Just for the fun of it, I looked up the very first post I made over here on this blog. That was February 2012. Isn’t that crazy? That was over a decade ago! I didn’t realize I’d had this blog for that long. Back then, I was writing To Have and To Hold (Dave and Mary Larson’s second story). I had just started the Regency genre. I was wrapping up the Native American Romance Series with Bound by Honor Bound by Love. If you remember when I was working on those, thank you for sticking with me for all of these years.

Okay, so that really had nothing to do with this post. We’ll get to the subject at hand.

The Hero Least Likely is in Edits

This is Book 2 in the Love Under Desert Skies Series

Finally, after all this time, we have this book moving toward publication. This is longer than I originally anticipated, so it’ll take me longer to go through the initial edits before I can send it out to others. I have about four people total in my editing team. Each person has strengths that help me out a lot, and I want all of their feedback because they make the story way better. I’m thinking that this will be ready in June. I just can’t rush books like I used to. Having gone through burnout, I don’t dare risk it.

A note about my progress in overcoming burnout:

I still don’t know what my average book production will look like per year. I used to publish six books a year without too much issue. Or maybe it was an issue because I did end up in burnout. I just didn’t “feel” it until I hit rock bottom. It’s strange to be in limbo. I have my joy and enthusiasm for writing back, and I am comfortable working on three books. I notice I am better off writing only three days a week, and I need a break between days.

I used to write Monday through Friday. Now I lose a lot of writing steam if I don’t give myself the breaks between writing days. So I do best when I write Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I use Tuesday and Thursday to do more “business” stuff like updating my blog, doing my bookkeeping for the accountant, narrating the audiobooks for YouTube and Rumble, engaging in emails, etc. Sometimes I will do these things on the weekends if I’m bored. I play Mario Party a lot with my family to relax, but I have trouble just sitting and playing the game. I find I need something else to do, and these other tasks are easy enough. The writing and editing are the tasks that require more energy. I find that when I keep the writing and editing to those three days, my work is way better. Like, the words just flow easier, and the ideas are popping all over the place. If I try to write two days in a row, I struggle. So I’m keeping my writing to those three days until/if things improve.

I guess it’s to be expected that recovering from burnout should take years. It took me years to crash. It’ll take years to dig my way completely out. Or maybe this will be the new way of doing things to avoid future burnout. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. I know burnout looks different to each person because each person has different levels of work they can handle. It’s frustrating at times because I have always been geared toward doing a lot, no matter what my life has been like. Making more time to rest does not come easy, but I am doing it because I want this writing thing to keep going. I just found my joy back. I don’t want to lose it again.

I ramble about all of this to say that I no longer know how much time I need to complete my books or how long the editing process will take. I was publishing something every other month for years. Then the last couple of years, things were out of alignment. I’m sure I’ll find a happy medium somewhere, but it’ll probably take a while.

Back the blog post…

The big reveal has finally happened!

This is Book 1 in the Marriage by Chemistry Series

The process of getting to the big reveal was a lot of fun. It was so fun, in fact, that I delayed it for as long as possible. I was enjoying how we (those of us outside the book) know what is going on while the characters had no clue! So I chose to play around in this “sandbox” for a while. But, like all good things, it had to eventually come to an end.

The heroine found out the hero hates her play, and she has moved back in with her brother. The hero is scrambling around to make things up to her, and he has come to visit her with the first trial of the love potion. This is also fun. Just in a different way. 😉

I started Masquerade Bride

This is Book 1 of the Holiday Series.

I want this out in late September/early October for Halloween. The theme is putting on a different face. Literally. But not in a gruesome way. This is a romance, not a horror novel. I had to think over this plot quite a bit to figure out how it will work. Originally, I was going to use the “trading places” trope, but there really is no one this heroine can trade places with. Her big thing is to be “popular”. I still have not come up with a term that seems to fit exactly what I’m going for. Suffice it to say, that she wants to be charming and witty. She wants friends. She wants gentlemen lining up to be her suitor. In other words, she doesn’t want to be a wallflower anymore.

This Halloween, she will get her wish. I did play around with the idea of there being some magical medallion that will grant wishes. That kind of works in this book, but it doesn’t work for Books 2 or 3 of the series. So I discarded that idea. I finally settled on there being a character who acts as a “fairy godmother/Christmas spirit/guardian angel” across all three books. That character will be my main constant to connect this series. After some brainstorming, I have decided this character will be from the future. Maybe the year 2500. This character is looking for a job promotion, and the only way this character will get that promotion is by setting the main characters in Books 1, 2, and 3 on the right course. I got this idea from “It’s a Wonderful Life” movie where the angel got his wings after convincing Jimmy Stuart’s character that he wanted to live. (See how other people’s stories can eventually inspire other writers?)

I am currently on Chapter 2, but I think I need to back up and do some light revisions to make this a Halloween story. I was originally going to start it on October 31, but something tells me, I’d be better off moving the date up and perhaps making October 31st in the middle of the story instead.

Book 2 should be easy enough. Most of the stuff will happen on Christmas Eve. Book 3 all takes place on Valentine’s Day. Book 1 is the only one that’s been tricky, and since it’s Book 1, I need to get that straight before I can do anything else.

Since I am working on Masquerade Bride…

I am putting The Preacher’s Wife on hold for the time being.

I am happy with how this story is progressing so far, but I don’t want to take on too much. I have to know my limits and work with them, even though it is frustrating. Believe me, I wish I could write MORE books at a time than what I can do.

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Speaking of not taking on too much, I totally forgot to go to BookFunnel to join a promo for this month. I am currently working with someone to help me with these since I have been trouble getting to these. They aren’t hard to do, but they do take up time, and it’s not easy to remember when I have all of these other things to do.

And I am enjoying the whole YouTube and Rumble thing more than I anticipated. So I might as well hand the stuff that isn’t as fun to do to someone else at this point. I know I have some people who are BookFunnel readers, and it is a great way to give out ebooks, so I do want to keep using it.

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I’m going to end things here. I hope everyone has a great April!