Category: The Writing

With the re-release of Lady Wyre’s stories coming over the next few months (Lady Wyre’s Regret is available free right now, and Lady Doctor Wyre re-releases August 26th), I thought I’d talk a little about these books for the newer people who may not have been around in 2011 when she first came to be.

First of all, it astounds me that she’s EIGHT years old. It just doesn’t seem possible.

Your first question may be why on earth did I choose the Regency period for a SF mash-up?

My first actual published story was a Regency short story in a now defunct ezine. Yep I know. Given Shara’s dark and bloody story, that may surprise you lol. But when I was younger, I read a TON of Regencies. I read EVERY Regency Signet my small-town country library had on the shelf. Years later, I loved Amanda Quick. I loved the gowns and titles, the stories of wallflowers and rakes, Dukes and nannies. And of course I loved the great Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.

But I’m not an historical writer. I can (and did) research the time period, but it’s not my speciality. I was afraid of making title mistakes especially. But they were so fun – much more fun than the more strict and staid Victorian period.

When steampunk began to rise in popularity, I was intrigued, definitely. But I couldn’t get into the Victorian period at all. I also didn’t really care for the “steam” aspect – which is kinda important for steampunk! Duh. But it got my brain bursting with ideas.

What if… Regency ladies ran amok in space? Even better – what if ladies REIGNED in space? Because the number one thing that always irritates me is patriarchy in SF. Come on, people! There are so many reasons that women could and should be more powerful than in a traditional patriarchal society! Let’s play. Let’s have some fun and encourage women in sciences and positions of power. Let’s make that the NORM.

So I knew I wanted the main character to be a lady. A duchess, naturally. But I also wanted her to be special. I took some elements of Doctor Who (which is why she’s Lady Doctor Wyre), the fun outlaw adventure aspect from Firefly, and the elements of Regency Society that I enjoyed – and turned them on their head. Instead of the Mamas hot on the heels of the dashing young (rich) lord for their daughters, they’re hot on the heels of the dashing powerful (rich) ladies for their blushing sons.

Lady Wyre is just the beginning of what I hoped to do in this world.

But circumstances were stacked against her. The main problem, I think, was that I was stretched over too many series at too many publishers at the time. I took over a year to release the next stories each time, and that’s just too slow, even back in 2011. We also struggled with marketing. We tried marketing her as steampunk – but she’s NOT steampunk. So it just never took off like we hoped, even though Lady Doctor Wyre was nominated for a Romantic Times Book Reviews award. Then, of course, Samhain went out of business entirely, and I was adrift and unsure what I wanted to do.

So hopefully I can correct those mistakes this time around and give her a better chance at success. I love this story world too much to let her languish on my hard drive any longer!

If you’ve been waiting on an update for Lady Wyre, REJOICE!

Lady Doctor Wyre was originally published in 2011 by Samhain. When they went out of business in 2016/2017, I was indecisive about how I wanted to proceed with republishing the series. Then Shara took off, and I just didn’t have time to come back to Lady Wyre.

She’s been languishing long enough.

Over the next few months, I’m going to republish Lady Doctor Wyre, Lord Regret’s Price, Her Grace’s Stable, and finally, cap off the relaunch with a new book, Lady Wyre’s Rebels. If the relaunch does well, I’ll plan to write some of the other books I wanted to do in this series, like the Deathright and Seven Crows (working titles) I had planned.

For now, you can grab a copy of the free prequel, Lady Wyre’s Regret, to learn more about this series.

It’s been a busy week – so busy I forgot to even list out what all came out this week!

Queen Takes Darkness is now available! This is a short novella featuring Helayna Ironheart – the wolf king’s sister you met briefly in Queen Takes Triune. This story will be included in the MORE print anthology available exclusively at Literary Love Savannah in July. Though you can order a copy directly from me if you’d like. I’ll be getting a link set up on the Shop shortly.

Queen Takes Rook is also now available in audio! Even better, Queen Takes Checkmate will release next month. I’m so glad this series continues to be made available in the audio format.

Releasing today, Seduced by Myths includes a short novella from me titled, “On Death’s Wings.” This is a re-imagining of Beautiful Death, written the way I wished I could have written it in 2005.

I’m hard at work on adding some fresh new bonus content to add to “Queen Takes Alpha,” “Queen Takes Twins,” and “Queen Takes A Late Christmas,” which were all previously released in Between the Sheets anthologies (and are no longer available). Queen Takes More will be available the first week of June.

And finally, WHEW! I told you it was a busy week! The pre-order for a new project is now up. Magic & Mayhem is an Academy-themed boxed set that will include our favorite unicorn vampire princess. I don’t have the title for Xochitl’s story yet, but I can’t wait to dig in to her story.

If you’ve been waiting to get your complete set of Their Vampire Queen books, I’ve finally got the bundles loaded. Choose just the six main books, tote and shirt – or add a bracelet or coffee mug if you’d like. All shipping is US priority shipping.

I’ll be loading the shirts separately in a few minutes! That way if you already have the books, you can grab just the shirt.

Next up, I’ll be adding House Ironheart and Mythomorphoses wear!

Part of the Writer’s Journey is figuring out how to improve my process. I want to write my BEST books every time – but also turn them around FASTER. I don’t want to give you books that you’re not satisfied with, or aren’t my best work. Yet I also need to make sure I’m not wasting my time, goofing off playing games or whatever (though sometimes the best way to get around a mental block is to do something else and let my sub-conscious mind work on it).

I’ve been trying to do a better job with keeping a kanban board on my wall over my writing area. We keep electronic boards for the Evil Day Job, but for my writing stuff, I really like having the physical board. I wasn’t the best at keeping this updated in Q1. e.g. some of the notes are from Dec, but I kept them up because I was lazy.

But at a glance, I can definitely get a good idea of what I have coming up, and what I *finally* finished – e.g. look at all those stickies of word counts! That was for Queen Takes Triune. You can see that toward the end, I just quit with the notes, because I had the end in sight. (The book ended up crossing 90k).

Anyway, I’m getting ready to clear the board and so thought I’d grab a picture of it first.

Why, yes, that Europe song is on my playlist! Along with Never Be the Same (Camila Cabello), Permanent (Spag Heddy), Glitter & Gold (Barns Courtney), The Greatest Show theme song, and Hurricane from Hamilton.

It’s the final countdown. The last book for Shara’s main arc (though trust me, I have lots more stories percolating in Their Vampire Queen’s world with new queens, and Shara will obviously play a huge part).

Ra has it coming, and Shara fucking Isador will deliver.

This month is all about finishing the series I started just a little over a year ago. (I bought the cover in June and had the first glimmer of an idea then.) My plate is cleared. Queen Takes Jaguars is finished, and will be included in the Realms & Rebels boxed set in August.

I want to be finished with Checkmate *before* I head out to Literary Love Savannah the last week of July. It’d be terrific if I could release before then – but we’ll see. I do still have a long ways to go and I’m quickly running out of July.

Don’t look at the pic if you don’t want to be spoiled, though I admit, it’s pretty sparse. This is how I’ve started “plotting.” I say that loosely, because even I don’t know what all of the notes mean yet. But I sit down and jot out what I want to cover on 2 pages in my traveler’s notebook. That’s it. Note: this doesn’t include the scenes I’ve already written. I already had them figured out. This is what I have left.

I’ll say that again. I have no idea what some of these mean – I just know they’re important. The magic will guide me when I get there. But you can see that I have a TON of plot to get through yet.

So I’d better get busy.

 Shara and her men are back and the hits (and heat and blood) just keep on coming. (snickers)

Queen Takes Rook went live last night, but it has really taken some time for the links to filter through the Amazon mazes. People were having a hard time finding it, and at one point, we joked we’d broken Amazon!  We didn’t of course but it was fun.

The reviews are pouring in and I’m just dumbfounded and awed. Thank you, each and every person, who’s picked up a copy and left a review already! It makes me smile to see comments like “best in the series so far,” because I truly want each book to be better and better.

Shara’s taking us on one crazy ride.

And here’s the funniest part. All four books? Happen in the span of a month. Yet she’s already killed a thrall, turned into a Cobra Queen, dragged Leviathan out of his prison, killed some vicious ants, taken her first sibling, gained ten Blood (including five-hundred-year-old virgin twins), and…

Well. I won’t spoil anything. Go read it!

I need a few more days to finish Queen Takes Rook. I’ve been pushing hard, but I needed to take a few days off to be with my Beloved Sister while she had surgery this week. The first half has already been sent off to a few betas and editors, so hopefully the last half will go quickly.

I’ll finish the last few scenes, do my edits, send it to the betas and editors, and then switch back to make the final revision pass while they look at the last half.

Sorry for the delay – but I promise, it’ll be worth it! Shara kicks some major ass in this book.

Do you hear the tick tick tocking thundering away? That’s the sound of my self-imposed deadline quickly approaching for Queen Takes Rook.

I’m honestly nowhere close to being “done” yet. It’s going to be a mad scramble to finish, and I’ll have to hope my editors, beta readers, and formatter can fit me in quickly to make the deadline on the 17th. I won’t put out a book that’s not edited, so have no fears in that regard. But I’m definitely going to be cutting it close.

And it’s so frustrating because on paper, I had plenty of time. But there’s more to writing than just getting the words down. On top of the business aspect (ads, giveaways, takeovers, etc.), some books require a lot of thought. I’ve been pecking away at Rook for weeks now, and it’s been a slow chiseling process. It’s still mostly a giant hunk of shapeless stone. Though I can see what I want just beneath the surface, and I’m tapping a little quicker on it now.

In the past, I would have given up by now. I would have picked up another project because it was easier. I would have decided to work on another series (for my other publisher), or start a new idea, and goddess, yes, I’ve been so tempted. I even have a trilogy set of covers in the works with exclusive photography on a new series that’s only in my head. I have a spinoff “dark queen” cover I bought from a different designer, and two others I’d like to commission her to do that will match it.

Not to mention the other ten or so covers I’ve bought that caught my eye, or were cheap, or just spoke to me somehow.

It’s taken me years and years, but I’ve finally realized I have to just finish this series. No matter how hard it is. Now matter how shiny something else is. I have to finish it. Now. Not in six months or a year. That will stall my momentum again.

It’s a marathon right now and I’m at the part where my fingers feel like hunks of concrete and my brain feels like slogging through quicksand and I wonder if I’ll ever even see the finish line. I’ve got the pedal pushed to the floor, engine whining, tires spinning…  I’m barely moving, but I am moving in the right direction.

Eventually, the tires will hit solid ground and I’ll accelerate to the speed of light and finish in a rush of glory that will leave me giddy for days.

Goddess, let it be soon.