Category Archives: Vella
The Worst is Done
High Tide Episodes 29: A Little Flirting, 30: Leave It to Bever, and 31: I’ll Keep You My Dirty Little Secret are live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Oh. My. God.
After a month of intensive work all of the public rooms are guest-quality clean (well, except where Jessie peed outside a litter box this morning, but that area is drying in preparation for sweeping and disinfecting). What’s guest-quality clean, you ask?
- All extraneous stuff is put away (frankly, this probably took the longest—Ramón and I have a bad habit of depositing stuff everywhere)
- All surfaces are dusted (including corners of walls and ceilings, undersides of counters, and window frames)
- All carpets are vacuumed/cleaned
- All hard surface floors are steam mopped/washed
- All curtains are washed
- All windows are washed
- All kitchen appliances are cleaned
- All furniture is dusted/cleaned/polished
And yes, this took a month to do because I’m 1) old and fat, 2) recovering from surgery, 3) trying to finish a book, 4) running a small business, and 5) cleaning up after an absent-minded engineer and four cats.
Mind you, I still have to fix the downstairs toilet’s intake valve, get the fridge water filter installed (considering that the last time I did this the intake didn’t shut off and flooded the kitchen floor so this will require Extra Steps), see if I can fix the springs in the living room chair so that humans can sit in it without losing circulation in their lower legs, clean my office, our bedroom and bathroom, then prep the guest room for Friday (aka kick out the cats, vacuum and dust, then make up the bed).
But the back of the really intensive cleaning has been broken. I may actually write today, then have a lovely dinner with my aunt and uncle who are unexpectedly in town. Whee!
NaNoWriMo, Day Fifteen
High Tide Episode 28: The Fine Art of Diplomacy is live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Today: 1,689 words
Total: 25,154 words
Officially halfway through NaNoWriMo and I’m on track, whee! The story is getting more complicated, the battle scene was a ball to write, Rian had a BIG decision to make after that and I think he made the right one, and now hijinks are ensuing, as they should be.
In other news, there is something simple yet wonderfully satisfying about filing all the bills and receipts. I always feel better when I know all of my financial information is safely put away in the filing cabinet. And yes, I know, “Why don’t you keep it digital or in the cloud?” Because I know clouds can be hacked and digital storage fails. Paper, on the other hand, is pretty reliable.
Also, is it TMI to say that I bought 10 pairs of underwear on sale and they arrived today? And they’re all lovely (a number of them are Christmas and NYE themed)? They’re currently in the laundry basket waiting to be washed (yes, I wash everything I buy before I wear it for the first time) and I think I may need to weed my underwear/sock drawer to make some room.
NaNoWriMo, Day Thirteen
High Tide Episode 27: A Chance of Family is live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Today: 1,668 words
Total: 21,775 words
I believe I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with High Tide. It’s either that or an oncoming train, I’m not sure.But I feel much more comfortable with where the story is going and how the main triad are interacting with each other, which is a good thing. Now I just have to finish the fukaktah story.
Also, I am nothing if not a thing of grace and beauty. I just managed to whack myself in my right cheekbone … with my hairbrush. While brushing my hair. I ask you.
Ow.
NaNoWriMo, Day Eight
High Tide Episode 26: Rules of Order is live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Today: 1,681 words
Total: 13,951 words
Remember how I was bitching about the Sutures That Would Not Dissolve yesterday? Three guesses what they did today. And the one little section of gum tissue that already swallowed a tail is now soft and no longer ouchy. Brilliant!
The book continues, as does the endless house cleaning, and I’m starting to ache because we’re going to get a temperature drop of about thirty degrees between today and tomorrow. Which I don’t actually mind because it’s not supposed to be in the 80s in November, even in Texas. But my joints are making it clear that they are not happy about this. Getting older is just so much fun…
NaNoWriMo, Day Six
High Tide Episode 25: Places, Everyone! is live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Today: 1,732 words
Total: 10,590 words
I had kind of a nice breakthrough today while working. As you now, Bob, I like to have a good, solid backstory for all of my characters before I start a story. I may not use much (or any) of that backstory in the actual book, but it informs how the character behaves and reacts to events.
I had come up with Scott’s backstory (mother died at birth, father was a park ranger, he grew up camping a lot and knew that there were non-human people out there, dad accepted his sexuality, he’d just broken up with a closeted boyfriend before coming to Olympic Cove) and Orrin’s backstory (was taken when he was only one by a Boche and raised as the family’s pet/retainer. Was well-educated, managed to travel a bit with the family using disguises, and had a torrid affair with Anton Boche who was going to return Orrin to Greece until he died unexpectedly and Anton’s son Charles decided to use Orrin as an experimental subject in his research into immortality).
Rian, however, was still kind of a mystery. I knew he was the grumpy to Orrin’s sunshine, he was the only male siren born in centuries, but that was pretty much it. And then it came to me today—his grandmother had decreed that Rian would stand as their family’s stud once he was of age and sire children on his cousins and aunts. Rian’s mother was horrified at this idea, stole Rian, and they’ve been on the run ever since. They’d made it to the coast of Florida and were moving from grotto to grotto when his mom got attacked by an ilkothella. Rian managed to kill it, and his mother begged him to kill her as well before she could transform fully. Desperate, he sang her to sleep and hid her in a cave, intending to travel to Olympic Cove and beg Poseidon for help when he was captured by Boche’s men.
I like to have echoes with my MCs as a reason why they’re attracted to each other so both Scott and Rian are unusual examples of a normally female breed, and both Orrin and Rian had been stolen from their families as infants and forced to hide what they were in order to survive.
This pleases me.
Back In the Saddle Again
High Tide Episodes 19: Some Necessary Background, 20: Meanwhile, Back on the Yacht, and 21: Worrying As a Hobby are all live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
So, an update: I’m now two weeks out from surgery, my left jaw and lower lip are slowly coming back online, my neck is still swollen but the incision is healing beautifully, and I can eat most foods if I cut it into small pieces, chew carefully, and sip something between bites (anything hard, really crunchy, or spicy is still off the menu for the foreseeable future).
More importantly, I managed to chunk out 936 words today and I’m going to be posting High Tide eps on Kindle Vella every day this week to make up for the two weeks I wasn’t able to write (so much for creating an episode bank). I’m hoping to have the book done by mid-November, which will allow me to release it around mid-December. I’m not going to put Hurricane Warning out on Vella so that I don’t have to wait the mandatory 30 days from my last episode post to publish, so you might get that before the end of the year but it’s more likely that you’ll get it in mid-January. I’m sorry about that, but it’s amazing how developing cancer and having to have four teeth, gum tissue, and a strip of jawbone removed cuts into your writing time.
Speaking of that, I have an appointment with my chemo oncologist tomorrow, at which point I’ll learn the stage of the cancer and what comes next. Fingers crossed.
The Work Must Flow
High Tide Episode 18: A Walk on the Beach is now live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Despite my health issues I need to keep writing, mainly so that I can make money and help pay the medical bills I’m about to be getting. I’m going to try and get enough High Tide eps banked so that I can release them next week on a M-W-F schedule while I’m in the hospital.
I’m also working on the first chapter of a Hidden Empire novella, Goddess of the Nile, that will be exclusive to my Patreon members in case you’re interested. Goddess takes place a few months after The Crimson and the Black and follows Fyodora and Callum as they arrive in Cairo for a visit with Louisa and Henry. Needless to say, things get a little complicated when a lovesick water goddess asks for help in locating her long-lost lover, a stuffy British official gets involved, and hijinks ensue. This one is going to be a lot of fun and will be available to all my Patreon subscribers, FYI.
And Now, a Three-Fer
High Tide Episode 15: Dangerous Truths, Episode 16: Mothers and Sons, and Episode 17: How I Met Your Mother are now live on Kindle Vella. Yeah, yeah, I know, but there are Reasons™ why I’m just posting about this now.
Namely, I am on a working vacation, so to speak. My sister was kind enough to invite us up to stay with her in beautiful mid-central Illinois for a week. Since all we’d have to do is rent a vehicle that both Ramón and I could drive (he drives a pickup truck and prefers vehicles that are higher off the ground), we jumped at the chance. And yes, the usual cat sitter is at the house taking care of the J Crew so don’t worry about them—they still have a human staff member watching over their every move, as they expect.
But this change in scenery has been very welcome. I got to see both of my sibs, say hello to my lake, indulge in a bag of White Castles, have dinner with my BFF and his husband, and just generally enjoy not dealing with Texas heat. I mean, it’s been anywhere between 69-80°F here during the day. AND we had rain. I ask you.
As for working, the BIL has his own small office building so Ramón is set up in an office here (he’s a contractor so no PTO, but he works remotely anyway so he’s working from Illinois this week) while I’m in the receptionist area with my sister writing and doing various authorly tasks. It’s been incredibly nice being here—there’s a great diner across the street and a McDonald’s a block down the street, and we’re staying in a lovely room at my sister’s house that looks out over a lake. I feel a lot more relaxed and recharged, and so does Ramón.
Which is good because I need to start hauling ass on High Tide since we’ll be on the road Saturday which knocks out one writing day, and I have an unavoidable event next week that will knock out at least one other writing day as well, boo. But I’m past the 1/3 point and on my way to the halfway point, so we’ll just have to see what we can see. And yeah, ignore that deadline—it was set before I knew we’d be coming on this trip. I’m aiming to finish the first draft by 10/20/23 or so, with a release on 11/21/23.
So mark your calendar, Susan—you’re gonna be getting High Tide soon!
Last Day To Stuff Your E-Reader!
High Tide Episode 15: Dangerous Truths is now live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, enjoy, and all that stuff.
I would also like to remind you that today is the last day of the Stuff Your Kindle/eReader event for romance readers. You can still head over to www.romancebookworms.com and pick up over 2400 free romance ebooks in seventeen different categories. I already picked up a bunch of awesome titles, and my own WC fantasy romance Crystal Shard is in the event, in case you haven’t read it yet and would like to try it for free.
I also got a review for Crystal Blade, the sequel to Crystal Shard, today and it has me squealing in joy:
Crystal, our relatable heroine, has a remarkable journey from the mundane life of a Sav-R-Mart clerk to embracing her newfound role as the potential Empress of Sideros. Her character development remains a highlight of this series, as we get to witness her growth from an average human girl with a troubled past to a powerful and determined force to be reckoned with. The political maneuvering and the competition with Crystal’s cousin for the throne add layers of complexity to the plot, keeping readers engaged and invested in the outcome.
If you are a lover of high fantasy books with a great plot, amazing character development, and forbidden love… read this series!
This pleases me because I recently made the discovery that apparently I write romantasy—a story with a strong romance plot and an equally strong adventure plot with worldbuilding. I always follow the romance requirements of a HEA/HFN and a romantic couple/group at the core of my stories, but I also send my characters out on adventures, regularly put them into danger, and require them to do some personal growth before the end of the story. That’s what I like to read, so that’s what I like to write.
And now it’s officially a thing, which is fabulous from a marketing perspective. Anything that makes it easier to get my books into the hands of readers who will enjoy them is aces with me!
Consider This a Twofer
High Tide Episode 13: Going For a Ride and Episode 14: Pouring Oil On Troubled Waters are now live on Kindle Vella. Friday’s episode didn’t upload until late so I didn’t post about it last week, sorry about that.
Speaking of contacting people, I sent out a newsletter yesterday thanking folks for buying Crystal Blade and talking about some other projects, and woke up to four people having unsubscribed. Which, believe it or not, is fine—I would much prefer people who actually read my stories and enjoy hearing from me to get my newsletter. Having a huge newsletter audience is pointless if half of them only signed up to get a free book and plan on unsubscribing at some point. I’d much rather build a solid group of readers who actively enjoy my books and want to hear about what’s coming up next, read teasers, get entered into giveaways, etc.
And even though I lost four subscribers yesterday, today more than made up for it with four book purchases, including a print version of Esposito County Shifters: Omnibus Edition. Apparently Mercury is no longer in retrograde and everyone is rejoicing by buying books, hurrah!
Nicola Cameron Writes 