The Sentinel's Prophesy
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3/7/19
I want to start off by reminding everyone that If A Butterfly Don't Fly will be released next week! If you want to pre-order the book for a 15% discount at LT3, now's your chance: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books... It will be available on Amazon and all other major retailers by March 13th. I'll give you one guess as to what I'm working on now. If you immediately thought "edits!" you're right. I'm actually on time for all my edits, which is a nice change, but when I really want to be writing instead... Anyway, here's what I'm working on right now: First were the edits for The Coup and the Prince, which I have completed and returned to LT3. I decided I liked the way the story ended as it was and I didn't want to muddle it up by adding an epilogue. I instead added a couple of paragraphs to the last scene that should hopefully address why the editor was thinking an epilogue would be useful. Next for this story are the copy edits, after which it will be ready for publication. Speaking of copy edits, I just received those for The Sentinel's Prophesy. I've read through and for the most part they're very straightforward. There are one or two minor tweaks I need to address, but overall I don't think they'll be a heavy lift. Once the copy edits are completed, this story will be ready to go. The last set of edits I received were the first round for Ground of Resurrection, the second book in my Wizard Wars series. I haven't had a chance to look through them yet, so I don't know how onerous they'll be, but they're going to be interesting either way. I won't be able to get started on this story until Prophesy is back with LT3, so I'll give you an update on it soon. I have also resubmitted Wounded Alpha to LT3. I think (I hope) I fixed the issue, and I will find out in a few weeks whether LT3 also thinks it's fixed. I'll let you all know whether they accept it this time. 2/18/19
Good news first: I have an official release date for The Sentinel's Prophesy: April 3, 2019. You can also preorder it at LT3 right now: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books... All that's left before Prophesy is ready to go is the copy edit and the galley proof, neither of which should take too long, and the cover. I haven't seen the cover yet, but I'm sure it's going to be as amazing as the rest of the series, so I'm definitely excited for it. If A Butterfly Don't Fly also comes out in a month. If you haven't had a chance to pre-order, now's a good time: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books... Now for the bad news: Wounded Alpha was not accepted as part of LT3's Bound by Nothing call. They were kind enough to tell me the two reasons why: 1, I wasn't as original as I hoped and they had too many similarly-themed stories. When they had to choose which of those stories made the cut, mine didn't. 2, There was one scene that needed a bit of work, which is why mine didn't make the cut. However, they did say if I fixed that scene they would reconsider the story as a regular release. I was originally planning to spend the entire long weekend working on the edits for The Coup and the Prince and I made a lot of progress until I got that rejection email. After reading the email, I had a good idea for how to fix the issue, so that's what I spent today doing instead of my edits. (I wanted to get it down on paper before I forgot it.) I've finished my fixing and I'm going to let the story sit for a few days, which means it's back to edits. Of course, all of that means I haven't had a chance to work on any of my waiting stories. I was happy to have added about 1k words to Ge-Mi: Part Two, but haven't been able to get back to it since. I also started fleshing out the beginning and basic outline for the third (and likely final) book in my Wizard Wars series, but again, I haven't had time to really dig in. Hopefully once I'm done with this round of edits I'll be able to get back to it. And that is the last of my bad news. Hopefully next week will only be good news to share. 2/8/19
I have two new blurbs (or summaries) to share for two of my books! First, I have the official summary for The Sentinel's Prophesy, which is a big first step in getting it ready to go up on LT3's site for pre-order. It's not too different to the temporary one I came up with while I was writing, but I think it flows a bit better. What do you think? In ancient times, five dragons fought against an immense and powerful evil. Unable to defeat it, they imprisoned it in ice. The Oracle vowed to watch over the land and protect it from further threat. Her brother, the Sentinel, promised to oversee the ice prison and ensure the creature never escaped. Thousands of years have passed since that time, and still the Sentinel sits in his lonely tower, watching and waiting. A simple farmhand, Corey doesn't know what to make of the way his aunt and uncle abruptly drag him into a journey across the frozen tundra, or why he's had to abandon his life to live in the tower. The only consolation from his new, strange, and confusing life is the mysterious man who lives alone in the highest room of the tower… Second, I have finally come up with the working summary for the next (and likely last) book in my Wizard Wars series. I really like the summary, but I'm struggling with the title. I want something that either speaks to the conflict in the world, or to the potential for renewal. Those are such different options that I'm struggling to decide. I think I want to go with the former, because Ground of Resurrection already implies the latter and I don't want to be repetitive. Right now I'm leaning towards Confliction, Contention, or Dissension, but I'm not sure. Does anyone out there have any ideas? Ground of ...ction. Fill in the blank. In the meantime, here's my working summary: Thane has always been overshadowed by his brother and his prince, and now that he's become part of the prairie, Thane can't help feeling even more adrift in the sea of grass constantly surrounding him. When Mesic sends him to investigate a strange group trying to sneak through the prairie, Thane is glad for an excuse to get away. Except, suddenly his surveillance mission turns into a rescue mission, one he doesn't know the prairie will survive. 2/6/19
If A Butterfly Don't Fly is back up on LT3 for preorder. Unless you got a refund, don't buy it a second time. If you didn't get a chance to preorder before, now's your chance to get it for 15% off. Check it out here: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books... It will likely become available on Amazon and all other retailers on the release date, March 13th. All the edits for Butterfly and The Sentinel's Prophesy are back with LT3. That means Butterfly is 95% ready for release. All that's left is checking over the galley, which will happen sometime in the next few weeks. I made a lot of changes in Prophesy, but I'm not sure whether it needs to go back to the editor. It might not go through a second round of edits and instead head straight to the copy editor. I don't know what that means in terms of release dates, but the fewer edits I have to do, the better. Just today I received more edits for The Coup and the Prince. I haven't had time to start working on it, but I glanced through and it doesn't look too bad. A couple tweaks here and there, but I didn't see any major rewrites. However, the editor did recommend I add an epilogue, which could be anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand words added (depending on how the characters speak to me). Once I get into the nitty gritty of the edits, I will have to read through and reevaluate whether I agree with that recommendation My Truest Love and Wings of the Stars are both supposed to get a quick edit, so I'm expecting to see something regarding those two stories sometime soon as well. I am not expecting to hear anything about Ground of Resurrection for a few more months, which will hopefully allow a break between editing jobs that I would like to fill with writing instead. LT3's Bound by Nothing call officially closed last week. It will likely be a few more weeks before I hear whether they accept Wounded Alpha, but they have started the process of going through all the submissions. I will of course let you all know when I have news to share. 1/20/19
I have new release dates for both of my postponed stories!
Even better news is I already know I won't miss Butterfly's new release date. I received the copy edits last weekend. My plan was to simply look through them to see what I was in for, but as I was scrolling through I started fixing. I managed to finish the edits, so all that's left is a final read-through before I send it back to LT3. If I didn't already have edits I was working on, I would have this completed today. Speaking of those other edits, I'm making good progress on the first round of edits for The Sentinel's Prophesy. I'm about two thirds of the way through and should get that last chunk done this weekend. Then it's a read-through and back to LT3. I'm glad I'm making good progress on both sets of edits. The sooner I'm done with them, the sooner I can return to writing, which is what I really want to work on right now. Thank you to everyone that voted in the M/M Romance Goodreads Group awards. Ground of Insurrection did not place, but I'm still really happy and honored to have been nominated. I'm hoping you all will enjoy the sequel, Ground of Resurrection, just as much. 1/5/19
I hope everyone had a happy holiday season and a good new year. So far, my new year is starting off well. I have lots of news to share, but first I want to tell you my new years resolution for writing: Get all my edits done on time! Conversely, if I'm struggling with the edits, contact LT3 well ahead of the deadline so we can work something out before it gets away from us both. I'm not going through that again this year, and it's not right that I put LT3 on the spot like that. 2019 is a new year with a new start where I will juggle my real life and my writing life competently. With that out of the way, on to my news: Edits have returned. The Sentinel's Prophesy has arrived in my inbox to start the editing process, which I'm super exited about. There's always a lot to do for the first round of edits, but nothing crazy jumped out at me after a quick glance through. I started working on it already and I hope to get a big chunk completed this weekend. By Sunday night I should know how crazy this round will be, and how many rounds of edits this particular story will need. I want to get Prophesy back to LT3 quickly because I'm expecting edits for the two postponed stories to appear at any moment. Both If A Butterfly Don't Fly and The Coup and the Prince went back for more edits. I don't know what the timeline is for either story, which means I don't know when to expect them back, and in the interest of avoiding overlapping edits (which is one of the things I had issues with last year), getting Prophesy completed soon is a high priority. Two of my stories have had their contracts renewed. Road to Home, book two of my contemporary spy thriller series, will continue to be sold through LT3 without interruption. I will not be making any edits or changes, so if you own the book don't worry, and if you don't own the book, you have plenty of time to get your copy. The other renewed contract belonged to Wings of the Stars, a short sci-fi story I wrote for LT3's A Loose Screw collection. Wings of the Stars is technically the second story in a series I've always loosely called Space Stars. The first book in the series, My Truest Love, was written for LT3's Rocking Hard anthology, and it went out of print a few years ago. Therein lies the dilemma. If I wanted to renew Wings of the Stars, I needed to do something with My Truest Love. I spoke with LT3 and they have accepted My Truest Love again. I would like to have new covers made for both stories that reflect the fact that they're in a series together. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. The last bit of news is that the voting for M/M Romance's Best books of 2018 closed. I have to wait until next weekend to learn how Ground of Insurrection did. There was a lot of competition, but I'm still hopeful. Thank you to everyone that took the time to vote. 11/29/18
I am home sick today. Sore throat, low grade fever, cough. Ugh. I keep waking up from a nap and wondering when I can take another nap. It sucks. Even if I had the energy to write, which I don't, I can't use my leave from work for writing purposes. Instead, I'm hoping to read a good book. Since I didn't have edits this past weekend, I got to read Mercenaries of the Stolen Moon by Megan Derr, which just came out. I enjoyed it so much I went and reread the rest of the series...again...and bought Mercenaries in print. Now I need something else to read in between my naps today. I've got an overstuffed bookshelf in my apartment and a bunch of ebooks on my computer, so I'll figure something out. Here's some super wonderful good news: Ground of Insurrection has been nominated in the Fantasy category in M/M Romance's 2018 Members' Choice Awards on Goodreads! The last book I had nominated was Hadash Aviv back in 2013. Given I only have two books eligible for nomination this year, having even one of them chosen is amazing. Voting opens next month and I'll post all the links you'll need then. I don't have any news to share about my upcoming books. If A Butterfly Don't Fly and The Coup and the Prince are still in process, I know that much, but I don't know anything else about them just yet. The Sentinel's Prophesy is also going to start the editing process sometime soon. Ground of Resurrection has been submitted, but I won't hear whether it's been accepted for a few more months. As for writing, I've had a good week. Ge-Mi: Part Two is almost there! I've had to pause actually writing in order to organize and plan the final battle scene, but that's led to good progress. I am hoping to have it completed by the end of the year. Wounded Alpha, my story for LT3's Bound by Nothing call, has been sitting for long enough. I'm thinking if I have some energy tonight, I might start giving it a final edit. I've decided it would be better to get it done and submitted sooner, just in case I get drowned in edits again. The last thing I want is for the submission deadline to arrive while I'm busy with other things. This way it's one less thing on my plate. For now, though, it's time for another nap. 7 /26/18
The release dates for all of my books coming out in 2018 have been decided. The Coup and the Prince was pushed back, as I thought it would have to be, and I have the official date for Heartbeat:
I would say these dates are not going to be changed, but I'm still working on the second round of edits for Butterfly and am expecting to have to deal with the second round of edits for Coup fairly soon. If I can get the second round of edits for Butterfly back to LT3 within the next week or so, that story will be in good shape. Heartbeat, on the other hand, will only be getting a quick edit. It's a reprint, so it's already gone through the editing process once. The plan is to clean up anything we might have missed last time, which won't be a difficult lift. (I'm kind of looking forward to an easy round of edits, to be honest.) LT3 accepted The Sentinel's Prophesy! The contract is signed, so in about nine months I'll start seeing edits and such. What this means for me (besides the fact that I'm excited to have the story accepted) is that for the first half of 2019 I won't have ANY edits at all to deal with. None! I'm going to have to take a mental health deep breath first, but once I'm centered again I will be able to devote all of my writing time to actually writing. With no edits with their due dates hanging over me, and no stress from having to take an axe to a story I've worked so hard on, I expect to be able to finally start making real progress on my to-do list. Ge-Mi: Part Two is at the top, but I also really want to get my fairy tales completed, and it's been far too long since I've played with Lumie and the rest of my Supernatural Consultants. It's a lot to look forward to, which is one of the main things pushing me through getting all the editing completed, and I can't wait to be able to get started. 7/14/18
I have so much news to share. Some of it's good news and some of it's bad news, and I'm really hoping you and LT3 will forgive me for the bad news. Let me get all of the bad out of the way first. I am a very, very bad author. I struggled so much with the edits for The Coup and the Prince. It was ridiculous considering how short the story is, but for some reason those damned edits just wouldn't go. I finally got them back to LT3, but I was beyond late. There is no way Coup will be released on time and it's all my fault. I'll let you know what LT3 decides to do about it, but for the interim I will continue to wallow in misery for my incompetence. The next bit of bad news is that the audio book for Supernatural Consultant: Volume Two will be delayed indefinitely. I know some of you had expressed interest in Volume Two, which is why I reached out to LT3 about it. Sales for Volume One just weren't high enough to justify putting Volume Two into audio. LT3 is still interested in doing it, but it's been pushed back to the bottom of the to-do list. The second that changes I'll let you all know. The last bit of bad news is Paint, Guns, Money, & Love is out of print. It wasn't selling well and it wasn't my best work, so it was decided to let it go. I have a feeling it won't be missed, but I'm still sad it's gone. And now, finally, on to the good news! The response for Ground of Insurrection has been phenomenal. I haven't seen a single negative review! A few bits of constructive criticism, but overall everyone has really enjoyed it. Reading all those wonderful reviews really lifted my spirits when I needed it most, so thank you to everyone that read and reviewed. The Coup and the Prince is available for pre-order at LT3 for a 15% discount. You can get your copy reserved today: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books... I have been working on Ge-Mi. No, part two hasn't grown, but I finally started organizing book two. Each book in this series will be split into two parts and Di-Na, the second book in the series, not only has a name, but it has its two main characters. I hope you'll love Kay and Sierra as much as Taylor and Nevada. Now that I've gotten all of that figured out, I'm really hoping to return to finishing Ge-Mi: Part Two. Feel free to check out the summaries and such on my current projects page. I have seen the first draft covers for The Coup and the Prince and for Heartbeat and they are perfect. I'm really looking forward to sharing the final versions with all of you, so check back for a cover reveal post soon! All I have left on my to-do list this weekend are the edits for If A Butterfly Don't Fly. I put them off while I was figuring out Coup. I'm hoping because this is the second round, the edits will be easy. We'll see, but I'm going to start working on them as soon as I finish giving The Sentinel's Prophesy one last check. I am going to get Prophesy submitted to LT3 today. And that's it for all my news. I'll keep you all appraised as I learn more and I'm hoping next time it will be all good news. |
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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