CROWN OF DARKNESS AND WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YA?*
It has been a year, my friends…. A hell of a year.
I’ve discussed this a little in my Facebook Group—The Company of Rogues—but realized I haven’t mentioned it elsewhere, and now I’m starting to field messages asking where is Curse of Darkness? Where is the Thief of Hearts pre order? Queen of Lightning? The next London Steampunk? Cursebound?
And the truth is….
A) I have made a last-minute executive decision to push the Curse of Darkness launch to March 8th, 2022.
What this means is that if you have pre ordered Curse on Apple, Barnes and Noble and Kobo, then nothing will change—except the date you receive the book.
I have, however, had to cancel the Amazon pre order as they don’t allow authors to shift pre orders more than a month—and that, only once.
If you have preordered on Amazon, you will NOT be charged for it. The book will launch live on March 8th, when you can re-order it.
B) There is no current pre order for Thief of Hearts or Queen of Lightning. I’m dabbling with them when the ideas hit, but for the moment I’ve decided not to launch any more preorders as I catch my breath.
C) London Steampunk: Blood Court is coming. I have no set timeframe. I’m waiting until I finish Curse of Darkness, Queen of Lightning and Thief of Hearts before I commit.
D) Cursebound is currently off the schedule. I don’t know when it’s going to happen. I may roll over one night and suddenly think: Damn, got to write that right now! But it’s currently not speaking to me. Too many projects that bring me more joy right now, as Marie Kondo would say. Never say never, but I’ve decided to push this off the schedule.
Why all of these decisions?
Confession: I think I’m starting to skate the edges of burnout.
It’s something that affects authors, and while I think everyone feels it differently, I am willing to admit it’s starting to affect me.
It’s probably been sitting on my shoulders for over a year. Pandemic, right? But I think the origins of this hearken back to a few years ago.
I actually sat back and realized that I haven’t taken a week off work since my little bear was four months old. I had two weeks away from the computer when she was born, before I started dabbling with Promise of Darkness when she napped. Don’t get me wrong: I have loved motherhood and have enjoyed all the little moments, but when the bear went to bed at night, mama went to work.
Sleep? LOL.
And over that time, the little things that refill my creative well—watching a movie, going for a walk by myself, reading an actual book that I didn’t write, going on holiday, chilling out at writer’s retreats or hanging out with authors at conferences—kind of vanished.
I’m sure a few of you out there are nodding along in agreement, going oh yeah, I know this feeling.
Add in a pandemic, and the fact that I’m sure Mr. Mc and I broke a mirror at the start of 2022, and I’m starting to feel like I’ve hit a wall.
I had a lightbulb moment when I went in for a minor operation in July and realized I was looking forward to the general anesthetic. I was going to get some sleep that day. I couldn’t work or look after anyone else for all of 24 hours and It. Was. Going. To. Be. Glorious.
Like… WTH? Who looks forward to a general anesthetic?
And I realized that I’m tired.
I’m also probably holding onto a little bit of grief—we lost both our fur babies this year in two separate incidents, one in May and one at the end of June, and I miss them. I miss our daily doggie walks. I miss their kisses. The joy on my daughter’s face when she ran around with Elsa. Trying to write my way through Vi’s grief at the start of Curse of Darkness was like losing my puppy all over again.
I had to put the book away for a month while I just… grieved.
And then an unexpected operation came at me. A new diagnosis. New medications and all the fun side effects.
And while I finally managed to find a way back into Curse of Darkness, I’m not happy with the middle of that book. I mean, it’s okay. It’s good. All those mediocre descriptive words. It was just lacking the fire it needed to have.
The beginning makes me cry. The ending makes me cry—in a good way. It’s just that soggy, flaccid middle.
Three weeks out from release, I was lying in bed in the middle of the night when Thiago started whispering in my ear about what *actually* happens in the middle section, and while I was like, YES! THIS! I was also staring at the rapidly approaching deadline, my editor’s ability to fit me in to overhaul that mid-section, and realizing that I was probably not going to be able to manage it.
Hence, the shift in date.
As for me, author burnout is a weird thing. I’m sure it’s fairly individual and everyone feels it differently. For me, I actually still want to write. I want to write ALL the things. All the unscheduled things.
I’ve been dabbling with the sekrit project you’re going to see in September 2022. I’m playing with snippets of Queen of Lightning. Snippets of shorts and sexy epilogues, and things I haven’t had the time for in years.
And now that the weight of that deadline is lifted off my shoulders, I’m starting to feel some enthusiasm to dive back into Curse and write the book Thiago wants me to write (ooh, is that a spoiler?)
I'm also looking at creating other projects I think my readers will love…. And that's giving me a lot of joy, right now.
So going ahead—for the foreseeable future—I won’t be listing pre orders until the books are mostly done. Personally, I think it’s the time crunch that’s affecting me and impacting my creativity. I love working, I love writing, but one of the things I've been forcing myself to learn this year is that sometimes it's okay to step back and do something else.
I want to be able to take a day off on a whim. I want to watch TV shows. I want to read someone else's book. I want to go away with Mr. Mc and the Little Bear on a holiday and not worry about making up for those lost words. Gosh, maybe even go for an unscheduled hike.
I also want to let those books mull a bit.
So that next time, when some dark prince whispers in my ear at 3am, I might be able to enjoy it xx
