Welcome back!

Life Update

I took an unplanned hiatus from the blog last week, out of necessity rather than desire. I spent about a week in the UK for family reasons, and I was truly just too busy to sit down and write a blog post. I barely did any writing, honestly, although I did manage to sit with my phone or iPad sometimes to make highlights and annotations to convert to edits once I got back on the computer. Now I'm back (and back to work tomorrow following March break), and I'm desperately trying to cram in as much TMOT editing as I can into this weekend.

Image ID: a wooden door in an old brick wall.

Image ID: spring daffodils in bloom

Image ID: ivy on a red brick wall

Image ID: yellow primroses growing through ivy

Writing Update

So, what have I been up to, writing-wise? Well, as I said, not much. But here's a summary.

• finished editing TQOL's final chapter.

• finished editing my newsletter freebie (AND designed the cover!) — it's called "The Perfect Mark," if I haven't said that already!

• finished highlighting and annotating TMOT with self-editing notes

• wrote the second of the four skipped TMOT chapters

• properly edited the TMOT manuscript up to ( . . . checks pacemaker . . .) 45,730 words. It's not quite where I need to be, but I'm confident I will meet my deadline. I'm a girl who works well under pressure, lol. (It's the chronic procrastination.)

• oops! started Book 3 on the plane back to Canada. (What was I supposed to do? I'd finished reading Where the Dark Stands Still by A B Poranek [finally, after several months], finished annotating TQOL Ch.44 [the last], and finished annotating TMOT Ch. 35 [the last]. A girl's gotta have SOMETHING to keep her busy on a long flight!)

  • And, okay, I'm only one chapter into Book 3, but . . . aaah! I lowkey love it already.

Newsletter Launch

Y'all, I swear on my life it's happening this week. The finale of The Queen of Lies is going to get posted, and I'm stealing Everly Claire's idea of using it for the newsletter launch (pretty sure she's still looking for ARC readers! CLICK HERE!)

Image ID: part of the cover for the Kate Malden short story "The Perfect Mark." Most of the image has been cropped, but a yellow skirt is and beige shoe is visible, along with the story's title.

I feel really good about the cover, which I made myself (with consultation from my hubby), and I think the story's pretty darn cute. I'm excited to share it as the newsletter freebie!

Snippet

I'm going to jump to the snippet, seeing as I've got a lot going on, and end this post relatively early. Have a moment from the chapter I managed to actually WRITE write while I was abroad.

“And you?” I prompt. “What’d you see?” He heaves a breath before he answers, carefully considering every word, so I’m expecting a decent level of detail, but what he settles on—most unhelpfully—is “You’re fucked.” “What do you mean?” I don’t like the sound of that at all—you’re fucked, with emphasis on you. “What happened?”

Have a lovely week, everyone. 💕