Monthly Update August 21

You ever have one of those moments where you realize you have way more projects than time to do them all? That’s me right now! My mind is pulling me in a thousand directions and the WIPs keep piling up! My goal this month is to get a few of them done and NOT start more…because that is thoroughly counterproductive.

Before I break down the current status of all these projects of mine, I have two things to celebrate. First, I hit 500k words for the year this month!! Woohoo!. My original goal was to make a million this year, but I’ve realized the workload was more stressful than I can do right now. Even so, 500k is a HUGE success for me and already double what I wrote last year. Still a win in my book 😉

Second, July 15th marked my wirterversary!!! Yup, I have officially been writing for one WHOLE year now. Sometimes it still seems crazy that its ONLY been a year. I’ve learned so much in the last 365 days and really grown. I continue to get better at writing, and I hope year two is even better than the first.

Book 4, The Seer of Verascene is currently with the editor. I’m hoping for a publication date of late September, but I’ll keep ya posted on the progress. I’m doing my last round of edits for Book 5 and Book 6 is 1/3 of the way written. The goal is still to have all seven written by end of year (not edited and published) and I know I can do it…if I don’t get sidetracked.

Now about those side projects. As many of you already know, Amazon launched Kindle Vella this month, a serial platform where authors release stories one episode at a time. Naturally, I had to try out the new platform, and while I really have no readers, it has kept me moving forward and staying on track. As of today, the story is about 3/4 finished, so I’m hoping to have it completed this month. Per Amazon rules, I am permitted to publish my episodes as a full length novel 30 days after the last episode goes live.

So what does that mean? It means I’ll have another book ready to publish!! I don’t have a launch date set, but it will probably be this fall…sometime. Be on the look out for Blood & Magic!

So, what’s next? Well, the simple answer is too much! I hope to wrap up editing on Book 5 in the next two weeks and also finish the last few episodes of Blood & Magic. Then it will be off to work on Book 6, which I’m hoping to complete this month. Somewhere between all that, I’ll be working to get Book 4 ready for publication. *DEEP BREATHS

It’s a lot to do, but I really am enjoying it all. If I can accomplish my goals for August, September will be just as busy. I plan to get a good start on Book 7, do final self-editing on Book 6, and (possibly) start the next book in the Tetralogy (Unofficially named Love & Magic)

I also have A Wife for Prince Sylas that’s getting a complete rework. Unfortunately that’s been thrown on the back-burner for the time being, for obvious reasons. But I’ll get to it this winter (probably).

Of course there’s always small projects in the mix as well. I’m working on a short story right now and I’ll also be releasing the final deleted seen from Book 1 with this month’s newsletter. (If you’re not signed up…you should be! SIGN UP HERE) That will be the last of the deleted scenes until I get caught up on life, but I should be able to pick them back up again later this year. 🙂

Well, that about sums it all up. I hope this post finds you well and hoppin’. Until next month, peace.