NEWS!

There’s so much going on right now, I feel like I’m one of the spiny bits in an old school egg beater. Here we go:

The good news: Acne, Asthma, And Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon is available for sale. Yes, you read that right! I got the rights to my book back, and it’s currently for sale on Amazon. I have not pushed it out to other platforms, and it’s not looking like I’m going to anytime soon. Turns out, I don’t have any time to figure out anything else right now (long story), so for the foreseeable future, my book is on Amazon as an ebook. I have some paperbacks left, but it’s a diminishing supply (don’t buy the fifty dollar copy from that crazy person who thinks my book being rare drives up the price). In a few months, I should be uploading to Create Space for those of you who like books you can touch.

More good news: Prom, Magic, And Other Man-Made Disasters will be up soon. How soon, you ask? Sometime this week, ebooks should become available. I’ll post when things are settled out (it takes Amazon some time to link editions, and I’m trying not to lose my reviews, those are hard to come by!).

The BEST NEWS: The sequel to Acne, Asthma, And Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon is coming out! That’s right, it’s really really happening. GROUNDED, NO PHONE, AND OTHER SIGNS YOUR MOM IS A FIRE BREATHING MONSTER is in production!

What does this mean? I won’t have a release date for a while yet, but I’m very excited to share the much anticipated sequel to Acne. If you loved Acne, you’re in for a real treat as the gang is back at it, but now things are bigger, more dangerous, and even more family secrets are unearthed. It’s going to be a wild ride, and I can’t wait to unleash it on the world! 

Sometimes things go Sideways

If you’ve been to my buy pages recently, you’ll probably notice that they don’t work. My three novels have been taken down by my publisher, Curiosity Quills. The publisher is in the process of reorganizing their business, and we are currently in the process of rights reversion.

So what does this mean for me and my books?

Right now this means you can’t buy my books. (Sorry!) It means I am taking a crash course in self publishing because I have an irrational need to finish things. Acne has a sequel. It has two, possible three, and I want to make sure the whole story gets told. This means drafting, editing, formatting, cover art and marketing plan. This is not minor. On the plus side, the first sequel has already been written, but there’s a lot of production even when a book is 100% ready to go, and it isn’t there yet.

But Rena, you say, What about Acne, Asthma, And Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon? I haven’t bought my copy of that book yet! And I want it!

Yeah, for the books that were already finished, there’s a different problem. There are some paperback copies going out into the world still, but that’s a limited supply. There are no e copies. There were never audio copies.

As of right now, it’s going to be a while before ebooks are available again, and they will be. My plan is to re-release Acne and Prom as soon as I solve the problem of formatting, cover art, and final typo fixes (an issue we had with the previous books).

So I have a lot of work on my plate, and much sooner than I’d planned!

On the plus side, this gives me the opportunity to have more control of the direction these books take. I have loved being a Literary Marauder, but now I get to shred the skies with my own flag—just as soon as I figure out how to rig this spinnaker so it doesn’t flip my ship.

Plans? Maybe just direction? IWSG

It’s a new year.

I don’t really know what happened to last year. It was rough. It was good. Like all years, it was complicated by too many factors to be easily summed up in a single post.

Going forward, I have a lot of thoughts. I’m working on migrating the content of this blog into a new format (I’ll probably still cross post for a while), but as I go back through, expect to see some old posts go dark. Think of it as the pack rat going through and cleaning everything up.

In writing, I’m moving into a new phase of my own growth. I’ve been working on improving my craft, and I feel like that’s gone well. It’s an ongoing process, and with writing, you never “arrive.” Writing is like a knife, constantly requiring honing. I took a break for the whole month of December, and it was very useful to know there was no need to do anything for a whole month. Now I’m cracking my knuckles and looking around at what needs to be done to clean up my writing life. I have a list of projects, and I’m toying with a Shiny New Idea. We’ll see.

To start the year I’m writing a low pressure piece just for the fun of it, and to share it with my friends. I kid you not, it’s a piece that I have no actual intentions of showing to the rest of the world, and I’m really looking forward to the ridiculous purple prose of an elf prince falling madly in love with the wrong person. So good.

I’m taking it easy right now due to other factors, so I’m going to write my very extra pointy eared prince and then reassess the direction of my career.

Do you plan out your writing year? Whenever I try to, it takes a detour at Albuquerque. So no real plan this year. Working on craft, writing something just for me, and we’ll see when we get there.

While you’re procrastinating, jump on the Link and visit the Ninja Captain, Alex. Be sure to check out this month’s cohosts: Patricia Lynne, Lisa Buie-Collard, Kim Lajevardi, and Fundy Blue!