From the turkey and stuffing to the golden-brown hue outside my window, I can’t help but love this time of year. That’s why I scheduled Nora’s final book to release on the 28th.
Well, technically it should have been released for Halloween but life had other plans.
At any rate, the Nora Grayson Adventures have concluded, Advanced Readers have the novel, and pretty soon everyone else who wants it will be able to snag it from Amazon.
I am deeply grateful to those Readers who have followed Nora’s journey from the beginning and whose comments and encouragements helped push me to the finish line. For the record, I know some questions have been left unanswered – not the MAJOR questions, mind you, but some of the littler things – and that is by design because I intend to return to this world.
It just won’t be Nora Grayson leading the fray.
I want to do a separate standalone with Derrick and Vessa that deals with Derrick’s mother and those known as the Lost.
I also have plans for Eucilla. She’s a dracken and can outlive everyone else, so I imagine that novel taking place a century or so later.
Also (mild spoiler alert), the romantic in me can’t help wondering what the Atlas Court will be like for Nora when she finally steps into that role, but insofar as the storyline of Nora’s family is concerned, we have an ending.
For now, I have several novels that have been sitting on the back burner while I finished up Nora’s books, and it’s time I gave them the attention they deserve. (More on that in a later post.)
So what am I thankful for this year?
I have a home. Food in my pantry. Pets who adore me. My book is complete and I have a group of amazing readers who are ready to get their hands on it.
I have a son who is also a creative and I know he is working on his own writing and worlds. He’ll be 18 in January, which hurts my heart in weird ways and terrifies me at the same time because he’s about to get his license.
I have a loving husband who believes in me and works hard so that I can continue to live my dream.
And I have family and friends who remind me every day that I am loved and appreciated.
Thank you. All of you. Whether you’re friend, family, or reader, I hope your day is amazing and that you are equally blessed.
I’ve been watching the Bookish/Author community for a while now and I can’t help but notice some trends that are cropping up. Or at least a certain cycle of events that keep circling.
It has become the popular thing to do to draw lines in the sand or find hills to die on. Some of these are in good fun, told in a tone of voice that proves the creator is merely claiming their opinion on something silly.
Things like which Book Boyfriend is the best or which magic system they would prefer to live in. Things like this I have no problem with, they are meant in a joking manner and are both entertaining and fun.
But then there’s the other type of Hill to Die On.
Said with capitol letters.
Things like, First Person POV is the best POV.
Which, hey, if you love First Person and that’s where you go to relax and enjoy a book then hey… You do you! I’m so glad you enjoy those. I do too.
However, there seems to be this trend that says “If you don’t die on this hill with me, then you’re wrong and you’re awful and we’re going to throw bricks at you until you come around to our viewpoint.”
These Hills to Die On are everywhere.
Audiobooks don’t count as real reading!
Em-Dashes mean it was written by AI! (Reminder, this is utterly false and AI learned to write based on all of us authors, using tools we often use, so OF COURSE AI learned how to use the em-dash.)
Clean romance versus spicy romance!
Romantasy is killing literature!
Now… because I am a human being, I have opinions on these things, but I have them with the understanding that my opinions and tastes are going to change as I grow. So, why would I want to die on a hill here?
Further, why would I want to alienate people by deciding to plant my flag on that hill and start shouting it?
Again, when it is all in a joking manner there’s no issue but these days it seems were are hunting for ways to divide ourselves. Instead of a Reading Community that is welcoming, we start congregating in subsects and ganging up on anyone who likes different things.
I’ve watched it get super ugly.
And I can’t help but wonder why.
Why do we do this?
Why can’t we say – Hey! You read? That’s amazing! What are you reading right now?
And then, you know, NOT JUDGE THEM for what they choose to read?
There doesn’t need to be a war here. If someone reads a book you don’t like, why does it matter to you? For the love of God, stop trying to control other people. Their decisions are not up to you.
Yes, you can have an opinion, but don’t cross the line into – You are so stupid for liking that book.
Or
That book is ruining literature by merely existing.
First of all, the hubris on that last accusation is so high that maybe you should take a few moments of genuine self-reflection. Literature existed long before you were born and it’ll survive long after you’re gone. Further, literature is a reflection of the culture and times in which it lives.
I digress.
And I suppose I have found my own Hill to Die On.
Stop the division. Stop finding reasons to hate each other. Stop attacking people who have taken the time to read and stop trying to control people.
You’re allowed your opinions. You can write them in your reviews and give your stars, one through five, but at the end of the day it is nothing more than your opinion. It is not something to foist on other people and demand they agree with you.
We’re beautifully diverse. It’s alright to compromise here. It’s alright to be different. You live, you laugh, you love, you matter. And so does the person sitting next to you.
I am going to admit that this is the area I have grown the most in as an author.
Having just gone through a major revision of an older work, I can see that back in my twenty’s I focused a lot on building neat worlds and having neat stuff as opposed to the more compelling conflicts that come from people.
It’s not about earning that throne back when it has been stolen, it’s about why the character would bother. Who actually wants a throne in the first place?
Even the power-hungry villain has a reason behind his actions. If the quest is only for power, then that quest is boring. True conflict, the stuff that we can sink our teeth into, pits characters against one another.
It is far more interesting to know the villain wants the throne because they have a vengeance stake involved. A previous ruler rampaged through their childhood village and killed everyone they loved.
Now our hero has the dilemma of family drama, because SHOULD they retake the throne if they are descendent of such brutal behavior?
What it all boils down to is character.
If the characters on the page aren’t that interesting to begin with, then we are not going to care how or why they achieve their goals. The conflict comes from within. It comes from WHO they are as people.
Compelling conflict shows the struggle these characters have with the decisions they must make on the page. Their growth comes from that struggle.
That said, the struggles on the page will also help define those characters. We know Frodo and Sam for who they are because of the struggle they went through to get the ring to Mount Doom. Plot and Character go hand in hand. If you skim on one, the narrative will be lacking and you won’t have a compelling conflict.
So!
What do I do to help create compelling conflict in my works?
On a PLOT level, I follow “Yes, but” / “No, and”
This is where you ask the question for each scene – Does your character achieve their goal?
The answer is always either “Yes, but now (she has a stowaway on board her ship/he got gravely injured and is leaking vital fluids)” OR “No, and (her attempt has left the ship without power, so they’re floating dead in space with only 4 hours of air left/he accidently struck the prince so now there’s going to be a price on his head)
See how that works?
That’s on the plot level.
On a CHARACTER level, I have the major players in a scene noted off to the side of my screen with their core motivations for that scene highlighted. This just helps me to remember what is ultimately at stake for that character.
Example:
Chapter Three – Blood of the Witch Heir – NOTES
Dorian Feverrette arrives at Delgora Court. He is hunting the Bedim assassins who recently tried to take his life (see Chapter One). If he doesn’t succeed in locating them soon, it is quite likely that he will be assassinated.
Elsie Delgora is hiding in plain sight at Delgora Court. She is keeping tabs on the Vicaress who murdered her family. She needs the Vicaress to stay happy and oblivious to Elsie’s machinations.
Now we enter “Yes, but” /”No, and”
Does Dorian succeed in his goals for this chapter? No, and he has stumbled into a bigger plot revolving around the Delgoran throne.
Does Elsie succeed in keeping tabs on the Vicaress? Yes, but now this stupid noble boy has shown up and is making the Vicaress suspicious.
Anyway, that’s what I do. Many thanks to both the late David Farland for his book Million Dollar Outlines, and the Writing Excuses Podcast… Because that’s definitely where I learned this from.
Check out what my fellow authors do to help create compelling conflict in their works!
Recently I had the publishing rights to several of my novels returned to me. This was a strategic decision made due to the original publisher selling itself to another site, which I felt wasn’t a great fit for my work.
Before I did this, I reached out to Amazon to make sure there wouldn’t be any copywrite issues once the reversions were done and exactly what I was allowed to do with the work once it was mine to publish again. Things like if I wanted to change the title (which I did) and if I should put a notice in the front of the novel letting readers know that this is a Re-Release.
The answer to both those questions was yes, I could change the title but it would be like releasing a whole new book so the reviews I have on the original won’t be transferable. And yes, I can put a notice in the beginning pages letting people know so they aren’t shouting at me that I stole someone else’s work. (Difficult to do there, it’s still the same author name.)
Due to contracts and all that, the things that I COULD NOT use from my original publication was the cover art and the editing. The Publishing House paid for the editor to this work originally, and thus owned the rights to that version.
This was fine. I have grown enough in my craft that I felt confident I could take the book to the next level.
That said…
Revisiting old work is hard.
Mega hard.
Tooth pulling hard.
It hurts to see what I put out into the world. Not only have I grown as a writer, I have grown as a person too. Things that I didn’t blink twice at before have been unpacked and rewritten. The themes at the core of the book revolving around trust and independence and how the two have to learn in live in harmony are being highlighted better.
On the line-by-line level, the narrative has been given a major overhaul.
But more than that, the characters are being given the chance to breathe more. Elsie Varene Delgora is as sharp as ever, and Dorian Feverrette remains my favorite roguish nobleman. Their story is one of tragedy and triumph, despair and love, and I sincerely hope that readers walk away from it knowing that no matter how dark the path they have traveled, joy and happiness can still be achieved if we’re willing to open ourselves to it.
Last month we discussed settings in the real world and how we transport them onto the page. This month we’re looking at fictional settings, or settings that don’t exist OR are so far in the past that you couldn’t possibly have been there.
Since the majority of my writing takes place in fantastical worlds, or in the case of Tapped, other planets in our solar system, this is where I have the most experience. Obviously I have never been to Mars or Pluto or Europa, and I won’t lie, writing those places was a challenge.
It was a lot of FUN, but it was challenging fun.
So here’s my process, grown over the course of a couple decades of practice.
First, the rough draft is always bare bones. I can’t allow myself to get hung up on describing the setting too much or I’ll never finish the book. The rough draft is also where I spent an alarming amount of time researching/staring out the window/worldbuilding.
However, worldbuilding is its own topic. I want to get into the act of making that setting come alive on the page. And to do that, we have to skip forward to the editing process. Everything I’m about to detail is used during the Second Draft.
The KAVS Cycle
The late great David Farland taught a class on settings and in it he discusses what he calls KAVS. You can still access it through the Apex Writers Group online, which you will have to pay for but I highly recommend. I have been part of Apex (off and on when I could afford it) for years now.
Anyway.
I have my rough draft and I make 4 passes through each chapter focused on a different aspect of the KAVS cycle.
KAVS stands for Kinetic, Audio, Visual, Smell.
First pass, Visual. This is literally everything my character can see in their setting. Often when I am doing this pass I also have DeviantArt/Pinterest up in another screen because I need the inspiration. Sometimes I’ll even go so far as to build a mood board in Canva, but admittedly this is rare and I reserve it for settings that I circle back to often.
Also, here’s the mood board for Nora’s family home.
Alright, some important things to note. Not everything has to be exact in these mood boards. I’m just going for the feel of a place. For example, Nora’s office is in the round room of a Victorian House, though the picture shown is obviously square. What’s important about the image isn’t the shape of the room, but the style.
You can see that it’s more masculine in nature, which brings me to the next element in the KAVS cycle: Kinetics.
Kinetics is anything tactile (touch, taste), any movement in the scene (swish of a cuckoo clock’s pendulum as an example) AND the emotions.
Nora’s study is still masculine because it was her father’s office. It evokes a slew of memories for her. SO my second pass is going through how this setting makes my character FEEL and WHY.
The why is so very important, not only for character development but because showing the history of a place is one of the easiest ways to make a setting real for the reader.
The third pass that I do is the Audio pass. Which is self-explanatory, but let’s go ahead and get into it. We tend to react to sound in our environments.
Example, my cat just made a chirping noise, so I turned to look at her. She’s perched on the window sill, her tail flicking, white body coiled as though she might pounce through the windowpane to get to the bird outside.
Characters in a setting will also react to sounds in their environment, so let them. Honestly, I might do this too much sometimes, but having a sound draw the character out of an internal dialogue is a legitimate storytelling tool.
The fourth and final pass that I do is Smell.
Of all the senses we put into our books, I feel like smell really solidifies an environment. Foul, sweet, musky, we all have references in our minds that we can immediately draw upon when a writer says, The room smelled like pencils and leather.
Or
The scent of cinnamon was heavy in the air.
Or
The back of her throat tickled at the heavy pepper. (That one you get Kinetics and Smell all in one go.)
The reader picks up on the smell, has a reference, and suddenly it’s real.
Generally speaking, I do a chapter a day during my second pass at a manuscript. I know I’m not winning any races here, but by the time I’m done with that second pass I am confident enough in my story that I can send it out to my editor.
Take a look at what some of my fellow authors do to craft believable fictional settings in their work!
The debate about AI continues to rampage through every social media feed I flip through. I am not terribly active on social media as a content provider, the frequent changing of the guard insofar as which is the place to be has left me a bit jaded, but I do flip through them to keep abreast of the wider conversations regarding publishing and books in general.
That said, I did recently touch on this subject in a previous post so my followers are likely to recognize my stance since it hasn’t really changed.
First, understand that I refuse to judge or browbeat anyone. I have my personal opinions, but at the end of the day they are precisely that: personal opinions formed by my experiences. I am old enough to know that my viewpoint is not the only one in the world, and I remain open and willing to learn from those whose experiences differ from my own.
With that said, here is why I will not use AI in writing.
Writing is a craft. It is meant to be difficult. The beauty of writing comes in the struggle to put words on the page. That’s where the artform is – in the struggle. If you are permitting an algorithm to create your work for you, be it in outline form or general idea form or any other aspect of the writing craft, then you are no longer creating art.
You must live in the struggle.
I know it’s hard. It’s supposed to be.
The struggle is where we improve. Refine those ideas. Reflect on what it means to be human. Dig for truths on the page that you want the rest of the world to see.
I suppose it comes down to this…
Either you want to be a writer, or you don’t.
If you do, then don’t cheat yourself. The true author knows how hard it is to get words on the page, or come up with a brilliant plot twist. The difference is that they know the magic is in the struggle and nowhere else.
If you don’t want to be a writer, then please don’t insult the craft by trying to find a workaround. Cutting corners will only harm the bottom line for everyone.
I am in the thick of things where it comes to completing the Nora Grayson series, and because writing is a constant learning process I thought I would share some things that are helping me get through this final book.
For those just joining us, the Nora Grayson series is my urban fantasy/paranormal/fantasy mystery series that follows Miss Nora Grayson, an empathic wizard living in Boston. It is honestly difficult to place in a single genre here, which I know will have professionals screaming at me that I just don’t know my market the way I should and that I should study it more, but if you read the books you’re going to see why I am so fickle.
Suffice, sometimes you’re on Earth and sometimes you’re in Fairy. Magic is hidden in plain sight of humanity, but I don’t have any fully human characters on the page, and the ties that bind Fairy to Earth are very, very important. Especially in this last book.
It’s weird. I know. But so far readers seem to be enjoying the books so I’m just going to keep trucking along with it.
Nora and the Siren Song will be released in April. That’s the third novel in the series. You can snag Werewolf Wedding and Duke of Autumn right now through Amazon. (Yes, I do little Kindle sales throughout the year so those of you readers who are on a tight budget, don’t fret. Follow my Facebook/X/Threads/Instagram and you’ll see when they’re on sale.)
As we speak, I am working on the 4th and final book in the Nora Grayson series, which brings me to the point of this Blog Entry.
Ending a series is far more difficult than beginning one. Or even continuing one.
All of those BIG questions that I have left hanging in the air for Nora need to come to a satisfying conclusion. And I need to do it in such a way that I don’t sacrifice the main theme of the series. AND all the characters on the page need to feel like they have come to a place of resolution somehow, not just Nora but the team/family she has managed to grow over the past three books.
So, what are some of the things I’ve learned during this process?
Tip #1 – Record your books
This is just for you. You don’t need to sell it. The sound quality doesn’t have to be amazing. You can do it on a shoddy little voice recorder you got for five bucks at a secondhand store, but record your books. The physical act of doing this will remind you what you’ve written, keeping the larger narrative alive in your head. AND, you can listen to the books while you do all the other necessary things of life like cooking dinner, washing dishes, or folding laundry.
Again, this is to keep the narrative alive in your head. It might feel funny at first. I know I felt weird, like it was a sort of vanity to listen to my own work, but at the end of the day it had practical applications. Characters I had forgotten about from the first book suddenly answered a major plot issue in the fourth.
Tip #2 – Story Bibles
Yes, I’ve mentioned these before. This is where you have written down characters and their rough descriptions in case they show back up because you don’t want a character to go from having green eyes to blue in the last few pages of the series. I use Scrivener for this, and I have pasted pictures to go along with said descriptions for these characters, because it’s fun and it makes me smile.
Tip #3 – Trust your instincts
If you aren’t satisfied with something on the page, then you can be certain that your readers won’t be either. I can tell you that I was stuck in November/December, so I went ahead and took a break. Something wasn’t working on the page, so I went back and reviewed and read the other books and poured over my plot notes. Granted, it took COVID forcing me into a hazy dream state for two weeks for me to really pinpoint what was wrong, but I’m confident I would have come to the right conclusion even without the illness.
The point is, my instincts were telling me it was off and I needed to listen to them. Sure, I kept shoving words on the page because no forward momentum = nothing ever gets done, but the struggle was important.
Which brings me to the fourth and final tip…
Tip #4 – Don’t be afraid to revise
Take this with a grain of salt. A lot of people can’t finish a book if they keep going back and revising. PLEASE USE THIS WITH CAUTION. If you know that you are one of those who will get hung up on making that first chapter perfect, then DON’T DO THIS. Just make a note of the changes you want to make on the next pass of the manuscript and move on.
For me, however, I literally cannot move on with the story if I know a major thing needs to change. In this case it WAS a major thing, it altered the course of the book in several ways, and I needed to make the words on the page match the story in my head before I could move on. I recognize the danger of constant revision for that first chapter, so please hear me when I say that I did this with my eyes open, I know that chapter is still not perfect, but now that it fits the rest of the narrative my internal Muse is happy and ready to continue the book.
That’s it. That’s what I’ve learned so far.
For those interested, we are sitting at 15k on the final novel, which isn’t where I wanted to be but I really did have COVID and was miserably tossing and turning in bed for nearly two weeks. Don’t worry, though. I’ll meet the deadline.
Last year I managed to read 36 books in total. That’s not including DNF’s that I do not talk about because… My Mom taught me that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you don’t say anything at all.
Fairly, it takes a lot to get me to DNF a book.
ANYWAY!
I want to read 50 books this year. I don’t know that I’ll manage it, but I’m going to give it my best shot.
2025 WRITING CHALLENGE
Last year I managed to write, revise, and edit Nora and the Siren Song to its completion. I also managed to edit and publish Nora and the Autumn Duke.
I am still tickled by the response I have gotten to Nora’s second book and I thank everyone who has taken the time to grab the book. You’ll be glad to know that the conclusion to her main story line is on its way. (More on that later.)
In addition to that, I managed to review/revise the outlines for two additional books that you won’t get to see until 2026. For reasons.
THIS YEAR…
I will be publishing two books.
Nora and the Siren Song will be out in April in all formats. (If you are interested in reviewing the book beforehand, I can send digital copies. Please just let me know if this interests you.)
Nora and the Vampire Court, the conclusion to this major story arc for Nora Grayson, will be out in October 2025.
Because my writing process requires downtime from a project, I will also be editing/revising other projects due out in 2026 in between the Nora books.
VARIOUS 2025 GOALS
I want to resume gardening work. Make more candles. And learn this new epoxy resin jewelry stuff I got for Christmas.
It was a rough ride, but we’re here and we’re still kicking.
What did I get done in 2024?
Available Now!
Well, first we had Nora and the Duke of Autumn come out for sale. It came out staggered, with the paperback in April and the digital rights in August, and I learned valuable lessons in this. Basically, you won’t see me do that again. There’s a weirdness in how the publishing dates work with the platform I use, but I’ve adapted and I know how to do it better in 2025.
Second, I completed Nora and the Siren Song. It is scheduled for release in April 2025 (both paperback & digital) and is already generating reviews with advanced readers.
Third, I began drafting Nora and the Vampire Court. This book is also scheduled for a 2025 release, but you won’t be seeing it until October. It has several drafts yet to go, and I am nervous as a cat in a tree about making sure all the little plotlines come together in the end.
Fourth, I began edits for a re-release of previously titled Witch-Born. I still quite love this book, but its publisher sold to another publisher and long story short, I’m getting publishing rights back to it. This is also in the running for 2025 publishing release sometime over the summer. When I know more, you’ll know more.
Fifth, The Last Child of Winter saw its final revision pass and has been on query for some time now. The querying trenches are brutal and frightening, with long stretches of nothing as you await word from various agents and sudden barrages of rejections that seem to come in rapid succession. I still have hope for this one, but if my next attempt at querying is unsuccessful, I may bring it back to the drafting table.
All in all, not a bad year.
I’m excited to say that insofar as orders go for my books, there have been over 500 more orders this year than what I managed to do last year. Which is exciting. Especially since my holiday sale of Nora’s current books won’t hit virtual shelves until the 9th, so that number is bound to go up before the end of the year.
I am sincerely grateful to everyone who has picked up my books. Whether you liked them or not, I appreciate the time it took. I hope every Reader has a book fort made of their TBR piles, the cozy drink of their choice, and maybe a fuzzy pet to curl up with them as they read.
Most of all, I hope everyone has a warm, safe holiday and I will see you all in January.
For those who may check my Amazon account you might have noticed that Witch-Born and Deviation are no longer available in Kindle. Long story short, something went down between the publisher and Amazon and they are no longer able to sell any of their books on Amazon’s site. There are paperback copies still available on the site, but insofar as I understand it, any purchases made from this point out are not going to be reflected in royalties.
Leastwise, that’s what the publisher announced when they sent the email.
I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s going on over there. To be frank, I had already contacted this publisher to request a termination of the contracts so that I could get the publishing rights back to all books under their label. They were very professional and agreed to the termination and we had set things up to be official in February 2025.
In the meantime, I have been going through a brand new edit of Witch-Born that I intend to release in the Spring. This includes new cover art and, after much deliberation on my part, a whole new title.
For funsies, it’s good to know that titles are not really under copywrite. I did not know this until recently, but there you have it.
I digress.
The current circumstances that the publisher finds themselves in with Amazon has pushed the timetable up for announcements and what have you. I hadn’t intended to announce the switch until January, with a publication release in May or June . Because this is a re-release, I felt it would not overshadow Nora and the Siren Song, which is still due to release in April.
Now, it should be noted that Witch-Born is not the only title I have under this publisher. And really, the original publisher was Double Dragon Publishing but they sold to this newest publisher several years ago. I feel like that’s an important detail. I stuck with them because at the time I could not conceive of seeking out a new book cover, and there are some sticking points about material that has been edited by in-house editors at a publishing company.
It’s a weird gray area, but suffice… the book would require both new edits AND a new cover because the publisher paid for both, and Past Aimee was too busy to do either.
Present Aimee, on the other hand, has rolled up her sleeves and is getting the work done.
The other two books under this publisher are Deviation and Dead Magic and yes, I have plans for these as well. I know more about the business now than I did back when they were first sold to Double Dragon, and I am a better writer today than I was yesterday, so you can safely assume I’m working on them.
Bottom line… If you have a copy of any of these books, they are about to be Out of Print. Everything is OK. We’ve got a handle on it.
