This past weekend, I did something that I haven’t done in a while. I sat down and reread one of my older works. Not because I was researching anything, or checking details for a sequel. Just… read it.
It’s a daunting thing to go back and read the second book you ever wrote, and realize that it’s possibly the best work you’ve ever done. That you’ve written twenty-four books since that one, and that none of them have reached the benchmark that led one outlet to call House of Sable Locks a modern erotic classic. (that outlet no longer exists — it was Cliterati, for the curious.)
Now, that’s not saying that the rest of my work is crap. It definitely isn’t! (House of Sable Locks isn’t my only award winner, after all.) But I think that they all are a step below that level. Well, maybe Hidden Things is closest. Or Written in Water. Or maybe not — House of Sable Locks was something truly special.
And it was my second book. That’s really kind of mind-blowing. You’re not supposed to front-load your writing career!
While I’m pondering this, I’m also working on book 26:
Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)
105627 / 150000 (70.42%)
(If anyone just happens to be looking at my Goodreads or Amazon book list and thinking — hey, there aren’t 25 books here? The Rebel Mage books are being reissued this year — see below. I have one under contract with Circlet/Riverdale, three in the Circlet/Riverdale queue, and three set up for another project.)
Counsel of the Wicked drops tomorrow, and I’m really looking forward to having these books back out in the world. Yes, the Rebel Mage books are dark. No, I’m never going that dark again. But I did it once, and I did it well.
And the Kickstarter is… well… going backwards. I have to say, it’s very disheartening. I’m trying to put my mind to how to turn this around and go forwards again, and not coming up with much. But there’s still time. And hopefully, my appearance today on the These Mums Write podcast will help!
Not much else to report in. Time for me to go back to trying to exceed my early brilliance and write a new modern erotic classic.
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.
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!
It’s been a WEEK, y’all. Three new things to discuss today, and only one of them is on the usual radar.
New Words!
Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 6)
81461 / 150000 (54.31%)
Of course there are new words. I’ve been working away at Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home. If you follow me on Facebook, you may have caught a glimpse of some of those new words — there was one phrase in particular that struck me as amusing enough to share:
“You might as well spit on a fish for all the good it will do.”
Patreon readers haven’t yet met the character who says this, so that’s all you’re going to get.
There’s also been some more planning on Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand. I will hopefully get to that book late this year, but there are some other things that have to come first. Like finishing the revisions and re-release on the Rebel Mage books, for example. And prepping for the next thing on my list….
New Audiobooks!
Friday evening, I got the approval from ACX to start accepting auditions for the Hidden Things audiobook. I immediately sent the audition page to a narrator whom I’d picked out months ago… AND HE SAID YES!!! So Hidden Things will be narrated by Mark Oosterveen. I’ve already told him I’m interested in having him read all four books.
Putting together an audiobook is not cheap, even under royalty share. So I’m starting a Kickstarter to fund all four books. The Kickstarter will go LIVE on Wednesday, and we’ll have 60 days to raise $5000. You can click the link to follow on Kickstarter, which will notify you when the page goes live for bids.
New Awards!
I got an email out of the blue last week telling me that Hidden Things has been nominated for the Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewers Choice Award for Best of 2021 (I’m not sure what category), and that Swords of Charlemagne has been nominated for Best Series. I have no other information on that but OMG!!! More to come when I know more.
New Shop!
Conventions are starting to say, “Um…. maybe meeting in person isn’t a good idea” again. So, because I probably won’t have that many opportunities to get out and meet people and sell signed books this year, I’ve gone ahead and made a virtual dealer’s table! You can buy print books and I’ll ship them directly to you, personalized however you like. You can also buy the limited edition Swords of Charlemagne thumbdrive, which is a 2GB thumbdrive that contains all four books in mobi, epub and pdf formats.
And that is, I think, everything that happened this past week.
I’m taking a week or two to rest my brain before launching into Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home. I actually haven’t even started on the edits for Crossroads yet — I figured I’d work on them at the table at Necronomicon, and shoot to have them done by mid-October. Which means that the on sale date for Crossroads will probably be December. Once I have that set, I’ll announce it.
I realized just now that I’ve been sitting on the cover for Crossroads, too.
Choices must be made. But choices have consequences.
Part of my brain break has been laying the groundwork for what I’ll be doing after I finish The Way Home (or while I’m working on it, depending on things.) I’ve written a synopsis for Blood Brothers (Flesh and Blood book 2), The Iron Virgin (that Pirate and Princess thing), and I’m working on the synopsis for Tower of Light (the gay steampunk retelling of Metropolis that I was challenged to write years ago by one of the best editors I ever had). I’m hoping to get the rest of the Flesh and Blood synopses done before Necro, but Tower of Light is going slowly — I’m having to be very conscious of matching the beats of Metropolis. So I may save Tower of Light to actually write until I have nothing else going on.
Stop laughing.
I’m also still working on RWA things. Pen to Paper is running, and my team is working on incorporating our development tester feedback into upcoming units. I’m tech support on call for our participants, and having a great time with that. I’m also working on another couple of projects that are still in the warm Jell-O stages, and won’t be solidified until after our first Board meeting, which will be… soon? Ish? I don’t have a date for that yet. So there is a lot in flux in that area.
Coming up on the end of third quarter also means starting to look at what I’ll be doing and publishing in 2022. Right now, I know for certain that I’ll be wrapping up Heir to the Firstborn, releasing a box set of the Swords of Charlemagne books (February 1st, 2022!), and I will be rereleasing the Rebel Mage books — I have all new covers for them. I haven’t set up a schedule yet for most things yet, but I will next quarter. I need to decide if I will be doing a box set for the Heir to the Firstborn books, but I’m not going to decide on that until I finish The Way Home. If I do put one out, it will be late 2022. That’s the publishing that I have control over. I’m waiting to hear what’s happening with John Zebedee (it appears that the project may have been pushed back, but no official word yet), and with the myriad of things over with Riverdale Avenue Books.
February 1st today. Time flies when you’re… well, are we having fun yet?
Time does fly when you’re busy. Last week was the book launch for Hidden Things. For the moment, it is only available on Kindle. It will, however, go wide on April 27 — that means that it will be available at all ebook sellers on that date. So if you’re Apple only, the book will be available on that date. There will be no preorder for through those other venues.
Things are looking good for the release of Wings of Air (Heir to the Firstborn 4) and The Lady and The Sword (Swords of Charlemagne, 2). The preorder for Wings of Air is up on Amazon,Eden Books,Smashwords, and everywhere else. The preorder for The Lady and the Sword will be going up later this week, with a cover reveal in the February newsletter, coming out this Friday. (Not subscribed to the newsletter? You can fix that!)
Work on Heir to the Firstborn is going well, if slowly. This is definitely looking like an end of the year release — this one will probably be the November release, with Table of Stone (Swords of Charlemagne 4) in September. But I may be wrong — depends on how long Heir runs, and how long it takes to edit.
Heir to the Firstborn
(Heir to the Firstborn, Book 5)
16878 / 150000 (11.25%)
And that super Spiffy project I’ve been working on? It’s still super spiffy, and I still can’t tell you what it is. Marketing was supposed to start today, but we want to deliver the best, the most spiffy project ever in the history of spiffy projects, so the launch date has been pushed back. You’ll have to live in antici…. pation, at least for a little while longer.
I’m going to leave you with this, the first review of Hidden Things, courtesy of the Paranormal Romance Guild.
Hidden Things begins during the time of Charlemagne in his early years as Charles, King of the Franks, and follows events in the life of Turpin, the main character. The story has some very interesting paranormal twists to events that occur during Charlemagne’s reign. Like so many other wonderful fantasy novels, a sword is a key element to the story, but this time the reader gets to follow the path of more than one sword in more than one timeline. One aspect of this book that I really enjoyed was the manner in which the author incorporated two distinct timelines without creating any confusion or giving the reader a chance to get bored with one of the timelines.
This book has the elements of an epic fantasy tale full of adventure and romance. A few underlying lessons can also be found hidden in the pages. The variety of the characters and the settings offer interesting perspectives on subjects such as culture, religion, gender roles, sexuality, family, and history.
The setting for this story was elegantly crafted. I had just enough details about the culture and time period to paint a clear picture, but not so much that I was overwhelmed by details. The settings are compelling enough to inspire an interest in the recorded history of Charlemagne. Did he have an archbishop named Turpin traveling with his army? The characters and their relationships with one another are equally compelling. I really want to get to know Roland and Turpin better, and Margret’s strength is a pleasant surprise.
This book had so many of the elements I find in my favorite books, engaging characters , fantastic settings, a fascinating plot, and an end that leaves the reader hoping for more… soon… like tomorrow…
And here I thought that I’d be able to start baking soon. Umm… not this week! This is a busy week for me!
Today starts the Erotic Romance contest over on Booksweeps. 30 books (including Chains of Light!) and the grand prize winner gets a brand-new ebook reader. No, I’m not sure which one. But hey, naughty books for the holidays! SOOO much better than coal! You can enter here.
Now, I did not realize when I agreed to record a Two Minute tip that it would take me most of a day to get a clean copy. Or that two minutes is REALLY SHORT. (The clean copy I finally recorded ended up being nearly 8 minutes long. I’ll be redoing that, and breaking it into two shorter videos.)
I have two writing group meetings this week (oddly enough, not through Zoom), and a social gathering (Zoom). I have a training to take (also Zoom!), and the winter RWA Board meeting is on Sunday the 13th (and if you’re a member, you can attend by registering here.)
I’m working on edits this week (initial edits on Wings of Air, and incorporating edits into John Zebedee and the Monstrous Town.) And I’m working on John Zebedee Meets the Witch Queen of Elfland. I’m slightly more than halfway through that, and the words are flowing nicely. But… I might be still writing when Cookiepocalypse starts.
I’m still working on having a draft by the Solstice, though.
Preorders are going well for Hidden Things, and I really can’t wait for it to launch. One of my long-time readers (hi, Ian!) commented on an ad about how happy he was to see this finally coming to print. Me, too!
I’m going to a very ambitious 2021. I have six releases planned — one every two months.
Hidden Things (Swords of Charlemagne 1) – January. Wings of Air(Heir to the Firstborn 4) – March The Lady and the Sword (Swords of Charlemagne 2) – May Ashes and Light (Swords of Charlemagne 3) – July Heir to the Firstborn (Heir to the Firstborn 5) – September Table of Stone(Swords of Charlemagne 4) – November.
The last two might switch, because Heir to the Firstborn is the only book of those six that hasn’t actually been written yet. (Before anyone asks, the John Zebedee series is slated for a 2022 box set. 2022 might also see the return of the Rebel Mage books.)
Don’t expect anything this ambitious in the future, now. This is me being EXTREMELY bullish.
So that’s the state of the Liz this week. Busy!!!!
(I had written a brilliant post. Absolutely brilliant… and lost it when I accidentally closed the browser. Ummm… genius is fleeting?
Wings of Air
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 4
107521 / 150000 (71.68%)
***
John Zebedee Meets the Witch Queen of Elfland
724 / 30000 (2.41%)
It’s November, which means that Nanowrimo has started, and everyone is going to write a novel this month. Or at least, everyone is going to write 50K words. That’s most of a novel. Or, if we’re looking at the Heir to the Firstborn books, about half of one. If we’re looking at John Zebedee? That’s a book and a half.
I started John Zebedee Meets the Witch Queen of Elfland for my Nano project, and I think I can finish it in the month. And, since it’s novella length, I’ll be doing it while finishing up Wings of Air.
And then what? What am I going to do after I finally put John Zebedee to bed and get him out of my hair? Well, I have one more Heir to the Firstborn book to finish up after Wings of Air. And I have edits. Lots and lots of edits. I’m releasing the Swords of Charlemagne books in 2021, and while Hidden Things is ready to go… the other three books are not. I have my notes from the editor who worked on them, and I’ll be working on those once John Zebedee is finished.
There’s a cover reveal for Hidden Things this Friday in my newsletter. If you don’t read the newsletter, you won’t get that cover until next week. You’ll also miss this month’s recipe for one of my favorite Thanksgiving sides.
I’m trying hard not to think about tomorrow. Tomorrow scares me in ways that I think I have never been scared before. And I keep trying not to think of the scene from Attack of the Clones:
I have hope, though. That’s about all we can have at this point. I mean, I voted two weeks ago. I did my part. But like any group project, our final grade is now dependent on if everyone else did THEIR parts.
So… hopeful but nervous.
However… I do a daily Tarot card drawing during the week, which I post on Twitter. I started almost a year ago, and the cards have not been wrong. Ever. They’ve been scary accurate in places (like the day they didn’t want to talk to me, so I just pulled any card. It was Justice, and that was the day that RBG died.)
This was today’s card:
Today's card
I like this one. I like this one A LOT.
Today's card is Death.
Significant change for the better. A positive, transformative cleansing.
Coming up on the end of the year, and just over halfway done with Bones of Earth. I don’t expect to get a whole heck of a lot done between now and January 6th, when school starts back up. But once school starts, this will be my primary focus — I need to finish Bones of Earth and get started on Wings of Air, so I can get them both finished and released in 2020.
I have other 2020 plans — writing John Zebedee and the Elf-King’s Son, for one. That’s due in by December, and it’s supposed to be short — only about 30K (hey, 30K for me is short!) I’d like to have that done well in advance of December, but it is definitely secondary to finishing Heir to the Firstborn.
Also on my to-do list for 2020 is to go back to Swords of Charlemagne. It’ll either find a home with a publisher somewhere, or I’ll publish it myself. Watch this space to find out which!
Planning out my show schedule for this year, too. Keiser Supercon is already on my list, but the rest of the year is hazy. I’m not sure if Oasis is happening in 2020, so I’m keeping the end of May/beginning of June open for now. Necronomicon is in September this year. And I opted out of Indie Bookfest (now Orlando Reads Books), because they moved to the end of August. Which my son starting high school in the fall of 2020, I thought that having him miss two days of school during that crucial settling in period would be a bad plan. (Yes, I know I could go alone. That’s an awful amount of work without help.)
Also on the horizon is the IAFA conference in March. Which happens to be the same weekend as Keiser Supercon, so I’m probably not going to do more than my usual drop in to pick up Cecilia Tan for our annual lunch date.
The RWA National convention is in August, in San Francisco. I’d like to go, but it is a big maybe for me — as in, only if Written in Water finals for the RITA.
That’s all I have for now. I’ll see what else I can pick up for 2020 for in person appearances. For now, you can find me here.
Little bit of a slow working week this past week. The Teach in was Tuesday, and I spent most of Monday prepping for it, and most of Wednesday recovering! My day at school started at 8:30, and ran until 4:45! I spoke to five periods of ELA (6th through 8th grades) and one period of Creative Writing, and it’s a good thing that I brought my new presentation AND last year’s presentation. The Creative Writing Class was mostly kids I’d seen earlier in the day in their respective ELA classes! So I had something else on hand to give to them. (They had Anatomy of a Novel earlier in the day, and Life of a Romance Writer for Creative Writing.) However, they DEMANDED that we do something from the earlier presentation to finish off.
See… I created a Madlib for them as a fun closing — we wrote a book blurb using Madlibs. The best inciting incident? The MC lost his earlobes! It was so much fun that every class wanted to do it twice (no), and the Creative Writing class wanted to do it again because they’d all done it earlier. We had time, so I pulled it up. And then, since they’re all doing Nanowrimo and we had more time, so we did a writing sprint! After that class, I had a few minutes of quiet before I went and helped my son’s Origami club (it made no sense to go home, then come back to pick him up.)
Also last week I had another pass on Hidden Things. They liked the premise… but they passed on the series. Back to square one, and I need to decide if I want to go the query-go-round again or just self-publish. Whichever way I go, it’ll be in 2020.
I really do need to kick my production in to overdrive — Cookiepocalypse is coming, and I need to have Blood Bound finished before I start baking. It’s hard to believe that it’s already almost the end of the year (and it got cold this weekend! In Florida! It’s too early to be in the 50s in Florida!)
Everyone up north is laughing at me. Don’t think I can’t hear you!
Thanksgiving is next week, and I’ll be prepping for that. Then I have to start thinking book wrap up and holidays and baking and school’s out!
You can order on Amazon here, from Apple here, and just about everywhere else by going here. New bookstores will be added to that link, so if your bookstore of choice isn’t there yet, keep checking back — it will be! There will be print, but those will come later — I’m waiting for proofs before I approve them for distribution.
Second, it’s week six on the two works in progress.
<
p style=”text-align: center;”>Blood Bound Flesh and Blood, Book 1
29336 / 95000 (30.88%)
***
<
p style=”text-align: center;”>Bones of Earth Heir to the Firstborn, Book 3
16465 / 95000 (17.33%)
Blood Bound is being a lot of fun. Enough that I kinda neglected Bones of Earth last week. Need to fix that — when I’m working on two projects, I really do need to work on both of them, even when one is new and shiny and the other is book three of a series. I’m about to hit a pivotal part of Bones, which means I need to actually, you know, write it down and not leave it in my head.
(Boy, telepathic storytelling would be a real timesaver. In a scary sort of way. But the edits would be a real mindblower and I’m stopping that right now before I have a new plotbunny….)
I shared an excerpt of Bones of Earth over on Facebook last week (edited for spoilers). Here’s something from Blood Bound.
Daniel laughed and turned to look at Hiro’s profile, and realized something — Hiro’s fangs were ever so slightly visible. He was certain they hadn’t been before. And he wasn’t certain of the etiquette — did he ask about them? Was it like seeing someone with their fly down? Or was it just something you weren’t supposed to comment on?
“Daniel, what is it?” Hiro glanced at him. “You are staring.”
“Sorry,” Daniel murmured. “Ah… your fangs are showing? A little? And… they weren’t earlier.”
Hiro nodded. “I know. I am feeling a touch… unkempt. I regret that I will not be able to spend tonight with you, my Daniel. It is time that I fed properly, and I have given you a promise.” He reached out and rested his hand on Daniel’s leg. He squeezed, then returned his hand to the steering wheel as they merged onto the Henry Hudson Parkway.
“I could—” Daniel started.
“No,” Hiro interrupted. “I want you to understand the commitment we will make to each other before you bare your throat to me. I want you to be completely comfortable with the idea.” He smiled. “I am not willing to frighten you the first time I bite you, and have that color the way we will continue. I will visit with the local Chancellor’s deputy, and make arrangements. That is how it is done when one does not have a bond.”
“Is it?” Daniel asked. “No one talks about that.”
Hiro nodded slightly, not turning from his driving. “These are things that are best handled in private. The taking of living blood is… deeply personal.”
Daniel coughed. “Right. Sorry?”
Hiro smiled. “Do not apologize for being curious. You may ask me anything. I may not answer immediately. I may need to think about my answer. But you may ask.”
“I’ll make a list,” Daniel promised, making Hiro laugh. Then he gestured out the window, toward the trees on the left side of the car.
“Before I forget, I want to go there.”
Daniel craned his neck to look out the driver’s side windows. “There… what’s up… oh, you want to go to the Cloisters? Sure, we can do that. It’s a nice walk from my place, if you don’t mind walking up hill.”
Hiro nodded. “We will do that. I will, as you say, make a list. I have never been in New York before a month ago. I want to see everything.”
Daniel grinned. “Sure, we can play tourist. I’ll take you on the subway. Maybe to a Mets game with Trace.”
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