Can you believe March is already almost done? I glanced at the calendar the other day and about fell over.
Busy badger
The last three months have been a whirlwind for me, between publishing, writing, teaching, and going on a trip to Nashville to see my little baby brother (he's 33, don't be fooled haha).
In publishing news, I completely redesigned and republished my first ever series, which was originally called The Sagittan Chronicles and is now called The Zirian Chronicles. Then, I redesigned the entirety of the Rove City series. Combined, both projects equaled 17 novels, novellas, and short stories. But on top of that, I also managed to release three new books:
January: The Swamp Hag of Blackrock Fields and Other Tales, book 2 in the Ariele’s Fairy Tales series
February: Giantkiller, book 9 in the Rove City Series
March: How To Pants A Novel, book 4 in the Writers Reach series under my pen name A. J. Sieling
I have mostly emptied out my publishing queue at this point, and am moving into a writing and revision phase, which I’m very exited about.
First on my list of revisions, is the next book in the Rove City series, titled Silver Skull, a continuation of Maybelle’s story from The Silver Arm. It’s fully drafted and in dire need of revision, but my first readthrough is complete—I just have to do my high level edits and then send it off to beta readers.
In addition, I currently have rough drafts completed for two books in two brand new series.
The first is a future fantasy book that will likely be the beginning of a reasonably long series (at least 5 books), though I am not usually sure how long a project will end up being until I finish it. It is set in a small, frontier-style town that is plagued by enormous lizard-like creatures called draugi that only come out at night. The main character, Elara, lives with her two brothers, and has noticed that things seem to be changing around town in small but significant ways. When a stranger shows up, having traveled through miles of draugi-infested forest, and begins asking pointed questions, she begins to realize that the changes she noticed were actually small pieces of a much, much bigger puzzle.
The other book, a fantasy novel based on one of the original fairy tales I wrote in The Bald Princess and Other Tales, seems like a trilogy, but again, I won't know until it's done. If you’ve read the original tale, called “Twilight Wood,” you’ll be familiar with the basic premise of the (likely) trilogy—which is basically that a guard is tasked with accompanying a count and his family to the far reaches of the kingdom, where a huge, magical forest looms.
Which brings me to writing news! April is Camp National Novel Writing Month! I plan to write at least one new Rove City novel, if not two, and hopefully push partway through the second book in at least one of the two new series.
So yeah, I have a lot coming up!
The other thing that has kept my busy is teaching. I've had a great year so far, presenting at two conferences—History Quill and Eastern Shore's Bay to Ocean conference; I taught at the Claggett Center Writing Retreat in Maryland; plus I've done several virtual and/or in-person workshops for different groups. Coming up, I'll be doing a talk on AI for the Eastern Shore Writers Association, and a master class on book marketing midsummer for another group.
Last Friday, I was excited to be invited to join John DeDakis's podcast, One-to-One—if you missed it, you can watch the recording on YouTube.
My focus for the moment is on April. I am planning to dive into writing, and immerse my brain in stories for the entire month, and I will worry about what comes in May when we get there!
I hope you're having a great (or at least passable) 2023 so far!