Doings at Rooglewood: March Edition

Oh, great Hymlumé love us. It's March already. Indeed, we've already made some headway into March, which means we're due for another one of these Doings at Rooglewood posts.

But I don't mind at all, particularly since I have completed one of the big doings just an hour ago! That's right, dear imps. I have finished the first draft of the Mysterious Nameless Novella which I have been mentioning here and there for the last few months. I told myself I'd have it done by noon today, and by Lumé, I have done it! And to celebrate this feat, I am going to share the title with you. Are you ready?

Along with all this draft-complete excitement, however, I do have rather disappointing news. You see, I don't think I'm going to be able to release this story this upcoming summer after all. For a variety of reasons . . .

First of all, Draven's Light proved a vastly different project from Goddess Tithe (which I whipped up in a creative flurry in about two weeks). For one thing, it's much bigger, more than twice Goddess Tithe's size. It's also much, much darker. Indeed, Draven's Light is one of the darkest stories I've ever written. Readers have already started commenting on how dark Shadow Hand (book 6) is, but Draven's Light has it beat by a long shot, I think. Shadow Hand at least had some real humor to balance out the heaviness. This novella, by contrast, really isn't funny at all. There might be a few "aww, smile" moments, but no laughter. It's set in a dark time and deals with a dark premise.

It's a good story, and I'm very proud of it . . . but I think I might want to wait and release it after Golden Daughter rather than after Shadow Hand. Spread out the heavy story lines a little bit, you understand.

The other reason for putting it off is a purely practical one--I am going to be SO BUSY all summer, I'm not sure when I'd fit one more project in!

The Five Glass Slippers collection is the big summer project. I just got back the revised stories, and it's time to plunge into the serious edits, typesetting, and design. A lot of the design work has already been done, but there are still finalizations and approvals, etc. Plenty to keep me busy! I'm really looking forward to reading all of these stories again and seeing what the authors have done with their revisions. And now that Draven's Light is done, I can really dive into these without much distraction.

With out much distraction . . . but . . .

My mother's new novel, Until That Distant Day is scheduled to release on April 25. Eeeeeek! We should be doing the final read-throughs of galley proofs in the next few weeks, and I am really looking forward to reading it again. You can check out my pre-review of it on Goodreads if you like. Get a little more insider's info about this story. We'll also be looking for advance readers in another few weeks, so be watching for those details.

And I was so excited just the other day when my mum told me her ideas for a sequel to Until That Distant Day; ideas that were so awesome, I got goosebumps up my arms! But I won't share now, because you haven't read the first book yet. Once you've read the book and are familiar with all the characters . . . well, then we might talk.

Meanwhile, the other editors of Rooglewood Press and I have been making more plans for the next Five Something Something fairy tale creative writing contest. I believe I've already told you that we got the cover for that one, right? Well, we did. And oh, my! It is so beautiful. The artist is the brilliant Julia Popova (who also did the cover for Golden Daughter).  So you know it's going to be fantastic.

More details will be coming on June 1st. We'll be making some slight adjustments to the rules this year too. Nothing drastic, just some alterations which we hope will make the contest that much better. Possibly even an increased word count . . . . (But we're still debating that point, so don't hold your breath just yet.)

Golden Daughter has now shown her pretty face to the world via the exciting cover reveal last week. Big thanks all over again to all of you lovely bloggers who participated as hosts! I appreciate each and every one of you for jumping on board and helping me get the word out.

The book itself is drafted and revised, and now needs to go through a couple of rounds of copy edits with a little line editing here and there for good measure. I'm in suspense, waiting to hear back from one editor, really hoping he likes it . . . and doesn't have too many fixes to recommend. But even if he does, the project should be hitting the shelves by November. And I'll hopefully be able to announce pre-order availability soon!

I hope to dive right back into the creative writing rush by the end of this month, just as soon as edits on Five Glass Slippers stories are complete. The new story has been brewing in a big way. But I will warn all of you in advance . . . Book 8 in the Tales of Goldstone Wood is going to be a big, complicated, difficult sort of book. Along with everything else on my to-do list, I'm going to be hard pressed to write it quite so fast as I have other projects. This means it might not release quite so quickly after Golden Daughter as I like to imagine. Obviously I won't know for certain about that until I've really gotten started on the drafting, so I'll be keeping you posted. But I don't want to sacrifice quality for the sake of a rushed deadline. The books are getting much more complicated and intricately entwined the deeper I get into this series. It's likely I won't be able to keep up quite the same pace I have these last few years.

I know you'll love me anyway.

Fun news! I am participating in another scavenger hunt next month! You can see the banner for it on the right there. 30 titles in all, and you will get a chance to win them all. More details will be forthcoming, but mark your calendars for April 4-6.

I know all of you are really just waiting for an update on Mama Kitty, am I right? Of course I am. Why else would you read through this entire long post?

Mama Kitty--my feral rescue cat whom I brought inside a few weeks back--is doing very well indeed. She's now upstairs (not in our basement) and beginning to learn the ways of housecat life. She still keeps pretty much to herself in the guest room (which I have turned into her personal kitty cove). But I leave the door open, so she can come and go as she likes. Makoose is quite fascinated by her, though their interactions are not exactly friendly as of yet. Mama Kitty (really, her name is Mutti-Cat, but I still call her Mama Kitty out of habit) doesn't particularly want to interact with any of the other beasts. But she adores me, which is very gratifying after all those long months of work! She also likes Rohan and is happy to accept chin-scratches at his hand. (Minerva refuses to offer an opinion on this).

Oh, and my husband is now bald.

Okay, so he's not really bald. More like fuzzy. He participated in the St. Baldrick's fundraiser to raise money for childhood cancer research . . . and part of the fundraiser was having his head shaved. It was a bit startling to see all that thick, thick hair of his go. But, as you can see from the picture above, he is just as handsome fuzzy. And, thanks to the efforts of all who donated, he raised over $1400 for St. Baldrick's . . . that is pretty awesome.

So, are you taking part in the annual Goldstone Wood Fan Art Contest? The rules can be found here, if you're interested. Some wonderful pieces have already started coming in, and I know all of you are going to enjoy them. But for this contest to really take off, we need your artistic contribution! Everyone will enjoy seeing what you create, and after the contest, your images will be featured in Dame Imraldera's Library. How fun is that?

Anyway, I think that's enough doings for now. I hope all of you are grabbing copies of Shadow Hand and enjoying it! This is the least amount of work I've done for a new release in a long time. Just don't have the time or energy for it. But I am tremendously excited be sharing that new story with all of you. So many more adventures to be had in Goldstone Wood! And I love going on those adventures with all of you imps.