An Event and September Ends

Special Note for Facebook People:

I will be hosting one hour of Patricia Loofbourrow's book release party for Queen of Diamonds, the sequel to her exciting steampunk Jacq of Spades book.  Please come by and keep me company!  I'll even be giving away an ebook or two of my own!  There will be lots of other great authors joining in as well, so stop by and see what's going on.

Sign up and be ready to join in:  https://www.facebook.com/events/176866622722861/

October 1, 2016 Schedule of events (US Central time):

(Other authors may be joining in!)

9 am -
10 am -
11 am - Erin M. Hartshorn hosting
12 pm - Lee Brown hosting
1 pm - Nan Simpson Bach hosting
2 pm - Live posting from The Queen of Diamonds book signing at Half Price Books in Oklahoma City (I-240/Penn)
3 pm -
4 pm - Lazette Gifford hosting
5 pm - Rie Sheridan Rose hosting
6 pm -
7 pm - Margaret McGaffey Fisk hosting
8 pm - Tommy B. Smith hosting

And now my regular blog!

This is already the last Monday of September.  The month went too fast -- and now we're facing down October, the last month before NaNoWriMo.  I am not ready, but I think October should give me enough time for the next big outline I want to get done.

That will only happen if the story idea for the second Raventower book comes together.  I have finally had ideas, though, and I see an underside to the original story that is going to be really fun to play with since I have two minor characters who are not what they appeared to be.  This makes me VERY happy.  They're going to be so much fun -- just as soon as I come up with an actual plot.  I have some scenes.  I even have the end.  I think I have the opening scene.  There's just that 100,000 other words between that I need to consider.

Also, I think I need to change the location of something in the first book.  Not a difficult change, but I can work something in later if I do this.  So, a good thing I haven't tried to rush Raventower 1 out.  I knew that I wanted to consider things for the next book before I made any final decision.

Raventower was my 'experiment' for the year.  I try to do something different every year.  Sometimes that's working with a new type of character or a new genre.  Other times it is how I work.  This year Raventower took two different paths.  One was attempting a steampunk-ish type tale and the other was to see if I could write, edit, and publish a novel in one year.  Usually, I write a first draft and let it sit for a long time, often more than a year.  With Raventower, I started the novel on January 1, 2016.  I let it sit until May when I did a quick read-through edit, making notes and changing some of the more obvious things.  Then I left it alone until late August and spent most of a month rewriting, editing, and adding.  The book that started out at about 115k is now over 130k.

I have only a few more notes to do over to get it where I want it.  Will I have it published before the end of October?  I might.  However, I am also working on notes for the second book.  I want to make certain there is nothing in the first novel that I might need to change based on what I've already considered for the second one.  With luck, I'll have the first draft of the second one done during NaNo and be able to release the second book in early to mid-2017.

I still have one other book to put out this year.  I want to get the third Summerfield novel released.  Since it is Winter Warning (the first two are Summer Storm and Autumn Winds), I'm coming up on the right time.

So much to do.  I should have the time, but somehow it keeps getting away from me!

I hope to see you on October 1 at the Queen of Diamonds Release Party!