News: What's Next?

7/9/17

• I completed writing If A Butterfly Don't Fly.  I gave it a few days to rest and then read through it and formatted it for submission.  Normally I would let a story sit for a month before reading through it again, but this story is a bit different.  Because it's so old, I've read through it dozens of times at this point as I tried to keep writer's block at bay.  Aside from the ending I wrote a few days ago, this story has been edited to heck and back.  My worry is that if I let it sit, I'll start nitpicking, and then it'll get really messed up and might not ever be submitted.  On the other hand, letting a story rest for a good while (more than the bare week I've given this story right now) provides a level of distance that allows me to better evaluate the editing I'm doing.  I'm trying to decide what would be best for this story and right now I'm leaning towards a compromise by giving it another week of rest, rereading it again, and then submitting it.  What do you think? 
   
• Nitpicking is exactly what happened with Ground of Insurrection.  I knew when I finished writing it that it wasn't quite right, so I sent it to a beta reader who very helpfully pointed out where those issues were stemming from.  I fixed it, but by that point the story had been stuck with a terrible label, a miasma of "something isn't right".  Despite knowing the problem was gone and the story was good, I couldn't quite make myself hit the submit button.  I kept poking at it, changing little things that only reinforced the false impression in my head that the story wasn't ready yet.  I needed some sort of emotional boost if I was ever going to get this story submitted, so while I was running on the excited high of having finished writing Butterfly, I gave Ground of Insurrection another read through.  As I thought, the story was good and the issues were fixed.  So I submitted it!  Finally, after two long years of the story languishing on my computer, I plucked up my courage.  Now it depends on whether LT3 also likes it. 
   
• Now that Butterfly is completed, it's finally time to move on to another story on my to-do list.  The question is, which one?  I know many of you are yelling at your computer screens, trying to tell me "more Lumie!", but I'm not certain the next Supernatural Consultant book is ready to be written.  I still have some more planning to do first.  Others of you are demanding Part Two of Ge-Mi, but again I have the same answer: more planning first.  That leaves me with far too many other options.  I would like to finish The Coup and The Prince, which is short and sweet and whose writing time has dragged on a bit too long.  I would also like to return to my fairy tales.  I was making good progress with them before Butterfly reasserted itself. In fact, since I totally forgot to do goals for July, maybe I'll make both of those stories my goals list. 
   
  
• Don't forget my Dragon's Hoard series is coming out this week on July 12th.  If you haven't read the first four books before, now is a great time to get a copy as they're all on pre-order discount at LT3.  Gathering the Hoard is completely new and fans of Tori will really enjoy it, so make sure you pick up your copy today.