Back to routines

It’s not easy to restart a blog after a long absence. Especially since the absence is mostly due to having nothing interesting to write about in the first place. I still have nothing, but I can always update about my life.

Author's workspace—clean.

I’ve spent the past ten days suffering from a cold (no covid or flu, thankfully.) It came with a relatively high fever (for me), a clogged nose, and a cough that will probably stay with me for months. Needless to say, I didn’t even open my WIP file, which puts my already unrealistically tight writing schedule to jeopardy.

Admittedly, I likely would’ve struggled writing it even without the cold. My work in progress is House of Magic 5—still without a title, though I kind of know what it’ll be. Book 4 ended with a bit of a cliffhanger that readers didn’t like, but which I wrote anyway, to prompt the series to a new direction. And now I’m not happy with where I pushed it. So, until I come to terms with it, the book won’t happen.

Magic by the Book by Susanna Shore

I did write something though, namely book reviews. I had a lot of time to read between naps, and I finished three novels and a longish manhwa. The books were all from the same series by Marie Brennan set in the Legends of Five Rings game world. I haven’t played the game, but I’ve enjoyed all the books set there that I’ve read. If you’re interested in my reviews, you can find them here, here and here. And I finished a couple of mangas from NetGalley, so my decision not to download so many of them this year is faltering already.

I also wrote thousand words to a book that I had an idea for one night when coughing kept me awake. It’s one of those books that’ll never advance farther than that, but it was a great opening and I had to get it out of my system. And I wrote an opening to a short story too. That’ll likely suffer the same fate as well.

The Restorer's Home Omnibus 2 by Kim Sang-yeop

I finished updating the new covers and revised files of my contemporary romances. They’re up on Amazon already, but it’ll take a week or so until they’re on other marketplaces. No one’s commented on the covers yet, so I don’t know if people like them as much as I do.

The new covers

And I finally joined the Alliance of Independent Authors today. I’ve meant to for years, but I’ve never got around to doing it. As a self-publishing author, it’s nice to have access to professional help should I ever need any. And they have all kinds of great resources for writers too.

The Night Parade of 100 Demons by Marie Brennan

This week, I really need to focus on my work in (almost) progress. It currently stands at about 500 words, half of which I’ll probably delete. I’ll let you know how it went next week, if I remember to update this blog. I also have a long list of books to read, some for NetGalley and Edelweiss, some for purely my own joy. So, a busy week ahead.