The Sea Prince

Falling into Fall

Falling into Fall

September 2nd means that Summer is on it’s way out, and we’re falling into fall. Officially, it won’t be Fall until the 22nd, but there’s Pumpkin Spice and Halloween everywhere, so… yeah. It’s Fall.

I’m also falling into what’s going to be a very busy seven weeks, starting with Necronomicon Tampa on September 27th, and running until Maker Faire in November. The full list of events is below, so if you’re in the area, come see me!

We’ll see how the writing goes during that period, but I’m very pleased with how King of Swords is going, and I am hoping to have a complete manuscript by the end of the year. I’ve got a playlist growing for this project — my main criteria for adding a song is that it needs to sound like it would work in a fight sequence soundtrack or a training montage. The link to the final playlist will be listed in the back matter of the book once it’s done. There’s almost always a playlist for various books — this is the one for The Sea Prince, which is almost done with first round edits. (Yes, this will also be in the back matter for that book.)

So I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks writing like mad, fueled by copious amounts of coffee and music, and trying to wrangle my book suppliers into fixing their mistakes because when I ordered copies of books to sell, I want MY books, not someone else’s! (Instead of the 28 books I ordered, I received 8 copies of mine, and 10 copies of a book by some author I have never heard of. Whee!) And once it all starts, I’ll be doing my best not to get sick at ANY of these events. I’ve somehow never had COVID and I don’t intend to start now! Nasal spray, masks and air purifiers at the ready!

Listening to:

Fight, Little Wolf. Epic: The Wisdom Saga.

Work in Progress

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

55058 / 120000 (45.88%)

Promotions

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

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, Florida

***

Maker Faire Orlando
November 9-10th
Orlando, Florida

Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, a-writers-life-is-never-dull, accountability, appearances, conventions, Counsel of the Wicked, Necronomicon, Playlist, progress, promotions, SPFBO, Tales from the Arena, The Sea Prince, upcoming books, upcoming work, WIP, wordcount, Writer on the Go!, 0 comments
Raise the Wordcount!

Raise the Wordcount!

It’s time! I have reached that point in the manuscript where the numbers don’t add up! It’s past the midpoint in the projected wordcount, but I haven’t yet hit the hinge — the midpoint in the book where we start moving toward resolution and the end. What does that mean? It’s time to raise the wordcount!

It’s not the first time I’ve done this — in truth, I think I do it at least once in every manuscript. I start out with a target of 90,000 words. That’s, on average, a good goal for fantasy romance, and makes for a decent sized novel. As I write, I reevaluate that goal. Is this book coming in short? How short? Is it a novella and not a novel? Or am I running long, and need to bump my numbers up? For me, this is more likely. I tend to be wordy in the first draft, but the story get refined and pared down in edits. And sometimes, the wordcount gets even higher in edits, because I missed things! (I think it was Haven’s Fall that had six entire chapters added in edits. That’s about 18,000 more words.)

Right now, I’m working on the edits for The Sea Prince, and I don’t think the wordcount will change too drastically, but I do have to rewrite one particular part that might have been less objectionable when I started this book, but these days? A 34 year old man marrying a girl he thinks is a few weeks short of 18 is… hinky, even if it is a marriage for alliance and to stop a war. (She is older. I need to move that confession earlier in the book, and still make it make sense.)

Once the edits are complete, I need to find a sensitivity editor who can check me on disability representation — The Sea Prince features a character who is a double amputee, and I need to be certain I’m writing him properly. (If anyone has a recommendation on a sensitivity reader, hit me up!)

I need to get these edits done as soon as I can, and get them off to a sensitivity reader before the end of September. Starting the last week of September, I’m going into six weeks of non-stop conventions/shows. Necronomicon is the last week of September, followed the next week by the Not So Spooky Hallowfest. Then I have a couple of week to restock and recover before Wizards, Witches and the Weird in Daytona Beach. My year wraps up with Maker Faire in Orlando, and I can take a deep breath before Thanksgiving and Cookiepocalypse 2024.

Just a few irons in the fire, no?

Work in Progress

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

50061 / 120000 (41.72%)

Promotions

The Narratess Indie Book Sale is winding down, but you can still grab a copy of The Chronicles of John Zebedee for $1.99 (down from $8.99) There are over 300 books in this sale, so make sure you check them out!


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


You still have a few days left to get Written in Water 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.)

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, Florida

***

Maker Faire Orlando
November 9-10th
Orlando, Florida

Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, appearances, Counsel of the Wicked, Necronomicon, promotions, public displays of geekery, Tales from the Arena, The Sea Prince, WIP, wordcount, Writer on the Go!, 0 comments
The Wild Ride is Just Beginning.

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

***

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

***

Wizards, Witches and the Weird
October 27th, 2024

Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, a-writers-life-is-never-dull, accountability, Cavalcade of Authors, Counsel of the Wicked, Covert Saloon, forthcoming works, promotions, Tales from the Arena, The Sea Prince, The White Raven, upcoming books, upcoming work, Updatey things, WIP, wordcount, writing-mom, 0 comments
Outside Hates Me

Outside Hates Me

Seriously. Outside and I are not friends. Usually, the outside tolerates me, but sometimes… well, the results can be explosive.

(AHHH-CHOO!)

Yes, I have allergies. Lots of them. When I was allergy tested prior to being treated, they gave me the list of allergens. Usually, they take a highlighter and mark the things you’re allergic to. On mine, they marked the things I was NOT allergic to because it used less ink.

Technically? I’m allergic to outside. I’ve been doing allergy therapy for years, and I’m getting to the point where I don’t react anymore, but there is something new outside that wants me to know that it hates me especially. Which means I’m in an antihistamine fog, and I’ve been staring at the screen for thirty minutes trying to think of what to write.

This does not bode well for my daily wordcount.

I’m enjoying the new WIP, and who Teren, the main character, is at the start of the work, as opposed to who he needs to become by the end of it. The growth cycle is going to be fun.

I did some other, non-writing writing work, and now have a press kit. This is one of those things that no one tells you that you should be doing when you start writing, so you have to put in major effort to put one together later. Now that it’s done, I’ll be turning my non-writing writer brain to revisions of The Sea Prince. Darling Editor pointed out one MAJOR plot point that I might have gotten away with when I first started this book some fifteen years ago, but that I absolutely cannot go forward with now, so there’s going to be a big rewrite early into the book. If I do it right, you’ll never know. But that means actually doing it. The plan is revisions, then another editing pass before I turn my thoughts to how this is going out into the world.

As part of my “I’m taking care of myself” plan, I’m trying to take time away from the keyboard, and part of that time has been spent playing Tavern Talk. It’s a visual novel video game where you are an Innkeeper in a fantasy realm, with a revolving cast of colorful characters who are incredibly fleshed out and beautifully rendered. If you want a hack and slash first person shooter, this is not your game. If you want something involving stories and puzzles and multiple different possible paths and endings, grab this game! (It’s on Steam, and it’s available for the Switch.) I’m enjoying it because writer brain has NOT been able to figure out where it’s going, so everything has been a surprise!

Time to go make words so I can play later.

Work in Progress

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

13327 / 90000 (14.81%)

Promotions

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, Florda

Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, a-writers-life-is-never-dull, accountability, product endorsement, publishing, Tales from the Arena, The Sea Prince, upcoming books, upcoming work, Updatey things, WIP, wordcount, Worldbuilding, 0 comments
The Mondayist not Monday Around

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

Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, appearances, Counsel of the Wicked, Covert Saloon, forthcoming works, Heir to the Firstborn, progress, promotions, public displays of geekery, reality-is-stranger-than-fiction, research is fun, Tales from the Arena, The Sea Prince, upcoming books, upcoming work, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?, WIP, wordcount, Worldbuilding, 0 comments
Did You Miss Me?

Did You Miss Me?

Hello! Long time no anything! I’m back and blogging again. Did you miss me? It’s been a wild month and a half.

Let’s see. First off, my house is now SPOTLESS and I’ve discovered the magical tool known as a steam mop. I’m in favor. It makes cleaning the floor SO much easier.

I am now the proud mother of a high school graduate. He graduated with honors — National Honor Society, Summa Cum Laude, and he also earned several industry certifications, as well a graduating high school with his Associates degree through dual enrollment. He starts college in the fall as a second semester sophomore.

A week and a half after graduation, we got onboard the Disney Fantasy, and had a lovely time sailing around the Eastern Caribbean. We got back Saturday morning, and the house is still swaying gently (I learned today that this is called disembarkation syndrome, and it can last up to a MONTH!)

Relaxing is something I keep forgetting how to do, but I managed it! And I read — two books off the Lord Ruthven Award reading list, and one that I learned of from Booktok. The vampire books are Immortal Pleasures, by V. Castro, and A Tempest of Tea, by Hafsah Faizal. The one from Booktok was The Queen is Dead, by C. H. Folan, and I LOVED it. It’s a retelling of Macbeth from Lady Macbeth’s perspective, and it also gives her a backstory. It’s a little loosey-goosey in the history, but it was still a good read.

Somewhere in the Atlantic, I also started the next Tales from the Arena book. Not reading — writing. The new title is Tales from the Arena: King of Swords. I wrote about three pages longhand over a cup of coffee, and I’ll start tracking the words later this week once I get them into the computer.

My plans for the rest of the summer? Stop swaying. That’s first. Then I have to do a reread and revision of The Sea Prince, and I’ll poke at King of Swords. At some point, I hope that the next round of edits will come in for Morrigan’s Heir, and that I’ll get a release date for you. I also have a few appearances set up, which are listed below.

Vacation is over. Back to work!

Promotions

SPFBO X started the day we set sail, and Counsel of the Wicked is included in the 300 entrants! So from now until it gets eliminated from the contest, Counsel is on sale!

Appearances

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

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

***

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

Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, a-writers-life-is-never-dull, accountability, appearances, Counsel of the Wicked, Tales from the Arena, The Sea Prince, The White Raven, Updatey things, Writer on the Go!, writing-mom, 0 comments
Getting Ready to GO!

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.)

Image of a flame. Text reads "On Fire. Free Spicy Romance Ebooks. March 1-31"
Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, accountability, Frog and Fae, ICFA, Planning, progress, Tales from the Arena, The Sea Prince, The White Raven, Worldbuilding, 0 comments
At Loose Ends

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!

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.)

Image of a flame. Text reads "On Fire. Free Spicy Romance Ebooks. March 1-31"

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"
Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, accountability, BDSM Vampires, Blood Bound, Children of the Sword, Content warnings, Counsel of the Wicked, Frog and Fae, ICFA, promotions, Tales from the Arena, The Iron Virgin, The Sea Prince, thirty, WIP, wordcount, Worldbuilding, 0 comments
Could It Be… The End?

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%)
Posted by EASchechter in 2024 plans, accountability, Frog and Fae, Planning, progress, The Sea Prince, the-end-is-near, WIP, wordcount, Worldbuilding, wow, 0 comments
It’s Blursday

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.

Posted by EASchechter in annoyance, easily amused writer, excerpt, forthcoming works, Frog and Fae, Planning, plot bunnies, progress, The Sea Prince, The White Raven, the-end-is-near, upcoming books, upcoming work, why-the-writing-is-slow, WIP, wordcount, 0 comments