Howdy! Wow, that's something I've never said before. Anyway, hello, welcome back to Mayhem & Magic! It feels like it's been ages since I've written a post but it has somehow only been a week? Time is weird. It's also super wack to me that THE ORACLE STONE has already been out for almost two weeks. It felt like release day would never come, and then it got here and it's somehow been ten days already. Wild.
This week I simply have another writing update, as there's not a whole lot else going on in my life at the moment. I've been juggling a few different projects these days, some new, some old. I revised a short story that I'm thinking about submitting to an anthology of queer SFF stories, but even if I don't it was a refreshing challenge to try writing some short fiction for once. I like how the story has shaped up, but I might throw it through one more revision. We'll see. It's kind of a back-burner project for when I don't have the brain cells to work on a novel.
I've also been trudging through a second draft of TRUTHSEEKER, the first book of my new trilogy/duology/whatever it turns out to be, but I'm starting to lose steam with it –– not because I don't know what to do or because I don't like it, but because I didn't wait long enough between finishing the first draft and starting the second one. It feels like I never stopped writing it, so I'm almost sort of... bored? Like, it feels repetitive because I just wrote the chapters I'm revising like, two months ago, if that. I drafted that book pretty quickly and then immediately dove into revisions, and it def needed more time to marinate. So. I'm at a decent stopping point with it right now (as in, not in the middle of a chapter), so I might set it down and go back to revising an old favorite, which brings us to...
Another round of revisions for my dear bird book, THE DEMON MAGE. I've been querying this book for a hot minute, and fruitlessly submitted it to some mentorship programs, and now that I've got some wonderful critique partners giving me feedback, I realized it's time to make some fixes again. So querying is going on pause, other projects are getting shelved, and I'm diving back into the world of Windermere with Robin and Florent. I'm starting by simply reading the most recent draft of it, and already I've taken pages of notes of what I want to fix or do differently. I also realized I haven't touched this book beyond the first chapter since about this time last year –– I finalized this draft during the first few weeks of the covid shutdown. So I haven't done a rewrite since I wrote books 2 and 3, meaning I got to know my characters so much better since writing this first book, and it shows. Yesterday I read parts of the unedited first draft of book 3, and I swear it sounds like it's written by a different person from book 1. It's wild. So, yes, THE DEMON MAGE needs some fixes, and honestly, I'm ready for it. Let's go. I miss these characters, I have some big plans for the antagonists, and I'm ready to zshush it up to make it better.
Then back to querying we go :)
That's really all I've got going on! I've been using the word-count tracker on NaNoWriMo to keep track of my writing progress since the beginning of January, and not only have I managed to write at least a few hundred words for 33 days straight (!!), I also have somehow written over 70k in a month and a half. That is wild, but I'm loving this productivity. This is what I tell people when they ask me how I find the time to write so often and get so much done: it's a routine. It was how I survived when my workplace was closed for four months during covid lockdown. My days became get up, have some coffee, sit down and write at least 1000 words. Then it became 2000. Some days I went for 3000. These days I aim for anywhere between 1200 and 2000, and sometimes I go higher and sometimes I go lower. Depends on a lot of things. But I've built daily writing into my routine, and it's a critical part of my day. I'm more likely to skip breakfast than skip writing.
Maybe next week I'll talk about how I avoid writer's block, and how I deal with it when I do run into it. Because it definitely sucks, but I have some tricks to shoo it away.
Finally, like I said earlier, THE ORACLE STONE has been out for almost two weeks, and I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who's bought a copy, shared the news, and rated/reviewed it. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you picked up my little book.
If you'd like an adventurous read about three trying-their-best mages attempting to refrain from killing each other as they hunt down the pieces of a lost magical artifact that could upset the balance of the world's magic, check out my debut, THE ORACLE STONE! Available now in ebook and paperback through Amazon.
If you grab a paperback copy, submit your receipt to this form to get some awesome book-themed goodies, all illustrated by me!
And if you read and enjoy THE ORACLE STONE, I'd love if you left a rating and review on Amazon and Goodreads so other readers know how great it is ;)
Until next time!
😎✌🏻 Talli
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