General Writing Update

Happy Friday!

I know I did an update type post for Golden Touch and The Archive Series, but I do have other writing stuff going on and wanted to make a post for that too. This will all be in my September monthly wrap up next Wednesday, but I thought I'd give a more detailed post about all the writing happenings and where I'm at right now with all that. Unearthed is currently in the hands of my beta readers. It's been really nice to have a break from that monster of a book and so far, I'm getting really positive feedback back, so that's encouraging! I'm hoping I'll get all the feedback in October, so I can start finishing up the final stages of getting this book ready to publish. My goal is to have it out at the earliest mid-November and at the latest sometime in December. The cover will hopefully be done sometime in October and I'll be announcing the blurb in October sometime as well

I also realized that Weapon Icean turns five in December! Can you believe it? I've been a published author for five years!! To celebrate that, I decided to write a super fun short story about Astoria and Asher, two of my favorite side characters from the Weapon Icean duology. I just wrote it about two weeks ago and still have to come up with a blurb and a title and the cover has to be made, but hopefully that'll be ready in October too. To celebrate I also want to try and get Project Hellion up as a paperback on Amazon. I sort of gave up on it a long time ago, but for the fifth-year birthday I really want to have it up for sale as a paperback. That'll probably happen more around December when the actual birthday of Weapon Icean is nearer.

And, of course, there's The Archive Series. I'm almost at 40,000 words in Scarlet Phoenix (book 3). It's been slow going, but that's alright. I'm enjoying the first draft process.

All of that is awesome, and I'm excited for the short story and for Unearthed but... with Unearthed nearing publication I'm left with this deep seeded anxiety of what next? I'm not going to publish The Archive Series until its finished and if that's so then, I don't have anything lined up for after Unearthed. As an author, especially as an indie author, that's kind of scary. I keep having all of these fears and questions of will that hurt my sales or ill that hurt my brand and my marketing? Will people stop taking interest in me because I won't be publishing as quickly as I did this year and last year? I feel like I'm really building something for myself as an author, but I'm afraid that not having something to publish will stunt that growth. Maybe that's just me being overthinking and anxious and a worrier, but still... it's a scary thought.

But here's the thing. It's also kind of thrilling and freeing. Like I'm nervous about not having something to publish next and about what that might do to my author career, but I'm also kind of excited for it too. I've loved the St. Croix Falls trilogy, but I'm kind of excited to see what will happen once I have time to work on something else. I've changed a lot, and my writing has changed a lot this year and I want to branch out and try new things. Of course, I'll have lots of time to work on the Archive series. That'll be one of my top priorities. But I also am thinking of trying more short stories. Or maybe St. Croix Fall spin-off novellas. Maybe write something for Wattpad. Work on growing and watering a few different seed ideas I've had for a while. I feel like they're almost ready to sprout and mature into a full book, but not quite. I also want to try writing more faith based stuff. I want to branch out past this blog and maybe even write a devotional or faith-based book. But then I also want to try writing stuff for writers and aspiring or first time indie authors too. I just remember how in the dark I was when I wrote and published Weapon Icean. It was super discouraging when it sort of flopped at first because I didn't know how to market or that I needed a brand or social media or anything. So, I want to be that encouragement and support to those who want to take that step and self-publish. I want others to be able to learn from my mistakes, so that when it's their turn to publish, they'll be ready.

Seriously, there are just so many opportunities and different things I want to try! I want to explore and be free to try writing new things without the pressure of having a book being written and edited and published and all that. It's felt like being on deadline all year for Cursed and Unearthed. Not that it's been bad or hard, but it would just be kind of nice to not have that pressure and to see what else is out there and to pursue all the different avenues of my calling.

Over the next few months I'm going to be really praying and leaning on God for how to move forward. I want to take a deliberate step in the right direction in my writing once Unearthed is published and seek out what God has for me moving forward.

However, because I am a worrier and anxious to remind people that I still will have books out, I want to end this post with a sort of timeline of when things will be coming out and a plan for the future. I'm a big planner. While I'll be spending time praying and figuring out how to move forward, I do want to say that I want to publish at least one thing next year. That's an almost hundred percent guarantee that something will be published next year, so please, please stick around! Don't disappear just because Unearthed releases!

The Asher and Astoria short story will come around in October some time (probably near the end of October).

Unearthed will come out November or December (more details and info to come on that).

And there will be something out next year! I don't know what. I don't know what it'll look like or what genre or style of writing it will be in. I just know something will come out.

How is your writing going? Would you want to see more posts for writers and aspiring indie authors on this blog??