Covert Saloon

Apr

2025

Brain Break!

For some reason, last week ended up being a brain break for me. There was very little writing done, and a lot of reading. I reread Heir to the Firstborn (yes, I reread my own books), and found a continuity error in one that I can’t believe I made, and that I also can’t believe NO ONE has caught! (If you do catch it, email me and identify it, and you can have your choice of any book in my catalog!) I also started The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch, which is all kinds of adorable!

I have a draft of a cover for The Sea Prince, and I’m really excited to be able to show it to you… soon. Ish. Soonish. It’s not quite ready for prime-time yet. We’re on round two of revisions, and it’s closer than it was. Close enough that I can’t confidently say YES, we have a release date! The Sea Prince will finally release on June 10th! Preorders will be live as soon as that cover is finalized.

Now that the house is back together, I need to take all of the book boxes and show stuff out of my closet and get ready for the 6th Annual Mother’s Day Bazaar in Ormond Beach on May 10th. I haven’t done this show yet, but I’ve found that shows on the beach seem to do really well for us (maybe it’s because beach reads? I don’t know.) As always, if you come find me at the show and tell me that you saw this post or any of my social media, you get a 10% discount on your total purchase.

Oddly enough, I’m at about the same point in both works in progress right now — about a third of the way into each book. Usually, when I work on more than one thing at a time, one of them will attempt to eat my brain, and I’ll be a lot further along with that one than the other. Not this time. I’m hoping to have them both done by the end of June, so that I can work on edits before I take time off over the summer. My goal is to have both Tales from the Arena manuscripts in to my publisher in the fall, and have The Coral Throne out before the holidays. Let’s see how close I get!

What’s next? Well, I’m currently doing the research for Iron and Silk, my Venetian inspired pirate princess series that’s been in my brain since 2022. I might start The Iron Virgin in the fall. Or I might start Crossroads, since the Covert Saloon series plan is still fresh in my brain. Or there’s that Metropolis retelling that I was challenged to write…

Decisions, decisions.

We’ll see which one yells loudest in September.

Now Available!

Kidnapped from his home and sold as a slave in Rome, Raven-Prince Lorcan must survive in a world where entertainment is murder, diplomacy is betrayal, and love is a commodity. And where a raven who is only supposed to ever have one mate will somehow find two…

Image of a book cover. Cover is red-orange, with an abstract design over which there is a raven in flight. Text reads Book One in the Blood of the Raven series. Raven's Fall. Wings of Blood and Desire. By Blood Betrayed. Elizabeth Schechter

Work in Progress

Tales from the Arena: King of Swords
(Tales from the Arena, book 4)

30039 / 90000 (33.38%)

The Coral Throne
(The Coral Throne, book 2)

33278 / 90000 (36.98%)

Appearances

Image of a white background with purple and yellow flowers.
Text reads 6th Annual Mother's Day Bazaar. Saturday May 10th, 2025. 10AM to 3PM at Ormond Beach Elks Lodge. 285 Wilmette Ave. Ormond Beach, FL 32174. If interested in being a vendor, email ftlosevents@gmail.com. Come find mom, grandma, your aunt, friend or yourself the perfect gift for Mother's Day. Plus, door prizes will be given throughout the event. Free to attend.

6th Annual Mother’s Day Bazaar
May 10th, 2025
Ormond Beach Elks Lodge
Ormond Beach, FL

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Enchanted Knights: Summer Solstice
June 21st, 2025
Oviedo Mall
Oviedo, FL

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3rd Annual Summer Artisan Market
June 29th, 2025
Brannon Center
New Smyrna Beach, FL

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Smut Lovers: The Conference
September 17th – 21st, 2025
Orlando, FL

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Necronomicon
September 26th – 28th, 2025
Tampa, FL

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Page and Pen Festival
October 4th, 2025
Oviedo Mall

Nov

2024

That’ll Do, Liz. That’ll Do.

Four shows in seven weeks, done. Barring any last minute direct sales through the website, I am done with 2024. That’ll do, Liz. That’ll do.

I do still have some housekeeping to get taken care of. Quarterly taxes in late December (I could do it now, but I already had to refile quarterly taxes once already this year because a direct sale slipped in last minute.) I need to repack the boxes and take inventory, but that can wait until December.

I’m not ready to blog about last week and the ~~heartbreak~~ elections. I spent most of last week in an anxiety whirl, and then went right into a show, which helped me break out of the death spiral (fake it ’til you make it is REAL, y’all. I was by necessity projecting happy and upbeat and cheerful all weekend, which gave my brain a hard reboot.) Now that I’m thinking more clearly, I need to figure out what the next step is.

I’m not stopping what I’m doing. I’m still going to write. As I wrote in my newsletter last week, I’ve got a manuscript to finish. I’ve got another book to edit. I’ve got work to do to tell stories about people who love unreservedly and with their whole hearts. I’ve got queer fantasy and science fiction to write and I WILL NOT let anyone tell me that I cannot.

Tomorrow, I ‘m going to sit down and go over consignment agreements for two new stores in my area, and decide which books I want where. I’m going to research Tiktok shops and see if I want to start one up for book sales. I need to keep working on King of Swords, which just had another wordcount bump. I also need to finish the outline for the Covert Saloon series, and decide which series I’m going to start as a serial on THEO. And I need to start uploading Written in Water to THEO, too. Oh, and get started on a slow clean of the house for Thanksgiving.

But for now, I need to rest. I’m more wiped out than I’ve been in a long time.

Things To Remember

You’re not alone.

We’re here.

We’re together.

What do we do when the hope is gone?

We make more.

Let’s make some hope.

Work in Progress

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

91626 / 150000 (61.08%)

Appearances

All done for 2024!

Oct

2024

Cleaning Up.

The storm is over, and now it’s time for cleaning up. Which, for us, wasn’t too bad. The pile of hurricane debris on the driveway is definitely smaller than it could have been. And once again, the storm gremlins played Frisbee with the lid of our compost container. I’m not sure what it is, or how they do it, but some storms just manage to unscrew the lid and fling it around the backyard.

There’s also the inside cleaning up — we have two leaks that are usually not an issue, but for a big storm, we have to prepare in advance. We go through quite a few towels. We’ll be getting those taken care of once the storm season is over, as well as getting the roof repaired.

Goals — finish this book before I have to abandon my office for potentially up to a week. Right now, it looks like the damage to the roof was minor — it just appears to be a missing shingle. But once the team gets up there, they’ll be looking for other damage. If there’s other damage, that means roof work, which means WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM directly overhead for DAYS. (When the roof was replaced in 2010, it took them a week, but it was August and like an oven on our roof, so they had to go slow.)

Finishing this book — King of Swords is short about 30K words, more or less. Assuming that the book comes in where I think it’s going to, and doesn’t meander off into the weeds for another couple of thousand words. I mean, there are scenes that I want to include, but that I’m not sure will advance the plot. However, I want to write them because they make me happy… So I’ll write them, and then cut them in post if they’re not necessary. That’s what editing is for, after all. Right?

I’m still working on plotting out the Covert Saloon series — if you missed me talking about it, it’ll be another Weird Western. The pairing that I thought was going to be book three is apparently going to be a slow burn through all three books. The book 2 pairing is now taking over book one, and a third pairing in book three with a character I didn’t plan for. Yup, I just take dictation for the voices in my head.

Time to go listen to what my characters want to do next.

Work in Progress

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

79220 / 120000 (66.02%)

Promotions

Kobo is doing a Free First in Series promotion for the entire month of October, so you can grab a copy of Hidden Things for free! (You can find it free where ever ebooks are sold — not just Kobo.)

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

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

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

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Maker Faire Orlando
November 9-10th
Orlando, Florida

Sep

2024

Prep All the Things!

Today is September 16th, and I have the first of five shows in a little under two weeks. It’s time to PREP ALL THE THINGS!

Books have been ordered (and in the cases of three titles, more books have been delivered than I ordered, because mistakes were made.) Stock boxes are packed. Prices lists have been printed. Hotel reservations have been made (actually, they were made a while ago.) Vaccines have been onboarded (yesterday.)

Still to do? Haul the boxes off show stuff from my office down to the living room. Print off packing lists. Prep for my panels (and possibly bug the person in charge of scheduling to let me know when those panels are going to be happening because it’s getting late…) And I have to do the things that have to be done before the end of the month, because I’ll be busy from the end of the month until the beginning of November, and a couple of these things are time sensitive.

And, of course, in the middle of all of this, there must be writing done. I’m just over the halfway number on King of Swords, and wondering if I need to increase my wordcount again. Honestly, at this point? I think I’m just going to put words on the page, and if it ends up being two books? It ends up being two books. I can’t imagine my publisher being annoyed at that.

I finished my editing pass on The Sea Prince the other night, and sent it over to my editor to take another look. There are still a couple of questions that need to be answered, but if things fall the way I think they will, then The Sea Prince will launch on Kindle Vella late this year or early next. That’s written in very warm Jello at the moment, though.

While I wait for edits and answers, I’m working on the outlines/synopsis/what my characters are going to laugh at this time for The Covert Saloon series. I sort of pushed that to the side to finish up The Sea Prince, and now I’m almost done with book one. I have a vague idea (nope, not gonna say it…) as to what book 2 will be like, and I know how book 3 is going to end, but not how it’s going to start. Not yet. This series may end up being more discovery writing than I usually do, but we’ll see when we get to that point.

I’m also not sure if it’ll be the next thing I work on, or if I’ll be starting The Coral Throne (the sequel to The Sea Prince.) Or maybe I’ll dive into the Iron and Silk series — that’s all plotted and ready to go, except for some of the research. Or lightning could strike and I could sell Blood Bound tomorrow, which would mean going back into the Flesh and Blood universe and my kinky vampires.

So many choices!!!!

Finish King of Swords first, Liz. Then decide.

Work in Progress

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

63263 / 120000 (52.72%)

Promotions

Shockingly, Counsel of the Wicked is still a contender for SPFBOX, which means that it is still on sale wherever ebooks are sold.

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!

I’m also 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!

Appearances

Necronomicon
September 27-29th, 2024
Tampa, Florida

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

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

***

Maker Faire Orlando
November 9-10th
Orlando, Florida

Jul

2024

The Wild Ride is Just Beginning.

Last week was something else, wasn’t it? And the wild ride is just beginning.

I’m feeling a little more hopeful about… well, everything. The political news has evened out and looks very promising, and I’ve managed to get all those vendors to admit they’ve screwed up and get the supplies I need out in the mail (in theory. They’re not here yet. But they were supposedly mailed last Thursday.)

So things are looking up. Which isn’t to say that they’re not also promising to be exciting, but they’re exciting in a positive way, which is good.

I’m a third of the way into King of Swords, and enjoying myself enough that everything else has sort of fallen to the wayside. I do need to get back into working on plotting out The Covert Saloon series and revising The Sea Prince, but King of Swords is just so shiny and fun!

I haven’t had any updates on The White Raven books yet, but I’m hoping for something in the next month or so. Morrigan’s Heir is supposed to be out this year, but I don’t know what the turnaround is with my new editor, so I don’t know if I should be looking at edits coming in sometime next month or sometime in October. I’ll check in with him if I don’t hear by mid-August, and see where we are. I’m really looking forward to seeing these two in print and having you all meet Lorcan properly.

I need to make up my mind on what I’m doing with The Sea Prince when it’s all revised and ready. Do I want to run it through Kindle Vella? Or should I shop it around? Maybe I just want to just go ahead and self-publish? Decisions, decisions. If you have opinions, let me know? Where would you want to read a sort of steampunky Master and Commander-ish novel?

Next week, there may be no blog post — we have the double whammy of a young man getting three wisdom teeth pulled AND a 50/50 shot at the first hurricane of this season to make the right turn in the Caribbean and head for Florida. If I can post, I will, but I might be busy.

Work in Progress

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

29959 / 90000 (33.29%)

Promotions

Only two days left of the Smashwords Summer Sale. You can pick up my entire catalog 25% off here and here.

Counsel of the Wicked is still a contender for SPFBOX, so it is STILL on sale, but because of the Smashwords sale, it’s even BETTER — it’s FREE (only on Smashwords)!!! But only for another two days!

Starting on August 1st and running through the entire month of August, Written in Water will be on sale via Kobo! For all of August, start the series for only $1.99. (And because I’m fond of you guys, the sale will be wherever ebooks are sold, not just Kobo.)

The Cavalcade is having a Free Book Promo for this weekend only! August 2-4 you’ll can browse and download books of all genres. The link will be coming in my socials and my newsletter on FRIDAY. If you don’t get my newsletter, you can sign up here.

Appearances

Necronomicon
September 27-29th, 2024
Tampa, Florida

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

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Wizards, Witches and the Weird
October 27th, 2024

Jul

2024

Reality is Overrated.

I think that says it all. Reality is overrated, and I’m going to hide in a fantasy world with a guaranteed happy ending for a while. It’s better for my heart.

Not saying I’m not going to do anything. Voting is something. Raising money is something. (The Romancing the Vote auction starts today, and you can win a full set of Heir to the Firstborn.) But it’s still weird and scary out there, and I’m trying to stay informed while not overloading myself to the point of rocking in the corner.

I sat down and did my review of the first half of the year, and I’m doing pretty well in this year’s goals. But I noticed that there’s something I’ve been saying I’m going to do for over a year, and I still haven’t started. I have had on my plan to do a read-a-long of Written in Water, reading a chapter a week on Tiktok. And for some reason, I keep putting off getting started on that. Not sure what’s going on my head that’s causing the mental roadblock, but it’s time I figured that out. Maybe I just need to set a date to start and let the deadline override the roadblock?

I’m trying very hard not to let the Covert Saloon overtake my entire writing world — it’s shiny and new and it wants to be a real live book RIGHT NOW. But it has to wait — right now the work in progress is King of Swords, and the progress is going very well. I still have to have the first two books open to refer back to, but that’s more because it’s been eleven years since the other books came out. The characters are still very familiar, and I’m enjoying the process of writing their story of fighting back against a fascist government…

What can I say? Your output comes from your input. And I said I’m hiding. I didn’t say I wasn’t paying attention.

Work in Progress

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

10006 / 90000 (11.12%)

Promotions

Support Democracy and get cool stuff! The Romancing the Vote auction starts today!

In and among all the other cool stuff is a COMPLETE set of Heir to the Firstborn in paperback. The bids are still low, so it’s a steal! Click the image to go right to the item in the auction.

The Smashwords Summer Sale is live! And, because of reasons too silly to go into here, I have two author pages. You can pick up my entire catalog on sale here and here.

Counsel of the Wicked is still a contender for SPFBOX, so it is STILL on sale, but because of the Smashwords sale, it’s even BETTER — it’s FREE!!!

Appearances

Necronomicon
September 27-29th, 2024
Tampa, Florida

***

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

***

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

Jun

2024

The Mondayist not Monday Around

Today is technically the middle of my week, I think. I didn’t have a weekend — I had a reading on Saturday, and a book signing at a local bookstore yesterday. So my brain doesn’t think it’s Monday, which means that I’m writing this rather late in the day because blogs only happen on Monday, and it’s not Monday, but wait, it really IS Monday! So that makes it the Mondayist not Monday around, I suppose.

It’s also the weirdest Monday I’ve had in a while. I mean, it’s not every day that someone does a U-turn so that they can flip you the bird from EVERY possible angle. (I didn’t do anything, I swear! I was waiting at a red light to make a left turn to go to the grocery store, and this person LITERALLY made a right turn to flip me off, then made a U-turn to do the same from the other side of the car! And I have no idea who they are or why their bad day is my problem!)

So, we’ve determined that I’ve had a strange Monday. This follows after a fantastic weekend, though. I had a live reading of my SPFBOX entry on Saturday evening. You can still see it here

On Sunday, I had a signing at The Writer’s Block, which is an independent bookstore in Winter Park, right near one of my favorite museums — the Morse Museum. Because I had limited time and space, I just brought the Heir to the Firstborn books with me, and I had a wonderful time! (And nearly sold out of Written in Water! I went home with one copy.)

Unless something else comes up, that’s it for my appearances for the rest of the summer. Which is good, because we have a list of “Things To Do Before College,” and I have some revisions to do in The Sea Prince. I’m also still tinkering with what will either be The Covert Saloon books or The Crossroads books — I haven’t decided on the series name yet. But I did learn something really cool — the Oklahoma Panhandle wasn’t part of the state of Oklahoma until 1890. Until then, it was just a void of space in between several states, and claimed by none of them. The Homestead Act didn’t apply, so people who lived there were living there illegally, and it wasn’t really part of the United States, even though it was completely surrounded by it. It was called either the Cimmaron Territory or No Man’s Land. It was a liminal space… and where better to set a Weird Western?

So I need to do some research in that area during 1870, so I have an idea of what I’m talking about. I also need to research the Gullah Geechee people of that time period (one of the characters who already walked out of my subconcious), the US Marshals, and how people traveled in that time and in that particular part of the country. If you think that I fell down a transportation rabbit hole again, you know me too well. (However, this time, it won’t be trains! It’ll be a stagecoach — there wasn’t a train that ran through that area until much later. However, the Santa Fe Trail runs very close to where I’m thinking the fictional town of Crossroads will lie. I just need to find out how long it would take to get from the start of the Trail to that point. That requires math, so I’m putting it off for now.)

Oh, and I need to write King of Swords. Which I should get to, since it’s after 9PM and I haven’t written a WORD today.

Work in Progress

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

6599 / 90000 (7.33%)

Promotions

Counsel of the Wicked is still a contender for SPFBOX, so it is STILL on sale! $.99 until it gets knocked out!

Appearances

Necronomicon
September 27-29th, 2024
Tampa, Florida

***

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

***

Wizards, Witches and the Weird
October 27th, 2024

Jun

2024

Back to Work!

Vacation is over. So is vacation recovery (and all the laundry is finally done and put away.) Time to get back to work!

I will admit, I did get back to work last week. I started (and finished) a revision of The Sea Prince, and now I’m handing it off to Darling Editor for his first read through. Once he’s done, I’ll read it through on paper for the first time. Given how long this project has been in the works, and how much I’ve changed as a writer between writing the opening line and writing “the end,” making sure the voice is consistent throughout is part of the editing process.

I did do some writing on the cruise — the Disney Fantasy has the best little coffee shop in the adult only area, and I sat in there one afternoon with my notebook and pen, and I got started on writing King of Swords. It’s been an age since I last played in this world, and I did reread the books before starting, but I still feel a little bit like I’m visiting a place I haven’t been in years. Which, I suppose, is true in a sense — I’m going back to Tyese and Aakar some eleven years after I first wrote those books

Something else I appear to be going back to are Weird Westerns — last week, while watching Tasting History (a YouTube series I highly recommend,) I had new characters walk out of my subconscious. the episode was on Old West saloons, and before the end of the 25 minute episode, I had a cast of characters. No plot yet, but there was a Sidhe, a dhampir, an Irish werewolf, a human medium, and a Root Doctor, who all live in the Covert Saloon in a small town called Crossroads. I’m fairly certain that it’s not related to The Chronicles of John Zebedee, but it might be. We’ll see where this one goes.

That’s about all that’s going on right now. I’m waiting to hear on edits for the White Raven books, and I have a bunch of appearances coming up — two this weekend! The first is a live reading on YouTube — I’ll be reading from my SPFBOX entry, Counsel of the Wicked. And I’ll be having an in person signing of the Heir to the Firstborn series at the Writers’ Block bookstore in Winter Park on Sunday afternoon. More information on both can be found below, or on my Appearances page.

Work in Progress

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

2688 / 90000 (2.99%)

Promotions

Counsel of the Wicked is still a contender for SPFBOX, so it is STILL on sale! $.99 until it gets knocked out!

Appearances

My upcoming appearances — I don’t have graphics for most of these yet, so right now it’s just a list.

Live Reading for SPFBOX!
June 22nd, 2024
5:40 PM

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Writer’s Block Books
June 23rd, 2024
3pm – 6pm
Winter Park, Florida

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Necronomicon
September 27-29th, 2024
Tampa, Florida

***

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

***

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

Covert Saloon

Brain Break!

Now Available!

Work in Progress

Appearances

That’ll Do, Liz. That’ll Do.

Work in Progress

Appearances

Cleaning Up.

Work in Progress

Promotions

Appearances

Prep All the Things!

Work in Progress

Promotions

Appearances

The Wild Ride is Just Beginning.

Work in Progress

Promotions

Appearances

Reality is Overrated.

Work in Progress

Promotions

Appearances

The Mondayist not Monday Around

Work in Progress

Promotions

Appearances

Back to Work!

Work in Progress

Promotions

Appearances

Works in Progress

Appearances

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