Tuesday morning thoughts

Today is my day over at Mad Genius Club. I’ll admit it. I climbed on my soapbox this morning after seeing an article about how a writer quit her day job weeks before her first book came out (she signed with a traditional publisher) and who now is faced with the harsh reality of bills needing to be paid. She now finds herself in the same situation so many writers are faced with — work a “real” job to make sure the bills are paid and food is on the table and not be able to write as much as she’d like or not work and then have the stress of life shut down the writing. You can see the post, and my comments, here.

I’ll be the first to admit, promotion is my weak suit. I would much rather be writing books than a blog post and I abhor Twitter. So I’m looking at other ways to promote my work, ways that won’t break the bank and yet will get the word out there. I also don’t want to fill your email boxes with ads and announcements that you already see here or elsewhere. Yes, mailing lists have their place and some authors do them very well. Others seem to feel obliged to send something out on a weekly or monthly basis, even if they have nothing to say or announce. I would rather be in the former rather than the latter. So, before I go that route, I want to study it some more.

In the meantime, it is writing, writing and more writing. I’m going to try something a bit different with one of my works. This is one of those “you have to write me before you can do anything else” titles. I’ve snippeted Skeletons in the Closet here before. You can find the first snippet here. I think what I’m going to do with it is put it out in a series of two or three novellas. Part of the reason is that, unlike some of my other work, Skeletons does fit that mode. So the first one will be released in a week or two.  Approximately two weeks after that, I’ll release the still untitled book that had to be written that sort of blends the worlds of Skeletons with the world of Slay Bells Ring. Skeletons is very definitely a blend of urban fantasy and modern fantasy. Later installations may add some romance to the mix. Slay Bells is romantic suspense. The untitled is a blend of all that and they all take place in the same small and very fictitious town.

But not to worry. Dagger of Elanna, the sequel to Sword of Arelion (Sword of the Gods Book 1), is coming along very nicely. For those of you who said you wanted more of Fallon in this book, you’re getting your wish. He listened to you and shoved his way in, telling me he was here to stay. VBEG. If everything goes according to plan, Dagger should be heading out to the editor in a month and will be out shortly after that.

Victory from Ashes is taking shape as well. I’ve roughed that one out and will probably tackle it after Dagger. Yes, I know Nocturnal Uprising, the next book for Mac Santos and company, should be the one coming out after Dagger but that books is vexing me right now. I know what I want to do but it doesn’t feel right yet. That means my subconscious is still working out some of the twists and turns. It is possible that things will shake out by the time I finish Dagger but I’m not willing to bet on it. Still, my plan is to have it out by late winter.early spring next year.

What I have to do later this week is take a day or two and redesign my website and link it better with this blog. This is an artifact of having started writing with a closed pen name. Even though I continue to use the pen names, they aren’t closed and there is no reason why I shouldn’t pull everything together under one site. But that, like doing regular promotion, isn’t as much fun as writing. That means I have to remind myself to do it.

Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow with another snippet from Dagger. I hope you guys are enjoying it. More later, too, on the release of Skeletons and the rest of it.