Okay, let's do a writing update. I've been making a lot of progress on my current novels, and now that it's 2016, it's time for me to set my publishing dates for the year. As some of you know, because you been following my blog for a while, I've been working on a cozy mystery series. Between October and the end of November, I wrote the first book in the series. I took a week off and then got started in the second book of the series right at the beginning of December.
Just yesterday, I crossed the 70,000 word mark on book two of the series! I'm in the home stretch, only another 5000 to 6000 more words to write. In fact, I think I only have three more scenes to write, so I will come in just under 80,000 words for this novel. It's been a long road, especially keeping my word counts up during the holidays. It's not easy to write when everybody is home in my house, and I struggled with getting the words in everyday. Many days I plain did not write, but that never lasted more than 24 hours. Now, I'm right on track to finish before my birthday on January 18th (I may even finish this weekend!)
I really love the series so far. My main character, Mei, is a joy to write. She's a bit down on her luck, and she has a hard time accepting when things actually go her way (she denies it to the sky and back). She’s sweet and kind and cares about her family and friends, but she's also very complex, willing to lie or suppress the truth if it helps others or gets her into situations where she can find clues to who the murderer is. She’s a good actor. Lol. I'm really enjoying writing her. Plus, there are a lot of great side characters in these books, best friends, friends of Mei’s mother, and, of course, a love interest with a very public past. Mei contrasts really well with the love interest. He's a successful guy who’s fought hard for everything he’s earned, and she's been anything but successful. I like to see the way they interact. She challenges him and he challenges her. They’re a lot fun.
According to my schedule I can take a week off when I'm done writing this book. Then I need to quickly edit the last short story I wrote (which was forever ago). This is another Kami No Sekai short story that had a great idea, but was missing something. I talked it over with my critique partner, Tracy, and we figured out the missing piece, so now I have to fix it. I then need to plot the novella that I plan to publish in December. This novella is part of a huge scifi shared-world series. Lots of authors are participating and writing their own stories within one shared world. It’s really fun, and will be a one-off, so I’m excited to see where it takes me. We'll see if I get around the actual plotting though, because January and February are not usually my most productive months. I'd like to at least have a solid idea of what to write before I start edits on the first cozy mystery.
Also, I plan to reveal the covers and titles for book 1 and 2 of the cozy mystery series before the end of January, but I won't put up the preorder for the first book until late February. The covers are a flat illustration style using sillouhettes for my main character. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good illustration of a Japanese woman without the clothes being all wrong (usually Chinese) and not overly sexualized? VERY HARD. If the novels do well, I may get custom illustrations done in the future, but right now, I like what I have going, and I need to save money in the first part of this year. I'm aiming to publish the first book in April, publish the next short story in June, and publish the second cozy mystery in July. After that my schedule is a little hazy, assuming I get everything done.
I have a lot of work ahead of me. I decided to write the cozy mystery series in present tense for the first draft and then revise it to past tense in the second draft. This means I'll do at least three drafts for every book. Which is good, I suppose, but it makes for a shorter reading time for my critique partner and beta readers. If only I could write the books in past tense the first time, but that's proving to be very hard for me. What can I do? Maybe with time I'll be able to change that.
So that's what's going on with me and my writing! I have more words to write today and over the weekend. And you have plenty more books to look forward to! :-) See you all soon!
That’s so exciting your second cozy mystery novel is almost finish too! Mei sounds like a great character and I can’t wait to meet her! April isn’t too far away, yay!
Those sci-fi novella’s by multiple authors int he same shared world sound very intriguing as well. Are the actual stories connected as well or just the world?
Let me know if you want me to organize a cover reveal for your cozy mysteries! I am curious to see the covers. I’ve seen the flat style illustrations for some cozy mysteries and they work really well, although it would be very cool if you could get custom illustrations if the books do well.
You mentioned it with your other books as well how hard it was to find right stock pictures of japanese people. It’s weird there are so little good stock pictures of japanese people.
Good luck with the writing and I can’t wait to read all the books you have planned to release this year!
I think I may need to start a “movement” towards better images of asians in general. I’ve seen a few great photographers on FB I may approach about this and see what comes of it.
I’m not sure about the cover reveal for the series! I think I may send them to you prior and get your opinion on it because I wasn’t sure if you did cozy mysteries, though you are reading them now. I’ll let you know!
And as for the scifi novellas, some of the characters may show up in multiple novels but the stories aren’t interconnected except for all the details about the world. I’m finding the whole thing intimidating but also exciting, so I’m ready to take on the new challenge! :)
If you could pull that movement off it would be cool!
I actually tour every genre, which probably wasn’t the best decision marketing wise, but I didn’t want to limit myself by focussing on only a few genres.
I just haven’t had a lot of mysteries authors as costumers yet, although I did tour a MG mystery last year and yesterday put a review opp for an adult mystery on my site. So who knows, maybe I’ll get some more (cozy) mystery costumers in the future.
It does sound exciting how all the stories will take place in the same world. Will it be bundled in one book/ box set or all seperate novella’s?
It’ll be a bunch of separate novellas. Right now, the same person, Scarlett Dawn, put together a whole paranormal romance/shifter world called Woodland Creek. You can see them all on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Woodland-Creek/e/B016PH4AIO/
So, it’ll be the same concept for our scifi romance series!
Wow that are a lot of books in the same world. I like how the covers all match, but it’s quite pricey if you want to buy them all.
It sure is an interesting concept!
I think in this case a reader would buy a familiar author’s book and then might try another author with a blurb they’re interested in because they already know the world from the first book they read. Probably some people would only read a few. But a lot are in Kindle Unlimited so if a reader had a subscription they could read through the majority of them without breaking the bank.
I’ve seen a few of that Woodland Creek series where the blurb sounds interesting, I haven’t checked them all out yet, but if I could get them all in a box set I probably would just grab that if I like the genre.
Also, good to know that you tour every genre! I didn’t realize that! :)
I might have to focus on that a bit more. It is mentioned on my service page, but I think that’s the only place. As there some genres I haven’t toured or haven’t toured a lot yet I can see why people might think I don’t tour those. I’ve had a few questions already to ask if I tour a certain genre.
I only don’t do non-fiction as I don’t feel like I can adequately promote that and the audience for those is quite different.
I can’t even remember the issue with the short story. It’s been quite awhile!
It was missing something, a secondary plot point. I think I know what to do with it, but we’ll see when I reopen the file!
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