10/20/23
Toss in a little magic, a bunch of political intrigue, a pair of twins and their love interests, and apparently you get a great story! At least, per the reviews I'm getting for Twin Elements. I'm so happy everyone seems to have enjoyed it! If you haven't gotten your copy yet, I posted a bunch of links HERE, but it's available at most major retailers. I have completed writing my story Soulbond, which I plan to submit to NSP for their internal Valentine's Day call. The story ended up being short and sweet, almost fairy tale style, with a strong emphasis on the magic and the romance. I really think you guys will like it! It's due to NSP in just a few weeks, so this is a bit of a rushed timeline for me. Normally when I complete a story I give it a quick edit before setting it aside for a minimum of six to ten weeks. This allows any nuances of what I meant to say versus what is actually on the page to fade from my memory, and when I return to the story I can be much more objective. Soulbond can only sit for about two weeks before I have to start editing or else I won't make the deadline. Luckily Soulbond is a short story, so I should be able to get it finished in time. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes! I have completed writing the epilogue for The Prince in my Princes of Toval series. which means this story is also done! I really, really like how this book turned out. The magic is advanced, the characters are dynamic, and I think I've pulled the romance in nicely. Especially in the epilogue, which is all about the romance. This weekend I am going to give The Prince a once-over to complete a basic edit, before setting it aside. Unlike Soulbond, The Prince will receive the full two months rest I prefer. I plan to pull it out again for a more in-depth edit sometime in the end of December or early January, and submit it to NSP for their consideration once it's ready. Keep an eye out on this blog around then if you want to know more! In between all that other writing, I've somehow found five minutes here and there to start writing the third book, The Spy. I'm maybe 500 words in, so it's not much, but it's a start that I think is very promising. The Spy is set a few years after The Prince concludes, with a totally new set of magic rules and a fun new plot. I expect this will be the final book in the series, as it finally ties together the last loose ends from The Chef (book one). Also, Vivary Tales has been mentally harassing me, begging to know when I can return to working on it. I chose to focus on The Chef (and the sequels) instead, as both books were too intricate to write simultaneously. Plots are percolating so I can't stay away from Vivary Tales too long. As soon as The Spy is done, I will have to return to Vivary Tales. That said, I don't actually know how long The Spy will be. I have two major plot points that need to be explored in separate, but interlinked, arcs. I'm going to aim for 50k words, hope I actually get to 60k, but be willing to settle for 40k if that's what the story calls for. As soon as I'm really able to start digging into the writing, I'll be able to make a better estimate.
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7/8/23
I have been getting a ton of writing done in The Prince, the second book in my still unnamed series. Is Tales of Toval as a series name confusing, or do you think I should go with it? Princes of Toval? Adventures in Toval? Anyway, I've started writing chapter 6, so I'm making decent progress. Except, none of the chapters have reached my minimum word count goal. I should be well over 15k words at this point in the story, but I've barely scraped past 13k. I am hoping when I go back and edit, I'll find places where I can expand, but for now I'm starting to wonder if I'll even make it to 50k, let alone the 60k I'm aiming for. If I'm lucky, chapter 6 or 7 will blast past my word count goal and set this story back on track, but we'll see. I can only write what my characters ask of me. If you'll remember, I said the reason I wasn't submitting The Chef to NSP for consideration was I needed to wait until I was far enough into writing The Prince to be certain I don't need to go back and change anything? Well, I'm actually having the opposite problem. I couldn't remember what I named the mountain range in The Chef, so in The Prince I wrote MOUNTAINS in uppercase, to remind myself to go look up the Spikehorn Mountains. There was a character in The Chef who appeared in one scene, and he appears again for a larger scene in The Prince. Right now I have NAME there as a reminder to figure out what I named him. Sigh. Clearly I need to go back to writing stand alone stories (I have two coming out sometime soon). Unfortunately for me, I currently only have series in my hopper. LOL I have figured out the two main characters for The Spy (or The Baker, I haven't decided on a title yet), the third book in my aforementioned unnamed series. I was also poking at Dragon Spy, which will be the last book in my Supernatural Consultant series. One of my hang-ups was figuring out who the main character was, and if there's a new love story, or whether the story simply continues the relationships from previous books. I finally decided to let the story and the characters dictate, and have ended up with multiple points of view, including Alloy, who will have some sort of romance brewing. Vivary Tales took a backseat while I focused on writing The Chef, but I will return to writing that series soon. I have an idea for a dungeon-style/post-apocalyptic story with dragons (yes, I read and loved Solo Leveling and am very excited for the upcoming anime!!!), but I have too much on my plate right now. It's begging me to write it, but so is The Prince, and I have to prioritize completing something I've already started. None of the rest of my stories are speaking to me right now. I get an occasional poke from Codified, from my Magnified series, asking why I haven't taken a look at the third book in a while, but I am so stuck on where that story is going right now that it's easier to focus on what's actually writing. Hopefully, that will change and I will be able to complete some more off my to-do list soon! 2/11/23
Thank you to everyone for your words of support after last weekend's unwanted adventure with the burst pipe. I am happy to say after calling approximately 15 plumbers, I was able to get the pipe replaced and the water turned back on. Apparently everyone and their uncle had a burst pipe, so all the plumbers were booked solid. I literally had one ask "can you wait until next week?" No word yet from my insurance company, but I'm sure it's a similar problem to with the plumber. I'm probably going to need to remove the ceiling to replace the soaked insulation, so more work still needs to be done. While I want to clear any projects with my insurance first, I have scheduled a fix-it company to come next week to give me an estimate. I'm trying to be patient since it's not an emergency, but if I don't hear anything soon I get to start making more phone calls. Ugh. I'm a millennial. It should be illegal to force us to use a phone for calls. LOL I have made progress on writing, which is a nice change. Those of you who receive my newsletter have already learned about the new story I'm working on. For everyone else, guess what? I'm working on a new story. It's titled The Chef, and it's about a very talented chef who gets accidentally recruited to join a bunch of fighters on a quest. Some political intrigue, a slow burn love story, and lots and lots of cooking. It's a ton of fun to write. I'm not actually certain how long this story will be, nor am I certain it will be stand alone. There are going to be two parts to this story, but I don't yet know whether they would be better served as one 60k word book, or split into two 30ks. I'll have a better idea once I get further into the story. I've written about 8k so far, so there's still a long way to go. I have also been making more progress on Vivary Tales. It's reached 10k, so there's also a lot still to write, but I am incredibly happy with the world building. I think it's my most intricate creation since I built the monastery in The Oracle's Flame. What's also really amazing is there's four stories in this first book, and there's still so much more room to grow in this world. Ideas for a second book are already percolating. I am going to keep plucking away at this book, and will hopefully continue to make progress! For those of you who also live in the US, I can't decide which team to root for in the Superbowl tomorrow. Should I go with the Eagles, who have had an amazing season, but are relative unknowns, or should I go with the Chiefs, who have a bunch of players I know can carry the entire team to a win. Let me know what you think and/or who to support! 2/5/23
I had my whole weekend planned out. When I was going to the grocery store, when I was writing, when I was working on my current paint by numbers project; all of that was supposed to be fully structured this weekend. I even factored in how to get all that done around the crazy weather we've been having. And it was working! I added about 1k words to Vivary Tales before bedtime, and I knew I'd be able to pick it back up in the morning. And then at two AM I'm woken up by a WHOOMPH coming from the direction of my en-suite bathtub, followed by an ominous whooshing sound. No water leaking in my bathroom. I sprint downstairs. No water puddling anywhere on the main floor. Sprint down another flight of stairs. No water in my basement. I open the door into my garage, and my car is getting a shower. Water everywhere! I turned the water off to the house and then had a moment of "what do I do now?" The answer: call my mom, of course. Lol. There's a smoke detector in my garage, right underneath where the pipe burst. Apparently smoke detectors and water are not a winning combination. The whole system goes off, blaring and deafening throughout the entire house, and I'm still shocked my neighbors whom I share a wall with didn't come running. Picture me, in pajamas at dark o'clock, on the phone with my poor mother, trying to get the smoke detectors on four separate floors to shut off, all while my garage ceiling continues to forlornly drip onto my car. Yeah. I don't want to picture it either. So that leaves my Sunday plans absolutely destroyed. I moved my car into my driveway, got the ladder out so I could remove the smoke detector--dropped it onto the concrete floor, so I have a trip to the hardware store in my future--and now I wait. I submitted an online claim to my insurance, but I can't contact a plumber until the sun rises. No water, which means I can't shower, which nixes the grocery store run. I can't clean paintbrushes either, so no painting. No laundry, and I can't wash dishes. That means the only thing left on my to-do list is to write, so maybe Vivary Tales will take off, distracting me while I wait for a verdict from the plumber. One can hope. 1/8/23 I hope everyone has had a good weekend! I'm not used to having normal, two day weekends any more. The last few weekends have been longer because of the various holidays; suddenly going back to normal has been a touch shocking. LOL Mentally, I thought I had more time to get everything I needed to done, and now the sun has set Sunday night and my to-do list hasn't shrunk all that much. I hope you all were able to accomplish more than me, although I did have a nice weekend despite how short. I finished my chamomile paint by numbers project a few weeks back. I hung it in my kitchen and am super happy with how it turned out. For those of you who might remember, my kitchen was sponge painted orange by the previous owners. It's far more cost effective to mask the orange than to sand the walls down and repaint. The white chamomiles with their gentle orange centers look like they belong while toning down the orange wall perfectly! I started my next paint by numbers project too. I found a series of four miniature paintings that look like watercolor flowers. I don't know where I'm going to hang them yet, but the first one I"m working on is going really well. I'm very happy with it! I also received the second round of edits for my short mermaid story Water's Price. The story is really coming together and I'm very happy with it. I hope to have information on a potential release date very soon. I was able to get a bit more written in Vivary Tales, too, and I also worked on some plotting to figure out the villain and the conflict. The first story is definitely going to be light enemies to lovers. I haven't figured out the second story yet, but I have basic ideas budding for the third and fourth. I am also planning to turn this into a series, since I have a great idea for book two, but first I need to make some real progress on book one. And now I'm off to enjoy the last few hours of the weekend, before returning to the daily grind in the morning. 12/4/22
After a long week of soccer, work, soccer, writing, soccer, and...more soccer...I need a nap. Lol I haven't watched every game since I was sleeping during some of them, but I caught up on the highlights for the ones I missed. For anyone that cares, I think France has a good chance of repeating as champions, I'm withholding an opinion on Brazil until after they play a challenging team, and I'm wondering if Japan might stun the world and beat Croatia on Monday. I'm not going to say anything about the USA team right now, in case someone has taped the game and doesn't know the result yet. All I'll say is I'm pleasantly hopeful for 2026. For everyone who isn't as sports crazed as me, on to what you want to know about: my books! I have seen the first draft of the cover for Coven and it's amazing. I hope to have the final soon so I can share it with everyone. It really embodies the feel I was aiming for in the series. I believe pre-ordering should be available soon, and I will definitely let everyone know when I have more news. I didn't get as much writing done this week as I would have liked. I added a bit to the epilogue for You Can't Sell A Dragon's Heart and a few paragraphs to Vivary Tales. I've been distracted by soccer, but work has also been busy. I think everyone is trying to get things done now in preparation for vacation in a few weeks. Which means, unfortunately, that I return home in the evening too wiped to do any significant writing. On the flip side, it means work will slow to a crawl soon, since I'm going to be pretty much the only person in my office the week of Christmas. Fingers crossed I'll be able to write a ton then! 11/25/22
For all my American readers, I hope you had a very happy Turkey Day. I got to spend some time with my family, so I had a lovely day. I made pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie, which everyone seemed to really enjoy. Now I have the rest of the weekend to relax. Since I'm watching the World Cup, I doubt I'll be able to get any chores done, but maybe I'll be able to get some writing done instead. I have a soccer story that's been stalled for a long time because I can't decide who the villain is. Perhaps watching all this soccer will help me find some inspiration. For anyone who might have missed it, I sent out my first email newsletter in a long time! I finally had enough free time to put one together. I included a snippet from my fantasy story that used to have the working title of Fire and Water as a treat to anyone subscribed. I hope to be able to send out another newsletter soon, so feel free to subscribe if you're interested. Speaking of Fire and Water, thanks to the suggestion of one of you wonderful readers, I now have a title! The story is now titled Twin Elements. Since I have a title, I went ahead and submitted it to NSP! I hope to hear good news soon Writing is continuing to go well. I have reached the epilogue in You Can't Sell a Dragon's Heart. All that's left is tying together a few loose ends and then this story is done. Of course, it needs major edits. My plan is once the epilogue is done, I'll go back and scrub it up. I need to expand in a couple of places and fix a handful of things. After that, this story is going to sit for a few months, after which I'll edit again. I'm thinking February to submit to NSP, but that depends on the extent of the edits. We'll see how things play out the next few months. My last blog post was also very inspiring. I wrote a quick summary of what I was thinking about writing in Vivary Tales, and I've since written 8k words in the story. I can't decide whether I want to make this a massive book at approximately 120k words, or split it into multiple books in a series. It depends on how the writing goes, so it's still far too early to tell. Still, it's an extremely interesting world with unique characters and I'm exited to see how it turns out. 11/4/22
Happy Friday everyone! I had today off from work and it's been magical. I slept in late, had a leisurely breakfast, and relaxed all morning reading a book interspersed with leaf peeping out my back door as the last of the trees have finally decided to accept autumn has arrived. I also added another color to my current paint by numbers canvass, my COVID hobby which is thankfully making the walls of my house a lot less bare. I'm currently attempting a canvass of chamomiles I'm planning to hang on a large blank wall in my kitchen. I have two more colors to paint, and then I have to go back and touch up for all the numbers I missed and where I had trouble staying within the lines. Lol Of course, I also managed to squeeze in some editing and writing! My amazing editor and I have been figuring out the official blurb for Hunter, the second book in my Witch's Circle trilogy. After a lot of back and forth the last few days we've settled on something that sounds amazing. I can't wait to share it with you. Speaking of Witch's Circle, NSP has decided on a tentative release date for Coven, book one! Look for it on December 27th! (Keeping in mind all dates are subject to change, lol.) I hope to have a cover and pre-order information to share for it really soon. Hunter will likely be released sometime first quarter in 2023. And, yes, I have gotten some writing done! I added almost 3k words to You Can't Sell a Dragon's Heart and reached the minimum word count I was aiming for in this story. There is still a lot more to write before it's done, though, so I upped the expected word count on my Current Projects page. I've never written a fantasy/sci-fi crossover before so this book has been a bit of an experiment, but it's been a ton of fun and I think it's turning out great. When You Can't Sell A Dragon's Heart is completed, there are a few directions I could go in next. I really, really want to get some of my backlog of older works in progress completed, so ideally I would focus on those. However, I have two new stories also percolating. One is a paranormal story about a three-legged crow set in the real world where everyone has the power to turn into an animal. The main character is mistaken for a regular crow and ostracized. Tentative working title is Harbinger, but we'll see whether that still fits once the book is written. The second is fantasy about some of the cases the guards in the city take on. I'm hoping to have multiple main characters, which will make writing this a real challenge. Working title is Vivary Tales, but I expect that to change. Either way, I will have something fun to work on next! Of course, I can come up with titles for two books I haven't even written yet, but I am still drawing an absolute blank for Fire and Water. I thought about something punny about twins switching places, but quickly realized that wouldn't fit the tone of the book. Then I was haunting a thesaurus to find synonyms that might work better and drew a blank. This book is 100% ready to be submitted for consideration with NSP, and I can't until I come up with a title! It's really frustrating. The cherry on the top of what has been a lovely Friday is the wonderful support The Oracle's Current has gotten since being released last week. Everyone seems to be enjoying it, and knowing that makes me incredibly happy. If you missed it, it should be available at most major retailers and at NSP. I hope everyone else has had an equally amazing day! |
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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