Updates on What I’m Working On (March 10, 2025)

Video to go with the blog post so you can listen to it. (I will condense the information in the video since I did ramble like a crazy person in the blog.)

The Hero Least Likely (and the story of writer’s block that goes with it)

So I sent out emails to my email list on MailChimp, and I made a blog post in my monthly newsletter blog where I said I had finished the first draft of The Hero Least Likely.

Well, here’s the thing: I wrote those in mid-February and scheduled them to go out around March 1. At the time I wrote those, I only had 2-3 chapters left to write in that book. In the past, I haven’t had issues with getting 2-3 chapters done in two weeks. (I mean, you think after writing 101 romances, you’d get the hang of what you can and can’t do, right?)

However, there is a first time for everything, and I hit a major writer block. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what I needed to do. It’s that I didn’t want to write the climax of the story. This is a historical western romance. The romance part was easy. The action western scene I have to come up with to wrap the story up is not the least bit interesting to me. I have watched action western films, and it is painful (to me) when the gunfights come up. But I have to include the gunfight scene in this particular story because I have built up my character’s journey for it. The hero of this book can’t be the “hero” without it.

So after twiddling my thumbs with a mind that went completely blank on how I was going to come up with this scene, I went to others for advice. Some people were authors. Some were my readers. In the end, I came across a game plan that led me to do something I have never done before:

I plotted!

I think now I get how authors plot. I have never been able to grasp how authors ever successfully plotted before because all of my past attempts to plot have failed. Once I start writing, the characters have always gone off course. But in this particular instance where we are talking about a scene that I don’t want to write, the plotting method has helped. At least now I know where I am going with this.

The first thing I did was consult my husband and sons who love the western action stuff. I asked them what makes for an exciting scene. Then I took notes on stuff they liked. Then I came up with a map of the town this scene is set in. My son helped with this. I spent some time figuring out where the key characters need to be for this scene to work. After that, I listed out the stuff that needed to happen and the order it needed to happen in. One author I talked to said when she’s stuck, she will do a basic sentence for each paragraph, and then she’ll go back to flesh things out. This is what I’m doing. I have five pages worth of notes that dictate what needs to happen and who needs to do it. Today I fleshed out half a page, and it took about 1,000 words to do it. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that much got fleshed out from the notes, but at least I’m finally getting words on the paper.

I don’t know when I’ll finish this book, but at least I have a roadmap to go by. It’s a lot better than the blank screen that was in my brain for the past month. I still prefer to go by the seat of my pants while writing, and I’m hoping I never have to plot again, but in case I have to plot, I have the tools to do it.

The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride (so far, flowing smoothly–let’s hope it stays that way)

I’m at the 40,000 word mark. The big reveal about these characters’ aliases is about to come onto the page. I’m looking forward to that. It’ll be fun to watch the sparks fly.

The Preacher’s Wife (might not come out until 2026 and why I can’t set deadlines anymore, except for the holiday books)

I’m pushing this one back. All of my books are turning out to be longer than I originally plan, and this has made it harder to get a firm schedule in place on when you can expect my books to be published.

Having gone through burnout for so long (I think it was like 3-4 years total of going back and forth in burnout before I finally came out of it), I am surprised that I am so excited about writing. Happy, but surprised, too. You know?

One thing I promised myself was that I would not rush anything, and I would also focus on stuff I enjoy, whether that be writing or marketing. (I get the irony in that statement in light of how much I don’t want to write the action western scene, but that is only one scene in the entire book. I have enjoyed writing the book. I just can’t skip out on the one scene because that scene is crucial.) I would never write an entire book that I dread. That will kill all of my enjoyment for writing.

So anyway, since I have this renewed enthusiasm for writing, I’m finding that my books are longer than they have been. Typically, my books have finished at about 60,000 words. These last couple of books that I’ve been working on have been between 70,000-80,000 words. The Hero Least Likely is already at 70,000 words, and I’m not finished with it yet. The Earl’s Bluestocking Bride might finish up around 60,000, but I am at 40,000 words right now, and the big reveal hasn’t come yet. I am already 15,500 into The Preacher’s Wife, and I don’t know if I even got 1/4 of the way into this one yet. I feel like I’m still building the foundation for this story. The Wilderness Bride turned out to be about 74,000 words (when you tack on the front and back matter). These stories just seem to want to go on and on. I don’t want to rush them just to get more books out a year.

So this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to let them play out as they want to play out. If I have to go longer between book releases, I’ll go longer. When I say I don’t know when a book will be out, I’m not trying to be difficult. I really don’t know. Even when I finish the first draft, I have other people I work with, and it’s hard to say what their schedules are like. I guess I’ll know for sure when a new book will be out when the final draft is up on pre-order.

Okay, so why might I push The Preacher’s Wife to 2026? Because I am working on a holiday series this year.

The holiday series covers Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s. Halloween book Christmas book Valentine book

Given how long it’s now taking me to finish a book, I am starting on the Halloween story right now. I need to start the Christmas one next month. I have no idea how long each book will take to write. It could be on the shorter side (40,000 words) or it could very well be over the 70,000-word mark. Until I’m hitting the halfway point and know what is going on with these characters, I don’t know. So I am getting a head start on this stuff before these deadlines force me to rush the books.

Masquerade Bride is a spin-off of the idea of “living a different life”. Kind of a “what would your life be like if you were someone else” situation.

A Wedding Carol is a spin-off of A Christmas Carol where the heroine (our “Scrooge”) will get to do the whole Christmas past, present, and future thing.

It’s a Wonderful Marriage is a spin-off of It’s a Wonderful Life where Mr. Christopher Robinson (remember him?) will get to see what life would have been like if he’d never been born. I’m really looking forward to writing about him and Agatha again. Those two were so much fun together.

I don’t expect most people to be interested in this Marriage by Holiday Series, but I’m excited about it. I kind of like doing things that are different from time to time than the standard romance. It keeps my creativity fresh.