Song of the Week

Laura Marling, “Night Terror”

It’s Monday again. It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, also. The wheels of history turn toward justice, but slowly, and not without great effort.

Here’s what’s happening in my world this week:

I’ll be on Twitch tonight from 6pm until 8 Central time, if you’d like to stop by and chat. [ETA: no stream Thursday. See you next week!]

On Wednesday, I’ll have the latest chapter of Journey to the Water up! If you need to catch up, all available chapters are under the Stories tab above.

I’m finishing up the final formatting of Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea. I should have an update later this week, which will hopefully include information on paperback preorders.

I think that’s it! Have an excellent week.

Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea Update: Good News and Bad News

The good news is that I have a real cover, though as you can see, IngramSpark isn’t allowing any of my good fonts. Here is an updated cover reveal. It took me SEVERAL DAYS to get the background images to upload at a high enough resolution. The last paragraph on the back cover (left) is new also.

Further good news: my January 28th release date is a go! There should be a way to preorder the paperbacks before then. I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out.

The bad news: In order to make literally any money off of any retail sales (and not owe them money for each book published), I have to set the paperback price at $14.99 and the ebooks at $3.99. These are pretty average prices for major retailers, but since you already have access to a free version, I wanted to make them cheaper. It just didn’t work out, and I’m sorry. There may be a way for me to give you a discount if you buy copies directly from the printer, where the retailer doesn’t take their (ENORMOUS) cut. I will do some more digging in the next week and come back with anything I find.

Thanks for sticking with me! I should have another update next week.

ETA: Also, the book is 312 pages long, including all the front material (table of contents and such) and some bonus content in the back! A nice, quick little read.

New Patreon Post/Journey to the Water Chapter VII

I had lost my faith in gods. I hoped the god of this island, to whom the grandmothers paid homage, would prove more worthy of my trust.

Journey to the Water Chapter VII

The latest chapter of Journey to the Water is now available on Patreon!

Song of the Week

Iron & Wine, “Woman King”

Happy Monday! I hope you’re warm where you are, because the arctic wind is blowing here.

Have you read the latest chapter of Journey to the Water? I’ll have the next chapter up on Patreon this week.

Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea is getting closer to publishing! Stop back here later this week for another update.

I’ll be streaming on Twitch tonight and possibly Saturday night.

I think that’s it for this week. Stay warm!

Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea Update!

Here is where things stand as of today (Saturday 1/8):

I’m going to be publishing through IngramSpark, which will allow me to get the book out to a wide variety of retailers.

There will be both ebooks and paperbacks available.

I am about a third of the way done with the last round of edits before my manuscript gets uploaded to IngramSpark’s book building program.

The cover design may change slightly depending on what said book building program allows me to do. If so, I’ll show you all the new design.

I am aiming for paperback preorders to open on Friday the 21st, and the book to release a week later on the 28th.

That’s it for now! Thanks for sticking with me.

Journey to the Water Chapter VI: The Isle of the Priestesses

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Table of Contents

The girl led me through a forest unlike any I had ever seen. Bright golden fruit peered out between leaves of deepest emerald green, and birds with cerulean feathers called out to each other from the tops of tall trees. A scarlet lizard, a tiny cousin of the fire-breathing salamander I had fought in the arena of Phyreios, skittered across the narrow footpath.

I asked the girl her name, and between bites of the pastry with which the captain had bribed her, she told me it was Kala. She was handmaiden to the grandmothers—a position of great honor, I inferred, especially for one so young. 

Our path sloped upward, toward the mountain at the island’s center. The only clouds on that bright blue morning ringed the black peak like a crown. Though the earth did not tremble and the mountain was still, it was a volcano, no less mighty than the ones that sprang forth in fire and steam from the sea in my homeland. 

Continue reading “Journey to the Water Chapter VI: The Isle of the Priestesses” →

New Patreon Post/Journey to the Water Chapter VI

Oh, my dear boy. What’s dead should stay dead.

Journey to the Water Chapter VI

As promised, the latest chapter is now available on Patreon! It will be up here in a few days, but if you just can’t wait, my Patreon is only $3 a month and will have some exclusive new projects on it pretty soon (in a month or so), plus you get Patreon livestreams and the opportunity to say you supported me before I was cool.

Song of the Week

Clinton Shorter, “The Expanse”

Happy New Year!

This week, the first week of 2022, I’ll have the new chapter of Journey to the Water up on Patreon tomorrow, and here on the blog on Friday. I should have an update on Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea‘s progress by the end of the week.

I’ll also be on Twitch tonight! My husband/streaming partner wants to play Jedi: Fallen Order this evening.

If you’re interested, I’m trying to stay engaged with social media by doing a one-card tarot reading every day on Instagram.

I think that’s it for today. I’ll be back soon with more updates.

Have an excellent week.

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.