Tag Archives: update

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October Wrap-Up & November Goals

This month I traveled to Delaware, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. I also attended three weddings in three weekends. Frankly, the fact that I managed to do anything during my “free time” besides curl up in a little ball and watch Netflix is pretty impressive.

October Wrap-up:

  • I wrote 15k words instead of 20k words, but I’m wrapping up the month at a solid 40k for book 4. I’m almost halfway through the book, lengthwise. I’m not quite that far through my outline, story-wise. Geep! I foresee lots of cutting in my future, especially the passages where Toria gets especially rambly about multiverse theory.
  • This month’s book reviews:
  • This month’s convention reports:
  • And finally: husband acquired! He is officially home from school, where he graduated with honors. It’s so nice that life is getting back to normal around here.

November Goals:

  1. I’m not officially participating in NaNoWriMo this year because it didn’t seem fair to disappear on said husband for a month just as he’s getting home. The compromise is 30k words on book 4, which is much more manageable. I’ll still be attending the write-ins with my awesome local NaNoWriMo crew.
  2. I got lots of reading done on my travels last month, so I’m now 13 books behind on writing book reviews. I have this crazy idea that I’m going to prewrite a lot of them today and tomorrow. We’ll see how that works out.
  3. Only one convention on the slate this month, but I’m looking forward to my first appearance at ChessieCon in Baltimore the weekend after Thanksgiving.
  4. My cousin is getting married in the Caribbean, so I’ll be disappearing for a few days to celebrate with her. It’s a nice excuse for a vacation with my husband now that he’s home.

I’m kind of happy that this destination wedding is the last trip I have planned for quite a while. Winter is the time to hang out at home with my cats. I’m not even going anywhere for the holidays this year!

How’s the fall shaping up for the rest of you? Who’s participating in NaNoWriMo, and what are you working on? Keep me posted!

 

 

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April Wrap-Up & May Goals

What a roller coaster of a month!

April Wrap-Up:

  • Vacation successful and new job started! I’m three weeks in and enjoying myself immensely. I’m doing a very different sort of editing, along with a bunch of other interesting projects. My small team is great, and I love the area of Baltimore that my new office is in.
  • I finally got cranking on the Steel Time scene-by-scene outline this weekend and have just the climax left to do!
  • I received a full review of Steel Blood from one of my favorite beta readers, but haven’t gotten a chance to dive into his notes yet because I got distracted by another major project, which was…
  • Doing a last major publicity push for Steel Victory before Steel Magic is released this summer. Over the course of the last week, I put together a database of close to 100 book review bloggers and submitted Steel Victory for consideration to everyone who was currently accepting (between 60 and 70). So far I have sent out 16 review copies! If you are also a book review blogger interested in reviewing Steel Victory within the next few months, please drop me a line!
  • I only poked at the prequel story edits a bit on the cruise, but nothing substantial. Because there have been so many changes with Amazon self-publishing lately, I’m no longer in a big hurry to get those ready.
  • Book reviews! I’m down to a backlog of 11 books. Here’s what I was able to post after the cruise this month:
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Zip-lining in St. Thomas above Magen’s Bay

May Goals:

  1. Steel Magic cover reveal! This is coming soon, so let me know if you’d like to participate.
  2. Dog Star Books book-signing in Dayton, Ohio, later this month (Saturday, May 28)! The link goes to the Facebook event page for more details. I’ll be joining Matt Betts and K.W. Taylor for a few hours of discussion on science-fiction and fantasy, including readings and time for Q&A.
  3. Finish the Steel Time outline and do all the research I’ll need in preparation for writing. More on that later this week.
  4. Steel Blood edits.
  5. Book reviews!

What are you all up to in the next few weeks?

Currently reading: Frost Burn by K.T. Munson and Nichelle Rae

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STEEL MAGIC update

Mission accomplished! I just sent the full manuscript of STEEL MAGIC, the direct sequel to STEEL VICTORY, to my editor!

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I like this book even more than I do the first. 😉

Final word count was 78k.

I’m going to spend the rest of this week finishing up an editing project. The rest of July will be dedicated to doing research and creating a scene-by-scene outline for book 3, along with finishing rewrites on the first STEEL VICTORY short story prequel.

No rest for the wicked.