Table of Stone

Dec

2021

C is for Cookie. That’s Good Enough for Me!

Cookiepocalypse 2021 is done, and because my website is being a bit strange today (to go with everything else!) I can’t load the pictures to show you. But I can link to the Instagram hashtag, so you can see all the cookies in their carby goodness!

Writing also happened last week, in and around cookies. I’m now just about at the halfway mark for Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home, and it’s coming along nicely.

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

72587 / 150000 (48.39%)

Tomorrow is the day that Table of Stone goes wide — it’s out of KU already, but I give it a day to make sure that Amazon doesn’t get grumpy at me because I had the temerity to put something that’s coming out of KY up before they release it. Not all the bookstores are up in that link yet, but the book will be in ALL the bookstores. Which reminds me — I need to add it to Eden Books.

And it’s either a good thing or a bad thing that there were so many cookies in the house, because last week, in the midst of baking, I made the very difficult decision to walk away from the Romance Writers of America.

No, I’m not talking about it. I’m still processing. I probably will be for a while. But I know that the work I started will go on — I’ve passed all my notes, and all my contacts on, and I’ll be sitting down with my replacement tomorrow. The Romance Education Initiative will go on, so there’s some comfort in that.

But 2022 is going to be an interesting year.

I may not blog next week. We’ll see. If I don’t, then I wish you all the happiest of New Years.

Sep

2021

Mondayest Monday Ever

Today is indeed the most Mondayest Monday ever.

On Friday, my windshield caught a kicked-up rock, and cracked. I’ve always been taught that you shouldn’t drive with a cracked windshield, so I got the car home, and set up an appointment through my car insurance to have the windshield fixed.

This morning, bright and way-too-early, windshield company shows up. They’re going to try to repair the crack first, because it’s not large and not in the direct line of sight. But injecting the resin made the crack get bigger. The tech stopped immediately and told me “We need to replace the windshield.”

Okay, but guess what they don’t have in stock? If you answered the particular windshield for my particular car? You win a gold star!

They’re going to try and get a new windshield for me before Friday and Necronomicon, but they assured me that the car is safe to drive. So that’s something.

I’ve got something of a busy week this week — tomorrow is the Kindle Unlimited release of Table of Stone, the last Swords of Charlemagne book. To celebrate that, Hidden Things is on sale everywhere for 2.99 this week.

Wednesday night I’ll be doing the Busy Black and Beautiful with LaQuette video podcast, and I’ll tweet the link to watch live out once I have it. And Thursday and Friday will be con prep. And in the meantime, I’m doing all sorts of writing prep.

I spent most of last week working on synopses for future writing. Ready to go are Tower of Light and Blood Brothers (Flesh and Blood 2). I’m working now on Blood Price (Flesh and Blood 3), and I’m refining the synopsis for Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home, so it better aligns with what happened in Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads. I also need to update the series bible for Flesh and Blood, because i noticed that I left a lot blank that shouldn’t be left blank (There are whole character pages blank, and that’s not good. That’s how you end up reading three books to see if you ever mentioned a character’s eye color.) I’ll be starting the editing reread of Crossroads at the convention, and I’ll be starting to write The Way Home once Crossroads is handed off to my darling editor.

I’ve also got a bunch of things in the RWA pipeline, but I can’t talk about them yet. Exciting stuff, though! You’ll learn more about it soon.

And that’s pretty much it for what’s happening in my neck of the woods. See you all after the convention!

Sep

2021

Time to Clean!

I’m cleaning the house.

Now, if you’ve been with me long enough, you know what that means.

Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads IS FINISHED!!

Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads
(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

126460 / 130000 (97.28%)

I figured out what the problem was Thursday night — I’d been slogging over one scene for nearly a week, and I finally took a step back and asked myself “What is the point of this scene? What does it do to advance the story?” Answer? There was no point to scene. It did nothing for the plot that couldn’t be done somewhere else. So I ripped it out and finished the book Saturday.

One of these days, I’ll pay attention to my subconscious telling me to stop that.

So, since the book is done, now what am I going to do?

Well, clean the house, to start. I have synopses that I want to finish up, and work that needs to be done for Pen to Paper and for other RWA projects. I’ll get started on editing Crossroads in a week or two, but in the meantime, I want to put together a box set of Swords of Charlemagne to release in 2022 (once Table of Stone is out of KU), and I need to start uploading the Rebel Mage books for 2022 releases. I have Necronomicon in a couple of weeks, and I need to plan for that.

But first? This house will be cleaned.

May

2021

How to Get an Whole Week into One Day…

First, start with a Monday…

Today has been a very productive day, in all ways but one…

Got Teen Boy off on time to his second to last day of finals. (okay, I made sure he was in front of his computer…)
Worked out
Had a brief training on how to conduct an interview via Zoom — best video settings, that sort of thing.
Scheduled three Zoom interviews.
Prepped three different sets of questions for those interviews.
Reviewed Units 6 and 10 of Pen to Paper for two of those three sets of questions
Sent the interviewees out best practices for Zoom interviews.
Scheduled a meeting to discuss (REDACTED)
Scheduled three doctor appointments
Backed up the computer
Wrote the weekly blog (hi!)
Picked up groceries
Did my daily Tarot draw
Wrote this blog post

Notice what’s missing?

I haven’t written a durned word for Heir to the Firstborn today!

Good thing I had an exceptional writing week last week!

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

91772 / 150000 (61.18%)

I wrote out of order last week. There was a scene that needed to be written, even though I’m not there yet — I just needed to get it down before I lost it. Which means that I wrote two chapters and a bit last week. And I’ll hit the pivot point in the chapter I’m just about to start, and the pace is going to pick up dramatically.

I’m wondering how much of the first half of the book is going to get cut when I get to edits. It’s slow. It’s all necessary, but it’s slow. So maybe I can tighten things up.

Or maybe not. I never made any claim to being concise.

I’m also starting to wonder if I’ll actually make the self-imposed deadline of a November release. It’s the end of May, and I’m only halfway done. Heir to the Firstborn might just end up being my first book of 2022 at this rate. Which isn’t a problem, really. But it means that I missed out on my feat of publishing 6 books in a year that will NEVER EVER HAPPEN AGAIN I MEAN IT!

Ahem…

Tomorrow The Lady and the Sword releases in KU for ebooks. Print should follow along shortly (it’s in review because I forgot to hit publish yesterday.) And I discovered something. The Term of Service for Kindle Unlimited only cover EBOOK distribution. It says nothing about exclusivity of print.

So The Lady and the Sword will go wide in paperback next week (on June 1st).

Preorders for paperbacks of the rest of the series are loading to all major retailers now, and will release when the ebooks release in KU (In July for Ashes and Light, and in September for Table of Stone.)

And that’s about all here. Time for me to run off to my next thing — making dinner.

Then… maybe some words? Maybe?

We’ll see.

May

2021

(Insert May Song Reference Here)

I can think of at least three songs about the month of May, and have heard all three references at least once a day for the past three days. So pick your favorite and sing out!

The Sooper Sekrit project for the RWA as formally announced last week on Wednesday and Friday.

From the official announcement:

Pen to Paper: Guide to Writing Romance is an immersive seven-month romance writing program designed to ground you in writing romances so strongly that your inner critic will be forced into the back seat. Here are some program highlights:

Engage weekly in a five-person Partner Circle led by two published author Guides. This writing group will stick together throughout the program, creating that inner circle of allies and writing partners that could last long after the program ends.
Hear from experts in the romance universe via articles, audio recordings, live events, and exclusive videos developed for this program.
Receive and learn how to give the valuable critique that will lift your writing from average to excellent.

My team and I have been working on this for months now, and it’s finally live! Guides can start to apply TODAY, and Participants will be able to start applying in June. Check the link for more information.

And while doing all of that, I’m still working on my own stuff.

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

75515 / 150000 (50.34%)

Heir to the Firstborn is going well, and unless I pick the pace a bit, we’re not really halfway through, no matter what the wordcount says. I’m going to stick to my stance that this will be ONE book, not two. One book. One. If I keep saying that, it might come true.

Right?

I finished the proofreading on Table of Stone at the end of last week, and finalized the presale. You can pick up Hidden Things and preorder the rest of the series here. Hidden Things is now also available at all bookstores, not just Amazon. (Except I think I forgot to put it up on Eden Books, Smashwords and Google. Must fix those.)

There’s not much else to talk about at the moment. We’re coming down to the end of the school year, which means testing. In person testing, and I have to leave in a few minutes to go pick up High School Boy from day one of a two day test. Waiting to see what happens with COVID vaccines for teens, so I can plan for summer possible travel for the family and for school in the fall (our county has already nixed the at home model we’ve been using. So next year it’s off to realspace school!) Planning my own travel for the summer — RWA retreat in July, Orlando Reads Books in August, Necronomicon in September, and Books at the Beach in October! I’m going to be Writer on the Go!

And I still need to have Heir to the Firstborn ready to go for a November release, so it’s time for me to log off here and get to the words.

After I go pick someone up from school.

Apr

2021

WordPress is about as much fun as root canal.

This lovely blog is built on a WordPress engine, which I usually like, because it’s fairly easy (for me, anyway). But sometimes… yeah, sometimes.

There’s something going on under the hood with WordPress, where my desktop site will update, but those same changes won’t deliver to the mobile site if I pull it up on my phone. And if I don’t notice (which I don’t always), there will be weeks where my website goes unchanged if you look at it on mobile, even though I update it at least once a week regularly. And worse, if I look at the mobile site on the desktop (which is a preview option)? The changes are there. It’s only if I look at it on the phone that it breaks.

Caching. Yes, I know. And no, that’s not the problem At least, I don’t think it’s the problem. I think it has something to do with plugins, but I’m not sure what. So my troubleshooting consists of “What’s the last post on the mobile site? Oh, okay. What plugins updated that week? Ah. THAT one!” and disabling that plugin. It usually works, but I’d like a real answer at some point.

I suppose I’ll poke at it when I have time. Which I don’t right now, because writing and proofreading and planning and more planning…

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

70429 / 150000 (46.95%)

Heir to the Firstborn is going to be massive. Bigger than Wings of Air massive. How do I know? It’s at just a hair over 70K words… and I’m still not quite at the halfway mark. Maybe two or three chapters to halfway. Then things are going to get… well, more interesting and more fast-paced. No, I am not splitting this into two books. I DID that already. Remember? This was supposed to be the second half of Wings of Air.

I’m almost done with the proofreading for Table of Stone, and at that point of editing where I keep having to stop myself from reading because it’s that good. I should be finished with the final proofs by the end of the week, well in advance of the September release.

Hidden Things releases wide tomorrow, and getting it set up was interesting — I apparently tried to do it before it was officially out of Kindle Unlimited, which made Draft to Digital have fits. I had to unsubmit and resubmit for publication this morning. But if everything goes well, Hidden Things will be available in Barnes and Noble, Kobo, the Apple Store, and a bunch of other places (and libraries!) tomorrow.

And… sometime this week, we should have the first official announcement on Sooper Sekrit project. Which is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Once that goes live, I’ll post it here. And hopefully, WordPress will update on the mobile site, too.

Apr

2021

It’s being a Monday.

I’m not sure why I always blog on a Monday. I mean, they get so Monday-ish and then here is it past 4PM Eastern and I’m just writing my first lines.

BOY, has it been a Monday!

There are days when you feel like the only adult in the daycare. And you’re not quite sure how anyone around you manages to tie their shoes, and you know the only reason that they can walk and breathe at the same time is that breathing is an involuntary reflex. If they had to think about both… well…

Yeah, it’s been a day.

Writing has been going well this week, and I’ve had a sudden case of the real world creeping into the writing. Because suddenly, there’s an outbreak of mountain fever in Adavar, and this was not in the outline. And since it wasn’t in the outline, I’m not sure yet how it will play out. But if you’ve read the early books, you know that mountain fever is something serious… and we’ll see where this goes.

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

61458 / 150000 (40.97%)

I’m still working on page proofs for Table of Stone, and trying to figure out why there are blank pages between chapters. That’s an odd layout glitch that, if I can’t fix it, at least won’t hurt anything. The rest of the book seems fine. Hidden Things comes out of KU on the 25th of April, and goes wide on the 27th. So if you’ve been wanting Hidden Things but you buy your books from Barnes and Noble or the Apple store, the wait is almost over!

Tomorrow is two weeks since my second COVID shot, which means I’m about as vaccinated as I’m going to get. I’m hoping that the CDC approves Pfizer’s request for permission to vaccinate 12-15-year olds, because then everyone in my house will be vaccinated. Fingers crossed on that front!

In RWA news, the National Conference has been moved to be virtual, and will happen in November. More information on that as it comes. The July dates will now be a much smaller retreat, in person at the Gaylord Opryland, and again, more information as it comes in.

The SOOPER SEKRIT project isn’t much of a super secret anymore. I spoke about Pen to Paper at the RWA Town Hall last week. However, the marketing starts soon, so I’ll save the big announcement here for after the official announcement comes out from RWA.

And I think that’s just about everything. Time to go check and make sure people are still able to walk and breathe.

Mar

2021

Spring? Maybe?

The reason I say maybe is that we have 90 degree weather now, and will be going down to the 40s on Thursday. Whiplash weather means spring, right?

It also means allergies, and mine have been awful. I have complete sympathy for all of you out there who suffer through this season with itchy eyes, scratchy noses, and sounding like a pack-a-day lounge singer. There but for the grace of Loratidine go I.

Allergies make this season fun. When I had my first COVID vaccination, I spent the next three days sniffling and snorfling, and I have no idea if that was a vaccine reaction or allergies. Tomorrow is COVID vaccine, part two, and we’ll see how I feel over the next few days. I’ve heard that the days immediately after shot two are not pleasant. But it’s worth it.

I just don’t plan on getting much work done this week. And of course, it’s a newsletter week, so I’ll be prepping that well ahead of time.

I finished my edits on Table of Stone, and the proof copy is on the way. I’m almost done with the proofreading of Ashes and Light, so that means that Swords of Charlemagne is close enough to done that I can see the end from here. There are preorders up for the other three books and everything!

What the heck — have a cover montage:

In other writing news, Wings of Air released last week, and Heir to the Firstborn is a third of the way done! I think. Maybe. It’s a third of the way to my target words, at least, and you all know how well I hit targets….

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

54267 / 150000 (36.18%)

I think I’ll be close this time. We’ll see.

Not much else is happening here, except that I’ve been bitten by a non-fiction bug that requires research and that may turn into a craft article (writing craft. Not fiber craft). We’ll see if that pans out.

Stay safe, everyne.

Mar

2021

Release Day! Release Day! Release Day!

Tomorrow.

Wings of Air drops tomorrow(but maybe the paperback will drop tonight on Amazon. Depends on their systems.) If you preorder right now, you’ll have the book on your device in the morning. Amazon is here, and most of the other booksellers are over here. Smashwords is here, Google Books over here, and Eden Books is here.

I’m hard at work on Heir to the Firstborn (the final book of the series. Yes, this time I mean it.) I’m fourteen chapters and about a third of the way into the book.

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

47875 / 150000 (31.92%)

Yes, I said fourteen chapters and only a third of the way in. This is going to be another monster book. Which may mean that I switch up Heir to the Firstborn with Table of Stone on my publishing schedule, and push Heir to the Firstborn back to a November release. We’ll see how things go as I work, and as things start to open up and I actually (gasp!) start to travel again.

Travel is, I fully admit, not something at the top of my to-do list. There are a couple of events on my calendar, but to be completely honest? If they don’t happen, or if they happen virtually? I’ll be okay with that. Somewhat. I like virtual events. I like being able to talk to people half a world away without having to fly there. But I really can’t wait for the in person events. I miss the hugs.

It’s hard, not knowing which way is up. Not really being able to plan because we’re not sure if the things we’re planning for are actually going to happen, and if they do happen, what form they’ll take. Prepping for a virtual event is very different from prepping for an in-person event. It’s harder to focus on a virtual event, at least for me, simply because I’m not removed from my regular space — there are still dishes and laundry to do, and all my stuff is right here. At an in-person event, it’s easier to be on, easier to be “Writer Liz” as opposed to “Mom Liz.” The act of putting on the appearance clothes and the makeup (which I usually don’t wear) helps put me into the headspace. But if I put on the appearance clothes and the makeup for a virtual event, it’s more like just dressing up, because it’s out of context — I’m really still in my office.

And I can’t hug the people in my screen.

But, this is the world we live in right now. And, since I plan on living in it for a LOT longer? The hugs are going to be as virtual as the conventions.

Stay safe, everyone.

Feb

2021

May we please have some boring now?

It’s been an interesting week, hasn’t it?

Are we all completely fed up with interesting weeks? I know I am. I’d dearly love a solid week where there’s nothing in the news but feel-good stories and kitten videos. Heck, I’d settle for one solid DAY of nothing but feel-good stories and kitten videos!

Now the weather only impacted my week indirectly. Most of my team on the Super Secret RWA project are in areas hard by the weather, which meant that for most of last week, I was the only one with power. Sort of puts the kibosh on group work, but that just meant that I focused more on words.

Heir to the Firstborn(Heir to the Firstborn, book 5)

32677 / 150000 (21.78%)

I’m currently building up to one of those scenes that I’ve been waiting to write for months (there are four or five of those in this book.) And, because I really needed to get those words out so that I could write the other words, I’ve already written the ending. Now I just need to get from here to there.

I also worked on edits for Ashes and Light, and I’m almost done with the page proofs for Wings of Air. I should finish that tomorrow, which means that the final formatted manuscript will be uploaded by Wednesday at the latest, and we’ll be ready to go for March. Once I finish Wings of Air, I’ll start the page proofs on The Lady and the Sword.

Page proofs are usually the last thing that a writer does before the book goes to print. You’re checking layout, making sure the book looks good, and that words didn’t get left out. By this point, the book has usually gone through two or more rounds of edits, so there’s very little to do other than say “Hey, this looks good!”

Unless, of course, you’re me. And you just reread the first three books because why not, and you realize that you made one HUGE continuity mistake right in the middle of book 4.

Umm… oops.

So that was fixed, and I cleaned up all the stray periods that showed up in the middle of the manuscript (did I spill the punctuation bucket? I think I must have, for there to be odd periods in the middle of sentences. Weird.)

Ashes and Light is almost done as well, which means that I’ll be going in and redoing quite a lot of Table of Stone. The editor who read through the series to check my continuity pointed out a lot of problems with that manuscript, and since I have that one on the table as coming out in September, I have time to fix them all. (Depending on how Heir to the Firstborn goes, I might even be able to push Table back to November. We’ll see — I’ve been saying since I set the publishing schedule for 2021 that the last two books might switch places, depending on how things fall out.)

Not much else is happening here. I’m waiting (sort of impatiently) for the state of Florida to open up vaccinations to the 1C group. I’m hoping it will be before the summer — I want to be fully vaccinated before I have to to to Nashville for RWA Nationals. Until then… I’ll just keep on writing.

Stay safe, everyone.

Table of Stone

C is for Cookie. That’s Good Enough for Me!

Mondayest Monday Ever

Time to Clean!

How to Get an Whole Week into One Day…

(Insert May Song Reference Here)

WordPress is about as much fun as root canal.

It’s being a Monday.

Spring? Maybe?

Release Day! Release Day! Release Day!

May we please have some boring now?

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