Beta Reading

I must again apologize for the radio silence. I know I'm terrible at this. To be fair, though, I've been doing a lot lately.

First off, I'm still trying to wrap up the rewrite for Hawthorn. Hoping to figure it all out in the next week. We shall see.

Secondly, I have another project I'm also working on. This one I'm keeping close to the vest, but it will definitely be the first one I publish as HR Valles. So that's always exciting.

Third, I got sidetracked. For this I really must apologize, because it was only supposed to be something that took me a day or two. Instead, I ended up writing an 18k novella in about a week. Oops. The good news is, no need to wait for me to publish it. My Wattpad has all of the "short" stories I've developed for the world of Vassel that I don't really intend to publish. (I mean, I might release one of them in a book format once I finish the companion stories, but that's a long way off.) So please head on over there and read Claimed, and anything else you find intriguing.

Lastly, I have also been caught up in Beta Reading for some awesome author friends! Now, you wouldn't think this would be work, but it is. Especially when you have a day job, a side project, and a deadline that looms up in your face right away. Which seemed to be the case with all of these. Well, maybe not all. If no one gives me a deadline, I create an imaginary one in my head and I freak out over that, because I feel it is so disrespectful to drag out a beta read when I know how anxiously the authors are waiting for input. So that is actually what I've spent a lot of my time doing. Which has been fantastic. I love being able to give feedback on novels when they're in their baby stages. It feels like I'm actually being helpful.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the last thing. Let's face it, I'm a procrastinator. And when I don't feel like doing anything I have on my plate, I do things that I consider productive, but also could have waited until I better managed my time. Oh well. Here is the product of one such endeavor:

For those of you who are curious: yes, I have one giant map of my world. And I do things like zoom in, crop, and apply names to it when I want a closer-up view of where my setting is. Which I actually needed for this one to write Claimed. (At least, that's what I tell myself.)

To be fair, Claimed should have been written probably back in 2013 when the world was first being created. I mean, Parnon was one of the first nations to be born, and their pantheon is what set up pretty much the civilization of the entire world. (Kind of how the Greeks, Romans, and Norse were used to hook us all up.) Alas, better late than never.

Now I must get back to work ... on something. Probably reviews. I should do those... Anyway, that's all for now and thanks for sticking with my nonsense!