The Oracle's Current. It's a series that deserves to have its ending, but I've been stuck on how to get the two main characters to meet. I've finally had the time to figure that out, so now I need to write it. As soon as my fairy tales are done, I am looking forward to turning my focus onto this story. If the horrible virus continues to spread and social distancing and teleworking continue, my goal is also to make a lot of progress on Codified, the third and final book in my Magnified series. Codified is a slow process because of all the research that goes into it, and also because it's triple the length of the usual stories I write. I haven't had the time or energy to work on it, so I'm looking forward to it. That said, all my plans hinge on my not getting sick. I am staying at home as much as I possibly can, am washing my hands obsessively, and am keeping 6ft away from other humans. Please, please, please do your part to keep everyone safe by doing the same. I hope everyone stays healthy during these difficult times. 2/23/20
It's been a very long February for me. Some unhappy family issues pulled me away from writing for about two weeks, and I'm only now caught up. That said, a lot has happened recently that I want to fill you in on, so I'm going to write another long post full of fun information. Read on: Submissions to NineStar Press:
That's it for news for February. I know there's a lot going on, and it's probably going to continue being a fire hose deluge of things to do until at least this time next year. I'm enjoying it, though, and I'm so glad you're all sticking through it all with me as we all patiently wait for all my books to become available again. 6/1/19
Ge-Mi: Part Two was accepted for publishing with LT3! I'm so excited! Right now I need to get the contract in the mail so everything is signed and official. I expect this book to come out in approximately ten months, so first quarter 2020. Aside from signing the contract, my first step is providing LT3 with a description of what I want on the cover. Readers either loved or hated the cover for Part One--there was no in between--and I think I'll get similar reactions for my idea for Part Two. You'll just have to wait and see ;p. The Oracle's Golem was also accepted for a contract extension. There won't be any edits or cover changes for this book, and therefore won't be any break in sales. I'll get the contract in the mail with Ge-Mi's and Golem will be good for another few years. I forgot to mention earlier, but I did get the edits for My Truest Love back to LT3. I still need the new cover, as well as a release date, but otherwise this story is mostly ready to go. The second round of edits for Ground of Resurrection should be coming my way soon, as well as the reprint edits for Wings of the Stars, but I'm enjoying the brief respite. I had to take a mental health break from working on my stories for a few days, but I eventually found the energy to resume working on The Oracle's Current and Di-Na: Part One. Neither story is anywhere close to being completed, but every bit of progress helps. I hope to keep working on them until another round of edits comes my way. 5/28/19
According to my records, The Oracle's Golem should be going out of print on May 31. What does that mean? Luckily, absolutely nothing. LT3 has already agreed to renew the contracts for the previous two books in the series and I have not seen any indication that it will be different for Golem. Since we're not editing or changing the covers for this series, there shouldn't be an interruption in sales. I'll let you know as soon as LT3 and I have a conversation about it. That should be it for stories going out of print in 2019. I am really hoping to get The Oracle's Current finished this year so I can complete this series. I've been doing some planning for the book, which has always had a basic outline, but has lacked some of the firmer details. Right now it looks like pirates will be back in play. I'm still trying to decide if the pirates will be good or bad (or something in between), but Lichen is going to have some "fun" regardless. I'm struggling on how to get Lichen away from the Monastery right now. There's a big, emotional scene that needs to happen first, and the build up to that isn't flowing well. Only after that scene is written can I really turn my focus on getting him into the hands of the pirates. In other news, The Coup and the Prince appears to be well liked! The reviews have been positive and the comments seem to indicate readers are enjoying the story. If you haven't gotten your copy yet, it's available at LT3 and on Amazon, as well as on your preferred bookseller's site. I have seen the second draft of the cover for Ground of Resurrection and it's even better than the first. I can't wait to have the final version to share! 4/28/19
Those of you that follow me on Twitter already know that I successfully submitted Ge-Mi: Part Two to LT3. For everyone else, Ge-Mi: Part Two was officially submitted to LT3! I got confirmation that they received it, so now it's just a waiting game. LT3's website says it's a 6 to 8 week waiting period while they evaluate the manuscript. If they accept it, I should be signing the contract sometime in June and the book should be released anywhere from 9 to 12 months after that. So what's next? Editing, of course. I'm still working on the edits for the reprint of My Truest Love. After that I'm expecting the edits for the reprint of Wings of the Stars. The Coup and the Prince might have a copy edit or galley coming my way in the next few weeks, and then the second round of edits for Ground of Resurrection will arrive. Editing continues to take the bulk of my writing time, but once that list is done, I'm expecting to have a few months without any edits. Which means, I finally get to write again! Di-Na: Part One is, of course, high on my to-do list, but that list is incredibly long right now. I think I need to focus on the stories that have languished the longest. I really, really want to finish off my Oracle series and The Oracle's Current, so that's on the top of my list, and I also want to finish my fairy tale project. There's also Codified and Dragon Spy, which are both patiently waiting for a bit of my attention. There's so much still to do and I'm looking forward to finally having the time to actually do it! 4/28/18
In my last post I stated I had a great new scene planned out for Dragon Spy and I wanted to restart working on Ground of Resurrection. I literally had both manuscripts open on my computer and after I posted my blog, that scene in Dragon Spy began to take shape. I wrote a few hundred words of good stuff (Lumie is making a mess, which is a ton of fun to write) and I was excited about where it was taking me, and then oddly, I paused. I went into the depths of my computer and for some reason I dug out The Sentinel's Prophesy. Longtime readers of my blog will remember a few years back (to 2014) I had a good idea for a side story in my Oracle series that I felt would give it the extra bit of world building the series was missing. That side story is The Sentinel's Prophesy, but despite my really wanting to write it, the story never really came together. It has been sitting on my computer, untouched, for over a year now. In the past week I have added over 10k words to the story and it is now complete! After over four years of working on this story (a story that shouldn't have taken me more than a few months to write), I have finally finished it. Of course, I do still need to reread it and give it a first edit. The section I wrote a while ago and the section I just finished are a bit separated, so I need to smooth that out too. Otherwise, I'm going to leave the story to sit for about a month before I pull it out for final editing and to get it ready to submit. Hopefully, LT3 will accept it. What does this mean for the rest of the series? Well, the contract for the first book, The Oracle's Flame, was just renewed. I feel like that's a good sign that LT3 will be interested in also renewing The Oracle's Hatchling, book two, when it comes up for renewal in September. I am really hoping it will not take me another four years to write the final book in the series, The Oracle's Current, but I am very stuck on that story and am wondering if it might be better to completely scrap what I have and start over. Either way, Current will need a while yet before it starts chugging along again. Until then, I'm going to remain happy over finally getting Prophesy complete! |
Coming Soon
Gifting a Dragon's Heart
March 19, 2024 Soul Bond
January 30, 2024 Twin Elements
October 17, 2023 Witch
April 15, 2023 AuthorMell Eight is an author writing with NSP. For more information about Mell and her writing, please visit her website: http://melleightfiction. Tags
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