Beth Alvarez's Blog, page 23

Feeling upended

With as much as I enjoy planning, it’s probably no surprise that I’d already printed the Q2 insert for my planner at the end of February. I’d started planning my goals for the second quarter of the year, based on what I’d been able to do in the first quarter and what I figured I’d be able to accomplish through the month of March. It probably goes without saying that I way overplanned, given the way I didn’t know things would be changing.

It’s hard to deal with that feeling of being derailed. Upended. Like I’d just set out the tea party and someone turned over the tray.  I had a lot of plans to share my goals and achievements this year, but it’s hard to do when I don’t know when the next time I can do a project will be.

Scraping together time to write and edit has been a real struggle, and the best thing I can do is to just… let go of everything else.

The bathroom can keep its one sample patch of paint until a later date, when I have time to paint it all. The cover for TSQ doesn’t need to be made until closer to the book’s release at the end of June. And for better or for worse, that release may end up being delayed.

I’m not a very go-with-the-flow person, so resigning myself to the fact that my big, ambitious plans for Q2 aren’t going to happen hasn’t been easy.  But it does give me time to really focus on finding what matters to me most, and after my family, my books top the list. They might not come out as fast as I’d wanted. The paperback for Serpent’s Tears might not be out on the same day as the digital edition. But those are small sacrifices when time is so slim that I can’t seem to do anything else.

I wish I had happier things to share, big projects achieved or the start of the series of short stories I want to write, but sometimes the happiest thing you can do is continue on.

Maybe instead of listing my goals, I’ll just track projects I get done instead. Right now, getting to them at all sounds like it’ll be a big achievement.

As for those short stories I mentioned… they’ll go out to my newsletter first, so make sure you sign up if you haven’t already.

Serpent’s Mark is now available!

It’s hard to believe we’re finally here, after all these years. I’ve put my heart and soul into bringing this story to life. It was what made me want to write and what made me want to pursue publishing, so it’s a little unreal to be in this moment!

Serpent’s Mark, the first book in my new Snakesblood Saga fantasy series, is now available.

Click here to get an ebook copy.

It’s free in Kindle Unlimited for the next little while, so what do you have to lose?

Cover reveal: Serpent’s Tears, Snakesblood book 2!

Oh, the stories I could tell about this cover.

I know, I know–it’s a little unorthodox to be sharing the cover for the second book in a series before the first one is even out, but let’s be honest. We’re less than a week away from the release of Serpent’s Mark, I’m excited, and I really want people to see this cover, dangit! Just look at it!

The ruins! The temple! That mask!

This cover took me literal years to draw, though I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it. It was, quite simply, a feat that should not have taken me so long. Back when I started this cover, I still thought this was going to be a three book series instead of a six book series, if that tells you anything!

I actually filmed the first part of the drawing process, but I wasn’t able to film the latter part because we came to what I began to acknowledge was the end of days for my poor PC. It got harder and harder to do things, and an image as big as this one, with almost 100 layers like it had, was almost too much. So even though I made a video, the latter part is screenshots I took at the end of each drawing session. Sometimes the sessions were short, sometimes they were hours long. But the latter half of the drawing process certainly went faster than the beginning.

So what do you think? I personally think it’s better than the first book’s cover, but that could just be two years of effort talking…

Tea review: Adagio Fandom Blends Second Breakfast tea

This was one of the teas that taunted me from the cabinet while I was finishing my aligner course and couldn’t have hot drinks. It smelled so good, yet I couldn’t find a chance to drink it. Now, well…

I’ve been enchanted with the idea of Adagio’s Fandom Tea offerings for a while. I won’t lie, I’ve been tempted to create some to go along with my own books, because what could be better than sharing a cup of a character’s favorite tea? (Spoiler alert: Rune prefers tea over coffee. Unexpected, perhaps.)

Regardless, the Second Breakfast sample tin my friend Jess sent me (along with her copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife) was my first foray into actually drinking one of these fandom blends, and this tea… my goodness, this tea has become one of my favorites.

It’s a magnificent mix of sweet apples and cream, a hint of orange, a taste of vanilla, and just enough chai spice to add warmth. It’s a combination of green and black tea, which creates visual interest, but also produces a lighter brew that’s best made at a lower temperature. It re-steeps okay once, but that’s it–a second breakfast might be a necessity, but a second brewing will not be quite as flavorful.

Even so, that first cup is an excellent addition to my morning and I’ve found myself enjoying it all week. I’ll be out soon, so I might have to order myself a bigger bag of this one.

Have you tried any fandom blends before? What about making them? I’m dying to try it, but I’m hesitant, too!

Making mage robes

Late last month, I decided to finally start making some mage robes for my dolls. Since all the BJDs in my doll collection are book characters–except for Lillibelle–it seems like I should be more on top of that. Three of the dolls I currently have should be wearing mage robes, and zero of them currently are. So I decided to fix it.

I’d drawn the mage robes a few times before; they’re pretty simple, but they’re supposed to be functional and standard issue, so they couldn’t be anything fancy. You can see one of the really old sketches here. Firal’s wearing something similar on the cover of book 2.

But not all the mages would have fitted sleeves. I think I’d already sort of thought of that even when I was sketching this, many years ago, since there are buttons visible on her cuffs. I ultimately decided to make the cuffs separate, something that could fasten on over the sleeve to hold them snug. A sash, too, would be optional, and the more fashionable magelings would probably use them to add a hint of their personality to the outfit.

One thing missing from that sketch is the stripes on mageling sleeves. The upper sleeve should be marked with stripes to show the ranks they’ve already graduated. I decided to use ribbon for the rank stripes, and for the overall shape and style of the robes, I decided to base them off the kurta pattern I’d already drawn for Arrios, one of my other dolls.

The test garment was for Kytenia. She’s a modified Feeple65 Ine that will share a body with one of my other dolls. I haven’t yet decided if she’d be better off sharing with Laele, my Iplehouse nYID Aria, or Lumia, my Impldoll Lydia. I had intended her to share Lumia’s body from the beginning, but her resin is very pale and really, Kyt is supposed to be more tan than Firal. It would be odd for her to be paler instead. But I don’t think Laele’s heigh would work for Kyt, so maybe she’s still better off sharing with Lumia, even if it means her complexion will make her look a bit under the weather for her character.

The weird things this hobby makes me think about, I guess.

Anyway, I’ll be making green ones for Firal soon, and white for Envesi, and I’ve already put the pattern in my BJD pattern archive, which is available in the Dolls section of my site’s menu. There’s a bit more information about the process in this video I shared at the end of February, if you want to watch. As a bonus, you’ll get to see me crying over the print proof of Serpent’s Mark.

February’s accomplishments, March’s goals

My list of goals for February (which I shared at the beginning of the month) was pretty hefty, so it’s probably not a surprise that not all of it got done, but here’s how I did…

Goal category 1: Publishing

Publish To Steal the Crown.

This one definitely happened. TSC went out on the 22nd  without a hitch, making the second book release of the year!

Finish and format Serpent’s Mark.

This one was HARD. I proofread the ebook, formatted everything, ordered print proofs, proofread AGAIN with the print copy, made final revisions, made formatting adjustments, and ordered a second proof. There’s one last adjustment I think I need to make to the print version, but on the whole, this got done… after a great deal of work.

The good news is all the formatting and troubleshooting is stuff I should hopefully only have to do once–now that I have an attractive template and workflow worked out, the next 5 books in the series should only require one print proof instead of three. This is done, though ordering author copies will be a bit later than I’d prefer.

Write To Steal the Queen.

Though I started strong, I stalled out around 15,000 words in the third Westkings Heist book as a result of the Serpent’s Mark proofing not going according to plan. Live and learn, I guess. I expect this one will land somewhere around 50,000 words in length and now that SM is done, I’m picking it up again this month and aiming to have it done and off to the editor by the end of March. I’ll check back toward the end of the month with updates on how well that’s panned out.

So for publishing… the goals were mostly wins. I didn’t finish TSQ, but I did make headway.

Goal category 2: Finishing the house

Oh boy.

Finish the studio.

This one’s done and it feels great!

Paint the gym.

This one didn’t happen. I ran out of painting supplies, then after I got supplies, I ran out of time. The walls were brown; now they’re primered white. It’s taped off and ready to paint, though.

Finish the front room.

Didn’t happen. It’s actually a worse mess now.

Paint main bathroom.

Also didn’t happen, but I did buy the paint!

One thing that wasn’t on the list that got done though was getting blinds put up through the whole house. We had lots of windows missing blinds or with broken blinds, and now they’ve all got nice new ones. Yay!

Goal category 3: Improving my health without sacrificing my work.

The hard-to-quantify one is… still hard to quantify. I’ll be honest; I didn’t feel the best through February. But I did start a little irregular exercise, which I’m still working to make regular. I think I lost weight (at least, my tummy seems flatter?) but it’s hard to say if that’s because of the cardio. But when I’m well, I’m better than I’ve been in a long time, and when I’m unwell, I don’t feel as bad as I have in recent memory, so I’ll consider that progress.

So with that out of the way, what are the goals for March?

Well, the end of March is also the end of the first quarter, and so my goals are mostly based on what needs to be finished at this point. Come April, I’ll consider new goals, but they’ll probably be similar through the whole year.

March goals

I’ll try to keep this brief, since it’s mostly just finishing existing stuff and then a few new additions. Also, I notice I format this a little differently every time. So…

Category 1: Publishing

• Finish To Steal the Queen.

I started, now it’s time to wrap up. The goal is to have the first draft complete by the end of March. I also want to learn to take weekends off.

• Publish Serpent’s Mark.

At last!! Book one is slated for release on March 28. Just a few things left to wrap up to hit this deadline.

• Finish the cover for Serpent’s Bane.

This one will be tough, since all I have right now is a very early sketch, but I have to get this done to keep up with my planned releases.

Category 2: Finishing the house

• Paint the gym.

Since it’s already taped off, I hope to get this done this week.

• Paint the main bathroom.

This one should also be easy, since everything is going to be one color: white.

• Paint some doors.

My daughter’s bedroom door has been primered for a year. For Pete’s sake, it’s time to finish painting the darn thing. I also need to paint MY bedroom door.

Category 3: Self-improvement I guess?

I actually have a few specifics planned for goals in this category, which is new.

• Take a personal day.

A day where I don’t work, I just go do fun stuff. Maybe get a fancy Frappuccino or something, since I don’t do that often at all.

• Start taking weekends off.

At some point, I want my job to be a normal Monday through Friday job, and I can actually have a life on the weekends. I’ll begin with Sunday, I think, trying to free up Sundays for a day off. If I can succeed in doing that in March, I’d like to work on taking Saturdays off shortly after.

That’s it for me this month, though. I’m sure other projects will crop up, but those are the big ones.

You have goals for the month too, right?

To Steal the Crown is out today!

It’s been a month since I shared Tahl’s first big adventure. Are you ready to continue?

To Steal the Crown, the second book in the Westkings Heist series, is now available!

You can pick up your copy on Amazon for just 99 cents, OR you can read for free with Kindle Unlimited.

Click here to grab your copy!

The third book in the series is coming this summer and I can’t wait to take all of you along for the adventure.

Slow progress on TSQ…

I tried something new with my schedule last week. I’ve been doing block scheduling for a while, allotting specific chunks of time in my schedule to specific tasks, and only working on it until that block is up. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it’s not enough time to really make a difference in what I’m doing. I thought using larger chunks–entire days–might help.

I broke my schedule into different categories and gave one day to each category. Monday was doll projects and video work, and I made great progress on Rhyllyn’s modifications and Rune’s new headback, as well as getting a decent chunk of filming done for YouTube documentation of those projects.

Tuesday was for book formatting, platform catch-up, and general admin work. I got a print proof for Serpent’s Mark ordered and I can’t wait to see how it looks. I replied to a bunch of email and commission queries, and finally caught up on comments places. At least, I think I did.

Wednesday and Thursday were set aside to be writing days, and that was when I learned this  new method definitely wasn’t going to work for me.

See, part of trying new things is finding which things work well for you and which don’t. We keep the things that serve us and discard the things that don’t.  I’ve learned over the course of a couple years that I work really well writing in short sprints, nothing longer than 15 minutes. I try to make use of that by doing a series of sprints in the morning to get my day’s words. Since it works well, I thought it would be worth applying it to an entire day. If doing 3 ten-minute sprints with short breaks helps me get 1,000 words in 40 minutes, then doing 5 sets of 3 sprints should help me get 5,000 words across 5 hours with plenty of rest between, right?

No.

No, no, no.

My goal was 5k words on Wednesday and 5k on Thursday. I logged 4,300 on Wednesday, but was exhausted and it didn’t take five hours, it took sixteen, working on it on and off all day. It wasn’t 3 sprints of ten minutes each, it was… I don’t even know, but it was a lot, and my word counts were abysmal. I worked at it less Thursday, but logged 2,500 words and was exhausted. Lesson learned: For me, short bursts work best.

So I’ve rearranged again and instead of pushing for big word counts, I’ll stick to what I know I can do: 1,000 words a day, done across 3 or 4 sprints in the morning. That’s still enough words to give me four epic fantasies in a year, so it’s a good schedule for me. And if I get into better writing habits, I should be able to write that much and then block the rest of my day off for other projects that need bigger chunks of time.

Friday was a half-day for the little one, so it was a half day for me, and used just for tying up loose ends from the previous days. I’ll be blocking things differently this week, but at least I’m making solid strides forward on the third Westkings Heist book this time. It was sitting at 12,600-ish words Thursday night, so if I can stick to 1k a day, it should be done in the middle of March, leaving plenty of time for prep work ahead of its scheduled release in June.

I think this week’s new habit should be getting back to using Pacemaker to chart my progress on the book. I sure miss seeing that little graph tick up…

Tea review: Adagio white blueberry

A while back, when I was visiting my family, I stopped by a shop on the town square that carries Adagio teas. It had been a while since I got anything new, so I figured it was a great opportunity.

White tea has always been a unique challenge for me. I either love or hate them, and unfortunately most of them fall closer to the hate spectrum. A lot of the time the flavor is a little too overpowering, or else doesn’t complement the mild taste of the white tea well enough to stand out. Still, the sample of this one smelled so good, and I’m a sucker for berry flavors, so I decided to give it a go. I’m glad I tried.

I was a little startled by how pale this tea brewed. It’s normal for white teas to brew light, of course, but I drank out of a white cup and the liquid inside had just the faintest blush of a cool purple-gold that’s hard to describe, but was remarkably pretty. The fragrance was mild, too—enough so that at first I thought maybe I had mismeasured the amount of tea I put in my cast-iron teapot. I sampled it anyway, and it was delightful.

The very light and subtle flavor of the tea worked beautifully with the flavor of blueberry, which adds its own hint of sweetness. I didn’t add any sugar to my cup at all, which is unusual for me—it was delicious on its own. As to be expected with blueberries, it bore a hint of a tart aftertaste, which I personally found very clean and refreshing, but I recognize it may not be for everyone.

My favorite part of the tea was that the blueberry taste increased with a second brewing, as the whole berries in the mix had time to soften during the first brew. As a result, my second cup had a bit more punch.

Overall, it was delightful—as long as you take care not to overbrew, which is easy to do with white teas. While the packet recommended brewing at 180 degrees, I opted for a cooler 160, as I might use for green teas, and found it preserved much more of the white tea flavor without turning bitter.

This one’s quite a treat, and I’m glad I went ahead and got two ounces while I was there.

Everything I did in January + All my goals for February

When I finally got around to sharing my list of goals for January, I was already halfway through the month and a lot of them were done. I won’t rehash what I talked about there, but I will say I’m pleased with the overall amount of work I got done in the first month of the year. After I reviewed the pile of sticky notes in my “complete” bowl that I pulled off my kanban board, I finished a total of 36 important tasks in the month of January–which meant I accomplished at least one task every day of the month, plus a little extra.

Some of those were big feats–things like getting business licenses and completing edits on Serpent’s Mark, which ended up being just shy of 104,000 words when work was complete. Whew.  The book still needs to be proofread, so it’s a ways out from being done, but I’ve started figuring out the layout for the digital edition of the book and I’ll tackle print editions after proofing is done, but everything is still on time right now.

I also ended up finishing as much as I could of the kitchen. Replacing the flooring is outside of my control, as we’re still waiting for a quote from a contractor so we can finish our damage claims, but that’s the only thing remaining to be done in that room.

Despite being the shortest month of the year, February has more goals than January. I’m not sure if all of them will get done, but if they don’t, whatever is left will be deferred to March. Here’s everything I hope to do…

Goal category 1: Publishing

Publish To Steal the Crown.

The second book in the Westkings Heist series is due to go out on February 22. This one should be a cakewalk, since all that’s left is having the book actually go live!

Finish and format Serpent’s Mark.

This means proofreading and final adjustments to the manuscript, then getting the ebook put together and ordering print proofs. If I can do a chapter a day, I should have a week left at the end of the month to handle formatting and ordering of proofs. I’d prefer to go a little faster than that, but we’ll see.

Write To Steal the Queen.

The third and final installment of the Westkings Heist trilogy is officially underway! Aiming for 50,000 words in a month is a tall order for me, but I’m going to do my best to get it done. It’s okay if this runs a little ways into March, but hopefully it won’t take that long. I’ll be sharing updates on how TSQ is going somewhere around mid-month.

Goal category 2: Finishing the house

This is the one where a lot of huge work waits…

Finish the studio.

There’s not a lot left to be done here, mostly just painting. Ideally it’s something I can finish in a day or two, but we’ll see.

Paint the gym.

This is technically the third bedroom, but since we don’t really need the space, it’s become Joe’s workout room and has all his equipment in it. The walls are a rather unpleasant brown, and full of holes, as well. I won’t be worrying about woodwork or doors yet, but the goal is to repair the walls and get them painted.

Finish the front room.

This is technically the dining room, but since there are only 3 of us, we eat in the kitchen and don’t need this space. All that really needs to be done is cleaning really well and getting this room nicely arranged so that it’s useful, instead of being a catch-all room where all the home improvement supplies are stored.

Paint main bathroom.

The previous owners had painted over whatever color was in the bathroom, but they did a terrible job. The paint is really streaky and blotchy and a muddy greenish-gray color comes through in places. This is the smaller of the bathrooms, so I want to keep it as bright as possible. Fortunately, one coat of a good quality white paint should take care of it.

Goal category 3: Improving my health without sacrificing my work

Ever hard to quantify, the big goal for this one this month is finding time to do something fun in between all the work. My dear friend Ashley gave me a stay-wet acrylic palette for my birthday last month, so I plan to work out time for an acrylic landscape painting some time this month.

I’d say that’s it for me, but it’s kind of a tall order. Maybe March needs to be slower?