Episode 10 of The Well Below the Valley is just finished, but I think I want to stick to the Wednesday schedule for the time being. It will go up on Patreon next Wednesday and here the following Wednesday. This will give me a little more time to work on the comic. My baby has had the worst time napping 4/5 days so far this week, and I didn’t have the time to work that I thought I would. As I type, she is asleep on my chest, because she will scream if I try to put her down.
Thanks for your patience. I’ll have new stuff for both Patrons and blog readers soon.
I’m not sure if I can say I’m back yet, but I’m giving it a try. I’m almost done with Episode 9 of The Well Below the Valley, so that will be up on Patreon later this week (hopefully Wednesday), and then up here next week for free reading. As I work on the next episode, I’ll be trying to work out a sustainable posting schedule.
I’m also maybe two thirds of the way done with thumbnails for the first volume of the comic! Basically, I’m just sketching out panel layouts based on the script I’ve already completed. Once that’s done, I’ll be starting to draw.
Having given it some more thought, I’m not sure how much I love the title Chrysanthemum Dawn. It maybe has too many connotations of Imperial Japan, which I would like to tone down for two reasons: the setting is not Japan, though it takes some inspiration, and I’m opposed to imperialism generally as a human and more specifically as a human of Korean descent. I’ll do some brainstorming and get back to you. I’ll also take some pictures of the thumbnails to show you later this week.
Here’s some petitions that I’ve signed and you might like to as well:
This is Miranda. I made her out of love and…mostly cheese (I had gestational diabetes). She is here and real and healthy as can be–almost a month old now.
I’m not quite ready to get back to regular posting, but I wanted to let you know that I’m still alive and slowly picking my work back up. I’ve finished the script for the first volume of Chrysanthemum Dawn! I’ll have some sketches for you soon. I’m also outlining the next episode of The Well Below the Valley today, and should start writing it this week.
I’ll check back in again soon. In the meantime, happy Pride, and thanks for stopping by!
This is almost certainly going to be the last weekly update before I go on maternity leave. My baby is proving incredibly stubborn and likely won’t be born without some help (she’s still head-up and seems very comfortable there), so I’m going in on Thursday to get that help.
The latest episode of The Well Below the Valley will be up here on Wednesday, then you won’t hear from me for a little while. I plan to return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense sometime in June, probably later in the month. I’ll have a new episode (and, baby willing, a new posting schedule) and some comic sketches shortly after. There will also not be another newsletter until the end of June, and I won’t be at any in-person events until the July edition of the Kenosha Book Festival.
If everything continues to go according to plan, I’ll put some maternity leave announcements up here and on my social media on Wednesday. I’ll be able to answer emails and comments (though likely not immediately) if you need me for anything, and of course, my books will be available from wherever you buy books.
In the meantime, wish me luck, and I’ll be back soon! Thanks for reading.
128,404 words! I have two chapters (more like one and three-quarters) left! Starting Chapter XXX: The Long Walk, which was Chapter LXV in the serial version.
I should be finishing this draft next week. After that, I’ll get you a release date and start formatting and final edits.
I’d say I’m close to three-quarters of the way through my rewrites. I appreciate your patience as I’m working to get them done! I know it’s taken me forever and a half to come up with a release date, but I should be able to give you one soon.
I’ll be absent from the blog and my social media for a week, as I’m going on vacation. I will return Monday, October 7, and get back to regular posting as well as finishing this book.
The Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot Kickstarter has reached ALL its stretch goals! There are still a couple of days left to back: it will close at the end of the day (midnight) on Monday, September 30. Thank you so much to everyone who has pledged so far and made this beautiful project a reality.
The newsletter will be going out tomorrow at noon my time (CDT), so if you haven’t yet and would like to, put your email address in the box at this link to sign up. You’ll then need to check your inbox for a confirmation.
I am working on getting the newsletter back on track, but for now, I’m unable to send it. Google and Yahoo have changed their policies, making it more likely that emails sent from free accounts (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) will end up in a spam trap. MailerLite has made the decision to ban free email accounts from sending emails with their service. I thought I had managed a workaround by using the account the university gave me back in the day, but that is no longer viable. I have to 1) purchase a domain, 2) use that domain to get a new email address, and 3) register and verify all this with MailerLite. At this point, I’m reluctant to add another recurring charge to my budget, but it looks like I’m being forced to do so in order to keep the newsletter running. Prevailing wisdom says that authors need to have a newsletter. Who am I to argue?
In any case, I’m not going to be able to get this sorted out before the month ends in…fifteen hours? So I’ll skip this month and hopefully have a newsletter to send at the end of March. Thank you so much for your patience! In the meantime, MailerLite is maintaining the subscriber list, so you won’t need to sign up again.
If you’d like to help out with operational costs, and are able to do so, I have a Patreon and a Ko-fi. You can also buy one or more of my books! In any case, I appreciate you.
This past weekend, my husband and I went to Halloween Express–but it wasn’t just a Halloween Express, it was “Halloween by Scary Jim.” I was a little disappointed in Scary Jim’s selection of candy bowls, but his music taste was excellent. “Werewolves of London” has been stuck in my head since then, so enjoy.
In case you missed it, The Book of the New Moon Door has a release date, and you have some opportunities to receive your copy as a mysterious package before the release! Click here for more information.
I’ll have new chapters this week on the usual schedule: a brand-new chapter on Patreon tomorrow, and last week’s chapter here to read for free on Wednesday.
Journey to the Water will return soon! Possibly as early as mid-November this year, but no later than January of next year. Thanks for being patient.
Firstly, I am happy to announce that The Book of the New Moon Door is complete! I am the proverbial day late and a dollar short, of course, but it’s done. Final word count for all three parts, including chapter headings, is 170,764. This will probably change significantly as I go through the editing process this summer. New Moon Door has been the least structured of my serial novels (which is a gentle way of saying “I was definitely making this up as I went”), and I’m looking forward to pruning it into shape.
This week, I’ll have a new chapter of Journey to the Water on Patreon tomorrow, and the latest chapter of New Moon Door will be up here on the blog Wednesday.
As of right now, here’s the plan for all my projects going forward: Journey and New Moon Door will continue their biweekly schedule while I’m editing New Moon Door. I’m aiming to publish New Moon Door this year and Journey next year. In between those, I want to revisit The Well Below the Valley and The Tarot of the Gates, possibly rewriting and reformatting the former before writing some new content for it.
I’ll keep you updated as things progress! Thanks for being here, and have an excellent week.
I am happy to announce that I achieved my Camp NaNoWriMo goal of 30,000 words for the month of April.
I am about halfway done with Part Three of The Book of the New Moon Door! I’m setting another 30,000 word goal for May, to finish the draft.
On the subject of New Moon Door, the next chapter will post to Patreon tomorrow. I’ll have the latest chapter of Journey to the Water up here on Wednesday. Because I’m spending all my writing time on New Moon Door, there won’t be a new episode of The Well Below the Valley this month, but I hope to pick it up again soon.
In case you missed it, I’m going to What the Hex Witches’ Market on Saturday, May 6! You can find all the information you need, plus a sneak preview of my new bookmark, at this link. Entry is free! I hope to see you there.
As always, I appreciate you. Have an excellent week.
Space Whales Press 