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.