My characters kill people so I don't have to.
Nov 21 Update: the series has been cancelled prematurely.
So titled because of this post. Hey, I like carrying a rough metaphor through, okay?
If you’ll indulge me for a moment, there are some things I have to get off my chest, and it may be lengthy and something I regret, but this is my page so, well, here we go–whatever, I do what I want.
It’s book State of the Union time! I guess. I just realized it was January and that I should update my Upcoming page and, fuck, I guess it’s quarterly update time. (Also, ask me how many times I had to double check the year in subject line.)
First, what’s new in my neck of the woods… Well, website drama is fixed, at least temporarily. There are still kinks and still strange spikes in usage (that traffic on Cloudflare doesn’t reference) but it should give me a few months to figure out another solution. Some links don’t work here as I had to disable a few things, but I’m hoping next week to revisit my online shop and see if it’ll behave (I think it will, but won’t know until I try). For now, all my books are available direct on Payhip, which still takes a small fee but not as much as third party sellers.
Posts have also not been streaming to Facebook and I never remember to link to them; if you’re on FB, either like my fan page or just subscribe to my blog here (link on the right) and that’ll keep you updated.
Christmas was nice. The Doombuggy destroyed the tree damn near daily, which is quite a feat for a cat coming up on five and no longer six months old. I still have not sent out my holiday cards (or Dina’s birthday gift from December, so EVERYONE JUST GET IN LINE) but they’re all made out and sitting by the front door. I’ll give it another week and if I still don’t get to the post off I’ll mail them next year, maybe. I also spent five days with my brothers over the holidays and DRANK A LOT OF LIQUOR ate ungodly amounts of food (and if you will ever be in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, I can recommend several lovely places to eat). Now I suppose it’s time to get back to running; I had to wait for my broken toe to completely heal (although it still has an unpleasant crunching feeling–you’re welcome for that information). Tomorrow I get an ultrasound on my shoulder to find out how bad this six month rotator cuff tear is. I can at least feel like I’m exercising by playing Tomb Raider on a GIANT FUCKING TV my eldest brother got me (bring beer and nachos and you can play with me).
It was incredibly difficult not being able to call Aunt Judy, not just over the holidays but to update her on everything happening. That isn’t to say I don’t talk to her–I do, and I can hear her voice and know exactly what she would say–but that loss of light continues to be staggering, likely to all who were fortunate enough to know her.
New Year’s Eve we lost my eldest cat, Oliver. I was completely certain it was a bony tumor and there was nothing to be done (despite double checking it wasn’t an abscess) and those fuckers grow fast, though I hadn’t been quite prepared for how fast. It was not the ideal way to ring in the New Year, but my vet would’ve been closed until the fourth and I wasn’t going to make the poor soul wait that long. RIP Ollie.
So anyway. Let’s talk books.
The Spells and Spirits boxset is out. This has a whole bunch of urban fantasy books, including ones by people way more well-known and amazing than me, and Bloodlines is among them. For 99c you can get all those books. It’s moved a few thousand units and new reader eyes are landing on Zara and the gang, with new sales trickling in for the other books–yay!
Other than that, um…
The last State of the Union in the summer, I had no particular news about anything, although this fall I was working on Oblivion at last.
Oblivion…still isn’t done. I hit another block, had my beta look over the first quarter, and talked it out with her. I’m going to scrap several thousand words and see if I can’t get the story moving again. I know in detail how it ends, what the back half of the book looks like, but going from point A to point D, well…
This means I am most definitely missing my initial goal of having it out by April. It’s a hefty book with a lot of pieces to it, and I’ll need to give my beta and editor ample time with it.
Also on my plate is Wolfe, which…also isn’t done. I’ve not even touched the rewrites on it. I think the trouble is that I strongly dislike large chunks of the book, and I’m not sure if it’s me or if it’s really not good and needs tremendous revision.
Both Oblivion and Wolfe will be released this year even if it kills me, because I want both of those series over and done with. I just suspect they will be written plucked from my brain word by word, which is as uncomfortable as it sounds.
Finally…there is a SEKRIT PROJECT that will release toward the end of the year. No, I will not tell you what is coming, although Patrons of Snark have already been told. This is why they are the cool kids.
Speaking of, Patreon now reflects actual money earned after fees and declined payments instead of pledges, which would be a. why that number has dropped significantly, and b. why Amends hasn’t had a new chapter in some months. Aunt Judy was my first patron and bumped that up quite a bit; at present, it’s still incredibly helpful but no longer covering the cost of my monthly medication (and I’m supposed to go on additional stuff that is another $120/month…AHAHAHA). I’m going to update/revamp things later this month. If you want sneak peeks, free books, and to lower my stress level considerably so I can afford drugs (and less stress = more writing), there you go. (No pressure, I still think you’re sexy.)
Next update coming in April, hopefully with actual pre-order links and stuff (I know, I know, I say that every time).
So here’s a heads-up for regular readers (all three of you) and the sitch in a nutshell.
Six weeks ago I was notified by my host–where I have been for several years without a problem–that there was a huge spike in resource usage and I had to fix it, with no direction how to do so. Every forty-eight hours, the same message, just boilerplate responses and nothing I was doing seemed to be working.
Eventually, after a lot of arguing and bullshit and threats, I seemed to be handed off to a far more helpful tech, but I still have to do all this shit on my own and it doesn’t seem to be working. My legit website traffic is just a handful of people, not enough to be causing this CPU usage, which I guess points to bots/crawlers/etc. I have a few queries in about it, and I’m hoping to try CloudFlare, but I’m doubtful at this point that anything will come of it.
My stuff is backed up, at least. Indigo Chick Designs is hosted separately right here, which is about all I care about since it’s the bulk of my income right now.
I’ve disabled various plugins, like my online shop. For now, if you want to buy ebooks direct, you can head here. If for some reason you want to buy a signed print copy of River for someone for Christmas, drop me a line about it–you can pay through PayPal.
I’ve also switched to a simpler theme I’m hoping will load a little faster, which is why things look different.
I’ve already deleted the Soulless serial database, and I will likely be deleting others, like Children of the Apocalypse and Curio Killed the Cat. I’ll add the complete PDF files for CotA 1 & 2 and CKtC here for download. The serials still get a lot of traffic but there’s been virtually no crossover between freebie readers and paying customers anyway (sorry, y’all, but it’s true) and I’m hoping if I basically just torch everything non-essential, that might bring things down enough.
If not, well…
I’m paid up with my host until September and I can’t afford to move right now. And the fact is, the whole situation isn’t good for my health.
I’ve gone weeks without sleeping, I’ve had to take meds for my anxiety often a couple of days in a row (when normally I break down and take it once a month), and I know this is going to make me sick again if it keeps up. I have a huge lull in freelance work right now so I was hoping to get some writing done, and instead I have spent all my time for the past week learning Tech Speak and trying to understand .htaccess and caches and crawlers and all this shit without much luck.
So in another week or so, I guess the site might be gone?
It stressed me out for a while. Now? Meh. Again, my traffic is low anyway, and a good half those “legit” people are pirates. Maybe I can get my domain to point at just a list of my books or something in the meantime. But I’ve already been in a debilitating depressive episode for eight months, I am a mess of tears and doom-spirals daily already. I don’t need this bullshit; it’s just a website and not worth me getting sick over.
If this comes to pass (IF!), it might be months before things are back again, so if you’re worried about missing a book release (AHAHAHA), I’ve got two different newsletters you can sign up for, which I’ll post below.
For sure, I’ll see you on Twitter, and can try to catch up on Facebook more, ‘kay? (Also, fan-types, you can join Alchemy Red and talk with me, too.)
So as FB and Twitter followers know, I’ve been poking at Oblivion. I’m about a quarter of the way through. Sometimes pages fly by, other times I have to pluck each and every word from my brain (it’s as painful as it sounds). The structure’s worked out, though, and the big tent pole moments have mostly been figured out, and I know how it ends. I’m also ensuring even Ryann and Zara get small sections, so everyone gets their moment with the reader, and a solid epilogue.*
A couple of brief teasers have been posted at Alchemy Red–it’s a closed group but anyone’s free to join, so please check it out if you’re so inclined and would like to connect with other readers.
I’ve also just posted a couple of chapters (about fourteen pages) for Patrons of Snark, if you want to catch up with Mishka and get a peek at Oblivion. I’ll look at posting more snippets there as I can (in lieu of working on Amends right now).
There is also the ZaraLain.com domain I finally have running as a series hub. It’s still in progress and I’ll be adding some desktop wallpaper featuring the cover art and that. If you think of anything else I should add, just let me know.
I know some of you have been waiting for this book for three years now. I’m sorry for the delay but I’m hoping the kinks are worked out and this will happen tentatively next spring. Once a draft is complete and I’ve worked out a schedule with my beta and my copyeditor, I’ll set a date and get the book up for pre-order. I’m also looking at finishing Heaven’s Choice and releasing that a little ahead of time to lead into Oblivion.
I appreciate your patience and understanding, and for not yelling at me, and hope to hell I can pull this damn book off.
* I was going to warn that I am not even trying to make this book easy to follow if you’ve skipped the other books, but I’m pretty sure anyone who skipped Hunter/Lineage isn’t reading for the plot and won’t bother with the series conclusion anyway. For loyal readers, though, I’m hoping Zara and Nate will have at least a single moment appropriate for them and the story as thanks for sticking with the series.
So that River Wolfe short story I told you about, Rebellion, is in progress still, and I’ve got a better sense now about what I’m doing with it.
The thing is, it’s long.
Hella-long. Because of course it is, I can’t fucking write short stories. *sigh*
It’s not so much a short story as it is a novella and I envision it coming in at around 20-25K. I’m squeezing it in around my very busy work schedule, which is why it isn’t done yet.
After debating it myself and batting it around with other people, I’ve decided it’ll temporarily be free for a few days (serialized, as it’s divided into four sections), and then I’ll take it down and have it for sale instead. I debated a tip jar but those aren’t very effective and a bitch has got to get paid for the amount of time I’ve sunk into this thing.
Right now the tentative schedule* looks like this:
I’ll be selling it for $2.99 as that’s what my novellas usually go for. (There might MIGHT be a surprise included at the end too, I’m still debating.)
It’s also not standalone. I am writing it with the assumption that you’ve read River.
This means you’ve got about a month to buy the first book and get caught up. You can find it for $3.99 on Kindle, Kobo, Nook, OmniLit, Smashwords, iTunes, Payhip, and direct. (If you buy direct or on Payhip and want to save $1, enter the coupon code “rebellion” (no quotes) at checkout.) There’s also paperback via Amazon.
If you’re not sure if you’ll like it, um, here are some people who did?
*”tentative schedule” because things are rough right now; I have a bunch of upcoming doctor appointments and due to some med changes, there’s a chance my illness is going to get bad again soon. Plus I have a fuckton of editing on my plate for the next four weeks, which zaps a lot of my brain that I use for writing. Please don’t yell at me if the schedule changes, ‘kay?
Writer of horror, mysteries/thrillers, and urban fantasy.
Fifth-generation crazy cat lady. Bitchy feminist.
So tired all the goddamn time.
My characters kill people so I don’t have to.