35 chapters and back to the start

Blog Change

Okay, I'm just going for it. The blog exists here now; all previous blog posts on ko-fi can be found at this link. But we're sticking to the website from here on out.

Writing Update

I reached the end of the The Mark of Thieves on . . . Thursday, February 20, according to Pacemaker. Obviously that's a huge deal, but I didn't pause to celebrate — I'm a busy gal and I've got stuff to do.

Like . . .

Go back to the beginning and polish, polish, polish!

(Oh, and add the four chapters I skipped in the previous round. le sigh)

This isn't to say I wasn't happy or proud of myself for making it to the end of the book, of course. I was! However, the "new" ending of TMOT was previously the beginning of The Patron Saint of Scoundrels, so I only wrote most of that section back in September. It needed very little rewriting (still some, though) and was often a pretty simple case of copying and pasting from one doc to the other. Fun, but anticlimactic. (I've reread those parts multiple times largely because I JUST LOVE THEM, so this really went fast.)

Back-to-the-Beginning Challenges and Goals

So, my goal with this round of changes (let's be real, the line between drafting, revising, and editing is incredibly blurred at this point) is to:

• Speed up the action in the early chapters. In the previous round, Will didn't find the note for Jamie until Chapter 2 or get arrested till Chapter 4, and Bree didn't lose her job and take on the more risky IA thing until Chapter 5. I did a lot of great build up and character development, but man, it was too slow. Now, Jamie's note gets found in Chapter 1, Bree gets fired right in Chapter 2, and Will's in deep shit by Chapter 3.

• Pretty up awkward phrasing and find typos as best I can so as not to be humiliated when I send the manuscript off to the editor

• Ask myself for each chapter and each scene: what purpose is being served here? If I can't come up with at least two raisons d'être, then I'll have some ruthless culling to do. "Character development" is definitely allowed to be one reason, but ONLY if a) it offers new insight and b) some other plot/conflict thing is also being moved along simultaneously.

Anyway, I'm 11,405 words into these TMOT changes, and that feels freaking great. 🥰

Newsletter Progress and (by extension) TQOL Progress

As Kate Malden, aspiring indie author, I don't talk much about The Queen of Lies, preferring to keep that to my Tumblr/AO3 life, but these two topics are actually kind of tied up in each other, so . . . sure. I'm talking TQOL today.

I have one chapter left of TQOL, the story I've been posting online since June 2023. It's written but needs revising and finessing. I've been ignoring that, justifiably, for TMOT, but also because I want to steal Everly Claire's idea and launch my newsletter with the final chapter. (Sorry for being a copycat, friend. I'm constantly inspired by you, what can I say?)

SIDEBAR BEFORE I FORGET! If you've reader Everly's book Never Broken (# 1 in The Unchained series), you might be interested in being an ARC reader for Book # 2, Never Bound. Sign up HERE!

Okay, continuing on: So, I want to post TQOL Ch. 44, BUT I need to finish fixing it up, BUT ALSO I want to launch my newsletter, BUT I need a physical address AND I need to finish editing the mailing list freebie.

Is it any surprise that I felt paralyzed and didn't do any of it? I sort of set myself up for failure with that one. Thus . . .

• I wanted a PO box, but felt anxious about going to get one in person, so I bit the bullet and signed up through Anytime Mailbox yesterday, eliminating the anxiety roadblock. CHECK.

• I sat my behind down on the couch and forced myself to start editing "The Perfect Mark" (the freebie short story). HALF A CHECK because I haven't implemented the edits yet, but it's a start.

• I set myself a hard deadline to get the newsletter launch + TQOL finished, which is Mar. 5, because I'm flying out of the country for a funeral that day, so it would be really lovely to have less to think about while all that's going down. CHECK.

• I forced myself into MailerLite to set up the welcome email. It's written, formatted, set up, what have you — it just needs to be looked over and possibly finessed. But it's in a good state. CHECK.

• I looked through stock photos until my eyes blurred so I can start making a cover for "The Perfect Mark." (I'll definitely be DIY-ing it, but this isn't anxiety-inducing for me. I'm relatively confident with my Photoshop skills, and the more I do it, the better I'll get!) CHECK.

So, none of this is perfect progress, but it IS progress, and really, that's what matters sometimes.

Snippet

I'm not 100% if I should keep offering snippets, if only because I like to share "new" lines, and it's only going to get harder to draw the line between what's "new" and what's "old" as I get farther from drafting and revising and deeper into editing. But, hey. We'll keep it up for now.

All right — that's all, folks. Have a great week!