Writing Is Back On The Menu

I’ll just start this off by saying my health has been trash and Covid has a vendetta against me. For the time being, I’m feeling better and trying to get back on schedule. Family of Lies and Witches For Hire are the only stories I’ll be working on under this name, so if I don’t get the plague again, there shouldn’t be any more delays with them.

The other stories will take a back seat to what’s under Indy Strange because that’s the name for most of the single stories and a few duologies/trilogies. *Sigh* Starting work on the queer steampunk series about some pen fiends and lady fencers would be nice, but I don’t have the brain capacity right now to even work on worldbuilding. I will try to make room for it at the beginning of next year.

For now, I think I just want less complicated magic stuff, killings, and sexy times. The exception to that are the series I already named and Banshee(YA UF under Tamia Benson) because that refuses to be put aside.

I’m also contemplating some things like Twitch once I figure out how to do it properly with the format I’m thinking about. That’s a maybe because there are a bunch of other things to consider too.

Eff It, Confession Time

Soooo, in order to get over the writing hump when my books were unpublished, I started another pseudonym. Like Sam Argent, there are a bunch of references in it: Indy Strange.

Indy – shout out to my entire family being from Indiana(except me, LOL).

Strange – self-explanatory. I’m weird as fuck and have long accepted it.

Of course there’s also a tv reference in there. Indy Strange. Backwards, Strange Indiana. Eerie Indiana.

On Twitter, you can find me here: https://twitter.com/MeowWorlds, where I’m more likely to post. This name will be used for shorter stories or series that are 2-3 books(there are a tons of these in my head).

Currently out under Indy Strange are Veiled Dancer(Gay Fantasy version of The Bachelor) and War God’s Servant(weird horny War God story). Next will be Blood and Motive that I’m currently working on the edits for. I actually hid a few blog posts on this site about Blood and Motive to be extra sneaky. I just wanted to be in a better headspace and share all this when I was getting enough work done under both names.

As for Sam Argent, that is now the name I’ll mostly publish long series under. Family Of Lies will have at least 12 books(including a prequel). Witches For Hire might clock in at five or six books plus a sequel series called Knights For Hire.

Loose schedule for Sam Argent 2020-2021:

Re-release of Witches For Hire because it needs the least amount of editing.

Family Of Lies – James

Family Of Lies – Kevin(maybe less than a month after James since it doesn’t need any big revisions so far).

Witches For Hire 2

Family Of Lies – Alice

Family of Lies – Rebecca

Family of Lies – Sebastian(again, shorter release time because it doesn’t need heavy revisions).

 

My Young Adult name, Tamia Benson, hasn’t been forgotten. The Strongest Sword is still on pause, but the f/f series Banshee will probably have a first draft completed by the end of this year.

My health is holding out pretty well. I just have to avoid human beings until a vaccine is out because I live in Georgia, and they’re trying to spread it like the plague here. Anyways, that’s all for now, so now I gotta go find all those hidden posts. Oh and here’s the Indy Strange blog.

 

Lady With a Bad Body

As I’ve stated on Twitter, thank you everyone for the well-wishes and staying patient with me.

Soooooo. That whole feeling better thing lasted for like a week and a half after my last post, and then turned into an agony that left me crying in bed too many nights to count. It turns out that my pain flares were actually coming in cycles. Deep stabbing muscle pain for 1-2 months while every part of my body was a charley horse waiting to happen.

Next, a month of stomach pain that made it hard to eat or sleep without feeling like I was gonna puke.

And a few months of excruciating nerve pain mixed in.

Rinse, repeat for a year.

All my writing took a hit because it was hard to concentrate, and my memory got so bad that it scared me a little.

Losing weight was an experience that I will not ever fucking do again in the future. If this wasn’t for the sake of my legs and feet, I would have tapped out.

On to the wonderful world of writing. Kevin’s ending has bugged me for an annoying two years, and while I’ve seen part of the problem, at the back of my mind, I knew there was something off. In all of the previous damn revisions, I still managed to miss a few events that were out of order and created big plot holes. That feeling is finally gone after the last fix, but I’m still reading through it to make sure I seamed it back together without fucking it up in other places.

Witches For Hire 2 is coming along nicely. It stopped fighting me once I realized that the things that don’t quite fit the main characters of the current series, other ideas can go into an offshoot. The offshoot will be way down the line, so I won’t talk about it much until after WFH’s four other books are wrapped up.

That’s all I can think of for now, so see you, Space Cowboy.

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.

Hello Again, Release Day!

This post is later than planned because I had to chase down the garbage truck dude and then take my dog out because he was deeply offended at being left behind.

So today, Witches For Hire, the first in the Odd Jobs series, is stepping out into the world.

This is a weird release for me because it represents the sliver of my brain dealing with the bitterness and loss of the so-called ‘right path.’ I haven’t always had the healthiest coping mechanisms for this, and my characters(Especially Jeremy) are worse. Digging yourself out of that hole to find a light of some hope can be hard as hell, but Witches For Hire is the start of that. Each following book will be another step toward more trust shared among the main characters and acceptance of pasts that they can’t change leading to unbreakable bonds. So take your pick out of the links here:

DSP Publications

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Itunes

And enjoy!

Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

Another double post because if I put off this announcement for happier times, that may be a depressingly long way off. Soooo drumroll, trumpet blares, and a smoke bomb for extra pizzazz! Here’s the cover(by Catt Ford) for Witches For Hire that has a publishing date set for April 4, 2017!

Double Your Sales

Alrighty, after exorcising some demons in the last post, on to the good news! Witches For Hire(heavily revised to a Georgia setting) has found a home at DSP Publications, which is an imprint for Dreamspinner’s stories that aren’t outright romance. No worries. There’s still humor, a long-term poly relationship developing in the background, and I tend not to go George Martin on my main characters.

WIP updates will come later this week.

Adventures In Full-Time Writing

Expectations:

Every day will be a Willy Wonka wonderland of writing mixed with extravagant meals that I finally have the time to cook.

Yeah, nope.

Reality:

So…much…pizza. At first, having all day to write is wondrous, and I’m all ‘Yay for all the awesome meals I’m gonna make like I’m a friggin Iron Chef’. But then days became monotonous routines of waking, eating, break, writing, break, sleep, writing.

After two months of this, I questioned whether I made the right decision and perhaps I should return to the temp job. Witches For Hire screwing up my writing schedule by demanding to be rewritten didn’t help my confidence either. Since I’ve gotten behind, cooking has taken a back seat unless it’s simple pasta dishes and baked seafood. I’m also on a first name basis with the workers at Thai and pizza places in my area. My joints cried uncle from the weight gain, so I started dancing again. A few weeks into intense booty shaking, I had less belly and more writing. It turns out that what I really needed was a hobby. When my first royalty check arrived, I bought some workout clothes, shoes, and drawing supplies because I figured, why not two hobbies? My daily routine is still wonky, but I don’t question my choice to go full-time anymore.

Lessons:

I somehow formed the mistaken belief that being able to write at all hours of the day meant quickly achieving the perfect ability to translate what’s in my head on to paper. Reading reminds me that no matter how many hours writers have to work, no one achieves perfection even when they create amazing story and characters. I also had to redefine what I considered personal writing failures. If I don’t write first thing in the morning, that’s okay. My writing schedule doesn’t have to be strict, and there’s still a mental need for days off.

What I was probably turning into.

Writing:

My editing is still too slow, and that causes a traffic jam in upcoming wips. Witches For Hire rewrite is finished, and I’m 2/3 into its final edit. The Orwell who’s rushed to the front of the line while aggravating as many villains as he can is Kevin. He’s a wonderful character to release stress with because he cares even less about authority than Sebastian, is a strong enough fighter to perform the offhand backhand, and plays the family fixer before any trouble his siblings cause reach catastrophic levels of needing James’s or Diana’s help.

This move will always be hilarious to me.

#WIPInsanity

Alrighty. My thirtieth birthday is on the eleventh, and what better way to celebrate than to make April one of my crazy goals months. This means multiple first drafts, and by golly I will finish editing Witches for Hire. Yes, there will be an Orwell story in the mix, but I don’t know which one is taking the second slot. While the optimistic goal is finishing all of my checklist, the main one is to see where I’m at production-wise. I’ll try to post my progress here and on twitter, but there will be a few days of radio silence when I’ve reached ‘fuck-it-all exhaustion’ and I’m binge watching Supernatural while eating ice cream. I know this sounds unhealthy, but I love testing my mental limits.

There are worse habits.

Mo’ Writing, Mo’ Problems

Totz my sexy dance song.

The hurdle of this month is finding balance between ‘Hells yeah, I’m going bonkers with this first draft’ and selling a story. They are not jiving together the way they should. Concentrating on publishing has meant that I rack my brain trying to finish a rough draft(Witches for Hire stopped fighting me and is finally finished), or I can’t see my writing as publishable when I focus on having fun. This post is to remind me that I can do both and stop being a dingleberry about it. If anything is too off the wall, I can fix it. I’m experimenting with a few new habits like doing WipOfTheWeek instead of BookInAWeek(total failure by the way because my cold rebounded). This way I can relax, and maybe ease up to adding more pressure on myself until I’m working with full mojo again.

I know all about mixing business and parties.