july: state of the cate

I am not prepared for it to be July. I mean, I know I’m never prepared for it to be the next month, but I only wrote 7200 words in June (taking two weeks off was…IDEK if it really rested me any, so…anyway…). So this month is…book proposals and finishing a novella and…well. There are 2-3 book proposals to write, so honestly, if I get the novella and the proposals done that’ll be quite a lot of work. Especially if I do as well with the one as I’d like…

Continue Reading

developing a book proposal

Earlier this year, before acquiring an agent, I wrote a very short, like back-of-book-blurb, romantasy proposal that I sent to an editor I had access to. She asked for a full proposal (a full synopsis, 3 chapters), and that’s been on a back burner while I’ve been doing a thousand thousand other things. But yesterday I got to get started on it, and… I’ve talked often about how I tend to get to the 1/3rd mark in any book, no matter how long, and hit a wall that I have…

Continue Reading

Image by azerbaijan_stockers on Freepik

The Great Tisane Experiment

My workplace is, as you will no doubt have heard me complain vociferously if you follow me elsewhere, Cold. I am colder in general in Ireland than I was in Alaska, which Irish people keep telling me is due to it being a wet cold, but as I’m colder inside rather than outside, I think the fundamental problem is a combination of lousy insulation and a radically different idea as to what constitutes an acceptable indoor temperature. (And the outside door, which I am unfortunately close to, just stuck open.…

Continue Reading

how many words is that, anyway?

Whilst I was being celebratory about 50 published books, one of my friends asked how many words that was, anyway. Anybody wanna take a guess? (You can put it in the comments BEFORE you finish reading this post. I’ll put some spoiler space in, or something. :)) The thing is, I used to have a pretty good idea, actually. I’d kinda kept track up through the end of the publication of the Walker Papers, but that was…a while ago now. So I had to go add it up. And I…

Continue Reading

is this thing on?

*tap, tap* is this thing on? Apparently long-form blogging is simply no longer something I do, which is sad. Well, I guess it’s sad. There’s no audience for it, is the thing. My audience is on Twitter, mostly, these days, and to a lesser degree, Facebook, but FB’s algorithms…well. You know how it is. I’ve been very, very busy this year. So far I’ve done copy & line edits on DEATH OF AN IRISH MUMMY, revised SKYMASTER & LIBRARIAN BEAR, did copy edits etc on BEAR, written 13k of the…

Continue Reading