Visions in Smoke

Nov

2022

Civic Duty or Something.

And today, I’m writing this blog in the jury room of my county courthouse. It’s slowly filling up with people (mostly unmasked people because… well… Florida).

Yes, Dear Reader, I’ve been summoned for jury duty.

I’ve been summoned before in Florida, but the last time, I was a homeschooling mom of a child under ten, so I was excused. No excuses here. So welcome to the jury pool.

The last time I was in a jury pool, I lived in New York, where I had the interesting situation of being chosen for a jury, then having to be excused because the opposing counsel was the husband of my Weight Watchers leader. Which had apparently never been brought up as a reason for excusing a juror before because I clearly remember the looks of abject confusion on the faces of the judge and the lawyers. “Wait, you… what? Does that count? I… okay.”

I’m not sure how long I’m going to be here today. Or how many days this week I’ll have to report. But they have wifi, and I can bring my laptop, so there will be words.

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

14424 / 90000 (16.03%)

Visions in Smoke drops tomorrow, and Children of Dreams next week. There’s still time to get those preorders in!

And that’s about all I’ve got today. This room is now packed, and it’s 8AM. Time to go be a responsible member of society.

Oct

2022

This is Halloween.

Sitting here today in my witchy tights, wearing a tarot card t-shirt. There are pumpkins in the living room, and a metric ton of candy that I can’t eat. The soundtrack for today includes Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and my son went to school today wearing a colander on his head….

Yup. It’s Halloween.

I really do feel for the teachers today and tomorrow. Today they have excited kids looking forward to tonight (assuming that they didn’t do one of the many trunk-or-treat events this past weekend.) Tomorrow they’ll have exhausted, sugar-buzzed kids who will NOT want to do a durn thing.

Tonight, we’ll get the table set up in the driveway, and for the first time in two years, I’ll dress and go sit outside to give out candy. (Yes, I will be masked.) I need to put new batteries in my lightsaber.

Boy, that’s a string of words that I never before thought about putting together in that order.

For now, though, I’ve done my usual Monday things. Yoga. PT. Done the dishes. Need to put together a grocery order, but that’s for once I’m done with the blog post. And then there will be words. Hopefully, all the words before I have to head out to school, because I doubt I’ll get much done outside.

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

11204 / 90000 (12.45%)

***

The Sea Prince
(The Sea Prince, Book 1)

39892 / 120000 (33.24%)

Preorders are still open for Visions in Smoke and Children of Dreams. Visions in Smoke comes out November 8th, and Children of Dreams on November 15th. The paperback for Children of Dreams in also available for preorder wherever you buy print books. And I’m still trying to get my brain around the series being complete. It’s still very strange.

John Zebedee is still ongoing over on Vella, and if you’re a Prime member, they’re giving away tokens. Today is the last day to claim 200 tokens to use to read anything in the Vella library (since I told you, I hope you’d read mine! But it’s cool if you don’t.) I haven’t started the process on getting a cover for The Chronicles of John Zebedee, but that will be soon, and I’ll have the collected works up in March of 2023. That’s about all I know for the 2023 publishing schedule at the moment.

That’s about it for this week. See you next time!

(And for those who were curious? Yes, witchy tights. They’re sparkly. Got them from Snag.)

Oct

2022

Time is a concept and I don’t believe in it!

That title is a phrase my son has started saying, usually when we remind him that something has to be done by a certain date or time. At this moment, I’m pretty certain that time is a purely theoretical concept. If it was actually a thing, I wouldn’t have this much to do in a day, and I’d be getting a heck of a lot more sleep!

Preorders are live on Amazon for Visions in Smoke and Children of Dreams. They’re live everywhere else for Visions in Smoke, but I’m only halfway done with final edits on Children of Dreams, so it won’t be live in preorder anywhere but Amazon until next week (I can use a placeholder file on Amazon. I can’t do that anywhere else.)

I realized something this morning. The first four books of Heir to the Firstborn were updated in such a way that people who bought the books could just download the updates. You can’t do that with Visions in Smoke, because it’s NOT Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads. It’s a whole new book, with some major changes. But there are people who bought Crossroads, and who shouldn’t have to buy it again because I edited things.

SOOOO…. what I’m going to do is take care of you. If you bought Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads, email me via the contact me page. Answer two questions, and I’ll send a copy of Visions in Smoke to you. What two questions?

1. The Progress meets a group on the road the day they leave the Palace. What’s the name of the headman?

2. What’s the name of Othi’s horse?

You also have to tell me what format you want. So, three questions.

I’m working slowly on The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath, and procrastinating on The Sea Prince.

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

4909 / 90000 (5.45%)

***

The Sea Prince
(The Sea Prince, Book 1)

39892 / 120000 (33.24%)

Now, it’s still slow going, but that brings us back to the whole “if time were real, I’d have more of it…” There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to do everything that needs to be done.

What? So maybe do less?

Yeah, that’ll never work.

I’m tossing around the idea of a writing retreat for the beginning of 2023, so I can do a hard reset. Go off for a weekend so I can do nothing BUT write. And sleep. (Oh, and let’s be wild and maybe get a massage!)

It’s a lovely idea.

Oct

2022

Cover Reveal!

If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you saw these on Friday. (If you’re not… well, you could be. There’s a sign-up widget either to the right, or down below this post, depending on if you’re using an laptop or a mobile device.)

Anyway… Patreon patrons saw these first, newsletter subscribers got them Monday, and now here’s the big, wide reveal of the final two covers of the Heir to the Firstborn series!

I think Visions in Smoke is my new favorite of my covers. Preorders for both books are open now on Amazon, and will be coming shortly everywhere else. Click the covers to be taken to the preorder.

The other big announcement that went out on Friday was that Riverdale Avenue Books has acquired The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir! Okay, blog readers knew that two weeks ago — sometimes, there is a benefit to following both the blog and the newsletter, since the blog is weekly and the newsletter is once a month.

As usual with me and writing historical fantasy, I have to look things up. A lot. So this week, my topics have been Roman medicine, surgical techniques (including the use of fibulae to close wounds!) and what would Cretic wine have tasted like (Cretic wine being wine laced with opium.) And I’m not even done with chapter one!

(Yeah, I’m not done with chapter one after two weeks. The writing has been slow.)

The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath

2859 / 90000 (3.18%)

***

The Sea Prince
(The Sea Prince, book 1)

39655 / 120000 (33.05%)

In other news, the final part of the Chronicles of John Zebedee went live on Kindle Vella this morning. John Zebedee Meets the Witch Queen of the Elvenlands is a long one, and will run until the end of January. Amazon is currently running a promotion where you can read 100 episodes a day for free. It ends tomorrow, so if you want to read the first two parts of John Zebedee, you can find Heir to the Elvenlands here, and Monstrous Town here.

Oh, me, will you look at the time? It’s right at this moment 1:30 PM and I have to leave in twenty minutes. That’s all for this week. Stay safe, everyone.

Oct

2022

Recovery

It’s been a long week, and one that didn’t involve nearly as many words as I’d have liked.

Last Tuesday, we settled in for what promised to be two days of storm. Schools were cancelled for Wednesday, because Ian was bearing down on Tampa Bay. Now, we’re two hours from Tampa, and we were already starting to see the initial rains on Tuesday as we got home. The storm was MASSIVE.

You’ve probably seen the news at this point. We were extremely lucky — we didn’t flood. We didn’t even lose power. Yard cleanup took two days, and I have the roof guys coming next week to check and see if the roof made it through the winds. We were relatively unscathed.

But I also did next to no writing last week, because I had next to no focus, and very little sleep (hurricanes are LOUD!)

The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath

1316 / 90000 (1.46%)

***

The Sea Prince
(The Sea Prince, book 1)

38914 / 120000 (32.43%)

What I did do was work on incorporating edits into the Heir to the Firstborn books, and the first three are up. Wings of Air will go up later this week, and the preorders for Visions in Smoke and Children of Dreams will be up later this week as well. I am not quite sure what the heck is going on with the paperbacks — they’re supposed to be available, but no one seems to have them yet. I’m about ready to order them myself and list them on my website — I’ll have an exclusive!

Hrm…might not be the worst idea…

You all did know that I have a bookstore link on the website, didn’t you? The new books aren’t listed there yet — I don’t have any stock on hand, but copies are on the way.

The final chapter of John Zebedee and the Monstrous Town went live this morning, and next week, the first three chapters of John Zebedee Meets the Witch-Queen of the Elvenlands go live. I’ll have that link next Monday, so watch for the blog next week. It’s a long one — it’ll run until January.

The box set for Rebel Mage drops tomorrow, too. I’ve been very lax in my marketing, so this has basically flown under the radar. It’s Amazon exclusive and on Kindle Unlimited.

Something to look forward to next week? The cover reveals for Visions in Smoke and Children of Dreams! In the meantime, check out Wings of Air, which should go live this week.

Sep

2022

I Have An Excite!!!

Why am I excited? Because Friday, this happened:

I had NO idea that the release date was Friday, or I’d have said something sooner!

Now, this new edition contains two bits of new material. The first is old new — I wrote The Ice Raven for the Princes of Air launch ten years ago, and it was serialized on the Circlet Livejournal. It’s never before been available for sale.

The second new bit of material is an exciting announcement, because you get a sneak peak at the first chapter of The White Raven: Morrigan’s Heir… coming in 2023 from Riverdale Avenue Books!

Lorcan finally gets his own books! Two of them — I’m starting The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath today. (That was the mystery synopsis I was working on a few weeks back.)

The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath

0 / 90000 (0.00%)

***

The Sea Prince
(The Sea Prince, book 1)

37782 / 120000 (31.49%)

Yes, I am still going to be working on The Sea Prince.

In other writing news, I finished the rewrite of Children of Dreams, and I’ll be setting up a preorder for that and Visions in Smoke this week. I’ll post links to those on all the social media once they’re up. Bones of Earth went live last week, and is updating everywhere. Not sure what’s happening with the paperbacks — they’re listed as publishing, but Amazon hasn’t updated to the new information, and Barnes and Noble is still listing the old prices. Remember, if you find books with the old covers, it’s the old content.

Not much else to share, and I need to get on getting on to writing.

Have a great week!!!

Sep

2022

Late Post is Late

It’s been a Monday. That’s my reason and my excuse. Monday. That and I’ve been busy!

Written in Water is now up for sale with the new cover and edits. If you see an electronic copy with the old cover, it’s the old version. There shouldn’t be any vendor with the old covers anymore, except in paperback.

The updated paperbacks will be coming in November. That will, I hope, give vendors a chance to sell out of the old stock. I hope.

The rest of the Heir to the Firstborn series are not available for sale. That’s so people don’t buy the old copies expecting new updates. I’ll be relisting them as the new edits are completed and run through my editor. Forged in Fire will be coming in the next two weeks or so.

Today, I finished the edits for Visions in Smoke, so I’m now onto the rewrites for Children of Dreams.

I have updated the giveaway to include the revised edition of Written in Water. So… want it free? Go here!

And in other news…. I’ve just approved the final proof of the anniversary edition of Princes of Air. The cover is ready. There’s bonus material. I can’t wait!!!! SOON!!!!

Boy, I cannot WAIT to see Princes of Air on the table at a convention next year! It has never before been available in print.

I think that’s all. And even if it isn’t, it’s late (for me, yes, this is late.)

Visions in Smoke

Civic Duty or Something.

This is Halloween.

Time is a concept and I don’t believe in it!

Recovery

I Have An Excite!!!

Late Post is Late

Works in Progress

Appearances

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