Kitties and Possums and Squirrels--OH MY!!

The first week of the new year is under my belt. Taking off the last two weeks of the year did me a world of good. I thought I could hit the keyboard hard after a break.

Except the universe and my Muse had other ideas. Too many ideas as it were. I've got future projects lined up, but Muse wants to work on all of them at the same time!

I also need to upgrade both my main computer and my travel laptop. On the former, I didn't get a chance to swap out the 512G with 2T drives. My anticipated quiet holiday was not as quiet as I'd planned. However, that task needs to wait until I get back from a writing class in Las Vegas next week.

Which leads to my latter problem. My travel laptop Baby Blue doesn't have the room to do any upgrades, especially virus protection. It is essentially only useful as a word processor. And I need the upgrades because I need to access the internet during the Vegas class. *sigh*

Both DH and I did a great deal of research and testing based on such research, but Baby Blue simply won't let us boot from a flash drive or an SD card even after cloning Baby Blue's drive. Since I was running out of time, DH found a reasonable facsimile of Baby Blue with a larger hard drive. Now, it's a question of installing the operating system and MS Office so I can do my assignments during the class.

I'm lucky DH has stayed up on tech over the last thirty years. I know just enough to be dangerous.

What does this all mean?

I won't update word counts on the blog until I get back. I'm skipping a release for January because I've already got a homework assignment for this class that needs to be finished before I leave for the class. Next Wednesday, I'll post the first chapter of War of the Witches, so you have an idea of what's coming next year. And I can buckle down on writing this year's releases during my flights.

And if I get delayed at an airport because of snow, well, that'll be more writing time, right?

What's Happening in the Angry Sheep World

Greetings to my patient readers!

I know it's been two weeks since I posted. Things have been super busy. 

Genius Kid flew out to his next assignment last week. We spent last week getting the things he needed and seeing family since he'll be overseas for a year. Unfortunately, the Grandpuppy misses his hoomun terribly, so he needs extra love and attention.

Which, of course, made Princess Pup jealous. That has meant extra carpet cleaning with her displeasure.

I had the opportunity to be the announcer for our town's semi-pro football team for a couple of games over the summer. So, Darling Husband volunteered me to do some announcing for the high school soccer teams this fall. The school's regular announcer had to drop a few sports because of some health issues. However, the jobs are being split among several people, so I"m not saddled with everything. I don't mind helping out, but I get the most writing done when DH running the time for the lacrosse teams in the spring and the soccer teams in the fall.

I also need to make some changes to my business in preparation for opening an online store and update my estate plan since I now have a lot of IP. So there's been a lot of phone calls, e-mails, and meetings with my new attorney.

Is any writing getting done? Yes, but just not at my usual pace. The new plan is to leave the house in the morning and turn off my phone. There's a new French-style cafe that just opened near our house I want to try. Sounds like a perfect hidey-hole for the rest of August and September.

To everyone out there, new books are coming.

And school has started in a lot of places already, so please watch out for buses and kids!

The Return of the Writer

Our convoy arrived at Casa Harden approximately ten p.m. last Sunday. Except for a couple of annoyances, the trip was uneventful, though hot as f**k. Daytime temps were 100 degrees through Texas and Arkansas and in the nineties until we hit northern Kentucky.

Between the stress of the heat and the heavy holiday traffic, my barely-hanging-together endocrine system rebelled. It's bad when the pain lasts for longer than three days and prevents me from attending yoga classes or writing coherently.

In a few years, I won't be able to drive or ride on long roadtrips, which disappoints me greatly. There's something about traveling the open road in the U.S. Each state has it's own personality to experience. New sights. Different plants and critters. Different environments.

Frankly, I've learned to appreciate my home state more by seeing and experiencing different places. (In fact, I had to take this picture to prove that yes, Ohio does have trees. LOL)

Hopefully, I can get back on track with A Cup of Conflict. if not this weekend, then next week. The pain just needs to lighten enough that I can ignore it.

News May Be Intermittant

I've had more than a few readers ask about when the next release will be for their favorite series. The only definite one right now is Feline Navidad (Millersburg Magick #4), which will be out December 1st. The only reason that one is definite is because I was roughly a quarter of the way done with it before I realized I needed to make some large changes to the ending of Magick and Murder.

So, what's going on? Really, nothing but writing and organizing since I got the taxes done last week. I've been bouncing between Death Goddess Walking (The Books of Apep #1) and A Cup of Conflict (Justice #10) plus working on some short stories for submission.

Unfortunately, I'm not a speedy writer like some of my friends. Nor do I use AI. (I have my own thoughts on the use of AI, even though I know too many people using it, but we won't discuss that subject here or now.)

Also, I'm what is referred to as a "plantser". I usually have a rough idea of which direction a story will take. However, I don't know exactly what will happen, and I'm often surprised by which choices my characters make.

What can I say? The peeps living inside my head keep me on my toes.

As for the organizing part, Genius Kid will be deployed during the third quarter of the year. (If you want to know where and why, keep up with international events.) He wants to store his belongings here, which is totally fine. But I haven't unpacked our boxes yet. Yeah, yeah, I know. We moved into this house roughly three and a half years ago, but I've been busy writing books!😼

So, yes, I will post here when something is completed, when it goes up on pre-order and/or has a Kickstarter campaign scheduled, and when it is live on the various retailers. I just don't want to give y'all false expectations.

Like Tiffany Stephens says in the Bloodlines series, Murphy is the one true god. And he likes to mess up my plans in this universe, too.

Quiet for a Reason

I've been a little busy. The Death in Double Mocha e-book went out to the backers of the Soccer Moms of the Apocalypse Kickstarter campaign who ordered it.

Also, I'm finishing up Queer Eye for the Super Guy for release next week.

Once that's done, I desperately need to weed my flower beds. The dandelions are going boinkers this spring.

I will have some news next week. (I hope.)

The Missing Writer

Hello, my loyal readers!

I know I haven't made an appearance in a while. Peri-menopause has been doing a number on my sleep cycle. To the point, I was going to bed when DH was waking up. In turn, the sleep issues have screwed up my blood sugars. So, I've pushed back bedtime over the last week until I slept for the last eighteen hours straight and woke up at a normal morning time today.

It doesn't mean I haven't been writing. I've been typing at a furious pace during my waking hours. I've been setting up things for my January Kickstarter to launch the Soccer Moms of the Apocalypse series. And finally, I've been working on the last edits to get the last few novels' paperbacks out.

However, I'm taking today off and watching the Doctor Who marathon on BBCAmerica. Later this evening, I'll make chicken phyllo, and we'll curl up and watch It's a Wonderful Life. That's our Christmas tradition. However, it's the first Christmas Eve where it's just me, DH, and the pet(s) we've had in twenty-two years.

Take care everyone! I hope you have a peaceful weekend.

Heat, Reclamation, and Writing

This is a quick note to say I'm still alive. We finally were able to get a service in to clean out the basement and treat it on Friday. The only things left downstairs are the wood framing, the structural supports, and the stairs. The reclamation folks seemed fairly certain they could save the stairs.

One happy note: one of the guys discovered my Jack Skellington inflatable was sealed in plastic within the box, so it hadn't been soaking in sewer water. I need to test it outside to make sure the electronics work.

[P.S. we tested Jack before submitting the final inventory of personal property loss to the insurance adjuster. It's alive!]

The bad part is this week is one of the hottest weeks of the summer, and we have no A/C. I need to get Bella into a groomer and get her shaved down. We've resorted to sticking an ice cube or two in her water dish.

In the meantime, I'm trying to finish A Hand of Father. Between the heat and the noise, I really wish I could go sit inside a Starbucks like I used to do before the pandemic.

So I imagine I'm on this beach and reading. What are y'all doing to cope with insanity?

Time to Get Back to Business

Even though there are some additional winter celebrations to be had, the holidays are done for our family. Genius Kid left in the wee hours of the morning to spend the rest of his leave with his girlfriend. Darling Husband and I are facing a tower of boxes in the newly acquired house. And yet, we both need to get back to work today.

For me, that means setting up spreadsheets and attempting to plan out the year. I've got things I need to finish from last year, including paperbacks that didn't get released. I'm excited about the new Soccer Moms series, and I think I might write all the books before releasing any of them. I bought a few pre-made covers for an idea that got placed to the wayside years ago and is now resurrected by the pretties.

But most of all, I need to take a step back and breath instead of spinning around on the hamster wheel and not doing anything to my satisfaction.

Because if I'm not happy, the readers are generally not happy either!

Next week, I'll start posting sample chapters for A Virtue of Child. 'Til then, stay warm and stay safe!

The Ravaged Paperback Is Now Available!

For those of you who love having a hardcopy of a book, Ravaged is now available in trade paperback! You can buy it online through Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If you want to support your local bookstore, you can have them order it for you.

Right before the holidays, a reader asked why the paperback version is so much more expensive than the e-book for my titles. Unfortunately, it comes down to production and transportation costs.

For an e-book, downloading a few MBs of data is relatively inexpensive for me as the publisher. I pay the retailer a percentage of the cover price to host my book on their commercial website (and that fee covers their computers and personnel) and an additional few cents to transmit the book to you when you buy it.

For a paper book, there're more hands in the pot. The printer charges X amount to print the book, which is generally based on the number of pages. They have to pay for the paper, the ink, the machines, and their employees. Then there's the distributor. They've got to pay for the trucks that carry the books, the fuel for the trucks, the warehouses where the books are stored, and their own employees. And finally the retailer in a brick and mortar store has to pay for rent, utilities, equipment, merchandise, and their own employees. All those little costs add up.

In the final accounting, Writer Me makes less money on a paperback than I do an e-book. And that's okay because I know what it's like to want to have a paper copy of the things you read over and over again. (Though in my case, I re-read my own books because I forgot to record something in the series bible and have to go look it up. LOL)

In the end, it doesn't matter which format you prefer. As long as you're happy with the story I wrote, then I'm happy.

In other news, I'll start posting chapters of Sacrificed next Wednesday. That novel will start 2018 with a bang!

A Deep Breath and Moving On

Three weeks ago, Darling Husband's mother passed away. Unfortunately, DH and I ended up shouldering a good deal of the responsibility in the aftermath.

FYI: It's a lot harder to write an obituary for a family member than to write a 100,000-word novel.

And thanks to my own chronic health issues, the stress caught up with me and landed my butt in the ER the night after the funeral. *sigh*

But I'm back in the saddle (or in my case, alternating between my recliner and my desk chair), and things are getting done. While I was recovering, I focused on getting the Seasons of Magick series and the Bloodlines shorts reformatted and new covers on them. Okay, I mainly played traffic cop.

Jaye Manus of QA Productions does the interior work. Elaina Lee of For the Muse Design has redone the covers for the entire Bloodlines series and designed the covers for the Justice series. Don't these ladies do a fabulous job?

In between their e-mails, I started proofing the print copies of the first four Bloodlines novels that have been sitting on my desk for two years. Not to mention, I still haven't delivered Blood Sacrifice to Jaye for reformatting for the e-book as well as formatting the paperback version. I want to get those finalized before I start editing Ravaged.

And Thursday, I finally got back to writing.

Things are going a little slower than I planned. We still need to spend some time with DH's father as he makes the transition from married for 60 years man to single guy.

But the writing and publishing are inching forward, and that makes me feel pretty good.

A Moment of Silence

Due to a death in the family, things will be on hold for my various universes for the next week. This is what a couple of more experience writers call "life bumps." I hope to be back to writing and publishing soon!

Something New Under the Sun

Believe it or not, I'm doing my very first book signing. I'll be at the Findlay-Hancock County Public Library Author Fair on July 20, 2017.

I'll be ordering the books from the printer in the next couple of weeks. If you can't be in Findlay for the signing and want to buy a signed copy of one (or more) of my books, drop me a message from my website or my Facebook page.

The Very Late Mid-January Update

I'd originally planned to be releasing Resurrected in a couple of weeks. I tried to have Ravaged ready to be released by February 1.

Neither is going to happen.

I'm frustrated beyond all measure at the moment. On one side are my health issues. Endocrine breakdown exacerbates Seasonal Effective Disorder. My Vitamin D levels drop, which cause fatigue. Supplements barely make a dent, and with the overabundance of clouds and rain this winter, natural Vitamin D production is very low. So I tend to depend too much on caffeine in an effort to feel normal, which isn't a good thing either.

Then there's the other stuff that's stressing me out.

Yeah, I know no one wants to hear entertainers talk politics. Yeah, I know some you will be pissed off and swear never to read my books again. Yeah, I know I might be ruining my writing career.

But a long time ago, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of American.

Not once, but three times.

Hell, I can still recite the preamble from memory.

Now, I'm seeing people in our government blatantly ignoring due process, betraying intelligence resources, and putting our armed forces at risk.

I'm not taking party sides. They've both equally guilty of putting party interests before the interests of the people they are supposed to be representing.

Darling Husband and I had a long talk last night about my reactivating one of my law licenses and doing volunteer work. It would mean putting writing aside once again for Goddess knows how long. DH made the comment that sometimes art has a greater effect on people than legal action. I said people in jail aren't going to be reading my books.

His answer: The people being detained aren't the ones who I need to be communicating with.

So what's the right answer?

There isn't one. Not for me anyway. I'm reassured that whatever decision I make, DH will support it. All I can do is figure out what's best for everyone.

I'm Moving...

No, it's not a thousand-plus-mile move of the family again.

My webmistress for the last five years is retiring. So until I can get my shit together, i.e. get my current list of books out this year, this will be the temporary home of suzanharden.com until I can figure out what I want to do for an official website.

I'll have some announcements after the Memorial Day weekend about new stories.

So in the meantime, honor your dead and have a wonderful holiday!

Making Progress

The last three years have been rough. The only new thing that's been published under Suzan Harden since November of 2013 was "Diplomacy in the Dark" in Sword and Sorceress 30 (and that was November of 2015). The last new story Alter Ego published was in May of 2014. Some days, I wondered if I'd ever publish again.

I finally feel like I'm getting traction this year. Over the last week, I've

- hit the 46K mark on Zombie Goddess (Bloodlines #6)

- wrote the first 5K on Resurrected (Bloodlines #9)

- thought I'd be done with an Alter Ego novella, but it's turning itself into a short novel

- found an Alter Ego idea from four years ago, got caught up in the story again and wrote another 1K before I made myself stop

- shopped for pix and fonts for the cover of an Alter Ego short story I finished nearly two weeks ago

It sounds like I'm bouncing between the last four books of Bloodlines, and yes, I am in a way. But a lot of it has to do with linking, foreshadowing and consistency. The first draft of Book 6 should be done by the end of April.

However, I have a bad habit of typing so fast when I get caught up in a story that I leave out words, mainly articles and prepositions. By the time editing and proofing are done, I add 10-20K words. LOL

Now that things have settle down in my personal life (which is probably an invitation to Murphy to fuck me over), I need to prioritize projects based on how close they are to completion.

Today, my first task is getting the cover and formatting done for the AE short story and getting it published. Depending on how fast I get that done, and it may not be totally done today since I'm really out of practice and software has changed/upgraded, I'll finish the novella/short novel. The cover for it was finished back in 2012. That leaves the formatting.

The next step is to run through second-round edits for A Question of Balance, the first Justice novel, since that story is completed. The incredible Elaina at For the Muse Designs has already produced a lovely cover, so the last thing I need is to write the back cover blurb and to have the book formatted.

After that, I need to finish reviewing the proof paperback for Blood Magick (Bloodlines #1). I already found a couple of things that missed the mumble, mumble rounds of editing it's gone through.

Then hopefully, I'll spend Friday and Saturday hiding at Panera's to crank out some more of Zombie Goddess.

I can't do all NOW, but I can chip away at the mountain one grain at a time.

What's Happening?

This year didn't get off to the rousing start I wanted. As I said on my post from January 7th, we've had a lot of health issues with in-laws. Unfortunately, things haven't let up any.

On the down side, MIL ended back in the hospital for a week with breathing problems. While the docs were scanning FIL again for a possible source of the leg pain, they found a mass in his bladder. I'm driving him to Toledo for a second opinion next Monday.

On the plus side, MIL has improved greatly since the last scary stint in the hospital. She's still a little shaky when it comes to walking on her own, but she's off oxygen. We moved FIL into an assisted living apartment at the same complex where MIL is doing her rehab. Despite next week's consultation, he was in good spirits tonight and heading to the main dining room for dinner.

Why am I talking about all this?

The recent personal crises have definitely affected my productivity. I got A Question of Balance back from my beta reader some time ago, and still haven't had a chance to go through their notes. The proof copies for the paperback versions of Blood Magick and Zombie Love are still sitting on my desk. The good side is I'm fifty pages into the first book, but I still need to order the proofs for the next two books. Also, the file for Blood Sacrifice needs to be reviewed before going to the my paperback formatter.

Zombie Goddess is sitting at 40.5K, Ravaged at 18K, and Sacrificed at Murphy only knows because I'm writing it on an iPhone app while waiting in various places, and the app doesn't have a word counter.

Plus, I came up with a cool new idea for an urban fantasy series. I scribbled some notes, but trust me I won't write it until the Bloodlines series is done.

None of the above has anything to do with Alter Ego, who is also way behind on her work. LOL

I was so stressed last week that DH made me take Wednesday off. It's amazing how a few episodes of Agent Carter and The Librarians can brighten your perspective.

Once again, I am SOOO thankful that I'm an indie writer. If I were under contract with a trad publisher, I would be royally screwed right now. I may be super slow right now, but I will get something published this year!

Back in the Saddle

Things on the home front finally settled down last weekend. Our impromptu houseguest moved out, and as of Monday, I'm back to working full-time.

Hallelujah!

Over the last three days, I've prepped Amish, Vamps & Thieves for my formatter. This morning, I'll enter the data for the paperback's ISBN, finish the front matter and deliver everything to her. Next up is getting Blood Sacrifice ready for paper printing.

A Question of Balance is done, and is in what I call it's resting phase. That means I write something else before I start editing. Sort of like a palate cleansing. While I hope to have it ready around Sword and Sorceress 30's release date, I won't make any promise because I'll jinx the process. *smile*

So what am I doing to cleanse my palate? Zombie Goddess hit 27K this week. I'll work on it for the rest of September and October, keeping my fingers crossed that I get it done before NaNoWriMo starts. For this year's NaNo, I want to get the bulk of Ravaged, Bloodlines #7, done.

The Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa series is currently on hold. My co-writer Xxxxx Yyyyyyy bowed out for personal reasons, but she released her rights to the story and characters and gave me her blessing for finishing the project. If I can get the other three books mentioned above written, edited and published by the end of the year, I'm hoping to pick it up again in January.

It'll be a busy last three months of the year, but it really feels good to be working again!

I've Been Thinking...

Life's been a little crazy with the new addition to our household. Like a lot of writers who are parents, I'm looking forward to school starting in ten days.

I've been working on A Question of Balance over the last three weeks, and I'm almost done. But I may not release it right away.

Why? Because I think readers (assuming they liked the short stories) might want more than one novel. So I may wait and release all three novels at the same time.

As a reader, what would you prefer? In other words, read as soon as each book is completed or have a binge?

Curious minds want to know.

How a Fan Stabbed Me in the Heart

Piracy is out there. I know that. I could try to stop it, but in today's digital age, that's like catching rainwater in a sieve. So for the most part, I ignore the piracy. It's as faceless as I'm sure I am to the pirates and people who feed them.

But this week was different. This week, GK's social studies teacher had the class google themselves and their parents. As a writer, I have the biggest internet footprint in the family. So I was stupid enough to google myself later that night...

And I wish I hadn't done it. I stumbled across a discussion of Zombie Love in a comic book online forum. One gentleman had borrowed Blood Magick from his local library. As far as I know, it's only available from one library, the Harris County Public Library. Anyway, he LOVED it, and he was rather upset that Zombie Love wasn't available through the library because he wanted to read it NOW!

And he didn't want to buy it.

So there was a discussion on this forum of all the places he could download it cheap or free. All of which were illegal as only one commenter pointed out. This commenter also pointed out that this was how I make a living.

To my mystery supporter, thank you for standing up for me and all the other writers and artists out in the world. This IS how I pay for not just my food and rent, but my multitude of maintenance drugs for my chronic illness.

As I read the comments in this forum, I think I was most surprised by my own reaction. I wasn't angry. I was heartbroken. If he loved my work that much, why did he feel he needed to steal it?

So to my fan, I wish you had contacted me directly. I don't know your circumstances. And I know you don't mine.

If you borrowed Blood Magick from another library than HCPL, you could have contacted the library and requested that they order Zombie Love.

If you had contacted HCPL and talked to Michael, the lovely gentleman who handles the e-book department, he in turn would have e-mailed me directly about getting the book into their program.

If you had simply asked me why Zombie Love wasn't available through the HCPL, I would have been honest and told you. And maybe if you had asked nicely, I would have given you a free, legitimate copy.

But you, dear reader, chose to go a different route, and as your fellow commenter said, that's between you and your conscience.

To the rest of my fans who felt it was worthwhile to purchase a legitimate copy of my work, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Where Are the #(%*@ Books!

The last eighteen months haven't been the greatest for me and my family. We had plans. Plans that would be best for each of us to fulfill our personal goals. And the great god Murphy laughed maniacally and did everything he could to fuck those plans up.

As I write this, I'm sitting in a hotel room hundreds of miles from our new home, waiting for my car to be repaired. Yep, Murphy has been so good to me lately. (If you couldn't tell by the dripping sarcasm.)

But all the problems doesn't mean I haven't been writing! However, it does mean that the 2014 production schedule has been officially shredded into more pieces than Iran-Contra documents.

So here's the 2015 plan:

The Bloodlines Series
I'm writing the last four books as we speak. In edition, I've re-proofed the first three books, and I'm half-way through re-proofing #4. I've already talked with someone about contracting her to format the entire series for both e-book and print starting in January. I'm also on the search for a new cover artist so there's a unified theme and style for the covers. The plan is to re-launch the entire series late winter/early spring.

To give you readers a taste, I'll post a chapter of each of the new books once a week, starting with Zombie Goddess on Monday. I'm thinking to post the first six chapters of each book.

The Justice Series
I've thought long and hard about how I want to launch this series. There's a particular artist I want to hire for Justice Anthea's stories, but he's expensive which means I need to save my pennies. Also, I don't want leave you all hanging between books, so I plan to release the first three books, A Question of Balance, A Modicum of Truth, and A Matter of Death, hopefully around next Halloween.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Series
I'm collaborating with another ex-attorney/fantasy writer, Xxxxx Yyyyyyy. (P.S. I highly recommend her book, Iiiiiiiiii!) This is my first time working with someone, and I'm really enjoying it! It's about a couple of attorneys who handle the legal problems of superheroes. Our projected release date for the first book is May 1st.

All the credit for the series tagline goes to Xxxxx:

Franklin & Winters, Attorneys at Law — You saved the world. Let us handle the cleanup. For a free consultation, call 888-555-HERO.

Seasons of Magick Series
If I have any spare time next year, I plan to do a collected edition of the Seasons of Magick series.

That's all the news I have. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!