Apologies for not updating in awhile. I've been keeping pretty busy.
First of all, "Something Wicked" was reviewed by a local book club, and I was honored to be invited for a Q&A. (Thankfully there was wine involved so I wasn't too incredibly nervous by the time we got into the book.) It was a lot of fun and I was really touched to have a group of people who not only read my book, but had a lot of questions and input. Only two of the ten were friends of mine, but even they were very open with their opinions. It was fun to hear all the theories about who they thought the killer was and how much they loved the "big" reveal. It was exactly what I had hoped I accomplished with that scene. I thought I might walk out a lot of notes on how to improve the book as I go through the editing process to self-publish, but honestly, I walked out with everyone telling me it was good, just needed some minor clean-ups. Which was a huge confidence boost. For now, I'm leaving it up on Wattpad, but once I self-publish on Amazon, I intend to only leave up the first few chapters and direct people to Kindle. Read it now while it's still up and free!
Next, I have been doing a lot of writing. I'm intent on getting "Wrecked by You" finished up so I can focus on other projects and I'm almost there. All of Part 1 is finished and posted on Wattpad. I'm almost to the halfway point of finishing up the writing on Part 2, in which case I'll start posting those chapters two to three times a week until it's done. Part 1 had 30 chapters whereas Part 2 only has about 20, so it should go up much faster than Part 1. Also, I'm not doing super heavy editing/rewrites as I write it like I usually do, which is making things go faster. I do care about the book, but I also feel like it's not my best and will probably never be my best. I wanted to attempt a steamy romance, since that seemed to be the thing, but... yea. I don't think that's my genre. However, I'm going to finish it. And I hope to someday go back to it and try to fix the issues when I'm not bogged down by 20 million other things. I'll probably give it an editing run later on and submit it to the Wattys, because why not? For all I know, maybe I'm just not feeling it, but others do? Here's the link if you want to give Part 1 a read.
"THE WHITEHALL AFFAIR" IS DONE! Yes, I have finished my third novel. I can't believe I did it, but now I'm on a roll and have no plans of stopping (hence the motivation to finish up "Wrecked by You"). I won't have the time to write like this once I'm in Miami and have a new full-time job, so planning to take all the advantage. I'm currently letting it breathe a bit before I go back and edit for the Wattys, but I'm happy with it. Give it a read!
I am starting on a new novel that I am super SUPER excited about. It's going to be a bit difficult, but I'm determined to do it justice. At the very least, it'll be something that I'm proud of. I can't really give away any details at the moment, but I've got most of the plotting done and started writing the first chapter. I even have a cover almost finished (I know, but I like designing covers for Wattpad). While I'm working on that, I'm also thinking about bringing a fantasy story out of the cupboard just because I can't seem to work on one thing at a time. And well, the new project is going to get heavy, so I need something not so heavy to go to when I need a breather.
Next... I'm in a musical! I'm sure this will come back to bite me in the ass for doing it right up until I leave Korea, but two years ago I was cast as Lucinda in "Into the Woods" but we never got to do it because of the pandemic. Now, we're back and I'm excited and scared to death. It's a difficult musical and eats up my entire weekends (and then some). At the moment, it feels a bit disjointed. We have a small rehearsal space and can only bring in a few people at a time, so it's hard to get a sense of where we are with all the jumping around in the script to do blocking and music practice (God, I'm still not close to having all the lyrics down and we have to be off book by mid-May). But we're doing our first runthrough from start to finish on the first act this Saturday. And I think we'll be finishing up on blocking with the second act on Sunday. It's a lot to remember and practice, but I'm excited to get on stage in June.
Finally, things are slowly but surely going on the move. I'm talking to real estate agents to get the ball rolling on that. We've had some hiccups, but hoping those will be sorted out soon. Moving is stressful. Moving to another country (even if it's back to my home country) is stress times a million. We've both had a few breakdowns the last few weeks, but we're determined to get everything done that needs to be done. The good news is that we both are doing well with part-time jobs, so money shouldn't be an issue. But man, I wish I was rich so I could just pay someone to take care of everything. Every day I have a moment where I daydream about fast-forwarding through all the difficult stuff and get to where we're settled in our place in Miami with furniture, jobs and driver's licenses.
So that's about where I am at the moment. Hopefully I'll keep on with updates a little bit better.
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