Just Marching Along
Whew, what a month.
I feel like I say that every month.
Quite honestly, I keep waiting for things to "calm down," but they never do. Not with a very active 15-month-old and a curious 5-year-old. No, instead things only seem to get busier and busier. I'm gearing up for summer—which means that I'll have my eldest back home all day every day instead of at preschool three mornings a week. (I'm not quite sure if that's going to be more or less relaxing, really...)
And to be completely honest, this month I've been trying to scale that wall I hit last month. It seems like I've lost enthusiasm and motivation for everything except relaxing lately.
Don't get me wrong—I still love my fairy tales and the series I’m working on, but I didn’t anticipate how challenging I would find writing a series. There is literally so much material to keep track of. So many threads and so many little comments that occur to me in the moment but I forget about 50 (or, since I’m being honest, 5) pages later.
It’s really a much bigger task than I ever thought it would be. And so I regret not keeping up with my story bible as much. But I’ve gone through so many drafts with Fog & Mist that it would have been revised 6 dozen times by now.
So now I’m finally gearing up for the release of Fog & Mist. I’m so excited about this book, even though I’ve read it so many times that I now find it boring. (Trust me, this is a totally normal thing for authors.)
I’ve picked my release day of 23 April 2019. That’s LESS THAN A MONTH AWAY. *insert gasp*
But it’s high time that I shared the cover of Fog & Mist with my readers.
Isn’t it puuurrtty? I just adore the little snowflakes and the frost and the girl and...and everything! (And the paperback is even better. Trust me.)
I know, every author says that about their cover. But I really like this one. It makes me think of fairy tales and princesses and happily ever afters...but also challenges and an unpredictable darkness.
Which, happily, is what my story is about!
In case you haven’t read my newly updated blurb on my works-in-progress page, here it is again. ;-)
Fog & Mist
A usurper queen on a stolen throne.
A princess imprisoned, enslaved, and believed dead by her people.
A foreign prince searching for his sister.
Each entangled in a curse that threatens all of the Seven Kingdoms.
Crown Princess Winterberry's stepmother will do anything to prevent her ascension—even if it means assassinating her. And on the eve of the princess's twenty-first birthday, Queen Blanche arrests Winterberry under false claims of treason.
Although a long-standing prophecy proclaims death to any one who kills a Canens royal, Blanche is determined to find a way. Step one goes off without a hitch: auction off the true heir as an incognito slave and send her halfway across Canens with Blanche's most trusted huntsman.
But on the other side of the Seven Kingdoms, an enemy prince gambles his throne and his life, crossing into Canens after his kidnapped sister. The farther he travels, the more entangled he becomes in the Canens Curse, the slavery underworld, and Princess Winterberry herself. Soon, even he doesn't realize how much more is at stake.
Enter the cursed world of the Seven Kingdoms in book one of this Snow White retelling, where you will find elements of Red Riding Hood and other beloved faery tales.
I’m so excited to share this book with you and hope that you’ll enjoy it.
But what else have I been doing with my month?
Well...
- began to plot and write a new short story for the JLA 8 Anthology (former anthologies are available on Amazon) (Because I'm not finished with any of my other stories, so why not start a new one?)
- managed to write 27K on my fairy tale series (mostly the first draft of book 3)
- visited various charter schools around town to see about getting my eldest child enrolled for kindergarten
- single parented 4 days (it felt like 800)
- survived
Sometimes, it feels like survival is all that I can ask for, and the past couple months, it’s felt like that for sure.
Good thing is that spring—I mean break-up season—has arrived a month early in Alaska, because otherwise, I don’t know how I’d be surviving. The landscape may be ugly and brown and wet and gross, but at least we know that spring (and green!) is on its way.
In the meantime, while I wait for the snow and puddles to disappear and for green to start emerging from the ground, I'm getting the final files in tip-top shape and performing the last proofings on Fog & Mist and sending out ARCs to readers. It's an exciting time—also a slightly nerve-wracking one!
Don't forget to check it out on Amazon on April 23rd! :-) Keep an eye on my Amazon author page for the link to go live, or follow me on Amazon for publishing announcements. You can also find me on Facebook or Instagram at the links below!
