Content warnings

At Loose Ends

At Loose Ends

Finished. The Sea Prince is FINISHED. After 15 years, and I’m not even sure how many starts, stops, revisions, rewrites and just throwing the manuscript under the virtual bed because this thing is broken, The Sea Prince is finished. Which means… I’m at loose ends until Morrigan’s Heir edits come in.

Now, being at loose ends doesn’t mean I’m not doing anything. I’m figuring out where The Coral Throne is going to go, and deciding if this is going to be duology, or if I really want to tackle The Mancer Regent (answer to be determined during the writing of The Coral Throne, I think?) I’ve started the worldbuilding for Frog and Fae are Friends (I love this placeholder title, but at some point, I should name this baby.) I’ve finished one book for research for Children of the Swords, and I’ve got another sitting next to me ready to go, and I’ve been noodling with a synopsis for The Seer, which is book one of Children of the Swords. And I’m prepping for ICFA, which includes sewing a dress.

So… yeah, at loose ends doesn’t mean the same thing for me as it might for someone else. I’ve never been very good at downtime. Although I’m trying! I’ve been reading more, and I finally started playing a Switch game that my son gave me for a present. (Granted, I’ve had it for a few years now. But I started it! That counts for downtime!)

So, when will you see The Sea Prince? I’m not sure yet. I won’t be looking at it again until mid-June at the earliest. Then edits and revisions will happen. And then…I don’t know if I’ll be shopping it around, or if I’ll be taking it to Vella, or if I’ll just go ahead and publish. I do know that it won’t be a Patreon project — my Patreon is current unpublished because there’s nothing going on there, and this is a complete manuscript, so it doesn’t fit my serial stunt writing model for Patreon. The next Patreon project will probably be Frog and Fae, to be honest. I just need to get the worldbuilding a little more clear in my head before I start the story up. Again, probably not until mid-June. also in mid-June, I’ll be making the call on what my fall project will be — my plan for 2024 says either Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand or The Iron Virgin. I’m thinking it will probably be The Iron Virgin, since I’ll be going from one adventure on the high seas to another, but I haven’t yet started the research for that project, so maybe not? (What research? The society will largely be based on Venice and Venetian traders, and I haven’t done any reading on that yet. I have the books, but osmosis doesn’t work with worldbuilding.) However, if Blood Bound gets picked up before then, then I’ll be starting on Blood Brothers.

Who knows? By mid-June, something entirely new may have shown up. Flexibility is key, after all.

Works in Progress

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, Book 1)

100187 / 100000 (100.19%)

Giveaways!

For the month of March, you can download a copy of my dark fantasy romance Counsel of the Wicked FREE through the On Fire Romance promotion. (Content warning — this book is the darkest thing that I have ever written, and includes on the page explicit sexual violence. Go carefully.)

Image of a flame. Text reads "On Fire. Free Spicy Romance Ebooks. March 1-31"

Sales!

The Smashwords Read an Ebook sale is this week, and all of my books are on sale! Now, given that Draft2Digital still hasn’t finished merging legacy Smashwords accounts, I have two links for you.

You can find the first six Heir to the Firstborn books and the collected Swords of Charlemagne here.
You can find book seven of Heir to the Firstborn and the rest of my books here.

Cartoon image of a female presenting figure with long hair, reading a book. Text reads "Smashwords. Your Ebook, Your Way. Read and Ebook Week. Smashwords.com/shelves/promos"
Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, accountability, BDSM Vampires, Blood Bound, Children of the Sword, Content warnings, Counsel of the Wicked, Frog and Fae, ICFA, promotions, Tales from the Arena, The Iron Virgin, The Sea Prince, thirty, WIP, wordcount, Worldbuilding, 0 comments

February Musings

It’s Valentine week. That time of year when the mainstream media remembers that romance novels exist, and that they have to publish their hot takes about how this romance is not like all those other trashy books. This is trashy, but with class!

The “I’m not like other <fill-in-the-blank>!” stories that you see every year about this time.

Now, I tend to ignore those. Because really, these journalists prove time and again that they are not and have no interest in ever learning about the audience for romance. All they want to do is say, “Look! Books with kissing and girl-shit! It’s Valentine’s Day. That’s about kissing and girl-shit! Let’s write about how dumb we think kissing and girl-shit is!” They completely ignore that romance is big business that keeps the lights on in publishing, because kissing and girl-shit.

I haven’t cross-referenced, but I wonder how many of these same journalists wax lyrical about the Super Bowl. I mean, really, it’s just violence and boy-shit, right?

(I used to be a football fan, but the NFL’s blatant disregard for player health and safety has turned me off the game entirely.)

Anyhow, I heard that yesterday Rhianna threw a baby shower, and some football broke out? Oh, and there were puppies playing for a few hours. That was fun.

I got no writing done over the weekend. There was some hefty organizing — I emptied my pantry, sorted and disposed of expired things that had gotten buried, and then put everything back in. (The impetus was my husband telling me I didn’t need to go pick up cake mix for his birthday. He found some in the pantry. It was, however, three years expired. “No, honey, I’m not getting you botulism for your birthday.”)

I’m closing in on the hinge chapter of The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath — the travel chapter that brings our hero back to Eire. Then the shenanigans really start! And I need to rework the last chapter I wrote of The Sea Prince and have this one character tell me if she’s actually an abusive, manipulative bitch or not. It could be that she’s gaslighting but that would mean she’s gaslighting ME. Which, I suppose, means that she’s good at it?

The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath
(The White Raven Duology, Book 2)

38974 / 90000 (43.30%)

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, Book 1)

43901 / 120000 (36.58%)

In other news, the Rebel Mage series went wide this weekend, and is now available wherever ebooks are sold. The paperbacks have been widely available since I republished last year, but I took the ebooks out of KU when their term expired. So if you prefer to read via Apple or Nook, or shop at Smashwords or Kobo, you can now get the complete Rebel Mage series on your ereader or tablet. The series begins with Counsel of the Wicked. Rebel Mage is, I think, the darkest series I’ve ever written, and the only one that has content warnings at the front of every book. The preview should show you the content warning page, and this is a series where I must insist that you READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS. (If you can’t see the preview, you can find the content warnings on the book page of my website.)

That’s pretty much it for this week. Now to go see if I wrote myself into a corner in this hostage situation in ancient Rome…

Posted by EASchechter in 2023 plans, accountability, Content warnings, Counsel of the Wicked, forthcoming works, Rebel Mage, The Sea Prince, The White Raven, upcoming books, upcoming work, WIP, wordcount, 0 comments