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!
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!
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 Halloween! I love the idea of a supernatural world, as you can tell with my paranormal and fantasy stories! This is one of my favorite times of the year, and the kids and I had so much fun painting and carving pumpkins and decorating cookies over the weekend! It’s supposed to rain tonight, but I’m hoping we can still get some trick-or-treating in before we get totally soaked!
Alright, so on to my monthly writing update! Well, I’m still officially a full-time writer, and I still have no idea what I’m doing! I’m still working on trying to find a balance between being a writer, organizing the house, and being a stay-at-home mom to two elementary-aged kids. I’ve had to ease up some more on writing expectations for myself, since a birthday celebration vacation, kids’ extracurricular activities, and a bad cough/cold running through our household ate into my writing time. I still managed to make my average daily word count goal with 1075 words/day, so I’m happy with that!
I also had to update my writing goals for the rest of 2022. I’m torn whether to update my Howls in the Moonlight book or completely unpublish and rewrite it and follow up with a rapid release of the entire trilogy. I’m also stuck what to do with my Soul Keeper trilogy, since my muse is still being stubborn about writing book 1 and flittering about when it comes to figuring out an outline with book 3. Hopefully by the end of 2022, I can figure out which trilogy to focus on for a 2023 release. I still am hoping for paperbacks and updated covers for the first two books in my Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites series, but since that totally depends on my photoshop skills, it’s slow-going!
As for what I’ve been actively working on this month, I’ve got Soul Keeper with my Beta reader! I’m now ~70k words in Liz and Ryken’s duet with ~46k of those in the first book, Dud Discovered. Rose and Blue have ~3k words in their novella. Originally, I was going to have one of their scenes in Liz and Ryken’s duet, but since it might be too much of a cliff-hanger instead of a hook, I decided to shift it to their novella. Depending on where my muse wants to take me, I might actually have Liz and Ryken’s duet out next year instead of 2024, but we’ll see how it goes! I’ve found that I’m overly optimistic with my writing schedule and then have to adjust accordingly! Even though I want to believe I can write and publish four books a year, I think I should be more realistic and first work up to publishing two a year.
That’s it for my October wrap up! Happy Halloween and have a wonderful November!
It’s official: I’m a full-time writer now, and I have no idea what I’m doing!
But that’s okay, because I’m slowly figuring it out! September marks what I consider my first full month of being a full-time writer since my kids are back in school, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to manage my time with writing and trying to get our house in order after two plus years of being hidden away during the pandemic. Over the summer, I tried social media for promotion and writing a minimum of 1000 words per day. The result? I basically started September frustrated and burnt out!
So, I decided that September I’d set up more reasonable goals. Instead of getting frustrated when I couldn’t write 1000 words, I decided to keep track of my daily word count and aim for a monthly average of 1000 words! I decided to drop social media and maybe pick those up again once I have more books out. If you’re looking for updates, you can find them here on my blog or through my Facebook Page. I’m not planning on releasing any other books in 2022 and instead focus on polishing up the books I already have published before putting out new books.
My current main goal for 2022 is to polish up my Howls in the Moonlight book. This was the first book I ever published, and even though I absolutely love it, it’s almost a totally different writing style from what I have now. I’m working on removing head-hopping and adding a bit more steam, so we’ll see how that goes! Once I’m done reworking Howls, I’m going to rework my Prince of Shadows book so it’s more inline with my current writing style. I’m also working on redoing the covers for Jane and Gray’s duet so they look more like current YA Academy book covers and then hopefully get some paperbacks released for them.
I currently have ten books fighting for attention in my mind, so it’s been hard trying to figure out what to work on next! I’ve spent September focused on writing four books. I’m totally in love with my new PNR slow burn, spicy Soul Keeper book, which features demons, druids, and a feisty human. This was actually the second book in a series I had planned out, but I had lost the draft for the first book so this series went on the back burner. While I was anxiously awaiting the launch for Wolf Claimed, I worked on Soul Keeper as a totally different palate cleanser. I’m hoping to release Soul Keeper next year with the other two books in the trilogy, but first I have to convince my muse to rewrite the first book.
As for the other three books? Those would be the next three books in my YA slow burn, sweet Andersen Grimm Academy of Elites series! I’m having trouble with this one since Liz’s first book takes place during the same period as Jane and Gray’s duet as a companion novel. So, if you’ve read Jane and Gray’s book, you already know the main surprises for Liz. The tricky part: how do I still make this exciting for my readers? Liz’s second book picks up where Jane and Gray’s duet ends, so that will be totally new. I have about 40k words done for Liz and Ryken’s duet in total with a target of 160k words split between the two books. Rose and Blue’s novella follows next, and I have about 2k words to get that novella off the ground! My plan is to get those three books and Rage’s book (which will be written under Ellie Parin since that’ll be an adult PNR spinoff) in 2024.
Ellie Parin & L.E. Parin 