Chains of Light

Give Me The Coffee And No One Gets Hurt…

Give Me The Coffee And No One Gets Hurt…

Otherwise known as the Monday after a convention. Today is definitely a “give me the coffee and no one gets hurt” kind of day.

We found out Thursday night that Necronomicon was going to happen, so Friday morning, we packed up and headed out. The normally two hour trip to Tampa took us over three, but the hotel was lovely as always (except in a few places where it was… not. No functional elevators while trying to load into the room was not fun.) The area of Tampa where the convention is held is on the eastern side of Tampa near Busch Gardens, and you don’t have to cross the bridges to get there. Which is good, because when we hit Tampa, all the bridges were still closed. We didn’t see any of the flooded areas, but the convention was feeling the effects of the storm — the halls were empty, and panels that were usually packed had maybe six people in the audience. Entire panels and games were cancelled because people simply could not get to the convention.

And yet, it was still a good convention. Smaller audiences made for more intimate panels, with better opportunity for discussion. The opportunity to connect with fans and with other writers were increased. New friends were made.

It was a good convention.

Edits for Morrigan’s Heir should be hitting my inbox any minute now, and I can’t wait! One step closer to having you all meet Lorcan! Hopefully, we’ll be able to get this turned around for later this year. Cross your crossables!

I was eliminated from SPFBO right before we left. Honestly, I was expecting it — the judge who was assigned my book is very upfront about not liking erotic or dark, and Counsel of the Wicked is both. I’m not sure she even finished it. Which… again, it’s not a surprise. That book is A LOT, and I’m starting to debate if it’s worth it to keep it in print. I may pull the series at the end of the year. We’ll see.

Now, I’m prepping for my next show, the Not So Spooky Hallowfest in Deltona, Florida. I’ll have an abbreviated catalog with me — it’s a family focused event, so I’ll have Heir to the Firstborn and The Chronicles of John Zebedee and that’s all. If you’re in the area on Sunday, come and check out the show, which is going to be from 10AM to 4PM at The Center at Deltona, 1640 Dr Martin Luther King Blvd, Deltona, FL 32725-2912. If you come out and tell me you saw this blog, you get a discount!

Work in Progress

Tales from the Arena: King of Swords
(Tales from the Arena, book 3)

71118 / 120000 (59.27%)

Promotions

I’m going to be a part of Enchanted Realms, and this promotion runs for the entire month of October — sign up for newsletters, get free books and enter to win a $30 gift card!


Coming up on October 11th, I have Chains of Light available for free in So Queer To My Heart, a spicy queer romance event.


Finally, I’ll be participating in a Stuff Your Kindle event from October 18-20th. There are over 400 books that will be free or discounted for that weekend, and I’ll have Written in Water up for free!

Appearances

Not So Spooky Hallowfest
October 6th, 2024
Deltona, Florida

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Wizards, Witches and the Weird
October 27th, 2024
Daytona Beach, Florida

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Maker Faire Orlando
November 9-10th
Orlando, Florida

Posted by EASchechter in a-writers-life-is-never-dull, accountability, appearances, Chains of Light, Counsel of the Wicked, edits, giveaway, Heir to the Firstborn, Hidden Things, Necronomicon, promotions, SPFBO, Tales from the Arena, The White Raven, WIP, wordcount, Writer on the Go!, Written in Water, 0 comments

Busy, busy, busy. Did I mention busy?

Wings of Air
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 4

26414 / 30000 (88.05%)
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John Zebedee and the Monstrous Town
26414 / 30000 (88.05%)

I talk every so often about how I juggle chainsaws. (Figurative chainsaws, not real ones.) I juggle being a mom and a writer and being an RWA Board member, with all the little things that come with those titles.

This past couple of weeks, I added three new ones.

Way back when I was a baby writer, I wrote a gaming manual. Psionics for SkillSkape was written for Chivalry and Sorcery, and my first outing as a writer was to present and promote it at Gencon 2004. The book went out of print in 2015 when the publisher closed, following the very untimely death of one of the owners.  Late last year, I think, I heard from his widow, who told me that there was a Kickstarter to bring Chivalry and Sorcery back into print, and that the new publishers were interested in bringing Psionics back out. Was I interested?

Sure!

So last week, I got the new files for Psionics for SkillSkape, which needs to be re-read and re-edited.

I haven’t played Chivalry and Sorcery since 2005, so this is being interesting.

Also in the past couple of weeks, I was asked to present a class to RWA University, based on a tutorial that I put together for the Virtual Conference (and that we subsequently didn’t need to use). I have to lengthen the tutorial into an actual class, and we need to set a date for that class. So I’ve been working on that.

And THEN… I was asked to take the helm of a task force exploring the benefits that the RWA can offer to our unpublished members. This includes taking on the design of a major RWA program. But no pressure!

When asked to take this on, my response was “You all trust me a whole lot, don’t you?”

So, between writing (1 and 2), editing (3), re- releasing one of the books from Forbidden Fiction (4), designing a class (5), I’ve been doing outreach to members (6),  brainstorming ideas of my own(7),  and recruiting members for my task force (8).

Eight! Eight chainsaws in the air! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! (Thunder! Lightning!)

Wait… new release?

Yes. I got a wild hair last week, and found several pieces of stock art that I felt fit Chains of Light. And then couldn’t decide, so I crowdsourced a decision on Twitter and Facebook. Did the cover design, got the novella up on Kindle Unlimited. It’ll be KU only until January, then I’ll throw it wide.

I also came to an executive decision last week. (Being my only employee, I suppose that means all my decisions are executive decisions.) Since Wings of Air had turned into a MONSTER of a book, and it’s not even to what I had envisioned as the halfway point… there will be Heir to the Firstborn, BOOK 5. The working title of Book 5 is Heir to the Firstborn, because why not wrap it up with the series title? Also, I have no spare brain cells to think of something better at the moment. (see above, eight chainsaws). This means that Wings of Air may be out in print by the end of the year, but I won’t swear to that yet.

The second issue of my newsletter went out Friday. Did you get it? Do you want to get it? (You missed a really REALLY, good cake recipe if you didn’t get it. Next month will be something for Thanksgiving. Not sure what yet.)

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So that’s everything in my neck of the woods. Time to go top off the coffee and get back to work!

Posted by EASchechter in 2020 plans, 2021 plans, annoying-muse-is-annoying, Best laid plans, Best planned lays, Chains of Light, forthcoming works, Heir to the Firstborn, John Zebedee, new books, promotions, upcoming books, upcoming work, Wings of Air, WIP, wordcount, 0 comments

New today! Well… sort of.

New release today! From Forbidden Fiction, my novella Chains of Light!

 

When Delan stumbled into the Temple, he wasn’t expecting to be welcomed as a Temple servant. He wasn’t expecting his only duty to be to serve Lyander, cloistered son of the High Priestess. He wasn’t expecting to fall in love.

Now, some of you might be thinking “Hey, this sounds familiar.”  You’re right. This is a reprint of my novella From Dusk ’til Dawn (published in 2013.) Which does NOT mean you should not buy this one. First, you can’t get From Dusk ’til Dawn anymore because that publisher went out of business.  Second, this version has been newly edited, which means I had to chance to clean up some timing errors that made me cringe every time I read the previously published version. Third, we have a wonderful new cover. I’m in love with the new cover art — at the top is Lyander, and that is exactly how I pictured him when I first wrote the story way back.

New book! Go enjoy!

 

Posted by EASchechter in Boosting the signal, Chains of Light, From Dusk 'til Dawn, happy-happy- joy- joy, new books, Release date, 0 comments

Work in Progress: The White Raven, week 13

Another week, more fight scenes. I’m starting to wonder why I set a book in Imperial Rome…

It’s been a long weekend. I spent the weekend at the Central Florida Highland Games, where I foolishly thought I’d be able to get some writing done.

I can hear you laughing, you know.

Luckily for me, I’d gotten enough done earlier in the week that not making my word count three days in a row didn’t hurt me at all. I’m still ahead of where I should be in total words, although I’m starting to wonder if I can bring this book in for a landing in 100K words. I’m at 68K, and I still haven’t gotten Lorcan out of Rome.

Umm… I wasn’t planning on having this be another trilogy, I swear.

The White Raven
Week Thirteen Total Wordcount

In other news, I’ve got a release date for the novella that was once called From Dusk ’til Dawn. The new title is Chains of Light, and it will be released by Forbidden Fiction on February 13th. I even have a pretty new cover!

I like this cover even more than the original!

Also, chapter 2 of Fools Rush In is now live on the Forbidden Fiction website. (log in required, but free!) Go read!

Posted by EASchechter in Chains of Light, cover art, forthcoming works, From Dusk 'til Dawn, Good news, new books, Princes of Air, promotions, Release date, slow-writer-is-slow., The White Raven, upcoming books, upcoming work, WIP, wordcount, 0 comments