Writing Time and also Ren Faires, and...

I'm headed out to my last outdoor show of the year this weekend, a first year renaissance festival. This means October camping outside in Michigan. I figure it can't be more challenging than April camping (always my first outdoor show of the year), so we'll see if I just jinxed myself. LOL

Beyond that, just two more shows and then it's quiet time for this very tired author. I've already set up my schedule for next year and so far, it's down from 31 events to 24 so hey, I'm attempting to make it a more "relaxed year" we'll see if I stick to that. I wouldn't be opposed to adding one or two, but definitely not looking to top this year. I mostly dropped underperforming events, and really, not dropped, because I wouldn't be opposed to doing them again, but more of a giving them a year off kind of thing. 

My chicken sales ladies did a great job at the 
Newaygo Logging Festival, winning us the 
Crowd Magnet Award.

With the event season winding down, I've already started prepping for next year by purchasing new totes for my books. My old ones had been dropped several times and were being held together by duct tape. Nice, new, waterproof totes are now stocked and ready for these last few events. I also ordered a new stand up banner to replace my original one that I've been "making work" for most of this year. It was my original show banner stand and while I've replaced the banner a few times, the stand itself had seen better days about two year ago. I definitely got my $ out of that one. I've also designed a new cloth table banner and will be getting that ordered this week. My current one is four years old and faded. The new one features cover art from some of my more recent books and also mentions children's books and has my current tag line. If I can get another four years out of the new one, I'll be very happy. Beyond that, I've updated my promo materials and headers on various socials with this year's new books, along with my wholesale price list for direct sales to bookstores. Yes, I do that. And, I'm generally better priced than Ingram. 

This is why waterproof totes are very important. 
This year's Muddy Maumee Book Festival wasn't
so much muddy as very wet. Even with my old totes
no books were harmed, but that was sheer luck. 

October until March is my quiet time. I'm hoping to get some sleeping, writing, and reading done in the months where there's no place I'd rather be than under a warm blanket in my comfy chair. 

What's on the agenda for this year's writing months? 

Finish Nugget #4 - I'm currently on chapter 10 of 14.

Revise and finish Interface. This project is on the list every year and really really needs to get done. I've been working on this one since 2015. *grimaces* 

Finish Godmother. This is another one that keeps lingering on my list, though only on year four. I'm only two chapters in and I really like it. We just need to hope that some shiny new project doesn't bump it yet again.

Funky Ferndale continues to be my top selling event.
132 books went to new homes that weekend.

Our inaugural Holland Lit Fest was a big hit. We estimate around 1,000 people shopped 75 authors throughout the day. There were a few small hiccups, but that was to be expected, given it was our first year. We've already met about what we can do better next year and picked a date. Authors are eager to sign up for tables, but we want to revamp our website first so they'll have to hold on until early 2027. 

Our fearless lit fest committee. 

Also on the agenda for the quiet months is getting the author alley for the Mid-Michigan Women's Expo and the Lakeshore Art Festival filled. At least I can manage author wrangling from my comfy chair. 

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 so I can get back to my quiet activities. If authors who use AI should disclose that, should those who use ghostwriters, have to disclose that too?

Yes, they should. If someone else is doing the work, they should get credit. I think it's important for readers who know who is writing the book they are reading. Someone paying someone else to write the book for them without publicly acknowledging it is not any different than paying the smart kid to do your homework for you. 

Its Almost Writing Time

One more month of selling and then we'll be on to quieter times. Many people ask when I find time to write when I'm on the road signing books all the time. Well, that's what October through February are for. Writing and Resting. Am I ready for those months? Yes! 

I'm looking forward to having more time to do a lot more of this.

New Book Release: Nugget the Space Chicken Book 3

This is a long post this month because, well, I have lots of stuff to talk about. First up and most importantly, I have a new book! 

Nugget the Space Chicken and the Mermaid Treasure of Castalar goes live on August 6. It's currently available for preorder at all your favorite online retailers. You can also find me at any of my in person events to get a signed copy or order one shipped to you from the "Buy Signed Books" tab above.

This is the third book in the Nugget the Space Chicken series. These books are aimed at kids ages 5-9.

Reports say planet Castalar would be perfect for a human colony, but a wild lightning storm upon their arrival says otherwise. Their crash landing only makes things worse.

While their parents repair the lander, Jasper and Opal take Nugget for a walk to explore a small island. They discover that they are not alone. There are aliens in the water and angry pirate birds in the sky.

Can Nugget help humans become friends with the water people by recovering their stolen treasure?

I'm on the road again...

It's one road trip after another time of year. I recently did a seven hour drive to a new comic con in Iowa, which was my longest solo drive to date. I normally try to stick around five hours or less, but every once in a while, it's good to try something new. 

This was a fairly low cost table at an event center connected to an affordable hotel, connected to a very reasonably priced parking garage. The con was very well organized. I met lots of new authors, made new vendor friends, and signed books for readers who had never heard of me before. This wasn't a chicken-friendly event so I got to spend the weekend doodling with my new tiny travel watercolor set instead of tending to a chicken friend. Enter: flat chickens. LOL

While this was a fun experience, attendance was lower than all of us would have liked. That is an issue that they will be addressing next year, and I would give this one another shot. I didn't lose money, but I can't say as I made a good profit. On the plus side, I was gifted a photo op with Star War's actors C. Andrew Nelson and Susanna Malak and I did a lot of networking.

Keeping me company on the long drives, I've listened to the second and third books in the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne and I highly recommend them. I've got the next three audio books queued up for the upcoming weekends. You can't go wrong with irreverent fantasy filled with werewolves, witches, vampires, all sorts of gods, a talking dog and a druid.

Last weekend was a three hour road trip to Grayling, MI for the Ausable River Festival. This was a fairly good two day event last year, despite it raining on Saturday. This year we had no rain and perfect temperatures and books flew off the rack! I sold 110 books in those two days. That's my new second best sales day ever. If only every weekend was like that.

This month, I'm excited to have a couple events close to home, but then I'll be headed to Michigan's Upper Peninsula for the annual trip to the Wild Blueberry Festival. This was the event that inspired Laya's Vacation. These days, I'm traveling with Laya's daughter, Lola, who has taken to shows like a pro from the time she was just a few months old.

I'm excited to have a weekend off this month and then I have five more weekends full of events before my schedule slows down to the final three of the year. One of those is a literary festival I'm helping to organize. Whew boy, it's been a lot of work building something from nothing. If it all goes well, I'm hoping year two will be slightly easier. Fingers crossed for it to be a success.

November 16 can't come soon enough. That's the first day of my resting/writing season. I have so many projects I want to work on! 

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 to get to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group Post. This month's question is: As an author, is there something you wish you'd done differently in your writing process? 

Yep. The same thing that most of us do with our first self-published book. We publish it, thinking its fully proofread, but surprise, it's not. Nothing worse than being all proud of your new book, only to have readers report copious amounts of typos. How? How can this be? Well, it might have had something to do with the fact that we did not have have someone else proofread the book after the last round of edits. Yes, your editor may point out typos, but that's not what they're solely focusing on. Not to mention, you're making corrections, tweaking things, adding the additional details the editor is asking for. All of that is ripe for introducing new typos. 

Are books ever perfect? We can hope so, but even traditionally published books have a ninja typo or two. All we can do is have as many eyeballs on the work before it goes to print as possible to try to catch those sneaky buggers. 

The moral of this story is: You cannot be the proofreader of your book. You can take lots of steps to catch everything you can, but have an eagle-eyed grammar-gifted human make that final pass. It's worth it.  

July's Better Late Than Never Post

I just remembered I was supposed to do my IWSG post on the first Wednesday of the month but now it's Friday so let's just hop into my time machine and go back a couple of days.

To be fair, I'm coming off of nine weeks of shows and I've had all of one day off in that time so...please excuse the brain fry. 

In writing news, Nugget the Space Chicken and the Mermaid Treasure of Castalar is off to proofreading and out for interior art so that's exciting. I'm a few chapters into writing Book 4, The Broken Bots of Quintus 9 and hope to have that one out for a fall release. 

Most of my "free" time at home has been spent working out on the flower hill reclaiming project. So. Many. Weeds. There's even a 9ft tall walnut tree out there that's not supposed to be there. Guess it's been a while since I weeded that section? Oops.

There used to be clear path here to the top of the hill. 

Here's the lower half, now mostly cleaned up. 

Half of the path has been reclaimed!

What am I doing for this big July 4th holiday? As little as possible. This is my ONE weekend off before I go out for six more. So I hope to be either out weeding in the garden, or sitting in my comfy chair as much as possible. Maybe even taking a nap.

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers. 

This month's IWSG question asks if there's anything I'd like to see changed or added to the book publishing industry. Since I mostly missed the boat on that blog hop, I'm going to keep my answer short.

Less AI. In everything. Please, for of the love of all that's holy. Keep AI out of creative things, and if the software companies can quit adding AI assistants in every darn thing, I'd be a less grumpy person. Maybe. Probably. I can't hurt to try. 

Where am I this month?

I spent a good deal of May on the road or not at home, packing, unpacking, reordering, and occasionally sleeping. Writing? Not at all.

My recent campsite was on the edge of a little stream.
It was a bit chilly in the evening, but nothing a beer,
a book, and a blanket couldn't solve.

For June, I'll be a little more home-based, which will be a nice change. I have only one weekend camping at a ren faire and the rest of the month, I can enjoy my own bed. This is good news, because I need to get the interior art specs of Nugget the Space Chicken and the Mermaid Treasure of Castalar to the illustrator. I don't get laptop time when I'm camping in my car or in a tent.  Go figure.

Sewing projects are going well. 3 out of 4 are completed. It will also help to have that done so I'm not staring at the mass of fabric of unfinished projects from my writing chair. 

This is part of the green over dress / coat that I have now finished 
with detachable sleeves for all weather occasions.
And also, I got to wear my new crown

Cherry Capital Comic Con doesn't allow a chicken, so I always try to get some painting done while I'm there and have my hands free. I'll have two new chicken prints at upcoming events. 

This is a close up of
MJ the Rooster.

As if I needed more distractions, the sparkly edges of Siphon that I posted about last month have been selling well so I started making pretty edges on my other books that are romance so that they are set apart a little at in person events. This has been quite popular with readers. Yay!

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here 

and find links to all the 

other participating writers. 

My brain is running on empty and my back has been acting up so I'm going to keep this post fairly short and get to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group Question: 

Do most of your story ideas come from one place or all over the place?

Inspiration is everywhere. Nature, the news, a conversation, random thoughts, reading a book or watching TV. I wrote Siphon out of spite because I didn't like the way a type of character was written in someone else's book. I'm never ever lacking for story ideas, only the time and motivation to write them all.