the Author

Category Archives: writing

February
3
35 Comments

State of the Author, February 2024 edition

Posted in Kathleen Oudit, Elantra, Essalieyan, writing, Shane Rebenschied.

January was the month of reviewing copy-edits for Cast in Atone­ment, while writing the Sagara book that is not yet titled — Magic School 2. Copy-edits are gone, and until page proofs arrive, only writing remains. The West novel in progress is The Wild Road. I have broken 100k words, and I am hoping that the book will be 250k words long. Or less. To be fair, I was also hoping Hunter’s Redoubt would be 250k words long. Which it wasn’t. The only West novel that has stayed on the right side of 200k words was City of Night. Which came in at 176k words. I honestly do not write long books on purpose, but… I write them to reach the end. Some­times the end is farther away than I thought. … Continue reading →

January
1
28 Comments

Happy New Year!

Posted in Elantra, Essalieyan, writing, Mira, life, Academia, Cast.

In 2023 I finished and published Hunter’s Redoubt, the first book in the final sequence of the West universe. In 2024, I intend to finish The Wild Road. Or at least finish the first draft of the book. It will still have to be revised, editing, copy-edited, proof-read. Having a publisher didn’t mean those things didn’t have to be done, but my part in the doing was much smaller. It was reac­tive, not active. But having done it once, I think I’m more aware of what can go wrong, and things should be much smoother. *** In 2023, I finished Cast in Atone­ment, but that’s author-finished; the book will be published in, I think, August 2024. 2023 also saw the publi­ca­tion of Shards of Glass. For me, “finishing” a book is done … Continue reading →

October
17
20 Comments

Hunter’s Redoubt, preview chapter & cover art

Posted in writing, chapters, Jody Lee, Kathleen Oudit, Hunter's Redoubt, The Burning Crown.

This book had a bit of journey. I’d written 200k words. I’d cut 110k of those words, but still believed I had 90k words. This is not what happened. What happened in the end was I had 0k of the orig­inal words I’d written — and 303k of the new words I’d started once I’d typed “the end” (which is figu­ra­tive as I don’t think I’ve ever typed that unless instructed to do so). It is the longest first book in an arc I’ve ever written. Which was not my intent. But. Michelle. Story length. It is the story of my writing life >.< Jody Lee did the cover art, and Kath­leen Oudit, the cover design across all four formats. This is the front cover and the … Continue reading →

September
9
29 Comments

State of the Author, September 2023 edition

Posted in Audio books, Cast, Essalieyan, self-publishing, writing, life.

I’m writing to you all from Australia, where I have come on my writing retreat, which used to be an annual thing until Covid. I have an unfor­tu­nately tight dead­line, and I’m neck deep into Cast in Atone­ment, which is not yet done. I hope to be finished before I leave Bris­bane. And when I say finished, I mean: finished first draft. After which I will revise for submis­sion, and then submit. Shards of Glass is due out at the end of November, so I’m fielding a few ques­tions about that — but my head is fully entan­gled in the Cast novel, so Shards feels like it was written years ago (it wasn’t). My toe has improved enough it doesn’t bother me much, but according to X‑rays taken a week before I left, … Continue reading →

April
23
18 Comments

State of the Author: April 2023

Posted in writing.

I’m sorry I appear to have missed March >.<. March was revi­sion of Hunter’s Redoubt, which went into April; the rest of April is revi­sion of Shards of Glass, and taxes. I’m still revising Shards of Glass. I don’t have the cover yet, but the (front) cover is now up on various retailer sites. I’ll post the whole cover as usual (front and back) when I do have it. I am collating infor­ma­tion for taxes, which are currently in the virtual shoebox of email, Devon­Think and a couple of other elec­tronic repos­i­to­ries. While revising. So: there’s a bit of gloom, and given April, there’s also been rain. What we haven’t really had is the annual April snow­storm (yes, I’m knocking wood). Hunter’s Redoubt is with the copy-editor now, so I expect I will soon be … Continue reading →