K.M. Shea's Blog, page 11
November 24, 2022
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to all my Champions!
Today is the day Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, but I wanted to take a moment to thank our entire community for your continued kindness and loyalty. It was a hard year, but I got through it, and I couldn’t have done it without your encouragement and support.
Thank you so much–I’m so thankful for all of you Champions, and for our wonderful community.
In the spirit of the season, it’s the perfect time to uncover an old King Arthur and Her Knights short story I wrote way back in 2015 that’s Thanksgiving themed. It is–very accurately and very originally–called: Thanksgiving!
Now, Happy Turkey Day! I’m off to make some whipped cream for some pumpkin pie–enjoy your feast! 
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November 7, 2022
Audio Books: Snow Queen and Queen’s Crown
SO MANY exciting audio book updates today!
First of all, after a very looong wait, The Queen’s Crown is finally available on Audible! Once again this book was narrated by the combined talent of Avery Caris and Charlie Thurston. I hope you enjoy it!
I do want to acknowledge that this book was significantly delayed compared to the first two books, but unfortunately there wasn’t anything I could do about it. The first two books of the Court of Midnight and Deception series have been available for weeks but I can’t control how quickly Audible’s review process finishes, and they told me they were extra busy right now when I reached out to them. 
But I’m glad it’s finally ready! If you were waiting for the final book go and get it!
The other update for the Court of Midnight and Deception series is that the issue with Crown of Shadows chapter eight (5 minutes of junk audio at the end) has been resolved, and you can now get the clean version on Amazon. If you delete the book from your device and redownload it from the store you will get the correct version. Special thanks to the Champions who helped me test this out to confirm we could get the new version!
Last, but definitely not least, I am happy to announce that you can also get the complete Snow Queen series as one single audio book download! All three books are narrated by the wonderful Courtney Patterson and Nick Thurston. Get The Snow Queen: The Complete Saga audio book.
This is the first audio boxset I’m releasing so I’m interested in what you think (please comment below if you liked this!). If this is well received there might be more audio boxsets coming in the future!
I’m also interested in hearing about what you think of the narrators! I’ve selected different narrators for each of my audio book projects so far – do you have a favorite? Do you like the two narrator style I’ve been using or do you prefer a single narrator through the whole book?
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November 1, 2022
2022 NaNoWriMo
November is here which means means NaNoWriMo–or National Novel Writing Month–has begun!
National Novel Writing Month is an event started in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days (the month of November). The global event is run by the official NaNoWriMo nonprofit organization–which means it is also FREE to sign up and join in the fun. If you signup you get a nifty tracker and some fun discounts if you “win” and write 50,000 words by the end of November.
Even though NaNoWriMo focuses on writing a 50,000 word novel, you can work on any project you want! In the past, some participants work on D&D campaigns, journaling, or writing/planning out a comic book, so you can put your own unique spin on the month!
Sadly this year my timing is off so I’ll be editing for the first half of the month, and I won’t truly be participating. But! If you decide to embark on the wonderful journey or writing a novel in a month I have some resources to share with you to help you!
Author Resources webpageBlog Posts with the Writing Tips categoryMy Pinterest Board for Writing Tips (this Pinterest board has links to my blog post and other writing tips from other authors)But thanks to our Discord Community Manager Vin you don’t have to officially sign up for NaNoWriMo to have fun!
Vin is going to be hosting writing sprints multiple times a week throughout the month of November on Discord (See link for instructions on how to sign up for our community Discord!) The dates and times of Vin’s writing sprints are listed below, and they’ll be held in the “Writing Sprints” channel of our server.
You don’t have to work on a fun writing project if you want to join in Vin’s sprints! If you are finishing homework, studying, or have a work project you really need to focus on please feel free to join. I will try to pop in for a couple of of Vin’s sprints throughout the month so I hope to see you there!
2022 NaNoWriMo Writing Sprint Schedule
All times are at 2 pm Central unless indicated otherwise
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October 28, 2022
Happy Halloween 2022!
Happy Halloween, Champions! You know what that means, right? Both of the Robyn Hood books–in their shiny new covers–are free for you to download right now! The sale is from October 28th through October 31st, so make sure to pick these up if you need to add them to your digital library!
Robyn Hood: A Girl’s Tale | Robyn Hood: Fight For Freedom
I affectionately call this a Trick or Treat situation because the Robyn Hood books are the second and third books I ever wrote, and while they recently got an edit to clean them up, the story telling isn’t quite as sharp as what I can write now. But despite my greener abilities at the time, Champions have assured me they still love them for my trademark humor and strong female characters, so if you haven’t gotten them yet, now is your chance to try them for free! If you already have these books, go ahead and send this sale to a friend who you think would enjoy them!
The Robyn Hood sale is something I do every year, so it’s become an autumn tradition for the community. I enjoy it so much that when I start my planning and prepping for fall, this is one of the announcements I most look forward to sharing. (I LOVE seasonal and holiday traditions!) Thank you for being such a fun community that we can have traditions like this. I love writing, but chatting with bookish friends and making memories with you all year after year…that’s tough to beat!
Have a Happy Halloween, Champions! Enjoy the free books, and thank you for reading!
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October 20, 2022
Health Update 3.0: The Return of the Panda
Back in Ye Olden Days that were my early career, when I had health issues or problems I’d use panda pictures to illustrate how I was doing. I decided to return to that tradition because I’m getting sick of sounding whiny and complaining.
Today I am Pouty Panda. What reason–you may ask–do I have for pouting? Myself, because WHY DOES RECOVERY TAKE SO LONG. OH. MY. GOODNESS!
So! For those who didn’t know! Last month I had a very necessary surgery. The surgery was a success–with the side effect of my surgeon might need therapy in the future and me getting a hilarious story to share. Since the surgery was in my abdomen, one of the things they do after performing the surgery is check on both of the kidneys on the way out. They have to make sure the kidneys are undamaged from the surgery, because if they’d been nicked and it’s not caught, it’s deadly. But that doesn’t happen often–in fact, it had never happened to my surgeon. So it was business as usual as my surgeon found the first kidney, it looked great, no problems. And then she looked for my other kidney. And looked. And looked. And looked.
She couldn’t find it, so she had to have a fellow surgeon look. He couldn’t find it, so they called in the emergency urologist, and he couldn’t find it! In the end they spent more time looking for my kidney than they spent on the actual surgery. It was getting to the “this isn’t good, we gotta close her up” point, so they glued me shut and raced me off to imaging to see if they could find my errant kidney, and SURPRISE! Turns out I was born with one kidney, and I never knew because the ultrasounds I’d gotten for the surgery hadn’t checked out my kidneys, and I hadn’t been scanned as a baby.
This doesn’t change my life since I already have been living with one kidney–although at the first sign of any kind of kidney disease I’ll have to spring into action–and the only complication from this needless search and rescue mission was that my innards were more banged up than usual after a surgery, but the extra pain only lasted a few days.
The interesting thing, is that I learned one in every 1,000 to 2,000 people are born with one kidney. Between my newsletter, blog, and social medias, there are several thousand of us, so…be aware there’s at least a few others of us here who only have one kidney?!
Hilarious story aside, I’m doing well. In a twist that I’m sure is going to shock you all, it turns out I way underestimated how HARD and LONG my recovery would be. I’m now in week four and I’m finally able to go on some longer walks, though I still have a lot of physical restrictions that I’m salty about. I feel like my brain is finally starting to clear of some of the mental fog that’s been plaguing me for most of the year, but the clearance doesn’t last as long as I’d like, so I’m still writing much slower than usual, hence the grumpy panda at top.
But despite the not-fun parts of recovery, I have so much to be thankful for. Of course that the surgery was a success, but also for my friends and family, who have been so amazing through all of this. Rock Star Assistant Meg has helped me so much with getting Perfect Dog to her vet appointments (she’s fine, she just had a little arthritis flare up) and with making sure I’m fed, while Myrrhlynn has been a superstar for so many things, including driving me because–and NO ONE TOLD ME THIS!!!!–turns out you can’t drive until at least two weeks after abdomen surgery.
My whole family has been absolutely amazing during this–they had so much patience and love during the past few weeks when I’ve frankly been sick of myself and my limitations–and I can’t thank the KM Shea team enough for keeping things going while I’ve been in and out of this. Most of all, I want to thank our community! Your kind comments and emails the past few months were the encouragement and calming influence I’ve so badly needed, not to mention your patience with all of…this.
Thanks for reading, Champions, and thank you so much for your support. Our community is the best!
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October 14, 2022
MBRC Autumn Fun!
Since October is here, it’s time to remind you of the existence of what is quite possibly my favorite short I’ve ever written: Trick Or Treat!
Trick or Treat is a Magical Beings’ Rehabilitation Center short story, so if you haven’t read about Morgan and her Chicago friends you’ll want to go finish that duology first! But Trick or Treat follows the adventure of Morgan as she attempts to teach her magical students the human tradition of–you guessed it–trick or treat!
Click HERE to read Trick or Treat!
As hinted at in the short story, I love autumn treats! I’m going to get together with my mom to mix up the dough for what we call our Pumpkin Cookies! (It’s a sugar cookie dough that we roll into a cylinder shape, then slice into circles, bake, and color with orange frosting!)
Do you have an autumn-themed goodies you like to make? Or are you the crafty type and instead you make cute crafts?
Thanks for reading, Champions, and enjoy the short!
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October 3, 2022
Bookish Costumes!
I’m so excited I can’t stand it, Champions. Autumn is here, which means my favorite months of the year (October, November, and December) are lining up! I love holidays, so these three months are my absolute favorite. (Though I do love January and February because I love winter, and–of course–there is New Years and VALENTINES DAY to think of!)
Later this month we’ll have my annual “Trick or Treat” fun where I put up both of the Robyn Hood books for free over Halloween weekend, so stay tuned for more info about that!
But since it’s the start of October, it’s prime time to talk about Bookish Costumes!
Myrrhlynn and I have a massive pintrest board filled with all kinds of book-related costumes if you’re looking for inspiration! (I think the Nancy Drew one is especially perfect since it’s low stress to put together!)
I love costumes–especially book costumes! Last year my dad and I dressed as pirates and then gave away chocolate coins for my neighborhood’s trick-or-treat time, but in other years I’ve dressed up as The Dread Pirate Roberts from Princess Bride, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and a variety of Tolkien-inspired characters! I know you all are dying to see me as Roberts, so here’s me, with Perfect Dog playing the role of Buttercup!
Previously, my friends and I have all dressed up as wizards from Harry Potter, which was also a ton of fun! What have been some of your favorite costumes?
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September 30, 2022
2022 Reader Survey
I’m excited to announce the return of my annual Reader Survey! Woohoo!
Nearly every year the team and I conduct a reader survey. We try to keep it short–each year it’s approximately 10 questions long so it only takes a few minutes to fill out–but the results are absolutely vital to me and the team! While Myrrhlynn, Meg, and I put our heads together to design the survey, the results teach us a lot about you Champions and the community at large, like: what book genres you’re interested in, where should we focus on growing our community, and more!
Meg and Myrrhlynn go over the results extensively before using graphs to explain to me what we’ve learned, and then we use that info to plan out the rest of the year, and–more importantly–the following year!
This year, as my thank you for filling out the survey, I have a Magiford themed short story bonus link at the end! A link to it will pop up AFTER you complete the survey, so don’t exit out of the window until you click that link. (And if you want to read it more than once, I’d suggest saving it to your phone or computer. I’ll put it up on the website eventually, but it probably won’t be until December!) I hope it makes you laugh! Now, what you’ve been waiting for–CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY!
Once again, I can’t thank you Champions enough for filling out the survey. It helps me so much and it’s the best opportunity we have for you to give us feedback. Thanks for taking the survey, thank you for reading, and enjoy the short!
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September 27, 2022
Audio Books: WARNING FOR CROWN OF SHADOWS
Good morning, Champions!
I have woken to a very unpleasant discovery–Apparently the audio production company accidentally inserted about five minutes of a nonsensical list of numbers and recorded lines at the end of chapter eight of Crown of Shadows during a recording session, and we didn’t notice it before uploading.
I’ve already uploaded a fixed version of the chapter, but it again has to go through the proofing process, which will last several days. (Yaaaaaaaay!) If you already bought it, I believe it will be possible to get the fixed file from Audible once it has been re-approved and the fixed chapter is up. (So it’ll be a few days)
In the meantime, the rest of the file is fine. I know some Champions have still opted to purchase it since everything else is right as rain, but if you want to wait for the fixed file, I’ll make an announcement as soon as I’m told it’s up!
Thank you so much for your understanding during this mix up–and thanks to the Champions who let me know it was an issue! (Our community is so amazing!)
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September 26, 2022
Audio Books: Crown of Shadows and Crown of Moonlight
After a long wait, I’m pleased to announce that Crown of Shadows and Crown of Moonlight are both available as audiobooks on Audible!
Crown of Shadows | Crown of Moonlight
Queen’s Crown isn’t available quite yet, but we are working on getting the final copies and then uploading it for Audible/Amazon to proof, so it should be available in a month or less!
The narrators for the Court of Midnight and Deception series are the mega talented Avery Caris and Charlie Thurston, and I can’t wait for you to hear them! Avery perfectly captured Leila’s midwestern way of speaking–which actually launched a few interesting topics of discussion among the beta listeners, so let me ask you, Champions, do you say the ‘g’ in “ugh” or is it silent for you??
As usual, audiobooks take a lot of work from a lot of people, so a huge thank you to the beta listeners–BookMadWoman and Cimorrene–for listening for errors and helping me choose the narrator with Meg’s input; to Covers By Christian for adjusting the book design for audio, Bee Audio who produced the audio files, Myrrhlynn for loading all the files online….basically, it’s a massive group effort!
We hope you enjoy the audiobooks–as I mentioned Queen’s Crown is on the way, and pretty soon The Snow Queen Saga will be available soon as well! Thanks for reading, Champions!
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