Hidden Things

May

2023

Late Post, But A Good Reason….

This is posting rather late on Monday, but there’s a very good reason for the delay…

That’s the final wordcount on The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath. That’s a draft, folks!

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

106550 / 106000 (100.52%)

So, now what? Now, this manuscript gets read over quickly, to make sure I didn’t forget any scenes that I meant to fill in later. I’ll compile it from Scrivener, and print it off… and then put it off to the side for a bit. I’ll be sitting on it until I get the edits back for Morrigan’s Heir, and then I’ll read both of them one right after the other. That way, I can be sure that the details in both agree. (and there are some edits that need to be added to Heir, because of things that changed in Wrath. And one character name that needs to be changed because the name Owyn is now retired.)

Once that’s done? I’m off for the summer! Which means… well, this house needs to be cleaned. And I have worldbuilding and research to work on. And SO MUCH READING to catch up on.

And I have a short story to write. There’s one thread in Wrath that didn’t get tied off, and one couple that’s getting their own short. But I’m in no rush.

In other news, Hidden Things is currently part of a giveaway, and you can check out the other books here. The giveaway runs until May 20th. Just in time for beach reading!

Since it’s late, that’s all there is. I’m going to bed now!

Aug

2022

Prioritize the Glass

I do a daily tarot post on Instagram. It’s a single card draw, and I just did today’s right before I opened this window to blog.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Elizabeth Schechter (@schechterelizabeth)

The phrase “prioritize the glass” is resonating with me at the moment. You see… that’s what I’m having to do.

So… there were no words written on The Sea Prince this past week. The word count remains unchanged. Instead, I’m focusing on edits, and on a proofreading project. I’ve finished the new edits on Forged in Fire, and have started Bones of Earth. I’m working on the initial edits of Children of Dreams, and I think this book is the one that’s going to change the most from what appeared in Patreon. I have edits open for Hidden Things for Book View Cafe, and I’m working on those around the proofreading project. And that’s on top of everything else that’s happening that I’m slowly getting a handle on.

So right now I’m focusing on the words that have already been put down, because I don’t have the bandwidth to put into new words. The Sea Prince will get written. Maybe not in 2022, but I’ll put it down for my January project in 2023.

Now, I was planning on releasing the new editions of Heir to the Firstborn one a week leading up to the release of Children of Dreams. However, it appears that I’d be making things much more difficult for myself than I have to — since there are no major changes to the first four books, all I have to do is update the files and the cover art. Once I get to Crossroads, which is the first with a new title, then I have to change the ISBN and create a new book. I’ll set Visions in Smoke (New title) to release the week before Children of Dreams.

Now, if you bought any of the first four books of Heir to the Firstborn in ebook from Amazon, your files will update (you’ll have to trigger the update, but you’ll get the new versions.) I do not know if any other ebook seller updates in the same way. So if you bought through Barnes and Noble or Apple, your files may not update. If they do, great! If they don’t, don’t worry. I’ve got you. If you have a file that does not update when I release the new versions, email me with a screenshot showing you own the book already, and I’ll get a new copy to you.

Now, in preparation of updating all the files, I will be taking the paperback editions down by the end of this week. Hopefully, that means that when they go back up for sale, people who order will not get the old copies. I hope.

In other news, episode 6 of John Zebedee and the Monstrous Town just went live.

This is the halfway mark for this part of The Chronicles of John Zebedee. I have to reread the Kindle Vella TOS and see what the turnaround is on putting them three parts together as a book. I think it’s 30 days after the last episode runs, but I need to be certain. So we’ll have the collected Chronicles of John Zebedee early next year, I think.

Time to get back to making sure the words on the page are the right words.

Aug

2022

Late Post.

It’s late, but it’s here.

There was no post last week because I was on vacation. I enjoyed myself immensely, and got home Saturday. The laundry is all done and put away, and I think everything is unpacked. Now we’re in the last few days before school starts, and before I get back to work.

What work? Well, if things keep going the way that they were before vacation, I might be putting The Sea Prince to the side again. Not because of lack of story, but because I may have something else I need to work on first.

Yes, that’s very vague. But I’m not saying anything more until it’s written in stone.

I have several sets of edits that need to be worked on — I need to edit Forged in Fire for re-release, and edit Children of Dreams for initial release to my Patrons. I also may have new edits on Hidden Things… because BVC wants the Swords of Charlemagne books, too! I was planning on going over Hidden Things again, because working with Mark on the audiobooks pointed out a few things that made it past me and three editors.

I’ve been wildly distracted by things over the past month, so I haven’t done much on the Imaginative Anthropology project. I will hopefully get back to that, but it’s of lower priority at the moment. The research will keep.

So, for the next week and a half, I’ll be making plans and planning things out. On the 10th… we’re off!

And for now… I’m off to BED.

Apr

2022

Mondayist Monday that ever Mondayed

Today started with the disappointing news that, because of reasons beyond anyone’s control, production on the Hidden Things audiobook has to be canceled, and the contract dissolved. It’s not anyone’s fault, and everyone is very disappointed. Back to square one, I suppose. Although I think I’m going to have a hard time picking a new narrator — Mark’s voices were just so absolutely perfect.

Mark and I are hoping that we will be able to work together again in the future. So here’s to that hope, — maybe with Heir to the Firstborn or The Sea Prince. We’ll see what happens once those two are done.

Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)

131341 / 170000 (77.26%)

****

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, book 1)

31308 / 120000 (26.09%)

I may be putting The Sea Prince to the side for the next month — school is out one month from today, and I really want to have The Way Home complete by then. Or I can use it as a carrot — if I get my words in for The Way Home, I’ll get to go make some words for The Sea Prince. We’ll see which works better.

So… for now, I’m going to keep working on The Way Home, getting that finished so that edits can start and we can get the series wrapped up for a November release. I’ll revisit the Hidden Things audio in the fall, once there’s some distance and I’m not hearing the voices that we set up already. I was planning on working on some non-fiction for the summer anyway, so I may just take a total fiction break and pick up The Sea Prince in the fall, too. I think I might need a break. We’ll see.

Apr

2022

New Server, Who DNS?

Remember how I said I was moving the website? It’s officially moved! My website is now hosted by Greekgeeks, and I’m already loving the change.

They said the migration could take up to 48 hours. It was done in under 12.

They said that the DNS change would take a couple of hours. FIVE MINUTES.

SSL certificate? Push a button and POOF!

Makes my geeky heart happy. If you’re at all interested in checking them out, click here. (affiliate link)

I’m in the middle of the 5 Day Author Ad Profit Challenge (taught by Bryan Cohen), so there haven’t been as many words as there might usually have been during a week. And I’m seeing that Sea Prince is going to need quite a lot of tweaking to bring the older chapters up to date and in line with where my writing is now, as well as making sure the characters voices are consistent. But I can do THAT once I have a draft. Right now, the words are flowing, and I’m not stopping! Write first, edit later!

Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)

126161 / 170000 (74.21%)

****

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, book 1)

28452 / 120000 (23.71%)

I keep forgetting to put this out there. If you’re interested in reading my work before the general public, I have an ARC page on Booksprout. In exchange for your review of the book, you can get advance copies of any of my upcoming work! Right now, I have Haven’s Fall and Where Home Lies available, and as soon as I have a copy of The Way Home available, that will go up there as well.

Likewise, if you’re interested in any of my books, but can’t afford them? Drop me a note. I know that not all of my books can be gotten through the public library, so I’m happy to send review copies out. It helps me, and it protects my readers from pirate sites that are loaded with malware.

In audiobook news, there have been some delays with recording (mostly covid related). If all goes well, recording will start this Thursday, and may be done shortly thereafter. I’ve been invited to (virtually) hang out in the booth and listen in, because Mark (my narrator) and James (his engineer) want my real-time input on voice characterizations. I’m very excited about being involved in the project, which I know is unusual (and honestly, if I’d been able to be this involved in the recording of House of Sable Locks, the chapter Gunner’s Daughter would have had a VERY DIFFERENT SOUND!!!!)

Not much else to add. I’m working on business planning, and collecting resources to do research on the non-fiction project over the summer. Working on finishing The Way Home before the end of May, which is a big push because I’m thinking I have maybe ten chapters left? That’s 30K words, roughly. Which means… go write all the words, Liz!

Catch you next week!

Apr

2022

Time is Fun When You’re Having Flies

Hard to believe it’s April already. Coming up on the end of a school year already. Which means I have just about a month and a half to finish The Way Home.

Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)

120211 / 170000 (70.71%)

****

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, book 1)

25154 / 120000 (20.96%)

I think I can do it. And… in case it’s not COMPLETELY obvious by having it right up there, I have indeed decided to try and get The Sea Prince moving again, and start serializing it once Heir to the Firstborn is complete. I figured out what the problem was — I’d somehow managed to center the plot on the one romance plot device that I hate more than any other. You know the one — if they actually TALKED to each other, this would be a short story?

I deplore that plot device, to the point that I clearly can’t write it! So I’ve reworked the plot, and now I think this works even better. I’ve rewritten the first six chapters, and am about to start on the seventh, which is the last full chapter that was written before I shelved this the last time. So let’s see if I can get this onto chapter eight.

The question now is… do I serialize on Patreon, the way I have been, take it over to Vella and give that a go, or do both? Vella allows for content to be serialized so long as it is not publicly available anywhere else or previously published. Since my Patreon isn’t public, I should be able to do both Patreon and Vella. Decisions, decisions….

I also have another project in mind, one that’s going to require research. And it’s not a novel — I have an idea for a book on worldbuilding, using the framework of cultural anthropology. Planned title — Imaginative Anthropology. (There might be a subtitle, but I haven’t thought of it yet.) I’ve often described myself as a frustrated cultural anthropologist (Darn you, college advisor, for not letting me have a triple major English/Secondary Education/Cultural Anthropology!) I just hadn’t realized that I was using the classes I took in college as tools for my worldbuilding. At least, not until I spoke to 150 high school students about being a speculative writer, and the importance of worldbuilding that makes sense. I put the words “Imaginative Anthropologist” on the presentation slide, and somewhere around the fourth or fifth time of giving the presentation (over 6 periods of the day), I realized that I might be on to something. So I’ll be developing that out as my summer planning project, and working on it once I finish up with the business planning I’m doing this year.

Busy, busy, busy, right?

This month has another book giveaway with 34 books free for the download, and a chance to win a gift card. Check it out by clicking the graphic.

In other news, I sat down via with Mark Oosterveen, the narrator for Hidden Things, and recording on the audiobook will be starting quite possibly this week! He’s nailing down the final schedule and will let me know because I will be (virtually) in the recording studio with them! Mark wants to have real time feedback on voices and tone during the recording, and I’m very excited to be included in the process. More updates as I have them!

And that, I think, is all the news this week!

Mar

2022

This Post is Late.

But it’s here, which counts, I suppose.

I spent most of last week at ICFA (the International Conference for the Fantastic in The Arts), which was wonderful! Take an academic conference, and smash it together with a science fiction convention. Papers presented on animation and video games and fairy tales and movies and just about any other media in which you find science fiction and fantasy. Bring in some luminaries and legends, and finish it all off with a formal award banquet.

Which I suppose is a way of saying that I have not written a WORD since last Tuesday, and I haven’t touched The Way Home since last Monday!

Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)

110386 / 170000 (64.93%)

I finished up the synopsis for Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand on Tuesday, so I’ll dive into that at some point. But for now, I have The Way Home to work on, and the other, smaller project that I have going.

I forget if I mentioned that? I could go back and look at last week’s post, I suppose, but I’ll just say it again. I’ve got a series of BDSM short works planned, under the name E.A Butcher. Why the pen-name? Because there’s nothing paranormal about these, and they’re written in second person point of view. The premise is a pair of lovers, who take turns being the one in command. He calls her Pet, and she calls him Poppet. I’m about half done with the first one, and we’ll go from there and see how they go.

On the downside, the Kickstarter failed to fund. Not a shock, really — it had started going backwards, and the early traction never really picked up again. So I’ve learned a thing or two about Kickstarters, and I know for next time. What does it mean for the audiobooks? That they’ll be coming out more slowly than I’d originally planned. That’s all. We’ll still have all four, and I will try my hardest to make sure that Mark is the one reading all of them. Production is still underway, and we’re still working on getting the voices right.

There isn’t much else to talk about right now. I’m still trying to wake up and catch up from a long few days away, and tomorrow is am early morning because school is back from spring break. Which means there’s two months left to school, so I really need to get to work on finishing The Way Home before school gets out!

One last reminder — I’ve got a freebie out in the Worlds of Fantasy giveaway. Written in Water is free, just for signing up for my newsletter. There are over thirty other book in the giveaway, too, as well as the chance to win a $20 gift card! Click the graphic to check it out.

Feb

2022

Who Let It Be Monday Again?

I’m seriously not ready for Monday, y’all. It’s taken me until past 2:00 PM to even come up with that much.

Focus? There’s no focus today. There is only coffee. Well, there was coffee. I finished the coffee. Now there is only tea. (Chocolate Mint “Like-the-Cookie” Oolong, from Plum Deluxe.)

And… well, I’ve bee thinking about writing. But not actually doing it. I have to get these words down before I get those words down. Right?

So here are these words about those words. Those words from last week — of which I had a fantastic word week. Sitting in the car dealership for two hours appears to be my word place — there were twelve pages handwritten in my notebook. Which was fun when it came time to transcribe because my handwriting is… creative. There was a bit of “What the heck does that say?” But it came out to just over two thousand words written in just about two hours.

Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)

101619 / 150000 (67.75%)

Too bad I only have to take the car in for regular service twice a year. Imagine how fast I’d finish a book if I had to bring it in more often!

I have heard the first sample of the Hidden Things audiobook and I am so excited over this! There were a few little tweaks that needed to be made (Roland sounded too young, for example), so Mark is making adjustments. Once I get the redone sample, I’ll see if I can share it. Reminder –the Kickstarter is still ongoing, and needs to really get up and go if it hopes to fund! So if you’d like to get all four audiobooks read by the incredibly talented Mark Oosterveen, then share and maybe throw something into the hat!

Next week, I’ll be appearing on the These Mums Write podcast, a podcast about supporting mothers in achieving their writing dreams and goals. My interview with show host Jackie Amsden I talk about the Kickstarter, share my experience pushing through fear and breaking boundaries as a sex-positive story-teller and as an introvert navigating the extrovert world of author marketing.

You can find this show on Apple or Spotify.

Today is also the last day to grab books at the Red Hot book giveaway. The last day to grab Hidden Things for free by signing up for my newsletter. The newsletter comes out once a month, on the first Friday.

I feel like there’s something else I’m missing, but I honestly can’t think of it. One of those Mondays, right?

More tea!

Feb

2022

Toss A Coin To Your Writer…

And on this gray and rainy Monday, I’m having a slow start. Sort of like my Kickstarter…

You did know about the Kickstarter, right? To fund all four audiobooks for Swords of Charlemagne, so that we can have the same narrator for all the books?

The Kickstarter has a little over a month left to go, and hasn’t broken 10%. Not going to lie, I’m starting to worry here…

If we don’t make it, there will still be an audiobook for Hidden Things — I’ve already contracted that, and Mark (the narrator) is working on it now. But I’ll be paying him out of pocket for that, which means that I won’t be able to get The Lady and the Sword into production until later this year, which means gambling on Mark’s availability.

So… if having an audiobook series change narrators halfway through annoys you as much as it annoys me? Share the Kickstarter, and maybe throw something into the hat. And if nothing else, go read the updates — I’ve been posting about the visual inspirations for the main characters. So far, I’ve done Turpin/Yael, Roland and Olivier. Margaret is next.

Which I’m on the subject of Swords of Charlemagne, voting is open for the Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewer’s Choice Awards. The Lady and the Sword is up for best LGBT Fantasy, and Swords of Charlemagne is up for best LGBT Fantasy Series. Voting is open until February 12th.

I’m now twenty-seven chapters into Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home. I think I’ll be pulling this one off as the last book. We’re about to hit a point where I can move them along more quickly, so I think we’re almost to the top of the big hill on the plot roller coaster. I’m debating adding a scene not in the outline (because that never happens. Ever.) I’ll see if it actually fits when I get to that spot.

Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)

91442 / 150000 (60.96%)

Preorders are up for the re-released of the Rebel Mage series, and the first two books have been finalized. I’m going to get started on the reread and revision of Where Home Lies today. I’ve already made a note of something that came up in one of the earlier books that I never addressed or resolved, and I’ve caught a few places where people leave the same room twice, or say they’re going to go get something, never leave, and then magically have the thing they never went to go get.

It’s interesting, going back and rereading something that I wrote with an eye on republishing it. There are some things that I did then that I wouldn’t do now, or would do differently now. If changing them wouldn’t break the story, I made changes. But for the most part, there’s very little that I’m changing other than editorial goofs that were missed the first time around.

And finally — FREE BOOKS!

Yes, really. The Red Hot book giveaway is ongoing for this entire month. Nineteen books either free to download entirely, or as a sample. Go check it out!

And that’s where things are in this neck of the woods. Plugging along until next week!

Jan

2022

That was Quick

Tomorrow is February.

How did THAT happen?

Part of it was that last week was a blur — I was sick for a few days of it, and then it was over. It wasn’t anything major, and I’m fine. But time and words both ceased to exist.

Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)

87541 / 150000 (58.36%)

Not quite as many words as I’d have liked, but there was some forward movement. That’s a plus.

Tomorrow, the Swords of Charlemagne box set drops. There’s still time to preorder.

Also tomorrow, the Red Hot giveaway begins — you can sign up for my newsletter, and get a copy of Hidden Things absolutely free! The promotion runs the entire month of February.

And on Wednesday, voting begins for the Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewers Choice Awards. I’m nominated in two categories. The Lady and the Sword is nominated for Best LGBT Fantasy Romance, and Swords of Charlemagne is nominated for Best LGBT Fantasy Romance Series.

The Kickstarter is ongoing, and is slowly moving in the upwards direction. The project is 5% funded, with 47 days left, and has been picked up as a Project We Love by Kickstarter itself. I’m updating regularly over there, with things specific to the books, and that I have never shared anywhere else. So check it out, and maybe throw something in the hat!

And finally, preorders are now open for the Counsel of the Wicked re-release, which happens on March 8th. The ebook will be available as part of Kindle Unlimited, which means it will NOT be for sale anywhere but Amazon. The paperback, however, will be available everywhere.

And I think that’s all the news I’ve got this week! Busy, busy, busy!

Hidden Things

Late Post, But A Good Reason….

Prioritize the Glass

Late Post.

Mondayist Monday that ever Mondayed

New Server, Who DNS?

Time is Fun When You’re Having Flies

This Post is Late.

Who Let It Be Monday Again?

Toss A Coin To Your Writer…

That was Quick

Works in Progress

Appearances

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