Category Archives: Books
Creative Decisions
High Tide Episode 2: And Hello To You, Too is now available at Kindle Vella. You know the drill.
I realized yesterday that I kinda made a mistake. I jumped from a complex fantasy romance with bleak backstories, intrigue, and suspense (Crystal Blade) directly into another complex fantasy romance with bleak backstories, intrigue and suspense (High Tide), and after the last three years my brain kinda needs a break from so much sturm und drang and bleak backstories, please.
So I’ve decided to lighten things just a little with the main trio for High Tide. One of the members is a sunny cinnamon roll in human(oid) form, another is grumpy and sarcastic but will do anything for his mates, and the third, to be honest, is a bit of a dork. But a nice dork who tries hard.
This creative decision being influenced by the second season of a certain show that just dropped on Amazon Prime is something I will neither confirm nor deny. All I will say is that art moves in mysterious—nay, ineffable—ways.
Rabbit Rabbit: August
Despite the fact that we have five more days of this hellacious heat I’m starting the month off feeling very chuffed, thank you very much. The pre-order for Crystal Blade is live at 99¢, I’ve posted the first episode of High Tide on Vella (before anyone gets upset lemme ‘splain—I’m releasing High Tide as a Vella serial novel, and when it’s done I’ll compile it and publish it as an ebook and print book. You can choose to read along, or you can wait for it to be published in late September, whichever you prefer), and my July Vella episode reads tripled from June so I should be getting a nice bonus.
I’m also going to kick off my official Patreon launch next week—I’ll have a Hidden Empire short story for all patrons, and higher levels will get free ebooks and free print books as they’re released. More on that once everything’s finalized.
The only sour note is that I can’t start on the audiobooks until this heat subsides. I’ll have to record in the master bath’s closet and it’s warm at the best of times. If I try to record in there now I will pass out from heat exhaustion. But they will be coming, I promise you that.
Aaaaand Crystal Blade Is Soup
Crystal Blade is officially done at a little over 95K, woohoo! I’ve set up a pre-order at Amazon and the official release date is August 29, 2023.
I feel very, very good about this. The story is a great mix of romance and intrigue, there are a nice number of spicy scenes, and I especially like the fact that Crystal hasn’t fallen into insta-love with all of her guys. Anton was the first, then Erik in this book, and her affection for Basil, Marco, and Fallon is teetering on the verge of love by the end of the book. Considering that it’s set in a world with elemental magic, Muses, and the whole “it takes three men to get a woman pregnant” thing, there’s still a sense of being rooted in reality, which pleases me.
While Crystal Blade is cooling I’m getting to work on High Tide today. I told my subconscious to work out the plot last night and I woke up with a rough outline that I can refine. I will give you two words: boarding party. Heh, heh, heh.
Oh, and I’m going to go see Barbie because I deserve a treat for finishing Crystal Blade, tra la.
Soon, Precious, Very Soon…
All of the remaining Crystal Blade episodes are now live on Kindle Vella. And there are two new spicy scenes so go check them out!
Sorry about the radio silence from this end. I have been doing my best to finish Crystal Blade with that toxic toad of a heat dome sitting on top of us, my ovaries are mounting a last-ditch attempt to make my life miserable (one of the joys of having PCOS—despite the fact that I am most definitely in menopause my cyst-covered ovaries can continue to make my life miserable for a good ten years as the damn cysts pop, causing all kinds of cramping pain. Whee), my mood swings have been epic, and I’ve also been cleaning the house piecemeal when I haven’t been working on a quilt for a friend. So yeah, blog posts have kinda been overlooked with all of that going on.
But I have maybe 1200 words more to go on Blade and it is officially soup. Since it’s in Vella I’m going to publish the remaining episodes once I finish the last chapter. That will start the thirty day clock on when I can take the story down and publish it, so I’m going to set up a pre-order on Amazon with delivery on August 29, let Blade cool while I get started on High Tide, and then I’ll start the editing process next week.
In re: the future adventures of Crystal and her men, I have a very rough outline for Crystal Reflection (Book 3) and an even rougher idea for Crystal Citadel (Book 4). Unfortunately can’t discuss either of them at the moment because it would create a huge spoiler for both books, but if this works out the way it should these stories will be extremely cool and set up the big conflict for Crystal Empress (Book 5). That wraps up the series, but I have the option of three spinoff series if I want to pursue them.
Stupid Weather
Crystal Blade Episode 37: The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly On the Plain is now live on Kindle Vella. You know the drill, petal.
And may I say that I am actually kinda impressed with myself? I already have Friday’s episode loaded and ready for release, I have a large chunk of Monday’s ep written, and by the actual end of the weekend I should have all of next week’s eps finished. I know I said on Monday that I wanted to have the entire book done by Saturday this week, but that was before I totaled up the remaining chapters and realized, ha ha, I’d blown past my original projected word count by about 11k. I’m having flashbacks to finishing Shadow of the Swan, whee…
So yeah, once I finish today’s chapter I’ll have five more chapters to go of approximately 3,500 words apiece. If I can work up the energy (not easy with this freaking heat dome squatting over Texas like a toxic toad) I could potentially have all of them done by next Wednesday.
Yeah, I hear you—why not Monday? Because I don’t want to write over the weekend. I really need those two days for cleaning and business tasks, not to mention plain old recharging. Because I am plain and old, and I need it.
Soon, My Precious. Soon…
As of tonight I hit my 3k/day writing word count for the first time since May 14 and I am approximately 17,507 words from the end of Crystal Blade. Once I finish the chapter I’m currently working on, I’ll have Act II finished and can start the frantic landslide of Act III. Each chapter is already outlined and ready to go, and all I have to do is stick the words into place.
And to my surprise everything is flowing remarkably smoothly. I don’t know if it’s just years of experience, the fact that this book has been pending for over a year, or what, but I’m not fighting the story anymore. In fact, it’s getting kinda fun again to work in this universe and pit Crystal against her family’s machinations. It’s also a lot of fun to salt hints and suggestions about things that will happen in books 3-5, so that readers will be able to read those books and think, “Oh, now I understand why she mentioned X back in Crystal Blade. Okay, that makes sense.”
It’s one of the underlying tenets of writing a series. You need to make sure the books as a whole are cohesive and relate to each other in some way. Also, readers love following breadcrumbs in a complicated plot and will love you for it if you drop enough to keep their appetite whetted.
I’m Back. Again.
Crystal Blade Episode 36: A Cousinly Talk is now live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
So where have I been for the last week or so? Well, basically I felt like absolute crap, had little to no energy, and wasn’t in any position to focus on writing. My guess is a viral sinus infection combined with a bunch of shit in the air pretty much knocking me on my ass.
So I gave myself permission to take the week off, rest, and only do stuff that I could do on autopilot; namely, finish reformatting all the titles that I’d pulled out of KU and publish them wide.
As of 7/7/23 every title that currently isn’t in KU (I’m still waiting on “Prelude to a Storm”‘s KU period to expire later this month) was published on Smashwords and Google Play. I’m currently waiting for Smashwords to review everything and pass it onto their Premiere Catalog which gets distributed to its partners. Once that happens, I’ll update my universal links for every book and then I’m pretty much wide for the duration.
To be honest, I’m glad I did it. I keep hearing from people still in KU that their payouts are continuing to drop despite Amazon raising the subscription price, plus there’s the whole mess of Amazon threatening to yank accounts when they find a KU title on a pirate site. As for me, I’m actually making about the same wide as I had in KU, plus I’m making additional money from Vella. So I’m not complaining.
In the meantime I have five more chapters to finish on Crystal Blade and it is done done done. If I get a move on I may be able to do that by EOB Saturday, I dunno (and yes, Susan, as soon as that’s done I’m pivoting to High Tide). I have to leave a Vella story up for thirty days after I publish the last episode, so once Blade is done I’ll set up a pre-order for it on Amazon for mid-August or so.
So it goes.
Turning Lemons Into Lemonade
Over on the Book of Face an author in an indie publishing group mentioned that he had decided to take his one star reviews and start using them as advertising for his books, complete with four greyed out stars and one yellow star along with a quote from the bad review, on the basis that there is no such thing as bad press and one star reviews have been known to push sales.
So I thought, hey, that’s a good idea. Luckily for me I don’t have a lot of one-star reviews, but this one was memorable.
Not Looking Forward to Next Week
Crystal Blade Episode 32: Royally Approved is live at Kindle Vella. You know the drill.
I’m guessing that this may be our last relatively nice day before October so I’m appreciating the bit of rain we’ve gotten. The forecast for this weekend and next week is going to be nasty—days of triple digit heat and lots of stress on Anita Gigawatt.
Here in Casa Cameron we swing into low power mode when that happens—no running of large appliances or the pool pump during the day, I do my best to makes all meals on the stove instead of the oven (we have a propane grill but it badly needs to be cleaned) and we close all the blinds and curtains and pretty much hunker down until the heat wave breaks.
You would think that would be a great opportunity for me to crank out a lot of words. Yeah, no. The effect of having a high pressure dome parked directly overhead messes with my sinuses and I wind up feeling drained and getting a lot of sinus headaches. I’ll try to get as much work on Crystal Blade and formatting the rest of the Two Thrones books for wide release before the heat knocks me over.
Happy Juneteenth
Crystal Blade Episode 31: Happily Ever After? is live at Kindle Vella. I also realized last night that I am currently at 61,569 words and according to my outline I’m eight chapters away from finishing. If I knock out a chapter a day I could have everything wrapped up by midnight next Monday. Huh.
In other news, Happy Juneteenth to all Americans, and maybe if Gavin Newsome gets the constitutional convention rolling and we add a gun control amendment we can tweak the 13th amendment and remove the bit that allows slavery “as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convincted.” Just a thought.
Locally, it’s going to get hot here this week in the clavicle of Texas. And yes, we’re used to hot weather, but we’ve had so much rain recently that it feels like Florida when you step outside. The humidity is going to drop back down to normal levels on Saturday, thank Cthulhu, but in the meantime the heat index is going to be miserable and my heart will be in my mouth every time the AC units go off (which they do periodically. That’s normal. But now I’m wondering if they’re going to start up again). Don’t even get me started on the Texas grid.
But I’m in a privileged position. My heart goes out to all the lawn people, pool cleaners, and construction workers who are going to have to deal with this nasty weather while they’re working (and my governor, good Christian that he is, just signed a law repealing mandatory water breaks for construction workers. What a peach).
Nicola Cameron Writes 