Get Back In the game

I actually got writing done this week. Incredibly surprising considering I spent Saturday through Tuesday in a cough-syrup induced coma. I got a pretty decent chunk of Ace of Swords knocked out, but, like I said last week, a majority of that needs to be written at home since those two can’t behave.

I also got some stirrings for a stand-alone started. It’s a rough outline and I’ve only got one chapter so far, but I’ve been wanting to pin down something not in a series to get out besides just Lucky. I won’t post a lot about it until I’m much further into the first draft at least. It’s more afro-fantasy than romance which isn’t a genre I typically write in, but I have one specific scene I need to bring to life. For… reasons.

On the editing front, I’ve got a beta for Biker Blues and my husband is being diligent victim supportive spouse and listening through it with me with his own notes. Which is made all the more hilarious by how he’s never read a biker romance a day in his life, but he’s invested in this one. It’s actually pretty exciting.

I also managed to scrape some money together, and I’ll hopefully have some commissioned art to add to the gallery. I found the amazing chuuupep on Instagram, and I can’t wait to get it back. It’s a half body sketch of Luca and Violet from Ace of Wands, and I’m so excited to see them drawn by someone else.

This week is going to be a lot of plotting and editing. I’m getting started on Liar Liar in the Ridgewood Rattler series, and I want Ace of Wands sparkling when I publish in January. I’ve put the Love Island spin off to the side for a minute, since it’s taking back seat to the other series that need to get off the ground. I’m still working on it, just sparringly while I focus on the stuff with an actual deadline.

That’s pretty much it. Lots of parts moving and stuff starting, but it’s invigorating. That, or the Monster I smuggled past my husband is kicking in. Who knows.

Sacrificing a chicken

I do most of my writing on my work laptop. Boo. Shame. Waggle fingers. My calls are never missed and I have top-tier performance, so as long as I leave the open-door scenes closed on work hours, I think I’m good.

This has never really been an issue. Even when I was having tech issues that cut into my writing time, I could still get something done between calls to IT. Not a lot, but something.

Queue this week. My entire computer locks up. Can’t load anything, can’t type anything. My messages to IT have to go through my phone because the computer lags so bad it takes two minutes to send “so that didn’t work either”. Constant restarts, updates, head scratching. I’ve got a list of IT tickets cause I’m not getting reamed out for this when the bosses notice I’m not taking calls.

This goes on the entire week. I get nothing done. My throat is swelling up, I’m exhausted, and I’m 98% sure Holly (my work computer) is glitching out because she’s just as sick as I am. In the end, it’s decided I’m getting a whole new laptop. Partially because on my SEVENTH IT call, I said “we’ve done everything short of sacrificing a chicken under a full moon”.

Which the IT rep thought was so hilarious he had to include it in the official ticket notes. Don’t know how I feel about being professionally associated with that sentence, but it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve done/said at this job.

But, I’m back up and running now. I’m still on the lookout for some Betas for Biker Blues, and I’m vibrating in my skin getting ready for my editor to take a crack at Wolves and Rain.

I’m also trying to get some more writing for Ace of Wands done, but… well… how to put this delicately…?

When I started plotting and planning the Tarot Mafia collection, I made a lot of little decisions to try and flesh out the characters. One of the big things was that each couple in the Minor Arcana focuses on a different aspect of a romance. Not something matching exactly to the symbolism of the suit itself because I’m already mixing up so many other things in this collection.

Violet and Luca in the Wands suit represent mental connection. They’re both very logical people, and even though I haven’t written the others yet, I think they might wind up being the slowest burn I’ve ever written. Meanwhile Aiden and Justine from the Cups suit are more the emotional side, how love and romance can change you on the inside. Michelle and Dimitri from Pentacles represent the social side, the community that you can get from loving someone and the people they love as well.

And Sevan and Wren in Swords are… the physical side. Which I meant in more of a broad, symbolic sense. They are refusing to take it that way, though, and have decided to be ridiculously horny for each other. I’m going to have to finally bite the bullet and invest in a hot spot for my tablet because I can’t keep one scene with these two safe for work.

This weekend is supposed to be a relaxing weekend for my husband and I. Nothing planned, nothing scheduled. Just time for us to exist together with my daughter and our puppies. Fingers crossed if I give the toddler her own keyboard so she can “help” write, I can actually get some rare weekend writing in.

I am getting more active on Threads, but I’m gonna be honest—I suck at social media. The only social I grew up with was tumblr, and everyone knows the gremlins raised on that blue hellscape are built different. Still, I’m starting to get my footing I think. I’m also looking into a lot of stuff I can post now that I’ve got a Canva account again. Never took a design class in my life, but we work with what we have and everything else can wait.

Let’s get down to business

For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about my uncle how works in business. Specifically, he helps small businesses either expand or get off the ground. As a result, I knew I was going to need his help with a lot of the legal and financial jargon of publishing.

Well, since I spent most of this week infected with a plague my daughter brought home, I figured I’d focus on that. See I was just sick enough to lie to my husband about not taking over the recommended dosage of cough spray, but not so sick I couldn’t go to work and earn the paycheck barely keeping my finances afloat. In between that, though, I got to work.

After reassuring my uncle multiple times I didn’t fall for a vanity press (not that I didn’t get a few offers) he’s taken a look at some of the publishing laws and how I’ll need to set up my finances. It’s part of why I pushed everything back to publish starting next year, so I can have the financial stuff in place starting then for my taxes.

We also got into the nitty gritty of things like my copyrights, my ISBNs and things like that. There’s a surprising amount of minutia behind all of it, and I’m still looking at looney toon birds flying around my head at the thought of it. My uncle went through a few terms and conditions of publishing platforms like Amazon and Barnes and Nobel, helping me look at what options are best for me in the long run to make sure I can maximize my reach and profits.

With that, I’m back to the grind. I’m doing a huge shift to the Wolves and Rain manuscript so it’ll be ready for the editor next month. Then I’m also locking in on finishing Ace of Swords so I can get started on editing it and starting Ace of Cups. I’m also pulling some of my stand-alone plot bunnies out of retirement so I can build my digital bookshelf more.

That’s pretty much it for this week. Apologies I’m kind of out of it, like I said, I’m on a lot of cough medicine and very little sleep.

I am a fool

Soooooo, remember how I had high hopes I could get writing done? As long as life co-operated?

Life did not, in fact, cooperate.

If you don’t know, we down here in Texas just had a massive tropical storm hit. I mean flooding like I haven’t seen since I moved to the middle of nowhere. (I’ll never go back to the city. Do you have any idea how nice it is to never physically see your neighbors?) We weren’t too worried, though. Celest, my bright blue SUV got us home safe and sound despite the pine tree that blocked our driveway.

It was only after we went into the yard around the tree that we realized the tree wasn’t the problem. The live wire lost in the tall grass we were currently driving in was. We got to the house safely, but my husband and I will be forever grateful that we decided to be lazy and drive the car to the house instead of walking. Since we still had power despite the lost wire, we weren’t high up on the repair list, so we spent the morning trapped at home, trying to get in contact with people to check on them.

All of our friends and family made it out alright, and I’m grateful for it.

On the writing front, I didn’t get… nothing done. I actually did a huge thing, even if the actual “writing” didn’t move much. See, I’ve mentioned before, but I’ve got a lot of barriers to entry to a writing application. It has to be browser friendly since I can’t download anything on my company laptop without having to explain myself to IT. It has to have unlimited book options since I’ve got so many going on at once and I want somewhere safe to store them all together.

I also really, really wanted something I could do a one-time payment on. The platform I was using wasn’t terribly expensive, but they only had a subscription option, and it was just another bill to keep on top of constantly. Enter Ellipsus. The monthly subscription is less than half what I was paying before and it has a one-time buy option that I can upgrade to when money isn’t tight.

It also lets me design my own theme, and I’m a sucker for anything that lets me have pretty colors. My theme is named Mermaid Melody, and I refuse to admit how long I spent getting it just right. Much less time than I spent moving every copy of my writing from the old platform over. It was an agonizing process, but it’s finally done.

However, with all of this, I’m admitting defeat. There’s no way I’m getting Ace of Wands ready for publishing by October. Between formatting, editing, and everything else, I just can’t be sure I can get it done in time. I’d much rather push back the publishing dates and make sure what I put out is clean and polished than rush it and give everyone a sub-par product.

You’ll also notice if you look at the Wolves and Rain page it looks shorter. I started working on the third book and just realized… I wasn’t enjoying it. Sure, there’s lots of points I want to explore in that world, but the emotional arc Selena and Dominic go through by the end of Howls and Thunder makes anything after feel, for lack of a better word, excessive. I’m definitely going to do some heavy edits because there’s a lot in there I still want to add, but I think writing so many books and actually finishing them is getting me more into the groove of what stories I want to tell and how I want to write them.

All in all, this was an awful, terrible week, and I’m more than happy to leave it in the rearview as I tackle a new month and start prepping for all the big things happening next year for me.

Real Life Problems

One day, I’m gonna do this full, time. My uniform will be pajama bottoms and a tank top (not too unlike my current work apparel). My days will be spent in front of a computer screen writing and editing scenes (as opposed to my current days of sitting in front of a screen taking calls). Best of all, I won’t have to drive to get to work. No quippy tack on to that, I’m incredibly sick of the 1hr+ drive to work every morning, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Mostly, I’ll be glad when this whole writing thing takes off and I can actually focus on it. See, the problem with mostly being able to write when you’re at work is that, if work gets busy, writing doesn’t get done. At all. Couple that with a bunch of people quitting or moving to new teams suddenly, and I’m aching to get back to the days where I wasn’t answering between 40 to 50 calls in a day.

On the up side: I still got some writing done, at least. Biker Blues is finished enough on the last draft I just have my husband’s mandatory punishment I mean appraisal. I’m on the hunt for a Beta reader, but no bites just yet. I’m also, thankfully, getting put back on my meds, meaning I’m starting to even out more and feel more jazzed about getting some writing done. Fingers crossed, but I might be able to actually keep my original schedule of release. If I can get a beta reader for Ace of Wands this week, I’ll probably have a firm publishing date for it sometime in late October!

I’ve looked into it, and I’m probably going to publish through KDP. I’ll still purchase the ISBN separately, but KDP’s got no upfront costs on publishing and, with my surgery eating into what few savings I had, I’ll need to cut costs wherever I can. As it is, I’m gonna have to beg, borrow, and pinch to get the cash to get the ISBN in the first place.

This week is mostly going to be editing, trying to get things ready for publishing. I need to get the next draft of Lukcy finished, and I need to get started on finishing the first draft of Ace of Swords. I feel like I’m getting back int the groove of things, but I’m cautiously optimistic. After all, it feels like every time I declare how great things are going and how I’m going to get so much done, something swoops in to remind me I read too much Rick Riordan growing up to indulge in such hubris.

So, fingers crossed this week will go better and that I’ll actually get my blog out on Friday like I’m supposed to instead of getting swamped. Again.

Get the ball rolling Again

I actually did get some writing stuff done this week, surprisingly.

First, I got mostly through another hard edit for Biker Blues to get it ready for beta reading. I went down a rabbit hole about ARC reading as well. It isn’t applicable yet since I want beta readers to put their eyes on Biker Blues and Ace of Wands first before I’m ready for formatting and publishing editing, but it’s good information to have for later.

I also got a lot of editing done on Ace of Wands. I added two scenes, and I think there’s one more I’m going to add before I start another round of hard edits to get it ready for Beta as well. I also started looking into the legalities of publishing (ISBNs, copyright, etc.) and started documenting my process better.

Right now, I’m writing on NovelPad, since it has a web browser option I can access at work. Unlike google docs, which is blocked on our internet. No clue who’s the reason that rule got implemented, but at least it wasn’t me. No clue how I’m gonna make the formatting work since I’m still not sure if I’m sticking to just digital copies, or if I need to figure out how to work paper publishing options as well.

I’m also getting back into the social medica aspect of marketing now that’s I’m feeling more like myself. I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point I can post daily, but at least I can start designing and posting again now that my brain isn’t mush.

Starting next week, I’m hoping the posts will be longer. I’ll be moved to the new system with everyone else so I should have more time between calls. I’m also feeling more like myself, so I can get more writing done in the evenings when I get home. All and all, life is looking up, and I can’t wait.

The Scary Surgery

Welp, as much as I love being right when I’m arguing with my husband, I kinda hate how right I was last Monday. I did indeed need major surgery. MAJOR surgery.

Walking you guys through it as my not-so-captive audience: I went in Tuesday for bloodwork. Only bloodwork. As we’re pulling out of the parking lot, I get a message “New Appointment Scheduled” It’s for two hours later. Turns out, they SUPER didn’t like the scans and the bloodwork clenched it. They moved my surgery up as far as they could. I went home and drank, to quote my mother “more apple juice than the Lord allows” and contemplated that they still wouldn’t say if it was or wasn’t cancer.

Welp, I can now say with mild confidence it wasn’t cancer. It was a growth. It strangled one of my ovaries to the point it had to be removed in a much more open surgery than the laparoscopic one originally scheduled. It means I’ll need to see an endometriosis specialist regularly for the rest of my life.

But I’m alive at the end of the day, and grateful for it.

Understandably, I got VERY little writing done last week. I was hopped up on pain meds most of the time and relearning basic things like walking and coughing. Literally, I had my first sneeze yesterday a solid week post-surgery and I still wondered if I was dying.

This week was a bit different. I’m still on pain meds, just not as many, and I’m off my ADHD meds, so my mind is all over the place. Still, I got some writing done on the Dating Show series and some last minute edits for Ace of Wands before it gets released to the Beta masses.

Next week, who knows. I’m hopeful I can start getting more productive, but cautiously so since my main focus right now is healing and getting my finances back on track.

With that, I’ll end the post for the day reminding all of you that things look bad sometimes. Really, terrifyingly bad. But the only way things get good again is if you push through the bad, because there is good on the other end.

Pre-Emptive Posting

Le Gasp! Can it be! I’m posting early instead of just leaving you in the dark while I disappear?

Yep, I’ve got a pretty good chance of not being able to post on Friday, so I’m preemptively posting today. So, good news: the mass isn’t cancerous. Huzzah! Bad news: it’s necrotic, which puts me at risk for sepsis! Not so huzzah. Worse news: to get ready for my operation, they had to take me off all my nice pain meds right when the pain is ramping up again. No huzzah whatsoever.

Thankfully, they caught it pretty quickly, meaning I’m already scheduled for my surgery where they’re taking it out. It should be a really simple in and out procedure, but I’m knocking on wood to be sure. As such, I’m getting cut open Wednesday, resting Thursday, and probably back to work Friday.

‘Then why aren’t you posting Friday’ I imagine someone asking specifically so I can keep the narrative flow of this post going. Well, I’m probably going to be hopped up on pain meds dealing with callers and getting ready for the training on the new system they keep telling me I’m getting.

As a result… I have no clue what I’m doing. Will I write while recovering? Maybe. Will I draw? Probably not. Will I listen to an unhealthy number of reddit stories on YouTube? Absolutely.

Everything’s pretty much put on the backburner for this week and possibly next. As a result, I’m thinking about pushing back the publish dates for Ace of Wands and Ace of Swords as a result, but we’ll see when I hear what my post-op is gonna look like.

All in all, this is a more dower and shorter post than I wanted to make, but it’s hopefully looking up from here.

Take your medicine

So, fun fact about having a growing mass on your body where it’s not supposed to be: that thing hurts. Like really hurts. And as someone already living with chronic pain, I brushed it off for the most part. As of this weekend, I couldn’t brush this off any longer though. Nothing was touching the pain, not even the fancy pain meds the cancer doc prescribed me.

Which meant I got to spend my weekend in the hospital. Yaaaaaaaaaay.

On the upside, I can now accurately describe someone “writhing in pain”. There’s a lot more leg twitching involved that I originally pictured. I can also describe the sensation of morphine hitting the system. Let me tell you, I can see why they keep that stuff under lock and key.

On the even better upside, I’m doing better now. I’m on regular over the counter stuff again and I’m still waiting for results from my last screening this week. Thankfully, this is one of those “no news is good news” situations, since the only reason they’d contact me before my appointment next week is if they saw something concerning in my scans.

On the writing front… I got so little done. These pain meds cut through the pain, but they’re atrocious on my focus, and I do still need my day job to pay most of my bills. As such, most of my mental power went there.

Monday, I forced myself to write for Ace of Swords even though I was super not feeling it. then Tuesday I finished the outlining for the Love Island inspired story. I’m still fiddling with the name, but I’ve got the characters the plot, and even a few chapters written now. Wednesday was doctors, and Thursday was art videos on getting back into the groove of drawing again. I’ll never be one of the greats, but I’m hoping I can get good enough to do the art for the confessionals like I’m planning. Otherwise, I’m gonna need to spend a fortune on commissions when I find someone with a matching style to what I’m wanting.

On the art front, I’m getting… better? I think? It’s always been awful trying to get proportions right, but I’m going for more of a cartoony style, so many that’ll translate over? I hope?

Either way, I’m in a mood for that, so that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m also planning on spending next week finishing the last edits for Ace of Wands and Biker Blues so I can release them into the wild for Beta readers and seeing if a good friend of mine can edit. Like keeps kicking me while I’m down, that’s fine. I’m gonna keep getting up.

I’m in the mood for…

Drawing, surprisingly.

I got into art years ago, but never really committed to it. I could probably get much better if I stuck to it regularly, but instead I’ve reached this atrocious stage of drawing where everything’s good enough the faults are upsettingly obvious and I keep getting frustrated.

But, for whatever reason, I decided I wanted to draw this week. So I dusted off my tablet, downloaded a new app and a bunch of new brushes, and got to work. I won’t post my first attempt. The colors are too much, the head is too small for the body but too big for the eyes, and I just don’t like the look of it. I already posted the concept art of the main characters in my new Gallery page, though.

I won’t make a page for the Love in the Wild series until I’m at least done with the first draft. It’s something I’m thinking of doing the art of myself, since I want to have little mini chapters based in the confession booth I might draw myself. I’m not sure yet. I just know as I was feeling out the characters, I tried my usual Picrews to design them, but kept getting frustrated. There was a specific style I saw them in (something that’s never happened with a character for me before) and while some pieces would have the right hair styles or colors, the eyes wouldn’t be right or the lines would be too complicated. This isn’t their final iteration, but I’m hoping if I keep at it, I can get the version of these characters I want to create.

It’s still going to be a written story—no way could I ever commit to a comic—but it’ll have far more art than anything else I’ve written so far. And if there’s one thing I need to remember, it’s that age-old adage that got me into writing in the first place: if you want it so badly, make it yourself.

On the health front, still no news. I have more tests next week, but I’m currently in a debilitating amount of pain and still have to go to work every day. Work which got incredibly backed up and difficult to have time for anything lately. Still, I persist, and as long as I’m creating something, I’m getting closer and closer to my final goal: getting published and starting this as a career.

That’s pretty much it for this week. Hopefully I’ll have more (and better) news this time next week. For now, my dear lords, ladies, and lieges, take care of yourselves and each other.

The Big C

So here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: I might have cancer. Yeah. The big, scary C I grew up thinking was the deadliest thing in the world, and it’s staring me down like a bull and I’m the idiot wearing red in the ring.

I know I talked last time about getting back on schedule after my husband’s medical stuff, just to not post on Friday like usual. Well, that’s because I was off getting a series of tests and screenings done to see exactly what we’re working with here. An answer I’m still waiting on. Yep, it seems that for all the advancements we’ve made in medicine, a LOT of cancer screenings is “take this test; now wait.” Which, let me tell you, is driving me absolutely batty.

For seemingly obvious reasons: I haven’t really gotten any writing done. Monday was a mess of medical treatments for me and hubby. Tuesday was catch up at work, then Wednesday was the dreaded phone call and a bunch of calls back and forth culminating in two days of testing that I played a lot of Love Island: The Game to distract myself from. All to find out that, while there’s a mass somewhere in my body it’s not supposed to be made up of stuff not meant to be there, they can’t say with full certainty that it’s cancer yet.

Which is resulting in two very different parts of me. The calm, rational part that deals with medical stuff and insurance all the time. I don’t even often deal with serious stuff like cancer, so I know they want to be 100% before they give me that news, before they say the terrible, awful part out loud.

On the other hand, I have ADHD and patience is something other people have to tolerate in their lives, not me. I want my answers now with the ferocity of a child stomping her foot over a golden goose. Thankfully, only one version of me is winning out. I would love to say I’m pushing through this. That I’m sticking to my goals despite this news and I’m not going to let it get me down. I’ve been so busy running around I’m well off my meds though, so until they kick back in, I’m going to be realistic.

I might get some editing for Biker Blues done. I might get a beta for it. That’s going to be entirely dependent on how much of my social battery gets drained talking constantly to doctors and nurses in the coming days. If I’m being completely and totally honest with myself, I’m probably going to spend a majority of the next few days on the Love Island inspired series that I didn’t think was going to exist but apparently will now.

All in all, this was a rough last few days and time will tell if the following days are going to be rougher. Either way, I’ll pour as much of myself into my writing as I can and keep working towards that goal of getting published.

Marketing

I hate it. It’s, I think, my least favorite part of publishing. For the entire week I’ve been trying to post more on TikTok, Threads, even Istagram, an app I swore I’d never use for… some reason. Gonna be honest, I’ve had a whole kid since that decision, so what prompted it, I can’t recall.

Still, I’m planning on releasing one book this year and three books next year. I’ve got to get that marketing train on the tracks. Which means making posts about the upcoming books and looking into what it actually takes to get published. For now, I’m not even settled on if I want to have a traditional paper option for the tarot mafia series, since I’m not 100% sure what the upfront cost on that will be or what the demand for it is.

Lucky for me, my uncle literally teaches classes on business, so when he returns from his vacation, I plan on cornering him and bribing him with blueberry coffee in exchange for help with the logistics and legalities of it all. It’s hard, doing these things on your own, but I’m hoping the light of being an official published author at the end of this tunnel keeps me going.

On the writing front, I got not bubkis done, but it feels like it. Over 2,000 words in Ace of Swords, but it feels like nothing in the long run considering how much I have to write for that collection. I knew this would happen though. There’s some massive changes at my job right now, so it’s all hands on deck, and I’m not getting the time I normally get to write during the day. I could write when I get home, but that’s been spent catching up on some much needed sleep after the chaos of the last two weeks.

No clue what my next week’s going to look like. They’re launching a completely new system at work (hence all hands on deck) and I haven’t even gotten trained on it yet. As a result, I’m keeping my expectations low. I’m spending this weekend recharging and getting ready for the storm ahead, and next week I’m buckling down on writing Ace of Swords and editing Ace of Wands so I can get a beta for it. Hopefully next week or the week after.

With that, I’m signing off for now! See you all next week when I hopefully get back to administration work instead of taking all these calls!

The Horrors Persist

But so do I!

I know, I know. I’m terribly late with this post. In my defense, it was a hectic few weeks. The day I was meant to make my post prior to my vacation, my husband’s body decided to just randomly become allergic to seemingly nothing? Two hospital visits, multiple shots of epinephrine, an extended hospital stay, and a boatload of drugs later, he’s fine, but we have a multitude of doctors we need to see to make sure his body doesn’t randomly decide to kill him again.

Then I spent the next Friday spending time with the In-Laws and getting to meet my newest niece. Then last Friday it randomly turned out I wasn’t working because of the holiday, so no computer access for me.

All in all, it was just bad timing in terms of getting posts done, but I still got writing!

First off: Lucky is officially finished on its first draft! Huzzah! I still need to go in and do hard edits for the second draft, then subject it to a beta and my husband for the third. After that, I’m dipping my toe back into the query pool for it. If no one bites, I’ll get an editor and just self-publish like I’m planning with Wolves and Rain.

That’s pretty much all I wrote on. I realized the end was in sight and put my nose to the grind for that one. I’ve been hammering it out for a little over six months now. A massive improvement from the whopping three years it took me to finish Wolves and Rain as well as Howls and Thunder. It seems with every first draft I manage to force myself to finish, my turn around time gets faster and faster.

Someone (I cannot for the life of me remember who, but I suspect Brandon Sanderson—I listen to a lot of his writing advice) said that you start to find who you are as a writer after your third book. By that point, you really get down your process and what kinds of stories you want to tell. Ignoring the first book I ever finished which will never see the light of day, I think that’s very true. I’ve really got my stride going on my writing, and I’m far more confident now with both my outline and writing process than I was when I started this journey.

Also, for the whole six of you who visited this site before now, you’ll notice a massive upgrade in the look and design. The colors are a little more legible, the fonts are better suited for what I’m aiming for in my personal style, and the logos and designs for the books/series are more professional and clean. I did a lot of research while timing my husband’s direct to IV Benadryl treatments, and I think it’s resulted in a much cleaner and smoother experience overall.

You’ll also notice Marriage in Reverse isn’t listed in the novels anymore. That’s because that novel is far from completion and I’m wanting to start having this website only show novels either properly planned in the series, near completion, completed, or published. I might still talk about works in progress here in my blog, but the actual sites will be relegated to novels for fans to get excited about.

You’ll also notice publishing dates on some of the novels. That’s right! I’m holding myself to a standard. It’s the only way I’ll get this ball rolling. Wolves and Rain has a tentative publish date of 2027 (since the exact month I’ll publish will depend entirely on my funds for cover art and how long editing will take) and Ace of Wands has a publish date of October of this year since I’ll be self-publishing that one no matter what.

Now I’ve got to get my running shoes on and get started. First, I have got to get Ace of Swords finished lickity split. I’ve got a lot of books in the Tarot Mafia collection to cover and not a lot of time. I also need to get on designing those covers. I have temporary covers up right now but, being honest, I hate them a little. I want each cover to tie into the story and be a recognizable cover, but I also want the covers to look like actual tarot cards. Like, I want readers to be able to use the collection like an actual deck itself. Which means looking at some Canva courses on youtube and figuring out why the ones I have now look so unbelievably flat.

So that’s my goal for this week. No concrete plans about how much of each one to get done, just something, since there’s some big changes happening at work that’ll take up a good chunk of my time, but I’m still determined to write when I can. In the meantime, we’re back on an every Friday blog post barring another life-catastrophy.

For the six of you checking in with me and following me this early on the journey, thank you. For anyone dipping in later who scrolled far enough down to find this post. Any and all support means the world to me.

Revamp

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Revamp

Jun 12

So I’ll be completely honest, I’m typing this post a 4+ hour training session, so my brain is absolute mush. Thankfully, I got a lot done this week, meaning I can rest and relax this weekend.

Firstly, I revamped a lot of the website. I color corrected so it’s easier to read, and I made images for the headers and logos for the series to make them look more professional. I also completed the mock ups for Ace of Wands, Ace of Swords, Ace of Cups, Ace of Pentacles, and The Fool. I contemplated the idea of paying a cover artist for them like I intend to pay for cover artists for Ridgewood Rattlers and Wolves and Rain, but I did the math. Assuming I low ball it and get a cover artist at $50 (which is criminally low for artists, and we do not underpay people in the house) that still means I’d spend almost $4,000 in cover art on the series over time. I don’t even want to try the math for industry standard (around $250). That might be an option one day, but it certainly isn’t right now.

Instead, I’ve got the cover self-made. I also looked at another writing program. It’s a one-time payment so I can get rid of my subscription service, and they have an anti-AI stance I appreciate, but they’re $140 upfront that I just don’t have. Fingers cross for next month, though!

In even better news, I got a lot done writing/editing this month between calls. I did several hard edits on Biker Blues, even adding several scenes that total in 4,500 words added to the word count. It’s not quite at the level of a second draft, but it’s closer. Once it’s at a third draft, I’ll look at finding Beta readers and an editor for it.

I got some writing done for Moonlight and Storms, but only around 1,300 words since I’m also hard editing Howls and Thunder to get it ready for Beta readers since this’ll be the third draft. I’ve also been busy writing Lucky. 7,500 words later, I’m about two scenes away from only having the last quarter remaining. Which then means I can leave it alone for a bit before the first hard edits to the second draft.

It’s a never ending flow, but that’s what I enjoy about writing like I do. I always have something to work on when I’m in the mood for something specific. I’ve even got a sports romance dancing around my skull right now, but I’m not entertaining that until I get Wolves and Rain or Ridgewood Rattlers finished.

As for this week, I’m hoping to finish Lucky completely and maybe get some more written for Moonlight and Storm or Ace of Swords since I haven’t touched anything in that series in a few weeks beyond transferring the information over to my new data center.

With all of that said, I’m spending the rest of today resting and relaxing. I’ve got a bunch of new songs queued up on my Spotify, and I think I’ll indulge in an audiobook if I can sneak a bath past the fish I call a toddler. Happy summer, and, coming from someone who only cares about basketball in terms of college-level women’s teams (Go Cardinals), fingers crossed for the Knicks and the Cyclones tonight!

I still live…

… despite the best efforts of whatever plague my husband brought home.

I swear. Everyone warned my that my toddler would come home inundated with disease when we sent her to daycare. So explain why the last three times we got sick, it was from people in the office! Thankfully, the toddler escaped the stomach bug, so my mother took her Monday and Tuesday so I could just shrivel away to nothing in peace.

Unfortunately, instead of being able to use Wednesday and Thursday to catch up on the writing I couldn’t get done before, I spent it training new people at the office. Not a hard job, but I think they might frown on me writing borderline steamy Fae romance at work when I’m supposed to be an example of professionalism.

The good news, though, is I have today to get to writing. I also got to spend the weekend working with the responses my Beta reader gave me for Wolves and Rain to get the last draft finished before I send it off to my editor in October. She pointed out a lot of small details I never thought of, and helped me really pin down some of the issues.

See, when I first wrote Wolves and Rain, it was a duet. It was past tense, third person POV from strictly Selena’s story. That thing was a whopping 140,000 words, not including the companion book I was half finished writing from Dominic’s side. I split it in two, figuring I’d make the series a saga instead of a duet. I also remembered dual POV and present tense are things people can do, and that flows way better.

The problem is, for all that I thought I caught all the inaccuracies, I missed several. Also, without some of the scenes I cut, Selena doesn’t come off the way I want her to. The best example I can give without spoiling is when my beta said, “She’s too smart later to be this dumb now.”

These are things I don’t see as someone literally in Selena’s head all the time. I know why she’s doing this, but I need to make sure I put in lines and details that make it clear to an audience without hanging a flashing sign over her head that says “Wasn’t Hugged Enough As A Child”.

All in all, this week was another wash, but not a total one. I still got a lot done and have more to go. The Oliver Notion account I have now is set up completely with everything moved over. I tried out a few new writing options over the weekend, but nothing really stands out to me. I need something I can write on a web version at least, which cuts out several options like Word, Google Docs (not allowed on the work computer), and Scriviner. NovelPad’s done well for me, but my kingdom to do away with subscription services and to just have one time payments for things again.

For the next week, I’m still working on Lucky and Moonlight and Storms a bit since I’m hoping to have the Wolves and Rain series finished by the end of this year so I can start publishing next year. I might get some work done on Ace of Swords, but I’m trying to be realistic. Until I get a lot of writing and publishing under my belt, no publishing company is going to sign onto a series that’ll be, bare minimum, 50+ books. Those are probably going to need to be self-published. That’s fine in the long run, though. I can make it work.

Hope you all have a wonderful summer and, coming from someone on the other end, take a deep breath and appreciate if both your nostrils aren’t stuffy. You never appreciate that feeling until it’s gone.

At least my ducks are in a row

So I’ve mentioned this several times in previous posts, but unfortunately WIPs do not put food on the table and editors and artists are (RIGHTFULLY!) expensive. As such, I spend my week working a full time gig with a two hour commute. As such, my writing time is heavily impacted by the state of my office.

Which is why this week, when I’m brimming with ideas and plans, they decided to launch a system-wide change that crashed the entire way we handle our tasks.

I still got things done though! A whopping five new chapters in Lucky and putting that novel firmly in the latter half! I also got the entirety of my outlines for all my finished works and WIPs moved over to that new system. It took three days of copying and pasting, and there’s a tiny peeled off circle in the middle of the C key on my keyboard, but it got done!

The filing system on that program works fantastic, and I’m so happy with it since I can now sort my stories by status. universe they’re set in, and the characters who show up across multiple series can be connected without me having to slam different series all together.

Which is a big deal because as someone who regularly watches Game/Film Theory, I’m a little obsessive about timelines. After all, if I have a story like Wolves and Rain where the full moon is a big deal, I don’t want three or four full moons happening per book but only mentioning a few days passing each chapter.

As for the next story I’m writing, I finally put my foot down. I don’t want to take anything by half measures now that I’m getting serious and professional with my writing. So, I’m putting a rule in for myself. Do I have two separate ideas for new series? Yep. I won’t touch them until I finish either Wolves and Rain or Ridgewood Rattlers. Stand alones are untouched until I finish Marriage in Reverse or Lucky (which is looking more likely). Two stand alones and two series. No more or I’ll keep skipping between WIP and never finish anything.

It helps that if I have any ideas for new stuff, I can stick it in the Untouched tag on my new system and it’s there for later. I’m not losing it just because I’m not actively working on it and prioritizing what I have working currently.

As such, I’ll probably start working on the second Ridgewood Rattler novel is I start working on anything other than Lucky for next week, but I’m in a big Lucky mood and I’m really hoping to buckle down and finish it off for the first draft before the end of June. I’m also hoping to get the second Ridgewood Rattler first draft finished before end of August, and I’m really wanting to get Moonlight and Storms first draft done by October so I can work on in in tandem with working with my editor for Wolves and Rain.

I’m also hoping this tickle in my throat is just allergies, but I fear I’m only lying to myself.

On the up side, I’m finally able to afford Spotify Premium again! Which means soon enough , I’ll have working playlists for the stories I can post! In the mean time, I hope everyone reading this now or whoever long later have a wonderful summer, and I’ll see all of you next week.

Best Laid Plans

You know, every time I set a firm goal, I tell myself I need to stop doing that because I almost never get it done. A million other things, yes, but never that one thing.

Last week, I said I’d finish at least half of Ace of Swords and maybe get some editing done for Biker Blues.

Instead, remember how I went a solid month saying I needed to work on Lucky? And other things kept getting in the way? When I finished the first 12,000 words of Ace of Swords, my brain finally decided to focus on Lucky again. Not that I’m complaining. Lucky sits at a pretty 32,000 words now. A little under half its total word count by my estimates.

Just goes to show exactly how I wound up with so many WIP over time. Fingers crossed my plan works, and this results in me having a nice stash of books to publish one after the other when I get started.

In more good news, I’ve got a new platform to keep my information on. It’s a one-time payment instead of the subscription service I’ve been using. It also lets me keep all my stories on it instead of making me keep them separate. It works like my own personal wikipedia for all my writing. Meaning stories like Ridgewood Rattlers and the Tarot Mafia series that exist in the same universe but stay mostly separate can have only a few connecting links that I can reference back to without the pages getting bloated. It’s already making a huge difference in the way I’m keeping track of everything.

The downside is, I lost two days to transferring the information to the other platform. I’m still not done moving everything over sufficiently, but I didn’t want to take too much time when I still need to get writing done. My long-term goal is to get at least the first four books of Tarot Mafia, Lucky, Moonlight and Storm, and the second book of the Ridgewood Rattler series done by the end of this year. Editing and worldbuilding in between is important, but I need to get things written to have anything published.

For this week, I’m hoping to get more of Lucky finished and get the rest of the information moved over to the new platform. That’s literally it. Nothing else since I’m also dealing with health issues and visiting family on top of real-life work stresses.

I’m posting a little early this week since tomorrow I’ve got doctor’s appointments lined up and won’t have access to the website. Best of luck to you all and have a wonderful summer!

New companion unlocked

So I didn’t get 1/4th of Moonlight and Storms done. I got the first chapter, but not nearly the first 1/4th. That wasn’t a realistic goal, but that’s on me for being too hype. Then I got deathly ill, so I’ll take the win of getting anything done at all.

On the upside I got several good things handled.

For one, I finagled things to make the payment on my first commissioned piece of art for Wolves and Rain! I’ll be posting that soon as it’s done! It’s just a sketch piece, but I’m in talks to get a full colored piece done as well. That’ll be more expensive, though, so I’m looking into options with the artist.

I also, through sheer luck, found an editor! That’s actually where most of my time went this week. I didn’t anticipate it since I wasn’t actively looking for an editor right now. All the ones I kept coming across were far outside my price limit (as they should be it’s a service and thus should be paid for). I stumbled on a TikTok of hers and decided to try seeing if she had any openings.

So what time I’d normally spend writing this week was spent hammering out details of the contract with her and the few more details with the artist.

She won’t have an opening to edit until October, but that gives me plenty of time to finish Moonlight and Storms and possibly Fangs and Tempest. If this works out, I might have an editor for those three as well, which is a huge relief. Friends and family are good help, but I know I need someone with a critical eye to look at the books and give genuine feedback.

This is a huge deal for me. I’ve put a lot of work into all of the books I have listed on the website so far, but none more that Wolves and Rain, and none closer to my heart. Seeing it get closer and closer to actually getting published makes me so unbearably happy. And terrified.

I know what i said…

But hear me out…

So, obligatory warning, those issues I mentioned at work last week? They doubled this week. Because of course they did. I am allowed no peace. I literally am making this post instead of my lunch before heading back into the (metaphorical) mines.

But I said I’d drop a blog post/update every Friday and I’ve got to stick to something!

I did get more editing for Howls and Thunder done. It’s almost done on the first hard edit and, hopefully, the Beta I found for Wolves and Rain will be willing since she’s loving Wolves and Rain so much. I still have the last quarter of the book to do because the later half needed some hard edits, but I’m pretty sure I can get that done this weekend.

Then I’m determined to get at least the first fourth of Moonlight and Storms done. I’m letting myself switch between that and Lucky since I’m finally out of the slump for that one. It’s nice to be excited for that story again since I really do want to get some of the stand-alone stories I have.

I mentioned I got some writing done for Ace of Wands, but I just realized I never specified how much. It was only 1,300 words, but I also did some edits on another book that’ll now be joining the Tarot Mafia series.

See, a while ago I was talking with my husband and joked about how hilarious it would be for a mafia don to have a wife that just… didn’t realize he was a don. Not because she’s stupid, but because she just believes the best in everybody and never thinks twice about what’s going on. Are some of the guys around her husband ex-cons? Sure, but being an ex-con shouldn’t define someone! Does her husband own a few shady businesses, sure! But he makes sure all his employees are paid fairly and treated well!

So I wrote Daisy’s Darling, a novel about 55,000 words long centering around Daisy and Luciano Drake. The problem is, I loved all the characters. They’ve got these rich, interesting backstories I just didn’t feel like I had time to flesh out. Changed a few things here and there, and now Daisy’s Darling has a new name: The Fool. It’ll be book 1 in the Major Arcana series, which are all going to be stand-alone stories that tie into each other and the Minor Arcana books as well.

There also might be some art coming to the page for Wolves and Rain. It depends on how finances shake out the next few weeks, but I’ve put out some feelers and my hopes are high. All in all, while the last two weeks weren’t the great jumping off point I hoped for after taking my much needed mental break, I’ve got high hopes for next week.

When it rains

Imagine me kneeling over and just panting desperately like I’ve run an entire marathon.

So I had not-so-grand plans last week. Get a Beta Reader and finish editing Howls and Thunder. And I… got most of that done. Through no fault of mine.

So to start: I have a Beta Reader. They’re not far, but they’re already catching those little things I just don’t notice because I’ve been polishing Wolves and Rain for over a year now. It’s also a freaky experience, having a totally random person I’ve never met read my story. I’m liking the feedback, though.

Now for the editing of Howls and Thunder: I’m halfway done. Normally Wednesday and Thursday are my best editing days. Problem is two things happened at work. I can’t clarify much because my job involves some security and privacy, but suffice to say editing was not happening. Not with the same time I normally have.

Then on top of everything else: construction had me stuck at home with no internet Friday so I couldn’t get to work and couldn’t drop my daughter off at daycare. All in all, everything lined up just right to make sure I got very little done.

But it did get something done. Like I said, I got a lot of editing, found that beta reader, and started the first few chapters of Ace of Swords. I’m actually very excited for it because, while Ace of Wands is my favorite story of the four main houses, Ace of Swords has Wren, my favorite Queen of the series. I also started some writing for The Fool, but not much was done there. I already have an idea of the story for both The Fool and The Lovers based on two other abandoned stories, but I need to take a better look at them before I’m 100% sure they fit in this universe.

So that’s it for this update. Maybe one day I’ll have sustainable internet at the house, but today is not yet that day. Thank you all again for following me and my writing journey.