Springing Into Action

How many things can Jean do at once? We're testing the limits this month.

Did I go into this knowingly and willingly? Yep. It is a torture of my own doing because sometimes all the things just align like that.

Thing #1: Nugget the Space Chicken books 3 & 4 is on Kickstarter (pre-launch as of this post) and going live on April 7. If you'd like to help bring more adventures to my early reader sci-fi/fantasy chapter book series, please consider supporting our campaign.

Thing #2: My next book will be released on May 4. Siphon, my paranormal romance is wrapping up proofreading and then will head into formatting (that's me) and out to ARC readers.

Vampires full of tragic pasts and dark secrets are delicious.

Lavina feeds off the memories of others, the more traumatic the better, but once she’s fed, they’re fixed: looking for redemption, good…so very vanilla. Lavinia craves triple dark chocolate.

Stephanos is called to America to help his sire take over the blood-rich city of Northchester. The job, like all the others before it, is simple: kill the target, cause a little chaos, and enforce compliance with the new regime. Then he can go back home and not deal with his sire’s demands for a decade or two.

When a strange woman interrupts his killing spree, all of his plans go to hell. His sire is pissed, the target isn’t thankful, and everyone in Northchester is looking for him. Lavina has a safe place to hide the wanted vampire and a plan to make him last. Unfortunately, she’s never been good at sticking to diets.

Thing #3: Holland Lit Fest. I'm in charge of author selection and various other things for a new book festival we're launching this fall.

Thing #4: Finishing the rough draft of Nugget book 4: The Broken Bots of Quintus 9 so we can be ready for illustrations once the Kickstarter concludes #ThinkingPositive

Beyond that...all the usual things. I have four book events in April and four more in May, three of those eight will be long weekends of away from home travel. A new brood of chicks is on the way. The flower beds need lots of cleaning up and the garden will need planting soon. Zero (the current teen chick) is enjoying his/her (time will tell) first spring. What all can I get done in addition to everything else? We shall see.

I am happy to report that Penguicon 2026 was fantastic. It was great to see this convention return to it's mission of family friendly diverse programming. I met lots of great authors including David Weber (author of the Honor Harrington series) and Jim Butcher (author of the Dresden Files), sat on seven panels, attended a few more, AND managed to get some editing done. Did I stay up too late? Yes, but not because of room parties. I blame my lack of sleep on a rousing after midnight conversation with author pal Vera West, who I roped into attending the con with me.

Third Coast Author and Book Festival was also a great time and soooo many author friends were there but the festival hours were short and I was so busy signing books that I couldn't get away from my table to chat with most of them. #AuthorProblems  A few of us hung out after hours at a local brewery, but there were many faces I didn't get to see. Good thing the year is young. We'll hopefully get a chance to catch up at another event.

My road trip to Toledo Fantasticon was blessedly uneventful. The hotel was wonderfully quiet (I always use that same hotel when in Toledo for that exact reason) and Little Kay (the chicken on duty that weekend) and I got to meet lots of new and returning readers. 

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers. 

We've reached the part where I do my Insecure Writer's Support Group post. Hooray, if you've made it this far and aren't tired yet. I'm tired too. ;)  This month's question is about playlists and writing, and well, if you've been here for awhile, you know I don't listen to anything when writing. Silence is my friend. The better to hear the voices, she said.

So instead, we're going to quick chat about doing all the things at once and not going crazy. Consult the calendar. Make lists. Know your due dates and roughly how much time tasks will take. Time blocks are fantastic.

Unless I'm totally in the zone, I do better with short blocks to keep my attention on task. Fifteen minutes to half an hour works great for me. Find what works best for you. Catch up on email for fifteen minutes. Do twenty minutes of editing. Half an hour of writing. Go outside with the dog or check the chickens and get fresh air, stretch the legs. Fifteen minutes to set up a social media post or three. Got another half an hour to burn? Back to writing. You get the idea. These small goals make it so much easier to play catch up if life happens and you miss a handful one day. It's easier to accomplish lots of little things than forcing yourself to set at the computer for three hours to "get some writing work done". #ADHDproductivity 

Let The Crazy Commence

The March into madness is off and running. We begin with four weekends of events, while also applying feedback from beta readers on Siphon, my upcoming paranormal romance stand-alone novel. Oh and along with writing my next book Not Another Unhinged Romance, I'm also madly writing Nugget the Space Chicken 3 & 4 for an upcoming Kickstarter campaign—because my illustrator wants to get paid or something? Also also, I'm finalizing the author line up for the Lakeshore Art Festival's author alley. Aaaaaand planning a local book festival that will take place in September. I'm supposed to be sewing a new ren faire dress too, but yeah, that's kind of on the back burner at the moment. 

So yeah, no dull moments any time in the near future. Or maybe (looking at my event list) until December. 

Up this month: Mona Shores Comic Con— a nice little one day school con close-ish to home. Fantasticon Toledo—A mid-size two day con, not close to home. Third Coast Author and Book Festival—a one day book festival with a bunch of my author friends that is close to home. And Penguicon—a three day hotel con on the other side of the state where I'll be doing 8 panels, hanging out in the bookstore, and getting some writing done after hours. Or sleeping. Or checking out the room party when I should be sleeping. Place your bets. I'll report back next month.  

Let's see what has transpired since my last post... The Mid Michigan Women's Expo was underwhelming with attendance, but as always, we authors had a good time, networking happened, and books did find new homes. And I bought a new crown, because hey, if I'm not going to have time to sew soon, at least I have something new to wear. :)

Loki, the new puppy, is settling in nicely. My lap (where my laptop should be) is his favorite place.

Zero, the newest chick is growing beautiful feathers. I'm excited to see how this one turns out when it grows up. 

I recently did a couple podcast interviews if you're into those and want to check them out. On For the Love of Books, we talked about I9, my newest book, a stand-alone space opera with mystery and a little romance. Then on Indie Reads Aloud, we talked about One Shot At The Sphinx and The Narvan. 

In non-writing things... I took a break for a couple of weeks and watched all 90 episodes of Farscape, one of my favorite sci-fi shows. Except for that one animated episode. Nope. All these years later, and I still didn't like it. The other 89 totally made up for it though. 

For those of you on the author business end of things... BookFunnel finally came out with a cost effective audiobook plan, allowing us to sell our own audiobooks (without the distribution middleman getting a big chunk of the $) for only $2 a month and .04 per download hour. This means I can now sell Sahmara's audiobook in person at events along with my ebooks. I've really enjoyed having options for however readers want to read, ready to go right from my hands to theirs, where I get the majority of the profit. Sorry, but Amazon does not need your money to pay the bills.

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers. 

Let's get to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question: What elements do you include in your book launch? What do you have in mind for your future book launch? Advice on book launches?

Well, I'll just be honest here, I suck at book launches. Mostly I write books and throw them out into the world because I have an endless cascade of events where I promote them along with my entire backlist. Do I do some of the usual things? Sure. And if you're wondering what those are:

Cover reveals, posting the blurb, teasers, guest blog posts, sending out a few newsletters- before, during, and after launch, getting ARC readers before the release date, and generally chatting up the book on social media before, during, and after launch. If I can talk my way into a podcast or two to promote the new book, that's a bonus.

Do I have a ton of money to invest in big name reviews or do big promo advertisements? Nope. I invest my $ in event table fees because that's where I know I sell books and my return readers are there. Your milage may vary. 

I've tried ads. I've tried ebook blasts, bundles, blog takeovers, and promo deals. Results were meh on all of that. Not to say they don't work, but I'm guessing genre and timing have a lot to do with it.

Do I do a big release party? I have not. I tend to time my releases with a well attended con or festival and call it my book launch party. So nice of you all to come! LOL  Sometimes I do have a few special launch goodies that I hand out to the first X number of people who buy the book. One of these times I'd like to do an actual launch party for local fans, but my schedule is a bit restricted so we'll see if that ever works out.

Until next time...

 

Rolling into 2026.02

I had a great January with zero events and some days I didn't even have to leave the house. It was awesome. My Oct/Nov writing project is almost through the first round of edits and will be going out to beta readers soon. I'm hoping to have Siphon out in May. We'll see how that goes.

Winter has also been a time for adding new lives to my task list. Meet Zero, the newest chick who hatched on one of the many frigid mornings two weeks ago. 

In addition to feathered pets, we also have a dog who has been looking for a new friend. We'd been on the lookout for another terrier, ideally an older one as our current boy is 11. Instead, a text from my dog dealer (nearby dog foster rescue volunteer) one morning lead to us claiming this 10 month old male Cheagle the next day. They've been getting along pretty good and it's been fun to see the grumpy old man playing like a puppy.

Book events start up this month. Though, thankfully only one long weekend to break back in slowly. Then we're off and running in March. If you're in the Lansing, MI area, stop out to the Mid-Michigan Women's Expo and visit the nineteen book slingers in author alley. 

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers. 

What else did I do in January? What a timely question...

This month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question is: Many writers have written about the experience of rereading their work years later. Have you reread any of your early works? What was that experience for you?

One of my fun annual January indulgences is to reread some of my books. This year I read all seven books of my Narvan series. 

Why would I reread my own books? I mean, I wrote them, don't I know them already? *Side eyes  the stack of books I've written* Um, yeah, but I wrote all those too and after a while, things get hazy. I write what I like to read so why shouldn't I get to read the books I wrote? As a writer, you know how many times we read over our work in countless rounds of edits. It sucks the fun of the story right out of it. So now that all that is behind us and a little distance has happened, I can read to enjoy the story.

But it never is all just fun, is it? Why? Because we can't turn edit brain off! So while my reread mind is happily eating up words, edit brain is pointing out tiny tweaks, an occasional missed comma, an extra space, and the inevitable ninja typo that is somehow still lingering after all these years. How? OMG, whhhhhy? 

So yes, I enjoy reading my work, early and more recent, and while I'm there, I do a little light housekeeping so that the next printing is even better for my readers. Do I get the urge to do more than that on the really early books? Sometimes, but I haven't (yet - not saying I never will) because: 1) I have too many new projects to work on. 2) It wouldn't be the same story if current writer me rewrote it. 3) It's good to see how far you've come with your writing skills. 

And now I have to get up and go do things and wake this tiny furball. Until next time, may your laps be warm and your words be plentiful!

 

2026 Goals

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers. 

Well now, that year flew by fast! Looking at my schedule, I'm guessing this one will too. And as usual, I'm going to attempt to be productive while I'm at it. Since this happens to be the topic of this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop, I'm feeling totally on theme for once. Woohoo!

What's on the agenda for the new year?

Edit and publish Siphon (I wrapped up the first draft last week. Hooray!)

Finish my secret project (that I'm starting this week). NAUR is for all of you who have been after me to write another parody. The synopsis is complete, blurb is written, and cover concept is complete.  I'm never this prepared before I even start writing, but it's going to be a fun one and I'm looking forward to it.

Finish the draft of EITHER Godmother or Interface. I'm hoping this stipulation will allow me to not fail this one yet again.

Write and publish Nugget the Space Chicken Book 3. I'd hoped to have an outline and plan in place for this one by now but  I don't, so that's also on my list.

Continue progress on reclaiming the flower hill. I made good progress in 2025 so I have to be out there to at least maintain that and hopefully continue onward while I'm at it.

Work on the veggie garden concrete project. I dry poured several large blocks last year to see how they'd hold up in the Michigan winter, and I'm not impressed so I'm glad I didn't dive into all of them that way. Back to good old wet cement mixing it is.

Read two books a month. I was semi-successful with this in 2025 so I think its possible. I also need to keep better track because maybe I did make it and my crappy reading record keeping just didn't record it. LOL

Didn't make it to everything on your list from 2025? It's not a fail, it's a second...err third...okay fifth chance to get to it this year. :)

How were 2025 Sales? Most events I returned to were down because: economy.  However, I did more events than ever before and that made up for a lot. There were a few events that performed really well, one even far exceeded my expectations. You bet I'm doing Funky Ferndale again! There were also a handful of events that were at no cost to me (either as a guest or tables were free) so that negated low sales at a few of the others in terms of expenses. In 2025 I sold 400+ more books than 2024, ending up at 1,731 books sold. Given that spring events were all pretty dismal sales-wise, I'm pleased with how the year turned out. 

I've updated my event schedule with everything that is currently booked or applied for (that I'm fairly sure I'm good for). There are several more to add that applications are not live yet and there are, as usual, a couple new to me events I haven't heard back on yet.

How was Galaxy Con Columbus you ask? HUGE. I traveled with author pal TL Shively (YA fantasy), and we had a good time. There were lots of celebrities to run by and gawk at but we didn't have time to wait in the massive lines. And so many artists! I sold enough to cover all my expenses which was saying something considering how many hundreds of vendors and artists there for people to buy from. I would maybe do it again in a few years when the economy is better, but this was a pricey event to be at and I kinda gotta do shows that allow me to pay daily life bills AND cover event expenses. #priorities

This is a quarter of the celebrity zone

I was one of over 200 artist alley booths

I have no idea how many vendor booths there were 
but they went on and on and on

There was even a full size wresting ring.

Starbase Indy, another new to me event, was also fun, but in a much more relaxing and productive way. The event table was free so all I had to do was cover my gas and hotel room - which I did do with sales. I travel with my own food. Foot traffic was slow (as is usually the case with hotel cons), but the people were great and unlike a busy show, I didn't feel bad about getting some reading and writing done at my table. I also got a good deal done after show hours. So as far as a weekend writing retreat goes, it paid for itself and I slept great. I would maybe do this one again if I could take another author along to share the hotel expenses with the intent of making it a writing weekend.

Laya traveled with me and was much loved
by everyone. She got to meet the
celebrity guest, Lisa Wilcox

May you have a fantastic and productive new year! 

 

End of Year Writing Check In

Here were are with another year almost behind us. Whew, what a ride!

I'll be heading off to Galaxy Con Columbus tomorrow for a long weekend of peopling. My last weekend away until February. Woohoo! I'm looking forward to my hibernating months.

Before we get to this month's IWSG post, we have a few follow up items to attend to.

First up: How did November writing month go? I did manage to get in 52K new words on Siphon, which is now sitting at 71K and probably has another 10-15K to go. I'm enjoying this story and it and a conversation with a friend inspired yet another writing project that I need to get a jump on before mid-January for reasons related to a certain book club meeting. *rubs hands together, grinning madly*

Then let's check in with this year's writing goals:

Publish Nugget the Space Chicken - DONE and a second book in the series! Bonus points!

Publish I9 - DONE!

Finish writing Godmother - Total fail. I haven't even touched it. There go those bonus points. :(

Finish writing Interface (Shaking my head at this one. Poor Interface) - I did a few chapters of this cleaned up and through my local critique group and I sort of know where it needs to go now. But finished? Nope. FAIL

Successfully juggle enough book stock for all those events - It was tight and I did run out of a few different titles at various events but the benefits of having so many titles, I plenty of other books in stock. So will go with win.

Read two books a month - I got close to accomplishing this, but not every month. I did read at least one every month so not a total fail.

Keep working on the overgrown flower garden - I did make continued progress on the flower hill. Much effort is still required but it's looking not so wild out there anymore so I'll call it a win.

And now this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group Question:

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers.

As a writer what is the best gift you've ever received?

Conversations with readers who have enjoyed my books. Followed closely by posted reviews.  Personally, I love the conversations, but in terms of helping me sell books, reviews are a wonderful gift to give an author. 

What has been your favorite writer gift?

Tune in next month for my 2026 writing goals. 

Which means I should start thinking about those. LOL