Write Faster!

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.

Nov

2023

Back to Work

It’s the first Monday after Thanksgiving, and it’s time for me to get back to work. This book won’t write itself. Valley of Shadows has three, maybe four chapters left. And my incentive to get this done quickly is that December starts Friday, and that means…

COOKIEPOCALYPSE IS COMING!!!

I need to sit down and decide what cookies I’m making this year. There will definitely be three color cookies — there have to be three color cookies or it’s not Christmas. There will be struffuli on Christmas Eve (and if you want that recipe, check out Love at First Bite, which is a collection of recipes available as a free download from the Cavalcade of Authors.) But in between? I’m not sure yet. I need to ask the family what they want. As always, there will be pictures posted to my Instagram — I know there are some of you who wait for those pictures every year!

As I bake, I’m also going to get back to my research for Imaginative Anthropology. I’ve been putting that off because I had too much on my plate, but baking and reading seem to go hand in hand. There will also be the planning for next year, revisiting my business plans and setting up my annual goals for 2024. The end of the year is a busy time for the small business.

At some point, we have to put up the tree, and Hanukah starts next week (blended household, in case you didn’t know.) Fall semester is over next week, and we’re all very much looking forward to Winter Break. We found out last week that Teen Boy has been accepted to his top college, but we haven’t committed yet — we want to hear from the last two and see what they’re offering. But top school has started the process of evaluating the college credits he already has, so we’ll see what they come back with.

Spring semester will be all kinds of interesting and exciting — here’s hoping that senioritis holds off until the first week of May, though!

So much happening in 2024! But I need to finish 2023 first, so back to work!

Works in Progress

Valley of Shadows
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 7

62071 / 90000 (68.97%)

New Release!

Snowbound dropped today! You can get it anywhere you find ebooks!

Snowbound — because brown paper packages aren’t the only things getting tied up…

Promotions!

Cyber Monday Sale is Live!!!! You can find the first three Heir to the Firstborn books for $0.99 cents each! In addition, Hidden Things and Counsel of the Wicked are also still $0.99!

Apr

2023

Thunder

There’s thunder rumbling outside my window this morning, and some good soaking rain. We need the rain — Central Florida has been bone-dry this spring, and things are turning brown. So I’m not complaining about the gray Monday morning (okay, not complaining much.)

Camp Nano is going really well. I’ve missed one day of writing since April 1st (my birthday — I’m allowed!), but I’m still on track to finish the book on time. And then… it’ll sit and stew for a bit, so that when I go back and reread it, I don’t fill in things that I thought I wrote but didn’t.

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

78492 / 90000 (87.21%)

The story is coming along nicely, even the bits that weren’t in the outline (because there are always bits that weren’t in the outline in my books.) There may even be at least one related short story, but we’ll see if these characters want to tell me their courtship stories the way Oscar and Muirenn did in The Ice Raven.

The school year is starting to wind down, and that means I’m going to start to shift to planning mode fairly soon. Which actually works well for me because I’ve been hyperfocusing on finishing The White Raven, so the worldbuilding for The Sea Prince, and the research for Imaginative Anthropology have both been shelved for the nonce. I’ll pick them both up again in May, as well as getting more serious about the untitled seventh Heir to the Firstborn book, for which I’m still trying to find a title. Nothing seems to work. I’m leaning towards just calling it Heir to the Firstborn, but that doesn’t flow with the previous titles. (all of which are three words and either something OF something or something IN something.) Considering I haven’t even written the first word yet, I have time, but I hate starting with a working title and changing it (even though I totally did that for book 5 of this series.) What little work I’ve done on the synopsis is showing me an odd issue I don’t normally have — bits of the story keep shifting as I keep running into “That’s a good piece, but it won’t work that early.” I suddenly understand my friends who plot out their books using large sticky notes!

Hey… I just put Notezilla on my computer. I’ll have to play with that, see if it helps.

In May. Once I finish this book.

Back to making words.

Mar

2023

The Space Where Fandom and Academia Collide…

That space is the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA), an annual conference put on by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. I’ve been attending since their first October conference in 2021, and it is seriously where academia and fandom collide. Four days of panels and readings and talking and networking and realizing you’re sitting right across from a writing LEGEND and trying not to die (okay, maybe that one is just me…)

I started going to conventions at 16, and I started with Lunacon, which was the New York regional convention. And I remember panels where experts spoke at length about different aspects of fandom and meaning and symbolism, and the panels at ICFA remind me of being at that sort of convention. I’m not sure how many of those are left — the old regionals seem to be passing to younger hands, and becoming more media focused. Which just shows that I’m part of the graying of fandom, I suppose.

No, I am not shaking my fist at clouds.

I was nominally supposed to also be on a writing retreat while at ICFA. Ah… that did not go as planned.

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

54813 / 90000 (60.90%)

I didn’t get nearly as much writing done as I’d have liked. Which means it’s time to turn up the daily wordcount target if I intend to have this done by the end of the school year.

And since I’ve been playing catch-up all day, that means I need to get started on daily words. Here’s hoping for many more words this week!

May

2022

And Here We Go!

First, tomorrow is the re-release of Haven’s Fall!

There’s still time to preorder it, so you’ll have it tonight. Or you can start reading it tomorrow in KU if you’ve already read Counsel of the Wicked.

I sat down Saturday and figured out how much more there is to finish in Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home. The answer? Six chapters. About 18K words. I’m calling is 20K to be on the safe side.

I have ten days, roughly, in which to write that.

Since I figured that out, I have written 2818 words.

Roughly 17,182 words to go.

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

151798 / 170000 (89.29%)

I’m almost done with one chapter, which will leave five more to finish. In ten days.

This is doable. I might have brains of tapioca in eleven days, but it’s doable.

And then Heir to the Firstborn will be finished. Which will be VERY strange. Well, not finished finished. There are still edits. And the series itself has been picked up by a co-op publisher, so there will be even more edits and new covers coming (there’s already a new blurb on Written in Water. It doesn’t take up the entire back of the book.) But that’s the end of the series. That’s it. There’s no more.

Well… I don’t think there’s anymore.

Edits may not happen until fall. I want to spend the summer working on business planning and marketing, and doing research for my Imaginative Anthropology project. Maybe planning out some other writing.

But definitely taking a break.

Ten more days.

Okay, words. Let’s go.

May

2022

Race to the Finish Line!

Here we are, with two and a half weeks left of school, and… probably about ten chapters to go in Heir to the Firstborn: The Way Home. That’s roughly 30K words.

In two and a half weeks.

Ummm… this is going to be a really short blog post! I have to go make all the words!!!

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

140730 / 170000 (82.78%)

I can’t believe this series is almost done. It’s really kind of wild — this is the longest I’ve ever spent on any single project, ever. And the amount of work and worldbuilding that went on behind the scenes — well, I knew it was ambitious to write a serial in real time. I just didn’t know just how ambitious!

And at the same time, I’m really ready for this series to be done. I’ve done just about everything I can do with the characters — including some things that should have been permanent but weren’t (trying to avoid book 3 spoilers…). There might be a short story for some side characters that came into it near the end of The Way Home, but… maybe not.

Once it’s done, I’ll be taking the summer off. Well, as off as I ever get — there will be edits, and I need to finish the last part of my business plan. I have research to do for the imaginative anthropology project I want to put together, and I have so much reading to catch up on!

But first… moar words!!!

Before I forget! Counsel of the Wicked is on Kindle Countdown deal this week, because Haven’s Fall comes out NEXT week.

Now, back to making words.

Apr

2022

New Server, Who DNS?

Remember how I said I was moving the website? It’s officially moved! My website is now hosted by Greekgeeks, and I’m already loving the change.

They said the migration could take up to 48 hours. It was done in under 12.

They said that the DNS change would take a couple of hours. FIVE MINUTES.

SSL certificate? Push a button and POOF!

Makes my geeky heart happy. If you’re at all interested in checking them out, click here. (affiliate link)

I’m in the middle of the 5 Day Author Ad Profit Challenge (taught by Bryan Cohen), so there haven’t been as many words as there might usually have been during a week. And I’m seeing that Sea Prince is going to need quite a lot of tweaking to bring the older chapters up to date and in line with where my writing is now, as well as making sure the characters voices are consistent. But I can do THAT once I have a draft. Right now, the words are flowing, and I’m not stopping! Write first, edit later!

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

126161 / 170000 (74.21%)

****

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, book 1)

28452 / 120000 (23.71%)

I keep forgetting to put this out there. If you’re interested in reading my work before the general public, I have an ARC page on Booksprout. In exchange for your review of the book, you can get advance copies of any of my upcoming work! Right now, I have Haven’s Fall and Where Home Lies available, and as soon as I have a copy of The Way Home available, that will go up there as well.

Likewise, if you’re interested in any of my books, but can’t afford them? Drop me a note. I know that not all of my books can be gotten through the public library, so I’m happy to send review copies out. It helps me, and it protects my readers from pirate sites that are loaded with malware.

In audiobook news, there have been some delays with recording (mostly covid related). If all goes well, recording will start this Thursday, and may be done shortly thereafter. I’ve been invited to (virtually) hang out in the booth and listen in, because Mark (my narrator) and James (his engineer) want my real-time input on voice characterizations. I’m very excited about being involved in the project, which I know is unusual (and honestly, if I’d been able to be this involved in the recording of House of Sable Locks, the chapter Gunner’s Daughter would have had a VERY DIFFERENT SOUND!!!!)

Not much else to add. I’m working on business planning, and collecting resources to do research on the non-fiction project over the summer. Working on finishing The Way Home before the end of May, which is a big push because I’m thinking I have maybe ten chapters left? That’s 30K words, roughly. Which means… go write all the words, Liz!

Catch you next week!

Apr

2022

Time is Fun When You’re Having Flies

Hard to believe it’s April already. Coming up on the end of a school year already. Which means I have just about a month and a half to finish The Way Home.

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

120211 / 170000 (70.71%)

****

The Sea Prince
(The Coral Throne, book 1)

25154 / 120000 (20.96%)

I think I can do it. And… in case it’s not COMPLETELY obvious by having it right up there, I have indeed decided to try and get The Sea Prince moving again, and start serializing it once Heir to the Firstborn is complete. I figured out what the problem was — I’d somehow managed to center the plot on the one romance plot device that I hate more than any other. You know the one — if they actually TALKED to each other, this would be a short story?

I deplore that plot device, to the point that I clearly can’t write it! So I’ve reworked the plot, and now I think this works even better. I’ve rewritten the first six chapters, and am about to start on the seventh, which is the last full chapter that was written before I shelved this the last time. So let’s see if I can get this onto chapter eight.

The question now is… do I serialize on Patreon, the way I have been, take it over to Vella and give that a go, or do both? Vella allows for content to be serialized so long as it is not publicly available anywhere else or previously published. Since my Patreon isn’t public, I should be able to do both Patreon and Vella. Decisions, decisions….

I also have another project in mind, one that’s going to require research. And it’s not a novel — I have an idea for a book on worldbuilding, using the framework of cultural anthropology. Planned title — Imaginative Anthropology. (There might be a subtitle, but I haven’t thought of it yet.) I’ve often described myself as a frustrated cultural anthropologist (Darn you, college advisor, for not letting me have a triple major English/Secondary Education/Cultural Anthropology!) I just hadn’t realized that I was using the classes I took in college as tools for my worldbuilding. At least, not until I spoke to 150 high school students about being a speculative writer, and the importance of worldbuilding that makes sense. I put the words “Imaginative Anthropologist” on the presentation slide, and somewhere around the fourth or fifth time of giving the presentation (over 6 periods of the day), I realized that I might be on to something. So I’ll be developing that out as my summer planning project, and working on it once I finish up with the business planning I’m doing this year.

Busy, busy, busy, right?

This month has another book giveaway with 34 books free for the download, and a chance to win a gift card. Check it out by clicking the graphic.

In other news, I sat down via with Mark Oosterveen, the narrator for Hidden Things, and recording on the audiobook will be starting quite possibly this week! He’s nailing down the final schedule and will let me know because I will be (virtually) in the recording studio with them! Mark wants to have real time feedback on voices and tone during the recording, and I’m very excited to be included in the process. More updates as I have them!

And that, I think, is all the news this 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.

May

2021

Wait… June? Where did May Go?

It’s June tomorrow. Was it just me, or did May just fly on past?

Granted, I’ve been busy. Between my own writing and Pen to Paper and RWA stuff and every other thing, I’ve barely had time to blink. And now it’s JUNE?

Write faster, Liz! There’s so much left to do!

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

95828 / 150000 (63.89%)

I hit the pivot point on Heir to the Firstborn last night. And there is an entire chapter written that comes after that pivot point, so while this book is going to be another monster of a book, it’s not going to be an 180K word monster.

I don’t think. And we’ll see how much gets trimmed (or excised entirely) in edits.

Gonna be a thick book, though!

My brain knows that this is the end, though. So it’s starting to look at the rest of the “Eventually, I’ll Write This” list and pick things. I may take another stab at The Willow Sword and rework it as a serial once Heir to the Firstborn is done. And at that point, the question will be do I take it over to Amazon Vella, or keep it on Patreon? And once I rework Blood Bound and get it back to Circlet, then it might just be time to take up that steampunk retelling of Metropolis that’s been knocking around in my head for ages. (That one will be called Tower of Light, for anyone keeping score. And it’s all Lon Sarver’s fault.) Which means my 2022 plans are looking to be recover and rerelease the Rebel Mage trilogy, release The Chronicles of John Zebedee with the rest of the Wild West Paranormal boxset, and get something started for a new serial. Maybe get The White Raven: Morrigan’s Wrath started, depending on what happens with Circlet.

The Lady and the Sword released last week, with a wonderful release day review and some nice sales. I’m pretty pleased with the release. Ashes and Light in July, and Table of Stone in September!

And on top of all of this, two weeks ago, I submitted my name to run for reelection as a Director at Large for the RWA Board. Last time, I promise! (It has to be the last time — term limits are a thing for directors, and I’m not running for anything on the Executive Board. No. You can’t make me.)

We’ve decided that we’re taking a week off once I get back from the RWA retreat. Which is a good thing, because I think I’ve forgotten how to downtime. It’s been a LONG time since I last did downtime. (umm… last vacation was 2017? I think? Our financial advisor yelled at us. We’re under orders to do something FUN. So, we’re going to!)

I am looking forward to that retreat, though! I’ve never been to Tennessee, except for once when I was in the airport because we had to change planes. I don’t think that counts. And Nashville? The Grand Old Opry is on my list of things I want to see! (It’s a short list. One thing. I won’t have a car, so I’m sticking to things I can get to on foot, and the Grand Old Opry is five minutes from the hotel!)

I do need to finish my retreat presentation, though. One more thing to add to my to-do list!

Write Faster!

Lofty Goals

Works in Progress

Promotions!

Back to Work

Works in Progress

New Release!

Promotions!

Thunder

The Space Where Fandom and Academia Collide…

And Here We Go!

Race to the Finish Line!

New Server, Who DNS?

Time is Fun When You’re Having Flies

On Your Mark…

Wait… June? Where did May Go?

Works in Progress

Appearances

2027 Appearances

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