Sunday, February 9, 2025

Cover reveal - Book 21

That didn't take long. Book 21 has a cover.

I found an image that with the cover blurb should spark some curiosity. I thought I might try to find some armor that could match the Issan, but then I also wanted to leave that to the imagination and it would likely require going to AI for something even close, so I went with this stock image, which is close enough to events in the book. The blurbs are harder to decide upon than the images most of the time, but even that wasn't too hard.

I think this works well, but that doesn't mean something won't get tweaked before it's published:


Today, I'll be working on the updated interior of the print omnibus, Collection 1 (Books 1-5) and get that uploaded. I hate formatting print books, which is why I'm only doing these in omnibus editions. I might tweak this cover a smidge while I'm at it too.


Thanks for reading!

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Book 21 status...

Done!

The first draft ended up going longer than expected. I battled some of my chronic health issues too, but that passes and I keep on writing. This book pushes the war forward with the Issan in a big way.

It came in at 52K words, 12% more than I had expected, but it had to be done. I couldn't rush the ending.

Just as I won't rush the ending of the series. I have the next two outlined, along with the last one. It's that second to last that has me baffled about how I'll handle events, but I won't worry about it. It'll come when the time is right.

Book 21 will be quite the launch into the homestretch of the series. It's not a simple adventure, but as I mentioned in previous posts, required a lot of meticulous consideration of how L'Ni thinks. I'll never feel adequate to that, but I think I did a fairly good job of detailing his intellect in a way that I hadn't before. In other books, I showed the results of his judgment, but keeping him on the quiet side for the most part allowed me to assign a lot of credit to him that I didn't have to go into deeply. This was quite the change.

The coolest part about writing a story like this is that when I have trouble writing, it forces me to slow down and review, review, review. It's that pondering which brings out the depth that needs to be there. It all works out for the best.

Anyway, Book 21 is now drafted. I'll need to figure out a cover for it, and I think I just had an idea. I need to see if I can find a stock image suitable. In the meantime, it's time to edit Book 19. I love the system I've developed for writing this series. I can't wait to go back and edit to publish by the time I finish writing two books ahead. And I'll work on getting the hardcopy of the omnibus of books 1-5 updated and back in print. (I'm currently reading through book 6 and finding some errors that make me wonder if some of my editing changes didn't get saved at the time. 😞)

That's all for now.

Thanks for reading!

Saturday, February 1, 2025

books and cats... and horse

I'm not quite done with Book 21. It's currently at 48K words, already longer than I anticipated. PLUS, the Hashimoto's flared up right on cue to delay me finishing this project, and when that happens to the degree it did, I just can't write. I can copyedit, but my brain isn't sharp enough to remember details and the lack of sleep only compounds it. That took the whole week to recover with very little writing getting done, and what was done needed immediate rewriting. Fortunately, I think I know what caused this flare and won't do that again!

So, not where I wanted to be by this weekend. I wanted to be finished. That didn't happen.

On the other hand, I did finish entering edits on Book 5 and uploaded the minor changes. I can get that kind of work done when the combo of thyroid issues and a wonky immune system collide into a perfect storm. I can also get a lot done at the day job. Next, I need to get to work on updating the print omnibus of books 1-5 and get that back online for sale.

And I finally had the perfect day to ride my horse today. I haven't felt this much like myself in a long time. I hadn't ridden him in about 6 months, although I've been out to give him treats and do groundwork, and it was like I hadn't been off. He's twelve years old now and I've had him for more than nine of those years, so we're pretty familiar with each other. But the same autoimmune issues that interrupt my writing also interrupt my riding. Today, everything came together--weather (around 40 F and 0 wind, which was gorgeous), other riders (he's better when a paturemate is also in the arena), and me feeling good. I needed that! I'll be sore for the next few days, but it was worth it.

And for lack of sleep, that's partly on the cats. Bilbo has been deciding that he likes to sleep at the top of my head and partly on my head, which is terrible for my neck. Plus I usually have a cat at my feet. And I can end up with one or more completing the box on either side of me. The worst is when they come walking on me in the wee hours of the morning and then I can't go back to sleep. It doesn't happen every night, but with four cats, there's usually one waking me at some point, hopefully not until close to when I need to get up for the day. My husband sleeps through all of it.

Also, now when I want to write, there are times that I have two cats. I can deal with my old boy next to me, but Bilbo never wants to stay next to me. He always wants a lap, and he's still learning to respect the laptop. So, I'll call the hubby to take him. Bilbo was supposed to be his cat. I have mine.

Oldest kitty loves Our Lady of Guadalupe
blanket, or at least the fuzzy side, even more
than my pink winter bathrobe.
This past month, two of our cats had high vet expenses from going off their food and then us discovering they needed their teeth cleaned. One of them had an abscessed tooth that was extracted. They now have matching "bracelets" of shaved hair (seen in pic) where the IVs were while they were sedated for the procedures. (Bilbo's shaved hair is nearly grown out from his IV during his neutering two months ago.) The oldest two are completely back to their old selves, so things are good again.

Now, back to writing... or time for oldest's felimazole, then writing. It's been quite the week and I'm finally feeling more like myself and able to focus again.

Life is busy, but life would be dull if it wasn't.

God bless!