Tag: Firebugs and Other Insects

Writing–There’s Going to Be A Lot of Self-Publishing This Year

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

flame box elder penAs you most likely know, I published my first title of 2015 back in February (Hatchets and Hearts, in case you missed it) with the idea that I was going to use the same self-publishing schedule for 2015 that I used in 2014 (February, June, October).

Yeah, well, I’ve changed my mind as of now. I say as of now because we all know that I can, may, and most likely will change my mind another dozen times between now and next week.

However, the plan as of this hour will be to publish one of the anthologies next month (April) and then publish the last three Ivy Russell novellas in June, August, and October, and most likely putting the whole collection of novellas together for December.

Why?

Well, two reasons. One: This is all part of my goal to get stuff off of my To Do List. There’s no reason for me not to, especially since it’s not like if I publish these titles I’ll have nothing left. I still have another anthology I’m working on plus a several more novellas. I’m sure one of these things will be ready to publish by next year.

Two: There’s really no reason to mete out the Ivy Russell novellas over an extended period of time. Cheaters and Chupacabras sold a grand total of 12 copies so far.  May as well get them all out and be done with them.

(Not that I don’t like them or anything. I adore Ivy Russell and her friends. The four novellas ended up making an nice closed circle in my mind, ending any thought about whether or not I should write any more. This is just a business sort of decision.)

I’ve gone back and forth about whether or not I should release The Timeless Man, The Odd Section of Town, and Firebugs and Other Insects individually or just put them together with Cheaters and call it good, but I figure I may as well give them a go on their own. Who knows? Maybe one of those stories will actually take off.

The anthology I’ll be publishing next month is called People Are Terrible and Other Stories. For the five people that bought Rejected, you’ll recognize six of the stories from that no-longer-available anthology (the other three will end up in the other anthology). But there’s six new stories and a novella, too. Fun for the whole family.

Provided the family can do PG-13 to R level stuff and likes horror.

Writing–March Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

green flowerYou may have noticed the lack of blog posts in the month of February. Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe you didn’t care. Whatever the case, the point is that you can expect random and fewer blog posts to be the norm for a while. My world is in a bit of transition at the moment, sort of like when I had the existential crisis last year, except it’s less crisis, more change.

Anyway, that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing writer stuff. My goal to clear out my backlog of projects remains intact.

Last month I finished making notes on (Vampries) Made in America and it has all been put to the side for the moment. I’m sick of looking at it. I also finished revisions on Odd Section of Town and Firebugs and Other Insects. I’m satisfied with how they turned out for the most part and I think the next step for them is beta and minor tweaks/polish. I also wrote “A Ride in the Country”, which was actually less writing and more taking a chunk that didn’t make it into Night of the Nothing Man and revising it into it’s own little stand alone bit that will go into one of the anthologies.

Speaking of…

This month, I’m going to be working revising short stories that I’m going to use for future anthologies. I’ve already finished a revision on “Nadie Has a Dog” just a few days into the new month (productivity, what?). Also going to be revised this month “People Are Terrible”, “Cover Up” (a rough draft that I found that I think will go nicely in one of the anthologies), “The House Down the Road”, and “The Seaweed Man”. Of these four, it’s “The Seaweed Man” that’s going to take the most work. It’s going to be more of a rewrite than a revision.

Slowly, but slowly, the backlog decreases.

Writing–February Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

roseThere is no love here.

Well, maybe a little.

The (Vampires) Made in America saga continues. I will continue to assess this disaster area and attempt to rebuild.

However, in decidedly more productive ambitions, I’m going to put The Odd Section of Town and Firebugs and Other Insects through their first revisions. I’ve already given The Timeless Man it’s final polish (see, some good things did come out of that (Vampires) debacle last month), so working on the other two Ivy Russell novellas makes sense. I’m fairly optimistic that these revisions will not cause me any eye twitches, but I don’t want to get my hopes too high. I’ve got a great ability to jinx myself.

I’m also planning on writing a new short story called “A Ride in the Country”. Don’t panic! This story will be for one of the in-progress anthologies, so it totally counts towards my objective of getting all of the old projects completed.

And, of course, I’ll be publishing something this month.

Look for it around Valentine’s Day.

Writing–November Projects aka NaNoWriMo 2014

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

nanowrimoNovember means NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo means that I write like a madwoman.

My NaNo this year is similar to last year’s in that I’m going to do two 25,000 word novellas instead of one 50,000 word novel. I am once again breaking rules, baby. But I couldn’t think of a good novel idea and decided NaNo would work just fine to clear two more items off of the To Do List.

This year’s NaNoWriMo project is The Odd Section of Town and Firebugs and Other Insects, the next two Ivy Russell novellas. Possibly the last two, I don’t know. I don’t have any ideas for this character beyond these last two novellas, so I suppose we’ll see. You know me. I’m not good with commitment.

The Odd Section of Town involves our intrepid private investigator Ivy dealing with several cases in  the Odd Section of Buddington, an area of own that seems to be plagued by a rash of bad luck that seemed to start around the same time an old friend came for a visit.

Firebugs and Other Insects finds Ivy looking for a mentally ill man during a rash of fires that are certainly the work of one weird arsonist.

I felt like it was a good idea to get these two written since I already had the ideas and the only thing holding me back was The Timeless Man wasn’t fixed yet. But with that scratched off the To Do List, I actually switched two different novellas out to write these two and finish up the Ivy series, at least for the time being.

I’m already off to a good start and anticipate being done by no later than the 16th (yes, I realize I’ve probably just jinxed the hell out of myself). Which poses an interesting question.

What am I going to do with the rest of the month?

The answer: I don’t know, but nothing heavy. Between Thanksgiving, working Black Friday, and going to my first con in about six years, the end of the month will be no time to start anything serious. I’ll probably end up doing some revisions on projects that will only take me a day or two to accomplish. I’ll figure it out when the time comes.

My brain is kind of crowded right now.