Release Schedule Changes

I’m still fine-tuning things. The advantage of being a self-published author is the flexibility to change my release schedule as needed. The disadvantage of being a self-published author is that I’m the one who has to make those changes.

Hooch and Howls will be out on March 14, as previously announced. That book is nearly ready to go; another round of proofreading and the cover, and it will be complete. I’ll be putting it up for Kindle preorder on February 29, and it will be released wide on March 14 (meaning it will not be available through Kindle Unlimited).

Take Some Tahini (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 6) will be out on July 11, as previously announced. I’m working on edits for that one, but I’m confident it will be complete and ready to go in time for Kindle preorder on June 27 and release on July 11. (I have not yet decided whether it will be in Kindle Unlimited for 90 days, as I did with Tempeh for Two, or just go wide off the bat; stay tuned for more on that.)

On May 9… I’m not sure. Originally, that was going to be Hooch and Howls, and my novel A Fighting Chance (a follow-up to Chance Met) was supposed to be the March 14 release. I flipped those two because Hooch was closer to being ready than A Fighting Chance. I figured I could easily get Fighting ready for May.

That was until I got the notes back from my beta reader. I had known *something* was not working with Fighting, but I couldn’t figure out where the problems were. My beta reader pointed all of the issues out to me, which I greatly appreciate. With her notes, I can see exactly what she’s talking about, and now I understand why the story wasn’t resonating for me.

But… I am not completely sure I’ll be able to fix those problems in time for a May release of this book. And to be honest, between the depth of the issues and the fact that it’s a follow-up to a book that was released a year ago, I’m starting to wonder if I actually *want* to fix those problems and release this book.

When I was working on Chance Met in early 2023, I realized that expanding that book was going to take longer than I’d anticipated, especially since at the time, I was also dealing with the immediate aftermath of my mother’s passing and trying to help my dad cope with paperwork, cleaning out the house, and so on. I completely changed my 2023 release schedule with very little notice to readers, because there wasn’t much else I could do. And at the time, I committed to only stating my release schedule 6 months in advance. I thought that would give me enough time to solidify things while making it easier for me to tweak and change the schedule without having to backtrack on releases I’d already announced.

But this time, because of the need for more extensive rewrites on A Fighting Chance, I’m going to have to say “Please stay tuned.” The March and July releases for 2024 are definite. I have plans for September’s release. But for the time being, I’m going to have to start working on A Fighting Chance and see whether I can actually regain my joy with this story and whether I’m capable of getting it ready for May 9. I will know for certain what May’s release will be by the time I release Hooch and Howls.

Meanwhile, I’m going to spend part of today working on the Hooch and Howls cover art and giving myself compassion for the need to change… because change happens sometimes.

My Book Hates Me

I’ve been working for the past several weeks on a novel with the working title A Fighting Chance. This is a follow-up to Chance Met, the novel I released in March, and continues the story of werewolf Trey Damone and psychic Jeremiah Crawford, along with Trey’s seven-year-old son Mikey. (For those who’ve read Chance Met and Hummus on Rye: Mikey was 6 in those books. His birthday occurs between books in the universe’s timeline, so he’s 7 by the time this book takes place.)

I was excited about this book when I started working on it. I liked getting back into Trey’s and Jeremiah’s minds and continuing the storyline of their relationship and Trey’s efforts to protect Mikey from the family who is trying to take Mikey away.

But, as sometimes happens with writing, now I’m getting stuck in various points of the story. I can’t quite get the plot to cooperate and fit with what happens in other books that take place in the same universe and the same approximate time frame. And I can’t manage to get Trey and Jeremiah in bed together, which…it’s a romance, sex is kinda supposed to happen between these characters. (Note: Romance with one or more asexual characters and no sexual activity at all is completely valid; it just doesn’t work for *these* characters given that there is sexual attraction and activity in Chance Met.) But the other pieces of the plot are taking up so much page count and story time that there just hasn’t been a point where Trey and Jeremiah have been able to do anything sexual. They aren’t even together for a good third of the story so far.

I don’t know if this book is going to work out as I planned. Right now part of me wants to scrap the whole thing and give up on it entirely; part wants to scrap most of what I’ve written so far and start over from scratch; and part wants to keep going with the way the story is and see if it pulls itself together and starts cooperating with me.

I love being a writer. But I’m a far bigger fan of *having written* than I am of *writing* sometimes…

When the Characters Take Over

Several weeks ago, I finished writing the first draft of a new novel called Fill the Empty Spaces. This novel started as a way of processing the passing of my mother at the beginning of December; although she and I didn’t have the best relationship, the realization that she was no longer around hit harder than I’d thought it would. Through much of my life, until my writing brain stopped functioning in 2015, writing was how I processed, how I coped, and sometimes how I kept myself alive. Although I didn’t write much of anything for six years, now that I’ve started writing again, it has once again become one of my ways of dealing with and understanding life. And, in this case, death.

(This isn’t the final cover, it’s just something I’m using to keep myself in the story’s mindset.)

When I started writing Fill the Empty Spaces, I didn’t know it would turn out to be a novel. I thought I was writing a short story. But Del Nethercott, the main character/narrator, had other ideas. So did Lochlan Moroney, the character who becomes Del’s close friend and possible love interest. At the beginning of the story, Del is only about a month past losing his longterm partner Austin, who was killed by a drunk driver. The last thing Del’s thinking about is a new relationship; he’s barely functioning day to day, and his grief over Austin consumes him. The story extends through a few months, until four or five months after Austin’s death, and we witness Del’s healing–though of course he’s still grieving–and the beginning and blossoming of his connection with Lochlan. At the beginning, I thought Spaces would turn out to be contemporary; Lochlan threw a metaphysical/paranormal loop into the story that wound up being a key part of the story. And so the “short story” became a novel.

As I said, several weeks ago, I finished the first draft of Spaces. Or so I thought. To be honest, when I said, “The end,” I wasn’t actually certain it was. I’d reached a point in the story where it felt like I could stop and hold something over for a follow-up book, probably from Lochlan’s point of view.  The story didn’t end with a “happily ever after” or even really with a “happy for now.” It ended with “Del, you aren’t ready for a relationship, so let’s stay friends until you *are* ready and then see what happens.” The book as I ended it at that point was not a romance (nor did I intend to say it was; I was very clear in talking about it that it was a novel with romantic undertones).

This past week, I started editing the manuscript. I’d done some editing as I worked on the first draft; I didn’t do much plotting or brainstorming before I started writing, so some of the things I put in the story didn’t work or dragged down the pacing too much to remain, so I’d yoinked those as part of writing the first draft. But there was still work to do.

By the time I reached the end of what I’d written, though, I knew I had to continue the story. Ending it with Del and Lochlan agreeing that they would enter a relationship when Del reached a point in his grieving process that he could handle having a new partner was good, but it wasn’t where Del and Lochlan wanted to end the book. So I finished editing what I’d written and started writing more.

As it stands now, two days into the process of continuing the story, I don’t know where Del and Lochlan want to end up. I’d like to see the book end with them in a relationship, but that’s going to depend on how Del’s grief and healing progress. And with what happens to each of them in the meantime. It’s been a long time since I started writing a book with the mindset of “let’s see where this goes,” and I’m enjoying doing it again, even if these two guys do keep throwing wrenches into the process.

Fill the Empty Spaces is currently planned for release on October 12 of this year. I’ll keep you updated!