Category Archives: Crystal Reflection
The End is Nigh
Bet you thought I forgot about you. Not a chance.
I have been busting my ass for the last week writing a chapter a day on High Tide (and putting them up on Vella—I’m currently up to 58 episodes so that tells you something). As of last night I finished Chapter 22, which means I have three more chapters and High Tide is finished (hi Susan!).
Now, it still needs to be edited, and according to the Vella rules I can’t publish the story until thirty days have passed after I post the last chapter and mark the story complete. Which means the earliest I can publish High Tide is on June 19th.
Am I gonna do that? Nah, because I want to give myself a little wiggle room in editing, getting stuff to the editor and betas, getting stuff back from the editor and betas, doing the weasel word pass, the spelling/grammar/punctuation pass, and the final polish. So you can expect to see High Tide available on all platforms on June 25th. I’ll even set up an Amazon pre-order on Monday so that I’m locked in, how’s that?
So what comes after High Tide? Well, my mind is still firmly in Olympic Cove so I’m going to go straight onto Hurricane Warning. This is the last book in the series and will be Chiron’s story, wherein you learn his background with Asclepius, where exactly Asclepius has been all this time, and the role they play along with their lover Dr. Nessa Bryant in the final battle against the Mad Nereid. And since people seem to like following progress reports, I’ll post them here daily.
I’ll also be working on finishing A Court of Green Clover (Division Street Fae 1) at the same time, but that’s 1) a novella and 2) already half finished so I can do that in the evenings after working on Warning. What I would like to do but will not promise because every time I do that I get bit in the ass is the following schedule:
Finish High Tide and publish it.
Finish Hurricane Warning and publish it.
Turn Olympic Cove into an ebook box set and publish it.
Finish A Court of Green Clover and publish it.
After that, I would like to work on Crystal Reflection (Paladins of Crystal 3), To Love a Wild Swan (Hidden Empire 3), and Mage of Fire (Two Thrones 5). I strongly doubt I can finish all of these in 2024 but I’m going to give it the old college try. After that, I want to finish off the last two books in the Paladins of Crystal series, then trade off between Hidden Empire, Two Thrones, and Division Street Fae. Two Thrones has a projected eight books and Division Street Fae has five books. Hidden Empire does not have an end date and can continue on as long as I come up with stories for it.
And then there’s Pacifica Rising, my poor lonely SF romance series that does not follow the android/alien/lab creature trope. Is there an SF equivalent of romantasy? I know some people hate the term but it’s a damned handy marketing term. Speculative romance? Romascifi? I need to come up with a better term. But I’d really like to finish the other five books in that series as well (I see you cheering there, Jackie).
So now you’re all caught up to date, and I need to get to work. See you tomorrow, kiddos.
Is It Possible To Have Flashbacks Of Your Own Books?
As you know, Bob, when I wasn’t working on High Tide in November I was cleaning my house for a guest visit (which went very well, thank you). An interesting side effect has been that I’ve been spending an hour a day doing general cleaning (sweeping, emptying the litter boxes, feeding/watering the cats, wiping down counters, laundry, et al) and in-depth cleaning on a single room. I know from experience that this will last until I get sick, get a big project dumped in my lap, or some other time sink happens to swallow all available seconds, but for the moment it’s nice.
That being said, I keep having the weirdest experiences while cleaning, or cooking dinner to be honest. I keep getting what I can only call flashbacks of settings from my various books. I’ll be dusting a bookcase or vacuuming the living room, and suddenly I get hit with a memory of what the Hellene Royal Palace looks like, or Henry’s house from Shadow of the Swan, or the hunting lodge from Crystal Blade.
None of these places are real, mind you. They’re an amalgamation of places and buildings I’ve seen throughout my life, but for some reason they keep popping into my head in full 3-D color. And I suddenly really, really want to write another story set in that universe.
I think my creative brain is trying to tell me to get the lead out with High Tide, get it and Hurricane Warning finished, then get to work on either To Love a Wild Swan, Mage of Fire, or Crystal Reflection. The original plan was to take the last week of December off, but it now looks like I’ll be writing all the way through it. But hey, I love my job so that’s all right.
Getting a Grip on Things
So yesterday I outlined what I need to change in the first five chapters of Shifter Woods: Claw and implemented the Chapter One changes. Ideally I’ll get the other four chapters updated today, then proceed to finish the last five chapters, edit everything, and release this mother and the ECS omnibus.
Which will be 1) a frigging relief and 2) my first completed series. Apparently a LOT of romance readers don’t want to start a series unless it’s completed so I’m hoping that the omnibus will bring in additional sales, not to mention attention to my other paranormal romances. I also need to plan how I want to promote the omnibus—I think I’m going to go with FB ads for it since I’m already promoting Shifter Woods: Howl in AMS. I’ll be taking the Facebook Ads Expedition class with Mark Dawson next week so hopefully I’ll pick up some instruction on how to make my FB ads more effective.
Once Claw is done, it’s time to go back to Crystal Blade and get that puppy finished and out by the end of January, then I’ll be double-teaming Crystal Reflection and High Tide (Olympic Cove 5). One way or the other, I am getting up to twenty full-length books published by the end of this year. Who needs sleep, right?
Boy, I’m doing a lot this month
Mrgh. In a rough chronological order, this is what I would like to achieve in January:
- Finish, edit, and publish Shifter Woods: Claw
- Compile and publish the Esposito County Shifters omnibus edition
- Write a short story set in one of my series for my Patreon (right now I’m leaning towards Louisa, Henry, Fyodora, and Callum getting into trouble in Egypt. Because that would be fun.)
- Launch my Patreon with said short story
- Finish, edit, and publish Crystal Blade (Paladins of Crystal 2)
- Start Crystal Reflection (Paladins of Crystal 3)
- Start High Tide (Olympic Cove 5)
- Put together the outline for To Love a Wild Swan (Hidden Empire 3)
- Start recording video for the Sekrit Project (more on that in March or so)
- Start recording Shadow of the Swan as an audiobook
Yeah, I know, it’s a lot. But I need to ramp up from what I achieved in 2022, and that means more books published and more income streams established (I’m putting off the Shopify store until February when I can focus on it).
I also need to come up with some rewards for hitting these milestones, ideally ones that aren’t expensive. Must muse on that some more…
Nicola Cameron Writes 