The March When ALL My Plans Went Off Track

Will there ever be a month where I don’t feel like my plans went a little off track?!

This month has been no different.

I started March by announcing that I was serializing The Briardell Chronicles, and I’m ending the month by announcing that, actually, I’m serializing Kiss Me After the Kill instead.

As I’ve mentioned in multiple previous blog entries, my big career aim right now is to become a hybrid author, with multiple books targeting multiple publishing avenues.

Originally, I thought the best way to do that was to query Kiss Me After the Kill and serialize The Briardell Chronicles, so that’s what I did.

But as I’ve been working on The Briardell Chronicles Book One — Tea Leaves, Pages & Starlight — something has become clearer and clearer to me.

The Briardell Chronicles is very special.

It might be the closest I’ve ever come to finding exactly the type of writer I want to be. Romance is one of my core tropes, but after years of writing contemporary fiction — both as a self-published author and as a ghostwriter — I realised how much I missed fantasy and paranormal stories. Those are the kinds of stories that make up about 80% of the fiction I consume.

I LOVE LORE!

Briardell blends romance and fantasy lore at exactly the right level for me. There’s enough magic that the story never feels non-magical, but not so much that I get bogged down in complex systems or multiple POVs.

And because writing Briardell feels so comfortable for me, I’m not only writing it more easily, but to a higher standard too. Even Hubby — who always reads my work first — said it’s the strongest thing I’ve written.

I also started to think about how a cosy fantasy-romance series is probably a lot easier to sell to agents and publishers than a dark, forbidden vampire romance that only spans one book.

So, I decided to take the first chapter of Tea Leaves, Pages & Starlight down from Inkitt and focus on completing the story before querying it.

But that still left a self-published, serial-fiction-shaped hole in my publishing plans, and I started to think: why not Kiss Me After the Kill? It’s complete, with about 50% of the chapters already edited by Hubby, which means there’s even less chance of something happening and me not finishing the serial.

Plus, I still LOVE this story and think it’s one of the best things I’ve written, but maybe it’s a bit too dark and intense for agents and publishers.

So, I decided to serialize and then self-publish Kiss Me After the Kill, with Chapters 1–3 going live on March 30!

And decisions about Briardell and KMATK aren’t the only changes I’ve made this month.

I’ve decided to pause work on The Kindred Creativity Club for the foreseeable future. I’m immensely proud of all I achieved with KCC last year, but going forward, it’s not where I want to direct my creative energy. Writing is. So, I’ll no longer be hosting an indie PRIDE event in June or releasing a charity anthology later this year.

I hope everyone involved with The Kindred Creativity Club understands my reasoning, and I want to thank each and every one of you who supported KCC at the different stages of its life.

If you take one thing away from KCC, I want it to be this: your voice matters, and kindness goes a long way.

The other decisions I made this month were personal, health-related ones. I’ve decided not to pursue treatment for either ADHD or PMDD right now. At the moment, I feel I’m in a really solid, grounded place with both conditions, and the extra medical admin — forms, appointments, trying medication and having a negative reaction, monitoring my blood pressure, and so on — feels like it’s having a negative impact on my life rather than a positive one.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful support system, a much better understanding of both conditions, and the option to go back to my GP for help if anything changes.

A lot of this month’s focus was on Briardell and then KMATK, but in between writing projects, I’ve also made time to play Pokopia (it’s like Animal Crossing mixed with Minecraft, plus Pokémon), and wow, is it a HUGE game. From what I understand, Animal Crossing has one island, while Pokopia has multiple massive locations and around 300 Pokémon to befriend. It gets a little overwhelming sometimes, so I take plenty of breaks. But now that I’ve thought about it again, I can feel my “island” calling me! Lol.

This month also brought the debut of the Steel Ball Run anime, and the first episode was SO GOOD. As expected, I am completely in love with Diego! I’m a bit worried that we haven’t had a release schedule confirmed yet, but hopefully Netflix announces something soon.

I’ve also been rewatching Game of Thrones, since Oldest has never seen it before and his partner is a big fan. We’re already on Season Five. I’m not looking forward to that season quite as much, because my favourite character is Sansa! But thankfully, we still have Season Six — and THAT Sansa/Jon moment — to come! 😀

Hubby’s birthday was at the beginning of the month, and I think we ended up having about three cakes! Lol. We also went to the all-you-can-eat pan-Asian restaurant, and regrets were had. Honestly, the food is so sub-par that not even the quantity makes up for it. If Hubby suggests going there again, I’m putting my foot down! 😛

My birthday present — the Atsushi Sakurai poetry/lyrics book I mentioned last month — got delayed. It was meant to release on March 7, so now I have to wait even longer to get my hands on it! First world problems.

I caught up with Mom recently, and she’s mostly okay apart from a month-long migraine. Hopefully, now that she has stronger medication, it will start to clear up.

While we were having lunch, she suggested that for Christmas this year, she might take me and my sister to London for a meal and a show. I would love to see The Nutcracker again, but I’m going to see what my sister thinks, since I picked last time. Either way, a family trip to London at Christmas sounds wonderful.

She’s also planning a cruise for herself and Step-Dad in October for her 70th birthday.

Some kids might get grumpy about their parents “spending their inheritance”, but honestly, I want Mom to have as much fun and make as many memories as she can while she still can.

I think that about covers it for this month. If I’ve missed anything, maybe I’ll remember it for next month! Lol.

I’ll be back on March 30 with Chapters 1–3 of Kiss Me After the Kill, with Chapters 4 and 5 following on April 3, which should make for some lovely Easter weekend reading! 😛

Until then, take care and stay creative.

T.T.F.N.