Welcome back, me

IRL Stuff

😅

Well. It's been a hot minute, hasn't it? I skipped two weeks of blogging — sorry, everyone. I was out of town the first weekend for my wedding anniversary and the second for my nephew's birthday, so it's been a busy time. I also had to travel back to my hometown TWICE in a short number of days (one of the trips was midweek) for a sad reason, so . . . yeah. There's been a lot of stuff going on offline.

Writing Update

Gosh, I feel like I need to see where I was the last time I blogged.

*peeks *

Oh wow! Last time I gave an update, I was still working through the editor's feedback for TMOT, and I was halfway through a Colette chapter in TPSOS. Here's what's happened since then.

ONE: I started drafting a lil short story whose idea struck the weekend of my wedding anniversary. It's somewhere in the 3000 words range at the moment, and I really don't know what I plan to do with it. But we'll see.

It's about an event that is mentioned in TMOT, but it's something that happened a long time ago. I removed all the actual flashback scenes/chapters from the book, so I just decided to flesh it out as separate piece. I've been having fun!

TWO: I did, in fact, finish applying edits.

Pre line edits: 102,484 words

Post line edits: 101, 871 words

As of May 11: My read-through is going well. I find cutting words to be fun. :D

I haven't made any more major changes, which I think is more than appropriate for this stage. Mostly I'm cutting words, sentences, and sometimes paragraphs I don't feel add anything of value. Of course, I'm also fixing typos and inconsistencies that slipped through the editing rounds. (Until a few days ago, Will's tattoo was on his right AND his left arm. Whoops. 😅)

THREE: I continued working on TPSOS, adding a whole new Colette chapter! I realized I needed her to spend some quality time with Bree in order to make something she does in the next chapter make a little more sense. Thus, we now have two girly bonding chapters between them. (Okay, well, they're exceedingly angsty, but they still count.)

I'm 41,282 words into TPSOS revisions, and I'm feeling good. My momentum fell a bit at the next chapter (it's a Bree POV one), but it's just as well because I need to continue my read-through of TMOT.

Marketing Fears

I am terrified of this part of the entire publishing process. More than anything. More than reviews. (Yes, I know my feelings will change when the reviews start coming in, but we're not there yet.)

I'm scared to start. I'm scared to look like a dummy. I'm scared to fall on my face. I'm scared people will look at the cover and say, "Ew." (It doesn't help that my cover situation is in flux right now so I can't even do a reveal yet. I mean, I have one. But I might have another one, and that might be better, but it's not done yet, so . . . argh.)

But I did. Quietly. On a platform where I'm not following any friends and they're not following me. (Strangers are less intimidating than people you know and respect.) And it was scary, but as a friend recently put it, "the world didn't end."

Is it going well? I don't know. I don't think the numbers are particularly good. Some of them are downright bad, I think. But I still did it.

That's all I really want to say about that.

The Timeline

Okay, so where do we go from here?

• Mid-May to early June: keep doing lowkey marketing stuff. The goal here is to get acclimatized to the marketing "water" and not scare myself off.

• Mid-June: open e-ARC applications

• Mid-June to Mid-July: e-ARC recruitment

• Mid-July to release day: ARC reviews come in + marketing

• 27 August 2025: release day 🥳🎉

Seasoned indie authors might shake their heads and scoff. "Aren't you doing anything special?" "What about a street team?""What about character art?" "What about giveaways?" "What about swag and incentives?"

To those imaginary indie expert voices in my head, I say: Look. I'm a full-time high school teacher. I'm literally tired all the time. I'm married with a life of my own. My sister's getting married this summer. I've had two very sad deaths impact me/my friends/my family this year. And I'm just starting out. No offense, but lay off. It's not a race, and that stuff can come in time, and if I can make it work sooner, great. But I'm not trying to burn out before I've even begun. My books are important to me—but so are lots of other things. 💕

Snippet

Enjoy this moment from the new Colette chapter. It's currently titled "Second Chance." Please forgive the roughness of it; like I said, it's brand new.

Her eyes shine with tears, as they have so often these past few days, but this time, she doesn’t let them fall. She just blinks, and slowly, the glittering grief recedes. “You really care, don’t you?” The fire pops, spitting a brilliant chunk of glowing red ash onto the brick of the hearth. “About Will, I mean.”

Have a wonderful week, everyone. I hope the weather's nice where you are. It's (FINALLY) getting warm here!