Elizabeth Schechter's Blog, page 9

The Plan is Afoot

The plan is afoot, a phrase that’s always attributed to Sherlock Holmes, but which he never actually says anywhere. Planning for the end of the year, and for next year is ongoing. I did my annual business planning seminar last week (and I highly recommend Amber McCue’s Planathon for anyone who is looking for business plan scaffolding. This was my third time, and I learn something new every time. The Planathon is free, and her other courses are pay-to-play.)

I wrote a little last week about my...

Closing In On The End.

Here we are, closing in on the end of 2023. Halloween is tomorrow, and then we get into November and the slow slide toward a new year. Yesterday, I hit the halfway point on Balance of Power, which means I’m well on my way to finishing the book by December, just in time for Cookiepocalypse. Planning for 2024 has started (slowly, but it has started), and I’m looking forward to closing the book on 2023.

It’s been a good year. A weird year, but a good one. I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve come to a l...

Keep It Simple

Otherwise known as the KISS Principle — Keep It Simple, Stupid (or whatever other s-word you want to have there. This is how I learned it). It governs a lot of forward facing properties from set design to costume design to websites. And translated into Liz Speak today, it means that I personally should not have two locations on my website to update the same information, because I will invariably forget that one of them exists.

Brought to you by the fact that I just remembered I had an Appear...

Halfway through October

Here we are, halfway through October. Not bad so far. People who have been with me for a while know that October is not my favorite month. I’ve said before that the only thing October has going for it is that it ends in Halloween. My reason? Everything bad happens in October, and this year has not been an exception to that rule (thankfully, everyone involved is fine, but dammit, October!!!)

I’ve been largely focusing on writing Balance of Power, because I am barely keeping up with my chapter ...

Tenth Anniversary!

I have to lead with this gorgeous thing — the tenth anniversary cover for House of Sable Locks…

Isn’t he LOVELY???

This went live sometime over the weekend, and I missed it until this morning, when I received a spam email from a book promoter about my “new book” House of Sable Locks.

That’s very much William… which is funny because that particular model is also on the cover of Infernal Machine! Clearly, the art director and I have similar tastes in steampunk cover models.

The te...

Fourth and Goal

No, I don’t watch football. Well, not anymore. I used to, but the last time I watched football really was… well, yesterday, to be honest. But it was the Funday Football on Disney+, where they did real time animation of the football game from London (it was hilariously glitchy.) No, In this case, fourth and goal doesn’t mean how far you have to go in football. It’s how far we have to go in 2023. October 1st marks the beginning of the fourth quarter. I’ve done my fourth quarter planning and my go...

No More Peopling.

I had a blast at Necronomicon — the Writing Sex panel was awesomely fun, and next year I’ll be pitching a panel I’m calling Mystery Science Sex Scene 3000, where we have audience members read snippets of our work, and identify the authors for fun and prizes.

I love conventions. Honestly, I do. But I spend the week after a convention recovering and avoiding talking to people. Partly because my throat is usually shot by Sunday — talking through an N95 mask is hard. (I did have a small air puri...

Convention Prep!

Convention prep is my week this week — getting ready for NecronomiCon. After I posted last week, I found out about a schedule change — the Writing Sex panel will now be held on Friday at 8:45 PM. This is still the earliest it’s ever been scheduled, so I’ll have to make sure to clear the room of minors before we start.

Friday, 5:00 PM — Make, Remake, Reboot
Friday, 8:45 PM — Writing Sex ( the earliest I think this panel has ever been scheduled…)

Saturday, 2:00 PM — Don’t Panic! Balancing the...

Brains empty.

And today is a day when the words just don’t want to word. Occasionally, those happen to everyone, so I’m not too terribly worried about it. It probably as something to do with the fact that I’m a little under the weather today. So for today, I’ll take it easy, which is something I tend to forget to do for myself.

I think that’s a problem we all have these days — we take care of everyone else, and conveniently forget that if we don’t take care of ourselves, we CAN’T take care of others. And t...

Calendar Fall

On September 1st, I saw something on the news that said that September 1st was the first day of calendar fall. Which… if you live someplace where you don’t have actual fall, like Florida, then having a purely calendar fall makes sense. I guess. School started a month ago, and Spooky season started July 5th, but sure, it’s fall now.

(If you think I’m joking about spooky season starting July 5th? There was Halloween merchandise on sale in Joann’s Fabrics over a month ago, and the wholesale club...