This is my last update of the year. That’s a little stunning to me, and I’m kind of… absorbing what happened over the past year. Lots of victories and losses, things that didn’t go how I wanted them to… but in the end I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve done. I’ll talk about my plans for 2021 on the first, but for now I’m just going to focus on the usual, reporting on my progress.
I’m not close to done editing Queen’s Journey yet, but the editor can’t get to it until mid-January anyway, so it isn’t like finishing it immediately is going to move the release date anyway. Christmas interfered, along with a few other things, but I’m pretty happy with my progress, particularly on the project I mentioned that sideswiped me. If I keep going at the current rate, I’m going to write well over twice what I normally do in a month, at least when I include the other writing I’ve done. I’m over 91,000 words on the story as of this writing, and it’s still going.
I hope everyone had a year that they were happy with, and that everything is better in the new one!
Ancient Dreams 
This year has definitely been a wild ride! This year has had some unfortunate events, but I try to see this year as a growth/betterment year.
Ironically, I’ve never been so comfortable (in myself). *”Revealing” time* Feelings I’ve dealt with my entire life (hindsight is lovely) started to “reawaken” around 2017-2018. Having read the Ancient Dreams series, and partaking in escapism, I decided to read your second series offering, Lilith’s Shadow.
I absolutely loved it!!! From being an adult and, yet, seeing the world for the first time to her thoughts regarding people, her ‘creator,’ etc., I identified with her. Unlike Amber (Lilith’s creator), my mother isn’t evil, but she has her “oof” moments. My mother wasn’t (still isn’t) happy when she found out I was changing my name. My mother’s naming convention for my birth name was: BOOK CHARACTER, great grandfather’s 1st name, last name whereas my new name is: Sera, BOOK CHARACTER (whom has same middle initial as a close deceased family member), last name. Looking up the meaning of the different names, I was considering, I consulted my friends’ opinions as I was still undecided. I think we both know what middle name they said “suited me better.” 😆
*I did say I might reveal something vaguely personal, so I did* 😆 Sorry for how long-winded I got (trust me when I say I gave the condensed version)!
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Interesting! Personally, my thing is that you can only do what’s best for you. I’ve never been tempted to change my name, but I know some people who have, and it’s been for the best.
In any case, I’m glad you loved Lilith’s Shadow (so far!). The story is one I’ve deeply enjoyed telling as well, and hopefully what I have coming will satisfy most people! I’d say all people, but not everyone likes the same things.
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I do not recommend. It’s a pain in the butt, but the flip side (for others and myself) is much worse. I whole-heartedly agree with you. Why should it matter what makes you happy when it’s not harmful to others? The answer is it doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t). The journey has taught me some important (if hard) lessons, so I can’t complain.
I’ve absolutely enjoyed everything I’ve read from you (so far). Something I like that shows through Lilith’s Shadow is how your writing style has evolved. Looking at Born a Queen vs. Queen of Diamonds, I can’t quite place it, but I guess I would say Queen of Diamonds is a little more polished. I also quite like Through the Flames and can’t wait for book 4! That ending had me rolling as much as I could, and the way you left it open makes me excited for the future of it
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Yeah, I’ve seen someone change their name, and the sheer amount of paperwork involved… well, there’s a reason my wife doesn’t use my last name. But yes, I fully agree with your philosophy there.
Regarding my writing style, that’s /definitely/ the case. The original version of Born a Queen was written more than a year before Ancient Ruins, and it went through a massive re-write when I prepared it for publishing (it went from 75,000 to 93,000 words, for instance, and the original didn’t have dates or chapters assigned… when I added the dates, I had to kick myself, as a few were on major US holidays, and I had to shuffle them around). Writing takes practice, and I suspect that in my first year, I wrote about as much as every story I attempted to write before that combined. To-date, I’ve published about 2.84 million words (for a paperback, assume 250 words/page, for 11,360 pages of writing in 4 years… wait, missing the Through the Fire Omnibus. Eh, oh well.), though if you subtract omnibuses it’s only 2.1 million or so. That’s a LOT of practice, so I hope it feels more polished!
In any case, I’m currently shuffling things around, and hope to share more information on the 1st for my plans.
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Finally read Emonael’s Vengeance. Dang, it was great! Admittedly, the nature of what Emonael was up to was dark, but I don’t believe the story carried that same tone.
This pertains more to ‘Marin’s Codex’ (though I guess by extension Emonael’s Vengeance too), but I see backstories as a tricky thing. Every well written character should have one, but that doesn’t mean it should be written/released.
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I’m glad you enjoyed it! And yeah, I don’t personally think it was super-dark in tone, but I’d rather not have someone go into expecting something cheerful. Emonael was /thorough/.
Also, I agree on backstories. Yes, I wrote that one, but it was /supposed/ to be a 20k-40k short story in an anthology, then Emonael and Marin dragged me into writing 100k. >_>
But many of my characters, I wouldn’t want to write their background, despite them having them.
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