Hello and welcome to my new author blog! I’ve always known I wanted to have a blog on my website, though I’ve gone back and forth a lot about what kind of content I should focus on. Project updates? How-to posts and meditations on writing and editing? Peeks into my author life? Well, you will probably see any and all of that here. I want to be flexible and write about whatever I want to here.
I’ve decided to kick things off with a review of 2024, as well as outline my author plans for 2025. 2024 was my first full year of publishing, and I learned a lot about my limitations as a writer, editor, and publisher. To show you exactly what I mean by this, let’s take a look at what my initial plans for 2024 were. My plans changed very often last year, so when I say this was the initial plan, I’m talking about what my plans were when the year kicked off in January. That plan looked something like this:
INITIAL PLAN FOR 2024:
JANUARY: Complete final edits on Beast By Day
FEBRUARY: Draft Horrific Fairy Tales (HFT) Book 5
MARCH – MAY: Complete edits on The Little Sea Monster. I also intended to start writing a new book during this time, outside of the Horrific Fairy Tales series.
JUNE – Draft and edit Horrific Fairy Tales Novella (What became Don’t Go Into the Woods)
JULY – SEPTEMBER: Draft HFT Book 6 and edit Seven Hexes
OCTOBER – NOVEMBER: Draft “Secret Project” (also a new book in a new series)
**It should also be noted than in addition to publishing Beast By Day in March and The Little Sea Monster in July, I had also intended to publish the next book – Seven Hexes – in November.
As you can see, this was quite an ambitious plan. It often involved editing one project while writing a separate project at the same time. This is not something I’ve ever successfully done before, but I’ve also never been a full-time author before, so I thought I could do it. But let’s take a look at what my year actually looked like:
WHAT 2024 ACTUALLY LOOKED LIKE:
JANUARY: Finished final edits on Beast By Day
FEBRUARY – MAY: Completed edits on The Little Sea Monster
JUNE: Mostly worked on marketing, as well as creating bonus content for The Little Sea Monster
JULY - AUGUST: Worked on drafting “Secret Project”
SEPTEMBER: Rewrites on Seven Hexes
OCTOBER: Wrote, edited, and released Don’t Go Into the Woods (novella)
NOVEMBER – DECEMBER: Worked on drafting HFT Book 5
What you’ll immediately notice is that I didn’t do any editing and writing at the same time. And it wasn’t until about October that I accepted that is something I just can’t do. It doesn’t matter that, technically, I have time to do both. I simply can't split my mental energy between two creative projects at the same time. Even if I’m just editing the prose (which is less creative and more analytical), my mind is very in a project while I’m working on it, and trying to switch back and forth simply doesn’t work for me.
Every author is different! I recently read some blog posts from another author who talked about how she finally figured out her own best creative process, which does involve switching back and forth between projects on a weekly or daily basis. For me, I just can’t do that.
So, what does that mean for my author plans? Well, with regards to 2024, it means I fell behind in writing new drafts. I spent the entire first half of the year editing Books 2 and 3 of Horrific Fairy Tales. I prioritized those books so I could meet the publishing deadlines I’d set for myself. But by the time I’d finalized The Little Sea Monster for publishing – around June – I’d realized I needed to rethink my plans.
Reassessing my process and limitations was tough for me, emotionally. It brought up a lot of guilt that was hard to put aside. One thing I am determined to be, as an author, is consistent. I look up to workhorse writers like Brandon Sanderson and Stephen King. That doesn’t necessarily mean I expect myself to write as much or publish as often as they do, but the reason they are so productive is because they’re consistent. I don’t think it matters if you put out a book once a month or once every five years, so long as there is consistency there.
So I felt really guilty that I had put out my first three books every 5-ish months, but now I had to push back the waiting time for my next book to 8-10 months. But what I try to remind myself is that I’m new at this. I’m not being inconsistent; I’m just learning what I’m capable of. Going into this, I had a backlog of novels waiting to be published. I thought that meant I could put out a book every few months. But I was working under two misconceptions: (1) I thought I could write one book and edit another at the same time, and (2) I thought it would only take a couple of months to get each book edited and published. (In reality, it takes me about five months.)
Going back to 2024: I spent the second half of the year trying to balance writing new drafts (like Don’t Go Into the Woods, HFT Book 5, and Secret Project) with doing a little editing to stay on track with my new publishing deadlines (completing rewrites on Seven Hexes, and editing/releasing Don’t Go Into the Woods). And that theme will continue into 2025, with even more of an emphasis on writing new drafts. Remember when I said I had a backlog of novels waiting to be published? Well, I’ve essentially caught up to that backlog, at least as far as Horrific Fairy Tales is concerned. So once edits are done on Seven Hexes, I will prioritize new drafts in 2025.
With that in mind, here is my tentative author plan for this year:
MY PLANS FOR 2025:
JANUARY – MARCH: Complete final edits on Seven Hexes. (I’d love to write another novella during this time, within the Horrific Fairy Tales series, but that will depend on how those edits go. The priority during this time is Seven Hexes.)
APRIL – JUNE: Finish drafting and polish HFT Book 5. I got about half of this book written in 2024, so I need to finish writing it, do a quick copyedit, and get it sent off for feedback/edits.
JULY: While I wait for feedback on Book 5, I’d like to turn my attention back to “Secret Project.” I’m going to go ahead and give this a code name of EXCALIBUR. This will be a new book in a new series, though it's based off a book I wrote several years ago. I attempted to write a draft of this in 2024, but I didn’t like the direction it was going in - I chose the wrong tone for it, basically. So at this time in 2025, I’d like to do some preliminary work on this project, which will involve some research and prewriting.
AUGUST – SEPTEMBER: Complete final edits on HFT Book 5
SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER: Draft Excalibur Book 1
NOVEMBER – DECEMBER: Start drafting HFT Book 6
As far as publishing goes – in line with focusing on drafting new books – I only intend to publish the one book in 2024, Seven Hexes, which will be coming out in May. I would love to release another novella in the fall as well, but that really will depend on whether or not I have time to write one.
Going forward, I intend to usually publish 2 or more books a year. But 2025 is going to be a bit unusual so I can focus on getting “caught up,” so to speak, and so I can make sure to keep everything balanced (and not burn out!). If all goes well in 2025, I will publish two Horrific Fairy Tales books in 2026, and maybe even Excalibur Book 1.
I have plenty of other projects in my back pocket, of course. Project Excalibur will likely be a 4-book series, with some spin-off novellas. I also have some epic fantasy series (both adult and YA) and some standalone novels waiting. And perhaps, in the future, I will even dive into a new series in the Horrific Fairy Tales world. As excited as I am to get to all of that, I'm looking forward to enjoying a slower 2025 with more time spent in the drafting chair, writing new stories.
So that’s it for my first blog post! Thank you all for reading, and thank you SO much for your interest in my work and my books. I hope to post to this blog at least once a month, and will update on Instagram when I have something new here.
So until next time,
Elizabeth
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