Frog and Fae

Apr

2024

What Am I Forgetting?

I know I’m forgetting something. What is it? What am I forgetting….?

Oh.

So now you know why today’s blog is so late. I plain forgot it was Monday. To be fair, I’m a little distracted. Edits for Morrigan’s Heir came in on Friday, and I’ve been going through them. The initial edits are minor — mostly house style changes and a couple of corrections. The actual work I’ve been doing has been making the the small changes I need to make with things that came up during the writing of Morrigan’s Wrath. That’s going nicely.

Right now, the plan is to make all the changes and updates. Then I’m going to go back through Heir from the start and transition right into a first read-through for Wrath. Why first? Because when I finished writing Wrath, I printed it out and put it aside to wait. I haven’t reread it since I finished it, which means that any edits that need to be made will jump off the page. I hope. Once I reread it, then I’ll update Wrath for any changes I need to make. Then I will send both manuscripts in to my editor so that he can read them both back-to-back.

And once those manuscripts are sent, and after the Indie Book Bazaar at Spellbound Books on April 27th, I’m off until mid-June. Except I might still keep working on the worldbuilding for “Frog and Fae are Friends,” at least until I know what the title REALLY is. But starting at the end of April, it will be all prep for graduation and vacation — cleaning and getting things in order for house guests, then packing and getting everything in order for a long-postponed vacation.

It’s been a while since I took an extended time off. I’m not sure I know how to do it anymore. I’ll report back in mid-June as to how I did.

Appearances

Join me on April 27th at Spellbound Books for Independent Bookstore Day! I’ll be part of the Indie Book Bazaar from 2 – 3:45PM, but Independent Bookstore Day is a full day event. If you’re not in the area, check out your local independent bookstore to see what they’ve got planned!

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Mar

2024

Monday, Monday…

Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day…

I have to admit that I like Mondays best when they’re not quite so… Mondayish. And today Monday is being an overachiever. Nothing I can share, mind, but beating my head against the wall would be a welcome respite, if only because I could STOP.

Needless to say, today has been a heck of a long week, and most of that was before noon. Some of it was even before coffee. It will hopefully all be resolved before dinner.

Hopefully.

Edits are coming in this week — I confirmed that. So I’ll be starting work on Morrigan’s Heir soon, and then doing a readthrough and editing pass on Morrigan’s Wrath. Deadline for me is having both back to my editor by the end of April (my target is to have everything done by April 27th — the day of the Indie Book Bazaar at Spellbound Books.) And I should hopefully have a rough synopsis for “Frog and Fae are Friends” done sometime this week, too, and then i can give a bit more thought to the worldbuilding. I’m still not sure if this will be a serial or a novel or a series of shorts. We’ll see what happens when I sit down to actually write it. Which, I have to say, not sitting down and starting either this or Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand is hard! Both of them want to be started right now!

The schedule for the rest of this week is packed solid, but it will end on a high note — someone has Senior Prom this weekend. The beginning of the fun part of Senior Year is starting.

I’d better lay in tissues…

Giveaways!

This is the last week where 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"

Mar

2024

Getting Ready to GO!

Here it is, not quite ICFA Eve, and I am getting ready to go. Prep is starting slowly — I’ve gotten some things together to go, but the real packing happens tomorrow. As does the food prep — I usually bring breakfasts, so I don’t have to fuss with finding safe food. I’ll lay out the clothes I’m going to wear so I know which suitcase I’ll need. I’ll make sure the scooter batteries are charged…

Wait, what? What scooter?

This one:

(Yes, my living room was a mess when I took this picture. It isn’t anymore.)

That is Stitch, and he has considerably more character now (stickers. He has stickers). I’ve had a mobility scooter since last October. I had hoped to not need him this weekend, but I’m having a bad arthritis week, so I’d rather bring him just in case, and save my spell slots for actually being at the conference rather than being in pain.

Newsflash — Arthritis sucks.

What doesn’t suck is that in two days, I’ll be at ICFA, and I’ll be back behind the registration table (when I’m not attending panels or hosting them, or reading!) I really do enjoy this conference, although it is weird in a way. I tend to go by myself — no husband and no son. I’m off doing adulty things all alone, and that usually never happens!

Well… as adulty as things get when you put a bunch of geeky academics and creatives together in a hotel, anyway.

As part of my “getting ready for ICFA” prep, I’ve finished the synopsis for The Coral Throne, and yes, this will be a duology. It also may not turn out the way I think it will, but that’s normal for my synopses — once I get writing, the characters that the lead. I’m still working on the planning for “Frog and Fae are Friends,” and I’m pretty sure that they’re going to be MUCH more than friends by the end of the first part. I just haven’t decided yet if this is going to be a series of interconnected short stories, or if it’s going to be a novel. We’ll see how the planning turns out once I actually get to it. This also means that it’s not going on Patreon, because I don’t want Patreon to faint and kick me off the platform. I’m not sure where it WILL go yet, but again, we’ll see.

I also pulled out the synopsis for Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand, and got the Scrivener file set up, including entering the opening scene that I hand wrote months ago. That’s now ready to go, and I have to convince myself to wait to start it until June. (Who wants to open book on if I can do it?)

Edits should be in shortly after ICFA, so Morrigan’s Heir is one step closer to being released to the world, and once I finish the edits on Heir, then I’ll reread Morrigan’s Wrath for the first time since I printed off the manuscript. My aim is to have both manuscripts off to my editor by the end of April, just in time to go offline for graduation prep.

That’s the plan. Let’s see if the universe laughs.

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.)

Mar

2024

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!

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"

Feb

2024

Could It Be… The End?

In my files, my oldest notes on The Sea Prince date from July of 2009. I think that’s accurate to within a month or so, because I distinctly remember getting this idea in the car on the way to Ikea, and going off to sit with a cup of coffee in the restaurant to write down the initial thoughts and characters ideas before going shopping.

I am fairly certain that I will be completing this manuscript sometime this week. There is the current battle scene to finish, then two scenes after that. This may very well be on the last chapter…

Could this be… The End?

Truth be told, there are a couple of other ideas and manuscripts in my files that are older than The Sea Prince, but they’re all in a folder entitled “X — Unlikely to Develop.” (Surprisingly, the novel I wrote in high school is in there. You know how they say you have to write a million words of crap before you get good at it? Those were the first of them. It was…not good. And I’m not even sure I can still open the file.)

Once I finish The Sea Prince? I’m putting it aside until either edits are done on Morrigan’s Heir and I’ve cleaned up and submitted Morrigan’s Wrath, or until June, whichever comes first. I’ll be working on the synopsis for The Coral Throne (book 2 of this series), and I’ll be working on the worldbuilding from Frog and Fae. I’ve started it, and it’s looking like it will be a fun thing to write. Between all of those, that should take me to May, which I am taking off for graduation reasons. The Sea Prince will be there in June, and that’s when I’ll read through it again and decide what direction I want to go — put it out on sub, self-publish immediately, or put it on Vella and self-pub it next year.

And in the meantime, I’m still trying to convince myself that yes, after however many false starts and restarts and rewrites and revisions, that this could finally be the end of The Sea Prince.

Works in Progress

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, Book 1)

96813 / 105000 (92.20%)

Feb

2024

It’s Blursday

I had my eyes dilated at 8:15 this morning. It is now 1:41 PM and I still can’t see clearly out of my left eye. The light sensitivity is better, but I had to turn down the brightness on both of my monitors. And I couldn’t see to drive a certain young man to class, but attendance isn’t mandatory so rather than pull Darling Husband out of meetings, we all just stayed in because it’s Blursday.

With everything going on last week, it wasn’t as much of a word week as I’ve had. I still made my target of 500 words a day for six days (words on Sunday are bonus words), so it wasn’t a bad week. It just wasn’t as prolific as the previous weeks have been. But that’s okay.

The synopsis for The Coral Throne is coming slowly. Which, it can come slowly — I’m not in a rush to get to it, and I want to make sure I get things figured out before I get to the scene where X has to attack Y and how does that work exactly? (You’ll find out. I promise. But I have to work out the details.)

There’s also this other project of mine, which currently has the placeholder title of “Frog and Fae are Friends.” I put the excerpt that popped into my head and wouldn’t get out into my newsletter a few weeks ago, and it’s been percolating in the back of my brain since. I think this might be the next Patreon project if the sex stays behind closed doors, and I’m trying to worldbuild without pushing the existing Coral Throne worldbuilding out of my head. If you missed the excerpt in the newsletter, I’ll pop a short sample of it down below. It may turn into a fantasy Sherlock Holmes kind of thing, which would be new for me, but that seems to be the direction it’s leaning. We shall see.

Still waiting on edits for Morrigan’s Heir, but if my editor’s week last week was anything like mine? I get it. I TOTALLY get it. And considering that I’m maybe a chapter and a half from finishing The Sea Prince? I can wait — a delay lets me get this manuscript finished before diving into edits, and gives me the space to let The Sea Prince get out of my head before I go back to reread it for revision. It’s all good.

So, tell me what you think of the excerpt.

Works in Progress

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, Book 1)

92468 / 120000 (77.06%)

Placeholder title “Frog and Fae are Friends.” — Excerpt

Desperate times call for truly fucked up measures.

I know better than to mess with mages, let alone steal from them. I know. But I was at the very end of my non-existent rope. It had been a long, hard winter already, and there were still three moons before even an hope of a thaw. The benevolent shelters for the needy were full to bursting, and even I’d had the coin, the cheap inns were full as well. There was not a bed or a slice of floor to be had anywhere in the slums of Alatrea. Not for the likes of me.

What there was, though, was a mage, who’d taken residence in a posh, new, townhouse right before the first snow. He hadn’t been settled long enough to claim the place as his home-ground – that took at least six moons for the strongest mage, and a year or more for the average spell-slinger. That mean that the usual protection spells weren’t going to be foolproof yet.

I just wasn’t usually that much of a fool.

Frog and Fae

What Am I Forgetting?

Appearances

Monday, Monday…

Giveaways!

Getting Ready to GO!

Giveaways!

At Loose Ends

Works in Progress

Giveaways!

Sales!

Could It Be… The End?

Works in Progress

It’s Blursday

Works in Progress

Placeholder title “Frog and Fae are Friends.” — Excerpt

Works in Progress

Appearances

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