Category Archives: To Love a Wild Swan
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.
Busy, Busy, Busy
I have three new episodes of A Court of Green Clover up at Vella at the moment and I’ve been working on the next episode of High Tide this morning, with hopes of publishing it this evening. Can’t guarantee anything, but since I started drinking a cup of Flow State coffee in the morning (I started on Saturday) it’s done wonders for my ability to concentrate and get work done. I don’t know if it’s the caffeine or the lion’s mane and chaga mushroom powder in the coffee, but it does seem to work for me.
At least for now. My metabolism has a remarkable ability to adapt to practically anything I put in it and make it stop working. Frex, I can only take ibuprofen for a certain amount of time before I have to go off it and use other, less effective painkillers because at some point my metabolism says, “Nah” and I might as well be eating M&Ms.
What I might try with the Flow State brew is one week on, one week off. That should hold off the acclimatization process and I still get at least two weeks out of a month where I’m insanely productive. Because I have sooooo much to do—I need to finish ACoGC in the next week or so in order to publish it in March, I need to finish High Tide because that is painfully overdue, then I need to finish Hurricane Warning which will wrap up the Olympic Cove series, then write To Love a Wild Swan for Hidden Empire and Mage of Fire for Two Thrones. And that’s just the writing part of the biz; it doesn’t include setting up my Shopify store so that I can direct sell ebooks and signed print books, learning how to do sprayed edges so that I can offer those in the store as well, and cranking out content for my Patreon, newsletter, and social media.
And yet I still feel like a slacker. I don’t know why my brain dislikes me, I really don’t.
2023 Was Not My Best Year
It didn’t help that I lost a good third of the year to cancer issues and associated stuff. I keep telling myself that when the obnoxious part of my brain tries to lash me for only putting out one book in 2023.
But after a week or so of relaxing, watching a lot of HGTV shows, knitting, and doing some small projects around the house, I will get back to work on High Tide. After that, I finish Hurricane Warning, then pivot to To Love a Wild Swan.
Just a warning, however. We have an absolute buttload of expensive repairs that need to be made to the house, and the only way we can afford to do them is if I pick up some contract technical writing/instructional designer work. Which means book production may slow down since I’ll have to spend eight hours of the work week selling my labor to other people so that we can fix our foundation and replace the dead air handler downstairs (those two issues alone will run us about $20-25K). It’s unfortunate, but it’s what I have to do until the books start selling better.
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.
Writing Away
Today has been surprisingly productive—dunno how much of that is due to the significantly lower temps, the portable AC unit, or what, but I shan’t complain.
In fact, I should have a new ep of High Tide available on Vella by Wednesday, I’m hoping to have all of Crystal Blade edited and off to the Typo Team and my editor by the weekend, and I think I have a rough outline for To Love a Wild Swan, which is definitely going to be an enemies to lovers story (think Sam Reid in his most arrogant Lestat mode and Anna Taylor-Joy in Emma. format with added bloodthirstiness and you have my couple). The last book of the year will be Hurricane Warning which will wrap up my Olympic Cove series and bring my number of published novels (as opposed to novellas, novelettes, and short stories) up to a nice round twenty.
Granted, I am hesitant to mention any of this out loud because it seems that when I do that Something Happens™ that derails all of my plans. Guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed.
The State of the Writer, May 2023 Edition
Crystal Blade Episode 12: On Wednesdays We Wear Pink is live over at Kindle Vella. And may I say that it was fun writing an Uskelan episode of Mean Girls.
In other writing news I’m getting close to the end of Crystal Blade, which is nice because I am genuinely itching to get to work on High Tide (Olympic Cove 5) and To Love a Wild Swan (Hidden Empire 3). Remember, the goal for 2023 is to finish the Olympic Cove series and it’s already May so I really need to get stepping on High Tide and Hurricane Warning. Also, when I’m finished with Blade I’ll upload all of the episodes in a swath so that people can read them for a month while I’m prepping it for publication. Because I’m nice like that.
I’m also plugging along on Goddess of the Nile, the Hidden Empire novella that will only be available to newsletter subscribers. Considering that it follows the adventures of both Louisa and Henry AND Fyodora and Callum as they try to reunite a reincarnated warrior with his water goddess love while in Cairo, I’m hoping that it will prove enticing enough to get more people to sign up to my newsletter. We’ll see.
As if that wasn’t enough to have me running around like a headless chicken, I also need to get started on some short stories if I ever want my Patreon to get off the damned ground. I have *counts* four series going at the moment so you would think I’m spoiled for choice when it comes to short story plots. I could write about a day in the life of a queen trying to juggle ruling, her new twins, and her loving husband, I could do a prequel story for Fyodora (God knows she’s had enough erotic adventures over the centuries), and I could write about any of the groups on Olympic Cove. I’ve already done a Paladins of Crystal novella for Paladins of Crystal and am working on a separate PC academy romance for Vella, but I’m sure I could come up with a prequel story about Crystal’s life back in Towanda or one of the Buff Lords and how they got chosen to be a royal paladin.
All I need is time. That’s turning into a common theme with me, isn’t it?
Pulled In Too Many Directions
A problem of being an indie author is that you are, in fact, a small business owner with all the hats that come along with that. In addition to writing I have to arrange for editing, formatting, covers, promotion and marketing (which are separate things, believe it or not), plus I have to keep a weather eye on the market and try to hop on the next rising wave.
At the moment that appears to be Kindle Vella. Now, I’m no stranger to writing serialized fiction—I did it all the time with fanfic and I know how to add little cliffhangers to keep the reader interested and reading along. But that also means splitting my already fractured writing time to absorb yet another project that has to be updated at least once and ideally twice weekly. Plus I need to write something that will appeal to the main group of Vella readers. From looking at the top sellers in Vella, that appears to be Why Choose academy romance with just a touch of bullying.
Yeah, yeah, I know—wasn’t I doing a Hidden Empire novella? I am, mainly because I need it as a link between The Crimson and the Black and To Love a Wild Swan. But seeing as this is serialized and I only have to post two chapters a week, I can squeeze in another project. And I am choosing to look on this as a challenge. I know the market, I know what readers expect from the market, and I think I can deliver an entertaining WC academy romance set in my Paladins of Crystal universe. I mean, hey, haven’t you ever wondered what attending the Academy of the Elements must be like? And for a shy girl who’s been tutored at home until her parents lose all their money and have to send her and her twin brother to the academy for training in their Talent, that could be very interesting.
So, yeah, gonna be quite busy for the rest of the month. But hey, who needs sleep?
Relieved That It’s April
That is a March that I am particularly glad to see the back of, if I’m being honest. This month will be filled with getting my car’s registration renewed, continuing my plan to get this house deep cleaned bit by bit, finish Crystal Blade and get that published, and start on To Love a Wild Swan and the Hidden Empire novella (after a nice chat with Ramón I now have a plot).
Yeah, I know, I promised that I would finish the Olympic Cove series this year, and I will. But Hidden Empire is currently my bestselling series so I have to go with the money and add a book to it. I’ll keep picking at High Tide while I’m working on TLaWS and pivot to that once I’m done.
In the meantime I need to update my ads on Amazon because my KU reads are slowing down painfully and launch an FB ad for Esposito County Shifters: OE in the hopes that more people will buy it on non-Zon platforms. I’ve already sold a copy on Apple Books as well as copies of all the novellas and I would very much like to transfer that kind of selling action to B&N/Kobo/Google Play/et al.
I Am So Close
Maybe another day or two and Shifter Woods: Claw will be in shape to head off to the editor and betas. Which is good because my writing brain is ITCHING to get back to work on Crystal Blade and High Tide, plus I also want to start outlining To Love a Wild Swan. I’m also tempted to go with a trio for that one because hey, Nessa is a queen of Faerie and doesn’t have to stick with Victorian social rules. If she wants a Fae lord and a hot djinn as her consorts, why not?
I also think that my Patreon short story for March (yeah, yeah, I know. But I already missed the February deadline so I’ll launch it then) will be the springboard for To Love a Wild Swan. Fyodora and Callum arrive in Cairo and meet up with Louisa and Henry, they get involved with a Romeo and Juliet conflict between some Egyptian deities and a djinn clan, and the denouement of the story leads into Swan.
As for April, I’m torn between using my F*ck the Patriarchy novella for my Patreon or setting it as the free story that new newsletter subscribers receive. Since it’s a Why Choose story and not everyone enjoys that subgenre I may use it for the Patreon and come up with something more general for the new subscriber story. I haven’t written anything in the Two Thrones series for quite a while—I think I may do something set there, maybe a peek at how Amelie and Alain are settling in, or Matthias deciding to gift his overworked wife with a seductive holiday. I’ve been asked to do a story regarding Darius and Lars’s wedding and honeymoon but I think I want to save that for its own novella.
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 