Happy 2025! I can’t believe it’s almost June, and it’s the first time I’m posting this year. It’s been a wild ride this past year with a lot of unexpected and unwelcome surprises, and unfortunately, writing had to take a backseat to all the unplanned emergencies in addition to everyday responsibilities. I am still planning to put on my writer’s hat, but for now, I’m not sure when that will be.
My plan is to at least get 15 to 30 minutes of anything book-related each weekday, so I can hopefully entice my muse to come out and tell some stories again. Hopefully, I’ll have some better writing-related news with my next update! Until then, happy reading!
Happy Spring! Yes–I know, I’m cutting it close since there’s less than three weeks until summer, but better late than never! This year so far has been an emotional rollercoaster with stressful family health scares and fun and exciting vacations. Even though the school year is almost over, I still am not able to find a balance between family life and writing. Having a 6th grader and a 3rd grader in new schools has been such a huge learning curve! Also add in extra-curricular kid activities and volunteering, and it’d be an understatement to say my plate has been full (and overflowing!). Unfortunately, I unintentionally took a hiatus from writing–just now I’m realizing how so much time has passed since my last update!
Since I haven’t made any progress on my writing goals since Jan, I had to update my 2024 goals with the hope that I can get some writing done in the summer and once school starts up again. I’m really hoping that since the kids and I now have a year of experience in their new schools, 7th and 4th grade will go a bit smoother and my muse can come out of hiding.
Happy reading, everyone! I hope to put another update at the end of summer with a better idea of how achievable my 2024 and 2025 goals actually are!
Happy Holidays everyone! Farewell 2023 and a big, excited hello to 2024!
My New Year’s resolution is to try to find a way to get back into writing! Since the school year started, my writing time had pretty much dwindled away as we dealt with dealing with new routines with my kids’ new schools, family health issues, and managing kid extra-curricular activities and the volunteering that goes with them! My writing muse pretty much gave up, but I’m hoping to coax her to get back to work in 2024!
Unfortunately, the rest of my 2023 goals had pretty much halted after releasing my paranormal romance Soul Keeper. I was determined to get Mara and Rai’s story out, and I’m so glad I was able to do it! Doing that used up all my writing bandwidth, so I wasn’t able to work on my other stories, including by YA paranormal academy series. Originally, I was planning on having Liz’s duet out in Spring 2024, but now I’m anticipating Spring 2025.
As of now, I’m not anticipating any new releases for 2024 unless my writing and home life balance shifts back to writing. I keep saying I’ll update Jane and Gray’s covers, so I’m still keeping that as a 2024 goal along with getting some paperback companions to go along with my ebooks! I do hope I can work on some drafts and have complete first drafts for Liz and Ryken’s Duet and Rose and Blue’s novella so that I can release all three in 2025. I’m also hoping to have some rough drafts and outlines for at least four more books: two adult paranormal romances under Ellie Parin and two more in my young adult Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites.
I hope to have more of an update in the next few months after I have a few weeks to see how writing is going!
I can’t believe we’re already into October! We’ve got one more week until Soul Keeper‘s release, and I’m so excited to share Mara and Rai’s story with everyone! I made a little Tik Tok video that I hope captures the light-hearted and fun vibe from the book. There are also dark parts since it is a paranormal romance, but my muse wanted to also make it a fun book for our two leads that have not-so-fun backstories.
With the kids back in school, I had figured I’d be able to get back into the swing of things with writing. Unfortunately, I’m an optimist, so reality hit me hard this month. Having a kiddo in middle school is a huge change for our family, and combined with my youngest also starting a new school, sports, and health issues with the kids…well, let’s just say that writing had to take a back seat. I’m really pushing myself to get Soul Keeper out next Tuesday as planned. I wish I could say the same about my other books, but I wasn’t able to make any other progress in writing in September. I’m hoping our routines will settle down so that I’ll be able to focus on Liz’s story and make some progress with her duet this month.
Happy reading, and see you next week on release day!
Happy Mid-Summer! I can’t believe the summer is half-way over with school starting in little over a month. We’ve been enjoying the summer break with family vacations, camps, and kid activities. Writing got pushed to the back seat, but I still somehow managed to still get Soul Keeper polished and on track for a Fall release.
I updated my goals for the rest of 2023, and hopefully it’ll be doable! Both kiddos are starting new schools in Sept, so I’m guessing that it’ll take us time to figure out our new routines. I am really hoping to get some paperbacks out, but I know I’ve been saying that since last year! I’m close to two more goals: Soul Keeper should be ready in Sept/Oct 2023 and Liz’s 1st book is about 10k words shy of a completed rough draft. Liz’s second book is about half way done, and Rose’s novella is about a fifth in, so I’m feeling good about those goals, too!
That’s about it for this writing update—I hope to have some teasers out for Soul Keeper in Sept! Happy reading!
I’m so excited that Soul Enchanter, which has been in the works for over a decade, is finally out in the world today! I love druid Bellamy and demon Zain, and I hope you do, too!
Also, since it’s Teaser Tuesday, here’s another teaser for you!
Yep…what do you do when you’re a demon believing you’re incapable of being loved and your enemy keeps insisting there’s something between you two? With both of their memories tampered with, do you believe what others you trust tell you or what your heart tells you?
Phew…I am still in disbelief and so thrilled to have this book out, considering I didn’t think my muse would let me finish writing it. For those of you that missed me writing about it, almost a decade ago, I only had a copy of the manuscript saved on my laptop, which then died horribly, leaving me without a backup and a muse on strike. It took me writing book two in the series to finally get my muse back in working order to rewrite Soul Enchanter, and the best part is that book two, Soul Keeper, is being polished and available later in a few months! I’m aiming for a September or October 2023 release. What makes me really excited about these releases is that I was able to reach my writing goal of having two releases in one year (totally counting twelve months since Jane and Gray’s second book release and then with Soul Keeper, officially two in 2023!)! I’m hoping I can continue the trend for next year when I switch over to focus on my YA academy series with Liz’s duet.
With the end of the school year and the kids being out for summer, I’m not expecting much writing to get done over the summer. My focus will be on polishing Soul Keeper and trying to see if I can get some paperbacks out for the Jane and Gray’s duet in my YA academy series, and Soul Enchanter. I feel like getting a paperback for Soul Enchanter will be easier than for Jane and Gray since I still haven’t figured how to rework their cover, while I’m happy with the cover for Soul Enchanter. With that, look for my next writing update at the end of the summer in August or September when I should also have teasers coming out for Soul Keeper!
Happy flower season! I’ve been loving watching all the flowers pop up this month, especially cherry blossom trees, daffodils, and tulips! Spring is my favorite season with all the different colors popping everywhere I look! April was a crazy busy month with Spring Break and both PTA and kid activities, and I absolutely loved it!
Now, to this month’s writing wrap-up! Soul Enchanter, the first book in my paranormal romance demon and druids series, is soooo close to being done! I’m hoping to have the preorder up sometime this month and the release in June, so be on the look out for some teasers and posts about it coming soon!
I wasn’t able to focus much on my young adult Anderson Grimm Academy of Elites series, but I was able to add 16k words to both Liz and Rose’s stories. I also upped the target word count so, Liz’s story will probably be a little bit longer than Jane’s. Rose and Blue’s story is probably going to end up being a little bit longer than a novella, but it’s hard to still tell if it’ll end up being a full-blown novel. Rose’s story definitely won’t be big enough to be a duet like Jane’s and Liz’s though.
So, that’s my short update for April 2023 with the hope that I’ll pop in with teasers for Soul Enchanter! Here’s to a happy May!
Happy Spring! I’m glad winter is finally over and am looking forward to some warmth and sunshine! Winter was extra tough this year with illnesses, so I ended up skipping Feb’s update since I didn’t have anything really to update. I’ve also been really busy with my kids’ school and after school activities, so I’ve stepped back into being a part-time writer instead of full-time. On the plus side, I did accomplish enough to give a March update so hurray for that!
For my 2023 goals, nothing much has changed although Jane and Gray’s covers and paperbacks are firmly on the back-burner. At this point, I feel like it’s become a running gag that I’m getting them out, because I can’t seem to find the inspiration and time to sit down and get those covers done! I am still planning on releasing my adult paranormal romances Soul Enchanter and Soul Keeper this year with tentative target months of June and Sept, respectively! I might push up the third book in the Soul Enchanter’s series on my WiP list depending on how well the first two do, but right now the third book is slated for 2026. In my young adult Anderson Grimm Academy of Elites series, I’m still hoping to have Liz’s duet, Rose’s novella, and Devil’s novella mostly written by the end of year so that I’ll be in a good spot for next year’s releases.
For my current WiPs, I’m so incredibly excited for Soul Enchanter and Soul Keeper to be released this year! Soul Enchanter has been over a decade in the making, which makes it extra special to me. Soul Keeper is officially my favorite book that I’ve ever written and has a female lead that I had a blast writing. Expect teasers and a cover reveal as we get closer to launch day in hopefully June! Liz and Ryken’s duet is over half done, but I’m still struggling with how to handle so much overlap between Jane and Gray’s story and Liz’s book 1. The second half has been much easier to write, since I don’t have to keep going back to make sure timelines and dialogues are consistent. I haven’t done much for Rose and Blue, but their story is outlined and should be straightforward to write with only a little bit of overlap with Jane and Liz’s duets.
There you have it! April will be busy super busy with PTA activities, spring break, and the start of softball season, so we’ll see what I have to report with my April wrap-up!
Wow—has January 2023 really flown by?! Home life has been pretty busy, but I think I’ve gotten a bit better with managing writing and being a stay at home mom. I’m still waaaay too optimistic with thinking what I can do, but I can’t change that about me—luckily, I can change and update my goals!
I didn’t get much first draft writing done this month, so I’m not going to be posting my word count graph (~400 words/day if you’re really curious). BUT I finished the first draft to Soul Enchanter AND the first major draft revision to switch the POV from 3rd to 1st! So I’m officially calling January 2023 a successful writing month for me! I tentatively have the end of May as my target for publishing it, so wish me luck!
Aside from polishing Soul Enchanter, I’m hoping to focus on my Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites world in Feb. I’d still like for Liz, Rose, and Devil’s drafts to be mostly done this year, but I’m pushing Rage’s draft off my 2023 goals for now. As for Jane and Gray’s new covers, I’ve got a rough sketch for the first book. I’m hoping to have the new covers done—or at least get a rough sketch for the second book—by the end of Feb!
That’s it for my recap for January. Happy reading!
Happy New Year! Thanksgiving to New Years was super busy in our household, and I loved it! I love celebrating the holidays, and Christmas is my favorite holiday by far! The kids also had school off, so we spent time hanging out together cleaning/organizing the house, watching new TV series, and playing board and video games while getting over colds. We had snow fall the week before Christmas, but we had to limit our fun to looking at the gorgeous snowscape from inside our house since we had coughs running through our house.
Onto my December writing recap: nothing new. I couldn’t focus on writing with all our December household activities, so no new updates with writing aside from making the decision to change my Demon Souls series POV from third person to first person. I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to update that so I’m going to push back those releases. I’ve also learned that there really is so much I can do, so I need to simplify my goals even further. I’m hoping that taking a month off means I’ll be refreshed with writing, so here’s to my 2023 writing goals!
My publishing goals for 2023 are the same as what I posted in my November wrap up. I want to update Jane and Gray’s covers and release the paperbacks and have a summer/fall ebook release for the first two books in my Demon Souls series. I’m adding a few non-publishing goals for 2023, too. I’d like to have a complete first draft for Liz’s first book and have close to completed first drafts for Liz’s second book, Rose’s novella, Devil’s novella, and Rage’s spinoff. Those are pretty big goals so we’ll see what happens! If I can do that, then I’ll be in really good shape for 2024!
That’s it for now! Happy New Year and see you in the January wrap up post!
Ellie Parin & L.E. Parin 