What a surprising year for productivity.

Second in isolation for me and I was sicker this year than I have been in seven years with an autoimmune disease flare-up and falling through the cracks of healthcare. Wild to me that I then got so much done the past six months, but I cobbled together some duct tape for my body, so the equation seemed to be:

One part expired corticosteroids plus two parts isolation plus two parts Patreon support equals…a bunch of books written.

But first, let’s start with what released this year.

What Released:

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The long-awaited fifth Livi Talbot novel, Yampellec’s Idol, kicked my ass hard to revise this year, but I got it out in the world at last and I’m super proud of it. I started this book in 2018, got a chunk done in 2019, “finished” it in 2020, but 2021 I took several months trying to revise and fix it. I know it was divisive but I am tremendously proud of it and thank everyone who got this far on the journey with Livi and me.

I also finished what started as a fun short story for patrons and became a prequel novella about Elis O’Connor, Season of the Bitch, which is now out in paperback (ebook is up for patrons only). I’m really excited about this one because it unexpectedly filled in some backstory pieces involving Zara and involved Elis murdering people.

I also was invited to a boxset anthology of female fantasy writers, so Solomon’s Seal reached some new readers in the Magic & Mystery boxset.

What Was Written:

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SIX WHOLE BOOKS.

Okay, three were already in progress, but still!

• Witch Hunt (Elis O’Connor #2), which is still posting at Patreon and will conclude in February
• Dweller on the Threshold (standalone), which will come out in April 2022
• Watcher in the Woods (standalone, though same world as Dweller), which is not scheduled yet
• Charon’s Gold (Livi Talbot #6), which will come out in October 2022
• The Killing Beach (Waverly Jones #1), scheduled for spring 2023
• A Wild Kind of Darkness (Waverly Jones #2), scheduled for spring 2024*

So many books!

Every time I updated the little word count ticker for something, I got a little more excited, and I’ve left them there in the sidebar because it pleases me to see some tangible things I’ve done.

Additional stories were produced for Patreon–specifically two West POV ones set during Yampellec’s Idol, one of which gave me an idea of a West story to write and serialize next year.

On the Blog…

My top posts were:

• The Death of Livi Talbot (announcing the series end)
• Deserving Better (on how our heroines deserve better than what we get IRL and also This Is Not Paranormal Romance)
• The Pandemic Was/Is Hard on Creatives. Be Kind. (aka stop yelling at and/or mocking us about how little we’ve been producing)
• A Very Special Caturday (Shawn’s second birthday)

Closing Out the Year

I’ve also started the third Waverly Jones Mystery, Alone at Night, as you can see here–amazing that I spent nearly four years trying to write the first book and now suddenly all I want to do is play in this world day and night.

All this is definitely not going to continue on into the new year–I might get some writing done in the next couple of weeks but nowhere near that. I’m off the last of the meds I had to temporarily keep my immune system in check and everything is…getting very unpleasant and painful again, interrupting me every forty minutes or so. But I am so glad I had, at least temporarily, a productive time writing.

Shawnie is presently recovering from his dental surgery yesterday–they took NINE teeth!–and I’m pretty exhausted from the stress, but I have a bunch of presents wrapped under the tree I got myself and I’m closing out the year as Lady Skyla Dawn Cameron, having bought a plot of land in Scotland which gives me the title of ladyship per historical Scottish tradition (okay so it actually planted a tree, but it makes me giggle to be called Lady Skyla). Year two of the pandemic, but it could be–and has been–worse, so I’m grateful for what I have.

Happiest of holidays and I hope you’ll join me for what I’ve got in store in 2022!

*Optimistic of me to think I’ll be alive in 2024 lol.