*blows dust off book*

Okay, I said I would do better and so far that looks like completely forgetting to post my January wrap up / February updates because... ONC? I'm blaming ONC. Please accept my excuse.

But now, I am one whole day early to wrap up February and preview March and all I can say is... what have I done?

If you've been following my profile or hanging out with me on Discord, you'll probably have noticed that despite having two ongoing stories (Roatan Plunge and A Kiss in Costume), which I am still writing every week, I decided to take on a MASSIVE challenge for this year's Open Novella Contest.

And by that I mean I decided to write an additional five novellas? Stories I hope will maybe potentially remain novellas? I'm not sure. Only time will tell! But either way there will be five of them.

So, in February I made covers, blurbs, concepts, graphics, descriptions, etc. for five different stories AND wrangled the characters until I had something resembling control over them AND wrote two chapters of each of my shiny new ONC entries. All while keeping Roatan Plunge and A Kiss in Costume going!

There has been A LOT of sprinting with my Discord friends. A LOT. I suspect there will be more in the next few months, too.

I'm immensely proud of myself and still... there is much to do. So March is going to look very much the same. I'll be writing. A lot. In fact, I've dubbed this week my "week of writing" where I'm going to take a very short break from posting so I can write whatever my little heart desires instead of a different chapter of a different story every single day of the week. All that flipping between projects doesn't work great for my brain.

In February, I managed to reach the midpoint of my draft of Roatan Plunge, finish the draft of Christmas at the cabin, and get about 8 chapters of Runaway Fiances written. Which I thought was exceptional! But now, in order to reach 8K in time, I'm going to need 3 more chapters of each story posted this month! Which is wild! (See why I usually say "buckle up" when discussing my writing? My life is chaos and I wouldn't have it any other way).

I also finally counted up all the words I've written so far this year and it's... way more than I thought it was. Almost half of it is planning which doesn't count toward my yearly narrative words goal, but still!

In addition to writing, I've been cooking and cleaning and hanging out with my family but almost nothing else. I'm glad I did that because it gave me a really good footing to move forward with these stories. But I'm also glad I get to take some time this month for reading and junk journaling and playing with my kids and all those other things I love.

Now, on to the juicer parts. What am I doing? What's coming up next?

~ * ~ Ongoing Projects ~ * ~

Roatan Plunge: Like I said up there, I've just finished writing the midpoint of this and things are about to get wild and adventurous and scary and I AM LIVING FOR IT! I love these two and their dynamic and I cannot wait to see how the rest of the story plays out. Posts will continue (almost) every week until completion.

A Kiss in Costume: I'm writing and posting a chapter every two weeks at this point, because I want to be able to finish posting the book around Halloween, 2023. That is still the plan! Everything is going well and I also love these two so much. You'll hear that a lot. Like every time. I love my couples. That's why I write about them.

Christmas at the Cabin: Complete offline. Posting weekly starting next week. I'll have to speed post the final chapters near the end in order to make sure I get them all up before ONC concludes (assuming the book stays in the contest), but for now we're sticking to one chapter per week.

Runaway Fiances: About eight chapters are written offline. Posting schedule is the same for all ONCs - one chapter a week. But I will be posting them on different days sometimes. It'll be sporadic, but I'll do a wrap up every Friday so you know what's been posted that week.

Hang it Up, Don't Want to be Queen, and Love, Lies & Red Eyes: I'm writing these as I post at the moment, though hopefully this week will get me a little ahead on at least one of them. We'll see where we get!

Yes, you counted right. I'm posting about a chapter a day. Yes, it's wild. Yes, I need a snack. Yes, I'm having loads of fun!

~ * ~ Upcoming Projects ~ * ~

The third book in the Love Travels Series (Title Reveal will come soon) is being planned right now and will begin posting when Roatan Plunge is completed. If I had to guess, I'd say it will be around July or August, but I'm not 100% sure yet!

The Second Book in the Holidays in Heartsbrook Series (Title Reveal later this year) is loosely being planned. I know which holiday it will revolve around and I have an idea of the characters and tropes, but I'll need to think more before I begin writing. I will begin posting this one after A Kiss in Costume is complete, which should be around the end of October or beginning of November.

A Historical (ish) story in the same world as Runaway Fiances (Still no title. I'm very mysterious this month) is an alternate universe? Alternate history setting. So it has historical Spanish vibes but there are intentional collections of various customs throughout Spanish history embedded in the book, so I don't want to call it historical romance, but it's got modern/historical vibes and it's a delicious Romance I am so in love with. I'm currently writing this one and I don't know when I'll start posting it. I'll share a few more details next time, though.

A Variety of other mysterious projects are also being written, planned, or thought about. I have spinoff ideas, bonus content ideas, and entirely new worlds in the works and I'm excited about all of it. These are kind of on the back burner at the moment, because I have so many things to do RIGHT NOW, but I'm finding some time to keep them going as well.

The exact timing of things might change as well depending on requirements for a variety of things, so these are my best estimates to keep you all updated. Unfortunately I can't be more specific than that.

If you've read any of my stories, do you have any requests for that bonus content I mentioned above? Any scenes you wanted but didn't get? Fun characters you want to know more about? I can't guarantee I'll have time to write them all, but I'd love to hear your ideas if you want to share them.