K.M. Shea's Blog, page 24

Treat–or is it a Trick?!

Happy Halloween, Champions!

Every year I make both Robyn Hood Books free to celebrate Halloween as a sort of reverse Treat-or-Trick joke. (It’s a Treat because it means free ebooks…or is it a trick because these were some of the first books I published and badly need an edit?!) This year, Robyn Hood: A Girl’s Tale and Robyn Hood: Fight For Freedom will be free from 10/30 to 11/3.

Robyn Hood: A Girl’s Tale

Robyn Hood: Fight For Freedom

So, here is your Halloween treat (or trick!?) from me to you! I hope you’ve had a lovely October, and get ready…because the fun with Leila is about to begin!

Reminder!

Hello Champions, this post is just a gentle reminder about the Halloween themed short story I wrote a few years ago for the Magical Beings’ Rehabilitation center!

It’s called Trick or Treat, (Click here for the PDF) and it follows Morgan as she tries to survive the MBRC’s first Halloween celebration.

This was one of my favorite short stories/extras I’ve ever written. I had such a blast thinking of the various costumes the Magical Beings would think were fun/scary. So, if you haven’t read it before, now’s your chance!

Thanks for reading, Champions, and happy October!

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Connect with the Community

We’re going to close out my frequently-asked-questions-blog-thingie, with a fun topic that I am always willing to gab about: joining the Champion community!

The KM Shea/AM Sohma community has grown, but it’s easier than ever to connect with fellow Champions! I highly recommend you plug into the community–firstly because I think the Champions are the best sort of people and I love our community, but also because so many of us share common interests and it’s so fun to swap Lord of the Rings jokes and list our favorite Disney movie songs or discuss current book recommendations! So here is a list of ways that you can connect with us!

Facebook:

I have an author Facebook page for both A M Sohma and KM Shea, but I most recommend that you join the Champion Group! Because it’s a group you’re free to post and comment, so it’s much easier to get a conversation going and connect and chat with the other Champions! (This is a must join if you love book jokes/comics/memes–I scroll through whenever I need a laugh!) You do have to apply to join so we can keep out bots, but we’ll get back to you quickly!

Discord:

As many of you know, we have a discord server! This is a great place to go if you want to plunge deep into the K. M. Shea Community! The discord channel is super active, and they’re always happy to include newcomers in the conversation! If you really love to talk books, this is the place to be! (Click here to accept an invite to the server, and otherwise click here to return to the server whenever you like!)

Blog posts:

Blog posts are another good way to connect with fellow Champions–particularly if you’re just interested in swapping theories/observations about new book releases. (Although if you want to get into theories, discord is a better choice for you)

Lord of the Rings Online

We don’t just talk together, we game together, too! That’s right, we have a kinship (Heroes of Retha) on the Landroval server of Lord of the Rings Online. The kin meets up to raid on Friday nights at 8 pm central time, but players are on at all times of the day! If you’re interested in joining, jump on the discord server (Links above) and click out the “Lord of the Rings Online” channel to let the players in the kinship know you’re interested!

 

No matter what way you decide to connect into the community, I can promise that your fellow Champions will be warm and welcoming. I’ve hung out with them a lot, and I’m happy to say they’re just that kind of community.

But! If you find it nerve wracking to jump in on conversations, here’s a secret tip! We have a Community Manager, Vin! She rules over the Kitty’s Champion’s Discord Server, the KM Shea/AM Sohma Facebook Group, and runs the LotRO kinship!

Almost every weekday, Vin posts fun questions and challenges in Discord (Under the “Vintertainment” channel) and in the Facebook Group. (Watch for her name and picture in the posts–she themes her Vintertainment posts, so you’ll be able to tell!) Vintertainment is the perfect way to test out the community–it’s always a lot of fun, and everyone is posting their own ideas and thoughts so it’s a lot less intimidating to speak up!

Thanks for reading my series of frequently-asked-questions-blog-thingies! I hope you enjoyed it! We’ve got a few more autumn/Halloween themed posts coming up, and then in November the fun begins!

October Fun!

Hello Champions!

Looking to get into the spirit of Halloween or have some October fun! I’m taking a break from my blog series to give you a few ideas and hopefully get you excited! (I LOVE Fall and Winter, so we’re heading into my favorite time of year!)

First off, if you’re looking for Halloween costume ideas, check out my Pintrest board of fairy tale/book costumes! (Last year I went as  Gryffindor student with a bunch of friends who dressed up in other House colors–it was a blast!)

If you’re more of a decorator and you own a copy of Animal Crossing, I’d recommend checking out our discord server’s Animal Crossing channel for tips and ideas to decorate your Animal Crossing town!

I listen to a lot of music while working, and lately I’ve been listening to “Fall Chillhop” which is kinda like like softer, jazzy music mixed with stronger bases. Otherwise I’m a huuuge sucker for Ambience channels, so I found one for “Autumn Porch.”

Finally, if you like baking, Disney World released the recipe for their pumpkin bars this summer, so you might want to try it out! Otherwise Rosana Pansino’s Nerdy Nummies channel has tons of fun Halloween and fall-themed food videos!

I hope you enjoy some of my suggestions! But as a Fall junkie, I’m curious to know what you do to get yourself in the spirit of the season, so please leave your favorite ideas and tricks in the comments down below! (Mine is that I LOVE to visit apple orchards, and I’ve come to look forward to my annual Treat-or-Trick joke with Robyn Hood!)

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A Desire for Details

I’m always gobsmacked by how passionate you Champions are about my work. It’s a delight–and a shock–that I don’t think will ever fade! But sometimes your enthusiasm for a book is even greater than my enthusiasm for that project!

Rock-Star-Assistant Meg commonly fields emails asking for really deep details–like exact character heights, what happens to secondary characters after a book’s “The End” or backgrounds/origins for side characters.

I’m so honored Champions love the books that much that they want to know those details! I will never stop feeling awed and loved because Champions want to know more.

The problem is that as of 2020, I’ve written and launched 40 books. That is a lot of characters, world building, and events to keep track of. Combine that with all the novels I’d like to write (which at the moment between spin offs, sequels, and new series, I’m set for the next ten years easily in terms of book ideas) and you’ve got more information that I can reasonably keep track of.

Moreover, as an author friend of mine says, Authors write to get stories out of our brains. While my characters might feel like old friends–Severin, Elle, Britt, Merlin, and all my old characters will forever be in my heart–my focus is always on the projects/books I have planned for the next year or so.

Soooo when you ask me what Donaigh from Sleeping Beauty’s exact height measurements are…I genuinely have no idea.

The truth is that details like that get lost in my brain–particularly in a series like Timeless Fairy Tales where I’m obsessively trying to make sure all the hidden secrets and plot twists I inserted in there for Angelique’s series are all working together so the final “picture” is complete and tied together correctly. It gets even worse when the details are from a past series like King Arthur and Her Knights that I haven’t touched in years. My past books get buried by future books and plotlines that I haven’t written but I’ve already started mentally planning them out so I can figure out how to layer clues for the eventual ending! (ie: the drinking blood subplot in Hall of Blood and Mercy!)

But that doesn’t mean you can’t dream up your own backstories for my secondary characters, or decide on someone’s eye color yourself!

Why I Say My Characters’ Names Weirdly

Today’s post isn’t so much a frequently asked question, as much as me addressing a common theme I’ve noticed among Champions. When I speak–whether it’s on Facebook Live, Youtube Live, or on a panel/discussion–I’ve noticed Champions are always disappointed with themselves because they say character/country/place names differently than I do.

Please allow me to assure you, there is a 95% chance I’m slaughtering my own characters’/country/place names, and I’m the one saying it wrong! There are two main reasons for this!

Some of my worlds–cough, Timeless Fairy Tales, cough–have countries based on historical countries/empires from the real world. In example: Trieux culture, names, and fashion are all heavily based on historic French culture/fashion/etc. I don’t speak French, so there is no possible way I’m going to be able to pronounce the French-themed names.
I have a reading disability which makes it hard for me to tell letters apart.

Oohhh, dropped a bit of a bomb on you with that second one, eh? Yes, I have a really hard time correctly pronouncing a lot of regular words from the English language because I can’t for certain tell which letters are used and–as a result–what sound they’re supposed to make. My Midwest accent covers the worst of it–my words tend to slur together so I don’t say letters crisply, meaning it’s harder to tell if I’m for certain saying something correctly or if it’s just my accent. But the biggest giveaway of my reading disability is that if I’m responding to a question and reading a Champion’s name from the comments, I find it really, really difficult to tell what his/her name really is. (Of course it’s extra stressful because it’s LIVE so I’m trying to figure out as quickly as possible what your name is, so I almost always end up mispronouncing it.)

For the sake of those who are curious, my reading problems boil down to my inability to tell the difference between letters. I know d and b are different letters, but looking at them together I have no idea which letter makes what noise because I can never remember which one faces what direction. I rely heavily on memorization, and use keywords to remind me what letters make what noise. In example, if I’m looking at a word that uses a d or b, I’ll visually recall the word “dog” because I 100% know what that word looks like, and I know it starts with a d. I’ll then mentally compare “dog” to the letter in the word, and figure out if it matches or not.

This problem is also why a few of you have caught it when I randomly change the way a character’s name is spelled. I accidentally shifted the Purple Rider’s name between 12 Dancing Princesses (Neera) and Frog Prince (Nareena). When a reader reported the problem to Meg, she sent me the email to let me know there was an issue. I had to count out the letters in each name before I could finally “see” there was a difference, even though one of them has extra letters.

Professionally, this means my poor editors have a lot more work than they might normally, and it’s also why my books will always squeak through and get published with a few minor errors. I’ve gotten lots of offers from people to proof read, but because of my reading disability, I could have ten people go through the book and it would STILL have errors at the end, and the book would take about five times longer to release. And while it is generous and kind of people to offer to proof read, I’m not looking for anymore proofreaders or beta readers at this time.

I’ve settled into an arrangement where editing only takes up about half of the book launch process, and the books have a livable amount of errors when they do get published. I know the errors make some people upset, but this is the very best I can do and still keep up with my launch schedule. So I understand when people choose not to read my books as a result–I even encourage it! We all have our own things that make a book or author vibe with us. This is something I will never be able to fix about myself, and as a fellow reader I want people to read books that make them personally happy!

I ventured off topic for a little while there, but all of this is to say that the next time you hear me say a character name in a wacky or wild way, fret not!

I Want You To Write

Another suggestion/question Rock Star Assistant Meg and I commonly receive are specific writing requests. Sometimes a reader might have an idea for an entire book that they want me to write, or a specific character or theme they want me to include.

This is a sticky topic for a couple of reasons.

Books are copyrighted material–which means if I take someone else’s idea and write it, that’s copyright infringement, and legally things get complicated really fast.
Between plans for Angelique, additional Timeless Fairy Tale stories and spin offs, the second Elves of Lessa arc, expanding my urban fantasy world, finishing off Second Age of Retha, and circling back around to old projects like Life Reader, I’ve got over a decade of books stacked up and waiting for me to write. (And I’ve been planning a lot of these projects for years already.)

Of course I always love to hear what kinds of books and stories you’re excited about and what interests you–as a fellow reader I love talking about that, and sometimes it makes me adjust my planned books a bit!

But if you have an idea you really love, or a genre/trope you wish there was more of, I’d like to take this opportunity to really encourage you to write your own story!

Encouraging others to write is a topic I’m really passionate about. And okay, yes, it’s somewhat selfish because I’m just a huge reader so I will always advocate more books in the world–you can never have too many! But I also really want to encourage others who have a specific thing they want to see in books, because that’s how I got started writing.

In junior high/high school, I wanted to see more series with strong female protagonists in fun and vivid worlds! Since ebooks weren’t a thing yet, I could only check out whatever books my local library had, and their young adult section was pretty small, so I ran out of options pretty fast. My parents very wisely put me on a book budget, which meant I had limited abilities to buy everything I wanted to read. Instead…I wrote. As a result, Robyn Hood, Princess Ahira, and Life Reader were born! (And my first book–a terrible sci fi that we only talk about when NaNoWriMo rolls around, so SHHHH!)

Now, the books I wrote then and the books you see offered today are pretty different. They’ve been re-vamped and gone through major edits since I published them on Amazon–admittedly some of them could use another edit again. (Yes, I’m looking at you Robyn Hood) But even today I focus on writing what I really want to see–whether that’s funny urban fantasy novels, or fairy tales in sweeping worlds. And I have a lot of ideas I really want to see–I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I have over a decade of books stacked up and waiting for me, so don’t worry, there won’t be a lack of new KM Shea books anytime soon!

So, please allow me to repeat myself: If you have an idea, theme, story, or character you’d love to see as a book, write it! You can do it–I believe in you! And while it won’t be easy–writing a book is a lot like learning to play an instrument; it will take time and practice–when you finish you’ll have your story, and you will have created something you can be proud of!

This concludes today’s frequently-asked-questions-blog-thingie (I am SO GOOD at naming stuff, I know.) but before I bring it to a full close, I did want to mention that we have lots of writer/author-Champions, and some of them belong to the Champion Discord and/or the Champion Facebook Group. So if you’re interested in writing or talking about writing, you might want to plug in to those communities. (Here’s a link to the page that gives you directions on how to do that!) Thanks for reading, and have a lovely week!

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Why I Can’t Write Faster

The vast, vast, vast majority of you Champions are so understanding as to why I can’t write faster than I already do. In fact, I get so many kind messages and sweet emails from you guys because you’re worried about my health and you don’t want me to burn out. Thank you so much for your love and support–I appreciate it so much and I know I’m so blessed to have such a great community behind me.

But every once in a while, I’ll get a reader who wants to know why I can’t write just one additional book per year, or why I don’t try to optimize my process to the fullest extent possible and therefore write more books in the same time. So, I thought I’d open our series of frequently asked question-blog-thingies with the explanation that this is why:

Look Ma, no wrinkles…because my face is TOO FAT to even have smile lines!

No, this picture hasn’t been photoshopped in any way. My face is normally the shape you see on the right side of the pic. But when I get super stressed, and work too many hours for too many weeks and weekends in a row, my body will forcibly shut me down to give me a break. Usually I’ll lose at least a week of work to one of these episodes, sometimes more, and it happens several times a year.

My body will communicate its need to slow down in a myriad of “fun” and “intriguing” ways. The one pictured in the photograph is what happens when I get massive sores in my mouth that randomly erupt and make my cheek swell so bad it looks like it’s trying to split off like a cell in the middle of mitosis. This is an extremely painful condition, particularly because pain killers don’t really work, so I take a bunch of medications to knock myself out so I don’t get sick to my stomach–as I have in the past. If it goes on long enough it can even make my eye start to swell shut–as you can start to see in this picture–which makes life super exciting and pirate-like in ways I never wanted to experience. But what’s worse is I CAN’T EAT DESERT LIKE THIS!! My mouth can’t open because the swelling is so bad and I was off cake for DAYS with this, then there was also the drooling problem… *sobs in the distance.*

Moving on! I’ve seen doctors for my various “exciting” ways my body communicates to me that I’m overdoing things, and the medical pros always tell me that this is my body screaming at me to stop working since I very obviously won’t listen unless it does something this drastic. Like taking away my cake.

And the truth is, writing a book is not a fast thing. Even if I can get the writing of the actual book done in less than a month, it still needs editing from a copy editor and at least two betas–and each one of those people gets it for one to two weeks. And even before I begin writing the book I always outline and flesh out my characters. After the book is polished and edited I still have to make arrangements for its cover and work with Meg to see that the book gets formatted and uploaded by my preorder deadline. I also have to write the extra that I send out as my launch celebration/thank you for reviews–which also has to have one of my betas go over it for typos–and I start prepping all the blog posts/facebook posts I release as part of the launch celebration, too. (I typically do all of this while the betas and editor are going over the book, so no time is wasted.)

Basically, no matter how fast I go, the process of creating, writing, and publishing a book takes several months–and that’s for an average book, not a monster-length like Reign of Magic or The Revived. And–as I mentioned above–my body already punishes me for the pace I’ve set, so it’s not something I can maintain long term.

So can I work faster and for more hours? No. No I can’t. The current pace I’m setting already tests my limits, and I’m aware in the future I’m going to have to slow down to really be mentally and physically healthy.

NOTE!! I know a bunch of you Champions were already worried about my health, and I’m guessing the picture made you scream in horror. But don’t worry, I’m okay now! Thank you so much for your concern. I’m so grateful for our community and the relationship I have with you Champions, because I know you really care about me. As I mentioned, I am taking steps to try and prevent this in the future, and I am aware that none of you want me to push myself to the point where it affects my health.

This concludes the first frequently-asked-questions-blog-thingie! Don’t worry, the rest aren’t this…grim? Worrying? But hopefully they’ll all be illuminating, interesting, or maybe even inspiring!

SheaCon Panel Audio

Surprise! Before I begin my new blog series, I wanted to slide this post in and announce that due to the extraordinary efforts of the SheaCon planning Committee, we have the audio from all the SheaCon panels!

Opening Ceremonies: Hosts Dino and Xoffy opened SheaCon with a bang…and perhaps an unexpected (rigged) pageant!?

Entwined Tales Author Panel: Brittany Fichter, Shari L Tapscott, Melanie Cellier, and Kenley Davidson joined me for a chat about our books, our friendship, and our writing processes! (Aya Ling, who is also in Entwined Tales, was sadly unable to join us due to the massive time difference.)

W. R. Gingell Panel: Author W. R. Gingell (who happens to be the author of the City Between series, one of my favorite Urban fantasy series!) talked about her books, writing, and her life as an author!

Kitty Q & A: Last month you all were given the chance to submit questions for this Q&A panel. The Planning Committee organized them, and then hosts Xoffy and Cindy pitched them to me. If there’s any secret info you wanted to know about my books, this is your panel!

K. M. Shea Writing Panel: I give a rather “um” filled talk (sorry!) about how my interests have impacted my writing voice, how I get inspiration, and I answer reader questions about my writing!

Champion Trivia: I embarrassed myself to the delight of all the Champions present as I tried to guess the abbreviations and codes the discord Champions have adopted while talking about my books.

Again, a huge thanks to the diligence and hard work of the SheaCon planning committee–you guys are amazing! I hope you enjoy this “taste” of the Con if you were unable to come, Champions, and thanks for reading!

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What Now?

SheaCon is over, and oh my goodness was it tons of fun!

Thank you to all the Champions who came–it was so fun to play games and chat with you all! I’ve always loved our community, but SheaCon made me appreciate it in new ways.

I want to give SheaCon Planning Committee a huge thanks, and a standing ovation! The event was possible only because of their hard work, and they did an outstanding job with all of the games, panels, and events. Thank you for this special memory, planners!

With SheaCon officially closed (I miss all of you already) and Prince’s Bargain all grown up and launched for several weeks now, all the stuff we’ve been looking forward to for a while is now over, so I wanted to give you guys a bit of a rundown of what you can expect to see in the next few months.

I’ve thrown myself into Leila’s trilogy, but unfortunately I lost about two weeks in July when I got super sick. (Major props to the Champions who picked up on that even though I was attempting to hide it–you guys are incredibly observant) So that pushed my launch schedule back a tiny bit.

As of now it looks like Leila’s first book will launch in mid/late-ish November, the second in December, and the third in mid January. And of course, in December I’ll have my Christmas event with tons of free books, and in January I’ll do my usual posts that look back over the year, etc.

All of that means we have September and October to get through without anything going on in the community. I’ll be pushing the gas to get Leila’s books done, so I’ll be a busy bee behind the scenes, but I’ve decided to take the the next two relatively empty months–empty for the community, anyway–to release a series of blog posts that cover some general questions Rock-Star-Assistant Meg and I get asked frequently.

Ideally, I’ll write up a post a week–maybe every two weeks if I’m trying to meet a hard deadline. Of course, just because I’m focusing on the writing bit doesn’t mean you guys can’t have fun without me! If you want to connect with other Champions I highly recommend checking out our Discord Server or the Champion Facebook Group! In both groups you’ll be able to interact with your fellow Champions, and Vin–our Community Manager and general Enforcer of Fun–will be around to post fun topics to discuss and games to play! (And of course, even with my deadlines I’ll try to drop in from time to time!)

I think that covers everything! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this new blog post series–which will start next week!

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