Holly Ice's Blog

Family, NaNoWriMo, and New Projects

This month I took part in NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month), which is a challenge to write 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days. This year I didn't quite get to the full 50K, but I did meet family I hadn't seen in almost three years during a quick visit to Latvia (the above picture is from outside the Lido restaurant in Riga). Seeing family was more than worth a lower word count to me.I even got over my usual scrooge reaction to late November and early December xmas decorations and songs (though this may have something to do with the songs in Latvia being sung in Latvian or having American influences, which reduced the repetitive I-want-to-burn-my-ears reaction). The draft I worked on for NaNo this year was one I've mentioned briefly to my mailing list subscribers. It's an urban fantasy mystery with a strong romance subplot based in a witch academy... in Latvia! In my head the school is set in Cesvaines castle, which used to be a school many years ago (see above for pictures I took there a few years ago).I thought the unusual, out of the way setting would provide the privacy a magical school would need to operate under the radar. The first draft is currently sitting at 36.5K, with a rough goal of 60K words. Hopefully I can reach that in December, alongside more edits on the fantasy idea a number of you have expressed interest in.That's all for now. Until next time!

The Approach has landed on Amazon!

After about eighteen months in production, The Approach has finally landed on Amazon.I'm so pleased to see the book available for readers to buy, and I'm even more pleased that I've had so many four and five star reviews within days of the book launch. My thanks goes to all my advance readers for helping with the launch, my alpha and beta readers for helping with production, and my new readers, for exploring this new world I've created.Here's to hoping the rest of the Courage Colony series lives up to this great start. :)

September Cover Reveal and Launch News

I've spent September putting together launch plans and tinkering with the cover design for The Approach but now it's official: I have a cover, and The Approach will land on Amazon on November 1st 2019! I'm very excited. Also terrified. I sway between both emotions a lot. :)Here's the blurb:When nanites consumed our solar system, they killed every human they infected. Only one ship escaped. They named it ‘Courage’. Errai Avila is the biological child of her parents, and shunned for it. She’s an unwelcome anomaly on a generation ship approaching its final destination. All she wants is to escape notice, but when Captain Rima Jabir calls for volunteers to explore their new home, Errai must make a choice. Will she continue to hide in the food hall kitchen, or will she cast off anonymity to finally gain respect?The Approach is the first book in a gripping YA sci-fi series. If you like intense power struggles, difficult choices, and strong, intelligent heroines, then you’ll love Holly Ice’s Courage Colony books.October will send book two in the series to the first lot of alpha readers, and will see me working on edits for the fae/Arthur book and planning the witch book. Switching between projects is keeping me creative at the moment :) Until next time!

August Prep and First Drafts

This month has been busy, but also a quiet one in terms of big announcements. It's mainly been about pushing things on to the next stage, ready for September. The Courage Colony books are still going strong. Fatal Glitch has now had nearly 400 downloads (thank you!) and The Approach is edited, formatted, and awaiting its cover design on 19th September before publication. I also commissioned a chapter heading illustration for the series paperbacks, which is super cool. I hope to share that with you soon. I wanted to finish the first draft of The Welcome (book two) before the end of August. I didn't quite manage it, but I'm not far off now. It should still see alpha readers in September.Strangely for me, I've had an idea for another series (magic academy) come to me out of the blue. I rarely have ideas for something before my current project is finished, but there it is. I've written down what I know of the idea so far and put it to one side. The challenge after the Courage Colony books are done will be whether to go with the magic academy books next, or my old Riftkeeper series. That's all I have to report for now. Until next time!

A Busy, Exciting July

What a month! I've been juggling my Courage Colony books and have seemingly kept everything aloft.First I re-read Fatal Glitch and The Approach multiple times to get The Approach all set for the copyeditor and to make sure Fatal Glitch was ready for all of you on my mailing list to read. And so many people have picked up the book! I even received my first review for the book on GoodReads, which is so exciting.I then got back to work on my first draft of book two, The Welcome, which is now past the halfway mark (yay!). I'm hoping to have a full draft by the end of August.And in the last two days of July I received the edits back from the copyeditor, along with some wonderful compliments on my writing. I've made the changes from the edit already and am in the middle of formatting the eBook version.Overall, July has given me just the pep talk I needed to make a big dent into the work ahead on this series. Thank you, too, to all of you for supporting me as I release this new series! :)Until next time!

Fatal Glitch: Beta Revisions

June has been fairly busy for me. First, I've been working on Courage Colony book two, The Welcome. This book is at the first draft stage and I got around 27,000 words into the predicted 70,000 word book when my beta readers for Fatal Glitch reported in.Fatal Glitch then took priority and The Welcome was put on hold while I read through and dealt with beta reader comments on the prequel. Altogether there were 147 comments across six readers which works out at about 24 each. This is great for a 50,000 word book! Even better, many of the comments were positive remarks on dialogue or character, and many were very quick changes to word choice. This means that I've worked through these comments very quickly. I currently only have about five more comments to address, which shouldn't take long. Also, in a very exciting moment for me, I received and approved the eBook cover for Fatal Glitch. More on this once my beta edits are complete, so keep an eye out!Last month I addressed the beta reader comments on the first book in the YA sci-fi series, The Approach. This book now requires a full read through after the prequel beta changes before it is sent for its professional copyedit. From there, only typos will be changed as the book gears up for publication, being formatted by me, and receiving its cover from the cover designer in September. I hope to publish The Approach shortly after the cover is in, in late September or early October 2019.Overall, I feel like things are quickly moving towards publication now, and I'm excited to experiment with marketing and see how well my books are received in the market. I hope to find new readers who love my stories and that my characters stick in their minds just as much as they do in mine.So, in short, in July I'll be finishing up the edits on Fatal Glitch, re-reading The Approach before its copyedit, formatting Fatal Glitch, and continuing the first draft of The Welcome. There will also be a cover reveal for the prequel and a surprise for those on my mailing list. I'm actually grinning at my screen thinking about the month ahead. Talk soon!

Fatal Glitch: Beta Read

May is almost over but my hayfever is still in full swing *sniff*. Despite the itchy eyes and sniffy nose, I got a lot done this month. Fatal Glitch's second rewrite was finished ahead of schedule and sent out to my lovely beta readers on May 15th. Three have reported back so far, and the feedback confirms that what I have appears to be a pretty strong draft. Here's hoping the rest of the comments are as positive. Everyone is due to report in by June 15th so I can get started on the beta rewrite.The Approach also got some love this month. I amended the text to address all beta read comments from late last year. It's now just waiting for any final consistency changes from the prequel's beta rewrite.I have also started to draft The Welcome, which is the second book in the main YA sci-fi Courage Colony series. I'd hoped to get halfway through this first draft before June 15th but I'm behind schedule at the moment. Unless inspiration and a writing marathon strike, a quarter of the way through the draft is far more likely. Still, good progress.Not much else to report this month. I've been working on a few behind the scenes things to get my mailing list set up and ready to launch the prequel and book one later this year, but you'll see that once it's ready ;)Until next time!

Fatal Glitch: Rewrite #2

I promised I'd update you all on how the second rewrite is going in my monthly blog post. In short, it's going very well.I'm currently editing chapter nine out of nineteen (plus an epilogue), so I'm almost halfway through this round of edits and each change is making the manuscript stronger and more cohesive. It feels like a different beast to the book that existed before this rewrite began.Three readers read the book this time around. Two were less positive, with feedback on the character arcs, stakes, pace, and confusing worldbuilding elements, while the remaining reader was very positive, finding the story heart-wrenching. All their feedback was specific and useful and our meeting after they read the book was especially valuable. We came up with a list of around fourteen ideas which fixed many aspects of the book they were less pleased with (mostly in the set up and the pay off) and I got a real sense of the kind of book they wanted. As it goes most the time, not all the suggested changes are minor. Combined in-line comments added up to around 140 between the three readers, which is probably about average for these swaps. Most of these are minor, paragraph or scene level, stuff. The more substantial suggestions came out of our meeting discussion. For example, to go beyond the maths, I'm adding a third POV character to the story to add some tension and a better sense of what life is like on the ground in the middle of an apocalypse. I'm also rewriting the epilogue from a different viewpoint and I'm adjusting the main characters to be more involved in their stories. So, there'll be a lot for my lovely beta readers to sink their teeth into, including a lot of new content. I hope they're looking forward to the read ahead of them. I'm currently on target to get this to them by May 15th. Here's hoping they like it.Oh! I also had a few compliments. One of the readers has previously worked as a programmer and for NASA and they thought the tech in the book and the tech's failure was scarily realistic. I almost melted with glee.But what's happening with book one in the series, The Approach?It's been a while since I gave you all an update on the first book in the main YA sci-fi series. Essentially it's been on hold while I got the prequel to a good place because I didn't want any consistency issues between the origin story and the first book. I have, though, been moving forward with it in some ways. I spent the last week or so approaching eight editors for quotes and sample edits on book one, and I've booked my favourite editor to do a copyedit on The Approach in mid July. I'm hoping to get the prequel edited around the same time, though that depends slightly on cashflow.Next up will be booking in the cover designer for book one. All little baby steps toward publication, but I'm so excited.Until next time!

Fatal Glitch: Alpha Read #2

I kept to plan and worked on a rewrite for the sci-fi prequel Fatal Glitch this month, with changes based on the first alpha reader's comments and my own concerns. This consisted of a few stages:1) Edit line by line on paper2) Make paper edit changes to digital copy3) Re-read edited scenes and tweak for mood and readability4) Re-read edited scenes and add in additional scenes or change sequence of events where requiredI've now finished stage 1) and 2) for all chapters. I'm hoping to finish stage 3) and 4) on the 2nd April so that the book is completely rewritten before the next round of feedback.Speaking of, the next alpha read swap will be happening in April! I'm excited to have three more people read and leave helpful feedback on my book. As always, I'd like to hope my last round of edits has left the book in a good enough place that there will only be minor changes ahead, but we shall see. Busy days ahead.Until next time!

Fatal Glitch: Rewrite

It feels like Fatal Glitch has new meaning this month when we've hit twenty degrees Celsius in February - in the UK! It reminds me to get back into my edits too, so that's the plan for March.I've spent a lot of this month making the most of the weather in the garden, getting it ready for spring and starting off seedlings indoors. I've also been reading and commenting on the novels of the two alpha readers I swapped books with. One has given me their feedback, which brings me to the rewrite...Usually I'd wait for both readers to get back to me before I start on the rewrite but the first reader confirmed many of my suspicions about what could be improved in the book, and so I'm going to go ahead and make those changes while I wait for the second lot of feedback.Essentially, the subplot is working great but the main plot needs fixing up to keep the reader hooked and increase the tension and personal involvement of the main characters. However, it should mainly consist of additions and tweaks to existing scenes, so hopefully shouldn't be a complete overhaul of content. Wish me luck.Until next time!