2023 is almost over...

Greetings my wonderful readers! Here we are in 2023… in October… which means this year is almost over. The years do roll faster downhill, don’t they? So here’s your update on all things writing:

Progress on the next book has been… slow. I realize that I swore up and down that Book 4 would be the final chapter in the “In Caves & Catacombs” series, but I find myself conflicted on whether to continue with a fifth book. I feel that there is more of the story to tell: what happens to Valentino, Maggie, Susannah, April, Damian, and the others? How do they survive? How do they adapt to the dangers of their new world? To the dangers within themselves?

Here’s what I know: these characters are the bringers of the new world. They will shape everything that comes After. You can see how there is so much more to the story…

And yet!

The first book in the next series, By Scion and Sea, awaits. Set in the same universe and featuring the descendants of the “In Caves & Catacombs” series, the next series explores how the sea people clash with those who bunkered through the apocalypse as they emerge from their underground cities. Love. War. Brutality. Hope. Etc.

I want to jump into this so much… I have a draft that I wrote just about ten years ago now that is in need of serious revision. Well, more like an entire rewrite, really. But I’m struggling to write it because I feel the characters from The Cave are calling to me to write more into their story, which could change how By Scion and Sea comes to be.

Sigh.

And this is how I find myself with zero meaningful progress on either project.

That being said, I am as dedicated as ever to the worlds I have built and those I have yet to build. My writer’s fire still burns brightly, even when internal conflicts suck all the oxygen away.

Please know that I hope to provide more concrete updates on my writing plans and timeline in the coming months. I will also commit to the one project to breathe life into by the New Year.

Thank you all for your ongoing support, and for the wonderful reviews! They all add logs to the fire :)

Hello, 2022. Here's to new beginnings!

Like everyone else, life has been a whirlwind for me and my family the past few years. There have been joyous moments and times of grief, but right now I want to focus on the joy, because in spite of all of the misery in the world, I have a lot of happiness to share today.

The first big event I want to share is that I joined the Great Resignation! I didn’t stop working a day job entirely… and truthfully, no matter how well my books do, I intend to continue working in my field because I love it. But I did make the hard decision to leave one employer for another.

I have worked as an instructional designer for a decade, and spent the last eight years in one institution that I truly loved. If you know much about instructional design, you know that life has been crazy for us since the pandemic shifted virtually everyone into online learning. My previous job was no exception—demand went through the roof. But I was the only one in that dedicated role for the institution, and there was no funding for additional support. It got to the point where I had to start cutting out things I loved—spending time with my family and writing included—as I was doing far (FAR) too many hours on my own time. Then I had a visit with a concerned doctor who suggested my stress would be reduced if I went on leave, and I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to take six months off. What would that solve? I just needed to get real about my situation and find a place where there was more support. And thankfully, I did! I am now a member of a team of instructional designers, and I feel like I can breathe again!

Another big joy I have to share is that I am now working on my dissertation. It has been a long road, and has required a lot of time (hence why I had very little extra time for writing and working more than 40 hours a week these past few years). The finish line for the PhD is now firmly in my sights, and it feels AMAZING. The work has been way more fun and interesting than I expected, too. I won’t finish until 2023, but believe me when I say it feels close now! Having only one year left in a four year process means it feels real.

The family is doing well, too. I don’t tend to talk too much about my husband and daughter on here, but since we’re talking about personal things and this is a blog, I’d like to share that they are the joys of my life. My daughter is four years old now, and she is such a love. Her sassiness is a constant delight, and she is growing and changing into such a strong little woman. I am so very proud of her. She is just about to start Pre-K in the fall, and we are excited to see her grow and develop more and more. My husband and I have always been adventurous types, and now that our daughter is getting older and more independent, we are getting to go on more adventures as a family. Reconnecting in that way feels amazing, and I am so lucky to have such a supportive husband that has endless patience with my simultaneous projects.

The Cave:

Book 4 of the In Caves and Catacombs Series

Work is continuing on the final edits for The Cave, as well. It’s the kind of thing where I have to write/edit three pages per day, every day, but I’m doing it (mostly) faithfully. This upcoming novel a very personal work for me, and I’ll blog more about its significance later… but for now, here’s the description:

When Maggie finds herself imprisoned at Real Impact, a boot camp for troubled teens in the Mexican high desert, she begins to question whether she will ever go home again. But then she and four others are unexpectedly freed, and she learns the world she once knew has been forever changed by the disastrous HORPOV-25 pandemic. Guided by Abigail, Emma, and other survivors of Real Impact, Maggie embarks on a journey to discover what it means to survive in a terrifying new world—and in the process, finds a young boy named Valentino who changes everything.

In California, Warren and April continue to head south on a quest to find April’s biological son. They are joined by their newfound friend Damian and his dog, Wolf. Along the way, they find signs of a threat that may have deep ties to April’s past. And as they draw ever-closer to Valentino, their worlds collide with Maggie’s in an unexpected way.

I am truly excited to publish this as my first full-length novel. It’s hard to imagine that I’ll be saying goodbye (probably?!?) to these characters after this as it is supposed to be the fourth and final novel in the series. So much has gone into this novel and series, and I’ve grown so much as a writer in the process. Publishing will be very cathartic.

Maybe after The Cave is published in June (it’s available for pre-order right now!) I’ll take a nice long break to finish my dissertation. More probably, I’ll be too energized by the launch to relax and I’ll dive into the next project… the one that started it all: By Scion and Sea, Book 1 of the Efrenen Sea series. More about that to come.

It is a privilege to be able to spend so much of my free time writing. It hardly feels like work when it’s so much fun! So thank you, dear readers, for your patience as I finish The Cave. I hope that it brings you as much joy to read as it has been to write!

Upcoming Release: The Cave

This blog post was scheduled for LAST MAY. That’s right… May of 2021. I’ve published it today because now that I’m preparing the final draft for publication in June of 2022, it’s kind of fun to think of where the book was then vs. where it is today (March 5th, 2022). Look for another blog post today! Or maybe tomorrow… but I promise it won’t be another year before I post again XD

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Work on The Cave has been consistent, which is very exciting for me to report :) I’ve been keeping up with my own deadlines and am about halfway through the book! I was hoping to be farther along, but as it turns out, The Cave may actually be a novel-length work on its own. Don’t blame me—there are a lot of loose ends to tie up in the series finale ;) Such as…

• Warren & April: Are they forever?

• April & Valentino: Will they finally meet?

• Damian & April: Will this get complicated?

• Damian & Wolf: DOES THE DOG DIE?!

• Valentino & Maggie: Yes, we see Valentino again… and he’s going to meet Maggie.

• Abigail & Emma: Who the heck are they?

• Nathan: Wait… Nathan, Nathan? As in… kept April imprisoned in a bunker, Nathan?!

Okay, so some of those characters are brand new, so if you’re scratching your head right now, it’s because you don’t know them yet. But you’re about to. And that’s why The Cave may very well end up being full novel-length! There’s just too much to pack into a novella. My original idea for this series was to test the waters of self-publishing and set the stage for By Scion and Sea with a prequel novella/short story. But the story grew. And grew. Aaaaand grew. And as the story kept getting bigger and more involved, it became more of a novel told in multiple parts.

So now here we are. If you combine the page count for the first three novellas (The Boat, The Grave, and The Road) you’d have a 240-page (or so) novel. And the more I write into The Cave, the closer it gets to another 250+ page no-longer-novella-length work.

So where do we go from here? If we’re wrapping up In Caves & Catacombs with The Cave, what happens next? Enter By Scion and Sea. This is the next full-length novel work, and thus begins the Efrenen Sea series, which is set in the year 2500. So hold on to your hats, everyone. The next year is going to be a doozy!

Audiobooks & Accessibility

Hello my dear readers,

Recording Studio

I am really excited to share my latest author adventure: working with an amazing group of voice actors to create audiobook versions of my ebooks! By the end of this year, you should be able to read and listen to my work as audiobooks, paperbacks, and ebooks. Naturally, I’m excited partly because I hope that this will open my content up to a new market audience. But it goes beyond that. By adding audiobooks to my repertoire, my content will be more accessible and inclusive to all.

Accessibility is something I think about a lot. As so many writers do, I have another full-time job in the public education sector. Specifically, I work as an Instructional Designer and Technologist, which means that I work in online learning and provide training to educators for delivering their instructional content at a distance. You can imagine how the demand for instructional designers has magnified over the past year!

Accessibility, put simply, is hugely important to instructional designers. At its core, this is because learning is for everyone. Period. Ensuring that your content is accessible to students with disabilities is critical not only because it’s the LAW, but also because it will make your instruction better when done mindfully. When you design for those in the margins, everyone benefits. I’ll give you one of the same examples I use in my training: how many of you have ever used the captions on a movie to better understand what was happening, even if you’re not hard of hearing? Or how many times have you been sitting somewhere in public, watching a YouTube video on mute with the captions on? Captions may be designed for those who cannot hear, but so many others benefit from their use.

The same principle applies to audiobooks. And that’s because reading is for everyone. Maybe some think of audiobooks as serving a small portion of the population, and thus, a small segment of the market. And maybe I won’t earn back much, if any, of the money I’m investing in the process. But putting in the time and money to add an accessible option is something I’m excited about, and I can’t wait to share the finished products with all of you!

And to those of you who asked me about the audiobook versions that started this whole train of thought: thank you! I’m listening!

Overwhelmed, Overworked... and Utterly Inspired

“The Road” Cover Art by Elle Otero

Dear readers,

I must admit that I meant very, very much to publish the third novella for the In Caves and Catacombs series a year ago exactly. I also meant very, very much to update this blog. But here we are, at the tail-end of 2020, and I am just now wrapping up what I swore I'd accomplish 12 months ago.

I'd give you a laundry list of reasons why this year was awful, but I’m so dreadfully tired of the sadness. The anxiety. I don’t wish to fixate on the relentlessness of COVID and its expanding impact on our world. On top of that, enough terrible things befall the characters in The Road that I just need to inject some (hopefully not toxic) positivity into the world right now. We have been so very, very fortunate that very few members of our family have caught COVID. It is such a deeply frightening experience, as so many of you know. So I'm going to attempt to share a bit of levity and joy by focusing on the good things that have come out of this year for me and my family:

1. Evie: Our daughter is a constant source of goodness and love. This year she turned 2, and she is the sweetest child "that ever I seen", to quote her directly. Her request of Santa this year was "To give mommy a present". Hand to God. She is an incredible human being, and I'm 40% positive she's not manipulating me for more fruit snacks.

2. Steve: My husband Steve and I have grown closer. We have shared our deepest fears, done our best to prepare for the worst contingencies we could imagine (many of which did not come to fruition, thank God), and have practiced patience and understanding with each other. I don't have anything funny to add because I'm being sincere AF. Steve is a lovely human being and I am grateful for him every day.

3. Gardening: Our garden that we panic-expanded (well, rushed our existing plans for) in February has been incredibly bountiful. I'm still shockingly bad at growing good corn, but we can grow the heck out of tropical and semi-tropical rare fruit species, so, a net win. Also, we have added chickens. Ever since we sold our country property and moved to a smaller lot in the city, we've been chicken-less. Not so anymore! There's nothing like waking up to their lovely little clucking. Also, Steve has since fixed the dog door so we no longer wake up to it, but it's nice to hear when we go outside.

4. Work: Work is insane. I work in the field of online education and technical training, and we were understaffed before the COVID crisis began. Going from approximately 5% online courses to 100% virtually overnight was crazy in March, and the repercussions of that switch are still reverberating to this day. Despite feeling overwhelmed and overworked all of the time, I still consider this to be an incredible privilege because there are so many out of work, losing their businesses, or scraping by on unemployment. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to continue supporting the transition to online learning.

5. School: School is also insane. Yes, in late 2019 I began working towards my PhD with no idea what 2020 would bring. And now I've made it a full year into the three-year program (am I dreaming? does anyone finish in 3 years?) and there's no turning back now. About half of my motivation to complete my doctorate is pure, but the other half is because I'm totally going to make people I dislike call me Doctor. I challenge you to find anyone who's doing it without that in mind. They know in their deepest, darkest place in their hearts exactly what I mean.

6. Writing: What? How did I find the time? I still don’t know how, but I've actually finished The Road, were you even paying attention??? Artistic inspiration is one of the few things we can rely on when the world feels upside down. I have furiously scribbled during my breaks and stayed up too many late nights, but I’ve finally finished the third novella. While it is not the drafted novel that I’ve been kicking around for years, The Road is a major accomplishment for me nonetheless because it required a total rewrite. I was ready to hit publish one year ago when two very dear friends told me to wait. Let it sit. As much as it pained me then, that process of rewriting made the story far better and more developed than it would have been otherwise. Furthermore, it has also given me the opportunity to seriously workshop it with my writer friend, Marysia (I will link to her work as soon as I can, because she's amazing). The workshopping process has been delightful and such an incredible learning experience, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

There are so many more things to be grateful for this year. Breadmakers, for instance. Jellybags. And growing closer to our family, friends, and neighbors, even at a distance. Seeing our communities band together to get through the COVID pandemic has its own kind of beauty, and it shines a light that cuts through the darkness of death that has shadowed our world for the better part of a year. 2020 has indeed been awful. If you lost someone, I am so, so sorry. I hope that you will find peace, and hope that you will find a way to honor that loss.

If you can find it within you, let’s come together to celebrate what we can. Merry Christmas, dear readers, and Happy Holidays!

The Value of Workshops

Workshop minimum requirement: coffee

A few years ago, I began my first college writing workshop. Sure, I’d taken some creative writing classes before, but I couldn’t imagine that the natural talent required to create art could really be taught in the classroom. I failed to appreciate the mechanics of writing well, and the value of the writing community. I also couldn’t have imagined how it feels to share your work with fifteen to twenty other readers.

When I first read aloud an excerpt from my first novel draft, I was overwhelmed to the point of tearing up (just a little, okay?). That silence as you read is loaded. When you finish, you become a total cliched breath-holding, nail-biting quivering child, speaking in public for the first time. You want everyone to like it so very much, and you feel your dreams riding on that quietness. You wonder if you write for other people or for yourself. Only the truest writers write for themselves and don’t care what others think, right? Right?!

I don’t think so. Not entirely, anyway. There’s value in workshops, and it’s not just in getting others to beta read your work, or to get feedback and free editing. A great deal of the value is in hearing others discuss your characters as if they’re real. The readers discuss the choices your characters make, and how that might change what happens next. It breathes life into the work. It encourages you to keep going, to keep spending those hours writing and editing and researching and imagining. Workshops are a beautiful thing. So seek them out, friends. Even if it’s just you and your pal, meeting weekly over coffee to talk about the next chapter. They’re worth every minute!

On title changes and journeys

As I get closer to releasing the third short story of the In Caves & Catacombs series, I feel it’s time to announce that the title has been changed from “The City” to “The Road”. What once was an idea for a starting chapter has become a novella in its own right. Don’t blame me. Blame April, the blonde machete-wielding lead, for being so interesting.

The rewrite process on this one has been brutal. As in, toss out very nearly everything and start all over again. What was once a story about old lovers reunited under extraordinary circumstances has become a journey undertaken by two strangers and an examination of the meaning of community instead. This story has disrupted the arc of the entire series, but hers is a story that warrants telling.

Book 4 is an eventuality. And that will appropriately be titled “The City”. My only uncertainty is whether April will make it there or not. I’m just narrating the events as they unfold. I have no more control than you, reader.

Find out what happens soon!