As Promised!

I'm actually ON TIME! Yay me! (I have several announcements to make so stick with me to the end - at least, if you want to know more about that romance novelette I promised for February. ;))

At the beginning of the year I posted a list of titles that I expected to drop in the first six months of 2016. The first title on that list was Ashrinde.

As someone who hasn't ever really had a deadline before, I've been very concerned that I might not be able to make it and get a new novelette ready for publication every month for the first half of the year. I am happy to say that, at least for January, I am on time.
Ashrinde went to beta readers on the twelfth, and I was very pleased with what they had to say (and rather pleased with myself, too, I may add!). It was a bumpy road. When I first picked up the rough draft, I was disheartened. It needed a lot of work. But after an almost line-by-line rewrite, I was finally unashamed enough to send it out. I found a way to make characters more relatable (I had a particularly hard time with Ashrinde) and even built in a surprise or two. ;) The beta readers were complimentary, so after a few more passes to fix any lingering issues, I've taken the next step.

As far as my own writing goes, I'm very proud of Ashrinde. It's far from the perfect story I'd like, and my skills could always use improvement. But for me, it's a special milestone because it showcases the improvements I've made in my craft.

Like Isolde and Festival, Ashrinde is shorter in length, falling into the novelette category rather than novel or even novella. But it is a little longer by almost four thousand words. It takes place in the same world, and you'll even get to see a character from earlier novelettes make an appearance.

As of this writing, it's under review with Amazon for publication. Unless something untoward happens, Ashrinde should be available for purchase soon. Once it goes live I will be linking to it in this post, so keep an eye out!

EDIT:

Ashrinde is now live, and has been linked in this post! *does happy dance*
Second!

As of the thirteenth, the outline for that romance novelette I promised is complete. I expect to start writing on it next week (or tomorrow, if I'm feeling daring), and hopefully have it published by Valentine's Day. Like the others, it's only one piece of a story; I am determined to do this love story justice. In other words, I'm not going to make it super rushed in order to squeeze it into 10k. I can promise (I think) at least two more installments on this particular thread of story.

All of that to tell you that I have chosen a title for it! After much consideration, and in the interest of staying with my one-word-title theme, I have chosen to call it Allied. Make of that what you will, I'm not telling anyone anymore about it until the process has actually started. Or maybe even later. We'll see.

And that's the end! Happy Friday everyone!