Category: Blog Maintenance

Announcement: Maternity Leave

Hello friends!

I will be absent from posting starting May 8, 2025. I plan to have new content starting sometime in June, and return to in-person events at the end of July, but I’ve never done this before and will have to adjust as I go along. I should be able to answer comments here or on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky) if you need me. Thanks for your patience, and wish me luck!

All my books are available wherever books are sold (but here are some options), and you can catch up on free reading as well. I appreciate you!

Year in Review, Part the Second

Happy New Year!

Looking back at last year’s Year in Review, I had a lot of big plans for this year. Most of them didn’t happen. I did finish and publish Journey to the Water, finally, squeaking it in before the end of December. I also attended an astonishing SIXTEEN events and markets, which continues a terrifying pattern in which I quadruple the number of events attended each year (one in 2022 and four in 2023). Other plans, like finally fixing up my Patreon and working on the Tarot of the Gates, did not come to fruition.

Continue reading “Year in Review, Part the Second” →

Newsletter News, and a domain!

So, last month, new regulations went into effect that made it so I couldn’t send my newsletter from my Gmail account. As I understand it, the major email providers changed how they determine what is and isn’t spam, and sending a mass email from a free account made it very likely that said email would end up in the spam filter. The service that I use to format and send my newsletter, MailerLite, wouldn’t let me send out the newsletter until I registered a domain, created an email address for that domain, and verified and authenticated both the domain and the email.

After much deliberation, I upgraded my WordPress account. You may notice that there are no longer ads on this page! You may also notice that your bookmark or link to cranewrites.wordpress.com automatically redirects to spacewhalespress.com. You don’t need to update your bookmarks, unless you really want to.

Without further ado, the March edition of the newsletter is coming out at noon my time (US Central Daylight) on Sunday, March 31, and should continue to come out at noon on the last day of the month for the foreseeable future. If you aren’t subscribed yet, and need more cat pictures in your life, you can do so at this link. There’s another link down at the bottom of the page, under the WordPress subscription button (bottom right on desktop, all the way down on mobile).

Thanks for your patience! Have a good weekend.

Year in Review, Part the Second

This year has been rough, and I’m ready to put it behind me. Let’s focus on the positive:

  • I went to FOUR markets this year and met a lot of cool people!
  • The Book of the New Moon Door is finally published! As of this writing, it has sold 34 copies, most of them preorders.
  • Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea sold an additional 49 copies this year, which brings the total number of copies sold to 146. Two of them were purchased in Germany!
  • I worked on Journey to the Water and The Well Below the Valley, though I had to put both on hiatus while I finished New Moon Door.
  • Our garden did very well! I was happy to share some photos after planting.
  • I also released a short story, “The Howler.”

I had to put a lot of my other goals from last year on hold, but I hope to pick back up next year:

  • I want to finish, edit, and publish Journey to the Water.
  • I will revisit the script for The Well Below the Valley and start making it into something that might actually, eventually, be good, and hopefully finish it as well.
  • Over the next month or so, I’ll be rolling out some changes to my Patreon and Ko-fi, to better reward people who want to support me directly.
  • I’ll return to The Tarot of the Gates and work out a timeline for its eventual completion. I haven’t decided if it will involve serial chapters or if I’ll keep it under wraps. It’s also a collaboration with an artist, so her schedule and availability will have an impact.
  • I’ll be going to more markets and events, so be sure to stay tuned for those!
  • I want to do some video content (Twitch or YouTube) and have more nonfiction posts here, like discussion questions, talking about writing, that sort of thing. Maybe some more short stories, as well.
  • I might not get to a new manuscript this year (other than Journey to the Water), but my long-term goal is to be a hybrid author with both independent and traditionally-published books.
  • More garden pictures!

I’m more grateful than words can say for you, reader. You make all this worthwhile. May the new year bring you peace and happiness.

Song of the Week

Jimi Hendrix, “May This Be Love”

Good morning!

Several states have elections tomorrow! Here’s a handy list from Ballotpedia. In Wisconsin, it’s the spring primary. Since I’ll be working at a polling place all day tomorrow, I’m bumping my chapter releases forward a day: Journey to the Water will post on Patreon on Wednesday, and The Book of the New Moon Door will post here on Thursday. Be sure to vote!

There has been an outbreak of homophobia in the online book world, so I’ll take this opportunity to inoculate this space: I’m bisexual, many of the people I love are also LGBTQ+, and I have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry of any kind. I used to argue with people online, now I just unfollow and block. If your interpretation of religion is more important to you than treating your fellow humans with respect, then maybe that’s something you should work on in your own space.

As always, thanks for being here, and have an excellent week.

Year in Review, Part the Second

2022 is almost over. Where to start?

I lost my beloved cat Odin, my steadfast writing buddy, this year. He was the sweetest, most anxious boy, who needed constant hugs (over the left shoulder, so he could rub his face against your face). No one could ever replace him, but we did adopt a kitten in the summer. Shepard has adjusted well to her new home, and gets along all right with Solaire (who quite liked being an only cat for a few months).

This was also a year of civil engagement for me, as I voted in all four elections by mail so that I could work at a polling place each time.

I did some writing, too!

  • I published Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea in January! It is now a real book that you can hold in your hands, keep on your e-reader, and/or place on your shelf. If my math is correct, I’ve sold 97 copies so far. It’s not much, in the grand scheme of things, but that’s more people than I ever expected to read anything I’ve written.
  • I continued Journey to the Water, the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea, and though Eske’s adventures aren’t finished yet, he’s made a lot of progress.
  • Though I didn’t finish NaNo this year, I did complete Part Two of The Book of the New Moon Door! Those chapters will continue to post week by week as I begin Part Three.
  • I started adapting my Call of Cthulhu module, The Well Below the Valley, into the script for an audio drama, released (mostly) once a month on Patreon.
  • I started The Tarot of the Gates, a collaborative project with Brooke Marie Miller, my very good friend and the artist behind the Figuratively Speaking Tarot.
  • Also with Brooke, I went to my first event as an author: Bitchcraft Fair Milwaukee!
  • The second Reader Poll indicated some interest in an email newsletter, and I finally started it at the end of October.
  • Lastly, I did finish a (truly awful) draft of the “big book,” a 500+ page manuscript, and read it over.

Here are some of my goals for next year:

  • I want to finish The Book of the New Moon Door and publish it by the end of 2023.
  • I also intend to finish Journey to the Water for a 2024 release.
  • The script for The Well Below the Valley will continue! It’s too early to say when it will be finished.
  • I want to make a plan for the publication of the Tarot of the Gates book and deck, and get started on that.
  • I hope to go to more events in 2023 and sign more books!
  • I’ll return to the “big book” and start a better draft.
  • I’m not great at short stories, but I want to be better, and publish some short fiction on the blog.
  • I also want to write more discussion posts.
  • To help with my reach, I want to do more with Twitch and YouTube.
  • Depending on when my current projects finish, I might start a new serial novel.

Happy New Year! May 2023 bring you good things.

Have you voted in the newsletter poll yet?

If not, click here to do it! It won’t be open forever! (I’ll probably close it next week.)

Official Reader Poll #2

I’ve been reluctant to start a newsletter because my plate is full enough with THREE serial projects and a social media presence (also, I hate emails and didn’t want to inflict more of them on you), but my marketing research is saying that authors need to have a newsletter and people like receiving them. What do you think?

(ETA: Give the poll a second to load. It should appear right below this sentence.)

Feel free to post any other thoughts you have in the comments!

New chapter next week, I promise

Sorry, everyone. Between holiday festivities and the festive holiday sinus infection I’ve managed to develop, I won’t be able to get it done this week. I’ll have it up on Patreon next week and here on the blog probably later in the same week, because I don’t want non-subscribers to have to wait yet another week.

Happy New Year! See you back here soon.

Year in Review, Part the Second

This was a rough year. The pandemic continues, as does injustice, but all hope for change has not been thwarted yet.

Here are some things I accomplished this year:

  • I started streaming again, launching the Tea and Sidequests channel.
  • My husband and I bought a house in possibly the worst market ever, and moved in June! This involved a fight with our former landlord, which is finally reaching its conclusion.
  • I completed Part One of The Book of the New Moon Door!
  • The first Reader Poll told me that the most popular next project was the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea, so I started Journey to the Water.
  • I left my day job to focus on writing full-time.
  • As a birthday gift to me, my friends bought me an ad on the One-Shot Campaign podcast, bringing in a few more readers. (Hi there!!)
  • I officially launched my Patreon! I have five subscribers now, and I really appreciate their support.
  • During NaNoWriMo, I rewrote Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea and am now preparing it for self-publishing in January. If you missed the cover reveal, you can take a look here.
  • I continue to survive the plague (vaccinated and boosted) and fight the good fight in whatever small ways I can.

For next year, I hope to keep this going:

  • I want to publish Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea by the end of January.
  • Journey to the Water will continue, and likely finish in late 2022, at which point I will start editing it for publication as well.
  • Part Two of The Book of the New Moon Door will begin soon, probably in February after Frost-Cold Sea is released.
  • I’ve had to put my “big book,” the 500+ page manuscript I hope to traditionally publish, on hold, so I intend to un-shelve it this year.
  • I also want to start two new projects this year, one for Patreon supporters only, and another for the blog (with Patreon subscribers getting chapters a week early).
  • Lastly, I plan to expand my audience, which means publishing, being more active on social media, and continuing to write.

Happy New Year, all. I appreciate you being here.