Wings of Air

Dec

2023

Lofty Goals

Lofty goals, I have them. I have perhaps three chapters left to finish in Valley of Shadows (which drops my wordcount from 90K to 75K.) I am saying this to the public at large, and with my WHOLE chest!

This week I am going to finish this book!!!

As I said, lofty goals. Doable lofty goals, but lofty goals. I’ll be posting my daily wordcounts on Mastodon and Blusky, so you can follow along as I race to finish.

Then… COOKIES!!!

I’m honestly looking forward to the break this year. Although getting me to actually stop doing ANYTHING will be… challenging. I’ve been going at a fever pitch since I started Written in Water in 2018, and I’m not sure I know how to do downtime anymore. Even my vacations are high energy (I vacation at Disney…which means I have fun, but I don’t necessarily relax.) So I’ve decided that once Valley of Shadows is done, I’m taking time away from the laptop. I’m not going to get back to The Sea Prince until January, and I might not even blog! (We’ll see if I hold true to that!)

So what are my plans for the break? Because it’s me and of course there have to be plans? Reading. I have multiple stacks of books to catch up on, and I just added more. There is SO MUCH TV to catch up on — I still haven’t watched season 2 of Loki, and there are about a half-dozen Star Wars shows I need to binge. I want to go down to Disney to see the holiday decorations and do the gingerbread crawl (I’m not sure when that will happen — our park passes black out the 19th.) And I have knitting projects I want to finish.

So, knitting and reading and bingewatching and cookies? Sounds like a plan.

Cookiepocalypse will start next week, so you can keep an eye on Instagram for that. So far, I know I’m making three color cookies to start, and struffuli (which Owyn makes in Wings of Air) to finish. In the middle? I haven’t decided, although I did have a request for oatmeal carob chip. (Hrm… I haven’t made molasses cookies in ages. Maybe I’ll make those, too.)

Follow the Instagram for the cookies — it’ll be a surprise!

In other, other news, my publisher said the most fascinating words to be the other day. Foreign rights. As in, they’ll be shopping them around, so they needed some info from me to put into the pitch. 2024 is promising to be very interesting indeed!

Works in Progress

Valley of Shadows
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 7

66861 / 75000 (89.15%)

This book will be done this week! I have said it!

Promotions!

The Smashwords End of the Year sale is coming up December 15th. My ENTIRE catalog will be on sale for 25% off ONLY on Smashwords!

Now, because of the Draft2Digital/Smashwords merger, I have TWO author pages on Smashwords (actually, I have four, but two of them are from publishers.) The two that I maintain will be combined at some point, but until then, the catalogs that will be on sale are here and here.

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.

Jun

2022

Things and Stuff

That’s about the state of things right now in my word. There are things and stuff. Things and stuff are happening, and I’m doing things and stuff.

At the moment, I’m about half finished with the synopsis for book 4 of Flesh and Blood. There’s one book after that, and that will, I think, end the series (at least for the foreseeable future? It has the potential to go on longer, because, you know, vampires.) The short story is still in limbo, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to come together, because every time I look at it, my brain goes blank.

Research into Imaginative Anthropology is going well, although I’m realizing that the book I’m reading right now is dated — the next one on my list is a more recent publication, which will help offset the cringe I’m finding in sections on gender and sexuality.

Vacation is coming up soon, but I had to put vacation sewing on hold because the machine needed to be serviced. I should have that back next week. I might go ahead and cut the pieces now, but I might not.

Episode 6 of John Zebedee and the Heir of the Elvenlands went live today. People are reading it, but I can see why folks are saying that Vella isn’t really getting the traction that Amazon hoped it would. I hope they figure out how to make this platform work. I like it, but they really do need to do more to push it!

I’m waiting for more feedback from the beta readers for BVC, but it looks like I have a job of work to do with new edits for Heir to the Firstborn. Serials and novels really are two different beasts, and they don’t translate well from one to the other. That’s on my to-do list for 2023, because I think the only book that will need minimal edits is Written in Water! The new covers are ABSOLUTELY gorgeous and I can’t wait to reveal them — I just got the proof for Wings of Air and it’s beautiful.

There’s also a title change coming — Heir to the Firstborn: The Crossroads will be republished as Dreams of Smoke. I haven’t yet decided what the new title for Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home will be. It does need that Something-in-Something title to fit with the rest of the series (and there are three Something-OF-Something titles, so I need one more Something-IN-Something to balance. But I might not. We’ll see.)

I DO know that The Way Home needs to be edited HEAVILY — it’s way too long. There are subplots in there that may not make it to the final version, and there’s one character who told me more about them after I finished, so I need to change them up a bit. It’s still going to go live for my Patreon patrons in November, but I may hold off actually publishing book 6 in the wild until the BVC edition. Again, we’ll see.

Things and stuff. Stuff and things. Decisions to make.

I’m awfully busy for someone who is supposed to be taking it easy this summer. But, in the taking it easy part, I did binge the entire Book of Boba Fett yesterday (The Mandalorian, season 2.5?) Now on to the rest of my watch list — next up? Seasons 4 and 5 of She-Ra!

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

A week has five days, right?

And now you’re wondering just what happened, aren’t you? How did I manage to misplace two days?

I got my second COVID vaccination, that’s how. I am now a full member of House Pfizer. For me, that involved a lot of flu-like symptoms and a LOT of sleeping. Which is how I lost two days last week.

Needless to say, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of writing done last week.

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

57416 / 150000 (38.28%)

But you know what? It’s worth it. It’s totally worth it to be taking that one step closer to being able to go and do and see. Reader events are happening this year, and now, I can be part of them.

(I do want them to hurry up and get the formula together for the 16 and under set. Hopefully before August, so someone might maybe have a high school experience in an actual classroom, thank you. Although getting up at ridiculous in the morning to go to school is overrated, especially for teens who need their sleep! Not to mention Moms who need their sleep…)

Page proofs of Ashes and Light wrapped up this past weekend, so the book is now officially up for presale. I started page proofs on Table of Stone on Saturday, and I may very well have all four books ready to go before The Lady and the Sword goes live in May. That’s… what am I going to do with myself?

(Answer… work on the Spiffy Secret Project, that’s what. Full details coming in… umm… goodness, is THAT the date? Two weeks!!!!)

(Oh crap. Two weeks. Umm…I’ll talk to you all next week. I have work to do!)

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.

Mar

2021

One Year

I just went back and looked at my post from this week one year ago.

One year ago, all we knew about Covid-19 was that it was new and scary and really, really dangerous.

One year ago, we’d just entered quarantine.

One year ago, I had three kids living under my roof because reasons.

One year ago, I said that I doubted we’d be going back to school in person at all for the 2019-2020 school year.

One year ago, all the theme parks in Florida closed down for the rest of the month.

One year ago, the conventions and reader events started to postpone and cancel.

Now?

Well, school is still not in person, not for everyone. My son has attended his first year of high school from his bedroom.

The theme parks were closed for three months, and still aren’t all the way open.

I’m back to one child under my roof. Miss the other two like crazy, but it’s not safe to see them. Not yet. Soon.

I had my first Covid vaccine shot last Tuesday. There’s word of a promising antiviral. As rates of vaccination have gone up, the number of hospitalizations for the 65-and-over age range has gone drastically down.

Things aren’t the way they were. They may never be the way they were. But there’ s hope now.

It’s an odd feeling, hope. I’m not used to it.

On the writing front, there’s been a LOT of writing this past year — since last March, I’ve written:

three books in The Chronicles of John Zebedee.
Time for No Mercy
Wings of Air
The first third of Heir to the Firstborn.

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

43806 / 150000 (29.20%)

There’s a lot more to come, too. And that’s just new words! I’ve edited and reedited the first three Swords of Charlemagne books and am working on book four, and I’ve proofread the first two once I had proof copies, and am working on the third.

Wings of Air drops a week from tomorrow, on Amazon and everywhere ebooks are sold (and you can order the print books!)

I’m still on the RWA Board, still working my tail off. The Super Seekrit project will launch next month, and it is going to be AMAZING. (okay, so it’s not really so super seekrit — I’m the lead on the Pen to Paper project, which used to be called Push to Publish. But I can’t tell you anything more until we launch so SUPER SEEKRIT!)

Several of the conferences I was supposed to attend in 2020 are in the planning stages for 2021. I have my hotel reservations for Orlando Reads Books, and Books at the Beach. The only reason I don’t have my hotel reservations for RWA Nationals or Necronomicon is because there’s no hotel block for those yet. And I have my fingers crossed! Things are still tenuous for conventions, and several others have postponed or cancelled their 2021 dates. So we’ll see what happens.

One year ago, I wrote in this blog that the only way out was through.

We’re almost through, folks. Just a little more.

Mar

2021

Book Sale and… wait, what boycott?

So Smashwords is doing a Read an Ebook promotion March 7th through the 13th. Great! Heir to the Firstborn is wide, so I can set the first three books into the promotion before book 4 releases! And make the promotion over all the venues, so that things are consistent! Great! What could go wrong… wait, what boycott?

I found out about the Amazon boycott this week AFTER I’d set up the promotions and the ads and everything. Which bites, because Amazon is where I sell the most books.

But not to fear! Because, while Amazon is where I sell the most books, they are not the only place to get mobi files for your Kindle! You can buy the entire series, preorder Wings of Air, and download Worlds Begin for free from Smashwords!

If you have another ereader, and want an epub? You can also get those from Smashwords. Or you can check out any number of other booksellers here!

If you still want to shop at Amazon this week? The prices will all be the same there, except you won’t be able to download Worlds Begin for free (I keep telling them it’s a free book, and they keep changing it!)

Remember, preorders make writers very happy! So you can hit any one of those links and preorder Wings of Air!

Heir to the Firstborn is going slowly. One scene that I really wanted to write had to be rewritten a few times so that it really worked the way I wanted it to work. Now that that particular scene is behind me, I can get the group moving forward. With hopefully only a few side-trips — there are some plot-bunnies that poked up in the last two chapters that I think will be important. They’re logical progressions from what already came out, but weren’t on the tip of my brain until they were on the page. Which is when I went “Oh… really?”

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

39549 / 150000 (26.37%)

I uploaded the final edits of The Lady and the Sword to Amazon last night. Preorder is ready to go… nearly two months early. This will be KU only for the first 90 days, the same as Hidden Things.

And finally, because I goofed and ran a picture of it when I got my proof copy of Ashes and Light, here’s the cover reveal! Ashes and Light will be on sale July 20th. Remember, preorders are love!

I think that by the time the series wraps, I’m going to be hard pressed to say which is my favorite cover. I thought it was The Lady and the Sword, but this one is just SO pretty!

That’s pretty much all in this neck of the woods. Spring Break starts a week from today, so that means that we’ve been in lockdown for a few days short of a year (everything shut down here in Florida the Friday before Spring Break, March 13th 2020.) I get my first Covid shot tomorrow, so we’ll see how I feel tomorrow night. I’ll likely be posting about the Covid shot and my reactions to it, so watch my social media.

Catch you next week. Stay safe, everyone.

Mar

2021

Whiplash

Ever had your luck change so fast you get whiplash?

That was me today. Yesterday was a technological mess, to the point that I was ready to throw my laptop away and buy a Mac. I use Libreoffice, a solid, free open source office suite. It does everything that Office does.

Well, almost everything.

In one of the last updates, they managed to break something to the point that saving in .doc or .docx corrupts the files. They become unreadable. I, of course, discovered this when I attempted to upload Ashes and Light to Draft to Digital for formatting.

Cue much thrashing and flailing, and finally purchasing Office. And then discovered that the corruption was embedded in the formatting — I could not copy the text from the .odt file and paste it into a Word document! It locked Word up solid. What I ended up doing was copying the text from the .odt to Google Docs, then copying from Google Docs to Word. Which somehow fixed the formatting issue and it worked.

And then I ripped Libreoffice out by the roots.

But tell me again how technology makes your life easier…

Flash forward to this morning. File uploads like a dream, preorder is ready, print proof is ordered, and I go do my morning yoga. When I pick my phone up again, T-Mobile is reminding me that it’s Tuesday, so I should go check out my free stuff and play the giveaway game. I NEVER win the giveaway game, and as I spun the virtual wheel, I muttered, “I never win this. Why do I do it?”

And promptly won a $5 Visa gift card.

Now, the T-Mobile reminder also reminds me that it is Tuesday, which is when my county releases the new block of Covid vaccination appointments. They changed the criteria YESTERDAY, and I’m eligible for vaccination now. So I log into the vaccine portal…

And score an appointment. I get my first shot next Tuesday.

I think I may need to nip out to play the lottery…

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

36493 / 150000 (24.33%)

Work continues on Heir to the Firstborn, and I’m ramping up for the release of Wings of Air on the 23rd. How, you ask?

A sale!

Starting next Sunday, and running all week (so, from March 7-13th),

Written in Water will be $1.74 (75% off).
Forged in Fire will be $4.49 (50% off)
Bones of Earth will be $6.74 (25% off)

The sale is already set up in Draft to Digital and Smashwords, but I need to set it manually in Amazon.

In addition, there will be a Kindle Countdown deal on Hidden Things, starting March 14th!

Wings of Air will go on sale everywhere on the 23rd.

Wings of Air

Lofty Goals

Works in Progress

Promotions!

Recovery

Things and Stuff

WordPress is about as much fun as root canal.

A week has five days, right?

Spring? Maybe?

Release Day! Release Day! Release Day!

One Year

Book Sale and… wait, what boycott?

Whiplash

Works in Progress

Appearances

2026 Appearances

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