Writing

Opinions Needed!

July 23, 2015July 22, 2015 Kara Jorgensen10 Comments

Okay, peeps, I need your opinions because I have hit a deadlock between two groups.

I am currently reworking the blurb for The Earl and the Artificer. Now that I’m over a third through, I don’t feel that the original blurb reflects the story. What I am hoping is that you, dear reader, can help me decide which blurb intrigues you as a reader more. As a side note, the first line is the book’s tagline. Here are the two versions:

Option A:

What mysteries lay buried beneath weeds and dust?

Eilian Sorrell wants nothing more than to leave England, but at the insistence of his mother, he and his new bride travel to his abandoned ancestral home. After an uneventful wedding, Eilian and Hadley should have foreseen the trouble waiting for them at Brasshurst Hall where the house and the quaint neighboring village are not what they seem.

Behind a mask of good manners and gentle breeding lurks a darker side of Folkesbury. As Eilian and Hadley struggle to fit in with the village’s genteel society, they find everyone is at the mercy of Randall Nash, a man who collects secrets.

When the village blackmailer turns up dead, the Sorrells become entangled in murder, theft, and intrigue with the manor at the heart of it all. Something long thought lost and buried within Brasshurst’s history has been found—something worth killing for.

Option B:

What mysteries lay buried beneath weeds and dust?

Following their wedding, Eilian and Hadley Sorrell journey to Brasshurst Hall, his family’s abandoned ancestral home. As Eilian struggles to reconcile his new roles as husband and earl, he finds the house and the surrounding town of Folkesbury are not as they first appear.

Rumors spread that Brasshurst’s greenhouse contains an ancient plant believed to be extinct since Nero’s reign, but each time Eilian comes close to uncovering the truth, he is thwarted by Randall Nash, a man known for unearthing and hoarding secrets.

Soon, Eilian and Hadley become entangled in a web of murder, theft, and intrigue that they may never escape with the manor at the heart of it all. Something long thought lost and buried within Brasshurst’s history has been found—something worth killing for.

I’d love to know which one would make you more likely to pick up the book and read on, so please post your opinion in the comments to let me know which you like better. Also, if you have any feedback about either blurb, I would greatly appreciate it.

Writing

Books, Birthdays, and Word Counts

July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 Kara Jorgensen7 Comments

So Saturday was my birthday, and that means an outing of my choice with my family, cake, and way more food than our guests could eat. Most of my family came over, and while my beloved dog was beside himself with so many people over, we all seemed to have a good time. This also means… BOOKS! GLORIOUS BOOKS!

I am pitifully excited about this, and the lit-related clothes and goodies I got too. Currently, I am reading Cold Fire, but I cannot wait to get through everything else. Of course, I cannot wait to color as well. I’m dying to color. Also, one of my friends, who is a fabulous artist (look her up on Deviant Art or Facebook at Fi-Di or Fiammetta De Innocentis) drew a picture of Hadley from The Earl of Brass and sent it to me on my birthday. I was beyond surprised and could not stop showing it off because I was thrilled to get more art of my characters.

Shockingly, through all of the festivities, I have been writing. This may not be shocking to others, but for me, I haven’t always been the most consistent author in terms of writing. One of the things I am trying to achieve this month is getting into a schedule and having some discipline. This week I also hit the 10,000 word mark for my writing goal, which means The Earl and the Artificer is now over 25,000 words, and it should be between 30,000 and 35,000 words by the end of the month.

Succeeding with Camp Nanowrimo has made me see that I am a goal-oriented person, and I really ought to use that to my advantage. I have decided to give myself a word count goal each month that I should be able to meet. Keep in mind that these are modest for a reason. When I don’t hit the goal, I tend to get discouraged and abandon the idea. If I set myself modest goals at first, I can build my confidence in the process and eventually stretch my goals out progressively. These are the goals I have decided to set for the rest of the year:

Jul 30,000 (15K) [484/day]
Aug 45,000 (15k) [484/day]
Sep 55,000 (10K) [334/day]
Oct 65,000 (10K) [323/day]
Nov 75,000 (10k) [334/day]
Dec 85,000 (10k) [323/day]

More than likely, I will probably exceed these goals each month (hopefully), but it gets hard during the semester when I have school work, textbooks to read, my graduate assistantship on top of my writing. Overall, these goals seem more than manageable. What I hope to do is finish The Earl and the Artificer by January 1st, and have it edited and ready to go by March. If I can get it out earlier than that, I will be thrilled, but I don’t want to push it too far yet. I’m hoping that with a steady-stream of inspiration with my reading material and encouragement from my fellow readers and writers, I will be able to push through and get it done.

I hope you are all having a good July, and I will check-in again soon. Until next time, Awkward Authoress out.

Writing

Writing and Food Poisoning

July 15, 2015 Kara Jorgensen7 Comments

I am one of those people who rarely ever gets the stomach virus. It’s been years since I’ve had to deal with it, and when I say years, I mean, at least ten because I think I was in middle school the last time I threw up. This past week I felt bloody awful.

In a few of my previous posts, I’ve mentioned that I’m participating in Camp Nanowrimo, which means for the month of July, I am trying to write 15,000 words, which would double what I have thus far of my manuscript. I was incredibly excited about the challenge of this, and within a few days, I made it a nightly ritual to write each night before bed, usually at least 500 words. I wanted to break away from being a feast or famine writer and write every day instead even if I didn’t really feel like it. It was going really well… until the 10th.

I made it through my day at work, and I didn’t feel that great. I felt dizzy, but sometimes my sinuses get clogged and I didn’t think much of it. Friday night, I felt horrible. Nauseous, dizzy, horrible headache, absolutely miserable. I sat staring at my computer with my outline beside me unable to do anything. Flipping tabs to my Camp Nanowrimo graph, I sighed. There goes the writing streak. I ended up shutting off my computer and going to bed at eleven.

The entire weekend I felt off. Just inexplicably sick without having any outward symptoms. I thought I was crazy. As I sat there pecking out as many words as I could before I burned out, I tried to figure out if the nausea was in my head or if I really felt sick. This continued for several days and probably reached its worst on Monday. Tuesday, the symptoms finally seemed to ease. I no longer felt like my head was going to blow off and every movement didn’t make me seal my lips against the threat of vomit. In the past I have had sinus infections that led to dizziness and nausea, so I figured that’s what it was and it would go away in a week or two. The same day, my mom calls and tells me that Shoprite called everyone who bought the frozen, prepared chicken we ate on Thursday because it had been contaminated with Salmonella.

Can I just say that food poisoning is miserable no matter how mild. I know some people become violently ill and can barely leave the bathroom, but this was like nothing I have felt in a long time. If you feel lousy, you probably do. I don’t know if other people sit there wondering if they really feel sick or if it’s all in their heads, but trust your instincts, you’re probably sick and it’s okay to take a step back and recuperate for a day or two instead of stressing over what you haven’t done. More than likely it isn’t getting done well when you’re sick as a dog anyway.

The entire time I wasn’t feeling well, I was so afraid I would stop writing and ditch my Camp Nanowrimo challenge. I ended up skipping a day (the 10th), but the next day, despite feeling crappy, I kept writing and recovered. Thus far, I am way ahead of my challenge goal for the day, and by the end of the month, I’ll have written closer to 20,000 words than the 15,000 I set out to write at the beginning of the month. Now, to get back to writing!

PS- Stay away from frozen prepared chicken. It doesn’t taste that good, and the food poisoning is not worth it.

Writing

The Absent Awkward Authoress

July 10, 2015July 10, 2015 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

The Awkward Authoress has not been posting nearly as often as she really should, and for that, she must apologize. I have unconsciously decided to take a little hiatus from blogging this month to throw myself wholly into my writing. For nearly all of May and most of June, I struggled through The Earl and the Artificer, adding only a hundred words or so here or there, taking several weeks to muddle through a chapter. In one of my recent posts, I mentioned that I was participating in Camp Nanowrimo and that my goal is 15,000 words by the end of July, which would bring my manuscript’s word count up to 30,000 words if I met my goal.

Well, it’s going swimmingly, and I am trying very hard to keep up the pace with my novel. The downside is that to keep productivity up, I have had to take a step back from blogging for a little while. In August, I hope to figure out how to balance writing and blogging better, but for now, I will be only posting once or twice a week until the end of the month. Most will probably be progress updates and info posts about my current WIP. I do feel guilty about neglecting my blog and its readers, yet I hope you will understand that my novel is more pressing. It will be my thesis project for my MFA, and I need to get as much of it done over the summer as possible because once the school year starts, I know my productivity will drop dramatically.

When you get the chance, I hope you will check the Progress and Projects page at the top of the website to see how The Earl and the Artificer is coming along. I should be updating it every few days.

Once again, I apologize for disappearing this month, but it’s for a good cause.

Personal Life · Writing

Who Am I & Why Do I Do This?

July 7, 2015 Kara Jorgensen4 Comments

I think as writers and bloggers, we assume that everyone knows who we are or that they somehow found their way to the About page or that original post we made when we started our blog that stated who we were and why we bothered making a blog. I’ve had this blog for over a year now, so I thought it would be prudent to reintroduce myself, especially since I think this year has been one of growth and change for me.

Who am I?

My name is Kara Jorgensen, and I am a [nearly] twenty-four year old writer from New Jersey. No, we do not have accents like those people on The Jersey Shore. Currently, I am working toward an MFA in Creative and Professional Writing and only have a year left before I complete my degree. Of the 16 major personality types, I am an INTJ-A, which means that I am the “architect” type. Shockingly, this says a lot about me. I demand perfection of myself and others and strive to meet my goals through whatever means necessary. For years, I have asked a lot of myself in terms of school and grades, and that has now shifted to my writing.

My ultimate goal is to one day be a full-time writer or nearly full-time writer as I would also like to become an English professor. Sometimes in my pursuit of my goals, I take myself too seriously and occasionally burn out for a time, usually after accomplishing that goal. What recharges my batteries are: my border collie mixes, Edgar and Finny, my boyfriend, trips to bookstores or museums, and of course, writing and reading.

Currently, I have two books out, The Earl of Brass and The Winter Garden, which are both part of a steampunk-ish series. I say steampunk-ish because my books fall more into historical fiction than fantasy or scifi. It’s probably an 80-20 split between historical and fantasy. If you like Victorian literature or period dramas, you may like my writing, but if you’re looking for space battles or goggles on saloon girls wielding Gatling guns, you’re not going to find it here. Right now, I am working on the third book in my steampunk series, The Earl and the Artificer, as well as a companion short story that will go between books two and three. In the coming year, I’m hoping to work on the fourth book in the series and possibly branch out to a more heavily fantasy series (the aesthetic is old leather-bound books, humanoid creatures of mythology like something out of Pan’s Labyrinth, and old houses).

Why do I do this?

I ask myself this a lot. From as far back as I can remember, I have always loved to write stories. I drew little picture books where cats and dogs went on adventures and when I wasn’t writing them down, my Barbies were embroiled in soap opera-like drama. Writing is like a compulsion for me. I have characters and stories chattering in my head, knocking at my brain for me to write out their scenes.

One of the things I noticed as I grew up was that there weren’t often characters I immediately connected with. As a middle class, white girl from the suburbs, it seems odd that there wasn’t a female character that struck a cord with me. The girls were almost always stereotypical girls (pink, fashion, boy problems) and apart from Hermione, I was dissatisfied with what I found. It made me wonder how people who are minorities or varying sexualities and genders felt when they couldn’t find themselves in characters, so I have decided to dedicate part of my writing career to exploring diverse characters, especially ones of diverse sexuality and gender.

This blog is dedicated to the mid-writing rambles of an up-and-coming author. One day it may be a progress report, the next day it may be me railing against the man or a blurb about sexuality or gender in the Victorian era. No matter the subject, it will be a behind the scenes look at my life as a writer and twenty-four year old.

Writing

Camp Nanowrimo

July 4, 2015 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

This year I have decided to participate in Camp Nanowrimo. If you have never heard of it, Nanowrimo is short for national novel writing month. Normally, Nanorwrimo takes place in the fall, and the goal is to finish 50,000 words in a month. Camp Nanowrimo differs in that you only set a goal of however many pages you want to write. In my case, it’s 15,000 words, which means to meets to meet that goal, I have to write about 500 words a day.

Typically, I don’t do Nanowrimo. When I first heard the premise of it a few years ago, I scoffed at it. My friend, who was taking a full load of university classes at the time, was on the brink of tears daily because she couldn’t juggle all of her coursework and writing about 1,667 words a day. It didn’t seem like it was worth the stress. In the spring, I was invited by my fellow writer friend Kate M. Colby to participate in the first session of Camp Nanowrimo. Still dubious about the idea, I joined and gave myself a goal of 15,000 words. Unfortunately, it was April, which is the big crunch before final papers and projects were due. I updated exactly once the entire month. It was demoralizing to say the least to watch the number you needed per day to meet your goal grow while you can only type out a hundred words or so a day while writing a twenty page essay. Too bad the paper didn’t count toward my Nanowrimo goal.

Once again, Kate invited me to be part of her cabin for July Nanowrimo. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it again. I had been having writers block on and off with The Earl and the Artificer and wasn’t really getting anyway. My anxiety was rising because I need to turn it in to my professor/advisor at some point since it’s my thesis project. Did I really want to add stress by tacking on a daily word count? Hesitantly, I agreed. The worst I could do was not write and drag the cabin’s word count down (sorry, cabin mates).

I am so happy I did. In my last post (June in Review), I mentioned that one of my goals for July is to stop focusing on perfection and focus on writing. My perfectionist tendencies were holding me back and paralyzing my writing. With my Camp Nanowrimo writing, I know I need to write about 500 words per day to meet my goal. In the big scheme of things, 500 words isn’t that much and comes out to maybe half a page to a page, depending on whether the scene is dialogue-heavy. Thus far, I have written 2,035 words in the past 3 days, and while that isn’t much for some writers, it’s probably more than I have written for that book in two weeks.

Why does it work? I’m not a hundred percent sure. Part of it, I think, is that there are other writers in your cabin doing the same thing. You aren’t all going for the same goal, but you’re all writing. There’s a message board where you can post or ask for help or congratulate someone else on doing well with their goals. It’s a bit of synergy even if you aren’t close by. Everyone sets a goal that is specific to them, so there isn’t any peer pressure to write 60,000 words in a month. It’s relaxing, and because I don’t have any classes or pressing work, I can leisurely write and update my progress without worrying when I’m going to squeeze it in. One of the things I have noticed while working toward my Camp Nanowrimo goal is that I do my most productive writing from 11 PM to 1:30 AM. I think it’s easier to focus once everyone else (including the dogs) has gone to bed, and at that point, I’m a little tired and am not as uptight about my work. The next day, I do a little tinkering before I work again on my next session.

Are you participating in Camp Nanowrimo or any writing retreats this summer?

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Monthly Review

June in Review

June 30, 2015June 30, 2015 Kara Jorgensen5 Comments

Starting in January, I decided it would be a good idea to look back at each month and see what I have accomplished in my writing and marketing as well as reflect upon what needs to be improved in the future.

Sometimes it’s hard to be upbeat when you feel that you haven’t quite met your goals from the previous month. I don’t think I did as much writing of The Earl and the Artificer (Ingenious Mechanical Devices #3), but I’m okay with that because I did a lot more writing and tinkering with my short story “An Oxford Holiday,” which I am enjoying immensely. Now to get down to business:

What I did accomplish:

Wrote and edited two chapters of The Earl and the Artificer (IMD #3)
Wrote the majority of my companion short story “An Oxford Holiday”
Finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (if you have seen the thickness of this book, you’ll know why it’s an accomplishment)
Got out of the house more
Wrote or edited more days than I didn’t
Uploaded The Earl of Brass and The Winter Garden on iBooks, Nook, Kobo, Oyster, and other ebook platforms

Goals for July:

Finish “An Oxford Holiday” and ready it for publication
Plan and write more of The Earl and the Artificer
Blog more
Read 2-3 books
Stop making goals by the number (apart from reading goals)
Strive to write instead of striving for perfection

One of the things I have learned this month is that setting numerical goals drives me crazy. I had writers block for a good chunk of the month, and the longer it lasted, the more I focused on my previous goal of writing four chapters of my novel. Of course, the more I focused, the more I froze. To loosen up and break the block, I decided to work on a short story that was knocking on my brain and would come between books two and three. As soon as I began working on it, the words flew onto the page, and I was writing double what I wrote on my most productive day earlier in June. Immediately I began to wonder why “An Oxford Holiday” was taking shape so much faster than The Earl and the Artificer. Some obvious answers are length and complexity– since it’s a short story, both are a lot simpler than a novel. Was it the characters? While I love working with Adam and Immanuel, it shouldn’t make the story that much easier to write. The big difference between working on my for-fun short story and my novel was fun. Ever since I sent in my thesis proposal, I have been so hard on myself about The Earl and the Artificer, and it is sucking the fun out of the writing process. I’m constantly catching myself over-thinking scenes or freezing up because I’m worrying that it isn’t perfect. This is why my fifth and sixth goal are there. I need to stop over-thinking and making numerical goals because it’s apparent that I get fixated on them. After bouncing back and forth between my short story and the EatA without any pressure, I suddenly banged out a chapter in like two days.

The upside of June was that I had a great time and actually got out of the house. On the 20th, my boyfriend and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. We went down to a lovely waterfront town not far from our house, pigged out on pub food, French desserts, and sea air. It was wonderful. The same week my mom and I had a girl’s day, so I enjoyed spending an entire day with my mom and also made an impromptu stop at the bookstore. For once I actually spent time out of the house, and it seemed to revive my mood, especially after an incredibly stagnant first half of the month. Because of this slump, I may have bought a few too many books. Can you really have too many books? And I didn’t drain my bank account, so all is well.

I am so looking forward to finishing “An Oxford Holiday” in the coming weeks. It’s a short story that falls between books two and three, which I will be offering for free on all ebook platforms when it’s finished. The basic idea of the story is that Adam goes to visit Immanuel in Oxford as promised, but they soon realize that finding a place to spend time and speak freely is easier said than done. A bit of information will also be revealed regarding Immanuel’s life at Oxford and what his future with Adam holds. It’s just a little tidbit to hold my readers over between books, but I am greatly enjoying writing it. Hopefully you will enjoy it too.

One of the best things to happen this month is of course the supreme court ruling that gay marriage is legal in all fifty states. Living in New Jersey, I have taken it for granted, but I am so excited my southern or mid-western friends who thought having marriage equality in their state would be a pipe dream. As a supporter of gay rights, it made my day. The funny thing is, I bought this shirt in May and it finally arrived in mid-June. It says “I support LGBT lit” on the front and “Because everyone deserves to see themselves in fiction” on the back.

My hope for July is that I can finally put aside my perfectionist tendencies and be consistently productive or at least more productive than I have been. I think having a few chapters go smoothly will boost my confidence and hopefully produce more success in the future.

What are your goals for July?

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Writing

Plotter, Pantser, Gardener

June 26, 2015June 26, 2015 Kara Jorgensen7 Comments

If you have ever seen an author interview, very often you will see a question about whether the author is a plotter or a pantser.

A plotter is fairly self-explanatory. It means that the author plots out the points of the story before writing (some plot every point, some do only major points).

Pros:

Author always know where they’re going
Organized- less time spent figuring it out as they go
Easier editing (probably)

Cons:

Lacks spontaneity
Author may not feel the need to write as they already know the ending
Author spends a lot of time prepping and not writing

A pantser is named such because the author flies by the seat of their pants while they write, typically not making use of an outline or using a very vague one.

Pros:

Plenty of room for change
More writing, less planning
More “fun” for the author who enjoys surprise

Cons:

More editing (probably)
The author may get stuck more often
Messy, which doesn’t work well if the author is more of a structured person

Most authors fall along this spectrum of rigidity, but what about if you fall somewhere in the middle?

This is where the gardener comes in.

I describe a gardener as someone who begins with a basic plan but allows for a lot of wiggle room. It takes the best of both worlds when it comes to plotting and pantsing. Why call it a gardener? Well, a gardener has an idea of what they want the garden to look like when they start. They know where the plants will go and maybe what types they want. They plant the seeds (plot strings) and tend them until they grow to full-bloom. Along the they way prune or add fertilizer as needed. They may notice that a plant needs to be moved or gotten rid of, and they take that into consideration as they tend the garden. As a gardener, I have a hard time thinking of cons because the style of gardener varies greatly with the writer. It can be a bit messy and will lead to at least some editing later, but it lacks the rigidity of plotting and the “winging it” aspect of pantsing. Here is an outline I wrote while working on The Earl of Brass:

Please ignore the crazy diamonds, I was marking off what I covered at the time. As you can see, the major points are plotted out with arrows from event to event. What you can’t see from the final product is that I actually filled in several major events that I knew I needed, and then I added the smaller events in between. This is the basic idea of a gardener. They know the major points and fill in the smaller ones along the way but not to the point of completely locking the plot. For me, I need flexibility while I write to let my characters breathe and do their thing. They often surprise me, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.

So are you a plotter, pantser, or gardener?

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Writing

Sexiness and the Awkward Authoress

June 23, 2015June 23, 2015 Kara Jorgensen23 Comments

I readily admit that I am not very good at sexiness, in my writing or in real life. I steer clear of book covers with half-naked people on them (I’m lookin’ at you, Fabio), and Magic Mike or 50 Shades of Gray hold absolutely no appeal. After getting a review or two about how my characters’ relationships and interactions are not steamy enough, I began to get a little more than frustrated. What if the author didn’t want to have her characters get into sexy romps? What if she wanted to explore intimacy through non-sexual interactions?

Immediately I began venting to my best friend about the issue and then posted on a women’s writing group that I am part of on Facebook. I expected to get some responses from people who agreed with others saying to suck it up and cave into society’s demand for clandestine moments and characters exploring their “inner goddesses,” but I was shocked to find that many writers agreed with me and that the overarching message was to stay true to myself and my characters.

Before I am a writer, I am a reader, and when I write, I keep myself first and foremost in mind. What would I want to read? What turns me off as a reader? I’m not a complete prude, I like reading romantic scenes and intimate moments between characters that obviously care deeply for each other. If those scenes include sex, that’s fine. For me, as long as the emotional connection is there, I’m usually more than okay with it. What I cannot stand is gratuitous sex or violence in a work with no other purpose than to arouse or scandalize the reader. Recently I decided to read some paranormal romance in preparation for a series I intend to write in the future. I was incredibly disappointed by the series I downloaded as a bundle. Like clockwork every thirty or forty pages there was an erotic scene. Rolling my eyes, I read through plenty of moaning and groaning, but what made it awkward wasn’t the acts themselves, it was that the characters could have been anyone. It was as if the scenes were written in a vacuum with blank-faced characters. If the reader cannot connect with your characters and want to share in the intimacy, why bother writing these scenes?

I should outright say the reason I tend not to write sex scenes in my books. It isn’t because I’m a prude or think sex should never appear in novels, it just never seems to fit in what I’m writing. I enjoy writing the lead up or those tender private moments, but once your characters are in the heat of the moment, can they really express themselves enough to further plot or character development? My main thought is: sex is not the be all and end all of romance or intimacy. You can have sex without romance, so why not have romance without sex?

Some other avenues of intimacy to explore are obvious, kissing, cuddling, undressing, touching, embracing. What are your characters thinking as these things happen? Does s/he enjoy these things? Are they doing them to please their partner? How are they doing them? With urgency, slowly, passionately, coolly? How a character does something says just as much as why they are doing it. Why not play with different forms of love? There is sexual love, romantic love, and platonic love, so you aren’t limited to just couples. Friends can be intimate with one another as easily as couples. When you’re upset, does your friend wrap their arms around you or speak close and quietly to make you feel better?

Romantic moments are as much about sexuality as they are about intimacy. They don’t necessarily have to be the same thing.

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Writing

Project Announcement: An Ingenious Mechanical Devices Short

June 19, 2015June 18, 2015 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

Hi everyone,

I have decided (now that I’m about halfway in) to announce that the first short companion story for my steampunk/historical fantasy series the Ingenious Mechanical Devices will be out by the end of the summer.

What is it?

The story will be roughly 5,000 words or so and will take place after the events of The Winter Garden (IMD #2). It will be a standalone, but obviously, it would make more sense if it was read along with the other Ingenious Mechanical Devices stories. The working title is “An Oxford Holiday,” the story revolves around Adam journeying to Oxford to visit Immanuel. Unfortunately, getting a little privacy and time together is more difficult than it seems. The story will be offered for free on all platforms when it is finished (Amazon may take a few days to catch up with the other ebook platforms).

Why do this?

It may seem odd for an author to post something so short and for free, but I’m thinking of this short story as a free sample, a bonus for being a loyal reader or an incentive for new readers to give my work a try. I also know that it will take me a while to finish writing The Earl and the Artificer, so by releasing a short story, I’ll hopefully keep my readers interested between the two books. Recently, I have been reading K. J. Charles’s A Charm of Magpies series, and one of the things I love about them is that she writes short stories to go along with her books. It’s a great little teaser between stories, and I devour them just as I do her full-length novels. It’ll just be a light, fun story, but it will hopefully add a bit to the series and give a hint as to what will happen in book four when Adam and Immanuel reappear.

Additional Information

If you get the chance, please drop by my Progress and Projects page at the menu bar. Every few days I’ll be updating my word count bars as I progress. You can also check out what I’m working on and what I’ll be tackling in the future. Stay tuned for more info about my projects, and hopefully in the coming weeks, I’ll have a date for the release of “An Oxford Holiday.”

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