thinking thinky thoughts

Mar

2025

PACK ALL THE THINGS!

I have basically a day of writing before I have to PACK ALL THE THINGS and head to ICFA — aka geeky-academic wonderland. I have an entire checklist of things that have to be done between now and midday Wednesday. Yes, writing is on that list. So is making scones, making hard-boiled eggs (in this economy?) and making overnight oats. I need to go to the store tomorrow and pick up a couple of things for breakfasts in my room, and packing will happen tomorrow and Wednesday morning.

My schedule for this year is:
Wednesday:
3:30PM Opening Session: Horror Storytelling to Understand Reality (Ballroom)
Thursday
8:30AM Reading (Vista A)
Friday
4:15PM Reimagining the Night (Magnolia)
6:00PM Lord Ruthven Assembly Meeting (Captiva A)
Saturday
6:00PM BIPOC Caucus Networking Event (Cove)
7:00PM Reception (Ballroom Foyer)
8:00PM Awards Banquet (Ballroom)

In and around those, you’ll either find me at panels, volunteering at the Registration desk (I’ll have scones!), or somewhere working on edits for Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand (I’m thinking outside near the pool.) Unfortunately, the copies of Raven’s Fall that I hoped would be here in time to have at the book room were… well, I was told that they couldn’t deliver the package. And then the post office said that they gave the package back to Amazon (after only one attempt?) So I’m thinking that the books were damaged in shipping, and a new order has been placed. Which means that there will be copies on the table at my show in April. I hope.

(I really want them here! There are hardcovers in that package and one of them is for ME!)

Today I had my first “When is the next one coming out?” interaction, and that never, ever is going to get old. I love hearing that people have enjoyed my work. Writing is an interesting job — you’re there with the voices inside your head, taking down the incident report for whatever shenanigans they’ve been up to. Then you polish it up, put a cover on it, and send it off into the world, and most of the time? You never hear anything about it. But those few times when a reader reaches out to you to tell you that your words meant something to them?

BLISS.

Now Available!

Kidnapped from his home and sold as a slave in Rome, Raven-Prince Lorcan must survive in a world where entertainment is murder, diplomacy is betrayal, and love is a commodity. And where a raven who is only supposed to ever have one mate will somehow find two…

Work in Progress

Tales from the Arena: King of Swords
(Tales from the Arena, book 4)

22670 / 90000 (25.19%)

The Coral Throne
(The Sea Prince, book 2)

25166 / 90000 (27.96%)

Appearances

ICFA
March 19 – 22nd, 2025
Orlando, FL

***

3rd Annual Spring is in the Air
April 13th, 2025
Venetian Center,
Leesburg, FL

***

6th Annual Mother’s Day Bazaar
May 10th, 2025
Ormond Beach Elks Lodge
Ormond Beach, FL

***

Enchanted Knights: Summer Solstice
June 21st, 2025
Oviedo Mall
Oviedo, FL

***

3rd Annual Summer Artisan Market
June 29th, 2025
Brannon Center
New Smyrna Beach, FL

***

Smut Lovers: The Conference
September 17th – 21st, 2025
Orlando, FL

***

Necronomicon
September 26th – 28th, 2025
Tampa, FL

***

Page and Pen Festival
October 4th, 2025
Oviedo Mall
Oviedo, FL

Jan

2025

Show Season Starts in 3…2…1…

I didn’t realize that February starts this Saturday until I sat down to plan our Highland Games afterparty and went… wait, what do you mean February starts this week? Which means that show season starts in 3…2…1…

I have at least one in-person show planned a month from February until June, with a couple of others unconfirmed but in the works.

I’ve ordered copies of books I’m low or out of, and I have swag coming in for the first event on my list (below, and on my Appearances page.) I just have to bring everything down from my office to the first floor (or have Darling Editor do it for me.)

I’m seeing people online pointing out that owning your physical media is more important now than it ever has been before. You don’t actually own your electronic media. Did you know that? You license it from Amazon, or Apple, or Barnes and Noble. Which means that those licenses can be revoked and that media removed from your reader or your game or your streaming platform with no warning. Think about how movies have been removed from streaming services and all copies destroyed — (*cough*DISNEY*cough*). Electronic media is great for accessibility and portability, but possibly not so much for longevity.

This is very much at the forefront of the romance writer’s mind these days, especially if you write spicy. If you want to support your favorite spicy writer? Buy print books. And if you want to make sure that you get them? By them DIRECTLY from the author, if you can.

And remember that reading is a radical act, too. Especially when it’s a book they don’t want you to read. To quote LeVar Burton, “Read the books they don’t want you to. That’s where the good stuff is.”

Work in Progress

Tales from the Arena: King of Swords
(Tales from the Arena, book 4)

11676 / 90000 (12.97%)

The Coral Throne
(The Sea Prince, book 2)

5773 / 90000 (6.41%)

Promotions

The last days of Bookmas are here! Check out today’s offerings here! Did you miss a day? You can still get access to all the offerings by getting an Instant Access Pass.

And you might want to pay attention to TOMORROW’S book… (hint, hint…)

Coming next week! FaRoBub– 200 free fantasy romance and paranormal romance books. One day only, on February 3rd! The link will be LIVE in my blog next week, so keep an eye out for it!

Appearances

6th Annual Love is in the Air
February 8th, 2025
Lakeside Community Center
Port Orange, FL

***

Enchanted Knights: Myths and Legends
March 8th, 2025
Oviedo Mall
Oviedo, FL

***

ICFA
March 19 – 22nd, 2025
Orlando, FL

***

3rd Annual Spring is in the Air
April 13th, 2025
Venetian Center,
Leesburg, FL

***

6th Annual Mother’s Day Bazaar
May 10th, 2025
Ormond Beach Elks Lodge
Ormond Beach, FL

***

3rd Annual Summer Artisan Market
June 29th, 2025
Brannon Center
New Smyrna Beach, FL

***

Smut Lovers: The Conference
September 17th – 21st, 2025
Orlando, FL

Jul

2023

Hinges

I’m writing this up on July 3rd, so we’re just past the hinge of the year, heading on toward the end. Time to reflect on what worked for the first half of the year, and plan for the rest of the year…

Yeah, I don’t really do that. It sure sounds good, though.

I do like the concept of the hinge, though. The hinge is where your direction changes. It’s where your potential changes. Things that were previously closed can now be opened. I talk a lot about pranayama breathing — specifically, box breathing or four-sided breathing. That’s where you breathe in for a set count (for beginners, you can start with a four count.) You hold it for four, then breathe out for hour. Hold it for four and repeat. It’s fantastic for helping center and quiet anxiety, and for increasing focus, but the pause at the top of the breath is where potential lies. It’s where tension builds up for the release.

It’s the hinge.

Hinges also factor into storytelling. If you’re writing three-act structure, you have a couple of hinges where your direction changes. But if you’re writing to a climax (stop laughing…), then the hinge is the midpoint and where you start to bring the story home. It’s where the tension releases and you start the slow descent off the mountain to the conclusion. You might have other, smaller hinges along the way — foothills are a thing, after all — but your major momentum is starting to release.

If you don’t like the mountain analogy, you can think roller coasters. I’m not particularly a fan of roller coasters, but it’s fun to watch them.

We’re starting to release toward the end of the year now. Yes, it’s still 90 million degrees out, and tomorrow there will be fireworks, we’re past the hinge of the year. Time to start thinking about bringing it home.

I’ve laid out my kanban board for the next quarter — I’m going to finish Broken Feathers (hopefully this week), and keep on researching for Imaginative Anthropology. I’ll be starting back with The Sea Prince in August, and D, the person with whom I originally wrote the first few chapters, is back on board to finish it! We’re going over the first thirteen chapters now. I have one or two pure business things to work on, and in three months, I’ll revisit and see where we are on the path of bringing 2023 to a close.

Right now? We’re about halfway.

SALES: My entire catalog is on sale at Smashwords for their annual sale, running July 1 through July 31. Because of Draft2Digital acquiring Smashwords, I have two catalog pages (that I’m assured with be merged later this year.) So you can find some of my books here, and the rest here.

Jun

2023

Late Monday

It’s later than I usually write my blog, but today has been a day of errands and distractions. I haven’t accomplished much in term of either research or writing today. I suppose this kind of counts as post-novel ennui. Which is okay — I’ve been reading, and basically taking a brain break. Which I don’t think I do nearly enough of. I’m out of the habit, really. Writing a weekly serial on top of writing a series does tend to eat a lot of your free time.

I’m currently reading Babel, by RF Kuang, which is fantastic and the world building features a magic system unlike anything I’ve ever read. HIGHLY recommend this one. But that’s not what had me distracted today. Nope. Today I got into my files and was reading some old game posts from back before I was writing full time. If you’ve been around long enough, you know that I really started writing when I started playing The Night Court, a Play-by-email Role play game based on the Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey. I still have all of those posts (saved from oblivion when Yahoo Groups went away.) Occasionally, I open the program that I had to use to download them and go back through them.

The Night Court was a grand time, and several talented writers honed their skills during the years the game ran. I’m not the only published writer who got their start in Yahoogroups, playing in Jacqueline’s sandbox (and with her blessing. She knew about the game, and her only rule was that we could not play with her characters. So our game was set several hundred years before the books.)

It’s fun to go back, on occasion, and revisit where you started. There was some good stuff in there, and now their find memories and a heaping helping of nostalgia. Back to where it all began.

But really, I need to stop revisiting the old stories and get on to writing Broken Feathers.

Tomorrow.

Jan

2023

Wait, What Was I Doing Again?

(aka what I honestly just said when I came back to this tab on my desktop….)

It’s Monday again. Who let that happen? But since it is Monday, even though I do not recall saying the weekend could be over already, it’s blog day. Which leads to the weekly question of “what am going to blather on about today?”

Which, if you think that means I’m going to blather on about deciding what to blather on about, you’ll be pleased to know that you’re wrong. I’ll save that for Tiktok — I’ll only have to blather for one to three minutes there.

Work continues on The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath, and the list of notes on things I need to address when I get the edits for The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir continues to grow. For example, did you know that it was forbidden for the Flamen Dialis to handle bread? Yup, me either. Even though I researched Roman religions and the various restrictions on their priests before I wrote the scene in Heir, there the Flamen Dialis is, holding a load of bread. So I need to change that.

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

30463 / 90000 (33.85%)

Other changes involve inconsistencies with characters who have changed as I write them in the second book, characters who have come into the second book who were never mentioned in the first one but should have been, and some stylistic choices that need to be consistent throughout. Oh, and double checking that some of the herbs I have our healers using in Rome are things that they’d actually have in Rome at that time.

Yes, I’m going through a lot of trouble for a historical fantasy set in an entirely fictional, very idyllic Rome. I know that. I’m having fun with it. And there will be an author’s note that roughly says “I am fully aware that none of the history in the parts of the book set in Rome is accurate. This was deliberate. Don’t yell at me. Fantasy. Totally fantasy.”

Although… not in so many words, right?

I hope to have the edits for The Chronicles of John Zebedee finished by the end of the month, and I hope to have a cover reveal sometime in the next week. The latest cover mockup is really good, and I think we’re almost in the right place. Once this is published, I really need to start figuring out timelines and storylines for Children of the Swords — which is the series that will tie The Chronicles of John Zebedee into Swords of Charlemagne. No, I’m not sure how yet. There must be research because I know nothing about Edwardian England or World War I, and I’m not going to rely on Downtown Abbey as reference material. (Although I did use a floorplan of Highclere Castle as a reference for the Sussex estate in Table of Stone.)

Also… ah… surprise? There’s going to be a sequel series to Swords of Charlemagne. It will be focused on Margaret and Douglas’ children, and there are going to be elves in there! The series will start with Wesley, the working title of his book is Seer, and that’s about all I know at the moment.

Other irons in the fire? Getting back to The Sea Prince, which will happen once I’m done with John Zebedee edits, and getting started on either Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand or Tower of Light. Both of those are fully plotted out and just need to be written. Although I might stay in a seafaring mood, in which case I’ll start The Iron Virgin.

That should be enough to keep me out of trouble.

Stop laughing.

Nov

2022

Worlds Begin. Worlds End.

And tomorrow, the world of Adavar ends. At least for now. I can’t think of any other stories that will be told in the world of Heir to the Firstborn, but that might change. I don’t think they will involve any of the current characters, though. Their story wraps tomorrow.

(click the graphic to go to the Amazon series page)

It’s strange. When I first started this series, it was supposed to be four books. If you’ve been with me long enough, you’ll remember me talking about how there was too much story for four books, so I was going to add a fifth one. And… yeah. Six books. Characters who REALLY got under my skin — I still say Owyn is my favorite out of all the characters that have walked out of my subconscious.

And it’s all over tomorrow. My part in it, anyway. Now it’s your turn, oh Reader.

(I will say that there’s one character who’s sort of poking at me, but I don’t know what they want yet. If they tell me, then there might be some more Adavar. But until they start doing more than a mental “I’m not touching you!” I’m going to ignore them and focus on Lorcan.)

The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir
(The White Raven, Book 1)

18418 / 90000 (20.46%)

Now here’s an amusing tidbit. I wrote The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir a few years before I started Heir to the Firstborn. And there’s a character in Morrigan’s Heir who I now need to give a new name.

That was the first time I used the name Owyn. And he’s nothing like Heir’s Owyn, who is so much of a strong character and strong voice in my brain that the name Owyn is now being retired.

So when you finally meet Bran in Morrigan’s Heir, his name was originally Owyn.

And, with the Heir to the Firstborn coming to a close, I’ve made an executive decision.

I’m taking the rest of the year off. I need to reset and recover from what’s been a heck of a year, so I’m taking some time off. I have books that are piling up to read, research I want to do, movies I want to watch, and my house needs cleaning. I need to plan for 2023, and set my goals. Oh, and Cookiepocalypse is right around the corner! So I’ll be taking my winter break early, and I’ll pick up Morrigan’s Wrath in January.

You may now open book on if I can actually make it to January without writing new words.

Jun

2022

Summer Thunder

It’s storming here in Central Florida. There’s booming thunder outside my window. The weather radio is going off every couple of minutes because of incoming alerts, which isn’t really necessary because my sinuses have been letting me know it’s going to storm today for about two hours.

Pretty normal for summer, to be honest.

Turns out that pushing to finish the book as hard as I did wasn’t entirely good for me. I have a slowly-resolving case of tennis elbow (which is a repetitive stress injury, just not the one that writers usually get.) So I need to take a break from working at the laptop… she says as she sits at the laptop.

Irony, I has it.

Taking it easy isn’t. Easy, that is. I’m not used to it. I remember reading something associated with Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, that claimed that adrenaline addicting is irreversible after some short period of time. I wonder if that’s true about other hormones. Adrenaline is associated with excitement and fear, the evolutionary necessity to outrun that predator. What’s associated with creation? With the satisfaction of writing a really good scene? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s endorphine, but I’m not sure.

In any case, that’s a line of research for some smart person who isn’t me. I don’t do biochemistry. I’m into anthropology.

The research for Imaginative Anthropology is ongoing and interesting. It’s not going to be a quick project. I can tell you that now. But I’m starting to see how the pieces fit, and what areas I need to flesh out. This is going to be fun.

Episode 4 of John Zebedee and the Heir of the Elvenlands dropped today. First three episodes were free so you can check those out, then decide if you want to put in the 35 coins (Vella currency) for episode 4.

And that’s about it here. Which… I suppose this counts as taking it easy? If you squint?

I need to try harder to not do anything.

“Don’t just do something! Sit there!”

Oct

2021

On Your Mark… Get Set… GO!

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

18295 / 150000 (12.20%)

I finished edits on Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads, so I started writing Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home last week.

No, I did not write eighteen thousand words in a week. (That would be something, though!) There were five chapters that were already written when I decided that Heir to the Firstborn needed to be two books. Last week, I actually wrote 4,830 words — Chapter One, and part of Chapter Two.

Last week, I also worked a bit more on the synopsis for Blood Price, which will be book three of the Flesh and Blood series. There was some backstory that had been alluded to in Blood Bound that actually needed to be worked out because they find out the truth in this book.

Pen to Paper is on its first scheduled break, and I’m working on getting a couple of units for the last level finished up. (Specifically, the last two levels). This program… it’s just been a year since they came to me and said “We’d like for you to take on this task force and put together this program.” What a YEAR this has been!!!

For my next trick? Well… I can’t tell you yet. What I can say is that I also need to get to work on the presentation I’ll be making at the RWA National convention. Which is coming up… ah… next month. Okay, I REALLY need to get to work on that!

More on the sooper sekrit project in two weeks.

Back to work!

Aug

2021

Back to Work!

Home from vacation! And what a wet vacation it was! There were only two days that we did not get rained on — the first day and the last one! Every other day featured a deluge of Florida proportions — I’m told there is video footage of kids swimming in the flooded pathways at Magic Kingdom. (ewwICK!)

It was fun, though. Our first time back in the parks for a vacation (as opposed to a day) in nearly 8 years, and our first vacation in 4 years. Introduced to Feather Bowling (or, as we called it, drunk curling), and Pandora (the planet, not the jewelry or the streaming service. James Cameron is an insane genius, the immersive technology in Pandora is AMAZING, and I want to have a talk with him about evolutionary tracks and his rationale for having his planet have hexapedal fauna while the dominant species is bipedal with a prehensile tail. Either that, or I actually have to see the movie. Maybe it’s explained in there?)

Enjoyed a couple of things at Food and Wine, and saw the neat little exhibit on Kawaii culture in Japan (and had fun after both Spaceship Earth and The American Adventure — turn to Teen Boy and ask “So, what did they get wrong?”) And we spent half a day in Black Spires Outpost on Batuu, had blue milk and a spherical Coke, and built a lightsaber (which is not cheap, but SO WORTH IT!!!)

It says Coca-Cola in Aurebesh — the written language of Star Wars.

We found the FUN Photopass spot — the photographer provided the sabers.

Protection and Defense — one of the four hilt options offered at Savi’s Workshop. I opted for a purple kyber crystal.
Not lighting it up because it is LOUD!

I forgot to get pictures of the blue milk — it’s a rice and coconut milk base, with pineapple and dragonfruit, and colored blue with spirulina. And it would make a killer pina coloda — they actually do offer it with rum! There’s also a green milk option, which I’ll have to try the next time I go. Whenever that happens.

Got home in time for the Vivian Awards, which meant dressing up to sitting my office.

I didn’t win, but I’m okay with that. Just being nominated in the most diverse contest class in RWA history is enough, especially when it’s with the book that I pulled from RITA consideration in protest of the board shenanigans in 2019.

Now I’m back on Earth, though, and back to creating my own worlds. I did carry a notebook with me all week… and I think I opened it once.

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

126114 / 150000 (84.08%)

I have an idea where this is going to wrap, though. And I’m shooting to have a draft complete by the end of the month, or by Orlando Reads Books, so I can dive into the revisions that it’s going to need since it’s not the last book. The book will drop quite a bit in wordcount when I finally call it a draft — there are three chapters, the epilogue and some bonus material already written that will be moved to the last book.

I’m also thinking on a new thing — working title is The Iron Virgin, and I’m blaming the Gaylord Opryland for it. Why? Because there was a Pirate and Princess event running when we were there, and I came home with a Pirate Princess in my head who wants her story told now, thank you very much. The worldbuilding is being interesting — it went from a steampunk setting with airships to a fantasy setting with living ships (which… I’m not sure why the ships are alive yet. They haven’t told me. There is more worldbuilding to be done.)

That’s a song cue right there — “The ships are alive, and I don’t know why yet…” (ttto The Sound of Music.)

If I want words on the page, I need to go get to writing them. Catch you all next week.

Jul

2021

On Your Mark…

This week starts the race that will be July. I have just over a week before I leave for the RWA Retreat, and I have THINGS that must get done between now and then.

Things I need to do:

Finalize the presentation that I’ll be giving at the retreat.
Save presentation to a thumbdrive and put it in my travel purse.
Email the presentation to the office (just in case)
Finish the video logs for Unit 11. (These will be DONE before I leave, durn it.)
Write the Unit 11 quiz
Decide which knitting project I’m taking with me for the Fiber meet-up I’m hosting.
Decide which research materials I want to bring (Hrm… Tower of Light or SooperSekrit Edwardian-era project?)
Write up a packing list
Pull out my suitcase
Pick out clothes

And in and around all of that? Working on Heir to the Firstborn, prepping for the Ashes and Light release on the 20th, and maybe going out for dinner (to an actual restaurant – gasp!) for our anniversary right before I leave.

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

118734 / 150000 (79.16%)

Heir to the Firstborn proceeds nicely, if slowly. I sincerely doubt that the 150,000 word target will stand for another week, which will then lead me to the question of… one book or two.

I know. I KNOW! I said this was going to be one book. But, I also said that about Wings of Air, and look where that got us (hint — 118,734 words into the second book of what was supposed to be one book.) Heir to the Firstborn is going to be massive. And while that doesn’t much matter in serial or as an ebook. In print, that’ll be a problem. Because there are only so many pages you can put into a trade paperback before it falls apart.

So we may very well have Heir to the Firstborn: The Progress and Heir to the Firstborn: <something that has to do with the second half of the book>

(Book one may not be The Progress. I have to decide. Book two will either be The Crossroads or The Way Home. We’ll see.)

But we’ll also get to meet an interesting character in that half of the book. I started writing his scenes already, and I love him to bits. Nope, not telling.

Now, if I do break this into two books, then I will definitely make the November release date that I was worried that I’d miss, because that part of the book is done. I will need to make new cover art for the second book, those. Not a huge problem there.

I’ll make up my mind about it at the retreat.

thinking thinky thoughts

PACK ALL THE THINGS!

Now Available!

Work in Progress

Appearances

Show Season Starts in 3…2…1…

Work in Progress

Promotions

Appearances

Hinges

Late Monday

Wait, What Was I Doing Again?

Worlds Begin. Worlds End.

Summer Thunder

On Your Mark… Get Set… GO!

Back to Work!

On Your Mark…

Works in Progress

Appearances

Find My Books!

Social Media

Let's Keep in Touch!

Thanks for signing up!