8/26/23
First off, I am amazed at how positive the response for Witch has been. Every review has had something good to say. I'm sad that Kana's story is complete because I loved writing him so much. Unfortunately, Kana doesn't have much more to say. He has his newfound family and his community and his happily ever after. Maybe one day I'll be able to write another story set in this world with a different main character, but for now I'm happy to focus on new characters running off on totally different adventures. Speaking of which, I have been on a roller coaster writing The Prince these last few weeks. I was so certain I had reached the middle point of the story, where all the build up was done and I could move into the final battle and the climax. And then I wrote myself and my characters into a literal corner. Or, well, up a cliff if I'm actually being literal. I could not figure out how to get them down from the top of said cliff, and if they weren't on ground level I couldn't start any kind of battle. Rewriting everything also wasn't possible as the setting for this scene was codified in The Chef (book one) pretty much from the first page. I had zero idea how to fix this. Luckily, my sister got married. For a long, wonderful weekend I got to watch her be happy and I only thought about family stuff. The ceremony was beautiful and now she's off on a well-deserved honeymoon. And I returned home with my characters still at the top of the dang cliff. Except, the time away somehow allowed the story to percolate and when I sat down to start writing again I had a thought. "What if this isn't the climax at all? What if this is the last bit of the puzzle I need before my characters reach the climax?" Epiphany. They're finally down from the cliff and the plot is moving forward again. The best part is this change will require at least another full chapter of preparation, possibly even two. The final battle also promises to be even more epic so will take even longer to write. For a story that has consistently fallen short of my word count goals, this is great news! There's a ton still to write, but I finally feel like I'm rounding the final turn and the homestretch is definitely going to be worth it. In completely different news, Twin Elements, my upcoming standalone story, has completed proofreading. There's only two steps remaining before this book is ready for publishing: a cover and ARCs. What this means is it's very likely you'll see this book in 2023, probably in the last quarter. My best estimate is November or December, which will be here before we know it. The editing process for my next book, You Can't Sell A Dragon's Heart, should begin around the same time, and I really hope to have The Chef submitted for consideration at NSP by then, so things will continue to move along in my writing world.
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8/7/23
It's hay fever season. From the end of July and throughout August, things bloom. I sneeze and sniffle and generally hate life. And then Saturday morning I was brewing a cup of Jasmine Green tea. I always forget to check the clock, but it's a potent tea so wafting the steam lets me know how brewed it is. I couldn't smell it, but my half awake, uncaffeinated brain insisted it just hadn't brewed long enough. I gave it a few more minutes and went to taste...and all I could taste was a vague, muted bitter aftertaste of over-brewed tea. A light bulb went off and I went to get a COVID test. Positive. Yay. Shockingly, this is my first bout with COVID. (That I know of.) I'm quarantining a few more days, and then masking for about five more after that. Following all the CDC guidelines like a good human being. Since I can't leave my house, I've been catching up on some reading and trying to write. I keep getting distracted from both though, so I haven't gotten much done. I have a couple more days, so I really hope to get some writing done. At the very least, I'm able to sleep in and try to recover my energy, so when I return to work at the office I won't be as drained. In case you were wondering, this morning (Monday) it was literally like a light switch getting flipped. I was done eating a tasteless breakfast and relaxing with my usual tea. I took a sip and thought "wow, I brewed a really good cup today." And then the caffeine kicked in and I took another sip to savor, because I could definitely taste it. I'm still sniffly, but it's amazing how much of a psychological boost it is being able to smell and taste again. Oh, and don't forget, Witch is coming out in a few short days! If you preorder with NSP, you can read it on August 11th, and it should be available at other major retailers very soon for when it officially releases on August 15th. I can't wait! 6/12/23
I have been doing so much better lately with posting regularly to keep everyone in the loop, and then I went and vanished for an entire month! Sigh. I admit I've been very busy, and spring has definitely kept me on my toes. My sister is getting married this summer (soooo excited!!!), so the last few weeks were the bridal shower and bachelorette party. Plus, I had a business trip for my 9 to 5 and I went to the beach for Memorial Day. And this entire last week has been sniffles and coughing. Covid test was negative, but I still felt nasty. After about ten hours of sleeping three nights in a row I'm starting to feel better, so I appear to be on the back end of this spring cold. Blah. Here's everything else I've accomplished over the last month: The Chef is complete! I've dotted my Ts and crossed my Is and set it aside to rest for a while. I was right that it wasn't going to beat Magnified as my longest story, but it came really close! To all my readers who have mentioned they "love my stories but wish they were longer", The Chef is for you! It taps out at a whomping 59k words, which is easily double the length of most of the rest of my stories. My plan is to pull The Chef out of hibernation sometime in August or September, give it a last read through, and submit it to NSP for their consideration. That is a lot longer than I normally give my stories for their resting phase, but The Chef is part of a series whose overall plot will continue between the books. Right now, the second book, The Prince, is entirely dependent on events that occurred in The Chef. If something in The Prince isn't flowing correctly, I need to be able to go back into The Chef and make changes, which means The Chef is going to be delayed. I expect by August to have gotten far enough into The Prince where that won't be an issue any longer. Another problem is I haven't come up with a series name yet. I might go simple and call it Kingdom of Toval, which is one of the locations in the book, but I'm not sure yet. Also, I have some vague ideas for a third book in the series, but I don't really see how it can fit into the current plot. I'm contemplating making it a short story set in the world, but that would depend on how The Prince ends up. I have seen the first draft for the cover of Witch, the third and final book in my Witch's Circle series, and it is glorious! I can't wait to share it with you. I don't have an official release date yet to share, but it is with the proof reader at the moment (the final step before ARCs), so I should hear more very soon. Aside from that, the only fun thing is my garden is starting to sprout. It looks like I will have beans, peas, green peppers, and lettuce fresh on demand all summer! I can't wait! 2/26/23
I have some amazing news! Hunter, the second book in my Witch's Coven trilogy, has completed the editing process and has an official release date! Look for it on May 9th! I haven't seen the cover yet, but that and reviewing the ARC are all that need to be completed before this story is ready for publishing. Coven (book one) had such an amazing reception. I can't wait for everyone to be able to read Hunter! Also, we're aiming for August/September to release Witch, the final book in the series. (Keeping in mind all release dates/time frames are subject to change without warning, Lol) I think that's a doable target, but keep any eye on my blog as I'll update you as I learn more. I also have a release date for my mermaid short story, Water's Price! NSP plans to release it June 27th. Water's Price is one step behind Hunter in the editing process--still waiting for the final proof--so June is a perfect date. More great news: Twin Elements, my fun story about a pair of twins forced to switch places when one is poisoned, was accepted for publishing with NSP! The contract is signed and the book now in the editor's queue. I am hopeful it will be available for purchase this time next year. I will keep you posted as I learn more, but feel free to check out the tentative summary on my Coming Soon page. As promised, I pulled You Can't Sell A Dragon's Heart out of storage and gave it a final edit before submitting it to NSP for consideration. Letting the story simmer and percolate for a couple of months helped a lot, so the manuscript looked really good (in my opinion). I do think NSP will also enjoy my quirky sci-fi/fantasy crossover story. However, this book is currently at the very bottom of their submission pile, and will likely take a while to be reviewed. I will try to be patient while I wait. Lol I promised some writing news. The Chef, my quirky story about a chef being waylaid on his journey to a new job and the ensuing adventure, has crossed the 10k words mark! I originally thought part one of the story would tap out at 30k, but it's leaning closer to 25k at the moment. That said, the next chapter begins the build up to the fight scene. The line that convinced me to start working on this book was when the character in my head said "don't drip blood in my oatmeal", however, this coming fight scene is the bit that has kept me writing eagerly. It's the first place I get to fully explore the magic in this book, and I can't wait to write it. I'm very hopeful the fight scene will help me meet my original word count hopes for part one, but either way this book is turning out to be awesome. It's been a busy few weeks, so I haven't been able to work on anything else. My insurance company came through, but I have to follow up with the remediation company to get on their schedule. The drama from the burst pipe will soon only be only an unpleasant memory. I have also been extremely busy at work, so I'm collapsing on my couch in the evenings with very little brain left to make dinner, let alone write. I do expect work to calm down again, so presumably I'll be able to return to my waiting stories very soon. 1/21/23 I sent this out with my newsletter last week, so this may be a repeat for some of you. I wrote up a short history of how Coven, and the rest of my Witch's Circle trilogy, came to be. Check it out: It might not seem like it, but Coven is actually one of my oldest stories. Waaaay back in 2010, when I was still mostly writing fanfiction, I had an idea for an original story about an awkward reporter being forced by his nasty coworkers to go interview some vampires. I started writing. The main character reached the front gates of the vampire house, and then I hit a conundrum. An ordinary human wouldn’t survive a vampire encounter! I needed to figure out that aspect of this story before I could move forward. About a year went by while I thought about it. Could the love interest be a vampire, willing to help the main character survive? Except, the vampires were supposed to be evil in this book so that idea went nowhere. (The failed idea for the love-interest vampire is what helped me create Shannon, a secondary character who plays an interesting role in the latter two books.) I realized the main character had to be powerful in his own right. However, that led to a major problem: if the main character was so powerful, why would his coworkers treat him so poorly? My initial thought was the coworkers were family who hated him, and the main character was desperate to get away, but that felt rather flimsy and didn’t go with the “powerful MC” idea. Also, what sort of powers should the main character actually have? I couldn’t figure it out. Besides, I was distracted. A cute baby dragon had bounced across my desk, insisting I write his story instead. First Nyle, then Tori, and all the dragons, wolves, and other creatures in my Dragon’s Hoard series came to life. Coven fell so far onto the back burner, I almost completely forgot it existed. Fast forward to 2020, almost ten years later. COVID, working from home, waist deep in reprints, and I was exhausted. I desperately wanted to write something new, but was struggling to come up with an idea that felt viable. Burned out was an understatement. I don’t know what prompted me, but I started digging through my older, long-forgotten material. Some only have one line, some close to 20k words, but all very, very dead. Also, my writing way back then was…yeah. Let’s just say I hope I’ve improved a lot since. Unfortunately, that went nowhere. Or so I thought. About a week later I was at work when I had a sudden thought: What if the MC was a male witch? Since witches are stereotypically female, that would be a reason for the conflict! However, a male witch wouldn’t be sent maliciously to interview vampires by cruel coworkers, since if the coworkers knew about his powers they knew he would survive. The idea that his coworkers were ignorant was born. Which meant I needed a new backstory. When I got home after work that afternoon, it was research time! I looked up types of witch powers, the function and structure of a coven, and fell into the age-old idea that werewolves were the daytime protectors of vampires. I decided on the feminine-sounding Kana for the MC’s name to hammer home the fact that he had been born male into a female-dominated society, and suddenly I had it! On the run from his coven because he was powerful, Kana ended up by coincidence in the same city as the vampires and their werewolf protectors. One werewolf in particular having rather nice shoulders. LOL The story, and the entire trilogy, bloomed from there. So, there you have it. Coven almost wrote itself at that point. The following books, Hunter and Witch, flowed easily. Burnout gone. I can only hope my next projects go so smoothly. You can buy Coven now at most major retailers. Hunter has completed editing at NSP, so I should have a release date and more to share very soon.
*If you liked hearing about the history of one of my books and want to know the history of a different book or series, let me know and I’ll be happy to write another post for you! 10/15/22
For the past three years, it feels as if all I've been releasing are reprint after reprint after reprint. I know I've peppered in some new material here and there, but it really felt like the process of re-releasing older books would never end. I have loved revisiting beloved characters and worlds, particularly my earliest works that helped me grow into the writer I am today. However, I have missed the process of crafting new things. That is why I am very happy to say that with the release of The Oracle's Prophecy (renamed from The Sentinel's Prophesy) on October 11th (buy here), I am done with reprinting old material! It is an incredibly exciting milestone! I really appreciate everyone who stuck with me through what has been a very long road. Re-editing and getting 29 reprints available again for you all to enjoy took a lot out of me (and out of my wonderful editor!), and greatly reduced my writing time for new material. Thankfully, I had written some new stories prior to starting the reprinting process, so you were able to enjoy brand new material like Wounded Alpha, Ground of Resurrection, and the new fairy tales included in A Little Fairy Dust while you were waiting. Still, I know there is a hankering for more new books from me. Which brings me to what's next. I was able to finish writing the sixth and final book in The Oracle series, The Oracle's Current, in between all the editing. Current has since been waiting for the rest of The Oracle series to be reprinted. When Current is released on October 25th, it will officially mark the start of my only publishing new material from here on out. You can already pre-order from NSP! As the reprinting process slowed throughout 2022, I have been able to spend more and more time focused on writing. I recently completed a trilogy of books called Witch's Circle about a witch, his familiars, a werewolf, and the difficulties they encounter while navigating the supernatural world. The first book, Coven, could potentially be released at the very end of this year, but certainly no later than very early 2023. The latter two books in the trilogy, Hunter and Witch, will definitely come out next year. Plus, I completed a short story called Water's Price about some mermaids, which you should also see in 2023. But wait, there's more! Lol While that is everything NSP has currently contracted with me to publish, I have a few other things I've been working on that I hope to submit for NSP's consideration within the next few months. I have finished writing and am editing a stand alone fantasy story with the (very tentative) title of Fire and Water. As soon as I come up with a better title, I plan to submit it to NSP. I have also passed the halfway point in writing another stand alone fantasy/sci-fi crossover story called You Can't Sell A Dragon's Heart. I still need to write the major climax scene and tie the HEA off with a pretty bow, so there's still a lot to do, but I definitely think I'll have this story completed soon. Plus, now that I'm done with reprints, I should have more time to focus on my oversized to-do list, upon which I hope to begin making progress again very soon! I look forward to keeping everyone in the loop as I continue to work on more of my new stories and get them ready for you to read. 6/10/22
I have a bunch of good things to share with you all! Let's start with upcoming releases. The reprints of Space Stars and The Oracle's Flame have both completed the proofing stage of the editing process. I have seen both covers, and they're amazing. All the books need are ARCs and a release date, which means they should be ready very soon. The remaining five books in my Oracle's Series are all with a proofer right now, so they're only one step behind. This includes the brand new final book in the series, The Oracle's Current. Aside from completing those proofs as they come in, I will have a bit more editing to accomplish this summer. I have been informed the first book in my brand new Witch's Circle trilogy is with an editor! This is the first step in the lengthy process of getting it published, but after a long wait, I'm incredibly excited to see Coven moving forward. I expect to have more good news to share about this story soon. And here's that good news! The latter two books in the trilogy, Hunter and Witch have been accepted for publishing at NSP! In NSP's response, they said they really liked them and that the trilogy as a whole was excellent. I will keep everyone in the loop as these two stories progress through the publishing process. In addition to that, NSP also accepted my mermaid fairy tale Water's Price for their NSP Shorts collection, so I'll keep you appraised of that story as well. My last bit of good news is that I have been writing! Unfortunately, it's not any of the stories on my to do list, but as far as I'm concerned, writing is writing. I don't have a title for it yet, but the premise of the story is the king gets poisoned and his identical twin has to step in to keep the kingdom from collapsing all while desperately trying to find a cure. In comes the handsome prince from the neighboring kingdom, and...drama. I've written approximately 10k words so far, so I've reached the drama portion of that explanation. There's also a lot of lava. I'm 50/50 on whether this story will be a stand alone, or whether I'll put it in with my second fairy tale anthology. If it ends up being longer than 30k, it'll be a stand alone, but there's too much for me still to write to be able to estimate the final word count just yet. Once I know that (and have a working title), I'll get it up on my Current Projects page. 5/22/22
I just realized how long it's been since I've posted! My books are all moving along, so I keep thinking I'll have something significant to share really soon. And then I never end up posting anything... Anyway, all six books in my Oracle Series are basically ready for publishing. I'm waiting on ARCs for the first few and final proofs for the last few. The new covers are gorgeous, so I'm very much looking forward to posting about them. I expect The Oracle's Flame will be available for pre-order in the very near future. Once I learn more, I'll definitely share it, because I know you all have been anxiously waiting for this series as much as me. In other news, I submitted three brand new books to NSP for their consideration. The latter two books in my Witch's Circle trilogy had been sitting around for a while, so I was glad to send them in. Hopefully NSP likes them both! I also decided to submit one of the fairy tales I recently finished writing. It's a Little Mermaid rewrite (of sorts) that is too short for traditional publishing, but is perfect for NSP's Shorts collection. It's one of the stories I'm planning to include in my second fairy tale anthology, but I thought it might be nice to give everyone a hint of what is to come. On the writing front, things have been less successful and I unfortunately don't foresee that changing this summer. I have been so busy at work, that by the time I get home I'm totally burned out. Then I need the entire weekend to recover. I've been fitting editing in, but that's about it. My summer is going to be crazy too. I am hoping things will calm down by autumn. In the meantime, I'll try to keep up with my blog posting a little better! 1/23/22
Two years of pounding out reprints, desperately trying to ensure my readers don't miss out on any of my books all while working a full time job, has taken its toll. I'm definitely feeling the burn out. It's not just that I haven't been able to write nearly as much as I would like; I've also not been posting on my blog as much either. I truly enjoy interacting with my readers, but it has been months since I had the time or energy to put together something and post it. With all that said, I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Just last week the final book in my Dragon's Hoard series, Melting the Ice Witch, was re-released. The only series yet to be reprinted is my Oracle series, and The Oracle's Flame, book one, should be arriving really soon (release date to come). In fact, my editor and I are already working on The Oracle's Sprite, book four, which means there is only one more reprint after that! Now is the time to start looking toward the future and what's next for my writing. Right now, I have two brand new books accepted for publishing at NSP: The Oracle's Current, the sixth and final book of my Oracle series, and Coven, the first book in my Witch's Circle trilogy. In addition to that, Hunter and Witch, the latter two books in that series, are ready for submission as soon as NSP is ready. I also have a fairy tale I'd like to submit to NSP's "Shorts" collection, but am waiting for my editor to have time to breathe before I send her that too. 2022 is therefore set in terms of what books will likely come out. My focus therefore must be getting books ready for 2023. That sounds like a long way off, but in the publishing world it really isn't. Over the last few weeks I've written small bits in Codified and Dragon Spy, and the aforementioned fairy tale will be part of a new collection I'm also working on. I can't make any promises as to what I might finish next, but I am looking forward to being done with reprints so I can focus exclusively on my new stuff, and can write blog posts about it much more often. |
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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