Standing at the Threshold…

Buh-bye, 2016. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass, you abusive jerk.

Oh hi, 2017. You can come in, but wipe your feet. And please be kind.

On this first day of 2017, I thought I’d post a little bit about my plans for the year—at least as I know them at this point, barring any personal calamities or global apocalypses.

Last year, I set out with a resolution to work on getting better doing the stuff in this author gig that I’m really not good at—specifically, promotion and use of social media. I set a goal for myself of one “author” post per week, with varied content and a focus on promoting my books.

That resolution didn’t even make it to the end of January. I suck at that stuff for a reason—I’m not comfortable asking readers to do anything that they wouldn’t do without my prompting, so I rarely even mention reviews, and I’m too introverted and have too much anxiety to post a lot of chatty updates. I have a very hard time posting unless I have actual news to share. Trying to push myself on this point wasn’t great for my mental health.

Ask me a question, and I’ll come up with a voluble, opinionated, detailed answer (as the FANetties have experienced), possibly with footnotes and charts. But to just randomly throw myself out into the vast aether… I get crushed under the weight of my own insignificance before I can click “post.”

Besides, “chatty” is probably not an adjective people who know me would use to describe me—and this includes my family.

BUT: I like making pretty pictures, and I’m getting better at Photoshop, so this past year I started doing more promo/teaser posts. I’m gonna call that a win and scrape Resolution 2016 off the bottom of the fail barrel.

This year’s resolution, if you want to call it that, is to stop worrying about what I’m not doing or what I’m doing “wrong” and just keep writing what I want to write because it keeps me sane to write it, publishing my work for the small and mighty band of readers who’ve found me on their own and like what I do, and using my author social media to let them (you) know what’s coming up.

…So basically I’ve resolved to do all the stuff I like and none of the stuff I don’t. I might have gotten the spirit of this whole “resolution” thing wrong, lol. Or maybe I got it really right. Maybe I should also make a resolution to eat cake every morning for breakfast! That’ll perk up the year!

Anyway…on to the reason for this post. Here’s what coming up in 2017.

Overall:

At the moment, I have three manuscripts that are completed and in varying stages of revision/editing, and I’m making progress on my current project, so I feel confident about sharing some light specifics about those.

I’m going to finish out The Northwomen Sagas in 2017. That’s two more books: Soul’s Fire, coming out in about a month, and Father’s Sun, which I’m planning to release in June. I know most of you are here for my bikers, but I love writing these Vikings, and I’ll be sad to end the series.

(Little trivia snack for ya: You know how Isaac and a lot of the people of Signal Bend have Scandinavian heritage, and the Horde keep Viking customs as part of their club rituals? There’s a direct ancestral line from the Horde back to my Vikings.)

Don’t worry, though. There are more bikers to come. The Brazen Bulls MC series is just beginning, so there’s a lot more story to tell in Tulsa. I’m not sure how many books that series will ultimately be, but I do know that it’ll be at least four, since I’ve finished the first draft of the third and know who will lead the fourth. This being an MC series and all, there are plenty of characters who might drive the story forward for a while—but that’s no guarantee that all the Bulls will get books of their own, of course. Like Signal Bend and SoCal, the Bulls books aren’t standalones. The series has a story arc of its own, and when that arc ends, so too will the series.

(It’ll probably be more than four books, because I don’t see how I’d wrap up the series arc by the end of Book 4. That arc is just starting to become a strong feature of the books. My estimate for the series is seven-ish books.)

At any rate, especially now that I’m releasing books every two months instead of every six weeks, I expect the Bulls to be ongoing through 2017 and probably into 2018.

So…the schedule for 2017 (releases and events), so far:

• 4 February: Soul’s Fire, The Northwomen Sagas Book 3 (Astrid’s story)—this one is edited and formatted and ready to go, so that’s a firm date. Find the cover and prologue here.
• 1 April: Twist, The Brazen Bulls MC # 2 (Gunner’s story)—this one is done, too, just ripening for a final edit, so also a solid date. (No foolin’!)
• 3 June: Father’s Sun, The Northwomen Saga Book 4 (Solveig’s story)—I’m currently writing this one, the series conclusion, so this is a planned but tentative date.
• 5 August: Brazen Bulls # 3 (I’ll tell you the title and whose story this is after Gun’s book comes out)—I don’t usually write out of order with my publishing plans, but Lola got her teeth in this one, so it jumped the line. I recently finished the first draft. It’s possible that BB3 might come out in June instead of Father’s Sun, if I hit any snags writing FS.
• 29-30 September: My first signing! Penned Con 2017 in St. Louis, MO. STL is my hometown, so I’m super excited about this. 🙂
• October: Brazen Bulls # 4 (not started yet, so this is very tentative)
• December: Brazen Bulls # 5 (not started, so very tentative)

There’s some other stuff on the fire, too, but nothing that’s cooked enough for me to share at this point.

Okay, so there’s a look forward at my 2017. I hope your year is peaceful, safe, and happy.

xo
s—