Lady with a Plan

It took a long time to admit this, but basically, most of the editing I do during winter ain’t worth a damn.

It’s frustrating to realize this after how much I went through to get work done when I was in so much pain, but it’s best if I just accept my limitations before repeating the same bullshit. So any editing I don’t get done before mid-November will probably stay unfinished until late Spring or Summer. That’s pretty much my writing schedule from now on. Binge writing/editing from Spring through Fall, and only slow writing sessions when Winter hits.

I haven’t run into another snag in Kevin’s edits yet and will finish them sooner than I thought, but my official word is that it’ll be ready in June.

Banshee might be ready to submit in September. Even though the writing is going quickly, I’m leaving some space for the possibility of edits dragging a little.

Witches For Hire 2(Witches For Hire: Covens) is really coming together too.

The Strongest Sword is on pause until my brain sorts out the worldbuilding and more of the middle section.

The weekend zapped my spoons, so this’ll be all for the day.

YA Nibbles Part 2

Lies! You are a standalone.

A funny thing about most of my adult themed stories, they usually bombard me with sequels as soon as I figure out half of the plot. The YA portion of my brain is the opposite. I come up with numerous one-offs and am fine to go about my day after hitting the end. This isn’t written in stone, but I don’t want to get anyone’s expectations up. The books themselves will cross into several genres like fantasy, thriller, horror, scifi, and contemporary. No similar promises of happy endings all the time like books under Sam Argent, but you can probably expect them in stories where there is an obvious romantic subplot.

Which leads me to The Strongest Sword. It’s pretty much a Mortal Kombat tournament for the throne in another world, but funny and not super depressing. Due to strange circumstances of birth, my leading man, Ryan, is kidnapped from the Earth Realm to cast his vote for a fighter. His half human weak self is absolutely not supposed to participate. Since I’m evil, that’s totally going to happen, and I’m currently working on the training section in the first third of the book. Watching sports shows like Haikyuu have been a big help as far as learning to build a good team dynamic and creating anticipation for matches.

My Christmas serial killer book, Santa Kills, got pushed back because Banshee forced its way to the front, and Winter feels very meh for me this year. I think when Spring rolls through, the spark will be back.

Alrighty then, I’ll see you guys soon with Part 3 focusing on the f/f YA urban fantasy that stole my heart.

Mayhem Managed

Sort of. This past year I’ve found my groove. At least for now. My mojo comes and goes, but this has been the longest streak yet. I’ve been jumping around two stories, and none of them are backtalking me right now. The key for me is not thinking about speed or wordcounts. Those thoughts add too much pressure which forces me not to think of the story first. I do work on a random wip during downtimes, but I’ve got into the habit of not naming them unless I KNOW they will be finished in the next couple of months. All part of the ‘No pressure’ strategy I’m following. And yeah, this mindset is hella different than from when I was unpublished. I believed selling wouldn’t change how blasé I was compared to when no eyes were on me, but I was wrong. As for the two tales in question:

Family Of Lies: Kevin – has not encountered the ‘Sequel Blues’ yet, rewrote the ending, and the back half of the middle still requires some planning due to a heist where Kevin is getting much deserved payback against a troublemaker sibling. I definitely see a lot of editing for the beginning to add in more of Luke’s voice. He was hard to nail down because guilt for the weapons a warlord forced him to make made him cautious about opening up to anyone. That’s why Kevin is so perfect for him. The Orwells do so many fucked up things that Kevin isn’t shocked by Luke’s past and thinks it’s hypocritical for him to be judging anyone.

The Strongest Sword – I expected a portal Scifi/Fantasy YA would be a pain in the ass to write, but after the first two hellish chapters, this baby is rolling along. It helps that the mc, Ryan, has a charming confidence about him that let’s him jump back on his feet no matter how many times I knock him down.

Always the Hard Way

Mountain shmountain

Today’s wip update is brought to you by an insomniac drinking way too much Baja Blast.

Current stories:

Witches for Hire – sitting at 50k after NaNo boost.

Keep Calm and Drink Tea – Werewolf story about a polite occult shopkeeper who’s trying to keep monster hunters off his tail while ducking Dracula’s plans to add another pet to his monster kennel. This one is 41k, and I have no idea how long it’s going to be. Loose guess is 60k.

My two YA problem children, a.k.a., ‘Why oh why am I working on stories without sex in them that I’ll probably have to write under another pseudonym?’:

The Strongest Sword – So far only an 800 word beginning about a young man who’s the heir to the throne in another world where a tournament to be king will happen in two years. MC has to decide if fighting for the throne is worth risking his life when the king shunned his mother for marrying a human. This story was inspired by the fact that I am so tired of shounen stories with good chemistry between male leads never going anywhere. I also wanted to do a portal fantasy because I’ve loved those type of stories since I was a wee ogre introduced to anime.

Santa Kills – Slasher about a teen girl who witnesses a guy dressed as Santa kill her neighbors when she’s sick with flu. She passes out, tells her parents what happened, but there’s no sign of the bodies. People start disappearing around town, and then the bodies pop up in the town’s Christmas decorations.