Blood and Steel

Oct

2023

Halfway through October

Here we are, halfway through October. Not bad so far. People who have been with me for a while know that October is not my favorite month. I’ve said before that the only thing October has going for it is that it ends in Halloween. My reason? Everything bad happens in October, and this year has not been an exception to that rule (thankfully, everyone involved is fine, but dammit, October!!!)

I’ve been largely focusing on writing Balance of Power, because I am barely keeping up with my chapter a week schedule for Patreon. I’ve currently just started chapter 13, and chapter 11 goes live tomorrow for upper tier Patrons, and Friday for everyone else. That’s not a great buffer, especially with the holidays coming up. I *think* this point is the midpoint, so we’re looking at about 26 to 30 chapters total. And this will be IT. The last book! I mean it this time!

Stop laughing.

Now, this does mean that The Sea Prince is on hiatus again, but it’ll be a short one, and I did already plan for it — edits are coming soon for Morrigan’s Heir, and I was already going to put The Sea Prince on the back burner so I could get the edits turned around and back out the door, then get the revision of Morrigan’s Wrath out to my editor by the end of the year. Then it’s a waiting game to see which edits come in first — Morrigan’s Wrath, or Bonds of Blood and Steel.

Wait… what?

Last week, when I announced the tenth anniversary House of Sable Locks, I kind of forgot to mention the bonus material included with the new edits… chapter one of Bonds of Blood and Steel. The sequel to House of Sable Locks will be coming from Riverdale Avenue Books sometime next year. The manuscript is already with my editor, which is why I say I’m not sure which edits will get to me first. More information as I have it!

And that’s where we are today. Not everything that happens in October is bad, I suppose.

Works in Progress

The Sea Prince
The Coral Throne, Book 1

63623 / 120000 (53.02%)

Balance of Power
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 7

39128 / 90000 (43.48%)

Promotions!

My final promo for the year is on October 27th, hosted by Stephanie Freeman. You can find more information and sign up here. For that event, you can grab free copies of The Chronicles of John Zebedee!

Now, that being said, maybe I’ll do a First in Series personal sale for Black Friday. We shall see. (For anyone keeping score, that’s Written in Water, Hidden Things, Counsel of the Wicked, and maybe I’ll discount The Chronicles of John Zebedee because that’s technically a series-in-one.) Watch this space for announcements!

Feb

2021

A Day Off? What’s That?

Why are days off so much more busy than the days when I’m scheduled? Answer? Because I try to cram everything I can’t get done on the days when I’m working into the days when I’m nominally not working. Because the truth of the matter is that I’m never not working. I’m a mom, and an independent business woman, and I run a household. I’m never not doing something, and I’m not sure I know how to sit and do nothing. Even when I do yoga, my mind never shuts off. Today’s post is much later than I usually post, because today I got up, exercised, ate something, went to Trader Joe’s (and encountered my first maskhole being escorted from the premises for refusing to wear his mask properly), came home, showered, had lunch, had a conference call, had another conference call, made dinner, redid two covers (The Lady and the Sword and Wings of Air) because page proofs arrived and showed that I screwed something up on BOTH covers, and now I’m writing this post. I might get more proofreading done on Wings of Air before bed, but I still have edits to do on Ashes and Light, and I haven’t written a word on Heir to the Firstborn. There are some social media things I need to do for an RWA chapter, and those won’t be getting done until tomorrow, and I’m putting off some things for the Super ~~SEECRIT~~ Spiffy RWA project until tomorrow, too. Hrm… no wonder I’m tired. Heir to the Firstborn is progressing. Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

28828 / 150000 (19.22%)

I wrote a scene the other day and posted it to my Facebook, and it’s a nice example of how a scene really does change between the time it flows from my fingers and the time the reader gets it. The initial scene, as written, was this:

Othi’s jaw dropped. He looked at Owyn, then shook his head. “I… I don’t think I’ve heard you swear like that. You didn’t, when we were out in the deep. Or did you, and I just missed it?”

“Probably missed it,” Alanar said. “Owyn is very sweary.” He smiled fondly at Owyn. “One of these days, love, I should wash your mouth out with soap.”

“You and what army?” Owyn growled.

Alanar laughed and turned toward him.“If I get you in the right position, you’ll ask me for the soap,” he purred, and Owyn turned pink.

“Enough of that,” Aria said. “We have to leave, and we cannot wait for the pair of you to crawl back into bed.”

Alanar straightened and turned to face her. He smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t be the one crawling.”

It’s a good scene. But that last line bothered me. It was out of character for Alanar. It was right… but why did he say that? So I let it percolate, and the finished scene still includes this exchange, but it’s very different from the original. And I’m not showing it to you because spoilers. You have to wait for Heir to the Firstborn. Today, for the first time, I started thinking about what will come next. Once I’ve finished publishing Swords of Charlemagne and Heir to the Firstborn, what’s next year going to hold? There are the plans to republish the Rebel Mage books, and I’ll need to design new covers for those, but what new fiction is coming? I’m honestly not sure yet. The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir is over with Circlet, as is Blood Bound, Sapphires and Gold, and Bonds of Blood and Steel. I don’t have any information on where those are in the process, so not data on them. The Chronicles of John Zebedee are off with the publisher putting together the box set, and those should be out in 2022. I need to write the second White Raven book, and I need plan out the rest of the Flesh and Blood series. I think the series plan may be what I focus on once the edits are done for Swords of Charlemagne, while I’m finishing Heir to the Firstborn. As for the Patreon, once Heir is finally wrapped, I may try to resurrect The Willow Sword, and do that one next. Too many things. Not enough hours to do them.

Jan

2021

Jumanji!

Did anyone else go outside and yell Jumanji at midnight on December 31st? Because I totally went and yelled Jumanji out my front door when I went to ~~kick~~ let the old year out and let the new year in.

New Year. New beginnings.

Heir to the Firstborn

(Heir to the Firstborn, Book 5)

2015 / 150000 (1.34%)

***

John Zebedee Meets the Witch Queen of Elfland

62605 / 60000 (104.34%)

I finished John Zebedee Meets the Witch Queen of Elfland on December 23rd. Too late for my usual Draft by the Solstice, but I had Draft by Christmas Eve, so that was good. Edits on that and on Wings of Air are in process, and Wings of Air looks like it will be out sometime in March (I’m projecting March 23rd, but it might be sooner.)

I have a busy publishing year planned. I’ve got SIX releases on my calendar — the last two Heir to the Firstborn books, and all four Swords of Charlemagne books will be 2021 releases. The calendar looks like this:

January 26th, 2021 — Hidden Things (Swords of Charlemagne 1) — Kindle Unlimited only
March 23rd, 2021 — Wings of Air (Heir to the Firstborn 4)
May 25th, 2021 — The Lady and the Sword (Swords of Charlemagne 2) –Kindle Unlimited only
July 20th, 2021 — Ashes and Light (Sword of Charlemagne 3) — Kindle Unlimited only
September 21st, 2021 — Heir to the Firstborn (Heir to the Firstborn 5)
November 30th, 2021 — Table of Stone (Swords of Charlemagne 4) — Kindle Unlimited only

The plan at the moment is to drop the each book of Swords of Charlemagne out of KU and go wide once the next book is live. We’ll see how that goes. And the last two books might switch — it depends on when I finish Heir to the Firstborn. That is the only book listed that hasn’t actually been written yet. All the others just need edits. Preorders are up for Hidden Things, and will be up for the rest of the books soon.

Now, these are just my self-published books. There are also multiple books out for consideration, and one under contract, and THOSE might appear this year, too. Right now, the ones out in an editors pile are:

Sapphires and Gold (Under contract with Circlet Press)
Bonds of Blood and Steel (Sequel to House of Sable Locks)
The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir (sequel to Princes of Air)
The Ice Raven (side story set in the Princes of Air universe)
Blood Bound (Flesh and Blood 1)

There’s also the chance that my first ever publishing credit, the gaming manual Psionics for SkillSkape, will be reissued this year as well. I went through and proofed the new layout a few weeks ago, and the last I heard, the mechanics were in the process of being updated. Since math and I have a disfunctional relationship, I’m not involved in that.

There are also four in-person appearances scheduled at the moment. Now, given the way things are, these dates are all tentative. But they’re on the calendar.

RWA National Conference (Nashville, TN), July 14–17, 2021

Orlando Reads Books (Orlando, FL), August 26 – 29, 2021

NecronomiCon (Tampa, FL), September 24 – 26th, 2021

Books at the Beach (Clearwater Beach, FL) October 21 – 24th, 2021

I imagine that Keiser SuperCon might slip into that list at some point, but I haven’t yet heard from them about what the new dates will be.

For the record, I’m saving the republishing of the Rebel Mage books until 2022. I’m not completely insane!)

Given all of the things going on this year, I’m going to be juggling slightly more chainsaws that usual. But it will be worth it!

Click the picture to preorder

Aug

2020

Another new short

Took me a bit to get this one up and ready for sale, but I’ve added another short story to KU.

Student-Artificer Elijah Saloman discovers what he thinks could be a lost masterwork of the greatest Artificer ever born. He is determined to make it work, even though he has no idea what it is or what it is supposed to do. But when everything that can go wrong does, Elijah finds himself caught in an interesting predicament—trapped within the machine, and at the mercy of the whimsical plaything of a long-dead Artificer with a taste for the exotic.

***

Infernal Machine is interesting. It’s set in the same universe as House of Sable Locks, and involves Student-Artificers who are friends of Dieter, and in the same year of study. Dieter’s not in this story, but Elijah is mentioned briefly in the sequel to House of Sable Locks (Bonds of Blood and Steel, currently under consideration at Circlet).

Elijah and Sasha may get their own book, eventually. But it will involve heavy research into the Russian Revolution, so not any time soon.

Blood and Steel

Halfway through October

Works in Progress

Promotions!

A Day Off? What’s That?

Jumanji!

Another new short

Works in Progress

Appearances

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